|
He was my first, the one with the scarf.
I edged gently off the bed. It wasn’t light but I could see my way around. I’d never been in a hotel before. Unless you count the hotel bar. Strange being so high up. I stood for a moment gazing out the window at a building opposite, a great grid of other windows, feeling briefly one of their elevated caste. I took panties, but no more, from the stockings, skirts and stays slung over a chair back. He paid for the night. As he fell asleep he joked I’d never leave because I’d want to marry him. I said he’d still have to pay, I wasn’t tricked so easily. He told me I’d be surprised, his greatest trick was making girls disappear. I did want to disappear—before dawn could betray the face in the mirror. A handcloth lay on the edge of the sink; nearby, a shaving brush and blade on a marble ledge. I wiped away ruined makeup and drank water from a glass. The small window, open a crack, gave faint sounds of hooves and farther off, a motor’s growl. Back in the room, he sprawled like an Olympian sated by a nymph. He was handsome, which I guess was fortunate. I’d almost given up. My roommate got picked up in an automobile and she tried swinging a deal for the two of us, but no dice. When the music hall let out a block away, business improved, but not for me. I wondered what the show had been. I heard snippets—about believing him or not, how he did it, that he was a veritable master, by George. Chortles about doing what he could do with a woman, at the office or at home. The street had nearly emptied when someone emerged from a lane alongside the hall, turning east with a confident step. He neared, stopped, and studied me. I’d placed myself partly in shadow, where my heavy makeup might look natural. Where one hand, tucked in my skirt, would escape notice. If something in you doesn’t want to show your face—your real face, the only thing that is really yours in this grasping world—and all they can see is where you’ve lost fingers to a fabric cutter, then employers will tell you they prefer girls more approachable, more capable. So I got no work in sales, in offices, in restaurants. And no suitors sought my hand. But in the dark magic of the night, masked in powder and paint, it was different. “My dear thing,” he said in a suave midwestern voice, like Clark Gable. “Are you entertaining this evening?” A silk scarf hung carelessly around his neck, so I named a steep price and called him Baby. He paused and something grim showed in his pursed lips. I thought I’d blown it. But he lifted his hand to my hair, brushed my ear with his fingertips, and showed me a silver dollar. “Will this do for a deposit?” It did. He introduced himself as Marvello—as you must have guessed, a magician. He was the opening act for a big RKO flick about Houdini. But he didn’t act at all like a Houdini; he acted like a Carnegie or a Rockefeller. I don’t know what a magician makes but he must have spent most of it on that hotel room. He stirred and grunted. I regarded his open wardrobe trunk. On one side, tight rows of shelves held a dozen bottles with Latin names on them. P. Lycopoda. Ergotia. Last night he’d translated some: flash powders (explosions, smoke), hand powders (sleight of hand and palming tricks), colorants (alchemical transformations), opium (countless uses, apparently), convulsives (I didn’t ask), etc. They were his équipement de guerre. All you needed to make the world your oyster. That and champagne. He’d winked, gesturing to the ice bucket. “I didn’t know magic was so real,” I said appreciatively, after a couple of glasses. “Nothing is real, my dear. It’s all tricks.” Leaning close, he purred, “Life isn’t real. Death isn’t real. Only you are real. There’s only you.” I wasn’t sure if he meant himself, or me. He began unbuttoning my blouse and it didn’t matter. Idly now, I tugged at a tiny drawer on the other side of the trunk. Cufflinks, tie pins, buttons, a needle and thread. Another drawer with newspaper clippings. Reviews of his act. A notice of a missing woman—someone he knew perhaps. I rifled, curious. Another missing woman, a different one. Disappeared. Suddenly my heart started thudding. I closed the drawer and turned to my clothes. “Don’t get dressed,” he said. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, smiling. “It’s still night, remember? Until I give the word.” “I’m cold,” I said. “Come here, then.” “All right.” My throat was dry again. I coughed and my thoughts tumbled. “I’ll just get some water.” When I came back his eyes were open and on me–and feral. I kept my damaged hand behind my back. “You don’t have to hide it,” he said, no longer smiling. “This is when you show me everything, girl. This is the reveal.” He extended his arm as if we were on stage. I slipped slowly into the bed next to him. Immediately he twisted on top of me, hands on my shoulders, pushing down hard. One hand went to my neck. “The thing about magic,” he breathed, using his other hand to push down my panties, “is someone is always the dupe. The one who sees the girl is gone. It’s all about controlling who sees. The flash. The powder.” He smirked. “Only you know if she was ever there.” His fingers crushed my neck. I lost breath and my chest heaved. I freed the hand from my back and drew the razor right across his throat. As I said, he was the first. © 2025 Glenn Willmott About the author: Glenn Willmott is a pulp magazine lover and fiction writer who studies modernity and wonder at Queen’s University in Canada.
