Latest Stories

Most recently published stories in Criminal.

Mari, who won't quit
The last memory I have of my mother is unpleasant. By the time I was 15, she'd lost herself to heroin and cocaine and stopped trying. It was late, and she was pacing the floors with a cigarette. "I didn't mean for things to be this way, Marija," she said, scratching at her arm. "I don't have a choice anymore. If I could just get a little money, maybe $50,000 it could change our whole life. Hell, $20,000 would do it." A few minutes later she left with a man I'd never seen before and that was it. I never saw her again.
By Sawyer5 years ago in Criminal
I.O.U.s
A young man standing in the blinding beam of a street light stands inches from his front door. Clearly settling his nerves, he stares into the house’s void. Slowly, he unlocks and enters, sliding inch by inch until he clears the door to lightly close and then lock behind him. He takes a moment to look into the darkness past the fish tank’s glow in his living room and decides to journey on.
By A. L. Glover5 years ago in Criminal
Red Snowflake
Blood splatters dressed as bloody red snowflakes had invaded her dreams since early childhood. They appeared on her windows and walls no matter what the season. The dreams faded for a few years but came back strong around the time her Dad died when she was a teenager.
By Freeda Babson5 years ago in Criminal
In the Little Black Book
Greed, corruption, blackmail... I think at this point I may have gone a little too far. Let's go ahead and start from the beginning. My name ? my name is Greg Sanders and i’m a real piece of shit. You know in that nice doesn’t stink enough to throw out kind of shit. Well my friends let me hop from couch to couch sometimes floor to floor. Then the day came one of my so called “friends” who I was staying with just so happen to be in some not so good stuff with some not so good people. I wake up around 3 in the afternoon to my suprise the whole place is a mess. Trying to figure out if I was that smashed the night before. I get up grab my bag and run out. The rest of the day is pretty much just like any other. stealing toilet paper from public bathrooms. Picking up half smoked cigarettes in the park to roll my own. Well not all of the day was normal. I end up at my oldest friends David’s he always lets me shower but never lets me stay and I don’t blame him. I start pulling out clothes from my bag when out falls this little black book. I pick the book up and look at the name. My “friend” from the night before it was his book. I started looking through the book and as you can guess it had a lot of things that could get some people in some pretty big shit. I show it to David after I showered. We started joking about how much money we could make if we if we started threatening to tell these peoples secrets in this book. Little did we know that would be the worst idea we ever had. You guessed it we actually started doing it. It started out so easy. Cheating husbands cheating wives a couple hundred here and there. Then we got deeper drug smugglers, Loan sharks and street gangs. We were bringing in thousands just on the information alone. What we failed to realize is that we were now targets. I know I know being cocky never works out. Fast forward to the really messed up shit. David and I plan our biggest cash in yet. $20,000 the only problem we brought knives to a gun fight. We wait till it's night and we enter through an open dock door in a warehouse that is not so abandoned. We get past the main group of thugs guarding the place and make our way into the storage area. Let me tell you if I wasn’t blackmailing these people I would have been tripping balls. Pounds of Shrooms, cocaine and ecstasy filled the walls. David and I get out our cameras so we can get more evidence to blackmail the guys. The flash on my camera goes off and next thing we know we are surrounded. We are taken to a different area of the warehouse tied to chairs. Well thats when Jared enters the room. You know Jared well sort of you remember that “friend” I have been talking about? Yeah thats Jared. Apparently that little black book was his operation manual and I had been screwing with his bottom line. Jared ends up taking the book back and letting us leave to my suprise. He said it's a favor and the last one. We all go our separate ways. Well besides David let me just tell you what David did. David went ahead and black mailed Jared anyways I mean he still had the pictures but I am not even that stupid. Demanding the $20,000 David threatened to expose everything that Jared was doing. I think this is where things really went south. Jared gave David the money. Yeah I know he gave him the money! It made since at first we were taking thousands before and all of that was under Jareds operation so $20,000 honestly couldn’t mean that much. But of course David took it too far he exposed Jared. He figured he would run with the $20,000 and never have to see him again. Thats when the phone calls started David would hardly leaves his place. Months went by David never touched the money. At this point I had sort of gotten my self together had a place a small meaningless job. David shows up one day and gives me the money. He said that he was leaving town and that it would be good if I did too. I don’t listen and well I wish I would have. The next morning David is on the morning news found dead in a ditch. I’m not sure if I will make it much longer than him. So as I write in My Little Black Book I hope someone can use this money better than me.
