Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
C.A.R.I
There was one body the sight of which had not left the mind of Cleo Myrth in the eighteen months after she found it. The young woman witnessed a great deal of brutality in her twenty years, so seeing a body wasn’t much to write about. Although Cleo admitted to herself every lifeless figure carried a cosmic weight in her subconscious. Maybe not now, not in the middle of The Scatter, but eventually those bodies would morph into nightmares. Still, the body that stayed with her was that of Dr. Joy Garcia; sprawled out with her white coat dirtied, her hand clutching a book, glasses tossed from her face, eyes closed, and lips held in a soft smile. No one smiled in death, and that was what bugged Cleo. Cleo knew of Dr. Joy Garcia as she had read every one of the mechanical engineer’s papers she could get her hands on. Between leaving Detroit, Michigan and traveling south to Tortuga, Peru by foot with the rest of her battalion, Cleo never passed on a library. Leveled to the ground, brick by brick pouring out as if buildings bled concrete and rebar alone, books scattered for streets before and after, and Cleo would find Dr. Joy Garcia’s collections in the rubble.
By M. J. Luke5 years ago in Fiction
Heart to Heart
Every day is the same. We wake, we eat what we can, and we run. The world outside is twisted and changed. Our family is gone. Our friends are gone. In their place are hundreds of leering, rotting faces that yap and bite, desperate for a taste. Nowhere stays safe for long. Each night when we finally find somewhere to rest, I feel my wearer’s heartbeat jump and stutter at every noise outside. Her body strains underneath me to hear whether it is just noise, or the tell-tale footsteps of an approaching monster. It takes longer and longer each night for her heart rate to subside, and the rise and fall of her chest settles into a steady, soothing rhythm.
By Ashlyn Tegg5 years ago in Fiction
Migration of a Hunted Herd
This is her eleventh time doing this. It’s busy. Crowded. Claustrophobic as always. Too many people for what the chipped placard at the sliding door allots. Yet here they all are. The commuters. The citizens. Standing like birds in a storm, they sway with each turn or dip in the tracks. There was a time when people sat. But she can’t remember it. Just another memory the older generation tells the younger. Another inheritance from a time without relevance. A distant golden age of ancestors who built this city and then moved on, having either escaped or died. The seats were stripped from the compartment long ago. Now everyone stands rigidly upright, staring this way or that. She beholds those buildings beyond which occlude the falling sun, imagining its light warming the skyline’s far face.
By S.P. Michael5 years ago in Fiction
Sunshine
I’m not a fucking savant. I can’t play the piano at an advanced level. Not that it would matter now, anyway. It shouldn’t matter, and yet it does. The whole fucking world imploded, but less than twenty seconds after speaking to me, they know what I am. They know what it means. Oh, look, an autistic kid! And then they want me to jump on command like some dancing monkey. Well, I hate to break it to you, but I suck at maths. I don’t know an isotope from a telescope, and I can’t even say hello in any language but my own. I haven’t been painting since birth, and I couldn't produce the faintest suggestion of a likeness if I attempted to draw something.
By Ysiad Senyah5 years ago in Fiction
The Real Never-Ending Saga
“Evil lies within the power to give peace”. It was the most unusual of engravings Alex had seen in his 39 years of appraising fine jewelry. There was no stamp, yet it was definitely gold, the purest he had seen, possibly the oldest he had seen. Consulting the items’ intake form, the owner a man named Don Abad, had warned in the comments that, under no circumstance, was he to open the attached locket. This, however, seemed remissible to his duty, he had to at least check for a quality stamp or some evidence of source. After perusing every link of the remarkably unblemished, yet ancient chain, he gave into his curiosity. Superstitions, he premised, are just superstitions.
By Michael Ballard5 years ago in Fiction
Entropy's End
Entropy’s End Lights up. There is a small bed stage right covered in rags. Shelves with mechanical parts and provisions line the walls. A fire burns in a small chimney. A strange metallic doorway stands stage left. Everything is dirty and built from scavenged parts. EVE enters, she is dressed in a jumpsuit, breathing mask and cloak. She carries a large sack. She shuts the door behind her and seals it. She walks to the table and sets down the squirming sack, and a large makeshift crossbow. She sits at a chair and removes her mask. She is a woman of about 30. She stands and cautiously opens the sack. She pulls out a large insect. Its physiology is alien and asymmetrical. It has too many eyes. She takes it to the fire and pushes a large metal spike through it. It squeals and its limbs flail then grow still. She sets it atop the fire, it writhes but quickly stops. She returns to the chair and sits. She picks a remote control and presses a button. She takes a heart shaped locket from her neck and holds it out. A hologram of a young woman wearing a 1950’s housewife dress and heels appears, generated from the locket. She is tall and blonde with short hair. AIMEE begins to speak.
By Michael Watkiss5 years ago in Fiction
And so, I dream...
And so, I dream of my love. I look at her heart swinging from the shell tube of my shotgun. Not her actual heart, her heart shaped locket. The one she kept a photo of us in. Now it is sealed in black electrical tape to hold in the drops of her blood I collected after she was gone. I tap it and it swings free but concealed in its cover. No shine, no sound. No problem.
By Steven Parker5 years ago in Fiction
What was, what is, and what is yet to be!
The early stages of childhood are a critical time frame for a child's long term development. The things that we experience, the music that we hear, the lessons that we learn from the stories that we have been told at bedtime. All of these things have an impact upon our mannerisms, our personalities, our openness when it comes to absorbing knowledge and expanding our creativity, and who we become over all. And yet, throughout our lives we will meet many intriguing and diverse characters with different desires, aspirations, and goals on how to pursue such things. With such desires and goals, there may also be quirky characters who, well, may be a bit odd or different! They may stand out from the crowd or may not fit quite into any particular part of society. Outcasts, nerdowells, people who are well, just different.
By Jordan Zuniga5 years ago in Fiction