0 Comments
It's the oldest profession, and somehow it's become the family business.
My mother was a dancer. The kind of dancer that men like my father, a trucker from Santa Cruz, paid good money to spend time with. He had fun, she got her $50 and eighteen years with me. When she left forever, I cried. What will happen to you? I asked. She shrugged. There are some things you don't need to know. I pulled my hair up in a tight ponytail and lined my lips in matte pink lipstick. I had a variety of shades lined up on my mahogany vanity. Gloss? No, that would be too forward. You get by on your looks and you'll never really work a day in your life, my mother always said. It was all she ever said, before making a few bucks on her back. I never wanted to be like her. All I had when I dropped out of school was my looks. My golden hair, my blue eyes, my curves. Men looked at me. Men wanted me. The cell on my vanity rang. Unknown number. This happened a lot; men who wanted to stay anonymous. “Hello, Lavender speaking.” Silence. I pulled the phone back. It was still connected. I put it to my ear. “Hello?” A click, and the call dropped. The job started innocuously enough. A few dates with rich men. A few sugar daddies. Eventually it became a lucrative business. And, like Mom said, I was getting by on my looks. That is, until I met James. James McGuffin. Art critic. He'd get me into his shows to hang on his arm, making his coworkers jealous. The phone rang again. Unknown number. “This is Lavender.” Silence again. My lip upturned into a smirk. Men could be so funny, my mother always told me so. “There's no need to be shy, dear.” The call disconnected. I slipped the phone into my handbag. Work functions like James’s required a suit, shorter heels, and straight hair with only the hint of a curl at the edge of the ponytail. I knew this role. I air-kissed towards the mirror. I looked just on the edge of tart, but still professional. A rap hit my front door. Must have been my pizza. With one last wink to the mirror, I snatched cash off my side table as I grabbed the handle. A homely older woman in a floral dress stood on the stoop. Her mousey-brown hair fell limp at her shoulders and her round spectacles took up the majority of her narrow face. A traditional, stiff housewife. “Are you Lizzie?” she asked in the tiniest squeak of a voice. Lizzie. That was a name I hadn't used since I was back with Mom. Lavender had seemed more seductive, something that rolled off the tongue better. It was a hooker’s name. My Mom liked it. “Yeah,” I said, leaning my hip against the doorframe. “That's me. Who are you?” She tossed back her shoulders and lifted her chin. I suppose that's when I should have realized something was wrong. Meek ladies like that don't stand up to women like me. We're in different leagues, different calibers. Different aisles of the lingerie section. But this lady? She firmed up her stance like she was about to take a punch. “I'm James McGuffin’s wife,” she announced. Well, shit. That was always a bummer. Definitely not the first time I had to explain my services to someone, and probably wouldn't be the last. I opened my mouth to speak when the thought struck me: How did she know my name? She pulled a gun from seemingly nowhere. The lights from the hallway glimmered in her dark pupils. Murder, Mom would have said. She had murder in her eyes. She took a step forward and I took one back. She shut the door behind me. “Jesus,” she sneered. “You two even wear the same shade of lipstick. Guess hookers are all the same.” My back hit the vanity, and my hands curled around my purse. My phone. I could feel it between the layers of Coach leather. “Yeah, no, I don't think so, Lizzie, hand it over,” she flexed an outstretched palm. “No police.” I swallowed, and my heart sank as I fished the device out. I looked down for a second at the table. My lipstick. My hairbrush. My still-hot curling iron. “You don't know why I'm here, do you?” she mused. I didn't. She knew my name, she knew my address, and I knew nothing about her except who her husband was. I was in deep shit. “I guess you're here to tell me to stay away from your man,” I replied, turning around. “I've heard it before.” Mom always told me to be cool with the wives. Never let them see you break. Wives got mad in this job. Especially the floral-wearing, God-fearing, traditionalist types. They'd never pulled a gun before. This was new. Mom never told me how to handle this. The woman’s lip quivered up in a sneer. “Your mother already messed with my man. In a truck stop in Santa Cruz twenty years ago.” The Santa Cruz trucker. Oh, God. Nausea rushed up my throat. “No,” I breathed. “No, he's not.” “Yes,” she hissed, taking a step forward. “He's my husband. And you're going to stay away from my family.” I met him at an art show. He said he heard about me. He wanted to get to know me better. I bought champagne, and we discussed prices. He ran his hands along my thighs. James McGuffin. My father. I swung the curling iron forward, the hot barrel slamming into the side of the woman's cheek. It sizzled, she screamed, and the gun fell with a clatter onto the carpet. I dove for it, and curled my lacquered fingertips around the trigger. There are some things you don't need to know, my mother said. She was right. © 2025 MJ Huntsgood About the author: MJ Huntsgood is a speculative thriller and horror author who enjoys exploring the use of perspective and deep POV in her work to find the nightmare not just in a situation, but within ourselves. She lives in Washington DC with her 5 plants, 2 cats and trophy husband. Again this morning, Hannah wakes up dead. She might have been surprised if she had the courage to feel anything, just as it’s been every day for the last thirteen months and twenty-six days. The claustrophobic cell is awash in blues and grimy greys. A persistent institutional hum intensifies her dense fugue.
