We weren’t junkies; we were artists. While the quiet homes in Buffalo Grove silently snoozed through the exciting dark, we rode the night, lived each possible moment. We’d wring the world dry of all its beauty, write love songs to the streetlamps and sing to the sewers, our heads buzzing on benzedrine, tea, or alcohol. We slept through the day and its meaningless labors. Sure, call us lazy, but we were too busy living to hold a job. And we worked. Typed until our knuckles were stiff, pushed our typewriters to their mechanical limits, scrawled prophecy on every scrap of paper we could find, painted city sidewalks like chapel ceilings. 

    But yes, every lifestyle, even this lifestyle, costs money. Ernie was the one who came up with the idea, and I think he had this guilt about him because he’d been funding us for so long. He had this check coming in every month from his publisher, but they folded, and the money stopped coming. It’s like he thought it was his job to provide for us. 

    It was his idea to rob the soda fountain. He said it’d be their fault because they were kids and they shouldn’t have been spending their parents’ money like that. He said it was a temple to fallen gods, the hollowed ruins of American idealism, this pitiful, chromium place where our next generation comes to blow the spoils of the consumer class. 

    The guns were easy enough to find, and the plan was simple: drive to the suburbs, go inside the place, demand the till, have everyone empty their pockets into a sack, and run like hell to the car. We’d be back in the city before their pathetic cops would have any idea what was going on. 

    What we didn’t consider was juvenile strength and the intensity of young love. The place was packed with kids. It was some kind of surreal, sock hop nightmare. All these Mirandas and their Bradleys sipping malteds out of tall glasses with two straws. There were lots of letter jackets draped over shoulders, smooth words, and puppy-eyed wonder. Then, in walked this band of sleepless speed-fiends in our ragged white t-shirts. I hadn’t eaten a real meal in two days. I was tired, spacy, and very much in the wrong state of mind. As soon as the boys saw the guns, they crowded us, hoping to save their Miranda’s life, be a hero, take out their pubescent frustrations on Ernie, me, and the whole crew. I got out of there. Bolted through the door and took off down some alley, but I could hear the gunshots. I could hear the screams and the sirens as I hid between a couple trash cans. 

    Ernie and some poor girl were dead before the cops came, but we were the only ones who got arrested. I got picked up almost immediately. Whoever owned the house, owned those trash cans, came running out their back door with a bat and a loud whoop for violence. I went to the ground and waited for bruises and handcuffs. Those boys killed Ernie, but they’re heroes for it, big shiny jocks, wardens of America’s peace. Ernie was a junkie. That’s what the papers said. Ernie and his friends were just a pack of dirty junkies hoping to score their next fix. Bastards. He was an artist. We were artists.

​© 2025 Timothy Tarkelly

​About the author:
Timothy Tarkelly is a poet and author from Southeast Kansas. When he's not writing, he teaches High School English and Speech to students with much more potential than he will ever have. 

Lila liked being a security guard at the museum. Roving the galleries in the silent isolation of the wee hours, having Rembrandt and Van Gogh, Renoir and Picasso all to herself, keeping them safe. The characters in the paintings had become friends of sorts, their stares sightless yet soulful. It was too bad that her days working here were numbered.

She shrugged off her coat, heavy with the tools and pieces she’d need for the job zipped into the lining. She hung it up in her locker and entered the security room, coffee cup in hand. 

Mac was draping his cardigan on the back of his chair in front of the bank of CCTV screens. A slideshow of empty galleries and corridors flashed by in grainy greys. 

“Hey, Mac,” she said. “I got you a mocha latte.”

“Aw, Lila. You’re sweet but you don’t have to keep doing that.”

“I got a whole bunch of gift cards from people after my son died. Have to use ‘em up somehow.”

Mac, three years from retirement, was happy to let Lila do the walk-arounds as he sat at the desk, reading a fantasy novel between glances at the screens. That suited Lila. She’d been able to case the place with ease, determine the security cameras’ blind spots, time her operation with exactitude.

Her heart slammed suddenly. She slumped into a chair, short of breath.

“You all right?” Mac said. 

She waved her hand. “Low blood sugar. I haven’t eaten much.”

“That’s no good. How come?”

She hesitated, trying to swallow the words but they burst out of her. “My son overdosed six months ago today.”

“Aw, jeez. I’m sorry. He was an artist, you said.”

“Yeah, a struggling artist.” 

How he’d struggled. Adrian was singled out at art college as having exceptional promise, landed representation at a gallery soon after, but an establishment critic panned his first solo exhibition. He failed to sell, and the gallery dropped him. He couldn’t gain traction again. Galleries kept saying he was too dark, too demonic. His paintings became bigger and wilder, more ominous, with each rejection. He painted on walls and got evicted. He painted on buildings and got arrested.

Then she got the call every parent dreads. Accidental or intentional? She’d never know.

Mac sipped the coffee and grimaced. “Needs sugar,” he said. “I’ll get some from the breakroom.”

Crap, she thought. She should’ve gone heavier with the sugar. “Sorry. I must’ve forgotten. It’s been a weird day.” She heaved herself to her feet. “I’ll start on the first round. Walking will get my mind off things.”

Nerves jangling, Lila had to force herself to slow to her usual stroll. After the first floor, she doubled back to the security room. Mac was already snoring, head cricked at an unnatural angle, jaw drooping. The antihistamine capsules she’d emptied in his coffee had worked like a dream. She allowed herself a faint smile. 

