Our only warning was the earth crying out in a great grinding noise that swallowed all other sounds, a yawn of some half-asleep cyclopean giant angry at being awoken. The ground shifted and we clawed at each other to stay upright.

Amidst a roiling cloud …

Ethan walked away from the makeshift camp of encircled cars, leaving the forty or so people relying on him behind. He could feel his responsibility for them as a tightness in his shoulders. He didn't like it but it was a burden he had taken upon himself.

…

Walking by the general store, Juana Sanchez caught sight of her reflection in a barrel of rain water and stopped. She couldn't resist taking a better look after the day she'd had. The bullring had been especially brutal today despite the autumn weather. W…

Gone was the demure scion of the Burns house that I had known. In her place stood a crazed woman, nattering at nothing I could see though I could sense cold, electrical malignance blanketing the air above us. The motions of her body and limbs were stiff a…

There is a dark stain on my family that has been passed down through at least ten generations. It seems to affect men and women equally but no more than one in any given generation though we all seem to carry it. I can trace our weakness through four gene…

“Not quite evil mother-in-law material but not fun either, I imagine.” I switched back to a happier subject. “When's your next performance, exactly?”

“Next Wednesday—a week from tomorrow.”

I blinked at the assertion that tomorrow was Wednesday. Such a s…

Story is marked as mature

“Is this a day time or a night time thing?” I asked.

“Nights exclusively which is why I can go. Ralph and Grandma Jean stay in and watch the baby.”

“They don't come with you? Wait a minute, what baby?”

“My sister's kid.”

“Jesus, there's a fourth perso…

Alone in a vast desert, atop a nameless stone tower, a single hooded figure watched the sky. Deep with the tower's belly a siren-like wail erupted. Closer and closer it grew, accompanied by slamming doors, rising as it ascended each floor until finally Ja…

When the knock that everyone dreads came, it sounded hard and insistent against the frail wood of our apartment door. Fumbling noises came from the room that my mom and sister shared before the lights flickered on, banishing the comforting ambiguity of th…

Story is marked as mature

My face must have said more than my silence because she added quickly, “It's not a church or anything crazy like that. I might be a little old fashioned but I know right from right. It's more of a social. We meet at the Autumn Garden Theatre. You know the…

“Sure is coming down real hard.” Teeny returned the pot to the burner. “Glad I'm inside even if I am working a double.”

I nodded. It was a familiar story. Long before I had ever set foot inside the Hot Plate, Teeny's husband, Ralph, had been laid off fro…

You know it's damn difficult to focus these days so you don't. You distract yourself with Youtube videos and Netflix, focusing on the new Dave Chappelle special and reruns of Friends or the Office. The outside world can burn without your help. It's beyond…

This wasn't our first date together but I still felt like I had to impress her. I was keenly aware that I wasn't very good looking and constantly reminded by my friends, not to mention the amused looks of strangers, that she was way out of my league. Mayb…

I wake up in a strange room, unsure of how I got there. I don't remember going to sleep. I feel sluggish. The walls are beige and the floor is immaculately clean white tile. I've never seen such clean tiles. I'd heard about floors so clean you could eat o…

Story is marked as mature

There are experiences and ideas that we have as children that are vivid and real. Some stick with us for a while before we shed them like dead skin cells. Others live within us dormant; lurking. In my neighborhood, every kid's parents warned us not to go …

For a moment Dana was paralyzed, not truly understanding what had just happened. It seemed impossible for a man to whole one moment and then dying without warning the next. Then she recovered her senses enough to duck behind the raised seat of the driver,…

A beam of blinding white light shot down from a sky thick with clouds, centering on Kym and bathing her in a gentle warmth. Under the intense brightness of the light her sweatpants and rumpled hoodie seemed to lose their color before fragmenting into piec…

“Thank the gods! It feels like it's been forever. ” Dana stretched her arms toward the sky, reveling in the long strain on her ligaments. Bracing herself on the rim of the cart, she rose to her feet. Even a few feet off the bed of the cart, the smell got …

Ohmwari, the city where all things find their end. It was a place that Dana only knew by reputation. Stories first and later jokes had been carried long distances, spreading on the trade routes that made up the connective tissue from kingdom to kingdom …

A bump in the road jolted the cart hard enough to force Dana past the edge of near sleep and into wakefulness. She noted that the wheel on the right side had picked up another squeak. At the next stop, she'd have to oil it again or it would grate on her f…

Banging exploded across the breadth of the door as people tried to break in. My worry was fleeting. It wasn't impossible to break down a VouchSafe steel door but you'd need specific tools to do it.

“Let us in, you bastard!” Voices shouted in waves, muffl…

Casey stood there in all white, like a neon blade gleaming against the darkness of the oncoming storm. Her hair and skirt whipped about her in the great gusts of winds that battered the city with invisible fists, but she didn't move.

The thick mass of cl…