by Thomas M. McDade

“You’re a good man, George Gale. You saved both her and me some trouble.”

by GRSTALT Comms

“The bag lies next to me in my bed. I’ve never slept so well. I see its smile in my dreams.”

by Alexei Raymond

“He’d never touched money of that kind. He’d seen it being handled by his mother, or by Ivan on their adventures, but he’d only ever touched various coins.“

by Rick Kennett

“The noises changed to murmurs of appreciation. Charlie and Douglas and one or two others thumped fists upon the table, chanting, “Ghost story! Ghost story!”

by Wyatt Robinette

“The video was from a GoPro Max wore during the war. Like most GoPro scenes it was chaotic, unclear. Also, you never saw Max’s face, you just heard him.”

by Jayson Carcione

“Someone screams. Lights explode in windows…The night is broken.

by Kim Farleigh

“‘These winds,’ he warned, ‘are prophecies of your impending deaths. Don’t you little bunnies worry about that.’"

by Zoë Davis

“The ancient ceiling fan, whining on an exposed fist of wiring, didn’t so much as move the air but stir it.”

by Margaret Cahill

“When I turned to continue my walk, there he was: a man in a panda bear suit at the end of the boardwalk. At least I assumed it was a man, given that the figure was at least six feet tall.”

by GRSTALT Comms

“He never lets me fuck him – he always tells me ‘Next time’ – and that’s what keeps me coming back, the promise.”

by Kenneth M. Kapp

“Hardly anyone asks about the quality of life. We know it is what it is.”

by Alexei Raymond

“Jonathan’s mind cycled between the tides of war he could remove only himself from, love’s inexplicable failure to surmount, and how he’d known, known the taste of his lips.”

by Chrissy Stegman

“The city sped past, and I leaned back into the seat, letting the world slide by inexplicably, as if the light outside the cab window could swallow everything. I really am a bitch, I thought.”

by Patrick Johnston

“Jack enters the room gun first… Schiller looks up… Schiller looks like he has been caught wanking… circumcised Nazi prick… and Jack has Adolf Schiller cornered in his lair.”‬

by Ian Johnson

“Sex was a confrontation, challenging to give more and take more—a shiftless slavery to stolen weekends, rattling exotic headboards.”

by Michael Thériault

“Nothing tells me how I came into this vase. I may have been here from the instant the new glass cooled.”

by Anthony Neil Smith

“I dumped Harriet into Grindstone Lake in broad daylight. Pulled my truck off the road, heaved her body bag over my shoulder and away she went.”

by James Callan

“I was thirteen years old when I discovered the most beautiful thing in the world…a limited edition 1990 Bob Mackie Gold Barbie Doll, encased in an orange Jell-O mold.”

by Priyanuj Mazumdar

“The rope around the goat’s neck moves frantically, desperately, violently—one last exhibition of its sentience. The protest goes unheard.”

by James Sullivan

“So that there will be no further bloodshed,” said Mary King’s press secretary Sarah, a girl savvy enough to throw her fuzzy pink hairband in with the strongest matriarchal figure.