She moved quickly to her locker and pulled on her coat. Took the stairs to the second floor and stopped on a stairwell out of camera view. She removed the roll of canvas from the coat lining, the wooden stretcher pieces, the stapler. She snapped together the stretcher and stapled the canvas onto it, as she’d practiced. Then she assembled the sides of the ornate gilt frame into a rectangle and fit the canvas inside it, bending small nails she’d hammered into each flank to hold it. After donning a Salvador Dali mask, turning her coat inside out and flipping up her hood, she tucked the artwork under her coat and entered the gallery. 

The open spot on the wall lay between a Kandinsky and a Klimt was occupied by a humidity gauge. She hammered in a nail and hung Adrian’s canvas over the device. Then she took out the label card she’d stolen, now filled in with the authoritative description she’d written after studying the pretentious writing style of museums. She had it printed so the font matched. She peeled off the backing and pressed it onto the wall beside the vibrant abstract.

Lila stood back and took a deep breath. She’d be caught, arrested on some charge or other, but she didn’t care. She felt Adrian’s smile. That was all that mattered.

​© 2025 Christina Hoag

​About the author:

Christina Hoag's short crime fiction has appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Shotgun Honey, and is forthcoming in anthologies from Crimeucopia and Black Beacon. A former journalist and foreign correspondent, she lives in Los Angeles where she has taught creative writing in a maximum-security prison. https:/christinahoag.com.

     A stranger ripped open Jenna’s passenger door, pointed an automatic at her and ordered, “Stay still.” His other hand held a bulging cloth bag. A second man with a bag of his own slid through the rear door. The gunman threw himself into the front. “Now go. Go!”
     The sequence took seconds. When Jenna understood what was happening, instinct was already in control, the accelerator to the floor, her car racing.
    “Take Battery,” the gunman said. Battery Street followed the lake out of town.
     The speed-limit was twenty-five throughout the city, but, aware of the gun, Jenna kept the Kia at fifty, weaving through traffic, breezing through traffic-lights. Angry, frightened drivers leaned on horns, but her passengers were impressed.
     “You handle a car real good. You always drive like this?” the gunman asked.
     Heart thumping, her eyes strayed to the gun still on her. “Not always.”
    The rear passenger laughed. “Maybe she’s a racer, Ronny—like that Danica chick.”
     “She’s retired,” Jenna said without thinking.
     “Well, we aren’t,” Ronny answered. “Not for a while, so slow down—and no more running lights.”
      “Lucky as hell,” the backseat rider said.
     Jenna checked her mirrors. They were on the highway linking the city with several suburbs. Cops often set speed-traps along here, but not today. Maybe it was luck—but what kind?
     “What’s your name?” Ronny asked.
     She hesitated, decided it didn’t matter. “Jenna.”
     “Nice,” the rear passenger said. “Pretty. Got a boyfriend?”
     “Cut that, Nick,” Ronny growled.
     “No boyfriend,” Jenna answered.
     “See? She don’t mind,” Nick crowed. “Reason I ask—”
     Ronny twisted, shooting Nick a warning look.
     “Okay, okay,” Nick relented. “Forget it. But still—man, the way you drive!”
    “Yeah,” Ronny agreed. “We could use a driver good as you. Josh deserves prison, losing his guts and taking off.” He sighed disgustedly. “Lucky we spotted you at the curb, Jenna. Were you headin’ to work or what?”
     She shook her head. “I don’t have a job.”
     Nick grinned. “Unemployed, huh? Maybe it’s fate.”
   Miles from the city now, the road wound through trees, past scattered houses. Jenna’s adrenaline had faded, leaving only fear. Ronny’s gun had a presence of its own.
     Finally, Ronny said, “Here, on the left.”
   The road was dirt, nearly hidden by brush. Jenna turned off, wincing as branches scraped the Kia. The track ended in a clearing with tiny, ruined cabins and a half-tumbled sign reading “Motel.”
     The car stopped. Nick hopped out, hefting his bag.
    “Listen.” Ronny leaned in, twisted the key from the ignition. “I meant it about a driver.” He looked towards where Nick seemed to struggle with the nearest cabin’s door.
    “I’m sorry we got you into this, Jenna, but we aren’t bad guys,” he said. His tone was friendly, but he still held the gun.  “And we make nice money. More than any job you’ll find. Think about it, okay?” He pocketed the keyring. “Gimme your phone, too.”
     Jenna dug the cellphone from her purse and handed it over, noting several missed calls on the screen. Losing it sucked, but Ronny was satisfied and took the gun off her for the first time since forcing his way into the Kia. He climbed from the car, joining Nick in wrestling the stuck cabin door.
   Jenna’s gaze drifted from the men to Ronny’s bag, forgotten in the passenger foot-well. Luck again?
     Remembering the pistol’s black eye and the reason for today, she sighed in relief, extracted the emergency key from her wallet, and started the engine. Backing down the road as quickly as she dared, she left the heisters in a cloud of dust and confusion.

     “Where’ve you been?” Jenna’s husband, Scott, demanded hours later. “You left me hanging back there!
     “Shit,” he spat, not waiting for a reply. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. I was in line, wearing the wig and fake nose, the note about the bomb all ready, and these gun-waving yahoos burst into the bank and cleaned the place out. I couldn’t believe it.
     “What’s that bag, by the way?”
     The fear distant now, Jenna could grin as she told him, “Luck.”
    Good, bad, or something else entirely—it all depended on how you looked at it.

