October 25, 2007 – 12:00 pm
by Maurice Broaddus
History recorded that in the year 1703, in the town of Kodaiji, Japan, Tojiro Okami–commander of the Otoyo han guard–slaughtered the han heir, in a heinous act of treason. What do you want me to tell you about Tojiro Okami? Well, he was damn stubborn. A man destined to have many songs written about his deeds, to have pretty girls swoon at tales spun by those who claimed to have known him, not to have his name whispered by mothers to scare their children to bed. I don’t remember how I came into his acquaintance, I don’t remember a lot from those days. Many men dismissed me as a fool drunk; it helped them sleep better at night. I was many things: overindulgent eater, occasional gambler, priest, but I was not fool drunk. I was a damn fine drunk. That dry coarse itch at the back of my mind still haunts me, especially when I recall the events that led to Tojiro’s tragic downfall.
September 2, 2007 – 9:59 am
by D.K. Thompson
A scream rang out from downstairs. I smiled when I heard applause, my grandchildren now being praised by their mother as the scream faded to a whimper and the giggles were replaced by slurping sounds.
September 1, 2007 – 1:18 pm
by Lavie Tidhar
It began, the way these things usually do, with a rain of frogs.
September 1, 2007 – 12:46 pm
by Robby Sparks
“Go Green,” they said. “Save the Earth!” Now, watching the fire, I wonder, who is going to save me?
by David Niall Wilson
July 2007
Jonathan stared into the swirling depths of his mug and held his silence. It was the truth. He’d not seen The Loch since his boyhood days, when he’d played beside the Loch, young and carefree, never questioning why he couldn’t sit on the stones and watch the soft slap of the waves after the sun had gone down. He’d left with his mother at the age of eight and never looked back. Not during the waking hours.
by Alethea Kontis
July 2007
The day she had asked her father what the words meant, he had slapped her. She had overheard the Aunts, she admitted. He went very still after that, and simply told her to never say them again. The words were a curse: May each day you live after this be worse than the one before.
by Louise Bohmer
June 2007
She lay back against the fine, human leather of her pleasure throne, as he strapped her in. He clamped metallic ribbons around her wrists and ankles, and then stood back to admire his handiwork. Plump, violet lips spread in a wicked grin for him.
by Neil Ayres
June 2007
It’s interesting to look back on those difficult times, now that the fuzzy lens of hindsight obscures things: memories, feelings, and all that stuff.
by Carrie Laben
May 2007
The potholes they’d filled yesterday had returned, blemishing the shiny black surface of the new asphalt. Djinowski stared into the largest of them. It was a real axle-breaker, in the middle of the lane — made the road pretty much unusable. The bottom was covered by water.
by Share Jiraiya Cummings
May 2007
The spider and I have a pact.
by Jason Sizemore
April 2007
Gunter cried at the wondrous sight. In the blue moonlight, he could see the rush of the water and the clouds of mist. Across the river on the other bank, he saw a young boy, full of hopes and dreams, jumping up and down pointing at the Falls. A woman, the boy’s mother, smiled and hugged her son. Gunter did not try to hide. He knew them and they knew him.
by Mary Robinette Kowal
April 2007
Maxwell Sanders pressed the phone closer to his ear as if that would somehow bring comprehension. “Did you say trolls?”
March 30, 2007 – 12:33 pm
by James Reilly
March 2007
Carlton quickly tipped it into the funnel, and Lex watched in horror as the brown liquid descended down the hose toward his mouth. Only now he could see that it wasn’t liquid at all, but a mass of small, gelatinous worms that coiled around each other and slithered down the hose as one. He could feel the hose vibrating in his throat as they passed down into his esophagus. His stomach fought back with painful spasms, but it couldn’t hold the creatures back as they squirmed into his belly.
February 28, 2007 – 12:35 pm
by Athena Workman
February 2007
By the time dinner rolled around Daddy was good and hungry, and nothing but a meteor crashing into our house and roasting us alive would have kept him from eating a huge slab of that tainted cake.
February 28, 2007 – 12:00 am
by Adrienne Jones
February 2007
“Gram, what are you doing?” There was blood on the floor, blood edging the circular opening of the front-loading washer. Denny snatched the bag from her frail hand and she gave out a little cry. He glanced at her, then reached into the bag, his fingers connecting with something warm and wet. He pulled out a squirrel carcass. Its body was split up the center from pelvis to neck.
January 23, 2007 – 2:07 pm
by Debbie Kuhn
January 2007
The salty air felt cooler than usual and Gypsy was acting wilder than he’d ever seen her. She kicked off her high-heeled sandals and stood up in the seat as the Barchetta zoomed down the first straightaway. The savage wind tore at her thin, tie-dyed t-shirt, outlining her small, perky breasts.
January 22, 2007 – 11:09 am
by JA Konrath
January 2007
“Messy. The messier the better. I want her to suffer, and suffer for a long time.”
December 21, 2006 – 12:15 pm
by R. Thomas Riley
December 2006
The rest of the men exchanged smirks, interpreting his behavior as hesitation to take on the kid. Money appeared and changed hands. Lufberry surveyed the scene. He’d hustled some of these men in the past. No doubt they were eager to see him get his ass handed to him.
November 20, 2006 – 12:49 pm
by Paul Abbamondi
November 2006
In Simon Hatworth’s basement, the vines grew strong. They stretched off his work counter, pressing themselves outward, sneaking down table legs and off into damp crevices at a crawl’s pace. Most of the time he’d carry on with his work ignoring their movements, but every now and then he’d stand back and marvel at their liveliness, their will to travel, their reason for being.
October 19, 2006 – 1:32 pm
by Teri Jacobs
October 2006
The Wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye…
