"I can't get back to the tunnels. We have to find a place to crash." Hard Drive said when the top sealed over the convertible. He made a few hard turns, zig zagging through town to try and lose the last drone. It crashed into the side of a building with a…

Their little faces crumbled from surprise and delight to tearful and shock. This large thing crashed their party, stealing their gifts and eating their cake.

He sat back, grinning maliciously over his multiple chins. The children's large eyes swam with…

"It's such a shame, really." Cordelia untied the collar of her blouse so her 7 year-old could suckle. No matter how bad things got, ladies would always find time to gossip.

"We mustn't judge, Cordy. It's not her fault." Thin and frail Maude pursed her li…

Kendreth Leary, manager of the targeted bank, had never trusted Tory or Constantine, even when they were a newly shacked up couple of fifteen months old. Something always seemed odd about the two of them. Maybe it was the flinty scruff on Con's chin, or t…

Overseeing the meeting was their old mentor and senpai, Shrarl Glorlushuprlahh, known as Pop. He raised his twin hands in blessing.

"Kill 'em!" he benedicted. "Wade hip deep in their blood!"

Defiant shouts from both sides echoed through the rafters and …

Right on time, too: 4:03 AM, according to the almanac. O Sumo Garcia-Murry, or OSGM for short. But nobody said that. That sounded stupid.

O was the perfect person to bind this team together. Even Con felt braver when she showed up, nodding to everyone unt…

Orange was in like a shot. It didn't matter what kind of shot. Orange was always looking for some action, which was what drew him to movie production in the first place. Right now he was working on a tracking shot, and had almost found his quarry. After t…

They agreed to five posse members per team, not counting Con and Tor, the leaders of the temporary pax. Tory thumbed her mobile phone and, after several months, assembled a cracked team of heisters: Turbo Lean (the speedster), Andreas Ut (the fireworks ex…

The newly formed Country of Birth Control met with general condom nation.

And now it was time for a reckoning. "Check, please," intoned Tory.

After settling with old Furn, it was time to talk some more, like before only more recently.

"So what do you think?" asked Tory, holding her breath...quite a challenge, if you haven't tri…

"What?" he demanded, sick of all the verbiage I've been spewing like someone spewing something.

"Sweetling," Tory signaled with her flags, "It's time for a resolution. We've been at it like frogs for too many years. We're both more than a hundred years ol…

Tory drew a line in the sand that covered the table. What a filthy restaurant. Don't go.

"It's like this, Connie," she began. And then she continued. "Like this." she went on, adding nothing to the sentence that had gone before. "Just listen to this," she…

"The time has come," Tory said, "to speak of manly things. First, I want to return the unicorn horn you left at my place back in '78. Here."

Connie took it graciously, smiling bitterly. "My point exactly," he intoned. "But what's yours, Tory?"

I'll have t…

As the music changed to The Bobs' "Zombie Jamboree," so too did the mood of the two ex-lovers change from one of tentative friendliness to one of more serious feeling. It was time for the vocalizations of turkeys; the time of refreshment was over.

"One mo…

Our subconscious mind can be the most formidable foe. Facing fright, we fumble for fortification, rattle our rapiers and clamber for cover. Is this shadowy voice in charge, or just one more cog in our cognition?

The negative pronouncements careen against …

The surviving security footage from the office building was taken out, uploaded to the police computers, and processed until it divulged its secrets. Within two hours, it had created facial reconstructions of the heist team.

The faces had been run through…

We had no neighbors. That was by design. Dad didn't like people. I didn't much care for them myself. So it was our livestock that died first. Dad hadn't even had a chance to step off the porch with that second post before the cows started keeling over. Th…

They couldn't pay me to love you more.

In my bedside drawer, beneath condoms, and candy bar wrappers, I keep a box for you, beneath empty pill bottles with barely legible labels.

A locked box.

Metal and hard and cold to touch, I brush my fingers acro…

Doom fell from the sky that next day. At least, that's where we assumed it came from. There were mutterings in that cloudless expanse -- and rumors of mutterings. We had listened to them all that night and assumed they were the last breaths of the god-t…

After tipping his hat, the hat took their orders and went back to the kitchen. Pips let out a soft snort, shaking his head gently to and fro. "That hat's probably either your kid, or mine," he said nostalgically. "And here we all are here...at Scooper's. …

Tory was staring up at the slanted mirror hooked to the ceiling; Pips's gaze was fixed on the shattered remains of his mocha flagon, in twenty-three pieces on the floor. As the CD unit restarted with "You're my Everything," their eyes started in towards e…

The walls never change. A sterile, indifferent white; not comforting, yet not hostile either. Completely neutral in the observation of the clinically insane. Of course, he wasn't denying it; that’s what he was, after all.

James smiled. The chair was almos…

Old Tory Adore may not seem like much now, but let me tell you, back in the day, Tory was a woman to reckon with. When she trod the streets of Fentriss, New Jersey, brother, you could hear people scurryin' away. Her frogskin boots jingled remorselessly as…

The Old Man, holding his gaze on the computer screen, raised his hand and curled his finger. Come.

Vargas didn't need to be told twice, but he hesitated nonetheless. Is this a trap? he wondered.

He steeled his nerves and brought forth the briefcase. "…

The orc rangers looked at each other. Sadie could understand that - she could hardly believe what she'd just seen either.

Gulmar broke the silence, grunting in approval.

"Fire and greensmoke! That," he grinned, "was a sight to behold. She is worth holdi…