About the author:
​Brandon Barrows is the author of several crime and mystery novels. His most recent is And Of Course, There Was the Girl from Full Speed Publishing. He has also published over one hundred short stories and is a three-time Mustang Award finalist and a two-time Derringer Award nominee. Find more at http://www.brandonbarrowscomics.com and on Twitter @BrandonBarrows

Scene: The exterior of Detroit City Hall. Members of the media are gathered. Detective Richard Dryer approaches a podium just outside the front entrance.

Dryer: “Good afternoon. I wanted to issue an update regarding the kidnapping of Mavis Jacobson, the twenty year old daughter of Michigan real estate developer Wilford Jacobson. As you know, Ms. Jacobson was abducted from the family estate yesterday morning. Earlier today, Mr. Jacobson and his wife received a ransom note demanding five million dollars in exchange for the return of his daughter.”

(Cameras flash.)

Dryer: “The experts in the crime lab examined the note and have determined its legitimacy. If the kidnappers are listening, the Jacobsons have agreed to your terms. They will pay the requested amount and are begging you not to hurt their daughter. They ask that once the money has been transferred to the off-shore account you indicated in the note, you return Mavis, safe, sound, and unharmed… I will now take your questions.” 

Reporter 1: “Detective, how did the Jacobsons receive the ransom note?”

Dryer: “It came through standard US Mail.”

Reporter 1: “Can you trace where the letter was mailed from?”

Dryer: “The crime lab is working on that as we speak, and investigators are coordinating with officials from the Postal Service, but as of now, we can’t pinpoint an exact location.”

Reporter 2: “Detective, can you share any details of the note itself?”

Dryer: “Yes, I can. The note was brief, to the point, handwritten, in pencil, possibly a number two graphite pencil, on a standard eight and a half by eleven, twenty pound, white piece of paper.”

Reporter 2: “Thank you, sir, but I meant the actual contents of the letter.”

Dryer: “I see. Well, after I gave the note a cursory glance, I could tell immediately the kidnappers had very little regard for their readers, and their writing skills were substandard at best.”

Reporter 1: “Would you mind elaborating on that, Detective?”

Dryer: (Pulls a copy of the note from his jacket pocket.) “Yes. This is the opening sentence. ‘We have been planning to do this for years.’”

(Groans from the crowd.)

Dryer: “‘Have been planning.’ If they had taken their audience into consideration, they could’ve worded it, ‘We’ve planned to do this for years,’ or something along those lines, but they did not. Their disregard for basic grammar is borderline sociopathic.” 

Reporter 3: “Sir, you stated the note was handwritten. Can you give us any details on that?”

Dryer: “Let me be frank. In my twenty-seven years on the force, this is the worst penmanship I’ve ever seen. It’s illegible, almost indecipherable. Chicken scratch doesn’t begin to describe it. It looks as if it could’ve been scrawled on the walls of a sanitarium in human excrement.”

Reporter 3: “Sir, don’t you think that’s a little overdramatic?”

Dryer: “I do, and I certainly hope the writer of this story remembers to take it out before he submits it for publication.”

Reporter 2: “Sir, getting back to the contents of the note, sources have mentioned an excessive amount of exclamation points. Can you comment on that?”

Dryer: “Handwriting experts have concluded the kidnappers utilized at least four, maybe five, exclamation points in their one page note.”

(Gasps.)

Reporter 2: “Maybe five, sir?”

Dryer: “The fifth could’ve been a colon or semicolon. It’s still under examination, but the boys in the lab are working around the clock to figure it out.”

Reporter 1: “There’s been a rumor concerning a quotation. Can you give us insight on that?”

Dryer: “I’d hoped that wouldn’t come up.” (Sighs.) “At the bottom of the page, the kidnappers wrote, ‘You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take,’ and attributed it to Michael Jordan. Analysts notified us late last night the quote actually belongs to none other than Wayne Gretzky.” 

(Gasps. One reporter faints. Another screams.)

Dryer: “It’s a shame when innocent bystanders get caught up in something like this. On behalf of the Detroit Police Department, I would like to apologize to the families of Mr. Jordan and Mr. Gretzky. God willing, we can move past this and soon put the wreckage behind us.”

Reporter 2: “Detective Dryer, is there anything else you can share regarding the ransom?”

Dryer: “I would like to, but unfortunately, we’re rapidly approaching the word limit of this story, and I can’t necessarily go into details at this time.”

Reporter 3: “And there’s no way around that, sir?”

Dryer: “No. This publication only allows flash fiction stories up to 1,000 words, and there’s nothing I can do. I don’t have to tell you the headaches and setbacks a cop has to face when red tape gets in the way of an investigation. Maybe the writer of this piece could’ve utilized less adjectives, chosen his words a bit more carefully, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. It is—as they say, whoever they are—what it is.”

Reporter 3: “Don’t you mean, ‘Whomever they are?’”

Dryer: “Go fuck yourself.”

Reporter 1: “Sir, do you have any clue how this will end?”

Dryer: “I would assume with the words ‘The End’, but as far as the kidnapping and ransom goes, I have no clue. It’s in God’s hands now, and all we can do is sit back, hope for the best, and pray Mavis gets home safe. But if she doesn’t, it’s really no big deal. This is fiction and none of this shit is really happening anyway.”

Reporter 2: “Detective—”

Dryer: “I’m sorry, everyone, but we’re out of time. Thank you for your attention. Have a good day.”

THE END 

Dryer: “See? Told you.”

