Hollywood, 1979. A struggling television producer, an aging actor desperate to stay relevant, and an ambitious young screenwriter discover that their best chance at saving their careers may come from an unlikely source—a powerful drug kingpin eager to break into the movie business. As the lines between entertainment and organized crime blur, ambition, greed, and loyalty collide in a world where everyone is chasing the next big break.

Set against the fading glamour of late-1970s Los Angeles, Sunset Stakeout is a fast-paced crime story filled with sharp dialogue, dark humor, and behind-the-scenes Hollywood intrigue. Roysdon delivers a tale where survival often depends less on talent than on knowing which dangerous opportunity to embrace—and which one to walk away from.

For anyone who grew up watching The Rockford Files, this story has a comfortable DNA.

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

I started writing for newspapers when I was in high school in Indiana, covering pop culture and then, within a few years, politics and government and crime and where the three intersect. I won 30 first-place state and national journalism awards and co-authored four award-winning true crime books about our murderous little city. I took a buyout in 2019, finished the last of the true crime books and began writing novels. I self-published THAT OCTOBER in 2025 and my friend Jill Blocker and I founded Constellate Publishing, an imprint of her Constellate Creatives company, and are publishing other authors as well as our own books, like my new crime novel, SEVEN ANGELS. I’ve been delighted to have my short fiction published in anthologies and on great sites.

What inspired your story in Bad Intentions?

I love writing stories set in the past. THAT OCTOBER is set in 1984 and another, unpublished novel is set in 1948. I wrote a story set in 1969 that’s in an anthology later this year. I really liked the idea of writing something set in the 1970s and even though this Zevon story came out in 1982, it felt like January 1979 to me.

Was there a specific Warren Zevon song, lyric, or theme that sparked the piece?

I’ve always been a fan of crime TV series like “The Rockford Files” and when I heard Zevon’s “Looking for the Next Best Thing” for the first time in a long time, the lyrics, his voice and especially the soaring guitar inspired me to imagine it as the theme for a “Rockford”- style 1970s crime show, like “Riptide” or “Jake and the Fatman” or the great “Magnum.” I decided to focus on the hapless guys making my ersatz series “Sunset Stakeout” as they struggled through 1979 Hollywood.

Crime fiction is often about consequences. What interested you most about exploring that idea?

I love writing about consequences, yet “Sunset Stakeout” is probably the most “happy ending” story I’ve written. Except for the dead guy, everybody gets what they want - with wrinkles indicating possible trouble ahead (the couple with different ambitions in mind). And I wanted to give the story a happy ending because that replicated the tone of those 70s crime dramas, where things are resolved in an hour, the music swells and the frame freezes.

Who are some writers that have influenced your work?

My earliest influences were comic book creators like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, who taught me to raise stakes and undercut self-importance with a joke, but very quickly thereafter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury - I’m working on a story now that owes a lot to Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” - then Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane, who taught me minimalism and understated tragedy. I’m constantly learning from contemporaries too.

What was the most challenging part of writing this story?

The most challenging thing about this story was a challenge I frequently face: corralling my tendency to flesh out the world and the characters too much when I’m writing to a word count. I had to cut a couple of scenes that were fun hang sequences among the three very different principals. I’d love to come back to these characters sometime.

What are you working on now?

With my second novel SEVEN ANGELS out, I’m working on edits for GHOST SHOW, a very long novel set in 1948 that I wrote a few years ago that we at Constellate Publishing are thinking about publishing later this year. I’m outlining a new novel, my first since completing THAT OCTOBER three years ago, that I’m really excited about. And I’m doing a ton of reading, some of manuscripts writers are sending us for Constellate Publishing to consider and also for a super-secret, year-long project.

Favorite Warren Zevon song?

I would have said any number of other songs before rediscovering “Looking for the Next Best Thing” for this story. It’s on permanent rotation now.

At what point in your story should your main character realized they were in trouble?

I think Hal Hornblow Jr. realizes things had the potential to go south when his partners come up with nutty schemes - including a couple that work. He probably should have been leery even earlier though.

Subscribe now

A quick note from the team at Literary Garage- if you’ve read and enjoyed Bad Intentions, a short Amazon or Goodreads review helps more readers discover the book, AND it will mean a great deal to all of us involved.

And then there are the things done in the name of righteousness.

A broken jaw. A father ruled by scripture and cruelty. A sick younger sister. A dead mother whose presence still seems to linger somewhere beyond the edge of the forest.

And a silver medallion carrying three words:

Keep Me Safe.

What begins in a cold, decaying house soon descends into something older, darker, and far more dangerous—a story of violence, faith, family, and the terrible things that can awaken when someone finally decides they will not be held down any longer.

Dark. Brutal. Strange as hell.

I cupped my face in a failed attempt to steal the bitter pain from my jaw. The cold taste of copper rolled off my tongue like morning dew on cabbage. I had broken one of God’s laws, and in return I was permanently silenced.

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

Father warned me to keep my devil-tongue sealed lest he hack it off, and he proved himself a man of his word. It was then I decided I would no longer be held down by the weight of his devotion. For me. And for my sister.

#

The rooster shrieks early in the empty hours of the bleak winter morn. The bedroom door clings to life by its hinges, ready to collapse with the rest of the dilapidated house. I feed the woodstove a log, and it roars back to life—obliging enough to keep my sister warm. Her tiny frame shivers beneath the blanket, barely long enough to cover her feet. I strip my bed of my own and wrap her in a cocoon of comfort.

I pull on my woolen breeches, tuck in my linen shirt, and shrug into a heavy, padded jacket. Stiff leather shoes force their way onto my icy feet—feet that want to hide beneath the warm blanket they just wrestled from.

The splintered stairs ache under my steps. At the bottom, musty air and stale beer crawl up my nose. Father hovers over his plate at the dining room table, slopping through his breakfast with manners befitting the barn.

His burgeoning shadow engulfs the room. With his eyes fixed on his trough, he gestures for me to sit. The unwelcoming chair wobbles beneath my discomfort. Beer pours into his mouth, cascading down his chin and onto his linen shirt. A belch ricochets off the wall, and he hammers the table with his empty cup. He opens his Bible with grimy hands—staining its pages.

“But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven;

they are guilty of eternal sin.”

I nod like an obedient dog. He slams his book shut with a heavy thud, and my reflexes betray me. His eyes crinkle, giving way to a crooked smile.

“Take your sister breakfast.”

I stare at the empty chair across the table. Mother’s chair.

She adored the forest as much as her children. With us, she shared its secrets—its magic. She told us stories of the gods of the woods—wondrous spirits who would guide us if we were lost, show us the freshest herbs, and keep us safe. But she wasn’t safe from—

“Go. Now.”

My hands shake beneath the bowl of porridge while it threatens to spill across the rickety steps. I hear my sister’s coughs long before I reach our door. I find her curled in a ball, desperately clinging to both blankets. Relief finds her face when she sees me—sees her breakfast. Her smile steadies my hands, and I set down the bowl and sit at her bedside.

The sun casts viridescent hues that sparkle within her eyes. Long, flowing locks of golden wheat accentuate her fair complexion. With the passing day, she takes after Mother all the more.

Suppressing a cough, she sits against the headboard. With her eyes fixed on my swollen face, she gently presses it with her petite hand.

“Father?”

All I can do is mime to her that I am alright. She pulls away, coughing—shaking her head in disgust.

“How could he?”

The white in my eyes lays my dread bare; I cannot utter so much as a shh. Forcing a smile, I take her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Our eyes meet in quiet understanding. She lets out an exhausted sigh before eating her meal. I wait for her to finish, kiss her forehead, and carry the empty bowl to the kitchen sink.

A hand clamps onto my shoulder, and my entire body tenses at the thought of its owner. The bowl leaps into the sink, and I expect my final thoughts to be the tiny fragments scattered across it. My vision blurs, and my lungs forget their purpose. My shoulder erupts with a familiar warmth—only then do I settle into my body, knowing it’s not my callous Father.

A tranquil garden opens before me; daffodils and daisies claim the grassy slopes at the precipice of a pine forest. Mother and sister dance in circles around a small campfire beneath the trees.

A worn satchel hangs from Mother’s side. After removing handfuls of fresh herbs and a fine white powder, she tossed everything into the fire. The women chant. Ascending flames carry their voices overhead as the fire reflects the emerald gleam in their eyes—until all is silent. The fire quietly settles into the ground. She wraps me in her embrace, brushing a faint whisper against my ear—

“Pocket.”

A lone tear trickles down my face as I stare at the bowl—not even a scratch.

Pocket.

I withdraw a silver medallion marked with a double-lined star and hold it above the sink in disbelief. Three words are etched on the other side.

Keep Me Safe.

The warm presence is gone, driving an unnerving pulse through my veins. Father’s dark cloud hangs over my shoulder. Cautiously, I palm the medallion, hiding both of my hands beneath my clothes, and turn to face the towering giant. He stands only feet away, but it feels as though he could not be any closer. Our eyes lock and hold steady.

“Go outside and prepare the firewood. Once it’s chopped, stack it next to the barn.”

I nod with the blank expression my broken jaw wears. He stands completely still with his eyes affixed upon me. I grip the disc so tight that it breaks my skin.

I hold Father’s gaze—prudently side-shuffling past him. I step backward toward the door and it greets my shoe with a resounding thump. My trembling hand blindly searches for the handle before I open the door and fumble my escape into the bitter cold.

#

The frigid air punctures my jaw with its apathetic breath. Clenching silver, I think of Mother and the fire’s invitation at the edge of the forest. A place of laughter—and love. Her warm affection floods my body, momentarily subduing the torturous weather.

A log rests on the chopping block as I grip the long, curved handle in both hands. I battle against its weight, struggling to maintain balance. The blade glints in the sun, and I heave it with all my strength.

It’s stuck.

I bash the log-bound blade as hard as I can, but it refuses to budge. I pummel it into the block with a series of heavy strikes. The wintry air invades my lungs, and I swing once more with all my might.

Finally.

The axe is free.

Struggling for breath, my vision narrows on the log. It reeks of condescension as it transforms into Father’s head. His eyes stare me down with contempt. My jaw locks at the provocation, and I clench his hair, slamming the bastard onto the block.

My head is plagued by the old man’s voice. Passages from his holy book slither into my ears, feeding on my brain like carnivorous insects. Stop. Stop! Stop, I cry—pleading, begging for mercy. Together, the axe and I are one. I grit my teeth and lean into the swing. It races through the old man’s skull, splitting his face into two equal halves. They fly onto the driven snow, bathing the ground in a pool of red. A clean kill.

I close my eyes and clutch the medallion in a panic. I open them to find two pieces of wood—two pieces claimed by the frozen ground.

I swing into a rhythm, focusing on getting this goddamned wood stacked. I trudge through coarse snow, stacking it beside the barn. With each plank chopped, I near the end of my task.

I lean against my hard work for a moment of respite, and catch two sparkling emeralds as my sister waves from our bedroom window. Another set flashes behind her and above her left shoulder—exactly the same if not duller. She notices something shift in my expression and turns around to look. They are gone.

Maybe the cold is getting to me. I should check on the animals in the barn.

#

Immediate relief finds me among the animals and hay. The cows moo, and the sheep baa with excitement. I nestle into a haystack, petting the sheep as we share a quiet moment.

The warmth of the forest erupts from my pocket, and I pull out the medallion in awe. The star pulsates with the glow of my sister’s eyes as the animals back away in bewilderment. Rich shades of green illuminate the middle of the hay-laden floor. The medallion’s light beckons me to a matching glow in the center of the room. Someone had carved the same star I found on the disc into the floor.

They are…reacting.

I press the silver disc into the groove in the floor, and it locks with a weighty click. Brilliant sparks race counterclockwise from point to point, triggering a faint metallic clack just beneath the haystack. Moving frantically, I fling the hay aside toward the adjacent wall.

A trapdoor?

The wooden door groans as I strain against the iron latch. The disc cuts through the black as I slump down the ladder while verdant flames fuel my descent.

The air reeks of sulfur that sears the lining of my nose. Cobwebs paint the room in shades of grey, and dusty shelves line the stone walls—crowded with half-empty vials and books inscribed in strange writing.

Rats feast on festering rats. Tears coat my eyes, blurring the jade glow into thick, painterly strokes as my stomach roils in agony. I cannot take it another second and spew my guts into a colossal puddle at my feet.

#

The dark room opens up to a claustrophobic set of stone steps. Soft whispers goad me deeper as black gall creeps up to the back of my tongue. I barely reach the bottom when two dull emerald lights seize my vision from the musty floor. With each step forward, the lights bring the sulfuric air to a boil.

At the end of the room, I find a woman lying naked on the stone floor. Purple bruises had marred her yellowed skin, and a deep gash had split the center of her throat, leaving a claret clot in her golden-wheat curls.

The medallion chars my hand, and it falls to the floor in a series of sharp clinks and clangs. The metallic bite reverberates through the stone room until the disc comes to a rest.

As the woman sits up, her eyes snap to the relic, causing her head to jerk in erratic, twitching bursts. Her bones creak and crack as lifeblood seeps down her neck from the open gash in her throat.

A drummer’s song pounds in my chest.

She blinks once, and her placid smile disintegrates into a vacant stare.

The bones in her neck give way. They snap like frail twigs as her head twists, not stopping until her head remains fixed toward the ceiling. I flee the room backward on my hands and knees. One by one, her limbs dislocate before she stands on them like a spider. The light in the medallion recedes, and her jeweled eyes fixate on the only thing left in the room.

Me.

My body remembers what my brain forgets, and I crawl away until the damp stone steps are under my hands. The creature heaves after me, staining the floor with a river of red, bathing me in shades of green.

I struggle against the sulfuric air and force my legs to retreat. I stumble up the stairwell as she looms behind me. I hurl myself to the top and panic into a full sprint, plunging into the black. My feet fly through the air, and I slam onto the ground—landing directly in my steaming mess. The wind rushes from my lungs as I search for breath through the narrow passage of my nose. The only passage left after Father’s beating.

I lie there helpless as the looming clicks and clacks haunt me. Its verdant light claws through the dark, encompassing the room as it drags itself atop me. Cold lifeblood drips on my lips, causing me to gag back more of my wretched effusion.

The creature mangles itself again. It snaps its head back into place with a grating shriek that makes me shiver. Its eyes roll back into its head until only the whites remain.

In the cellar, Mother kneels in front of an open leather-bound book with fragile, yellowed pages. She reads from it aloud in a foreign tongue—the words on the page matching the glow of her eyes. She’s oblivious to Father standing behind her, white-knuckling a Butcher knife.

He grabs a fistful of hair, yanking her head back to expose her neck as he stands above her. In one swift motion, he drives the knife into the center of her throat—sawing through her vocal cords. Lifeblood floods the room while her chants dissolve into the gurgling sounds of a dying animal.

It all makes sense. This creature is Mother. She tried to protect us with her magic—and he killed her for it.

The felling axe slices through Mother’s head, failing to make a clean cut. Her skull opens like a Venus flytrap as the blade crunches into her jaw. Father yanks the axe free, kicking her aside with a chilling indifference.

Father towers over me as if I’m an insect that needs to be squashed. His heavy breaths dominate the cellar as I stare up at a man I no longer recognize—a man consumed by a wrath of biblical proportions. He turns his attention toward the house where my sweet sister lies. Sick and helpless.

Father walks toward the ladder like a man with conviction, dragging the axe across the floor. It takes all my strength to stand up. All I can think of is protecting the only light left in the house.

#

I stumble toward the ladder and begin my climb. My grip fails me. Sliding on the slick rungs, I haul myself up. With one heavy pull after another, I reach the top.

I’m out of the dark.

Hay sticks to my sour clothes as I crawl out of the barn. My eyes follow the trail of blood leading to the house. Clawing at the snow, I force myself up. I’m weak, and the snow is dense. I stretch my arm toward the open door, stumbling back into my home.

I made it.

I follow the trail throughout the house. The Bible I was scolded with—gone. My stomach churns. What’s left of it rises to my throat, and I choke it down.

I look up the stairwell, hoping to catch him before he can harm her.

Nothing. I breathe deep, tasting the iron on my tongue.

My body aches from two days of work as I hang from the railing with dead weight, heaving myself up—one step at a time. My sister screams for help, breathlessly calling my name. Father’s striking hand against her delicate face echoes through the soles of my shoes.

“You son of a bitch.”

Gasping for air, I make it to the top. My jaw throbs as if it housed a nest of hornets while the room sways around me. Only a crooked door stands between me and my sister. Father opened his Bible and began reading.

“And these signs will follow those who believe:

In my name they will cast out demons;

they will speak with new tongues.”

I crash through the door shoulder first, collapsing in a heap, choking the air with dust. I struggle through ragged breaths. Father wears a mask of horror.

#

His voice falls silent—echoing the verses I’ve been berated with as he creeps toward me. Is he suddenly afraid? Am I not the weak pest who needs to be punished for disobedience? To honor thy Father? My strength is gone—dead as the door beneath me. He kicks me over and kneels beside me. Blood drips from my nose down my chin. This is it. There is no stopping him. He will kill us both and call it retribution.

