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Latest Stories

October 17, 2025
Flash Fiction L Christopher Hennessy

The Moon Is A Wanderer Too

The rain came down like broken glass and the city was a wound, bleeding light and exhaust and the smell of food frying in oil that’s been used too many times. I was walking nowhere, which is the only place I ever go, and the streets were full of saints and…
October 17, 2025
Mystery Stories Brittany Szekely

The House On Wren Street

Notes: A mother rebuilding her life after domestic violence uncovers a chilling secret in her new home Isla didn’t notice the house was watching her until the second week. At first, it was just creaks in the floorboards, the way the hallway light flickered…
October 17, 2025
Flash Fiction L Christopher Hennessy

Pee Girl Gets The Milk

He met her on a Tuesday, the kind of Tuesday that feels like a leftover Monday, stale and gray and hungover from the weekend’s sins. Her name was Lita, or maybe Rita, or maybe she just said that to keep things simple. She had a cigarette halo, a ring of smoke…
October 17, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Lie To Me More

La vida es una mentira; Miénteme más,Que me hace tu maldad feliz.(Life is a lie; Lie to me more,For your wickedness makes me happy.)Armando Domínguez Borras, “Miénteme” (bolero) Out of a habit ingrained over fifty-odd years of hard work, Timmy McFarlane got up…
October 17, 2025
Flash Fiction Syed Hassan Askari

The Unseen Listener Of Moscow

It was 11:55 p.m. when he stepped out of Moscow’s Lefortovo Metro Station. His whole body ached; his legs trembled. His eyes were sleepy. He felt surrounded by unknown souls, all in a hurry to reach their destinations. He looked at the disappearing faces for a…
October 17, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Rearranging The Brain Furniture

She called herself Lark, though her name was probably something dull like Emily or Claire. She was nineteen, maybe twenty, with a face that looked like it had been drawn in charcoal, smudged eyes, a mouth that never quite closed, and hair that hung like wet…
October 17, 2025
Flash Fiction L Christopher Hennessy

FCAWF

She called herself Moth and said she liked the way they flew into flames without flinching. Her real name was Emily, but that was buried under layers of eyeliner, cigarette burns, and a voice that could cut glass. She was thirty, somewhat immature, vindictive…
October 17, 2025
Science Fiction Stories Kashif Imdad

Femtoria

In a dystopian future, the world had transformed into a society that was unrecognisable to those who had lived in the previous century. The nation of Femtoria stood as a beacon of prosperity, A female supremacist regime, had risen to power, enforcing a strict…
September 27, 2025
Flash Fiction Syed Hassan Askari

Half an Hour to Fourteen

Last night she lay on her bed with a curly-haired doll close to her chest. She was looking at the clock hanging over the door. Only half an hour was left —her life’s digit would turn from thirteen to fourteen, a change that felt like a heavy blow to the…
September 27, 2025
Romance Stories Nelly Shulman

Till We Meet Again

“Would you like more coffee?”The server in the orange apron lowered the pot, but Cath muttered, “No, thank you.”Her voice trembled, and the server busied herself with the next table. Outside the window, fog enveloped Waterloo Bridge. The morning was quiet,…
September 23, 2025
Flash Fiction Leroy B. Vaughn

Another Farewell To Arms Reunion

We were sitting in a little café in Wickenburg Arizona eating lunch when my wife looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you’re actually going to this reunion after you told all of your buddies that there was not a chance in hell that you would go.” “I know…
September 23, 2025
General Stories William Kitcher

A Political Solution

The Rt. Honorable Leader/Head of Council/First Governor/Chief Minister/Premier/President/Chancellor/First Minister/Party Secretary-General entered his office, and looked out the open window. It was a beautiful sunny cool day, and the cherry blossoms shone in…

It wasn't like he'd meant to kick her as he came round the corner. Anyway, it wasn't really a kick, more like a bit of a bump. No, a nudge, that's what it was, just a nudge. After all, sitting on the pavement like that, it's her own fault really if people end up nudging her. She'd sat there as long as he could remember – way back into his childhood – the same short grey hair, wrinkled face, shapeless clothes, sitting cross-legged on that grimy old blanket just outside the station. Blind eyes closed – well, he assumed she was blind, he'd certainly never seen her open her eyes. But come to that he'd never seen her stand or move either, and surely she must get up sometime and go somewhere. She couldn't stay sitting there all the time with that weird old banjo,could she? Snakeskin – he'd never seen another one anything like it. She didn't really play it, even, just plucked the strings in a desultory sort of fashion – and he'd never seen anyone throw her money for her efforts. Made him wonder why she sat there day after day. He'd apologized when he knocked her over – well, he'd meant to, but he was in such a rush that maybe he hadn't. She'd have been fine anyway – it was only a nudge after all, just a little nudge.

