Author: admin

  • Cold Hearted by Wendy Maxon

    1. Call from Customer WI5223 to Qualicare Refrigerators Ltd, Des Moines Headquarters, June 23, 2019. Call transcribed December 1, 2019. “This is the Qualicare Refrigerator Customer Service Line. My name is Natalie. How may I help you?” “This is Eileen Mayers. Is this who I call when my fridge acts funny?” “Absolutely, Eileen! Can you…

  • A Helping Hand by Taylor Hagood

    Panic laced its fingers through Greg Eskew. I’ve got us lost, put us in danger. He looked at his wife, Valerie, his eleven-year-old son Michael, and his eight-year-old daughter Chelsea. All three wore new hiking boots. Relax, we’re not that far from civilization. Just a day hike. We can still get back by dark and…

  • If I Were a Blackbird by Kira Córdova

    The feathers started as the coarse black hairs that grew out of the mole between my human shoulder blades. If I were a blackbird, I had sung, the Scottish ballad about losing love to long stints at sea, but I didn’t mean it. I’d whistle and sing. I’d follow the ship that my true love…

  • The Implausible End of Everything by Shawn Putnam

    Alex DeNozia worked nights. He was a forklift driver at a warehouse in Colorado Springs, and it was his job to load up product onto trailers for next day delivery after the other guys on shift had organized the product onto pallets by type and destination. It could be mind-numbingly boring, but Alex didn’t really…

  • The Daughter of Tem by A. Bastedo

    Creeping, October fog lay thick around the Chamberlain Hotel’s empty veranda and clung close to the windows, like fragile, but heavy hands pounding silently on the thick, leaded glass. On better days, one could have sat in a fine wicker chair, drinking strong iced tea and watching the slow New England summers roll down the…

  • Sigils for Bullies by Kevin Hollaway

    Brent mowed him over just before practice started.  The coaches were in the field house and other players were still suiting up, leaving the few witnesses available conveniently looking the other way. Scott wasn’t looking, he was down on one knee tying his shoes.  That’s what the impending doom that was Brent did, taking his…

  • Lice by Austin Mooney

    Elise was sitting in the rear passenger seat of her parent’s car, and her mother was driving. She was small enough that she was not allowed to sit in the front passenger seat. Her gaze turned from her mother’s right shoulder to the window to her left, where an endless field of emerald corn stalks…

  • The Dog Days of Summer by Jessica Clem

    “There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.” ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 1 Katie and Jason rolled their bikes through the thick forest. Their shoes crunched…

  • Royalty by Emerson Bell

    We received a mundane call for a corpse found in the Downtown Wilson Apartments. Anne Elliot was found rotting in her living room after a foul smell was reported by a number of residents. As we ascended the stone steps in the quiet afternoon, my partner joked that we would be in and out in…

  • Mr. Loveless in Room 719 by Chris Scott

    It’s not looking good for the Angels. Top of the seventh, Game 6, series tied up at three a piece, and the Giants are leading 4-0, just ten outs away from winning it all. Francisco Rodríguez is struggling on the mound after allowing a home run from Barry Bonds in the top of the sixth,…