“Pfft, stupid boy.”

With a calloused hand, he grabs my throat and drags me from the door. I kick at the dusty air, straining my lungs for a sound—any sound. My neck feels like it is about to snap as he carries me across the room toward the wall. Darkness leaks into the corners of my eyes, and lifeblood pours from my mouth like sour wine.

Is this penitent enough for you, Father?

A sharp bell rings through my skull. My thought slips away—taking my body with it.

#

The sun paints my face with delicate rays of light.

Mother?

Her face appears: beautiful, loving, kind.

“It is okay, son. I am here.”

Mother’s love fills me with courage. I know I gave everything to save my sister.

A violent flash of light bursts behind Father, washing the room in waves of green that ripple across my face. The color restrains him, crushing his grip. I plummet to the floor—barely clinging to life. With wide eyes, he turns in disbelief, praying they deceive him.

My sister floats above her bed with Mother’s old leather-bound book. Her eyes glisten with a blinding light. She radiates warmth: pure, powerful, familiar. It wraps around me like a blanket pulled from memory. The book hovers open in front of her, and with a flick of her wrist, the pages flutter, stopping on her command. Father watches on—powerless.

She calmly chants in the foreign tongue, and the felling axe hovers in front of her with its blade tilted at Father’s head. She reads a passage, and the axe floats beside her. A smile tugs at her lips as she utters the final syllable. The axe sails across the room, and Father’s last breath escapes in a curse.

“Burn in hell, demon!”

It lands between his eyes, coating the walls in crimson. He sways in silence, staggering across the room with the axe lodged in his face. In a final act of desperation, he reaches out to grab my sister. He collapses mid-step, dropping to the ground face-first. The room shudders as Father falls onto the Bible, splitting his skull straight through.

She closes the book, and the glow recedes from her eyes.

She hugs me, and I feel the warmth of our Mother. The mess I’m wearing is of no concern; she simply wipes it away with the sleeve of her nightshirt. Tears stream down my cheeks. Holding my face in her gentle hands, she brushes away my tears.

“It’s my turn to take care of you,” she whispers.

END

BIO: Seth O’Neal writes dark poetry and fiction from North Carolina’s Outer Banks. A musician and horror enthusiast, he often composes original music to accompany his work. His writing has appeared, or is forthcoming in Exquisite Death, SCAB and Belladonna’s Garden.

Subscribe now

In “The Eye and The Hand” by Anita Noelle Green, a young scout named Iris arrives too late to save a village destroyed in the name of the king. But among the ruins, she finds Ita—a grieving woman with nothing left to lose.

What begins as an act of compassion soon becomes something darker: a journey toward vengeance, violence, and perhaps a new beginning.

Fantasy, strange magic, dark humor, and two women discovering exactly what they’re capable of.

A faint line of smoke pokes through the pine trees. The curious scout takes a moment to survey the sight ahead of her.

A well-beaten path presents itself like a beckoning hand, daring the lithe stranger to enter. As the young wanderer approaches the trail, she quickly notes the ubiquitous pattern of hoof prints littering the dirt road.

The scent of burning wood grows stronger the farther she ventures, though it’s clear to Iris the burn is controlled and fading.

A tattered muted mustard banner lies before the culprit of the smoke—a clear sign The Finger has left its scratch.

Husks of homes and marred, charred corpses stained with browned blood litter the site. Pulsing embers serve as vestiges of what was once a village.

One must give to take from Past’s Sight, the teachings of the Seers echo through her mind. She removes her dagger from her shabby sheath and slides the blade across her palm. She lies her hand flat on the ground and whispers, “Show me what I must see.”

In the light of day, men in suited armor trudge through the village with torches and set fire to roofs, feeding troughs, chicken coops… all while belting out their mindless phrases:

“For the king!”

“The Way of The Hand is the only way!”

Blood from the bodies of the ill equipped farmers soak the ground of their home. Yells and screams ring throughout the village like a literal death knell. A sitting woman rocks and holds her lifeless child braying her denials into the chaos surrounding her.

One unusually large man—the captain perhaps?—finally calls off the men. The knights form an orderly line and scamper away.

“The king points the way to our salvation,” Iris mutters sardonically aloud. A common phrase used by The Finger.

Although they’ve probably ventured forward to flick the life out of some other unsuspecting commoners, Iris thinks it best to turn back and stay off the trail.

As she makes her way into the thick of the trees, she soon finds a discarded basket of what looks like blueberries scattered about it.

This way of the forest seems more welcoming—or perhaps less foreboding—than what is behind her.

Perhaps after two miles, Iris happens upon a plump russet-haired woman sitting beside a pond. The sight is almost tranquil save for the blank dead stare the woman gives to the water.

“Come to finish the job have you?” She says dryly.

“I’m not with The Finger,” Iris states.

The woman turns around with half interest.

“Ah, cerulean robes. A scout of The Eye I take it. The Eye watches all, observes all, sees all. Isn’t that what you lot always say?”

“I take it that was your village a ways back?”

“Aye. I was out picking blueberries for my daughter. Blueberry pie is—er—was her favorite.” She chokes on the latter part of the sentence.

“Might I have a sit?” Iris asks softly.

The woman shrugs. Iris sits next to her.

“Why?” Iris asks.

“Why else? Our fealty lies with our goddess—The Fifth—not The Hand,” the woman says while dejectedly turning her eyes to the coruscating water.

“The Fifth—our goddess of the fifth sense: vision. The Eye must be with the people in their time of need,” Iris recites. “I’m sorry we weren’t here sooner.”

The misty eyed woman turns to Iris and sobs into her shoulder.

#

Iris stands before the three Seers. They are three women wrinkled with wisdom. Greyed sagacity is plentiful in the trios’ hair. She sees them sitting on their burlap cushions in front of the Everburning Fire—a fire always small, but always warm. Their cobalt robes stand in stark contrast to the otherwise humble looking site.

“Come forth, scout,” The Third Eye calls to Iris. The Left Eye gently pats an empty burlap cushion.

Iris sits cross legged on a cushion which sits between The Left Eye and The Right Eye.

“Allow us your Sight,” The Right Eye says. The Right Eye and The Left Eye hold out the palms of their hands. Iris clasps their hands while they simultaneously link their other hands with The Third Eye.

“Show us what we must see,” the three Seers say in unison.

As the vision ends the three look to Iris expectingly. Their dark eyes glimmer in the flickering light.

“I wasn’t there in time,” Iris says despondently.

“You were there as soon as you could have been,” The Left Eye says with a gentle smile.

“You’re not strong enough yet to face The Finger,” The Right Eye states.

“It was only a squad. I think I could have—” Iris begins.

“Could’ve gotten yourself killed? You listened to your instincts. Don’t second guess yourself now. You’re not ready yet,” The Right Eye interrupts.

“You were there for the woman. You brought her to us and in time she will heal. And she needs you here for that. The Eye must be with the people in their time of need.” With that, The Third Eye’s words close the meeting.

Iris sits with the sages’ wisdom wrestling against it with her own youthful arrogance. In the end, she knows this is where she is needed.

#

Among the bustling campsite, the shapely, auburn haired woman is sitting in front of her tent toying with her toast and gruel. Iris carefully sits in front of her.

“How’s the breakfast?” Iris asks.

The woman shrugs still making cursive swirls with her food.

“You know, I never did ask you your name,” Iris says apologetically.

“It’s Ignis’Ita... Ita for short.”

“Little Fire,” Iris says.

“Yeah, that’s right,” replies Ita still avoiding eye contact.

“My name’s Iris,” Iris says with a warm smile.

“Of course it is,” Ita says with a half laugh.

There’s an awkward silence. Iris smacks her tongue against the roof of her mouth pondering whether or not she should say what she wants to.

“Out with it then,” Ita says.

“We know who killed your family,” Iris spits out, unsure whether or not she should have held her tongue.

Ita finally looks up at her.

“We know where they are,” Iris states. “I can try to take care of it if you’d like.”

“May I join you?” Ita asks solemnly.

Iris nods.

“The home of one of the soldiers is two days northwest of here. We believe it to be the home of the one who led the charge against your village,” Iris states.

“How do you know this?” Ita inquires.

“The Eye watches all, observes all, sees all,” Iris recites.

“So one of the other scouts did some digging—er—seeing rather,” Ita responds.

“You should pack whatever you desire. We can provide you with the essentials. We won’t be coming back here,” Iris says.

As Ita gathers her provisions, a flicker of light rekindles in the woman The Finger once extinguished.

#

Propelled by determination, the pair ventures forward through luscious grassy terrain.

Ita pats her hips.

“I forgot a knife,” she says in an irked voice.

“I told you, once we leave we can’t go back,” Iris says.

“But we aren’t even that far. It’s only—” Ita’s voice trails off. As she turns, she sees the campsite has disappeared. Not a trace of what was once there remains.

“They Blinked. It’s why The Hand can never find us,” Iris says.

“But you can find them again, right?” Ita asks. She hopes she doesn’t sound foolish.

“Of course. Anyone of the Eye knows where to look,” Iris responds.

“I see. Or rather, I don’t see,” Ita smirks at her own joke.

A subtle curl forms in Iris’s lips.

“The Hand. Hasn’t that name ever struck you as odd? The Hand. The Finger. Why did the king ever name himself The Hand? And The Finger? Who names their military The Finger? It’s almost as ridiculous calling themselves as The E—” Ita stops before finishing her last sentence. She bites her bottom lip.

“The Eye?” Iris playfully finishes. “You’re fine. I suppose it is all a bit silly when you think about it. But The Hand is nothing without The Finger.”

“And The Eye watches The Hand,” Ita finishes.

The journey is a rather steady trek. A few bumps, but nothing to slow the pair down. The pair have journeyed through day’s end. They set up camp and fall asleep under the peaceful night.

#

A morning glaze of dew refreshes the path awaiting the two adventurers. The dew has met the face of Ita. Iris delicately places a hand on Ita’s shoulder.

“No matter how peaceful the night is or how beautiful the morning, I always wake up in tears,” Ita says attempting to regain her determination for day’s journey.

“I’d imagine it’ll be like this for a while, but maybe one day it won’t always,” Iris says gently.

Through her sadness, Ita looks upon the stretch of land ahead of her with a sense of tenacity. Iris observes a glare of sunlight shining upon Ita’s long flowing hair. Her hair has a tinge more vibrance. It strikes Iris, inspiring her to consider Ita differently. The sight reminds Iris of an old painting depicting the story of a young peasant girl leading an uprising.

“Let’s go. We have work to do,” Ita says at last.

By nightfall, the pair finally reach their destination. It is a quaint cobblestone cottage. A healthy garden grows near the front of the house from the dim lamp light shining through the window. The two crouch behind a nearby bush.

“I didn’t take any of The Finger to have such a green thumb,” remarks Ita.

“It could be his wife’s work,” responds Iris.

“His wife?” asks Ita with a flabbergasted look. “You didn’t tell me he was married.”

“Would it have mattered? You don’t have to go through with this,” replies Iris.

“I didn’t come all this way for nothing. The way I see it, she’s an extension of The Finger,” Ita says coldly.

“Have you ever killed someone?” Asks Iris.

“No… I haven’t. Have you?”

Iris nods.

“It’ll change you. Once you do this there’s no going back.”

“Back to what? The Finger took all that I had. I’m ready,” Ita says.

“We’ll lure them out,” says Iris.

Iris stealthily readies herself on the darkened left front side of the cottage. Dagger readied. One pebble, two, three, four graze the window. There’s a rustling within the home.

“Oi! Who goes there?” A burly man in off-white sweat stained sleepwear emerges from the wooden front door. The man takes a step forward.

Iris slides from her corner, climbs his back, and begins to slide her blade across his throat. Almost as soon as she begins her incision, a woman grabs Iris by the tail of her hair crashing her to the ground. The brute spins around with a fist in the air and just as he is about to strike Iris, she vanishes. The man looks down in front himself blinking looks of confusion.

“Where’d she go? She was just ‘ere,” the nasally sounding wife questions.

The oaf turns only to have a dagger carve into his jowls. The man staggers forward as blood spills forth from his open wound and mouth. Iris makes two quick side steps placing herself in the cottage’s entrance. Ita sprints forth with a fist sized rock. She bashes it against the man’s temple. Again, again, again.

Another bash, but this time a pot meets the side of Iris’s head. Iris slams against the side of the door. The wife of the big man grunts. She winds up for another blow as Ita grabs her by the face and pushes her further inside the house. Iris stumbles towards the two, but lands on her bum.

Ita and the wife have met each other’s strength. Ita manages to slam the wife against the wall. The wife pushes against the wall with a hind leg and the two fall to the ground: Ita supine, the wife prone. The wife crawls on top of Ita. Ita shields her face with her arms, bracing for impending blows. Her arms are met with warm, thick liquid. Iris has sliced the wife’s throat. Iris falls backwards again on her bum. She sits heaving.

The team catches their breath. Iris holds the palm of her hand to her forehead to nurse her daze.

Ita raises both of her hands and looks at her red, wet arms. She looks down upon the lifeless body lying next to her.

“It had to be done,” says Iris.

“I know... You’re right…It’s just…”

“I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but it doesn’t.”

Silence fills the room. Ita fixates her gaze on the corpse. Iris idly fiddles with her knife.

“How did you do that?” Ita asks at last.

“Do what?” Iris asks back.

“They had you right where they wanted you and you just… disappeared… and then reappeared,” Ita says almost questioning whether or not it really happened.

“I Winked,” answers Iris.

“So, like they did with the campsite?” asks Ita.

“That was a Blink. Only the Seers are powerful enough to do something like that. A Wink is much more brief and I can only do it to myself,” responds Iris.

“You should teach me how to do that. It could come in handy,” Ita says.

“Only those of The Eye are granted access to our ways,” responds Iris.

“So how does one become a part of The Eye?” Ita asks eagerly.

“I was just waiting for you to ask,” Iris ends her reply with a wink.

BIO: Anita Noelle Green (she/her) is a transgender woman. She has a BA in Sociology. Her work has been featured in CafeLit, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Exclamation Mark and will be featured in an upcoming issue by Fish Girl Collective.

Subscribe now

In a darkly funny, deeply unsettling new story, Travis Flatt gives us ten numbered thoughts from a narrator attempting to explain himself—to the police, to us, and perhaps finally to himself.

Childhood. Butterflies. Heaven. Murder. The infinite universe.

And one last question:

“Do you think it’s too late?”

1. Hey guys, I really am sorry about all this. Those voices, you know?

2. Well, here’s my “murder basement” as I figure they’ll call it. Kind of boring down here, sorry. Watch out—it’s a trap! Just kidding, LOL. I actually spent days tidying the place up for you guys—the DNA evidence, though: you’re probably mostly going to find that around that big freezer over there; I’d check the handle. I’ve got this latex allergy, and I don’t think leather gloves are especially effective—and, oh, hey! There are cookies upstairs on the kitchen table, if you didn’t see. Those are my aunt’s recipe and they’re fire. Also, whole milk in the fridge (hopefully not out of date, but that’s on y’all).

3. For what it’s worth, I did have a pretty bad childhood. Like, my uncle was super into these workout videos and I’d come home from school and he’d be Sweatin’ to the Oldies and get mad when I wanted to watch David the Gnome. He did spank me once for breaking a VHS tape. And, my aunt didn’t let me read anything with swear words. She made me go to church. I didn’t mind when I was little.

4. The girls in my class were indifferent to me. Same with boys. I recognize now that I mistook joking for flirting and that got on everyone’s nerves. Which I wish I could do over. Is that sad/weird? I made out with a girl at summer camp once, which, lame as it sounds, was probably the high light of my life. She was at least the second best looking girl at camp and way out of my league. She’d be a good character witness if you could look her up; I never could. I can’t remember how to spell her last name. It’s something like [redacted].

5. I killed a lot of bugs. Particularly monarch butterflies, because they reminded me of angels. I mean, I pinned them up and stuff. I intend to take up Buddhism in prison and maybe I’ll find out what qualifies as too many butterflies in the literature. My aunt turned Buddhist before she died. Of cancer. And that seemed to make her happy. To give her peace, etc.

6. If I were in a crashing plane, I don’t think I’d be scared. Same if I saw a lion. Or a shark. Or me with an ax.

7. I used to believe in heaven and hell. For some reason, when my aunt died, I just stopped like a light switch.

8. Do you think the universe goes on forever? I hope so.

9. When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut and find heaven. Just fly through space until I found the golden light, like the end zone.

10. Do you think it’s too late?

BIO: Travis Flatt (he/him) is an epileptic teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear or are forthcoming in Bullshit Lit, Maudlin House, HAD, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. He enjoys theater, dogs, and theatrical dogs, often with his wife and son.

Subscribe now

A lonely bowling alley janitor spends his Thursday nights nursing cheap beer, dreaming about the bartender he secretly loves. When she offers him a chance to join a seemingly simple robbery that promises enough money for a fresh start, he convinces himself it’s more than a crime—it’s the beginning of the life they’ve always been meant to share.