Her first thought: Where is my boy? Her brain crackles with tangled memories. Gone. Her son is gone. Metal clanging on metal punctuates the horrific reminder. Hannah cannot breathe. A gruff voice over the loudspeaker bellows the start of another endless day. Hannah struggles to rise against the monstrous weight that pins her rigid body to the unforgiving mattress. *** It happened so abruptly, although not unexpectedly if anyone had been paying attention. If anyone cared enough to notice or offer Hannah help. For three years, she and Jackson tried to conceive. Every bloody month was a reminder that Hannah wasn’t fit to add her genetic code to the Munroe family’s lineage. She desperately wanted to be pregnant and prove to Jackson’s mother that they could make their unlikely coupling work. Two weeks before their first appointment at the swanky fertility clinic, Hannah’s pale yellow pee produced a blue plus sign on the white plastic stick. She and Jackson spooned all night, his gentle hand on her soft belly. Seldom had Hannah felt healthier or more optimistic. Jackson’s mother created a short list of baby names: Mason, Marshall, Maxwell, certain Hannah was carrying another Munroe son. After nineteen hours of focused labor, Mackenzie slipped into the world weighing seven pounds, ten ounces. He was perfect. Perfection lasted two weeks, until Jackson vanished into the world outside their home. His thirst for fatherhood satiated, his long days left him too tired to wake for midnight feedings. Then the crying started. Not Mackenzie. Hannah. She cried every day. Exhausted, she couldn’t sleep. Food tasted like cardboard that she pushed down her throat because a good mother breastfeeds. Her milk dried up. Headaches corrupted her thinking. Her body ached. She shrank until only her shadow remained. Before her body atomized like dust in the wind, Hannah settled on the long, blue sofa with Mackenzie’s tiny, warm body nestled against her chest. She kissed his downy head and closed her eyes. He never cried. *** Since that awful day, Hannah remained as silent as the grave. Unable to answer the unanswerable questions hurled at her by Jackson, his mother, the police, her lawyer, her shrink. How did it happen? Why did it happen? How does she have the gall to go on living? Hannah rolled her leaden body onto her left side. As slow-moving as a week of rain and tears, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her bare feet recoiled from the cold cement floor, and she sucked in a sharp, deep breath. In that moment, a single word escaped her brain, slipped across her lips, and ruptured her months-long silence. “Mackenzie.” The sound of his name shocked Hannah’s heart, transmitting a whisper of life to her dead limbs. She looked out the barred window of her cell as if for the first time. Light scattered the mist in the gray morning sky. She crossed her arms and embraced the memory of her precious son. The monstrous weight of grief shifted and resettled on her chest. Her grief will always be with her. Now she must learn to sit with it. Express it. Learn from it. © 2025 Diana L. Gustafson About the author: Diana L. Gustafson is a Canadian academic and emerging creative author with an MFA from The University of British Columbia. She received an honourable mention in an Off Topic Publishing fiction contest and has a modest record of published fiction and creative non-fiction. She has an embarrassingly large collection of eccentric corrective lenses, but none are rose-coloured, a testament to her commitment to social justice issues. “Why we gotta take my car?” Ricky asked.
