Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
The Pocket Guide to Practical Homesteading
I was madly in love for a short time, years before the war, The Pioneers and their Academies. He was the strangest, kindest and most interesting person I have ever met. For a fleeting moment, I thought I had found someone to build a life with, and then he disappeared.
By Christina Blanchette5 years ago in Fiction
Peachy . Top Story - June 2021.
In her complexion there lay a latent rouge which would emerge if she had been running for the train, or he told her she was pretty. In truth, she was very pretty, but she moved slowly and with the languor of a young teenage boy. All her elegance was in her face. Her eyes and brows were dark, and clashed broodingly with an otherwise pale disposition. Her Cupid’s Bow rose aggressively, but with a certain symphonic grace that moved around the rest of her face like a swirling wind. She had it in her to bite with a single look. On other days though, usually when the sun had brought out her freckles and kissed her skin, she would let down her guard and a downy innocence would bashfully emerge, like a peach. He often told her as much, immediately after having paid her some compliment deliberately devised to illuminate her cheeks. ‘Like a peach, that’s soft and sweet the whole way through – no stone’ he would say.
By Jonnie Walker5 years ago in Fiction
The Disaster
"I must get to it," I muttered as I saw a faint glint of light across the broken and crumbling streets. The fading sunlight gave an almost peaceful feel to the evening air - almost. Dead bodies scattered the entirety of the city either drowned or crushed. Animals fed on what they could find and the crunching of leaves and splashing of puddles reminded me all too well that peace was just a far-fetched notion now. The scavengers that I scouted out the previous night were here to pick the items from the dead just as the animals found a free meal.
By Jessica Shaw Huntington5 years ago in Fiction
Mementos
I found the locket hanging on the neck of a woman long deceased. Though she was nothing more than a collection of bones when I found her, she still wore a faded paisley dress, cinched at her forgotten waist with a simple belt that may or may not have been brown leather at some point. Faint wisps of copper and rust red strands still clung to her dusty skull and her hand clenched tightly in her husband’s. He wasn’t much better off, his remains having long deteriorated to skeletal aspects, though he still wore a faded tweed suit and his dancing loafers. The couple were draped in Death’s wedding veil of cobwebs as they sat haphazardly together in the ruins of what was once their family home.
By Renee King5 years ago in Fiction
CYCLE
Humanity lost the ability of childbearing, a gift granted to all life on this planet. Cursed with eternal reincarnation, we roam the world in different shells. Those who died returned, emerging from random bodies of water. Always the age of ten, and always as someone else. With memories still intact, we continue to live life with infinite second chances.
By A. W. Knowland5 years ago in Fiction
The Viper Has Fangs
“Well, looks like our information was good,” Kit Dunaho said, peering through her view finder at the Counter Propaganda building across the street. She handed the view finder to Justin Simmons, sitting next to her, and he took a moment to study their target. Guards posted at regular intervals, the “The Viper Will Poison Us All” poster that was said to delineate the emergency exit. Everything looked like the briefing had led them to expect.
By Micaela Sparrow5 years ago in Fiction
The Magpie
The magpie crunched a still-kicking beetle in its cadmium yellow beak while perched on the skull that had once been used by a special-needs schoolteacher named Stacey Dobbs, but which presently housed a cacophony of insects harvesting the few remaining bits of soft tissue. Mrs. Dobbs’s last favorite student had been Max. Seven years old. Adopted from Ethiopia by Steven and Miranda Schwartzberg. He was so sweet. And the way he beamed every morning when he arrived at school was that year’s reminder why she did what she did, despite how heartbreaking the job could be at times. Yet, for some reason, the last image to light up the hippocampus, neocortex, and amygdala—all long-since digested into the biosphere—happened to be the inscrutable frown worn one afternoon on the face of little Eileen Davis, one of her first students. Strange. She hadn’t thought of Eileen in years.
By David Newhoff5 years ago in Fiction
As The Earth Dies
“Get up!” some one shouted in the distance, “If you don’t get up, I swear to god I’ll leave your sorry can to the deadlings!”. No, the voice was coming from close by. I opened my eyes, wondering how I ended up on the ground. My whole body pulsed as if to say yes. All except for my left arm, it seemed to be fine. My patrol squad were firing at some unseen target. “For the love of all that’s left, GET UP!!”. I hurt so badly, I didn’t think I could blink, let alone stand.
By Lee Garber5 years ago in Fiction
Mother
It's different than we once imagined it would be. It is not a desert, it doesn't look like mars, and there are no crumbling buildings. The sky is a light emerald color, not grey or black. There are so many animals. Everywhere you look, life seems to be flourishing. With one exception... there are no humans.
By Mandolyn Leader5 years ago in Fiction
The Coils
Rotting grime caught my leg in its grasp, threatening to halt my already sluggish progress. Wrenching my ankle free, I continued my laboured wading through the murky liquid. I focussed my thoughts on what I came here to do, rather than what might be lurking beneath the surface. It was not far now.
By Lisa Jacobs5 years ago in Fiction