Steeped in noir atmosphere and quiet heartbreak, Jeannie Needs a Shooter is a haunting story about obsession, manipulation, and the dangerous stories we tell ourselves in order to keep hope alive. Colin Brightwell crafts a deeply human tale where love, desperation, and self-deception prove every bit as deadly as the shotgun in the corner.

This story quietly accomplishes something that very few crime stories manage. Most noir protagonists know they’re making a bad decision. Eddie doesn’t. He’s convinced he’s making a romantic decision. That makes him far more tragic than foolish.

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

My mom really pushed reading on me and my sister growing up, so I’ve always had a love for stories. I didn’t start writing until middle school after reading more adult-oriented novels (lots of Stephen King) and my 6^th grade reading/science teacher told my parents that he saw something interesting in my classwork writing. Something clicked, I guess, because I started writing that year and passing around my stories to my friend group. I ended up getting my MFA from the University of Mississippi, and after meeting folks like Bill Boyle and Chris Offutt and Michael Farris Smith, tried my hand at crime fiction. I think a lot of my writing, mostly in my collection Nothing Good Ever Happens in a Flyover State, I focus my attention on father/son dynamics, or take a critical eye at masculinity through the lens of crime fiction or grit lit.

What inspired your story in Bad Intentions?

There was this really great bowling alley in Independence, Missouri that my best friends and I were regulars during our college years, Strike n Spare. We got surprisingly not-so-bad at it (that happens when you bowl 3-4 times a week). Old bowling alley, greasy food, retro arcade games, too-oiled lanes, cheap games. It was perfect. There was a worker at the bar named Ellen. Man, she was cool about pouring us free beers. She was older, and got a lot of shit from the teen managers or whatever. I always wondered if she ever hated working there. It closed before I moved to Mississippi, and I wanted to write a story about a bowling alley employee getting what she thinks she deserved. I wanted to sort write an homage to Zevon’s “Jeannie Needs a Shooter,” and for a workshop story I thought why not throw it into the bowling alley story? My peers did not understand the bowling language that kicks off the story. Pretty tragic if you ask me. I wonder if Ellen is hanging in there. I haven’t bowled in years.

Was there a specific Warren Zevon song, lyric, or theme that sparked the piece?

I was drawn to “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” because of Zevon’s sarcastic vibe of a “simp” character just wanting this woman. I mean, what guy hasn’t been there? Zevon has a balance of sincere and satire, and you’re sometimes left wondering which is which. The lyric “The anger and the yearning/like fever in my veins/set the fire burning” I think was the seed for the story – how far is a man willing to go for a woman who doesn’t look at him twice, how far does the delusion go? Jeannie walks away fine at the end – which I enjoy. It’s a damn bleak song, and Zevon plays it with this fun folksy edge. I also love the Springsteen connection to the song – how Zevon kept bugging Bruce about the song. Bruce eventually released his version of it in 2020 on Letter to You, and, blasphemous coming from me, doesn’t hold a candle to Zevon’s version.

Crime fiction is often about consequences. What interested you most about exploring that idea?

As cliché as it sounds, everything we do has consequences. My MFA years were laced with consequences – personal and professional. I think that’s where writing gets interesting. What’s a consequence for pining and lusting too hard? What’s a consequence for going along with an incredibly stupid plan? What’s a consequence for falling too deep into your delusions? What’s a consequence for pulling the trigger when you already have an out? What’s the consequence for being chronically pathetic?

Who are some writers that have influenced your work?

So many, too many. Stephen King kicks it off for me. But I really enjoy Carver, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Richard Lange, Chris Offutt, Meagan Lucas, Flannery O’Connor. Mostly, anything I’m reading. Not to mention songwriters like Zevon, Springsteen, Mitchell.

What was the most challenging part of writing this story?

Getting Jeannie down right. She’s peripheral until she’s not. I wanted Jeannie to get away in this story – the first draft she doesn’t, and the story became way too much of a bummer. She ends up as pathetic as our narrator Eddie. I didn’t want that. So getting the ending right was the hardest thing for me.

What are you working on now?

Lots of short stories that range from western to crime to anything else. I have two ideas for two different short story collections, and constantly thinking about my first novel I need to write. I’m just going to start drawing ideas out of a hat to get off my ass and start. I guess I just appreciate the short story format over everything – I feel like I still have a lot to do in that medium.

Favorite Warren Zevon song?

Probably “Carmelita.” Got me through some tough places in 2021/2022. Kept me company on a lot of walks. The desperation and sadness in that song is so relatable.

At what point in your story should your main character realized they were in trouble?

Right from the beginning – when he misses the turkey.

Subscribe now

A quick note from the team at Lit Garage - if you’ve read and enjoyed Bad Intentions, a short Amazon review helps more readers find the book, and will mean a great deal to all of us involved.

Your reflection might be one of them.

In “Reflections,” by Megan Schadeberg, an ordinary morning ritual begins to feel slightly wrong. A blink comes too late. A movement doesn’t quite match. And soon, the person staring back from the bathroom mirror may not be a reflection at all.

A wonderfully unsettling piece of psychological horror where the scariest question isn’t what’s hiding in the mirror.

It’s whether it’s been watching you the whole time.

Every morning I do it the same way: toothbrush in my right hand, blink ten times, turn my head - left, right, up, down. A stupid little ritual, proof the day is starting properly. The mirror blinks back, as it always does. I finish brushing my teeth and pad barefoot from the bathroom to my bedroom. Half-empty boxes litter the small space. Outside, rain is smacking against the window, the light weak, pallid.

My laptop lies open on my bed; I reach for it, disconnecting it from the charger, and head to the compact kitchen, carefully placing the laptop on the table. I shoot a quick glance at the fridge as I go past, the note I stuck there two weeks ago an attempt at reassurance: “Stay steady. You’re fine now.” Taking a few deep breaths, I log into the laptop, open a new document, and begin to type.

A couple of hours later, and I’ve barely got anything written down. The deadline is next week, but I can’t seem to get my thoughts in order, let alone plan and flesh out an essay. The hum of the fridge is too loud, the lights feel too bright. And the smell of fresh paint is… In a word, this place feels clinical. There’s nothing of me here, nothing to show that the flat is now occupied. The pale walls add to the sterile environment. Sighing, I go to make myself another coffee, and as I pour the water into my mug, my hand trembles. I barely notice it anymore.

After another hour of attempting to write, there’s a notification on my computer. An email, only the senders’ ID visible in the tiny preview window: GP. I hurriedly click the ‘x’ above the notification, and it vanishes.

That night, I wake up, drenched in sweat. The room is dark; so dark I can’t see my hand in front of my face when I raise it. I check the alarm clock on my bedside table: 3.14 AM. Rain is still lashing against the window. Did it even stop raining yesterday? I wonder. Eventually, sleep pulls me back down into unconsciousness.

The next morning, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, toothbrush in my right hand, and blink ten times. On the tenth blink, I swear my reflection blinks a little slower than I did. I shake my head. Just waking up, I tell myself. Then I move my head left, right, up, down. On the last movement of my head - down - it seems - just for a second - that my reflection looks up at me. I must be tired, especially after that bad sleep last night. My mind doesn’t dare consider the other possibility.

By the end of the day, a collection of used and half drunk coffee mugs has accumulated on the kitchen table. It’s late. I check my phone - 12.36 AM. Despite being heavily caffeinated, my brain feels as though it’s swimming in a thick fog. Recognising that my body needs to sleep, I reluctantly close my laptop (admittedly, I’ve done little actual work, but I like to think that if I sit staring at the screen for long enough, inspiration will strike) and get into bed. I scroll through social media on my phone for half an hour, the blue light the only illumination in the room. I am dimly aware that it is raining heavily outside. Yawning, I put my phone on the bedside table, turning over with the thick duvet covering me. The last thought I am aware of having before I drift into sleep is that the shadows under my eyes in my reflection in the bathroom mirror looked darker, more bruised than I realised.

There’s an overload of images, flashing quickly through my brain - bright lights, pale walls, hard glass - and then I jerk awake, gasping for breath. It’s pitch dark, no light coming through the half closed blinds. My heart is hammering in my chest, and as I try to will it back into a steady beat, I reach over to the bedside table and tap the light on the alarm clock. 3.07 AM. Groaning inwardly, I pull the covers over my face, but I know I won’t be sleeping anytime soon. Probably all that coffee yesterday, making my nerves jittery. Pushing the covers back, I resign myself to the significant lack of sleep and decide to just get up and start my day. Besides, I have a little over a week to get the essay submitted. I can afford an earlier night tonight.

Still in my pyjamas, hair tousled, I hold my toothbrush in my right hand and face the bathroom mirror. The shadows left by the harsh lighting appear longer, darker, in the bathroom’s reflection. I quickly push the thought from my mind. Ten blinks, one after another. On the seventh blink I almost drop my toothbrush. The reflection of me in the mirror blinks noticeably slower than I do. Did that just happen? But then doubt creeps in. You’ve had a couple nights of disturbed sleep, I think, surely that can explain it? Maybe I’m so tired I’m registering the reflection’s blinks slower than normal. Yes, that’s it, I tell myself. Taking a deep breath to steady the part of me that was wavering, I continue with the ritual, moving my head left, right, up, then down. This time, when I move my head down, the reflection doesn’t. I tremble, not wanting to believe what I think I’m seeing. I screw my eyes shut, as tight as I can, and count to five.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

My eyes open, already feeling the spike of anxiety…

But the reflection is normal. It’s me. Nothing extraordinary about it.

I sigh, crumpling to my knees in relief.

I spend the rest of the day in a kind of dazed stupor, the combination of shock, fatigue and caffeine blurring my thoughts so that I find it hard to separate them individually, everything jumbled and incoherent. I sit for hours in front of my laptop, staring at the blank screen. Eventually, one thought surfaces in my mind: I need to prove, one way or another, that there is something wrong with my reflection, the mirror, all of it. The answer hits me like a slap in the face. I just need to record my morning ritual on my phone. That way I will have evidence. Irrefutable evidence. Now that I’ve made my mind up, now that I’ve found a way forward, I relax, and the tiredness I’ve been holding at bay comes crashing down on me. Like someone walking into the sea, I let the waves of exhaustion take me down, down, down. Rain patters against the window.

I wake early, too early. The room is swathed in shadows. Rubbing my eyes, I check my phone. 4.26 AM. Suddenly the memory of the previous day shocks me into some semblance of wakefulness, and, feeling determined, if rather anxious, I swing my legs out of bed, grabbing my phone, and head to the bathroom. As I switch on the light, the glare from the LED bulbs sends spots dancing in front of my eyes. Right, I think, time to see if this is really happening. I grip my toothbrush in my right hand. I face the mirror. My phone, in my left hand, is set to record. Taking a deep breath, I hold the phone up, and start my ritual.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

On the sixth blink, there is a noticeably delayed blink from my reflection. Trembling, I keep going.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

On ten, my reflection doesn’t blink.

Fighting rising panic, I continue, moving my head left, right, up, down. This time, when I move my head left, the reflection moves right. When I move right, it moves left. The same thing happens for up and down. The movements are opposite, inverted. I’m breathing shakily now, praying that I’ve managed to get everything down on video. Once it’s over, I run out of the bathroom, slamming the door shut on my way out. Collapsing weakly on my bed, I tap the video icon to see what I recorded. Holding my breath I watch it play. There’s my face in the mirror. The reflection is blinking, but it’s hard to tell if it’s delayed or not without seeing my eyes. Then, the camera tilts left, as I move my head left. Then right, up, down. Hang on, I think, bile rising in my throat, that’s wrong. The video shows the reflection moving its head left, right, up, down, the same as I did. That’s not what happened, that’s not what happened, I repeat desperately to myself. Body shaking, I drop the phone on my bed, my thoughts ricocheting around my head. How did that happen? Why didn’t the video show what really happened? Do I tell someone about this? That question, at least, I can answer. No, it is not a good idea to tell anyone about this. Instinctively, I know this. Concerned phone calls from Mum, the doctor. Best to avoid all that.

Attempting to block out what happened, I sit down at my laptop with the intention of working on my barely-there essay, but this quickly deteriorates to scrolling through social media on my phone. Coffee mugs pile up throughout the day. For what seems like the first time in the two weeks I’ve been living here, I hear footsteps in the flat above mine. Latching onto the sound, I try to work out how many people are making the noise. Only one, I think. Glancing out the window, my mind barely registers that it’s drizzling outside, the noise of the rain drowned out by the constant hum of the fridge.

By the time 4 PM comes around, I feel exhausted, but I’m too on edge to sleep right now. Since what happened this morning, I’ve been in the bathroom only once, and that was with the light on and the door wide open. Now, every time I think of going in there, my heart seems to rise until it’s stuck in my throat, making me think I’m going to choke. My mind grows clouded, yet I feel like a raw, exposed nerve, a live wire. Desperation clawing my emotions into spikes, I do what I should have done hours ago. Picking the empty mugs off the kitchen table and moving my laptop to my bed, I quickly pull off the dark tablecloth that’s been here since before I moved in (Maybe for this very purpose? No, I cannot think that). The hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, I flip the bathroom light on, making sure to open the door fully. Looking anywhere but my reflection, I spread my arms wide, and, standing on tiptoe, tuck the edges of the tablecloth in the small gap at the top of the mirror between the wall and the glass. I’m worried that won’t be enough to hold it, so I back out of the bathroom and return, as fast as I can, with a roll of sellotape I keep in a drawer just in case. Biting off long pieces of the tape, I secure the loose edges of the tablecloth to the glass. When I’m done, I take a step back, and I feel like I’m finally able to draw in a full breath. It’s impossible to see through the opaque, makeshift covering. No reflection visible. Tentatively, I pull on the fabric. No give. I let out a sigh of relief.

That night, I tumble tiredly into bed, feeling that I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep. It’s almost like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, a tension I didn’t know I was carrying finally gone. Half-smiling to myself, I pull the duvet over me, and the moment my head hits the pillow, I’m out cold.

Until 2.58 AM. Groggily, I sit up, glancing at the time on my phone. Unsure why I’ve woken so early, I turn my head and look out the window. Through the half closed blinds I can just make out the traces of water droplets. But maybe I’m imagining it. I’m about to lie back down and try to go back to sleep when I hear it.

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

In my disoriented state, I can only think that it sounds as though a bird has gotten trapped in the flat, has found a window, and is repeatedly hitting that window with its beak. Confused, I think that I don’t remember opening any windows. Especially not in this rain.

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap

Accepting the fact that tonight, I will not get the sleep I’d hoped for, I swing my legs out of the bed and stand up, albeit a little unsteadily. I walk to the bedroom door. And then I stop. Because I know where that sound is coming from.

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

In that moment, I almost get back into bed, almost hide under the duvet. But I don’t. Slowly, ever so slowly, I take first one step, then another. And another. Until I’m at the bathroom door. The room is inky black.

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap

Quivering, I reach for the light switch. The room floods with brilliance. Eyes slitted against the glare, opening wider as they adjust. The tablecloth is still covering the mirror.

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

I take a step towards the mirror. It feels like I’m not in control of my body, like it’s moving against my will. I reach up, grasping the tablecloth, held up with weak sellotape, and pull, hard. The cloth falls to the floor. And I see it.

Tap-tap

Tap-tap-tap

Tap-tap

It’s me. My reflection. It’s leaning forward, I’m leaning forward. It’s tapping on the mirror, from inside, with its finger. And it’s staring at me, with eyes so dead and cold I let out a whimper. Still, it keeps tapping. Then it grins at me, a grin wide like a gaping wound, and I see its teeth - so many teeth - jagged and uneven and knife-like. I take a step back, fighting the rising scream that’s threatening to break out of me. It reaches forward, hand outstretched towards the boundary of the mirror.

It pushes through.

BIO: Megan Schadeberg is a Wales-based writer who creates stories of quiet unease. Her obsession with the written word began in childhood, devouring anything she could get her hands on, starting with magical wizards and progressing to dark sci-fi, horror, and fantasy. Later, she spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, where the demons are never far away, and draws inspiration from her experiences there. This is her third major contest submission.

Subscribe now

First, it’s the hair. Then the teeth. Then the eyes.

But the most unsettling transformation may have nothing to do with his body.

“The Wolf” by E.B. Sommer is a dark coming-of-age story about appetite, consequence, and what happens when the rules that keep us human begin to disappear.

He lost his virginity on a bed of pine needles, in a forest dense with evergreen trees. He was fifteen and she was a year or two older, one of his classmate’s sisters. Her name was Molly and her breath was stale and hot against his ear and her eyes were shut tight, like she was imagining herself anywhere but there. She took three deep, shuddering breaths before rolling over on her side and pushing herself to a cross-legged position, her skirts splayed in front of her, hair askew and tangled with pine needles.

“So that’s what it’s like,” she said.

