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Latest Stories

July 08, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Dance Of Death

CHAPTER ONE 1940 Chief Inspector Kenneth Langford offered the Commissioner a crisp salute, and then walked back through the labyrinth of passageways to his own small office. Langford was a member of the London Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as…
July 08, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Winter Blues

the winter blues has a grip on me, all so tight Its icy tentacles wrap around me and squeezes freezing my fingers and toes with its nasty frostbite staving off the cold is a battle, an endless fight it brings forth an assortment of nasty diseases The winter…
July 08, 2025
Horror Stories Sushma R Doshi

Deliverer Of Messages

A loner in my childhood, my scrawny and weak figure prone to being bullied by sturdy and robust boys, I tended to wander around places frequented by few. Those curvy roads which fell into darkness after evening without street lights, the area near the pond…
July 08, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

With A Side-Eye I Cherish

for Brittany ma amour Up to my neck in sadness for something just out of reach and she came along and fired up my life with kisses and the physical. The moment I looked into her eyes I didn't want to share her with anyone else and keep her all to myself. In…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…

How shallow was a shallow grave?

He’d never dug one before.  The hole before him, which he’d gouged out of the sandy soil in the heat of the desert looked deep, but now he’d pushed the man’s body into it, suddenly it looked awfully shallow. Could animals or other things get down to the body? Or maybe that was the point? Just deep enough for cover, but not so deep that it took too long for the flesh to turn to corruption.

This was really something TV should have taught him better. He hunched down and drank from his water flask.  Dragging the body the hundred feet from the car had been exhausting enough so he wasn’t about to drag it back.

 

Something squawked overhead.  It looked real. Not a drone. Maybe a bird.  Nothing man-made that would record what he was doing.

Then an idea hit: there were bound to be other bodies buried out here.  Maybe he should find another grave and dig down a little?  Maybe he could find the body of a ‘whacked’ guy and see how the professionals did it? A little river of sweat ran down his back, reminding him that it was a stupid idea.  He took the map (which had instructed him where to bury the body) from his satchel and tucked it into the dead body’s pocket.  They’d written ‘bury with body, do not burn” on it.  It was paper, so would decay quickly enough.

Overhead more of the birds were circling.  That didn’t look too good.

He stood up.

The desert plain shimmered with heat.  It looked alien enough already, but through the lens of hot air, the rock formations and scrub seemed even more curious and distant.  This wasn’t a place for him.

“Sorry buddy,” he said to the body and shovelled the first pan of dirt over it.  It took forty minutes and plenty of foot stamping, but finally the grave was filled.  He kicked some topsoil and rocks onto it, hoping to disguise its unnaturally rectangular outline.  Maybe he should have dug something with a more organic shape.

Too late now.

A wind whipped up and then was gone.  The desert was an ever changing place.  People didn’t belong here (at least not above ground and breathing) unless of course they were gambling.   For a moment he considered whether he should say some words over the unmarked grave, but it didn’t seem right.  And there was nothing he wanted to say.

He walked back to the car, drinking from the flask.  It was insulated, but the cool water inside had started to turn tepid already.

On the passenger seat was a white book: The Manual.  It was why he was out here in this place. He picked it up and opened it to page 1.

ITEM (1): The body of your predecessor must be disposed of in a location, such that the family and friends of the deceased will not detect it or have reason to detect it.  (see detachable map for disposal suggestions for your location).

There was a box next to the item line.  He ticked it and threw the book back onto the seat. It landed title up:  “Protocols for Seamless Human Interaction” it read in pompous type.  Below it, sarcastically, was scribbled: “How to be a Good Clone.”The handwriting belonged to the man in the ditch.  The handwriting belonged to him now. He turned the book over and drove off, back to civilisation, back to the people who ‘knew’ him.  Ready to continue the life of the buried man.

 

End

 

Bio: By day I write adverts and TV for other people, but by night I indulge my real passion: writing fiction. I have a deep love of genre writing be it science fiction, crime or horror.  Find out more here at my website: http://kavanaghauthor.moonfruit.com/

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