Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Criminal.
Tony's Last Task
Thumbing through the mail, surprised by the return address; Law offices of Murphy, Brooks and Hargraves; Sarah shuddered. She had reinvented her life after divorcing her husband. She had moved into her brother’s best friend’s cabin, and had rarely ever gotten any mail here. She wanted to know how and why they found her.
By Lisa Wahlmeier5 years ago in Criminal
The List
As Mrs. Greenwood stood by the stove, waiting for the bubbles to show up in her kettle, she thought about what she hates most about herself. The only two things she could come up with were her bad breath and her inexplicable patience towards tardiness. Perhaps that explains why the 74-year-old widow always avoided confronting her tenants when they didn’t settle their rent on time. Instead, she preferred to slip them notes under their doors, with some cookies. In some rare occasions, she had tea in their living rooms, alone, whenever they were away for the weekend.
By Rodrigue Hammal5 years ago in Criminal
Slow Poison - Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve LUCIFER: I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am? Lord Byron Stonehouse. January 13th He parked the Mercedes in The Woolpack car park, near the playing fields, near the hedgehog ditches. The Post Office clock was slow. The Mercedes digital never was. 3:17.
By David Philip Ireland5 years ago in Criminal
Slow Poison - Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven Cheltenham. January 6th ...dead more dead more dead than dead. Trim snapped the diary shut, the sound hard in the first stirrings of morning. Beyond the curtains the sky glowered black and heavy. Out in the streets the first commuters sped to work with all the enthusiasm of reluctant lemmings. Trim looked up at his blue. He moved his eyes with effort, his body pinioned to the silk like a Gulliver. His nerves were high-tension wires. He could feel his atoms shifting as the anaesthetic dissolved into his memory. He would stay in the security of the bed until the streets were quiet, noisy in another way. He would stay in the warmth until his other needs took over.
By David Philip Ireland5 years ago in Criminal
Notes of the Past
The trailer at the end of dirt driveway was foreboding. To anyone else it was just an old mobile home, a sight not uncommon to the area. This particular one had been sitting on this property for a lifetime. For Skye this was a dark part of her past. She had left here and never allowed herself to think of it again until that lawyer called her. Just like that she was thrown back in time. She was 11 again walking through those doors. Watching her mother drive away for the last time. Skye was probably better for the loss of her mother but living here had caused her trauma worse than anything her mother had done to her. Reaching for the key she had stashed in her pocket she readied herself for the feelings she knew she would face once she made it inside. This was a place she had sworn to herself to never return. Yet here she was. The sole inheritor for her grandmother. Skye had toyed with the idea of not coming at all. After a considerable amount of time staring at her account on her bank’s app, she decided to suck it up. Times were tough and after what her grandmother had put her through; what she had done to her… Well, if there were anything of value here her grandmother certainly owed it to her. Or at the very least she owed it to herself to take it.
By Melissa Webb5 years ago in Criminal
Slow Poison - Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine Bonfire days were best. Crisp October evenings with elder sparks spitting and circling in the frosty air. Fires of brushwood; brush that had been cleared for the new library, a single storied, polyurethane sealed house of stiff, new spines. Familiar faces lit up, eyes shining in the blaze of branches, a full acre of ground cleared of undergrowth and blackberry bushes and later, of every available scrap of litter. ‘Keep the home fires burning.’ they sang. And once, on the cleared ground, just before the library came, a caravan had arrived, trailing cameramen and sound girls and they had all gathered to watch the puppet show and Jim Dale and to be on the telly, faces gleaming in the light of the fire.
By David Philip Ireland5 years ago in Criminal
Under A Mask
I finally gave in. I just had to bring in the vase to replace the drooping flowers. I had watched them in anticipation for more than a week as they painted quite a contrast to the fresh tulips I had seen for the past year since I started working as a grave keeper at St. Catherine’s cemetery. This grave with the porcelain vase was in the upper right corner of the courtyard, one of thousands. Every Monday I would see the young man bring in fresh tulips to put in the vase by the tombstone, always three, always white. Now he hadn’t come in over two weeks and while I hated to break into an intimate rhythm between two people, drooping flowers at a grave create quite a nagging sense of abandonment.
By Megan Thomas5 years ago in Criminal