By Devin5 years ago in Criminal
Thanks For Your Help
Going to the beach has always been a customary vacation for my family, and until about 3:00 p.m., the vacation was going as planned.
By Holden Newton5 years ago in Criminal
The Debt Collector
I wrote his name in my little black notebook after our first encounter. James Sturgeon. Like the fish. The final name in my list of victims. Names I could call upon at a moment’s notice when I found myself in need, so to speak, which was more often than I cared to admit.
By Robyn Neilsen5 years ago in Criminal
The Strange Disappearance of Brandon Swanson.
It was May 14th 2008 when Brandon Swanson went missing. He was celebrating with friends after the end of spring semester. He left for home shortly after midnight and just before 2am, he called his parents on his cell phone telling them that he had driven his Chevy Lumina off the road and into a ditch. Thankfully he wasn't hurt and asked his parents to pick him up.
By Raven Morgana5 years ago in Criminal
Uneasy Money
It was a chilly February morning. Saturday, the day he was supposed to be off, but there he was at the shop, and by himself at that. He was fine with it, he was a lone wolf, anyway. He found people to be annoying, and it was amazing that they would practically blurt out their life's story in places like the line at the supermarket, This old rural waste of a town, where most of the factories had closed, and the population had made way for petty criminals and dollar stores. He was stuck here, with a wage that twenty years ago would have been considered bordering on rich, but now barely meets the middle class, and few connections.. He had more in mind than this, he thought as he banged through his work, pressing this, programming that as the aluminum bars formed into parts, based on what he told it to do. He reflected back to just a couple of years prior, when the old boss used to hand crank the machine. He chuckled out loud, what a sap. People were so averse to change that they would rather hand crank and get burned by the little bits of metal than be able to use a simple computer program and be able to do other things, like sit in their office watching porn.
By compassion245 years ago in Criminal
Black Book Bereaved
It wasn't long after the passing of Phil that his wife Andrea began to organize all of the things that he had left strewn throughout his basement and workshop. Phil had been a loving husband and great father to their only daughter, and she cherished all the little things that they had shared through the years. As with the passing of any relative there comes the task of going through all their things that must be saved or parted with. Phil loved to tinker in his spare time in the evenings and spent a great deal of long nights in the basement. To which she paid no mind, because he was home, and not out drinking with the guys, just right there at home. What she was about to experience though, would change her forever.
By Chris Hoover5 years ago in Criminal
Naïve
*WARNING* THIS CONTAINS STORIES OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE* It breaks my heart seeing all these young girls aged 13 to 16 actively seeking out guys who are aged 18 or over and thinking it is okay. It isn't. It is so dangerous and I'm talking from past experience. This is my story.
By YesItsMocha5 years ago in Criminal
The Benefactor
"What can I get you?" The waitress asked, eyeing Elijah warily. "The strongest thing you've got," he replied flatly, not bothering to glance up. He was slumped over the bar, his entire body aching.
By Ebony Rose5 years ago in Criminal
Take it on the other side
There was a new crack going around, the custies ate it up as fast as we could produce it. The secret was adding salvia divinorum during the cooking process. Came out looking like little green and off white camo rocks. Its said it was like going to the moon in your underpants, not that i knew or anything. Don't forget rule number 1: Do not get high off your own supply. The trip was something else, we never tried it ourselves but there was a list of people wanting it every day. We used to hang out in the lister block quite often, it was our place, our castle in the center of downtown Hamilton. Every once and awhile the police would come into the mall and try to arrest us or issue some tickets. The trick was spotting them then hiding in the basement. No one dared go down there, even we shouldn't have. There was a bowling alley in the basement as well as a pool and locker rooms. Not very many people new about this place. I wouldn't be surprised if there were underground tunnels that we never discovered connecting other parts of old Hamilton.
By J Arse5 years ago in Criminal