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Latest Stories

March 19, 2024
Fantasy Stories Wondering Monk

Just My Imagination

The alarm clock went off and started playing an awful tune. Tom opened his eyes and closed them back, squinting. He reopened one eye and stood up to stop the torture. The phone was on the desk, in the furthest spot from the bed. Although he changed his way of…
March 19, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Ocelotlzin

Earth Is Dead

Recording… It doesn't matter who I was; I probably lived a long time ago, and I am now just a voice someone added to the audio-visual records. What is essential is the recollection of events that lead to the current state. So, a little history needs to be…
March 08, 2024
Flash Fiction Benoit

Some Enchanted Evening

It was a rugby tackle with tears: Chrissy burst in, sobbing and babbling, hugging James. Her face was all wet, eyes wild. What…? My parents split up, Dad has moved in with his boyfriend and I cannot join them. I am shut out. I have lost my dad. Torrent of…
March 08, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

In The Hands Of My Legs

The car pulled up in front of the large salon. The neon sign, that sexy broad thing, on the salon'sroof read "Mr. Gil's All-night Salon". The exhaust pipe of the car was pumping solid smoke, theswirls moving from the car and towards the salon.…
March 07, 2024
Mystery Stories Vanessa Leigh Giles

Casualty of Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Chapter 1 Until Death do us Part ‘Ring, ring!’. I answered the telephone and asked, “Hello, good evening. Who’s this? “Hello.” This is Dr. Smith from Red Cross hospital. “Is this Mr. Locke, John?”, he asked, hesitantly scratching his bald head. “Yes, doctor.…
March 07, 2024
Crime Stories Robert Pook

Bar Room Trigger

Another return journey on footpaths so familiar. He strides across each crack in each paving stone. Regular loose drain covers sidestepped. Mapping long ago mapped in Richard’s desolate mind. His pace hastened by the sight of the oncoming storm. Quickening…
March 04, 2024
Horror Stories Ano Chinemerem

Sanctity

Where should I begin? I could begin by telling you about this comely boy, whom every notable person around the streets agrees his smile could charm the bills off one. Between one smile, there was his goodness, his dreams and humanity—a little far ahead?— but…
March 04, 2024
Flash Fiction Emanuel Diaz

Et Mortui Partium

As Rafael stepped out into the rain, it wasn't the ordinary drops that fell from the sky. Instead, it was a storm of souls, each one taking the form of shimmering jewelry as it cascaded toward the ground. Rubies, diamonds, and sapphires twinkled amidst the…
February 29, 2024
Poetry Jing Li Ava

London

‘Am I in London?’ "I am." Where is Elizabeth? Happy living story All of your chapter Bounlance joy Please my heart Power hand Wise mind Our baby Vow vow Love all love Miss I miss Endless wonder Bring us together Love all love Miss I miss For everything My…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Rob Pook

Life Sentence of The Smith

Born nine months after his country won the World Cup.A child prodigy.Cast off at age twenty-four.Husband, father, emigree, away on the other side of the world.The blue-collar life.The dreams of success.The search for fulfillment.The long years of empty…
February 29, 2024
Mystery Stories Joshua Lowther

The Operator

Jason looked over to his right, his eyes barely able to focus themselves on the subject of his attention. His neck ached terribly from the strenuous movement. He was tired. The captain’s gaze came to rest on the rookie sonar operator sitting tense at his…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Salvatore Difalco

The Chute

At dusk, we left our unit with a soft pink bundle. I carried it through the wet streets and into the black woods. I said I’d take it all the way, the bundle, but that we had to drop it in together. My wife’s green eyes flashed. “Don’t make me do that.” I…

If you plan every detail carefully, nothing can go wrong. I believed that when I was a teenager. Like the time Billy Long and I decided to make our own beer. Once in a while we used to steal a couple of Billy’s father’s beers, but we were always afraid we would get caught.

