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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…

Chad still hadn’t returned by morning.  We all knew he’d been taken, just like Sandy.

That was the way it was, ever since the dead started walking again – the Zombie Uprising that had seemed like just a stupid joke until it actually happened.  How?  Who knew.  Why?  An even more impossible question.  We just crouched in the darkness of the Payless Shoes storage room, keeping quiet.  Dark, so maybe they wouldn’t see us.  Quiet, so maybe they wouldn’t hear us.

There were two doors – one, leading into the shop itself, and the back door, used to bring in merchandise from the loading bay.  The door into the sales floor was closed, locked tight.  It never rattled; we supposed that they hadn’t broken into the store yet.  The back door wouldn’t lock; they’d broken it when they’d come through looking for victims.  Four of us had hidden behind the shelves of boxed shoes, not even breathing as they looked for us.  But they seemed half blind, and finally stumbled out.

Since then three more survivors, including Bev, had joined us back there, making seven.  I’d used to work with Bev in the same building, would smell her perfume in the elevator even after she had left it.  But now all of us were just survivors, terrified of going outside, tied to the illusory safety of our hiding place despite the deep bite of hunger.

Seven, but then Eddie went out, and never came back.  Just like in an old horror movie, going out alone like that, the idiot.  Haley and Jess had gone out together, maybe looking for Eddie, maybe just trying to get something to eat.  And they hadn’t come back, either.

You just go out for some food, and that’s it – they catch you and tear your head off.   They’re insanely fast and absolutely merciless.  I will have to be pretty damn hungry to risk a fate like that.

But, eventually, you do get that hungry.  Or maybe just that tired of sitting in the dark, hoping not to be noticed, with God-knows-what going on outside the door.  So Sandy had gone out one night, maybe hoping the darkness would conceal her.  And then Chad, the next night, and now they were both gone.

It was just Bev and me now.  A strip of sunlight came through the crack in the door and spilled onto the floor, and so there was just a little light to see by.  I noticed Bev looking at me and gave a reassuring half-smile.  In that dimness, it probably looked more like the grin of a corpse.  She just snorted.  Well, I’m sure I looked like hell, but then, she’d looked better, too.

We didn’t talk.  It seemed we had nothing to say.  Strange, how a disaster like this changes a person.  It wasn’t that long ago that the thought of sitting in a dim room with Bev, just her and me, would have taken my breath away.  Now, even nodding or telling a joke just seemed pointless.

So much for the old idea that the nearness of death stirred up romance, or, in those cheap novels, a mad, unthinking sexual desire.

We would have to go soon.  Out the same way Eddie, Haley, Jess, Sandy, and Chad had gone.  If we didn’t eat soon, it wouldn’t matter if they caught us.  Either way, we’d end up the same.

So I gestured towards the door, and Bev gave a slight nod.  I stumbled to my feet, grunting, upsetting a box of Nikes.

Some of them used shotguns.  Others used chainsaws or axes or crowbars.  But we no longer had a choice.  We’d just have to take our chances out there.  Because to survive, to feed ourselves, would take more than skulking around in the dark, in fear.  More than sitting there hoping something nice would plop down in front of us.

It would take brains.

 

 

Bio:

 

Tim McDaniel teaches English as a Second Language at Green River Community College, not far from Seattle.  His stories, mostly comedy and mostly science fiction, fantasy, or horror, have appeared in a number of magazines, including Asimov's and Fantasy and Science Fiction.  A collection of his stories, "They Laughed at me in Vienna and Other Stories," is available at www.AnthologyBuilders.com.  Tim lives with his dog and an impressive collection of plastic dinosaurs.

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