Bramble Man, by Simon West-Bulford

Thorns gouged jagged lines into Arnold’s palm with each desperate yank at the vines. He paid no attention to the bloody stains smeared across his overalls, or to the ever-increasing burn of protest from his muscles as he continued his rescue attempt. But with every root he tore from the soil, and with every sinuous branch he pulled away from the man’s body, there seemed to be another piece of foliage clinging to him like barbed wire to a blanket. And Arnold was too old for this. … Continue Reading

Proud Music After The Storm, by Kelcey Wells

My frayed militia jacket and the dropping a few high ranking names get me through the checkpoints and across McCarren Park. Even in the dead of night the deserted lawns and play fields are lit up like noonday by massive overhead lights. It’s an insane amount of electricity and man power to secure an uninhabited patch of grass and dirt but it’s the only open green from here to Prospect Park and The Counsels intend to protect it. The uneasy silence hurries my steps and it’s not long before I’m exiting the park and crossing Bedford Avenue and what was the high water mark during the last wave of flooding. The stifling scent of the river clings to everything and even though the water has receded there is still the sense that every surface is still damp and rotting below the surface. … Continue Reading

Wistman’s Joy, by Hereward L. M. Proops

“What I don’t understand is how you can live like that,” Ashford Brookes said, “It’s not right.”

“Right?” Bob Wistman asked, “How can any man say how I choose to live my life is wrong or right? My own business is my own and the meddlers can go to the devil if they think they can change me.” … Continue Reading

A Shape In The Nothing, by Chris Deal

The psychiatrist I’d been seeing, a lovely woman by the name of Dawn, with a face pale as the moon and hair like sky between the stars at midnight, she liked to trick me every time we had a session. She would ask me those questions she reserved for her clients, the $250-an-hour housewives, the pro bono cases at the clinic. “Were you abused as a child?” Or the fall back, “How was your relationship with your mother?” Between the sheets, she’d laugh and break confidentiality. … Continue Reading

Hanging On St. Jude, by Nik Korpon

Rivulets of thin pink blood stream from the sides of his lips. He chews with his mouth open. Bits of raw flesh stuck between his teeth. He dabs the corner of his lips with the cloth napkin tucked into his collar to keep his bolo tie clean and I’ve lost my appetite. I bite an ice cube in half. God damn you, Elroy, how do you find these people? He tears off another piece, looks me up and down, chews and grunts approval. It’s me or the steak but either way I want to break my glass on his neck. I poke the dead flesh lying in front of me, daring it to move. … Continue Reading

Boy Parts, by Chris Reed

Cheryl Braddocks closed her eyes, grit her teeth with determination and pushed. Her husband, Michael, could now see the top of the baby’s head, covered with wet black hair. It was the hair of their first child. Their little boy. Their Hunter. … Continue Reading

Attention Deficit, by Matthew Dexter

I witnessed the most gifted and brilliant children from the richest families in America reduced to penniless addicted degenerates,
sniffing white miles, pink piles of crushed up Ritalin through hollowed out Bic pens, into congested crimson nostrils,
up bloody noses, hemorrhaging copiously like demented rats in
the most hopelessly twisted of sadistic experiments, … Continue Reading

The Sleeping Room, by Erik T. Johnson

Tick-tick.

The inspector has come to feign sleep on the sumptuous white-curtained four-poster canopy bed to solve a series of mysterious deaths. … Continue Reading

Cottonwoods, by Vincent Louis Carrella

The dog would not die. He was bred to withstand the rigors of a prolonged fight, and he showed his mettle and he showed his heart in that moment when it counted most. The end. He was the best dog that Simmons ever owned and he owned plenty. Some were bigger and some were smarter, but none were as sweet with the children and none were as tough. … Continue Reading