Category: Flash Fiction
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Sam’s Son by Tom Kropp
The day Sam’s son died was also Sam’s last day of freedom. Sam’s son was named Matt. Matt was ten years old and resembled his father’s good looks with dark hair and blue eyes. Sam was a tall lean man and Matt was a wiry athletic boy that was good in many sports. Matt’s favorite…
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A Little Bad Luck by Jim Foley
On Thursday we killed everyone, and it was every bit as wonderful as she had hoped. But on Friday, the first day of our perfect new life together, I woke up with a bad feeling. Late morning sunlight slanted through arched balcony doors. I blinked at Marcia, sleeping next to me on a massive mahogany…
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The Shadow and the Wolf by D. V. Dorough
When my campfire died, the darkness rushed in to devour me like a starved hunter. Scrunching my knees to my chest, I defensively pressed my back against the trunk of a gnarled oak tree. I could no longer feel my feet. “Be brave,” I whispered in my mind. I hated the thumping heartbeat in my…
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Things that Live in the Walls by J. Hart
There are things that live in the walls here, but they don’t tell you that in the welcome tour. Well, they don’t tell you about a lot of things before the state abandons you here for ‘defiance’. Twenty girls jammed in a too-small room. Clothes folded in the lockers but with no locks to keep…
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This Is How You Run from Monsters by Erin Lunde
1. Open your eyes. I know you don’t want to. Remember, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. This is one of those times. Open your eyes. 2. Breathe. You were so smart to hide. Under your bed was perfect. 3. Move to the door. Open it a little. What do…
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Imaginary Friends by Steven French
Whenever he and his wife Rawia had friends over, or would go to theirs for dinner, Brian liked to imagine beforehand how the conversation would go. He’d rehearse in his head the opening gambits, the witty responses and the insightful aperçus that he imagined he would deliver, accompanied by the acknowledging nods or perhaps a…
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Off-Cuts by Miriam Killdeer
Sarah Whitechapel was currently struggling to imagine life without her ring finger. The knuckles of her left hand ached as she drew her fingers into her palm for the thousandth time that morning. She’d been told it helped to visualize, but it was difficult to picture nothing where there’d once been something. It was difficult…
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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…
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The Mouth Inside the Pillow by Tom Busillo
The mouth jutting out of the pillow had the teeth of a piranha, snapping its jaws, dripping thick, gooey yellow saliva, and making tiny squeaks that echoed like distant screams. Squatting down in front of him, his father shook his head, the dark bags under his eyes deepening. Stephen had night terrors when he was…