By: Michael C. Keith They’ve all come to look for America. –– Paul Simon After considering how to get me across town to where I was to meet up with a colleague, the hotel doorman decided it was easier just…
By: Tom Sheehan Blackjack Paul Mulrain realizes he’s swinging these days through a vortex of thoughts and memories. It takes a toll, he knows. But he’s been here before; the past never letting go, the future waiting its turn. “Here…
By: Jerry Mullins Well just about everybody has heard that old saying, “Nervous as the town whore at a church picnic”. Now I can tell you about that, because it happened to me. I know all about that situation. I…
By: Bob Kalkreuter The shots were sudden and clear, crisp as breaking sticks. Gary Eason flinched. For a moment Stewart’s lips got pale, his eyes went wild, and he muttered, “Goddamn…” They were both in Gary’s boat. Gary was fishing, but…
By: Tom Sheehan They kicked in then, at sight of the wild-eyed gunman on the Greyhound bus moving into Vermont and on to Canada, my other lives, the separate and strange ones, spinning back through me, each one of them,…
By: Michael C. Keith If you battle monsters, you don’t always become a monster. But you aren’t entirely human anymore, either. –– Jonathan Maberry We were in our getaway rental six miles up from State Road 359 when we heard…
By: Tom Sheehan Leaping from his chair, arms raised in a sign of total surrender to the sound that he thought will most likely come with the same horrific resonance when the whole damned universe breaks in half, Carlos Penez…
By: William T. Hathaway My dad was cheating on mom. I saw him and his girl friend at a disco, dancing and kissing. She was plump and plain, not much older than me, the kind who’d probably have to take…
By: Gaither Stewart Someone was playing the piano in the far room. High laughter and shouts and shrieks sounded from the corridor. Near him there was a generalized swishing of expensive silks to the sound of cocktail chatter. Over the…
By: Gaither Stewart Wearing a beige suede jacket and a blue beret low over his right ear, James Frederick Dellinger stepped out onto his porch and looked around uncertainly at the new day. Clamping his aged leather satchel under his…