Short Stories

I got the idea for this story during a conversation with a co-worker of mine, about an oddity she kept in her apartment. Not wishing to give too much away, I’ll leave it at that for now. Instantly, my mind began concocting a story about it. The result is the tale found here, which was first published in the October 2021 online edition of the dark fiction magazine The Chamber. I guess you could say it all happened because of…

“Ravi had just worked a double shift and was having trouble keeping his eyes open.” The young woman spoke through her tears, arms folded, and legs crossed. Her foot fidgeted in such a way that spoke of her harried mental state. Traumatized, thought Detective Peters. With good reason. Her boyfriend had just been found dead and drained of nearly every drop of blood, a pair of puncture wounds in his neck the only observable injury. Peters watched her closely, looking…

The soldier named Red gripped his M1 and spat into the snow. “I don’t like it. If there’s Germans in that tree line, we’ll be sitting ducks.” Another soldier, the one they called Stink because of the way he always wrinkled his nose, added, “if we fall through the ice, we’ll freeze to death even if we get out. I say we look for a real bridge further up.” With their squad leader dead and none of them truly in…

I walk through the meadow holding my hands to my sides, the bluebonnets bending on their stalks as I pass barefooted through their masses. It’s summer again, time for another meeting with the neighbors who border my property, 50 acres of east Texas prairie that reverted to me when my husband disappeared a dozen years ago. “Still no sign of Johnny?” they’d asked last year, their collective stares burning into me from around the candle-lit room. “Still no sign,” I…