“Cuz everyone knows my ride. It catches people’s eyes. It ain’t made for jobs like this one. Your Civic doesn’t stand out,” Josue said. “Let’s take Los’s car. He drives a Maxima.” “Look, the more people know about it the more people you gotta worry about. Keep it simple. We’re doing this, me and you, and we’re driving the Civic. End of story.” Josue put his cigarette out in the overfilled ashtray and flicked it to the stained carpet floor. He grabbed a pair of keys from the coffee table and tossed them to Ricky. “Let’s go.” The two men walked out of the flophouse apartment and descended a crumbling red wooden staircase. The triple decker’s exterior had chipped away over time. A satellite dish was held on to the roof by its last screw. The building leaned inward toward the road. They drove through streets of dilapidated houses and brick apartment buildings that housed tough lives. The turn of the century buildings attempted gilded age glamour without the budget. Each stoplight featured a scuzzball with a cardboard sign. In downtown Springfield, they started at the Carnival Club, a nightclub that attempted to mimic the New Orleans French Quarter with a pink exterior and wrought iron balcony. It wasn’t there. They tried Andino’s Market on Main Street. No luck. They turned the corner of Union Street and parked where they had a vantage point of Fredo’s Market. A meticulously clean white Mercedes was parked between red awnings. “That’s it right there,” Josue said. “How you know it’s the one?” Ricky asked. “The license plate says, ‘BIG DAVE.’” A behemoth in athletic warmups walked out of Fredo’s with a black plastic bag in hand. The bald man with a tight beard and sunglasses that were too small for his head could have been mistaken for an offensive lineman. His gold necklace swayed as he looked up and down the street before opening the car door. Ricky waited for the Mercedes to turn the corner before he put the Civic in drive. He let a couple of cars get between them before following. The Mercedes navigated a few blocks of downtown streets before it pulled into the Carnival Club parking lot with a black iron fence perimeter. Ricky and Josue watched Big Dave enter the building with his lunch in hand. The men squared the block and found street parking where they could watch the Mercedes. Josue removed a bandana from his pocket and tied it behind his neck, letting it hang under his chin. He put on black cotton gloves. Thirty minutes passed before Big Dave left The Carnival Club. He scanned the lot as he trotted back to the Mercedes. Ricky followed and tried to leave a car between them, but none were on the road. He followed the Mercedes through a couple of traffic lights and turned with it onto Main Street. “He’s gonna make you,” Josue said. “It’s either this or we lose him,” Ricky said. Josue saw Big Dave’s eyes glaring at them in the rearview mirror. Big Dave shifted around the driver’s seat and center console. The Mercedes turned into the parking lot of the Italian American Club. “Let’s do it here,” Josue said. He pulled the bandana over his mouth and nose and pulled his hood over his head. He opened the center console and removed a black Glock nine-millimeter. The Civic pulled in behind the Mercedes as it parked nearly touching bumpers. Josue’s sneakers touched the pavement before the Civic stopped. In five rhythmic strides he came around behind the Civic and encountered Big Dave trying to get out of the Mercedes with a silver revolver in hand. Josue squeezed the trigger rapidly at Big Dave’s gut and chest. Big Dave managed to lift the gun and squeeze a round off, but it was aimless. Big Dave painfully screamed and fell face forward onto the concrete looking like a beached whale. Josue aimed the Glock at his back and pulled the trigger three more times. Red stains pooled through Big Dave’s athletic warmups. At the front entrance of the Italian American Club, a woman in her fifties frozen in place inside the doorway. Her eyes were as wide as golf balls and her mouth was stuck open. Josue approached her and tapped the glass door with the Glock. “Me viste dispararle?” The woman looked at Josue but was unable to process what was happening. “El gordo bastardo esta muerta.” Josue watched the woman fall to the floor sobbing. She crawled out of sight. He watched the Civic back out of the parking lot and casually pull onto the road. Josue dropped the Glock next to Big Dave’s body and stepped into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes. *** “I did it just like you said,” Josue said. A thin man in his thirties sat forward in an oversized leather chair. His forearms were placed on a mahogany desk. His custom fitted suit rested perfectly on his body. “You made it look like a carjacking?” “I took the Mercedes if that’s what you mean.” “Where is it now?” “In Holyoke. In the Connecticut River.” “And there was a witness, right? They know this wasn’t Italian?” the man asked. “Yeah, that lady knows it was guys from Holyoke. What now, Gio?” Gio leaned back in his chair and interlaced his hands over his stomach. “It’s not Gio anymore brother, it’s Mr. Godello. Now I run the Springfield crew.” He removed a thick manilla envelope from the desk drawer and handed it to Josue. “And you run our place on Worthington Street.” Josue slid the envelope into his pocket. “We’ll be in touch then.” He walked toward the door. “By the way, I meant to ask you. You did all this with just you and Ricky?” Josue looked over his shoulder. “The more people know about it, the more people you gotta worry about. Keep it simple.” © 2025 Goody McDonough About the author: Goody McDonough is an author from Farmington Valley, Connecticut who specializes in crime fiction. Once he began sawing the barrel off his pump-action 20 gauge, Cody was committed. With a final stroke, the barrel clattered onto the kitchen floor. He hacked off the wooden stock as well, leaving only a fist-sized nub for a grip.