We were in the shed behind Billy’s house that we were using as a club house. We were sitting in the broken-back chairs smoking cigarettes that I had stolen from my father’s pack. I didn’t even inhale then. I just drew in a puff of smoke and blew it toward the ceiling, thinking it made me look sophisticated.

It was a hot day just after Fourth of July. I wiped my brow and said, “I sure could use a cold beer.” I didn’t even really like beer then, but Billy and I thought that drinking beer made us more manly. We both knew we couldn’t steal any of Billy’s father’s beer, because there were only a few left in the case, so if we took a couple, they would be missed.

            Billy took a puff on his cigarette and started coughing. When he got the cough under control, he said, “I’ve got an idea.”

            Billy had an uncle who made his own beer. “He got a kit for about fifty bucks, and makes a batch of beer. After that you can get refills for under twenty bucks to make more.”

            “How long does it take to brew the beer?” I asked.

            “Just a few weeks. We could brew it out here in the club house. No one would know.”

            “We could put our resources together,” I said, “and we’d have enough to buy a kit. So where do you buy them?” I liked using words like resources. I thought it made me sound more intellectual.

            Billy’s face clouded over. “The only place you can get them is the internet, and you need a credit card to do that.”

            I thought it over for a minute. “I have my father’s credit card number,” I said.

            “Won’t you get in trouble if you do that?”

           “Not if I’m careful. Dad’s secretary writes out a check for the credit card payment, and he just signs it.

            “We have to plan,” I said. “First of all, where are we going to have them send the kit?”

            “We can’t have them send it here,” Billy said. “My mom would want to know what that package was.”

            “What about your uncle?”

            “Naw, he’d tell my mom.”

            I thought about it for a minute. “Okay,” I said, we can have it sent to my house, if we’re really careful.”

           “Wouldn’t your mom wonder about the package?”

            “No, Fed Ex makes deliveries in our neighborhood in the late afternoon. That would be before my father gets home from work, and my Mom would be on her second or third cocktail.”

            Billy looked out the window at two squirrels scurrying around in the yard.

            “So, as soon as the package arrives, you could just bring it down to my house, and we’d be in business.”

            “Uh, no. I forgot about Old Man Schiller. If I walked past his house, he would wonder where I was going, maybe accuse me of stealing something. He always makes a big deal out of everything. Once when a kid was trying to sell magazine subscriptions, Old Man Schiller got pissed off when the kid wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. He pointed a gun at the kid, who got out of there fast.”

            Billy had to run some errands for his mom. We decided to get together the next morning and try to figure out how to get the beer-making kit from my house to his.

            When we met next day, Billy had come up with an idea. “My uncle, the one who makes beer, he has a drone. He lets me play with it sometimes. As long as he doesn’t know what we were going to do with it, he’d probably let me borrow it. It has enough power to carry a light load from your house to mine.”

             I had practiced enough with the drone, so I was ready when the beer-making kit arrived. I went out, picked up the box, and took around to the other side of the garage where the drone was. It took just a minute to attach the box to the drone and launched it.

            It sailed up over the garage, over our house and over Old Man Schiller’s house. Then I heard a sharp crack, and the drone twirled around dizzily before it plummeted down.

            I ran around to the front of the house so I could see into Old Man Schiller’s yard. Pieces of the drone and the beer-making kit were scattered on the lawn. Old Man Schiller gazed down on the debris, still holding his rifle in his arm.

End

CARL PERRIN started writing when he was in high school. His short stories have appeared in The Mountain Laurel, Northern New England Review, Kennebec, Short-Story.MeMad Swirl, and CommuterLit among others. His book-length fiction includes Elmhurst Community Theatre, a novel, and RFD 1, Grangely, a collection of humorous short stories.  He is the author of several textbooks, including Successful Resumes, and Get Your Point Across, a business writing textThe memoir of his teaching career Touching Eternity, was a finalist in the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award.

 

 

           

           

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