He nodded, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at the tree trunk nearest them, which had a large knot glistening with sap. She was taller than him with freckles and eyes not quite symmetrical enough to be pretty. Her fingers were long and white and the knuckles protruded like little boulders. As she stared at the tree trunk he stared at her right hand and her short manicured fingernails. They were a soft pink, which didn’t seem to fit her at all. At school she wore long skirts and loose blouses in monochromatic blacks and grays. She wore dark lipstick and eyeliner that made her eyes seem larger than they were. In the forest, most of the eyeliner was smudged away and her eyebrows were hardly there at all.

Back at school you could hear Molly coming from a mile away, her voice loud and sharp and always angry. She complained about the size of the lockers and the food and the popular kids who were too good for everybody else. She complained about the homework and her brother’s nerdy friends and how early they had to be at school. Her voice was a screech of disdain, a red hot burst of flame down the halls of the school. Most lower classmen avoided her; nobody wanted to be caught in her path by accident.

But in the forest she was quiet. Reflective. Sitting next to him with her back slouched over her crossed legs she looked smaller and more vulnerable. She didn’t touch him or look at him, but kept staring at the knot in the tree. She wiped her running nose with the back of her hand and sniffed.

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll castrate you myself,” she said. A long-legged spider took slow, searching steps down the skin of his left wrist and he flicked it away. He pushed himself up to a seated position beside her.

“Do you want to—do it again?”

He hated how desperate he sounded, and the little crack in the middle of the question.

She turned to him and glared.

“Fuck no.”

She stood abruptly, and held her skirts gingerly away from the space between her legs. They picked their way back to her beater car in silence, with only the bird calls signalling their departure. She drove him to his house and slammed on the brakes on the road, not bothering to pull into the driveway.

“I mean it. You tell anyone about this–”

“You’ll castrate me. Got it.”

He shouldered his backpack, which he had thrown in her backseat when they’d ditched school. His mother was waiting at the door when he came up the walk.

“Who is that?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the beater, which gave off a sputter and a pop as Molly pulled away.

“Rowland’s sister.”

He slipped past his mom and moved down the hallway, wanting to change out of his clothes as quickly as possible.

“Why was she driving you home?”

“I needed a ride,” he said and retreated to his room, shutting the door with a firm click. His mother had not come into his room for close to a year. She said it was better not to know what it looked like.

It was dark and he could barely see the floor from all the clothes piled on it. He sniffed a few shirts and pants, finding the ones with the least offensive odor. He stripped down and added his dirtied clothes to the mountain on the floor, pulling out the last clean pair of boxers from his drawer along with an oversized t-shirt and joggers.

He laid back on his bed with his hands folded across his chest and looked up at the ceiling with a grin.

***

The following Monday, he plucked four jet black hairs from his torso. When he looked at his reflection in the smudged mirror of the bathroom he shared with his brother, he could have sworn that his eyes had lightened by a shade or two, going from a deep chocolate brown to a golden amber. His mother was at work by the time he woke up, but she left him a note on the kitchen counter signed with Xs and Os.

Molly ignored him at school, and he followed her lead. He found himself staring at other girls, wondering what it would be like to bring them to the bed of pine needles he’d shared with Molly. He found it difficult to concentrate in class, and more than once he was startled to find that a teacher had been calling his name. In the evenings, he caught his mother staring at him with a quizzical look on her face, and his brother punched him hard in the shoulder at dinner when he tore into the pork loin they were having one night.

“Dude, where are your manners?”

By the end of the week, fine black hairs had sprouted all over his body, and he spat two teeth out into the sink. He felt dizzy when he stood for too long, and his back began to ache. His eyes grew steadily lighter until they were an unnatural yellow and the pupils had shrunk to a fraction of their original size.

“You don’t seem like yourself,” his mom said, “I’ll check at work and see if we can get you in to see one of the doctors next week.”

His voice dropped a whole octave, and he stopped dreaming at night. He spent hours shaving the hairs that were sprouting faster and thicker over his body and stared at his reflection.

He stalked girls at school and flirted with them. He convinced a few to skip school and go to the forest with him, walking the long way there and back just to spend a half an hour coupling among the spruce trees. He ignored each of them afterward.

The principal called home and told his mom there had been some complaints from other students, and could they schedule a time for him to come in to meet with the school counselor?

When he showed up in the school office, he tapped his foot nervously against the thin carpet and didn’t meet the counselor’s eyes. The woman had brown hair and he focused on the subtle cleavage visible from her fitted floral blouse. His mind was filled with sex–the pursuit of it, the mechanics, the raw need. He could think of little else.

“It’s normal for young men to have urges, Josh. But part of growing up and becoming an adult is learning to control them. Have you been given any tools to do that?”

An hour with the counselor didn’t help, and two new teeth began growing in the caverns left over from the teeth he’d lost. When he felt the tips of them with his index finger, they drew blood. The hair on his body grew so fast that even his dad’s old electric razor couldn’t keep up. He stopped going to school, and when his mom asked about him through the door of his room, he told her he was sick..

He fell into another dreamless sleep. When he woke up, he was back in the forest and it was dark. He was covered in fur from his head to his toes. A soft undercoat beneath, with hairs that were coarse and thick on the outside. He opened his mouth to let out a scream but a long howl released instead. It was a yearning, terrible sound and at first he didn’t connect it to himself. The teeth that had grown from the ones he’d lost were now long enough that they rested against the outside of his lower lip, and his bones ached like each one had been regrown. He let out another long, agonizing howl before stepping forward on what had once been his front arm. The first few steps in this new form were shaky, but he grew in confidence. He wetted his lips and lifted them up into a kind of snarl. He squinted his eyes, marveling at how much he could see.

It wasn’t long before he was bounding through the forest, sniffing for prey. He practiced running quietly on all fours, and stopped every so often to inspect a cluster of wild mushrooms or a rotting log. Smells layered one on top of another and he found he could separate and identify them, and could learn from following a particular scent to its source.

When dawn was just beginning to break and the first sparrows were calling to each other across the forest, he noticed that his back was no longer aching. He felt alive, each cell shivering with anticipation.

The air was clear and cool and the ground was solid beneath the pads of his new four feet. He knew then that he would never go back. To be a wolf was to have freedom, to take hold of the world and make it his. He would never be asked to control his urges in this form, would never have to worry about embarrassing his family. His appetite could be satiated with no repercussions or consequences. He lifted the edges of his mouth in a grimace that would have been a grin if he were still human. Then he bounded off into the forest, eager to fill the hole that had opened deep in his belly.

BIO: E.B. Sommer‘s work has been featured in The Daily Tomorrow, Manawaker Flash Fiction Podcast, and The Stygian Zine. She is an Associate Member of SFWA and a full list of her published works can be found at her website, www.ebsommer.com. She resides in Minnesota with her family and their two dogs, Sam and Sally.

Subscribe now

A new look. A wild night. One dangerous mistake.

When the police arrest her for a string of shoplifting incidents, Goldie insists they’ve got the wrong woman. But then she notices something that stops her cold: the tooth marks on the arresting officer’s neck.

The Bite That Hurts is sharp, sly, and darkly fun — a story about reinvention, desire, and the trouble that follows when you finally get noticed.

Nothing can drive one crazier than not getting attention. Especially if you happened to be born drab, shy, and unexciting, like Goldie.

Goldie was quiet, plain-looking, and never made waves, not at her dull clerical job or at volunteer charity gigs where she did her chores and followed the directions of others. She knew she needed some color and drama in her life.

One night, she dyed her hair a vivid shade of red, made up her face with dark red lipstick and purple eye shadow, dressed in a black lace-trimmed gown and gold high heels, and went out to hit the clubs.

She flirted with all the men she met. One of them suggested they go back to his place. Goldie took the bait. She went to bed with him and acted like a she-lion, even sinking her teeth into his neck.

The next day, she was back at her job, a kerchief covering her hair, trying to be plain little Goldie again-until next time.

What happened next, was the next time-and she didn’t expect it. She was merely shopping at a little bargain store she always went to.

“There she is,” said the storekeeper. A man approached and flashed his police I.D. at her.

“You’re under arrest,” said the plainclothes cop.

He read her rights and handcuffed her.

She asked what this was all about.

It seemed the cops thought she was the dead ringer for a woman who had been shoplifting at that store and at other businesses. The store owners had described the shoplifter as a plain, drab, young woman.

“But it’s not me,” she whined. The cop did not care. He led her away. Only then, she noticed the tooth marks on his neck.

BIO: Lynne Bronstein is the author of Nasty Girls (Four Feathers Press) and four other books of poetry. She has been published in magazines ranging from Playgirl to Chiron Review, from Lummox to anthologies in England, Ireland, Israel, Canada, and India. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies and has been read on National Public Radio. She also writes a column on Facebook and Substack called Show Biz Cats.

Subscribe now

As we noted in our first sit down with Frank Vatel, we gave him the challenege of building the visual identity for Bad Intentions. Each of the fifteen stories in the anthology were important, but nailing a cover that would resonate with both the contributors and readers was equally important. The cover of any book, whether its on a shelf in a bookstore or in an online listing is an important first step in getting people to part with their hard-earned cash to buy it.

Frank created a phenominal cover that immediately resonated with readers, contributors, and crime fiction fans alike. Noir, atmospheric, and quietly unsettling, it captures exactly what we hoped the anthology would be—a collection of stories that live in the space between bad decisions and worse consequences.

Meet the artist behind Bad Intentions: Frank Vatel

For readers who may not know your work, tell us a little about yourself as both a

writer and an artist.

Professionally, I’ve done a little bit of everything that interests me. My first serious job was writing for (and later editing) the arts section of a metro newspaper. They paid me to do real journalism, so I slapped on my reporter’s hat when it was unavoidable, but I took the job mostly to write film and book reviews. When that paper folded, I enrolled at NYC’s School of Visual Arts to pursue graphic design—I’ve been drawing and painting since childhood—and eventually landed at a creative agency in Chicago, where I worked for six years. These days, I split my time between freelance design jobs and writing crime fiction. Earlier this year, “Chains,” a story I penned for All Due Respect, was named a Derringer Award finalist. Other recent work has appeared in Punk Noir, Revolution John, and Bristol Noir. Now that I’m designing crime-fiction covers for other authors, I feel like all these loose threads have come together.

When Michael and KC first approached you about creating the cover for Bad

Intentions, what was your reaction to the concept of a Warren Zevon-inspired crime

fiction anthology?

I knew it would be lots of fun. This isn’t the first anthology inspired by classic songs, but Zevon was the rock artist, above all others, whose lyrics seemed to spring from the soul of a pulp writer. In some ways, he was a one of us. His muse just happened to lead him to the piano and guitar rather than the word processor.

The cover has become one of the defining visual elements of the project. Can you

walk us through the creative process and how you arrived at the final design?

I arrived at this cover image—the broken eyeglasses—because it presented a solution to two separate problems. First, of course, was the marketing aspect. We’re trying to pull in fans of gritty crime fiction, so this design, with its whiff of offscreen violence, felt right to me. The second problem was a quirkier one. I wanted an image that somehow referenced Warren Zevon himself—not just the lyrics, but the actual person—without using a photo of him. A tall order, I admit. But the round-framed spectacles, left behind in the shadows, seemed to do the trick.

As both a writer and an artist, do you approach storytelling differently depending on

the medium, or are you ultimately trying to accomplish the same thing?

My approach to graphic design is remarkably similar to my writing process. In both cases, “show, don’t tell” is a big part of it. I want to send a little chill up the audience’s spine. When you come out and state something too directly, that doesn’t happen. Your audience has already braced themselves for it. But when you compel them to read between the lines, it’s more effective. Good noir imagery, like good noir writing, often carries the suggestion of violence—not the act itself, but the suggestion of it. It’s like theater of the mind. You leave people with just enough information to paint their own picture.

What was the most challenging part of designing a cover for an anthology containing fifteen different stories and voices?

It’s liberating, actually. Sometimes authors, publishers, or even designers can be too literal-minded about of what “needs” to be on the cover—a specific character, or maybe a specific scene. You end up with a banal cover subject that is very dear to the project’s stakeholders but means nothing to the prospective buyer, who is likely to be drawn to something more vibey and mysterious. In a book with fifteen different stories, that’s not an issue. You can’t single out any single character, place, or thing, so you immediately start thinking in terms of vibe, tone, and feelings, which is better anyway. The sizzle, not the steak.

What projects are you currently working on, either as a writer, an artist, or both?

I’m putting the final touches on my next cover, which happens to be hand-illustrated. It’s an anthology that collects, in one volume, all the stories in Russell Thayer’s long-running Gunselle series. On the writing front, I’m dragging two pieces across the finish line simultaneously: a bleak mob story set during the Christmas season and a period mystery, titled “Dime-a-Dance,” about a young woman who works as a taxi dancer in the 1940s.

Subscribe now

One final note: if you’ve been reading Bad Intentions and enjoying the collection, a short Amazon review helps more readers find the book and will meand a great deal to all of us.

And if you haven’t yet purchased a copy, you can grab one RIGHT HERE

In a place where everyone has an angle, loyalty may be the most dangerous bet of all.

Wade drove Velda from Southern California over to Arizona, then slipped down across the border into Mexico. Their escape to a coastal hotel eighty miles south had been nightmarish, driving on dangerous winding roads under a hammering rain that wouldn’t let up. Ditching their Ford Woodie Wagon after a jagged pothole gashed the front tire had darkened Wade’s mood. No spare. He used Velda as hitch-hiker bait to snare them a ride. Left the driver unconscious, lying in the mud.

They waited inside their stolen Packard at the decaying hotel’s parking area. Dry in Santa Gabriela, but dark clouds massed overhead. Nothing made sense.

“Are the others coming?” Velda snuggled closer.

“Fenshawe fell off the Brink’s truck. Must have gotten caught.” Wade stared out the driver-side window.

“What about the Professor?” Velda asked.

“Thought you convinced him to stay put. He had no reason to run.”

“I did my best.” Velda squirmed. “But you paid him for planning it, right?”

Wade nodded.

“I guess that leaves just Raymond then.” She glanced at Wade. “Shouldn’t we go inside?”

“Just making sure no one trailed us down here, and that no one’s expecting us.”

Two cars sat parked , but it was off season. Most windows in the three-story stucco hotel remained dark. A loose shutter slapped open and closed in the wind. Palm trees swayed, while husks of palm fronds lay littered through the lot.

Wade turned his door handle. “Lock the car while I check the office.”

“Don’t leave me, Wade. I just couldn’t...”

“Ditch you, and the ride?” He flexed a clownish smile. “C’mon, babe. Don’t get weird on me.”

When he walked inside, the lobby held a yellowy glow from the dim light fixtures and smelled raw, like a wet animal. The moldering furniture and carpeting were relics of decades past. Traditional Mexican music played in the distance.

“Victor?” Wade said when he encountered his old friend slumped on a chaise lounge in the office beyond the front desk. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, Mister Wade.” The manager stood and shuffled over; he appeared pale and sweaty. “Did your lovely wife... make it?”

Wade chuckled. “Of course she did.” He signaled Velda from the entrance door to join them. “But Victor, you don’t look well.”

“It is the weather. Raining on and off for days, and the red tide. You know, the stink of algae.”

Wade handed the heavy money suitcase over. “Just for a week until we can head south.”

“Of course.” Victor locked it within a refrigerator-sized safe. He showed both of them the combination. “Only we three know.” Victor patted his bulging belly. “And as you can see, I am not going anywhere.”

#

In normal conditions, their room would have been perfect. Third floor with a balcony facing west over the ocean. But tonight, the sea stench along with the wind and crashing surf brought Velda no comfort. Their lumpy mattress groaned under her weight as she studied Wade. He pressed against a window, the room dark beyond a flickering candle.

“Anything wrong?”

“The cars outside had California plates,” Wade replied. “Could be tourists or might spell trouble.”

Velda did her best not to be trouble. They once owned a dog, Mustard. A lovely golden retriever. One day, after Wade noticed the first signs of dysplasia, he drove off with the dog. When his car returned later that night, Wade was alone.

He doused the candle before patrolling their balcony in the intermittent drizzle. “Crouch down and come here,” he whispered.

Velda crawled outside. High tide surged against the breakwall and a stagnant odor of seaweed and algae rose. The slim crescent of beach curved outward on either side of the hotel.

Wade pointed toward guest bungalows on their left and right below. Outside the first, a man smoked a cigarette. Near the other structure, a tall black man paced, staring out at the sea from dark sunglasses. He looked like a sinister jazz musician.

“Who are they?” Velda asked inside.

“Maybe hoods who somehow heard about the heist.” Wade palmed his damp hair back. “Might have seen the first guy playing poker at the Professor’s house.” Wade grabbed the room phone. “Victor. Those men outside... Uh-huh, okay.” He joined Velda on the carpet. “Victor knows. We’re safe, as long as we sit tight, one of us keeping watch.”

“Victor gave them rooms?”

“No. His cousin Edgar works afternoons and checked them in. Didn’t know they were connected. Maybe they aren’t.” Wade squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll keep the lights off, get room service.”

“And our car?”