He considered extracting the sportsman’s plug that limited the number of cartridges he could load to three, but shook his head and reached for his coffee mug. His plan was to scare them with noise, like a roaring silverback gorilla, not to kill anybody. Anyway, the last time he’d fussed with the hunter’s dowel, the spring inside the chamber had shot out like a cheap snake-in-a-can gag and he’d spent an hour hunting for it. He winced at the coffee he’d made from re-using grounds a third time and regretted not stealing the Folger’s from the breakroom at Lowe’s on his way out. He hadn’t worked in seven days. He hadn’t requested leave or called in sick. He just came home one night with wobbly ankles screaming from another eight-hour shift walking the concrete floors, took four ibuprofen, and knew he was done. Everybody who worked there walked with a limp, some near the end of their shifts, some all the time. He swept a stack of bills he couldn’t pay off the counter, sending them tumbling to the floor. If laboring forty hours a week couldn’t buy a man food and shelter, it was time to try something new. He hazarded another sip of coffee before dumping it. The mug featured a picture of him and Dana taken at Rye Beach two summers ago. He wasn’t sure why he’d kept it, but he rinsed it out and carefully laid it in the drying rack before leaving. He wore a surgical mask and black hoodie under a long coat to hide the gun. He left his Civic in the Target parking lot and walked to the adjacent Lowe’s. He used the side entrance through the garden center, scattering sparrows and gold finches trapped inside. The cavernous store was always filled with birds, more so after cold snaps like today. He penetrated the swinging doors into the main building and headed for the contractor cash register. Nobody was there. Panicked, he adjusted his mask and doubled his pace toward the returns desk. “That you, Cody?” He turned and saw Jim grinning at him. Jim was a retired contractor who’d lost too many fingers to a bandsaw and come to run Lowes’ lumberyard. “Where you been, man?” Jim slapped him on the back, jostling him enough to expose the shotgun for a moment. Jim stepped back with his palms out. “Whoa, son…” Cody found himself encircled by rough-looking customers in Carhartts and boots. “Back! Up! Now!” he boomed, racking the shotgun with a menacing schlotch! He spun toward a sudden movement and pumped it again. This time, he caught a flash of yellow and figured he’d spooked a bird. The sound of the shotgun pumping did its job and the ring of men took a collective step back. Beyond them, Cody saw a supervisor glance over his shoulder as he fled, a phone already to his ear. Someone moved to his left, and Cody turned in time to catch a man gingerly lifting a 2x4 from his cart. “Nope,” Cody scolded and pumped the 20 once more. The man backed away as another bird swooped by in Cody’s peripheral vision. “Cody, stop this,” Jim said, holding out his three-fingered hand for the gun. With a sneer, Cody pointed his shotgun at the rafters and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He stared at it for the second it took Jim to strip it from his hands. He snatched for it, but Jim had already wound up and the little nub of a stock spun him around when it slammed into Cody’s temple. Lying prone as men leapt on his back, Cody looked toward the contractor register where Jeanine was hustling back, apparently from a bathroom break as she rubbed wet hands on her apron. Between him and the register lay a line of three yellow shotgun shells. The Man hadn’t had to do anything to take him down; Cody had emptied his gun for them, just like he’d done in every fight before. © 2025 Zakariah Johnson About the author: Zakariah Johnson plucks banjos and pens horror, thrillers, and crime fiction on the banks of the Piscataqua. Tyree told everyone the “boat” was the best thing he ever bought himself. He said it to friends, family, and customers at the auto shop. He said it often to his parole officer, and she was glad to hear it because a man his age needed hobbies.
