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Latest Stories

June 04, 2025
General Stories Dylan James Harper

The Bylaws Of The Revolutionary Council

A loud clang rang through the bunker as the door slammed shut. “I really think we have a chance to win this thing!” Greg’s voice echoed throughout the cold walls. The three other inhabitants of the bunker, Jeff, Ben, and Malcolm, all sat around a table…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Resurrection

The man lay there in extremis, no longer thinking of cool abstracts like ‘catching the last train for the coast.’ He gulped great rasping breaths – holding them impossibly long – before finally exhaling in a shuttering burst of putrid air. He had been…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Time Warp

Nothing was in order, nothing optimal. Germany was awash with refugees and adventurers. Only Angie could hold it together; but then she opened the gates! Who knows why? Other politicians were dinosaurs in the museum. Integration was the solution, was it? That…
June 04, 2025
Fantasy Stories M.D. Smith

Car Of Dreams

Randy Jenkins, age sixty, lived the kind of life people don’t write stories about. He sold office supplies out of a small showroom in the back corner of a strip mall just outside Corpus Christi. He wore beige. Ate microwave dinners. And spent more time…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories David Rich

Earth Forever

With an exhale, Damerae unclipped a lint-free cloth from his desk, snatched it from the air, and wiped his glasses. He preferred staying hidden in his cozy interior office in the bowels of Orbital Counterweight Station of the International Space Elevator. But…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction George Vu

A Stolen Kiss A Beautiful Dream

It had been a long, exhausting day for her – a blur of endless tasks and demands. Yet, despite it all, she had fought for a moment to be with him. Stealing time from the world around her, she walked into the room quietly, hoping to surprise him. After a few…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Cow Bells

Based on actual incidents. Swiss Cabinet meeting, 15 March 1943 The American Ambassador has no comment, no explanation. We can expel the Ambassador in protest. I prefer he remains here under close surveillance. The bombing yesterday was of nuisance value; it…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Signed To The Message

do your bit for king and country. are you a coward? or are you brave? so now is the time to sacrifice you don`t want to let your mates down it`s a kinship of the soul you know that’s the Australian way it was the message that was kept being sold so they…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

On The Rebound

I was sitting in a bar knocking back my third Jack Daniels, when a drop-dead gorgeous blonde walked in. As she paused, surveying the room, I raised my glass in a complimentary salute. It was a ‘Hail Mary’ move, and I could hardly believe it when she came…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories M.D. Smith

Unplanned Landing

Red lights pulsed. Sirens howled. “Alert. Navigation failure. Proximity alert. Impact in thirty seconds.” Captain Mara Voss shot upright in her cryo-pod, lungs gasping like a drowning swimmer. Across the chamber, the rest of the crew jerked awake, groggy and…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Marching To The Same Beat

an angel stands under a lonely pine showing the way to the lost souls the ones who innocently answered the king’s call and now flags fly half mast for those that no-more stand buried in some far off foreign land the pipes call out to the brave and the angel…
April 29, 2025
Fantasy Stories Chris Turner-Neal

The Gorgon’s Climb

I am the only one of us who calls it rape. Stheno, when she must mention it, says “our bad luck;” Medusa shrugs and says “gods don’t have to ask.” And I say but they should and she says but they don’t and Stheno says this attitude doesn’t help, and she’s…

It’s 3 AM on an extremely cold and dark New York City winter morning in 1984. The dispatcher breaks the quiet over the police radio with his disinterested, sleep deprived and monotone transmission:

13 Edward - Shots Fired - Latham Hotel...Room 606 - Anonymous  Caller.

“Don’t these fuckin’ people ever sleep?” Frankie grumbles to himself as he finishes a long yawn and adds an audible and drawn out “Shitttttt!” as an afterthought. He gets a chill in deep in his bones.

If you think this cop and his partner were upset about going on another gun run? Think again. These cops just don’t want to leave the warmth of their RMP.

***

They walked right past the sleeping Desk Clerk behind his bullet resistant glass cage.  They know this Single Room Occupancy Hotel. It’s one of the many magnets of the dregs of the 13th Pct. A conduit of street scum filled with hookers, pimps, junkies and other assorted miscreants.

Sean and Frankie then take the slow ride up in the urine smelling elevator.

All is quiet on the sixth floor, except for the hum of the intermediately blinking dim neon light’s ballast. In addition, the clanking of the steam radiator provides an eerie cadence as they move down the narrow hallway.

They hug the wall as they quickly converge on the room.

The door of Room 606 is slightly ajar.

The lights in Room 606 are out.

Ambient light is practically nonexistent.

But they can make out the form a man slumped in a big chair with a whiskey bottle in his lap.

Also exposed is a big shiny silver gun in the man’s lap.

His face remains in the shadows.

It’s Sean’s turn to take the “point.”

Sean draws down on the figure as he kicks open the door.

Frankie immediately follows him in.

They triangulate on the man.

“Give it up, Mother Fucker!” Sean yells as they watch for the man to grab the gun lying within his grasp.

But the man does not move.

They move in closer. Their guns trained on the man.

 

They’re both confused when at that exact moment, a goopy mess falls right on the Sean’s left shoulder as they simultaneously notice about half of the man’s head is missing.

Unknown to the cops, this guys brains and part of his skull were barely sticking to the ceiling.

M U T H E R F U C K E R!  - Sean  screams.

Apparently, this guy blew part of his head off and some of his brains and skull stuck to the ceiling. All with that big old .45 Caliber pistol now resting peaceably in his lap.

Frankie says, “I gotta start wearing my fuckin’ glasses!”

“Well, at least we didn’t shit ourselves.” Frankie observes as he breaks out in a loud laugh.

But then in a few seconds, the odor from Sean’s pants reaches Frankie…………

 

Stephen A. Murray’s first novel : NYPD: The Way Things Were:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=NYPD+The+Way+Things+Were

Frankie Neptune left driving a New York City taxi and a career in academia to become a NYC police officer. It was a tough time—back in the seventies and into the early nineties—to be a cop. Crime was soaring, and the city was wild. Back in the day, unconventional cops could still have a good time protecting the innocent, teaching skells some manners, and annoying their suspicious sergeants- all while finding out who really killed a respected transvestite.

Politically Incorrect Fiction at its BEST!

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