“Arizona plates. No connection to me.” His smile turned into a wince. “Hope Raymond doesn’t trace us. You’d have to deal with him,” he paused, “what with your history.”

“That’s long over. Five years ago, when you were inside.” Velda kissed his neck, then his cheek. Her hand moved down his chest, his stomach, his—

Wade pushed her away. “Not now, got to stay focused.”

Velda wanted to soften Wade’s grim expression and prove useful. Prove essential to the operation. During their four-year marriage, several of Wade’s associates had accidentally died or mysteriously vanished. “I can’t last a week here doing nothing.” Velda instantly regretted her words.

“Really?” Wade frowned.

She wondered how many times a day he considered her value and weighed her baggage?

Wade checked his gun’s clip then paced the dark room. “Get some rest and spell me at dawn. Maybe we can leave sooner.”

She couldn’t sleep. The absurdity of violent, dishonest criminals embarking on a theft together and then believing the splitting of their spoils would all be done fair and square.

#

Before 6 a.m., the sun hadn’t risen but Wade heard the spattering rain continue. Neither stranger was outside and both bungalows looked dark. He scoped the surroundings from their balcony before patrolling the third-floor hallway. All clear. One extra car sat in the parking lot. Texas plates. .

Velda padded out of the bathroom when he returned. “Before you sleep, can we get breakfast? Haven’t eaten in twelve hours.” She was always hungry, for something.

Wade sat on the bed and propped two pillows behind him. “Victor?” he said into the clicking phone that seemed to function then fail.

“Yes, my friend?”

“Can we get a big breakfast for two?”

“Of course,” Victor said. “Coming soon.”

After a solid meal of ham and eggs, Wade stretched out across the mattress. Velda nuzzled next to him, stroking his legs. He jackknifed up and pushed her away. “Come on, I need rest. Wait till we’re in the clear, kid.”

#

While Wade slept, Velda scoped out the hotel. She tied her hair in a bun and wore owl glasses. A frowzy, shapeless dress helped hide her voluptuous figure. Her housekeeper disguise.

She got startled by a guest emerging at the end of the third-floor hallway. He looked harmless, the wan, bloodless writer type with a high forehead and Coke bottle lenses.

Velda continued on, pressing her ear to the room doors. She heard only the surf and seagulls’ cries. The third floor seemed mostly vacant. Good. Wade would be pleased. She walked the second floor until a door creaked behind her. A giant hand cupped her mouth, then pulled her inside a room. Velda gripped the razor she carried, but didn’t wield it. Yet.

The large man reeking of a familiar cologne spun her around.

“Raymond,” she said. “I was hoping you made it down.”

“No thanks to you.” He released her. “You were supposed to—”

“I couldn’t. Wade was watching me like a hawk. This is the first time I’ve been on my own.”

Raymond appeared handsome when asleep or just waking, but grotesque when thoughts of imminent violence distorted his face, made veins bulge on his forehead. He rested his hands on her hips. “I never know whose side you’re on.”

“Yours, of course.” She stroked his scratchy, unshaven jaw. “I had to play along with Wade, until after the robbery.” She hoped he’d believe her. Someone would come out on top from this heist, and whoever that was, Velda wanted to land next to them. A woman couldn’t survive long alone in the wilds of Mexico. “If he even suspected I still loved you, we’d both be dead.”

“How did you break free to wander around?”

“I slept while he kept watch, and now Wade’s sleeping upstairs.”

“Maybe it’s time for the big sleep.” He gripped her neck. “Where’s the money hidden?”

Velda realized, unlike Wade, Raymond would abandon her once he got the cash. So just like at the roulette table, she had to put her bet down on a single number. “It’s locked in a solid suitcase beneath the bed,” she replied. “Wade keeps the key under the pillow he’s sleeping on.”

“Sounds simple enough.” He peered out the window. “You wait here.” He unfastened then lifted off her bulky dress to stare at her. “We’ll have a little reunion celebration when I return, before I, I mean, before we hit the road south.”

“Sure, Ray.” Velda embraced him and played her leg up slowly between his. “Come back quick. I’ve missed you.”

“Right, right.” Raymond loaded his Colt .45 then departed. Velda dressed quickly. No time to warn Wade, and yet she didn’t picture a future with Raymond. She needed money, a house, a new identity, and to stay as far away from Tehachapi Women’s Prison as possible. Velda saw men like cars. She looked for a dependable model to get her to a better place. Once there, they could be traded-in, or ditched by the side of the road.

She waited ten minutes. Wade was a light sleeper, always on the brink of awareness. A survival method that had served him well. She often feared he might rouse out of violent slumbers one night and strangle her.

Velda crept up the fire stairs. All quiet on the third floor. The maids had left a large laundry hamper on wheels twenty feet from their room. It sat piled high with towels and sheets. Nothing out of the ordinary until she noticed the size 13 brogue jutting from the mass of laundry. A shoe attached to Raymond’s lifeless foot.

No time to ponder its significance. Wade held a finger to his lips and waved her over from their cracked door. “Did you know he was at the hotel?” he asked in a loud whisper, once they were locked inside.

Velda wondered if Raymond revealed anything before his demise. “I thought he would follow us, somehow,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t want to stay put a week.”

Wade’s eyes tried to penetrate into her soul. “I’m sorry, I had to,” he said. “You know I don’t like to be startled in my sleep.”

She nodded. “I understand. He got greedy.”

He showed a puzzled expression. “I wonder why he tried to get under my pillow? I keep a gun there. You know that.”

“I’m glad you survived—”

“Are you?”

Velda began to sob and fell into Wade’s arms. “It’s you and me, always. Raymond was years ago, a mistake, he meant nothing...” She wasn’t sure if her tears were manufactured, or were for Raymond, or were a rehearsal for if anything bad happened to Wade. It didn’t really matter, as long as she could summon them.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll deal with the body, you keep patrolling. Shout ‘Servicio!’ if anyone is coming to find me.”

#

Wade wheeled the heavy cart into the manual elevator with its accordion door. Jesus, Raymond weighed a ton. He descended to the hotel’s dank, unlit cellar. He moved as quietly as possible by the utility room with a janitor napping on a cot, then followed the rising heat toward a metal door at the far end. He lifted and heaved Raymond’s bulky corpse into the loading bucket then levered him into the furnace of the trash incinerator. It was one of the distinct bonuses of staying at Victor’s dilapidated hotel.

Wade abandoned the laundry hamper in the elevator for housecleaning staff and headed for the front desk. Being ten a.m. and off-season, no one loitered around the lobby. Victor snoozed in a nearby anteroom; he came to attention.

“Senor Wade? Is your room phone not working?”

He glanced behind him. “The guest in Room #214 checked out.”

Victor’s eyes bulged in alarm. “He left without paying? This is a disgrace.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll cover his bill.”

“You will?” A slight tremble inhabited Victor’s voice. “Not coming back?”

“No, he checked out—permanently.”

“Ah, I see.” Victor paused. “And no trouble with the policia?”

“Nope. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Victor half-smiled with instant understanding. “Good, but be careful. You should stay locked in your room until you wish to leave.”

Wade headed for the staircase.

#

Velda searched Room #214 to make sure she hadn’t left a lipstick-stained cigarette butt behind, then continued her rounds. She finally made it down to the north wing off the lobby. Again a deathly quiet. She felt a presence. A tall scarecrow figure stood in the corner shadows. She gasped. The Professor.

“Well, my little chickadee,” he said through his bushy silver mustache. “I bet you didn’t expect to see me again.”

No, she hadn’t. Wade had told her to be kind, to dissuade him from leaving America. That he would get his cut for planning the heist after the heat cooled down. A few kisses and caresses to placate the impotent codger, the junkie. It hadn’t been that simple. The old goat injected himself with amphetamines and aphrodisiacs, then had his way with her. He also gave Velda a shot that made her groggy. Sodium Pentothal? Was that how he learned of this hotel? She shuddered, imagining his bony hands, his scrawny old body.

“Let’s not cause a ruckus in public.” He escorted her into his room. “I brought my medicine bag along too.” A lascivious smirk. Needles lay on a night table next to wax-shrouded candles, tinfoil packets, and test tubes.

Velda bit her lip. Possibly, the Professor would be the sole survivor of the aftermath of their heist. If she could just lead him on, with promises of pleasure to come, then once on the road, he’d be easy to dispatch.

He reached for her.

“I need to go back upstairs,” she said. “If Wade finds out you’re here...” She lowered her voice. “He just killed Raymond.”

“Good riddance to that brute,” he said. “Okay, run along then, girly.” He pinched her waist and she slapped him. He scrutinized his stash. “Well, we have long nights of fun ahead of us.”

Velda stayed with Wade inside their room. Both were vigilant but no strangers lurked on the beach below them. At eight, a teenage maid brought them dinner.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting poisoned?” she asked, as Wade munched on his stringy chicken and rice without a care.

“As long as Victor is in charge, we’re perfectly safe in that regard.”

She nibbled at her food, but the ocean stench and events of the day had ruined her appetite. Later, she pressed against Wade as he read some pulp novel with a lurid cover. “I can’t make it without you,” she confessed. “If something was to happen, well, I might as well just swallow all my sleeping pills.”

“Hush now.” Wade slapped her leg with the paperback. “I’m not going anywhere, and no one’s getting close enough to take me out. How do you think I made it all the way to forty?” He tickled her. “You’re the only one who’d have even a remote chance, but you’re too smart to try.”

She punched his arm. “Don’t even joke about that. I married for love. Did everything you asked.” She tried to tear up, but no moisture came. “I never killed anyone, not intentionally.”

He laughed. “Let’s get some rest. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

#

Wade hadn’t slept well, waking at sounds of waves, critters crawling on the roof. Wondering how things would shake out with Velda. He needed coffee, a lot of it. Wade squeezed her naked thigh. “I’ll order breakfast.” He thought for a moment. “We’re leaving today.” He waited as the clunky line rang and crackled, then a cough. “Hello, Victor?”

“No, this is Edgar.”

“Oh.” Wade felt disappointment. Edgar had no loyalty to anyone, money his only interest. “May I speak to your cousin?”

“No, Victor he is very sick,” Edgar said. “He eat the shellfish, you know. Not good during the red tide. He is resting now.”

“Sorry to hear. Can we order breakfast?”

“Of course,” Edgar replied, then breathed. “But prices went up. It’s ten thousand a day for lodging, food, and your protection. I think the men outside in the bungalows very much wish to see you, senor.”

“Is that how it is?” Wade contained his rage. “Bring breakfast and we’ll discuss terms.” He hung up, tucking a stiletto into his boot.

“You don’t plan to—”

“Incapacitate him,” Wade said. “That’s all.”

#

Velda heard the knock. “Come in.” Wade waited, crouched in darkness.

Their door creaked open and a breakfast cart wheeled inside, Edgar held a pistol. Velda watched Wade sneak up behind, bending the man’s head back until his neck snapped. Wade dragged the thug cousin out onto the oceanside balcony.

The room door swung in again. Another man limped into view.

“You’re still alive,” she said. “I thought you got caught.”

“I fell off the truck, but escaped.” Fenshawe shoved her aside and piled on Wade.

Velda rushed out to the deck to join in. Wade brandished his stiletto, slashing the air madly, but Fenshawe took it away. After some wild thrusts, he lodged the blade in Wade’s chest.

Velda threw her weight against Fenshawe to launch him off the balcony, but instead he wedged against the others. The railing buckled, sending all three men plummeting.

Down below, Wade and Edgar lay bunched together bobbing in the surf. Fenshawe’s head had impacted against a rocky outcrop rising from the wet sand.

Velda bolted downstairs. Wade would want her to retrieve the money, whether he was alive or... She found Victor balled-up inside the safe, greenish and goggle-eyed, so she removed his gag.

“Senora.” Victor panted and wheezed. “You are, leaving?”

“Your cousin, and then Wade...” What was the point in explaining? Velda ransacked the office, scooping up fifty-thousand into a nylon zip bag. Damn, all the other rubber-banded stacks were worthless paper disguised by real bills. News reports said they stole five hundred large.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor above.

Velda dashed across the lobby to the Professor’s suite in the north wing. Only he could transport her out of this nightmare. The door sat ajar, so she pushed inside and gasped. He was splayed across the unkempt mattress. Beyond the rubber tourniquet, a stuck syringe dangled from his arm. He looked mummified.

Noise came from outside, so she rushed down the hall. Two young Mexicans in scrubs hustled through the fire exit carrying a stretcher. A van serving as an ambulance idled in the parking lot. Velda ducked behind the potted tropical plants to observe. The two men from the bungalows entered and scribbled notes down on small pads. They weren’t hoodlums. More likely investigators working for Brink’s, to bring back the stolen truck money. Or maybe to keep it for themselves. Did they have the missing $450,000?

She hauled the bag outside, to the slim beach and endless ocean. Run, run. Pain throbbed upward. She felt a wet spot just above her hip. Velda bled from her side. Somehow Fenshawe had sliced her during the confused struggle upstairs.

She splashed through the shallows, heading toward their stolen Packard, toward the southern tip of Mexico. Something tripped her leg and she toppled into the thick swollen tide, landing atop a lifeless body. Wade’s fingers had somehow caught her ankle, his handsome face submerged and ghastly in death. Velda’s flimsy bag tore open and waves floated hundred-dollar bills atop their foamy swells.

The rest of her life would involve running, squalor, imprisonment, pain. Or she could just relax and let the red tide carry her out to sea. When she looked back, the same strangers from inside stood on the northern bluff, motionless. As if they were watching a matinee show and were waiting for the credits to roll before moving.

Velda recalled their Vegas wedding day. “Till death do us part,” she told Wade.

Her husband laughed. “Not even then, babe.”

BIO: Max Talley was born in New York City and lives in Southern California. His writing has appeared in Atticus Review, The Opiate, About Place Journal, Iron Horse Literary Review, and The Saturday Evening Post. He won the 2021 best fiction contest in Jerry Jazz Musician for “Celestial Vagabonds.” Talley’s hippie crime novel, Peace, Love, & Haight, launched from Three Rooms Press in 2025, and his hardboiled detective thriller, Santa Fe Psychosis, was recently published by Lazarus Media.

Subscribe now

A story that only works if everyone remembers their part.

Some lies buy you time. Others just give the truth a head start.

A pair of headlights swept across the front of the two-story red-brick house, followed by the rev of an engine, all eight cylinders working in unison toward a singular goal: Arrival. Four direct lines of bright light focused on the closed and locked front door. The car door slammed. No hesitation, no look around to see if there was a dog waiting to attack. Then, a knock at the door so loud it would wake a passed-out drunk from a three-hour sleep. No sudden eruption of light. No panic. Marcy Findley was already at the door with her hand on the knob.

There was no mistaking the policeman, tall, thin, county, not state, dark brown uniform, pistol anchored on his hip like John Wayne, a Smokey the Bear hat atop his head. “Ma’am,” he said. He looked like the kind of man who had knocked on plenty of doors in the middle of the night to deliver bad news.

“Yes?” Marcy was less confident, girding herself by holding onto the inside doorframe with her fingers; no polish on her nails, cuticles torn by the daily work on the twice-mortgaged land. “Is there a problem, officer?”

She knew there was a problem. It had been years in the making. She’d always made bad choices when it came to the men she picked or the men who picked her, always trying to get attention from her busy, distant parents. Bad boys made them crazy.

The policeman didn’t nod, stood statue-like. “I’m afraid there is.”

Marcy didn’t flinch or offer to let him inside. She wore clothes from earlier in the day: work pants worn at the knee, a sensible blouse for this time of year, shoes with a layer of barn dust building on the toes. She smelled of Dove soap, all the blood and sin washed down the drain.

“Is your husband Raymond Findley?”

“Yes, of course. I’m his wife.” She wasn’t proud of it. Not anymore. Not once Ray had started hitting her a few weeks after their hundred-dollar honeymoon. She couldn’t go home and prove her parents were right about him, about her.

The policeman cut her off before she could say anything else. “I’m sorry to tell you, but there’s been an accident.”

“An accident?” Good, she thought. It worked.

“Yes.”

“Ray’s hurt?” She willed tears to the verge.

“He’s on the way to the hospital.” The shiny brass nameplate opposite his gold badge said Smith.

“Can you take me? We only have the truck and Ray...”

“Yes,” Smith said.

Marcy turned and stopped in her tracks, came face to face with another man, one she had been hoping would stay out of sight until she left; why would he? She gasped, felt the officer’s eyes on the back of her neck, then bounce to the man, his presence unusual, a late-night surprise that he wasn’t expecting.

“I can take you,” the man said. He had said the same thing after he’d stepped inside her bedroom the first time, but with his hands, not his mouth. Ray had been in town at the Silver Dollar. Cal had offered tenderness and desire. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time; he made her feel beautiful again.

“No.” She pushed past him—he smelled as clean as she did—disappearing into the hallway, led by the light over the stove where she had pulled the knife out of Ray’s barreled chest. She’d gone for his heart with one lunge.

Cal walked up to the screen door and spoke through it. “I was just leaving.”

Smith didn’t move. “Who are you?”