Whenever he had a spare moment on a warm day, Tyree drove down to the Robin River Marina and pulled that heavy kayak off his truck. He’d slip into the water next to the rusted old johnboats tied at the docks and start paddling up against the current. He liked Robin River more than any other water in the state because it was still wilderness along the western bank. The eastern bank was mostly bluffs, with vacation cabins or mansions sitting up on the hills, their big living room windows facing the river. There were some docks along the eastern shore where rich people parked their yachts under security floodlights. But the western side was flat and marshy. After a good rain, Tyree could navigate his way in there, chasing carp or catfish, maybe a gar if he was lucky. But Tyree didn’t always go out fishing. Often as not, he left his rod and tackle in the truck and went out with just a big, black trash bag. He’d spend hours collecting litter out of the western marshes, trying to do some good in the world. One evening in late July, Tyree was out paddling through the marshes, between sunken tree stumps and fallen timbers, pulling litter from the water, packing it in his bag. He lost all track of time out there, until eventually he happened to spot an orphaned black bag, similar to his own, leaning against a stump. He encountered bags like this frequently, stuffed with trash, probably carried and lost by other do-gooders cleaning up the river. He paddled over to the bag and reached out, clasping the red ribbon tied around its top. The bag rolled over and the body that was hidden beneath it floated to the surface. Tyree sat stunned while the bag floated on, deeper into the marsh. It looked to be a man’s body, shirtless but still wearing jeans, floating facedown. The skin was mottled and bloated and hung loosely. Must be recently dead, thought Tyree. It was hot, and he should’ve decomposed more if he was dead a long while. Worst of all, the man had little slits in his flesh all up and down his back, all of them the same size. Tyree didn’t try to count them. His first instinct was to paddle as fast as he could back to the marina, grab his phone out of the truck and call the police. But something nagged at him, made him pause. Something the public defender said all those years back, right before he took the plea deal. No, he wasn’t the one who shot the attendant at that check cashing place—that was one of the other guys in his crew. But Tyree got caught. That was the difference, the lawyer said. Prosecutors don’t want the right answer; they want the quick answer. An old ex-con, out paddling at dusk, next to a body stabbed all to hell—what’s a prosecutor gonna think is the quick answer here? Didn’t even matter if it all came out right in the end—he’d still probably get arrested, and the shop wouldn’t keep him on after that. No, he wouldn’t call the police himself. But he also couldn’t let the guy float there. Nobody ever came to that side of the river. If the poor guy was ever gonna get some justice, someone needed to find him on the eastern bank. Tyree pulled off his life vest and strapped it onto the corpse. It was slow going out in the middle of the river, towing the deceased with a braided dock line. The vest kept the body from sinking and dragging too much, but it didn’t make the dead man any lighter. Tyree’s only bit of luck was that he was headed downstream and could let the current help him tow the body. Tyree tried to reassure himself as he hauled his morbid cargo. Someone was bound to find the corpse on the eastern bank, probably the very next morning. Once he pulled that vest off, no one would have any reason to think Tyree was anywhere near the body. Only he would know, and he would know that he’d done the right thing, saving a murdered man from anonymity. After a long, tough paddle, Tyree reached the eastern bank, beneath one of the big houses on the bluffs. He slid his kayak against the mud until it came to a firm stop, turned and watched the body bumped gently against the shore. All Tyree needed was to collect the vest and he’d be gone. He climbed from the kayak, boots squelching in the mud, and hadn’t even stood fully erect when the floodlights flashed on. The white lights were aimed right at the riverbank—right at him—from the big house, where lamps flared on and voices shouted to one another. It was bright as noon and only now could Tyree see he’d landed close to a private dock with a small river yacht—the sort of thing rich people protect with motion sensors and floodlights. Sirens, too, apparently. Lots of sirens blaring out over the water. © 2025 Jesse Bethea About the author: Jesse Bethea is an award-winning journalist, author and videographer living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and three cats. I’m hungry for a story. Hipsters flock to Charlie’s Grill, a retro greasy spoon, on weekends. But by 10:30 on a Monday, I’m alone at the counter except for the smell of bacon. The previous customers were singularly boring.
