Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Criminal.
Sleeping Operative
Days like today are when Daniel likes to think back to his youth when he served in the Marines, the friends he made, the lessons he learned and the experiences he had; unlike most ex-service men who would do anything to forget the horrors they saw. He was on target to make Sergeant by the end of his third year of service, this however was too good to be true. A bad motorcycle accident spelled the end of his career and was discharged in 2012 at the age of 24.
By Edward Richardson5 years ago in Criminal
The Route Back
A door swings quietly open, whisking in a stranger from the black hole he draws shut behind him. Autumn leaves rush the airlock. One in one out, caressing the cobble stone floor. The dogs eyes rise from his silent dance with the fire and back again. Gravy overflows from plates. Drinks are spilled. Laughter can be heard from the front half of the bar. Towards the back they become disgruntled and hard to make out.
By Tor Sanderson5 years ago in Criminal
National Security
It is a common practice not to judge a book by its cover, but rather by its contents. Unless you are a criminal. The kind of person who mangles the pages to hide their valuables behind the cover, who lays them down spread open on their face to mark their place, who cuts them into sculptures to sit in a museum, never to be read. That kind of person came running through my bookstore this afternoon. I didn’t recognize him as a criminal, just the sort of person who was late for a meeting and really didn’t want to chat. I own a small bookstore, and he came through and asked directly where the notebooks were. I pointed them out and he slipped behind the shelves. Not five minutes passed by and he ran back up with a small black notebook in the plastic cover, tossed it at me and demanded that I ring it up.
By Emily Hinkle-DeGraff5 years ago in Criminal
Confessions of the sugar fiend
Coffee in the morning. No better way to start a Sunday morning than a café, in a hidden nook of suburbia. Albeit there had been one error this morning, pushing the ‘PULL’ door, which had earned him a neat bump to the head, but that had been pre-coffee. A thing of the past. Journal open, pen primed, Tony had acquired a window seat with a vantage point of the entire street.
By Kate Cleary5 years ago in Criminal
A misfortant circumstance
Present day Tiana was working 2 part time jobs and a seasonal one it was Christmas eve 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. She had been trying to save all year long to buy her 7 1/2 year old and 1 1/2 year old something for Christmas even if it was small, but landlord was financially raping her with rent and she was behind still. Tiana couldn't catch a break she started to lose hope. It was 9:30 at night and Tiana was closing up at her second job about to get ready to go home and relieve the babysitter for the night. She was walking home still had 9 blocks to go before she could rest and love on her babies. She wasn't looking forward to payday because she knew all that she made was already gone. It was another Christmas that she couldn't buy gifts she was hanging her head low as she started to cry. She just turned on to central and roosevelt going west she was completely immersed in her thoughts sulking in her feelings when she came across this little black book that was laying next to a dumpster. She picked up and opened it hoping to find a name and address to return it to its rightful owner. After opening the cover and looking on the last page and realized there was no way of knowing who it belonged to. So she tucked it away in her purse and hurried home to look it over and possibly turn it into the police station the next morning after dropping the kids off to school and heading to work. Once home and babysitter relieved and paid with the tips she made that evening, she decided to tuck her kids into bed and read them a bedtime story. Tiana couldn't get that little black book off her mind. She went sit on the couch with the book and started to go through the pages, you can say curiosity really killed the cat in this case. As she was going through it she noticed it was filled with numbers, dates and coordinates, unsure of what to make of it she kept going through it. She got to a page that was folded, it had an address that she recognized and without thinking, realizing it was hers and it had a drawing of her downstairs basement. Fear shot through her body as the blood drained from her face. She grabbed a flashlight and followed the description of her basement to where I'm guessing something was left, but not knowing how long ago this was created. Once reached the bottom stair of the basement, she saw this random hole in the wall and flashed her light into it. As she got closer she found a suitcase, so she put it on the ground and slowly opened it up. As the the lid of the suitcase went up she saw what was stacks of $100 bills, she felt dizzy almost wanting to faint. It was $20,000 that had been inside her basement, but for who knows how long. She searched the whole suitcase looking for a clue; a hint of who had left this here, then she noticed a tear in the upper left lining of the lid and something white and bloodstained sticking out. The blood was starting to drain from her face as she peeled back the material, in there she found a blood stained handkerchief with the initials G.V.A. curious about the initials. Who could that be? She pushed the thought in the back of her mind and kept searching until she found an envelope.
By Tatiana Castille5 years ago in Criminal
Secrets From the Past
Jack Robertson was rummaging through his father’s closet. All of his clothes needed to be given away and all of his stuff had to be cleaned out. Jack didn’t want to give up his father’s stuff but his mother did. She said that everything would remind her of him and she couldn’t bear that. Jack didn’t want to be the one to go through his stuff but his mother rarely did anything now, all she would do now was lie on the couch and stare at the TV dumbfounded. Jack’s mother had decided only two days after his father’s death that they were leaving. She believed that there were terrible ghosts that haunted the place and honestly, Jack believed it too.
By Erica Tsukishima5 years ago in Criminal
Misfiled
They’d interviewed the sheriff first. He said he’d listened to the old man's story, and his body cam played the footage back for them. On the screen was the long lanky neighbor and his disembodied voice floated to them from speakers hidden behind large stacks of mostly ignored files.
By Devia Vyne5 years ago in Criminal
From the Book
“What is this?!” I shouted as I unassumingly stepped back into the dimly lit office to discover my best friend Lex with a heavy pistol sharply pointed at a man dressed in a dark grey suit, next to what looked to be a corpse flailed out on the thin blue carpet. At the alarming sound of my sudden outburst, the suited man snapped his focus to me, giving Lex an opportunity to tackle the man to the ground, knocking him unconscious. “Lex!” I shouted in a whisper. “Shhhhhh,” Lex began to rummage through the wooden desk in the corner of the room. “This wasn’t part of my plan by the way,” she informed me as if that made a difference. “What plan?!” Panic grew in my racing mind. Lex was ravenously tearing apart each drawer and component of the desk, eventually uncovering a false bottom in the last crooked drawer. “Isn’t this your business office? Are you looking for something?” Lex ignored me. Stowed in the drawer was a small brass key, and six digits on a small piece of brown stained scrap paper. There was a large towering bookshelf behind the desk housing a small iron safe, which Lex swiftly approached with the key, storing the numbered paper in her jacket pocket. “Are you supposed to be doing this, is this even your office?” Lex continued to ignore me, and opened the safe, quickly grabbing a thick stack of paper documents, along with a black leather case. “Go, now,” she whispered to me. “What do you mean, what about the bodies on the floor!” instead of answering me, again she ignored my questioning and shoved me out of the room, pulling me toward the back of the building.
By Taylor Coughlin5 years ago in Criminal