“I stopped to see about the horse they have for sale. There’s a sign tacked onto the mailbox. You see it when you pulled in?”

“I saw it.” Smith hesitated. “Awful late to inquire about a horse, isn’t it?”

“The lights were on. I was passing by. And I stopped.” It was the truth, but the timing was off. Weeks before, not today. The lies were already piling up.

“And you’re in the market for a horse?”

“Seems so.”

“Was Mr. Findley here?”

“He was. Then he left to secure a trailer from a neighbor up the road. I guess he didn’t make it.” Cal paused, then asked. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough for me to be here.”

Keys jingled in the distance. Footsteps in a hurry. Marcy gathering herself.

“You walk here?” the officer continued.

“No. My truck’s around back.”

“You mind if I take a look?”

“Don’t you have to get Mrs. Findley to the hospital?”

“That won’t change anything.” Smith opened the door. “I’ll follow you.”

Cal stepped out the door and pushed past the policeman, close enough to smell Old Spice and cop leather; no cigarettes; Wrigley’s spearmint gum. A beam of light sliced through the night air silently, giving way to unknown ground.

“What’s your name?”

“Calvin Hubbard. My friends call me Cal.”

“Hubbard? You go to Heights?”

“No. My cousins did. We’ve lived out on the east side of the county all our lives. You know them?”

Smith didn’t answer. His heel kicked gravel sideways as he shone the flashlight on the front fender of Cal’s twelve-year-old beater truck. Smith stopped ten feet from the front bumper. Cal stopped, too, as the county policeman tracked the beam of light from hood to tailgate, then back again.

“You can stand here,” Smith said.

The light lingered on Cal’s boots, dust particles competing with nighttime insects, then moved on. The brown and tan uniform faded into the darkness behind the flashlight, but the intention wasn’t lost. Smith was looking for something inside the cab, then out, down to the lug nuts. He felt the hood, gently, checking to see if a stove burner had been left on. “Cold,” he said.

“What did you expect?” Cal said. “I’ve been here waiting for the trailer.”

Smith walked to the rear of the truck, pulled a small paper pad from his chest pocket, and wrote down the license plate number with the flashlight tucked under his armpit.

The porch light shattered the darkness as Marcy Findley stepped outside. Brown overcoat to her knees. Beige purse in her hand. “Why are you out here?”

“Waiting on you, ma’am,” Smith said.

The cockeyed look on her face suggested disbelief. “I’m ready.”

Smith didn’t flinch. “The accident was a hit-and-run. Your husband was run off the road. His truck tried to climb a tree.” He looked to the ground, then up again, a quick show of emotion; he’d said too much or too little. “There’s nothing to see here. We should go, ma’am.” He nodded toward the front of the house, offering Marcy the lead.

A beat. A hesitation. A quick glance between a man and a woman with a policeman standing in between them. Marcy’s feet stepped confidently forward, long past ready to go, to flee Cal’s gaze and Officer Smith’s invisible tether. Handcuffs sat next to the empty leather loop stitched in a black leather belt to hold a flashlight.

There was nothing for Cal to do but stand there and watch them go with a harsh beam of light leading the way. Smith’s right hand hovered at Marcy’s elbow, ready to catch her if she stumbled.

The county police car pulled away slowly, led by the high beams and an easy press of the accelerator. Smith was still looking for something.

Cal was in no hurry to follow them, even though his wife and four kids were waiting for him at home. He should have left before Smith knocked on the door, but there’d been too much to do.

Cal had wanted the horse to be a surprise for his boy. But he’d stepped into something else when he’d knocked on the door on a normal night, a month past instead of that night like he’d told the officer, coming home the long way from the FHA convention in Indianapolis. Darkness had blanketed the other side of the fence, the horse, a golden Palomino, already inside the barn for the night. She’d come to the door not expecting a stranger, just out of the bath in a pink fuzzy robe, slippers, and nothing else.

But on this night, the knock had brought her to the door with a work blouse scattered with red splotches. “Catsup,” she’d said at first. Even she hadn’t believed it.

“What happened?”

“It’s Ray.” She’d said.

“I should go.” He’d launched his heels backward off the stoop.

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

He’d stepped inside one more time when he shouldn’t have. He knew too much, had done too much, to turn away. She could be free of everything. Everything but him.

Now, Cal watched the police car disappear into the night, slow as a turtle, red taillights fading into a thousand acres of corn. He lit a cigarette and stood by his truck, allowing his heartbeat to match the rub of a cricket’s leg, nature’s violin offering a sudden, unexpected lament.

“I stabbed him. He threw the catsup bottle at me again, then he came for me. No more,” Marcy had confessed. “Can you help me? I can’t go to jail. I just can’t.” She was ten years out from being a high school cheerleader at the top of the pyramid, a bright shining future, falling for the wrong kind of man who had left her shattered on the bottom of the pile. Glory days and a horse were all she had now. Both were for sale.

“You should call the police,” Cal had said, looking at the dead man on the kitchen floor.

“They’ll find out about us,” she’d answered. “I have motive. Our lives will be ruined.”

He got in his truck after smoking his cigarette, after Smith was a good way down the road, and he had replayed it all in his head, looking for another way it could have gone. Marcy should have left Ray years ago. He should have put his boy’s dream of owning a horse on hold. He couldn’t afford to keep a horse anyway.

Cal headed away from the Findley place without looking back. It wasn’t long before he came up on a row of flashing lights. Findley’s pickup had been dislodged from the black walnut, forever wounded. The cab was charred, the battered streak along the driver’s side visible in the rotating red and blue lights. The crumbled hit-and-run sideswipe was a week old; that’s what she had told Cal: a drunken night at the Silver Dollar that would have solved all her problems if he had rolled the truck instead of bouncing off a guardrail. He came home mad and beat her like it was her fault. The thin rope that had held the steering wheel had burned up when the truck, aimed directly at the tree, exploded on impact. It wasn’t unusual for a can of gas to sit on the floor of a farmer’s truck. That was the thinking. Raymond Findley had been dead on the kitchen floor for an hour before then. Burn up all the evidence, make it look like an accident. There wasn’t anyone around for miles.

Cal drove on past the accident, his story straight, but he had to believe Marcy and hope she stuck to her side of things and not tell anyone that Cal Hubbard had stopped by the house a month before, Marcy with an ache that needed to be filled by a man who wasn’t angry, disappointed, or absent. Cal knew the feeling, the weight of a dull, predictable marriage, his own burden to carry. He hadn’t gone looking to step out, wasn’t looking for a good time, but he hadn’t said no when the opportunity had presented itself with an invitation to come inside.

He watched the emergency lights disappear in the rearview mirror, his return to the scene of the crime over, the road stretching out in front of him for as far as his headlights would reach. He turned them off. He knew the way home with his eyes closed. He knew Officer Smith would come around asking more questions sooner or later.

BIO: Larry D. Sweazy is the author of nineteen novels, one short story collection, and forty-one short stories. He is a two-time recipient of the WWA (Western Writers of America) Spur Award and a four-time recipient of the Will Rogers Medallion Award. His writing has also been recognized with awards from the Best Books of Indiana literary competition, the Elmer Kelton Book Award, the Willa Literary Award, and the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award. He has been shortlisted for the Indiana Authors Award three times and has been a finalist for several national writing awards. His short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Adventure of the Missing Detective, Hoosier Noir, Boys’ Life, Hardboiled, and several other publications and anthologies. Larry lives in Noblesville, Indiana, with his wife, Rose, where he is hard at work on his next story.

Subscribe now

A woman walks out with a penny.

Only one of them knows what they’re really stealing.

“Take a Penny, Leave a Penny” is a sharp little crime story about value, nerve, and the difference between what something costs and what it’s actually worth.

I chose Elm Cork and Bottle for its big-spending clientele—midweek, just before closing, after most customers had picked their overpriced vintages and fed the till. That combination meant plenty of cash in the register and, with luck, an empty store.

I was half right. The register was fat, but I wasn’t alone. There was a woman at the counter. Her Lady Dior bag and Gucci knee-high boots suggested she wasn’t there for a bottle with a twist cap. I stood close enough to catch jasmine in her hair.

The register cha-chinged. The clerk slid a bottle of Special Selection cabernet her way. Her eyes drifted—not to the door, but to the Take a Penny, Leave a Penny cup.

The clerk’s follow‑up, “Have a lovely evening,” rang hollow, and the tinny beat from his earbuds told me his attention was elsewhere. Then he glanced at her again—really looked—and something tightened in his face. Recognition. Not the friendly kind.

I was in a hurry—Arnie’s people were waiting. A couple grand would buy time. I tightened my grip on the handgun in my jacket.

She shoved the receipt into her purse, cradled the bottle, and smiled. I smiled back because, even during a robbery, I had a weakness for a pretty face, especially one with cornflower eyes and dimples.

“Ma’am?” The clerk offered a penny between trembling fingers. He let the lone cent fall into her hand—shaken, but not by me. Not yet.

A black Escalade crawled past the storefront—Arnie’s men.

The lady accepted her cent and again eyed the Take a Penny cup—the last vestige of the honor system. Civility comes easily when little is at stake. Pennies are obsolete, and the goodwill gesture’s going extinct with it. That cup’s one of the few things in a store you don’t have to unlock.

I heard the clink of the coin as it dropped. Instead of leaving, the woman fished a pair of wire rims from her purse, rested them on her nose, and leaned in. Had she never seen Abe Lincoln?

I couldn’t wait any longer. I pressed her shoulder—just enough to move her aside. I whipped out my gun. With my free hand, I spread a plastic bag on the counter. “Fill ‘er up,” I said, nodding toward the register.

The clerk staggered back, hands up, but his eyes weren’t on the gun. They flicked to her again—wide, wary, like he recognized her and wished he hadn’t.

I leveled my Saturday Night Special. “Open it,” I said. “Franklins and Grants.”

He pressed a button on the register. The drawer glided open with a whoosh, followed by a cushioned whump.

The lady with the cabernet was still there. I expected a scream. Instead, she calmly said, “Go ahead. Take your money.” Then added, “Excuse me,” and nonchalantly stepped in front of me.

“Are you nuts?” I said. It was more a statement than a question.

She reached inside the cup. “Take a Penny, Leave a Penny,” she said with that dimpled grin.

She removed a single red cent, slipped it into her purse, and glanced toward me. “I can’t see a thing without my glasses,” she said. “Wouldn’t make a good witness.” We were both breaking the rules, just in different departments.

A bell tinkled as she swung open the door and disappeared.

The clerk stuffed my bag. When he finished, he didn’t plead or reach for a phone—he just bolted out the back door, wanting no part of whatever was happening, whether because of me or her wasn’t clear.

Back at my apartment, the hallway was dark. I flipped the switch, and two of Arnie’s boys appeared, hands buried, keeping their pieces company.

“I’ve got the money,” I said, trying to sound steady, though my knees weren’t convinced.

“Arnie’s money,” the big one grunted.

The short one extended an open palm. I dropped the bag into it—no .99 decimal ending this transaction.

***

I checked the newspaper every day—the cops had no leads. The clerk could only describe “a man with a gun.” The woman wasn’t mentioned.

Weeks later, however, another story caught my eye: “Famed Collector Cashes In.” Beneath was a picture of an attractive woman with those same cool, blue eyes and dimples—the customer from Elm Cork and Bottle.

According to the article, Elena Ethering built her fortune on rare collectibles—historic letters, first editions, and postage stamps so scarce they were thought lost forever. The reporter hinted at her “reputation for coercive acquisitions through unconventional channels,” a polite way of saying people knew to stay out of her way. Nothing was proven, but her name had a habit of showing up before someone else didn’t.

She’d recently sold the rarest of Lincoln cents—a 1943 copper penny from the Denver Mint. That was the year the Mint switched to steel for the war effort, making any copper ’43 a unicorn. Few believed her story that it turned up in her change.

The story noted that Ethering’s selling price was a million dollars.”

I’d risked my life for a few thousand. She’d walked out with a penny.

Those penny cups run on trust. Funny how you don’t know what something’s worth until it walks out the door.

Author’s Bio: Gregory Meece built a wide-ranging career in education, working across every grade level from kindergarten through college. He earned degrees in English, communications, and education. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and in more than thirty magazines, including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Bristol Noir, Thriller Magazine, House of Long Shadows, Blood Moon Rising, New Flash Fiction Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, Fabula Argentia, and Scaffold. He lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania, where he works with the Amish farming community, carves wood, and writes stories. Visit him at MeeceTales.com.

Subscribe now

Until maybe it doesn’t.

Small town suspicion, bad luck, and one very strange road trip.

When the police found the fingers of Trisha McGuire, one digit under each base on the baseball diamond at Danbury High School, they questioned the team mascot, Larry the Lumberjack, who wielded an axe, though they discovered very quickly that it was only a plastic prop. Larry, whose real name is Barry, was Trisha’s ex, and some say he took his job as a means to win her back (she was the coach of the girls’ softball team).

Trisha’s fingers were severed at the second knuckle, each nail painted in alternating orange and white, the Lumberjill colors. They found her thumbs last, buried beneath the rubber on the pitcher’s mound. “She was all thumbs,” Barry heard one of the detectives say, laughing as he slipped Trisha’s into an evidence bag.

The town of Danbury mourned their coach, who had led their girls to a state championship the year before. The big game was next week, a chance to repeat the glory. But after the disappearance of Trisha (and the sudden appearance of her fingers) they called the event off. Now Danbury mourned its opportunity to reclaim its softball supremacy in the state of Wisconsin. With no one to blame for the disappearance and probable murder of Trisha McGuire, the town cast its suspicion on Barry, who, if truth be told, was more devastated than anyone else.

It was with unbelievable misfortune that Barry, less than two months later, discovered a severed finger tucked between the folds of roast beef while working at his new job at Arby’s. He picked it out and recognized the tattoo; it was his coworker, Melanie, who lost her finger while operating the meat slicer the week before. The Arby’s crew never found her middle finger, which Melanie was known to use liberally, and everyone assumed it must have found its way into the rubbish or had rolled under some unknown cranny. After eight hours, the hospital staff told her it was too late to reattach it.

It was troubling, everyone thought, that Barry had found the finger. They ruled out coincidence, assuming he had orchestrated the severing. No one seemed to care that Barry was at home, and not at work, when Melanie cut off her finger. Once the flames of gossip ignited, there was no dousing the small town’s rumored beliefs. Even Melanie had doubts about Barry’s involvement. When he was fired from Arby’s, she flicked him off with a stubby middle finger. “Go fuck yourself, Barry the Butcher.” And the name stuck.

After months of being heckled, ostracized, threatened, and disregarded as scum, Barry decided he could no longer endure living in Danbury among people who saw him as “Barry the Butcher.” He made arrangements to sublet his apartment, and, without any notion of returning, he hit the road with no planned destination, nor the slightest vision for his future.

Not far from Danbury, Barry saw a woman poised on the side of the road. A hitchhiker. She was blonde, like Trisha McGuire, and about the same age and build. She was holding a cardboard sign that read “Minneapolis” in black marker. She stuck out her thumb—the universal gesture for needing a ride—but it looked a little odd, clumsy, and utterly graceless. The woman dropped her sign and struggled to pick it up.

Barry was lonely, and the thought of conversation with another human being who did not know him as “Barry the Butcher” was a warm prospect. He hit his blinker, slowing down as he passed the hitchhiker, and pulled over to a stop about fifty feet in front of her. He rolled down his window and stuck out his arm, waving the woman over. Minneapolis was as good a destination as any other. It was a big city, a place Barry could blend in.

“Hi there!” He called out joyfully, but ended up choking on his words, coughing as if he had swallowed an Arby’s sandwich with a finger tucked inside.

In the side mirror, he watched a woman approaching him, her fingers flexing like a bird of prey reaching for its quarry. They were short and stubby, mutilated and raw. Blood ran down the woman’s palms and wrists as she waved with a smile that seemed jovial to the point of transcending into sinister, a wild mirth suggestive of insanity.

Barry hit the gas, flooring it like a bat out of Danbury. He zoomed out onto the road, kicking up dust into the face of the hitchhiker. Neglecting to look ahead, his eyes were lost in the maimed clutches floating in his mirror, which seemed to follow him no matter how fast he sped ahead. A car horn alerted him to the impending disaster, and when he turned to investigate the road, the last thing he saw was a large vehicle, point-blank, with the driver inside. Her hands were held out in front of her, as if that could stop what came a millisecond later.

*

The following year, in the wake of Barry the Butcher’s death, the Danbury Lumberjills won the Wisconsin State Championship softball title. A statue was erected in honor of Trisha McGuire, whose body was never discovered, nor her fate made known. Her statue was life-size, lifelike, and she gripped a softball bat with ten long fingers. Barry the Butcher was demonized, and the news of his death brought many satisfied sighs to the good folks of Danbury. In their small town, where softball is religion, the Finger Thief became an urban legend and a popular choice for children’s Halloween costumes. The local Arby’s shut down. Somewhere, living or dead, Trisha McGuire lingers, her bones bared, or sheathed in living flesh.