Banging pots, the hiss of the grill, a crude joke in Spanish. Nothing of interest emanates from the pass through. The waitperson, Kailey, checks on the mom, dad, and kid in a booth to my left. They yielded zilch—their noses stuck in their phones. I’ve hoovered up the juicy crime stories in the San Francisco Chronicle and fold it near my right forearm. The newspaper now serves only as a prop. Kailey breezes by, plucks up the coffee pot, aims her baby blues my way. “Refill?” “Don’t mind if I do.” Through the years, I’ve overheard enough spicy tidbits at the last minute to make it hard to abandon a spot. Kailey pours and hustles back to the family. At the entrance, a man leans on his cane to hold the glass door for a woman—presumably his wife. She scampers in, then presses back against the door so he can hobble through. They stop dramatically, casing the joint before taking up residence at the farthest booth to my right, the man facing my direction. Silver hair spirals from a small pink circle at the crown of the woman’s head. When Kailey glides over there with the menus, I scooch one stool nearer to them. They decline coffee. Suspicious. Kailey leaves to “give them a minute.” “What are we doing here?” the man asks. “Having breakfast.” A crisp response. He dispels my initial thought of dementia when he replies, “You know that’s not what I meant. We should be taking care of—” She shushes him. Why does “taking care of” require shushing? She tosses her head in my direction and whispers, “She could be listening.” “What?” He glances my way. I study the newspaper. “Turn up your hearing aid,” she says. “If I do, all I’ll hear is clanking silverware.” She sighs. “What are you having?” “Pancakes?” “What do you think you’ll put on those pancakes?” “Syrup.” I risk turning my body slightly. “You can’t have syrup,” she says. “That’s the same as sugar. A killer.” His droopy cheeks droop more. “I wish Sarah was here.” “Sarah is here.” “Pfft.” He spins a knobby hand. “You know I don’t mean you.” “Just trying to lighten the mood.” She slaps down her menu. “I’m having scrambled eggs.” She picks up her paper napkin bundle of silverware. “Lighten the mood?” he echoes. “Someone is dead.” Sarah shushes him again. My ears prick like a bunny’s. My neck cranes their direction until a vertebra pops. “Listen, Fred: what do you think Sarah could do?” In spite of her previous shushing, her voice rises. She flips both palms upward and fork, spoon, and knife clatter to the Formica table. “She’s two thousand miles away.” She twists and strangles the napkin with both hands. “She’d back me up about calling the police.” Fred lays down his menu. “I’ll get eggs, too.” “Not fried,” she says. He folds his arms over his blue cable-knit sweater. “I’m getting bacon.” Silently relenting, Sarah smooths her mangled napkin on the table. A red line must have been reached. Kailey drops off the check to the family and circles to take the couple’s order. When the waitress leaves and reaches a safe distance, Sarah says, “Sarah doesn’t have money to hire us a lawyer.” “Why would we need a lawyer?” My thought exactly. Kailey’s shouted delivery of the order drowns out the start of Sarah’s response. I hear only “–coming with an eviction notice. No one will believe it was an accident.” “Look at us.” Fred points an arthritic finger at her, at himself, and then back at Sarah. “No one would think we killed him.” Sarah’s back straightens an inch. She swats Fred’s finger, not playfully. “We were going to lose our home--motive.” She lowers her voice. I strain to hear. “We were present--opportunity.” “But he slipped,” Fred protests. Sarah corrals her fork, spoon, and knife. Rewraps them for no reason. “Well… ” Sarah twists around—and I wonder if she’s caught me whipping back to gaze at my newspaper. “Was that woman on that stool when we entered?” The door smacks shut behind the departing family. “What?” says Fred. “I really don’t think we should be out eating breakfast. Why are we doing this?” Sarah leans far over the table to speak into Fred’s hearing aid, then plops back to her booth bench. “You know that doesn’t work,” he says, starchily. “It’s like wind on a microphone.” His volume climbs. “I heard rug. And water? What the hell are you saying? Pulled what?” “What I’m saying,” her voice ratchets up to match his, “is that—” Ding. Ding. Ding. Motive. Opportunity. Just when we might have reached means, Sarah is saved by the bell. I slide a fiver on the counter—enough to cover the coffee, tax, and tip—and swing around. This old lady is a dangerous criminal. A murderer. But my eyes don’t validate my ears. Sarah’s neck bends and her shoulders slump, fragile blades poking at her blouse. “Shhhh, shhh, shhhh.” Fred quiets her in a gentle tone. “It’s okay.” His gnarled hand palms his wife’s. “It was an accident.” His head nods assent to his statement. “We’ll call the police.” His thumb tenderly caresses her wrist. “That’s our story. He slipped.” As I stride toward the door, I decide that will be my story, too. Nothing I want to report. It’s colorful hearsay, that’s all. © 2025 Vinnie Hansen About the author: The day after high school graduation, Vinnie Hansen fled the howling winds of South Dakota and headed for the California coast. There the subversive clutches of college dragged her into the insanity of writing. A Silver Falchion and two-time Claymore Award finalist, she’s the author of the Carol Sabala mystery series, the novels Lostart Street and One Gun, as well as over seventy published short stories. Vinnie lives in Santa Cruz with her husband and the requisite cat. The fire worked slowly, devouring the manor with an insatiable hunger. Golden flames climbed the beams, tearing them apart as they transformed the grand estate into blackened ruins. Smoke poured into the night, where the cold held firm, sharp and merciless. Daniel stood in the open, a shadow against the blaze. His shoulders were rigid, his face illuminated by the shifting light of the flames. He didn’t flinch as the embers floated past him, nor did he step back from the heat pressing against his skin.
