Waxing Chaos
It wasn’t the time of the call; Blake was used to that, and he was a light sleeper – call it the nature of the job. When the call at…
Fiction
Cold Hearted
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…
A Helping Hand
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.…
If I Were a Blackbird
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…
The Implausible End of Everything
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…
The Daughter of Tem
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…
Sigils for Bullies
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…
Lice
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…
The Dog Days of Summer
“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…
Royalty
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…