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RAT SNAKE | Fiction by Anna Robertson
The three hard knocks pounded on the hollow metal door at seven AM. Only Beth’s brother knew that she had been held up in his camper, tucked away in the hay barn, and this morning she was pretty sure that even Justin wished he didn’t know that she was there. She opened the door to…
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SPECIAL INTERESTS | Fiction by Stanton McCaffery
We’re successful at what we do because of our special interests. Mine: revenge and murder. Also dinosaurs, but that doesn’t help with the murder so much. Some blood got on a book across the room. It’s an illustrated book about the tyrannosaurus. In most cases, if we get blood on something, I burn it or…
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LATECOMER | Fiction by Eileen Frankel Tomarchio
He slips in quiet as a silverfish, right after opening credits, a few seats over. No showy Whew! like the matinee is sold out, like it isn’t empty in here but for the usual few lunch-baggers and running commenters and dozing users in the balcony. The movie’s a dark one. A Place In the Sun.…
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OPERATIC HEART | Fiction by Jen Soong
My lover didn’t disappear all at once. On Friday, I walked home from work and she kissed me at the door, smelling like cardamom. The sky spilled lavender ink. “Look, my pinky finger is missing,” she said, holding up her right hand. Gone. No stub or trace. Her tone was full of anticipation. Her face,…
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THE THINGS I ALWAYS DO | Fiction by Benjamin Porter
I clean Grandpa before I clean the rooms. This makes it easier—to get it out of the way. Maybe it means I hate him, or I’m just chicken shit. Either way it has to be done quick, like setting a joint in one pull. Saw that once back in high school at a match where…
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THE PREACHER MAN | Fiction by Kimberli McWhirter
It’s not much of a town. Not many would dispute my word on that. Hardly qualifies as a wide spot in the road. But it’s home. Got some good people, some bad ones, some sittin’ on the fence ones, depending on who’s watching. And it’s pretty enough, in the way things usually are, if you…
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RADIO SILENCE | Fiction by Holly Hilliard
When I heard the news about Jackson Cole, I couldn’t stop thinking about the summer I turned sixteen—the summer I got a job at Cole’s Resort. I wasn’t hired as a lifeguard since I never passed any sort of certification test, but on busy days, my boss would wink and send me out to the…
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THINGS THAT ADD UP | Fiction by Elizabeth Murphy
Mama expected a boy, lo and behold got me, called me Paddy, short for Patrick. She was like that, determined to have things her way, not caring about the troubles she was inflicting on me. As if the name wasn’t trouble enough, she sent me to school at age four. I was the runtiest runt…
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EVERYTHING IS JUST ABOUT THE SAME | Fiction by John Bovio
Amsterdam lights the shadow. That dark part of your soul. The winds off the North Sea cut to the bone. Can eat you alive. This city rages like a destructive and unpredictable fire. The people who come to Amsterdam and lack the good sense to leave usually are sent home. Sometimes breathing. After I killed…
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Buried Nitrogen: A Disquisition on Sticky Rosinweed
By Sandra K. Barnidge Recently, an English professor at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, invited me to Zoom into her “Writing for Money” class to talk about my unusual career. I’m a rare creature in this field, apparently, as someone who has written both corporate messages for large institutions and a genre-bending novel…