Bio: James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa (New Zealand). His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, X-R-A-Y, Hobart, Reckon Review, and elsewhere. His 2nd collection, Fish Out of Water, is forthcoming from Anxiety Press.

Subscribe now

The story follows Jay and his wife, Nuna, as they evacuate their Clearwater home ahead of Hurricane Milton, only weeks after Helene has already battered Florida. What begins as a darkly funny account of hurricane anxiety, family, booze, neighbors, and the strange ways people behave when everything feels like it might collapse gradually becomes something sharper. Jay finds himself wrestling with insurance companies, political anger, social-media detachment, violence, and the uncomfortable realization that people increasingly seem to celebrate when someone else acts on the rage they’ve been carrying themselves.

By the time Jay finally explodes on his obnoxious neighbor—and discovers that the crowd considers him a hero. It’s funny, angry, unsettling, and very Zevon: a world in disorder where the line between laughing at the chaos and becoming part of it gets awfully thin.

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

I write Crime fiction, and my debut Tales from Terrebonne is being published this fall, courtesy of Rock and a Hard Place Press.

Tales from Terrebonne is set primarily an hour south of New Orleans in Terrebonne Parish where I was born and raised, and features fifteen Crime stories, all connected.

Working with Rock and a Hard Place has been a dream come true, and I can’t thank the RHP Team enough for the amazing support. That includes Joshua Murray.

Beyond that, I’m Managing Editor at Mythic Picnic and the experience has been one of the most fulfilling of my life. Let’s just say I owe Mark Finnemore a lot of beers.

My wife Lamia and I love the shit out of Sunny Florida, and we have just as much fun at home as we do at the beach, the bars, and sports events. We love people, making each other laugh, and having a good time.

What inspired your story in Bad Intentions?

Hurricane Milton. My story is titled “Milton,” and it deals with a guy who loses control despite things going his way. Those are the people who scare me most. People who lose their shit after life does them favors. I see those people as dangerous.

Was there a specific Warren Zevon song, lyric, or theme that sparked the piece?

There wasn’t a song that sparked the piece, but songs I’d heard during real life events helped me figure out the overall story. “Disorder in the House” especially hit home.

Crime fiction is often about consequences. What interested you most about exploring that idea?

For me it’s always questions. Are there any real consequences? Can characters get away with it? What are the consequences either way? Who else is affected either way?

Who are some writers that have influenced your work?

Donald Ray Pollock, Denis Johnson, and Elmore Leonard are the big three, but also Rob D. Smith, S.A. Cosby, C.W. Blackwell, Craig Clevenger, Eli Cranor and Mary Thorson.

What was the most challenging part of writing this story?

Cutting scenes that I liked, but you have to stay true to the story and the characters.

What are you working on now?

A story called “FiVEHEAD,” which is about a very successful but dysfunctional band on tour. It’s not Spinal Tap. Think Behind the Music meets Shameless.

Favorite Warren Zevon song?

“Disorder in the House.”

Bonus question:

At what point in your story should your main character realize they were in trouble?

The first act, first paragraph.

Subscribe now

That was the agreement.

But when one person decides the affair meant more than the other thought it did, a cheap motel room becomes the setting for a very different kind of negotiation.

“Unintended Consequence” — where one bad decision discovers it has absolutely no intention of staying in the past.

There was more than a hint of trouble when she showed up at the motel twenty minutes late, without make-up and wearing workout clothes. He had been pacing the room, measuring his fear of his live-in girlfriend discovering his transgression with this woman, which had begun as a crazy, innocent romp resulting from some flirting at a party that grew into drinks after work, then from a casual kiss in the parking lot to full-blown necking in the car behind the building to a rendezvous in this same cheap motel outside of town on an interstate exit. They both agreed in advance it was just one time, that it was a simple desire to take the lust to the next level, consummate the passion that inflamed them and part as friends who’d had benefits.

He’d been fine with that approach, which they had discussed calmly and rationally one afternoon while sitting on a park bench. He had again admired her cool demeanor, her stated belief in the nature of the world and the necessity of taking things as they presented themselves rather than risk missing a moment in your life. For him, it was more about the moment he would have her naked, the things they would do to each other. So it had been signed, sealed and finally delivered in a motel room reeking of a maid’s cheap perfume and ammonia, accompanied by a decent wine indecently splashed into complimentary plastic cups.

The sex, saluted by her as a joining of souls in a moment of intensity, had proven to be more than acceptable for him—though certain acts had not unfolded as fantasized—while she applauded him for his slavish devotion to her orgasm and thanked him for his willingness to hold her gently after the fact. They had parted with a simple and sweet kiss. He assumed, as agreed, that a moment of pleasure had been granted him that he could relive at his leisure. He assumed the same for her.

Until the first invitation to a second meeting that he ducked gracefully, but enjoying the idea he had obviously touched her in a special way. However, at the same time, he was dealing with the festering guilt of cheating on the woman he had deduced he truly loved, which convinced him he must not repeat the illicit act.

With the second and third suggestions, he managed to be noncommittal but pleasant. She, however, became slightly emotional during the telephone calls constituting the fourth, fifth and sixth requests for them to “get together for a nice time. You know, what can it hurt for us to enjoy ourselves?” He was tempted by the memory of her sleek body, her openness and willingness. But he steeled himself with thoughts of the woman who shared his life on a daily basis.

The seventh time was not an invitation, suggestion or request. It was a flat-out demand that he meet her that afternoon in the same motel because they had to “talk about all this.” And pointedly suggested it would not be good if he failed to show up.

He did show up, gnawed by a counterpoint of fear and anger. He failed to comprehend why she couldn’t honor the bargain as he had, but assumed he was going to find out. Her tardiness and disordered appearance unsettled him immediately.

“I want you to know I understand I’m a victim of my own imagination, my own desire for a relationship,” she said to him, both standing in the middle of the room, the bed a lurking presence. She then launched into a detailed account of her life to date, leading to an inability to get close to anyone—until he came along, treated her with respect and kindness. It had shaken her soul, she confessed.

He felt the chill, but also anger. “Look, I appreciate you sharing all this with me, but we agreed on how things had to be. You knew this was only going to be a one-time thing. In fact, I’m pretty sure that was your suggestion.”

“I accept that,” she said. “But things changed.”

“But not for me.”

She eyeballed him. “You mean if I stripped right now and told you to do anything you want to me, you wouldn’t?”

He nodded. “That’s right. I’d leave.”

Her voice took on a menacing edge. “Then I guess there are several ways this could go. I could kill myself.”

That jolted him. “Now, come on,” he said, a little shaky. “That’s not you.”

She shrugged. “You don’t really know me. Maybe it is. Or I could kill you. Or your girlfriend. Or you, and then kill myself. Or your girlfriend, and then myself, leaving a note explaining why. Or I could kill you and your girlfriend, and then myself. Or I could kill your girlfriend and make it look like you did it. Or I could kill you and testify your girlfriend did it because she found out about us. Or maybe just you and your girlfriend because I’m a crazy bitch—but who’d know? You didn’t.”

His nerves were jangling. Before he could say anything, she said, “I bet right now you’re thinking about killing me yourself, aren’t you?”

He shook his head wildly.

“But wouldn’t that be the simple solution?”

“No,” he croaked.

Then she cackled, something harsh and rattling, and said, “Didn’t you tell me you have a dog?”

He almost laughed himself at the sudden absurdity of it all. “Yeah, I have a dog. Why?”

“Maybe I’ll just kill your dog,” she said flatly. “Or maybe I already have.”

She put a hand in her oversized purse, pulled out a paper bag and tossed it on the bed. She smiled a crazy smile, turned and walked out, closing the door gently. He slumped onto the edge of the bed, legs quivering. The bag slid down the slope of the mattress, ending against his back, and he shivered.

BIO: Gary Carter’s newest novels are Not Dark Yet and Snake Bit. Based in North Carolina, his poetry and short fiction have appeared in Nashville Review, Sky Island Journal, Deep South Magazine, Real South/West, Steel Toe Review, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Dead Mule, Delta Poetry Review and Main Street Rag. A former journalist, he also contributes nonfiction pieces to print and online pubs, as well as selling a little real estate on the side.

Website: https://gecarterwriter.com

Subscribe now

It was a sweltering summer night in the 80’s in July. The campfire was surrounded by the crew. Four high school bruisers, drinking beer and smoking dope. The mosquitoes were buzzing, and they all smelled of bug spray and sweat.

“I stole a boat last week and chained it up across the lake in the woods. I’ve been painting it camouflage; we can use it for fishing.” Jerry said.

“Where’d you steal it from?” Louie asked.

“I was walking through the woods along Jarvis Creek, when I saw it on the bank. I had to find a log to cross the creek. Then, I grabbed the boat and paddled upstream. Then I dragged it through the woods and over hills and paddled it across a couple of lakes to get it here.” Jerry explained.

He popped a Milwaukee’s Best beer and took a big drink. Then, set the beer down and pulled a Marlboro Red from a crumpled pack.

“Hey, let me get a square.” Kevin said, holding out his hand.

Jerry gave him a smoke.

“You gotta light?” Kevin asked.

Jerry looked at him.

“You want me to smoke it for you too?”

“Where’s the boat? Maybe we can put out some jugs, or trotline?” Louis asked

“That’s what I was thinking.” Jerry said.

The crickets sang, and the bull frogs gloated as the boys planned their fishing trip.

“We could gig some frogs too. Frog legs are the best,” Danny chimed in

“I can steal a bottle of whisky from my stepdad’s stash. He won’t know. He’ll think he drank it. Besides, I don’t care if he likes it or not. I stole his brand-new work boots and took them back to Wal-mart for the money. Easy peasy.” Kevin said.

“You stole his boots?” Louis asked.

“Yeah, he had to go to Wal-Mart in his flip flops to buy another pair before work the next day.” Kevin said.

Everybody laughed and drank and smoked to the glory of rebellion.

“I’ll bring hot dogs. buns and fish bait. Chicken livers work best for catfish. I can grab a carton of smokes from my mom too.” Danny said.

The drinking went on until everybody was drunk, passed out in sleeping bags, and fighting the skeeters buzzing in their ears.

***

“Mrs. Costanza can we talk with your son?”

Jerry saw the cop car pull up to the house. He thought about running out the back, but he was curious to find out what was going on.

“Jerry!” Mom yelled.

Jerry hopped down the stairs and smiled at the deputy at the door.

“Jerry this officer wants to talk to you,” Mom said.

Jerry nodded his head but didn’t say anything.

“Come in here to the kitchen table Deputy Logan, you’ll be more comfortable.”

The deputy followed Mom inside and kept Jerry close and in eyesight. The officer pulled out a chair for Jerry to sit down. Then he sat down across the corner from him but within arm’s length.

Jerry wondered if his mom realized she was basically selling him down the river, to a man who she wanted to help make comfortable. She always followed the rules and turned him in to teachers and neighbors and now the cops.

Mrs. Law abiding citizen.

“Jerry, I’m here to ask you about a missing boat you might have found.”

Jerry’s mind rolled. How did he know about the boat and about me?

“Now you’re not in trouble, we just want to find the boat.”

Jerry shrugged his shoulders,

“I got nothing to say.” He told the cop.

The officer leaned back and adjusted his belt.

“Jerry! You stop being rude. The deputy is just trying to find the missing boat. He is your friend here.” Mom said.

Jerry looked into the cop’s eyes and could tell that it was not true. Course Mom believed it, but he and the cop were on the same page.

“Are you saying you don’t know? Or you got nothing to say.” Deputy Logan asked.

Jerry knew that if he said he didn’t know it was a lie and he could be arrested for obstruction, if the cop knew he knew.

So, he played like a dumb kid.

“I watch enough TV shows to know I ain’t supposed to talk to the police about nothin. I want my lawyer.” He said, playing it to the hilt.

“Jerry!’ Mom said. “Officer, Ill tell you anything you wanna know.”

There was the real Mom, right on cue.

“Jerry, we already talked to your friends. They said you stole the boat.”

He knew that was a lie. They wouldn’t snitch, except maybe Louie.

“Who said that? They are lying.”

“Do you know a Louie Young?” Deputy Logan asked.

“Yeah. I know him.”

“He said you told everyone you stole the boat.”

“I didn’t steal the boat, I found it in the woods, and just said I stole it to my friends.”

Where did that stroke of genius come from? Jerry thought.

“Well, we might need to talk to you again” The Deputy said, as he stood up to leave.

Mom helped show him to the door, while Jerry went upstairs and started calling the crew.

“Danny, Louie is a snitch. The cops were just here asking about the boat.” Jerry said into the receiver. He lay on his bed and played with the cord.

“Snitches get stitches” Danny said.

“Yeah, I’m gonna get him.” Jerry said, looking up at his Motley Crue poster.

He called all the rest.

“Louie is a snitch.” He told Kevin.

“What are we going to do?” Kevin asked.

“I’m gonna mess him up. Just tell him we are still going fishing. Don’t mention the boat, or the cops. Just pretend like all this never happened. Tell him we got everything else. All he needs to do is bring an anchor.”

“An anchor?”

“Yeah. Something heavy that can hold things underwater. A few milk jugs full of rocks and a rope will work.”

“What are you going to do”

“Go fishing” Jerry said and hung up the phone.

He planned to crack Louie in the head with his paddle and then dump him in the lake, with the anchor tied around his neck. If he was going to face hard time in prison for stealing a boat, he was going to make sure it was real hard time, and no one would mess with Jerry Costanza again.

***

It was Friday night and Jerry quickly packed his camping backpack with gear. Sleeping bag, knife, matches, canteen of water. He knew they’d have beer and be partying, but it was smart to have the basics. He tossed the bag onto the bed and opened his closet, where he grabbed his fishing pole and tackle box.

Louis was going to get it. Nothing else mattered.

“Why kill him?” a thought came to Jerry.

“Because he’s a snitch!” Jerry said out loud.

He set the fishing gear down and started to put his backpack on when he saw the cop car pull up again. He carried his gear downstairs and set it by the back door. If things got hairy, he’d grab the stuff and run out the back.

“Jerry!”

He came out of the kitchen and looked into the cop’s eyes. He could tell if the cop was here to arrest him. He was ready to bolt.

“Hey Jerry, I just wanted to tell you that we found the boat and took it back to the owner. Thank you for helping us find it.” He said, with a big grin.

Jerry’s mind reeled.

“What is going on?”

‘Well, that’s wonderful!” Mom said. “Isn’t that wonderful Jerry?”

Jerry looked at his mother with disgust.

The cop smiled again.

“Yeah, the owner was thrilled with the new camo paint job. He decided not to press charges. It’ll be great for duck hunting.”

Jerry almost exploded.

“It’s my boat! I stole it, I dragged it through the woods and I painted it! It’s mine!”

He didn’t say it, but he sure thought it.

“Well, alright. Stay out of trouble Jerry, and don’t do drugs.” The deputy handed Jerry a black and white baseball hat with D.A.R.E on it.

Jerry was seething and the cop knew it.

He watched the officer turn and leave.

Like Jerry was going to wear a D.A.R.E hat. Drug Abuse Resistance and Education. The program the cops had for stopping drugs, by telling kids marijuana was from the devil. Jerry had changed the name to D.A.R.E., Drugs Are Really Excellent.

There was no way he was wearing that hat.

“See? Cops are good people. He gave you a hat.” Mom said, smiling at Jerry.

Jerry turned, ignoring his mother and walked upstairs.

He grabbed the phone and called Kevin.

“We ain’t goin fishin. Tell everyone it’s off. The boats gone.”

“What happened?” Kevin asked

“The cops stole it.”

“Ok, let’s just go up town.”

“Yeah.” Jerry said.

“What about Louie?”

“Forget it. I ain’t gonna trust him no more, but he always has money”.

“He can buy the beer”

“Yeah, he never snitches about beer.”

END

Bio: Chris Bunton is a writer and poet from Southern Illinois. His writing leans toward action, crime, fantasy, sci-fi, speculative, true crime and horror. He has been published in Corner Bar Magazine, Yellow Mama, Eldritch Science Magazine, Blood and Honey, White Cat Publications, and others. His poetry has been published in Mind’s Eye Publications, Stygian Lepus Magazine, Lothlorian Poetry Journal, Poetry Habitat and others. He is the Publishing/ Editor for The Yard: Crime Blog.

A professional assassin arrives at a secluded mansion expecting a routine stay in a secure safe house while the heat from his latest job dies down. Instead, forced into sobriety for the first time in years, he begins to realize the refuge may not be there to protect him at all.

Blending relentless action with psychological suspense, “Detox Mansion” is a story of survival, betrayal, and the dangerous clarity that comes when there’s nowhere left to hide—from your enemies or from yourself. As old ghosts resurface and the walls begin to close in, one man is forced to confront the possibility that the deadliest battle he faces may be the one happening inside his own head.

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

I write mostly speculative fiction, though my stories have a bad habit of wandering into crime, noir, and thriller territory when I’m not looking. I live on the South Coast of Massachusetts with my wife, our two children, and our small army of pets.