In his hand, the pistol hung heavy. The gates behind him, locked tight, marked the edge of his world. He waited, the fire at his back, his eyes fixed on the empty road ahead. *** Javier gripped the wheel tightly as the car tore down the winding road, gravel rattling under the tires, headlights sweeping across trees and shadows. His chest tightened with every mile, the low sputter of the engine doing nothing to drown out the thoughts assailing his mind. Then he saw it. The glow hit first: bright and unnatural. The air turned bitter, the stench of burning wood and something worse clinging to him as he approached. The car skidded to a halt. The house—his house—was gone. The structure that had once towered over the hills, that had held his life within its walls, was now a collapsing skeleton. Flames chewed through what remained, and ash engulfed the sky. But his eyes weren’t on the house for long. A figure stood at the edge of the blaze, still as a statue, the fire casting long shadows around him. Daniel. Javier’s stomach twisted. He lowered the window just enough to let his voice carry. “You’ve lost your mind.” Daniel didn’t move. The gun in his hand caught the light, its dark metal reflecting the fire. Slowly, he turned his head, his expression unreadable. “Get out of the car.” The words cut through the crackle of the fire. Javier stayed where he was, gripping the wheel. “Is this what you wanted?” His voice was low, tight with disbelief. “To burn it all down? To make some point?” Daniel stepped closer, his boots crunching over gravel. “You think this fixes anything?” Javier’s voice rose, trembling as he pointed toward the burning wreckage. “My God, Daniel. She was in there.” That stopped him. Daniel’s head tilted, his brow furrowing. “What?” “Angel,” Javier said, his voice breaking. “My wife. She was still inside! You’ve killed her!” The words landed hard. Daniel froze, his grip on the gun loosening for just a moment. “She wasn’t supposed to be there,” Javier continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “She was!” Javier’s shout ripped through the night. His chest heaved, the words spilling out in uneven bursts. “You burned her alive. You killed her, Daniel. You—” His voice quivered. Daniel’s shoulders slumped. He looked back at the flames, his mouth opening as if to argue. But no words came. When he finally turned back to Javier, his eyes were wet, glinting in the firelight. “She never loved you,” he said. “She didn’t care about you. She didn’t care about anyone. Just the money. The two of you, you’ve taken everything from me—everything.” Javier clenched his jaw, his fingers pale against the wheel. “And what did that get you?” His voice dropped, shaking with grief. “What did any of this get you?” Daniel faltered, his shoulders sagging under the weight of it all. He looked at the pistol in his hand as if seeing it for the first time. “You took everything,” he muttered, the words so soft they nearly disappeared in the roar of the fire. Javier’s eyes flicked to the pistol, then back to Daniel. His foot shifted toward the gas pedal. The first shot shattered the side mirror. The second tore through the windshield, scattering glass. The third silenced everything. © 2025 River J. Myers About the author: River J. Myers is a Phoenix-based writer and librarian exploring contemporary fiction and dark epic fantasy. They hold a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in English Education, and are currently pursuing their MLIS at Louisiana State University. Their work has appeared in WILDsound, with forthcoming publications in Eunoia Review and other venues. Between pages, they can be found hunting down Phoenix's best local eats and watching Eagles games. 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. |
Free flash fiction on the first and third weeks of the month.
Archives
May 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed