That's how I became a part of the Cold Hail Battalion (Give 'em Hail!). I was never carried into battle but I was often carried out of one. My dad, the one who accepted me, tried hard to get me transferred to an orphanage or a host family, but there was n…

Rain fell hard, threatening to drown the city but never quite committing to finishing the job. Tonight there was no wind and people felt safe using their umbrellas. All of them moving slow under black domes gave the streets the air of a funeral procession…

Anthony blinked a couple times, hard enough that fireworks of white light appeared across the dark space of the inside of his eyelids. He'd read the same sentence four times and he was still stumbling across the words like he'd never seen them before. He …

"Humanity should be still and calm." The tall, faintly luminous figure placed a six fingered hand up to a the transparent field of shimmering green energy that showed a hazy image of a spinning planet dominated by blues and whites and greens. "We've giv…

The tower is coming along nicely. It's defensible with thick walls and even though I can't see them, I take great comfort in knowing that they are there. I imagine it's tall enough that if I climbed the stairs to the top that I could see for miles in ever…

I let the cat nuzzle at my fingertips and then rub its cheek down the length of my fingers. It had been far too long since I had a cat. When I moved out of my parents house, I hadn't had the time or money to take care of one and cats aren't even much of a…

I roused from my sleep enough to hear the low tones of conversation from the front of my car. It was stuffy under the blanket and I hadn't slept well besides. Worming my way slightly toward a more upward state, I adjusted the my pillow against the window …

There's a darkness in you. It hides in our whole family. It's a sickness that must be fought and accepted in equal parts. I know it. You won't, not until you look inside yourself without flinching and recognize that your darkness shares your face. It's in…

Screams, hundreds of them, howled in waves. Sometimes they joined together in choral unison, almost like a hymn, sometimes in overlapping layers clashing to be heard. It was as if the tortured voices from every hospital and from every war zone that had ev…

So many of the businesses in Lickton were gated, barred, or just downright broken. The damage wasn't contained to businesses either. Boarded up windows and doors hid fearfully behind waist high fences burdened with condemned signs, neither of which kept a…

When his cell dinged as an alarm, a single note strong and pure as a minister's daughter, Lamar didn't even break stride to check it. He knew what it was. Every day the same alarm reminded him to be home for dinner. He had an hour to get there and be a da…

Behind the shimmering curtain of rain, made bright by passing headlights, a stately house appeared. Faint at first, its thin translucence swallowed the house that had been built in its absence. As the rain splashed against the walls and roof, the house be…

In the dark my hands made twisted shapes, more through intuition than direction. They danced like they belonged to a conductor, while my fingers played the air in long strokes like a pianist's. I was aware of their movements but I couldn't see them. They …

Hurrying to the bathroom, I felt like I was going to burst. I prayed that no one was in it and reached for the handle. It was open. I locked it and rushed to the toilet, dropping my pants as I did so.

I had to bending down to raise the seat up. My face…

The cool of the window pane seeped into Roger's skin, bringing blessed cold. In a few minutes it would be too much but for now it felt like relief. Anything to bring down the fever that was overheating his body and stealing his energy. It was worse at nig…

Cicadas sang in the heat of the day. Mostly. But it was well past sundown and the night was far from silent. It overflowed with strange sounds, as if the darkened woods themselves were awake and agitated. It wasn't just the pulsing buzz of the cicadas e…

Story is marked as mature

The last thing I remembered was driving . . . somewhere. Somewhere important. I think to meet somebody. Through one window, the rocky face of mountain frowned at me in slow motion. Through the other, the sea nodded in groups of white-capped heads that mur…

The two fighters were clumsy. They didn't know that before but they knew it now. Winning a fight was something they'd both taken for granted. With size and power on their side, they hadn't bothered to learn finesse. Mastering a fighting style took time an…

When the moment came to reveal his finished product, he felt trepidation. It was time to face the reality. For better or worse, it was his alone. He had sat there by himself grunting and sweating until he was completely tapped out. His muscles quivered, s…

Arden Waithe never wanted to be on the boat. Or any boat. His experience had taught him that sailing was misery cubed. The rolling of the ground that never stopped, rising and falling, clenched his stomach inside an iron fist even as it spun his conscious…

Story is marked as mature

I'm in a fun house. I've always like how the good ones play with perception. It reminds me of the Get Smart opening: expectation and subversion in a fun way. And they're so enthusiastic. Not the operators necessarily, who've seen this millions of times, b…

Veron Gerrick scrolled through the palace alerts looking for anything that demanded his personal attention. Much of his staff had been inherited from his mother and their loyalty had transferred to him when he had assumed the position of High Lord. They w…

Five men stood around the pool of greasy black tar that used to be Zach Cho. Everything had happened so fast. Even with their suspicion, no one could have foreseen human flesh blackening and sagging like hot taffy. There weren't any bones or organs. All t…