THE END, FOR REAL THIS TIME

​About the author:

Mike McHone's fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Dark Yonder, Mystery Tribune, Rock and a Hard Place, the Anthony Award-nominated anthology Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression, Edited by SA Cosby, and elsewhere. A former journalist, his articles, op-eds, and humor pieces have appeared in the Detroit News, the AV Club, Playboy, and numerous other outlets. He is the 2020 recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Hugh Holton Award and has placed twice on Ellery Queen’s Annual Readers List. He lives in Detroit.

     One. She had a peculiar sense of humor. Stand-up shows and sitcoms made her yawn, glance at her watch, and close her eyes. She laughed at certain noises, like a car’s siren or a frog’s croaking. Once, she turned hysterical and erupted in laughter when a kid popped his balloon in the park. Embarrassed, she ran away to the bus stop and left the park. I never understood the absurd, looking at her with bewilderment and smiling just because she did.
     Two. She used to bake cakes for weddings, birthdays, and gender parties. The cream was the best part, melting in my mouth, making me want to devour it until the plate was empty and I woke up from a sugary trance. Her waffles and pancakes were mediocre though.
     Three. She chose butter for baking more diligently than she chose men. Well, a man. Andy wasn’t a bad one; he was just a bit odd. All he did in his free time was hate-watch soap operas. In general, he saw more than a thousand episodes while drinking vanilla coke and arguing with an invisible director and a screenwriter. Andy and she met at the Laundromat. She used to watch washing machines sometimes—her remake of trainspotting. He walked into the place; they chit-chatted and fell in love.
     Four. She always claimed she had that phobia of long words, but we both knew she was afraid of the numbers 13 and 666—as much as she was of black cats. When we were teenagers, I made unsuccessful attempts to ridicule this fear. Once, I changed the date on her phone and watched her eyes turn bleak. She found out I did it and locked herself in the bathroom for three hours, resentful. Perhaps our grandma had scared her when we were kids, told her that planes fell on people’s heads on Fridays the 13th, or my sister saw that movie.
     Five. She loved me. She loved me when I was sick and whiny, leaving empty, dirty mugs all over the house, clearing my throat nonstop, shaking my leg, and singing along to the radio with my squeaky voice. She loved me when I rolled my eyes at her laughter, refused to eat her dry waffles, called Andy a desperate housewife, and told her that a large pack of toothpicks contained exactly 666.
I don’t do this anymore, and I never will.

     “What are you doing?” Tony asks, reading another soap opera review.
     “Writing facts about myself. I started something like a blog, you know.”
    “Wild,” he says, chewing on the cake I baked. “You’re adding too much flour.”
He coughed, and I barked with laughter.
     I look at the date, and I know Friday the 13th is going to be in three months. It’s not going to be outstanding; there was only one important Friday the 13th. My twin sister should’ve been afraid of darkness, thick rains, and lampposts being out of order, just like my car—not plain numbers and grandma’s superstitions. She should’ve been careful that day; she should’ve took her headphones off and run away from me.
     The collision was an accident, I convinced myself. I didn’t want to hit her that night and watch, observe her fall, her cranium splitting into two parts.
     Two parts that no longer exist.

​About the author:
Nora Ray is a writer who explores the dark sides of human relationships in her fiction.