They used to make up stories about her back at school. She used to be a great beauty, but she was blinded by a jealous rival. Or maybe it was all an act – she was working for Them (whoever They were), keeping a watch on things, not really blind at all. Or she'd sold her soul to some devil or other, but got tricked (as tends to be the case with devils) and ended up with just a strange banjo and sightless eyes. He'd added his own – she wasn't human at all, the snakeskin was the giveaway. Didn't everyone know that snakes didn't need eyes to sense – they could feel vibrations, sense the heat of your body? She sat there waiting for prey and when night fell slipped away in serpent form through the drains, fangs dripping with venom so potent that it etched the stones it dripped upon. Now he came to think of it, they pretty much gave up on the stories after that one – they all just gave her a wide berth.

He was well down Nathan Road by now, crowd-weaving along through the usual masses of Hong Kong humanity, ducking past the tailors and the fake Rolex sellers as they lurked in the side streets like trap door spiders waiting for their tourist prey. He shuddered for no reason that he could put his finger on. The word 'prey' in his thoughts just seemed to flick a chill up his spine and his steps faltered for just a second or two. He shook it off and plunged into the human sea, crowd-swimming onwards to work.

It wasn't until work was over, standing waiting for the ferry, that he thought of her again. It might have been the setting sun colour-matching the neon as the light faded that brought her back to mind, thoughts of a snake in the darkness. But he stood packed into a press of people, safe in their midst, and the thought was only fleeting. As the scrum pored onto the ferry he made his way to his usual spot at the front where there was a slight breeze off the water cutting through the humidity. The lights of Kowloon ahead grew steadily closer and brighter, when he noticed the movement in the water. Parallel to the boat something kept pace with it, something long and narrow left a slight wake, caused ripples to wash against the side of the ferry. There was something there. Something long, thin, greenish in colour. His breathing speeded  as he craned his neck, trying to see more clearly, but the ripples and reflections thwarted him. The ferry bumped against the Kowloon jetty and he struggled to move as the rippling form drew closer and closer, but the crowd held him in place. It filled his vision, the sinuous form moving towards him. He became aware that he was holding his breath, gripping the railing so hard that his fingers hurt. Closer and closer it came, swaying side-to-side. Then out of the water it came, pulled hand-over-hand by a crewman – a green, sodden rope being hauled in, wound up, placed back on the deck where it belonged. He breathed again in a shuddering gasp and staggered off with the flow of the crowd.

The lights of Nathan Road glared as garish as ever, but somehow it seemed darker than usual tonight, the shadows between the streetlamps deeper and blacker. He scuttled from lamp-post to lamp-post. Why did nobody else seem to see it? They all seemed to be behaving as normal, even when a neon sign not ten yards from him flickered and went out; when the lamp he was under visibly dimmed, crackled and hummed. He walked faster, then faster still. What was that noise he just heard? It sounded like... a sort of slithering sound. His nerve snapped and he broke into a run, pushing people aside, until he nearly slipped over something at his feet, something that made a slithering sound as his foot struck it. He stared down wide-eyed and found himself looking at a dried squid. One of many. From an overturned crate at the side of the road where two men shouted at each other. He stopped, took a deep breath, willed himself to be calm. All in his head, all in his head. His pulse slowed, his breathing eased. He walked onward at a more normal pace.

Nearly home now, he looked over at the corner where he'd nudged the old woman this morning. Nobody there. She'd gone home of course – where else would she be at this time. He rounded the corner, opened his front door, stepped inside. Flicked the light on, closed the door behind him. Flung his jacket onto a chair, flung himself into another. Then all the lights went out – not just the lights in his flat, but the lights outside shining in through the windows. And somewhere in the darkness there was the smallest of sounds. It sounded like a banjo being softly plucked.

 

 

BIO: Originally a Londoner, now living in Devon, an intermittant writer for as long as I can remember, now finally making the effort to put fingers to keyboard on a more regular basis. An avid reader and appalling hoarder of books of many types.

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