The wind pushed Kana so hard that she could barely walk. It took all the strength her thin boney arms had to keep her umbrella above her head. On windy days like today it felt more like she was living… Continue Reading
This is my first time at a gun show. I’m not very good at it. You made me come here with you, and I’m just terrible, and the guns make me nervous, and I don’t know why I’ve decided that… Continue Reading
For decades, everyone in town believed the house was haunted. By the time the millennium rolled around, the Calder place wasn’t a house anymore, more a collection of rotted beams and jagged sheets of dirty glass, carpeted in thrown rocks… Continue Reading
Daylight hazed through the net curtains; sterile, bright; a day with just a little too much summer in the air. The alarm clock chimed out its last good-morning call and cut out. Holly had that smile on her face, that… Continue Reading
For Jacob, the greatest mystery about visiting Great-Grandma was her hands. In her face Great-Grandma portrayed the illusion of a tired, feeble old woman, but her hands betrayed her terrible power. They were tense blue claws riddled with hard bumps;… Continue Reading
She’s small, waif-like, this girl/woman who stands by the freeway onramp with her American flag vest and her bags of oranges. Black stockings below that vest. Legs like straws. No. Legs like those sticks they use to stir coffee. Cars… Continue Reading
The formula for measuring and cutting the awning fabric involved something of Pythagoras, a fact that made the job feel like what the ancients might’ve done. The owner Mr. Watts had a terrible temper, and he yelled at me the… Continue Reading
I park my truck across the street from Julie’s house most nights. She’s not there anymore, not since graduation. But I sit in the cab anyway with my pistol — the snub nose .38 I saved three months to buy… Continue Reading
The first storm of the summer rolled in as Karen walked home from her day job, waiting tables at the corner bar for two bucks an hour plus tips. From her right hand dangled a plastic grocery bag containing a… Continue Reading
I’ve been afraid of certain things — loud noises, the dark, the boogey man — but you learn that those things don’t touch you, hurt you, or hate you. That everything that scares you about them is what you don’t… Continue Reading