     “My brother thinks another day in agony is better than an eternity in hell.” Liam said, stabbing his finger with the ritual blade. He dripped red syrupy blood into a vial then signed the contract: Seller agrees to sell, convey, assign and transfer to The Devil, Lucifer, Old Scratch, who shall herein be referred to as the buyer . . .
     “I gave Collin good value for the rights to his soul,” Devlin said while going through the shipping invoices Liam had delivered from the Philadelphia shipyard—the last of his requirements for membership in the concentric ring of the modern version of the K&A gang. Even though it was dangerous to keep around, Devlin always demanded a physical invoice. “I have physical proof.”
     “Fuck your contracts.”
     “A physical contract binds in this world,” Devlin said, opening a concealed wall safe and depositing the contract on top of a row of rolled lambskin. “—and the next.” Once he’d secured the safe—its location finally revealed—he returned to the blotchy corpse of some nameless junkie and fed a metal catheter into the abdomen.
     In the world above, Kensie kids wearing whatever costumes they could cobble together or steal maneuvered around alley junkies to trick-or-treat at the local pubs and shops below the El, defiantly claiming their childhood in the impoverished feudal kingdom—a setting that fed on the unwashed masses but fueled the business of the O’Reilly funeral home. 
     “I do feel for your brother. Even sent flowers,” Devlin said. “We’ll all burn in the fiery lake together.”
     The rest of the crew rubbed Liam’s shoulders and shook his hand—congratulations or commiseration—but Liam couldn’t bear to look in the vacant cavernous eyes of the gray men. Serving Devlin and satisfying their contracts sucked the life out of them; however, in his time operating with the crew—loading stolen cars at the pier to sell them overseas and employing his acumen on a safe or two—Liam had witnessed lingering, yet promising, hints of defiance. And on this, he counted.
     “Old ladies believe in the devil.”
     “Oh, really now?” Devlin said, giggling with glee. “Please attend, boy-o. Hey, lads. The devil’s a con to make you all eat your vegetables, and I won’t come after you if you go.” 
     Not one man twitched, and Devlin pulled up the cover over the cadaver then cracked open a Guinness. “They all signed when they were young bucks, afraid of naught, but then they felt old age creeping up and sought a higher power.”
     “I can’t believe you all buy into this shite!” Liam said, playing with the engraved knife he’d used to draw his blood.
     “I do lay it on a bit thick,” Devlin said. “Halloween. Blood. But that’s what makes it such a convincing story.” Liam couldn’t deny the effects—when a man believed he was damned anyway, nothing restrained him—and what young man wouldn’t jump at the chance to sell magic beans to a fool for a shitload of cash?
     “Well, every good story needs a twist,” Liam said, pressing the ceremonial knife to Devlin’s throat. “My brother’s contract.”
     “The men in this room will cut you down—all souls pledged.”
     Liam’s hand trembled, and he struggled to hold it firm while he scanned the room, looking for a way out. The other soldiers surrounded him, and he backed up into one of the embalming tables, disturbing the peace of one of the corpses. “He’s not the devil! He’s just a good storyteller. The contracts are shite.”
     “Aye, Liam,” he said, giggling under the blade. “But they can’t take that chance. Can your brother? He was diagnosed at the same time you told me you wanted to move up in the gang. They gave him a year. You’ve been patient. If you’re any kind of a man, you’d put two in his head.”
     “I’ll put you in the ground first,” Liam said, trying to steady his hand.
     “I’m just codding ya! Relax.”
     “Just let him go.” 
     “I can’t. I may be the boss on Earth, but in Hell, I’m only the devil’s man—and that’s where your brother’s heading.”
     Liam pressed the blade to his neck but knew if he sliced the artery, the other gang members would cut him down. Even in death, Liam held power over them as long as they believed he held their contracts. 
But maybe that was the answer. 
     “Don’t you see?” Liam said then released the blade. “He’s never going to let you go.”
     Devlin cackled, and his feline grin curved from his lips to his cheekbones, chilling Liam with the look of amusement in those predatorial eyes. “All contracts are binding,” he said.
     “Lads,” Liam said. “Not one of you will defy him, but like Lucifer rose up with his fellow angels, together we can rise up.”
     “You don’t have the stones,” Devlin said.
     “No,” he said. “But I’ve got the digits—best safe man in Kensington. And that’s where you keep the contracts, right?”
     “Feck off,” Devlin said, defiant until the end. “Those contracts are binding, as God is my—”
     “Oh, boss, if you’ve taught me anything, it’s that it has to be on paper to be real.”
     “Enough of this shite,” Devlin said. “Cut him down.” 
     None of the gang stepped up. Instead, they waited while Liam knelt before the safe, and seeing the winds change, Devlin reached for his piece; Joey Ryan grabbed his shoulder and disarmed him while Liam popped the safe. 
     “Here they are, lads,” Liam said. “Let’s have us a fire upstairs in that lovely stone hearth. And when the devil comes calling, ask him for proof of ownership.”
     That night, Liam sat next to his brother’s hospital bed and watched scenes of the cops pulling Devlin’s body out of the Delaware. Then, he switched off the TV and plunged the syringe into the IV, freeing him from the devil’s man.

About the author:
​
​T. Fox Dunham lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with his wife, Allison. He’s a cancer survivor, modern bard, herbalist, baker and historian. His first book, The Street Martyr, was published by Gutter Books, and is in production by Throughline Films. He’s contributed to official Stargate canon with a story published in the Stargate Anthology Points of Origin from Fandemonium Books. More information at tfoxdunham.com & Twitter: @TFoxDunham

