I am crouching in rain, snapping spruce twigs to place them on my infant fire. He hadn’t checked my pockets, had missed the flint when he stole my gear.
Larger sticks next. First focus on defying death by hypothermia; then get my knife and his gun, and kill my husband.
Rosemary Bush is a scientist and writer living in Chicago. Some of her work can be found at rosemarybush.org.
It’s midnight and I still can’t sleep. I imagine lying down beside you, your arms around me. You slowly lull me to sleep, making me smile all the while. But in the end, it’s just an imagination. You’re still ten feet below me, sharing an eternal embrace with your mistress.
Le-an Lai Lacaba is an eighteen-year-old girl from Tacloban City, growing up in between everyone pressuring her to grownup and wanting to be a kid. She fills her blog, Imperfect is Beautiful, with her poems and short stories. Le-an has won multiple essay-writing contests in both local and regional competitions. She is studying for a B.A. in Communication Arts at the University of the Philippines, and struggling to become the writer she dreams of being.
While driving ‘cross country my brother asked me if I’d ever thought about killing someone.
“No.”
That same day, in the night, that store owner stayed late. He killed my brother. Had a single-action under the counter. Then I killed him.
Brother, I didn’t even have to think about it.
Anthony Saint wrote this story.
The aroma of chicken soup teases my nostrils, now red and swollen.
I squinch my eyes from sinus pain. Temples throb. Joints ache.
My pity party halts as I reflect on the chicken’s last day. What it ate. How it died.
Maybe I’ll eat scrambled eggs and buttered toast instead.
Jeff Switt likes to write.
Hot metal ripped through warm flesh and I shuddered and sank to the ground. Her beautiful steely blue eyes stared mockingly at me.
“That’s your last shot!” I warned.
She smiled and blew me a kiss with those sultry red lips of hers and said, “No sweetie, the last straw.”
Connell Wayne Regner was inspired by Chris Griglack’s “femme fatale” in Love At Last SIght. His other dabblings can be found at paragraphplanet and wtdmagazine.wordpress.com.
A single thought echoed through my head like a broken record as she slowly uncurled her perfectly manicured fingers from the gun’s handle and let it drop to the blood soaked carpet beside me: This is a woman I could spend the rest of my life with.
And I did.
Chris Griglack was born and raised in Massachusetts where he has lived for 23 years. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2012 with a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications.
Chewy sniffed his master’s leg before biting it. Who could blame him? He was a hungry dog. His master beat him more often than he fed him.
His master could not beat Chewy now for biting him. All he could do was keep lying on the floor, feeding his dog.
Chris Griglack was born and raised in Massachusetts where he has lived for 23 years. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2012 with a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications.
Dr. Ruination slapped the red button that lowered John Bolt, handsome and impeccably dressed spy, into the huge aquarium.
Bolt found himself afloat in a stagnant pool of foul smelling water, surrounded by decaying fish carcasses.
Dr. Ruination was horrified. “Who turned off the oxygen pump for the barracuda tank?”
This is the second in a series of five stories by King Kool.
A stubborn gardener found a lamp in a potted plant. He cleaned it, and a genie emerged.
“You have one wish,” she said.
“Whatever I wish, you’ll make it awful. So I wish genies didn’t exist.”
The genie zapped him to ash. “As far as he knows, I granted it.”
This is the fifth in a series of stories from King Kool, who has previously contributed multiple other series.
“What are you up to?” muttered Wendel, eyes narrowed.
None of the fifty-seven fuzzy orange caterpillars inching across his driveway offered an explanation.
“I don’t trust you,” said Wendel. Then he stomped one, for emphasis.
Deep underground, the Caterpillar Council murmured grimly. Casualties had always been inevitable in this war.