​                  It still felt like home.
            JJ stood paralyzed by forces he couldn’t comprehend, his ski mask damp with halitosis, lost in the designer kitchen. This wasn’t his fault.
            “You stupid sons of bitches,” Jack Senior said, his silk pajamas already darkening with sweat around the ropes securing him to the chair. Brian— ‘Jump’— pulled the knot tight and, with the angle of his arms, extracted a sharp cry. Midnight’s darkness lay behind the windows.
            “This isn’t like stealing money from a lemonade stand,” Jack Sr said. He looked back at Jump, “You have a gun, you beat me—”
            “I tackled you,” Brian said, scanning the kitchen for anything else worth taking.
          The old man’s leathery pink flesh turned more crimson with each word, “I’ve been a lawyer for over thirty years, I think I know what qualifies as battery. In the state of Florida, this can get you life. Is that what you want?”
           Brian pulled the gag from his pocket.
          “If you get me out of this chair right now and leave, it's forgive and forget. You’re just trying to get by. You probably hate me because I’m able to live in a place like this, but we’re not that different—”
       Brian shoved a ball of cloth in Jack Senior’s mouth and tied another around his face. The old man’s eyes bulged like a squeeze toy ready to pop.
            “Prep,” Brian said, “You’re up.”
           Even through JJ’s disdain and wish to cause the old man pain, watching Jack Senior thrash and wheeze wasn’t as satisfying as he hoped. “He can’t breathe, Jump. You see the narrow jaw, the crooked teeth? He’s a mouth breather.” The sort you could hear through closed doors down the hall.
         Brian shot JJ a captious look before untying the gag. The old man gasped through tears. “Please, take what you want, just don’t do that again! My sinuses don’t work. You’ll kill me.”
        JJ knew Brian was smiling behind his mask.
      “Tell you what,” Brian said. “So long as you don’t say a fucking word, I won’t put this back on. Prep, move.”
       JJ nodded and started down the hall past the framed memories he forced himself to ignore— posed moments from trips that no one in the photo could stand. He ran the marble stairs to the third floor and turned left towards the master bedroom. A sudden gravity forced him to peer into the empty bedroom on the right. What could he expect?
      The safe rested within the master’s walk-in closet, lodged in the foot space beneath the old man’s tailored suits. He couldn’t help but notice the opposite side of the closet was empty. Another reason to hurt him.
            41295
            He tried not to think about the safe’s code and what it meant. He froze at the shout for help from the kitchen. Stay focused, he thought.
            Lawyers like Jack Downing Sr. always kept a lot of cash on hand. Bails, bribes, bonuses, they were always ready. He checked the bags on the top row and felt something stir at the sight of the diamonds.
            JJ’s heart sped as he hurried down the steps, thinking of how this cash was justice. So what if he liked getting high. If he refused to waste his life behind a desk. He hadn’t asked to be brought into this world.
            At the sight of the bastard, limp-headed in the chair, he froze. The gag was back in and a stream of blood poured from an open gash on his forehead.
            “Take your time, Prep,” Brian said, snatching the duffel.
            “What happened?” JJ asked.
            “He was talking.”
            A sudden chill ran through JJ’s body. Jack Senior had no pulse at either the neck or wrists. He peeled the eyelids open and found pupils the size of coins.
            “Fuck, Jump…” JJ said.
            “Are you staying?” the other man asked.
     With a sudden need for air, JJ almost pulled his mask off— only remembering at the last moment the security cameras. He spared one final look at the old bull, drenched in sweat and limp. At the pounding of boots fleeing across the yard, he turned and ran.
           The only sound in the car was the passing freeway.
          “You all right, Prep?” Brian asked.
          JJ’s hands trembled on the steering wheel. “What?”
         Brian shook his head and looked through the duffel. “Almost two hundred thousand— not counting the jewelry.”
            “Maybe we keep the jewelry,” JJ said, the black ocean racing past on their left.
            “Don’t get attached to things,” Brian said. “Your mom would rather you eat than hold onto a few stones she wore once a year.”
            JJ tried not to imagine the lifeless flop of his dad’s head.
            “Good news though,” Brian said. “You’re about to come into some major money when his will goes through.”
            He felt himself shrinking into the driver’s seat. “We haven’t spoken in four years. Not even at my mom’s funeral. I’m not in his will.”
            He tossed a wallet onto JJ’s lap. “If you weren’t, would he still keep your picture in there?”
            Jack Junior looked down and saw his little league photo, bright eyed, blonde, holding the bat his dad had got him for his ninth birthday, and earnest, gap-toothed smile on his face— with the same amount of teeth he had now.
            Smoke danced through Jump’s teeth. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Prep.”
            JJ wasn’t sure of that. In the last hour, he might have learned everything he needed to know.

About the author:

Mark Manifesto is a writer, teacher, father, and lover of stories. He’s been writing fiction, essays, articles, and poetry the past seven years. He studied Environmental Science, Business Administration, Religious Studies, and Classic Literature at Saint Mary’s College of California.

    We met at Marciano’s in Midtown at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. Hump Day. We sat at the long mahogany bar and drank dirty martinis. She was in her mid-twenties and called herself Anna. She had long legs that ran like the interstate to red, slingback heels and wore short skirts. After three months, I figured it was a standing date. But a glance at my phone indicated 8:15 p.m. and still no Anna. No messages either. That was unlike her. 
I hope she’s safe, I thought.
     I paid for her time. Cash.  And I paid well. Especially since all we did was talk. 
    No, really. Since my wife Mary had passed away over a year ago, I needed someone who’d listen. 
    Anna was that someone. 
    At 8:30 p.m., Anna walked in with an athletic guy half my age. He was boyish looking, but probably close to thirty. She strolled right by, didn’t even give me a nod. Her musky perfume hit me like a cinder block to the head. 
    At 9:15 p.m., after downing two cocktails at a corner high top, they left arm-in-arm, her face nuzzled in the nape of his neck. Her hot, breathy voice singing sweet nothings in his ear.
    I followed them closely for a few blocks and slipped into the apartment building they entered before the main entrance swung shut. I skulked up the stairs behind them and hung back until they closed their apartment door. 
But they didn’t. They left it half open. 
    Why?
    I didn’t surprise them when I finally entered. They were waiting for me. The main room was empty, not a single furnishing or decoration. Anna stood at the center under the warm glow of a dome-shaped ceiling lamp. She held a pocket-size .22. Her male companion was off to her side. He had a snub-nosed .38 pointed at my gut. My heart pounded in my throat.
    Anna broke the silence. “Close the door, Don.”
    I held fast, my feet planted on the hardwood floor.
    “Now,” she said.
    I pushed it shut.
    “What’s going on?” I said, my voice wavering. “I thought we had an arrangement. Then you show up with this clown. And now guns?”
    Anna cleared her throat. “You’re getting excited. That’s not like you.”
    I took a step forward and her companion moved closer. I stopped.
    “You’ve been playing me.”
    “It’s not like that,” she said. “Be smart. No one needs to get hurt.”
    I raised my voice. “It’s a little late for that.”
    “Calm down.”
    “What do you want?”
    “What do you think?
    “Money?” I said.
    Before she could answer, her partner spoke up. “Ten grand.” His voice was thin and didn’t match his muscles.
    I laughed.
    “You can afford it,” he said.
    He was right. 
    “How do I know you won’t kill me after you get it?”
    He smirked. “You don’t.”
    “I don’t carry ten grand on me.”
    He gestured with the .38. “But you can get it.” 
    Anna glared at him. “We don’t have time for that. I told you to keep it simple.” 
    She turned to me. “Hand him your wallet, Don. At the end of the month, you can cancel the credit cards. After that, I promise you won’t hear from us.”
    “You ‘promise,’ huh?”
    Her jade eyes turned dark. “I’m in trouble. I owe some people money.”
    I grinned. “Really?”
    “It’s the truth. We’re leaving town tonight.”
    “And I’m an easy mark.”
    “I need a fresh start.”
    “Then you should’ve come to me.”
    “It’s too late for that,” she said.
    “We could’ve figured this out. You wouldn’t have had to run.”
     “These people want their pound of flesh.” 
    “I could’ve—”
    “Enough!” her lover said. “One old man can’t solve this.”
    I fixed my eyes on Anna. “Have you really thought this through?”
    She nodded but it lacked confidence.
    “How do you know I won’t cancel the credit cards tonight? Or call the cops?”
    “The same way I knew you’d follow us. You’re a good guy, Don. But you can’t let things go.”
    I shook my head.
    “After three months,” she said. “I know you.”
    “I’m not so sure you do.”
    “You’re no regular john. I know that.”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
    Anna stepped out of the light. “Help me now. Please.”
    I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m going to reach for my wallet.”
    I slid my hand into my inside blazer pocket. I grabbed my wallet, opened it, and handed her partner the credit cards. 
    “The cash too,” she said.
    I handed him ten hundred dollar bills.
    “Now forget us,” she said.  “And remember, it’s just money.”
    “It’s more than that.”
    “Don’t be dramatic. This isn’t personal, it’s business.”
    “Everything’s personal,” I muttered.
    Anna raised her .22 level with my chest. “Don’t let pride force me to do something we’ll both regret.”
    I let her words hang there. 
    Then I walked out and down the stairs to the street and headed south. The 9mm Sig Sauer holstered under my left shoulder dragged me down. 
    Why hadn’t I pulled my gun when I reached for my wallet? Why hadn’t I put Anna and her boyfriend down? I was a professional. Retired, but with years of hits under my belt. It would’ve been easy to kill them: a nice Sunday stroll on a cool autumn day. 
    But she’d listened to me for three months. Twelve Wednesdays. She’d softened the edges of my loss and heartache with her comforting words and smiles. Even if it was all an act, she’d helped me to heal. 
    Maybe this was a small price to pay to ease a broken heart. Maybe I owed it to her. Maybe I got what I paid for after all.
    I slipped my hand to my weapon. The grip was comforting, an old friend. 
    Then I let it go.
    If Anna shook me down again, she’d get more than she bargained for. She didn’t know me. Not really. 
    Not my heart.
    Next time, I’d have no trouble settling up.

​About the author:

James Patrick Focarile is an award-winning writer who resides in the Northwest, U.S.A. He holds an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and an M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. His work has appeared in the following: Mystery Tribune, Guilty Flash, Shotgun Honey, Close To The Bone, Thrill Ride Magazine, and more. For more info, visit: JamesPatrickFocarile.com   

     The first thing Hallie did when her fiancé died was to shear off her hair. His corpse was still warm in the bedroom as she stood before the bathroom mirror, washed the blood from the blades of the scissors, and watched it swirl down the drain. She lifted her long blond tresses away from her neck and began to cut. As the tangled strands landed in the trashcan she felt a heavy weight falling away. 
     She looked in the mirror and smiled. The person smiling back was someone she didn’t know, a naked woman with tears in her eyes and jaggedy points of hair sticking out all over her head. Hallie could hardly wait to get to know this beautiful stranger. 
     Now she could start fresh, begin her life all over again.
She turned on the shower and when the water was almost too hot to bear, she stepped in. She lathered herself with shampoo and soap that released the scent of flowers.
     After drying herself with a thick, fluffy towel, she used it to wipe down the shower and the sink. She stuffed the towel into the trashcan and, almost as an afterthought, she dropped in the scissors too.
     She stepped into the bedroom, averting her eyes from Martin’s body on the bed. Her clothes still lay heaped in the corner where they’d been when he died. She carried them into the bathroom and hastily put them on, glad to see that her jeans and shirt showed no traces of blood.
Hallie hadn’t intended to kill him. It was an act of self-defense. Martin always liked to play rough in bed, but this time he’d closed his hands around her throat more tightly than ever before. Struggling to breathe, she choked out, “Basta!”—Italian for enough, their safe word, the signal that he must stop. He ignored her. Squeezed harder.
   Her body bucked, her arms flailed. She banged her hand on the bedside table and felt something metal. Cool, hard.
     The scissors.
   Earlier in the afternoon they’d been shopping. Martin had bought a new cashmere coat. Back at the house, he’d taken the coat and Hallie into the bedroom. He snipped off the hangtags and hung the coat in the closet. Then, abandoning the scissors and tags on the table, he flung Hallie onto the bed. 
As his hands crushed her throat, she gasped for breath. Her lungs felt ready to explode. Pinpoints of bright light danced in the darkness in front of her eyes.
Her fingers closed around the scissors. She pulled them in close, next to her head. 
    “Basta!” She tried to scream it, but she couldn’t push the word past the band of fists sealing her throat.
     Frantic to make him release her, she jabbed at his hands with the scissors. Jabbed again. 
     Without letting go, he lowered his head to kiss her.
     It was luck, or perhaps fate, that guided the blades to the hollow at the base of his neck and thrust them deep into his flesh. Martin collapsed on top of her, bathing her face in his blood.
     For a long moment she lay there, too shocked to move. Then she rolled out from under him and curled into a ball, crying as she sucked in sweet, wonderful air. 
     Surely Martin hadn’t planned to kill her, any more than she intended for him to die. But what if he had meant it? What if he’d concocted a scheme to get rid of her and blame her death on innocent lovemaking that, in their passion, they let get out of hand? Or maybe he wouldn’t explain what happened but would simply wrap her body in the cashmere coat and toss her in the lake, as if she never even existed. 
    Lately they spent most of their time together quarreling. She’d been pressing him for decisions about their future. Maybe his hands wringing her throat had been his answer to her demands.
     The shifting slant of the afternoon light through the curtains told her time was running short. She made herself get up and go into the bathroom. That was when she took the scissors to her hair. Martin loved it long. He once said he’d kill her if she cut it. She always assumed he was making a joke, using a figure of speech. 
     Now she stared at herself in the mirror again, running her palm over her shorn head. It felt so odd. She wondered if anyone she knew would recognize her. If not, that was okay. She scarcely recognized herself.
     Better take the stuff in the trashcan with her, Hallie decided. She lifted out the plastic liner with all of its telltale contents and shoved it into the shopping bag that had held the cashmere coat. The bag would look less conspicuous if someone saw her leaving the house.
     Self-defense, yes. Even so, Hallie didn’t want to stay around to tell her story to the police.
   She paused by the bed long enough to pull a blanket over the body. “Goodbye, Martin,” she said. “I loved you, you know. I believed all the promises you made. I should have known that for you, love would never be enough.”
     Hallie had no idea where she would go, what she would do next. For so long, her life had revolved around Martin’s plans, Martin’s needs, Martin’s whims. She no longer had a real sense of what she, Hallie, wanted and needed. But she was eager to find out. To her surprise what she felt now was not grief but relief, not a sense of loss but an opening of possibilities.
     The bedroom door made a satisfying click as she shut it behind her.
     Martin’s wife was in for a surprise when she got home.

​About the author:

Margaret Lucke flings words around as an author, editor, and teacher of fiction writing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. She writes tales of love, ghosts, and murder, sometimes all three in one book. She is a former president of the Northern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Visit her at https://margaretlucke.com/

   Remember, Ricky, when we were kids and used to throw stones off the bridge into the Susquehanna? The second the stone left your hand, you knew its whole future was set, how it would soar and splash and fall to the bottom of that river that seemed to flow on forever. I wish you were here right now. God, I do. 
     The Blue Haven is the way you remember. Cold and rainy as it is today, this bar’s as good a place as any to shelter from the weather. The neon sign in the window glows like blue ice.  I’m sitting at our regular table near the front. You know how I like to keep an eye on who comes through the door. I’m drinking my usual, Tenec’s Rye and water.  That first sip of the day is like the kiss of a princess, but now I have a spin in my head and my tongue is a little numb. Terry’s tending bar. You know how he brags about the baseball bat under the counter. In twenty years, we never seen or heard of him laying a hand on it, right? Especially today.  It’s slow, only a couple of old guys nursing their drinks ‘til they can go home to supper.
    When I first knew you were dead, I’m not kidding, it was like being dropped on the dark side of the moon. No air. No light. You wonder how a person’s heart can stand such pain. Since we were kids, Ricky, I always looked on you as a little brother, didn’t I? In a fight, you were very good with your hands. I was more the thinker, trying to use my brain to get us out of scrapes. When we grew up and chose the life, I swore that I would have your back. You know that.
Your funeral this morning was beautiful. Rosewood casket, buckets of flowers. The largest wreathe was mine. All our friends were there, showing you tremendous respect. Even Lorenzo showed up, if you can believe it. God bless your poor Claudia and the kids. They were wrecks but put on brave faces. What could I say to them? 
    The graveside service was a little rushed because of the wind and rain. As the priest droned on, I couldn’t take my eyes off the tarp covering the pile of dirt and your grave wide open like a mouth. I tried to slip away quiet at the end of the service, but Lorenzo cornered me, patted me on the back, shook my hand. After that, I needed to drop in here for a few drinks to restore my soul.
The word on the street is that your exit was a professional piece of work. And everybody knows that you were treated with respect. It was late at night, so no witnesses. The paper said that you were probably walking with someone in the park, someone you knew, under the streetlights along the river. That the shooter fell a half-step behind and pumped one quick round into the back of your neck. Like flicking off a light switch. The shot didn’t leave a mark on your face. They left your body along the main park road so that you would be quickly found and trucked to the morgue, before rats or weather could mess with you. And the shooter tucked a C-note in your hand to tell the world that you were somebody, a high-value target. 
    Ricky, I’ll probably never find out what you did to earn the bullet. But we both know how the hit would have come down. A call comes from a boss that you got to erase a guy and it has to be you because he’s your friend and trusts only you. If you say, “No, thanks, he’s a buddy,” well, you’re in the life and you know the rules. You get rubbed out for refusing the order and a second-string shooter takes out your friend instead and maybe botches the job. 
    People say the greatest gift you can give a friend is to take a bullet for him. They’re wrong. The greatest gift is to have the guts to put a bullet into your friend with mercy and dignity. Knowing that you will have to live on, tasting ashes…
   ​ But where are my manners? Here, I told Terry to pour you a shot of rye. I’m sorry for the rough weather you’re suffering out there today. I hope this nip warms your spirit. Take it, Ricky. Drink your fill, the angel’s share. 
And rest easy.

​