I’ve always been a daydreamer, so writing is the one place where that actually counts as a useful skill. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself writing angrier than I used to, and honestly, I think that’s been good for me. It gave my voice more teeth. There’s more edge to the work now than I ever expected back when I thought I wanted to be a “proper literary author.”

I’ve never loved writing more, or had more fun doing it, than I do right now. I’m grateful I’ve been able to share dozens of my stories with the world, especially the one coming in Bad Intentions.

What inspired your story in Bad Intentions?

My life changed the day my dad played me “Lawyers, Guns and Money” by Warren Zevon. That sounds dramatic, but I was an impressionable kid and Zevon was very good at making bad decisions sound like literature. I immediately tracked down a copy of the song and played it on repeat until my parents begged me to stop. Naturally, I took that as encouragement and hunted down the rest of his discography.

So when I saw the call for Bad Intentions, it felt like it had been designed in a lab specifically to make me annoying. I obsessed over coming up with something good, then basically transported myself back to my early teen years by listening to Zevon nonstop until an idea finally clicked. After that it was Zevon, writing, rewriting, more rewriting, and then a spiritually troubling amount of additional rewriting.

Was there a specific Warren Zevon song, lyric, or theme that sparked the piece?

The piece is named after “Detox Mansion,” which has always been one of my favorite Zevon songs. There’s a line in it about how tough it is to have been a somebody and how hard it is not to fall apart, and that went straight into my brain and refused to leave. That feeling ended up becoming one of the sparks for the protagonist of my story.

I must have listened to “Detox Mansion” a million times while writing the piece, which is probably not healthy, but did turn out to be useful. At a certain point, naming the story after the song felt unavoidable. The music shaped the mood, the character, and the whole emotional engine of the story so much that it felt less like inspiration and more like Zevon was leaning over my shoulder making helpful, terrible suggestions.

Crime fiction is often about consequences. What interested you most about exploring that idea?

New England is kind of famous for its small mill cities. I grew up in one of them. A lot of those cities have similar stories. They were once industrious, sometimes even the center of industry, and then at some point the work gets offshored, the cities start to fail, and crime follows.

To be absolutely clear, I grew up in a nice part of the city and went to private school, so I’m not trying to sell some fake hard-knock origin story. But I do have more than one story that involves a machete.

What interests me about crime and consequence is the gray area. People like clean categories more than the world actually gives us. A lot of the characters I write, especially in crime fiction, have made a handful of poor choices to end up where they are. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people, but it also doesn’t erase the bad things they do.

That’s what’s fun to explore. People screw up, sometimes badly, and then they still have to wake up the next day as themselves.

Who are some writers that have influenced your work?

S.A. Cosby is a huge influence on my crime fiction. I love his Southern noir style, and I’ve tried to take some of that grit, mix it with my own experiences, and work toward my version of New England noir.

Jack Carr has been a big influence on how I write action. I like to lean on my own experience shooting competitively and training martial arts — catch wrestling, BJJ, and Muay Thai — to bring accuracy to shootouts and fights. I want those scenes to feel grounded.

I don’t know that Lee Child is a huge influence, but I really like how he handles pacing. He writes the slow stuff fast and the fast stuff slow, which is something I think about a lot. Sometimes the big fight is the entrée I’ve been promising, and I want to make sure the reader can savor it.

I could rattle off a bunch more: Jo Nesbø, Stieg Larsson, Jussi Adler-Olsen. I’m a big fan of Nordic crime writers.

My general rule of thumb for crime fiction is I want a story where things are always getting worse for the protagonist.

What was the most challenging part of writing this story?

The biggest challenge was making my protagonist unreliable, because of his state of detoxification, while still making him incredibly capable in a fight. It’s a tightrope. I wanted to show his skill without making him seem superhuman.

Yes, this guy can fight a trained killer even though he can barely keep his hands steady, but that has to come from his level of training, not because I need him to win so the story can move forward. I went through four or five drafts before I felt like I had threaded that needle.

Of every story I’ve published, this one went through the most rewrites. My biggest concern was making something that is, on its face, pretty unbelievable feel believable.

What are you working on now?

Lots of edits. I have a few stories dropping in July that I’m making final passes on, and I’m also working on a creative nonfiction piece for a horror press.

The thing eating up most of my time is getting final edits done on a novella before I send it out on submission. I’ve spent almost two years writing, editing, rewriting, and now editing again this horror novella that’s deeply personal to me. I’m at the point where I’m realizing I might just be chasing perfection, so wrapping it up and moving on to the next project by the end of the summer is where most of my energy is going.

Favorite Warren Zevon song?

“Detox Mansion.” Who would’ve thought?

Bonus question:

At what point in your story should your main character realized they were in trouble?

Dude, like immediately. I don’t want to give too much away, but there were signs from the moment he rolled up to that mansion.

Check out “Detox Mansion” as well as all the other excellent stories in Bad Intentions. Pick up a copy RIGHT HERE

Subscribe now

The Weight of What Remains by Michael Downing
September 29, 2026.

More soon.

Subscribe now

‘S story of friendship, ambition, loyalty, and the price of getting exactly what you think you deserve.

Read it now:

“Rocco. Rocky, baby. Wake up. You’re dreaming again. Wake up, honey.”

My wife’s voice sounded far away, like she was calling from some empty place, dark and distant. I had a hard time focusing on her voice, my attention being diverted toward another dark, far away place, my right hand reaching into that darkness, and my own voice drowning out my wife’s pleas as I called over and again, “Sammy. Sammy! Come back. Sammy….”

My wife, Victoria, rested her hand upon my chest and lowered her face to mine, whispering, “Wake up, baby. You’re havin’ a dream, talking in your sleep. Wake up—please. Sammy’s not here anymore. Sammy’s gone.”

“Sammy’s gone? Gone where?”

“Honey, Sammy’s been gone a long time. A long, long time.”

I opened my eyes and in our pre-dawn bedroom I saw Victoria’s face as it had looked nearly fifty years earlier when we were young, all of us young; Victoria, me. Sammy. Gradually, I returned to the present moment with Victoria’s face close to mine; I saw the toll that her almost eighty years on this earth had taken, the same wear and tear I knew appeared on my own face. We’d lived a long time. Sammy never reached twenty-eight.

# # #

Sammy Santello and I were born June 20, 1949. He never let me forget he’d arrived five hours earlier. We’d been best friends since we wore diapers. Our families lived next door to each other, and as I would discover, our families were part of, well, la familia. We lived in a mostly working-class city, in a modest Italian neighborhood of tidy single-family homes, all bought and paid for through the hard work of our fathers and our fathers’ fathers. It wasn’t the suburbs, but still a longish bus ride to the riverfront docks, railyards, and factories. You could walk downtown and find two upscale department stores, plus Kresge’s and Woolworths. We had two movie theaters, a record store, a couple of liquor stores, fancy restaurants, coffee shops as well as the city jail, law offices and banks. And everything else a downtown should have.

Our close-knit residential neighborhood had a small business section with Righetti’s grocery, Manatto’s Meats and Cheese store, a tailor, a shoemaker and TV repair, Phil’s Barber Shop and a doctor who made house calls. Cinelli’s Bakery, of course, and two good Italian Restaurants—Panetta’s and Diamante’s. There were bars and “social clubs” and espresso cafes. And the infamous Lucky Louie’s Lounge.

My pops owned Riccio’s Hardware and Sammy’s dad ran a coffee shop/luncheonette he called Café Santello, which doubled as a bookie joint. The basement served as one of several locales for floating poker and craps games. My pops had a few sidelines going as well.

As a kid, I never thought of our dads as “wise guys” but as nice guys, good guys. Neither they nor most of their paisans seemed like anything other than straight-up business owners or working men to me. Nobody wore thousand-dollar suits or those tacky sweatsuits that once were a thing. Hardly a shoulder holster and snub nose .38 to be seen. Sure, a few guys could’ve been gangsters. Mostly, to me, they looked regular. Some were handsome; some athletic; others wore pockmarked cheeks or carried a well-inflated spare tire around the waistline. Nobody sported gold chains; few drove expensive cars. The exception—Big Dom Fenella drove a new white Cadillac convertible every year and wore a diamond pinky ring on his right-hand pinky finger with a longish, perfectly manicured fingernail at its end. I’d just turned ten when Sammy filled me in on why Fenella kept that long, perfectly sculpted nail that way.

To my innocent eyes, if a guy worked in a grocery store, he looked like a guy who stocked shelves and bagged groceries. If a guy fixed cars, he’d have grease under his unmanicured fingernails. Dom Fenella, on the other hand, looked like he never worked a day in his life; he wore tailored suits, Italian shoes, and got a weekly hair trim and manicure. I didn’t know what Dom Fenella did. Sammy thought Big Dom was hot stuff. Sammy swore, “Someday, I’m gonna be bigger than Fenella; bigger and richer and I’m gonna run everything.” Whatever that meant.

Growing up, Sammy and I lived a regular childhood; played kids’ games, teased girls, caused our share of trouble. We were altar boys and shoplifted everything from candy to cigarettes to 45-RPM records. One day in Manatto’s Market, Sammy stuffed a half-a-gabagool into his jacket. Outside, when I saw it, I went back and stole a loaf of fresh bread and a jar of roasted red peppers. In summer we played Little League ball and each fall, Pop Warner. I played varsity shortstop in high school, but Sammy quit school in tenth grade.

Sometimes we’d work for Sammy’s dad, bussing tables or washing dishes, or we’d help pops stock shelves or sweep the store. When we were old enough to not screw up, we’d do some real “family” stuff, like answer the corner pay phone when Chickenhead called in bets for the ponies or the numbers.

When we started hanging out nights on street corners or around the joints—Lucky Louie’s Lounge or the “social clubs”—the places where business got done over a drink or an espresso and a card game, I wasn’t so naïve anymore and recognized men for who they were: the “made guys,” the “soldiers,” and the wanna-bees—young hoods desperate to make their bones. We’d deliver messages, wash the made guys’ cars or sometimes drop off paper bags stuffed with cash. We never asked questions. We made a good buck.

You learned early and fast to not ask much and to say less. When I was about five, my Nonna warned me, “Tieni gli occhi e orecchie aperti e la bocca chiusa.” My pops who never said much translated, “Never say nuthin’ to nobody.”

# # #

Hanging around the bars and social clubs felt adventurous and dangerous. I liked that the men didn’t treat us like kids. Liked hearing their stories about the old days and old timers. I’d laugh at their dirty jokes, even ones I didn’t understand yet.

At fifteen years-old, Sammy dove deep into thug life. He’d idolized movie gangsters; transferred that idolatry to our neighborhood conmen, shylocks, gamblers and thieves. He’d imitate the way those guys walked and talked, and those guys liked him for respecting them. He wanted to be like them. But better. As Sammy put it, “Worser!”

Sammy and I got into our share of scrapes; knock-down-drag-outs behind the school gym or bloody ball busters in vacant lots with thugs from other neighborhoods. I fought because I had to. Sammy fought because he liked fighting, liked winning, got off on making a guy cry “uncle.” When the guy cried, Sammy’d stomp him anyway. Sammy began by looking for trouble but graduated to making trouble everywhere. I reached a point where I’d had enough, but Sammy and I were best friends, so I hung in for a while until….

# # #

One day, Pietro del Monaco, an enforcer from the big city showed up. He did la familia’s dirty work. Understand, that while we all belonged to the “family,” our big city “relatives” treated most of us like raggedy ass poor cousins. Pietro del Monaco’s appearance put everybody on edge. The boss in the city sent Pietro del Monaco upstate to “tighten things up.” He stuck his hands in everything. His word was law. Almost everybody hated him.

In our neighborhood, guys got roughed up if they didn’t pay up or screwed up. Guys could get messed up for lots of reasons, but there didn’t seem to be much reason for Pietro del Monaco’s kind of enforcement where we lived. Nonetheless, one day we woke up and there he stood. A huge, looming creature, brutish, with a face incapable of smiling. I never saw his joyless eyes blink. Once, I gave him a day-old racing form. He glared at me and I almost shit my pants. But Sammy latched on to him like a stray dog begging for handouts. And for Sammy, Pietro had handouts to give. They became peas in a pod.

More than anything about Pietro, Sammy admired the brute’s capacity for cruelty, and the Colt .45 M1911 A1 semi-auto pistol the brute carried.

One night at Lucky Louie’s, Pietro del Monaco told Sammy, “You’re in my crew now. You belong to me.”

At sixteen, Sammy believed this guaranteed his future.

Sammy felt like Pietro’s right hand, bestowed with authority, power. Sammy enjoyed the prestige, the power. It didn’t take long before Sammy realized the power wasn’t his.

# # #

About a year later, we were like seventeen, I ran into a pissed off Sammy on my way to pick up cannoli for my moms.

“What’s up, Sammy?”

“Son of a bitch del Monaco.”

I said nothing.

“Look at this.”

Sammy pulled a small, nickel-plated revolver from his pocket—so small I thought he’d shown me a toy. He showed me three .22 rimfire bullets.

“Told him I wanted a gun. He gave me this piece of shit. Told me to go learn how to use this before I talked about getting a man’s gun.”

“Maybe he wants you to slow your roll. Take things one step at a time. Maybe he’s, you know, concerned about that temper of yours.”

“I’ll show him temper.”

“You’re gonna get your chance. Here he comes. I gotta go. Calm down before he gets here.”

# # #

I’d just finished Sunday supper with my folks, getting ready for espresso and cannoli, when the phone rang.

“Rocco—don’t say nuthin’. I need a ride, but not your car or your old man’s. Boost one, something plain and come get me.”

He said he’d be waiting near a roadside phone booth on Route 20, about fifteen miles east of the 7 & 20 junction.

It took thirty minutes to find a suitable ride and another forty to reach the phone booth. I pulled off the road and waited in the dark. Sammy slipped out from behind a closed tire store.

“What the fuck, Sammy?”

“Drive.”

About a mile from our neighborhood, I stashed the car in an alley. As we walked toward Sammy’s house, he pulled a Colt .45 semi-auto from behind his back.

“How’s this for a gun?”

“Jeezus. Pietro give you that?”

“You could say.”

“Huh?”

“That fucker laughed at me. Said he’d been busting my balls with the .22. Putting me in my place. Asked if I knew where we could shoot without anybody hearing so he could teach me. He let me drive and I took him to Cappy’s junk yard. He showed me how to take the gun apart and put it together. How to load it. He fired off some rounds; hit everything he aimed at. Then, handed me the gun. I fired a couple shots, turned toward the big man and emptied the magazine.”

“Ma che diavolo....”

“Here’s the best part. Nearly gave myself a hernia loading that fat chooch into his car. Took keys from Cappy’s office and fired up the forklift, raised the car onto that enormous flattner thing. Figuring how to work that busted my balls, but I did it. Picked the crushed wreck up with the forklift again and dumped the car way in the back of the lot. Niente più, Pietro. Addio per sempre.”

“You better hope so. You killed a made fucking guy. No matter who your father is, you’re a dead man. Even God won’t save you. And you brought me into it. Phoned my house! Got me to drive you, now you’re telling me everything—I can’t even plead ignorance. I’m as dead as you are. You fucking asshole. You wanna talk about goodbye forever—that’s you and me. Don’t want to see you, hear you, even hear about you. Finito.”

The next day I told my pops, “I want out of what you call ‘the life,’ la familia. Of the store—everything. I’ve gotta get away—far away.”

“Aspetta. Che cosa c’è? What happened?”

“I can’t tell you, pops. It’s a loyalty thing. That fucking Omerta thing, I think. But somebody did something and dragged me into it, and …. Damn! I’m screwed.”

“Something about the Big Guy?”

“If word’s out, I gotta disappear—before I disappear.”

“Vai piano,” pops said. “Yeah. A shit storm’s coming. But slow down. First—

Bocca chiusa, capito? The worst thing is you take off. Makes you look guilty. Puts a target on your back. They’ll hunt you. Stay home a few days, paint the garage.”

Pops called a civilian friend with a paving business, saying I didn’t want to sell tools anymore, but use them, work with them. Build things. His buddy took me on as an apprentice.

I gave Sammy a wide berth.

# # #

I graduated high school in ’67 and registered for the Draft. Sammy’s dad found a doctor who got Sammy classified 4-F. I guess pops could have done the same for me, but he said if I wanted out of the Army, I could go to college and get deferred. I figured if I ever went to college, the government could pay on that G.I Bill thing. And enlisting got me far away. Thinking myself a tough guy, not once did I imagine what a cluster-fuck Vietnam would be. By the time I got back stateside, I thought I’d seen every horrible, horrifying thing that human beings could do to each other. I’d yet to learn that human cruelty has no limits. Anywhere.

# # #

As I settled back into civilian life, I needed my family, my real family, so I lived at home and worked with my pops selling hardware and doing those tedious side jobs I’d once thought so glamorous. Being back in the life made me look legit, so nobody would think suspicious thoughts about me, about my absence.

Among other jobs, I kept track of the non-hardware store merchandise in my pops’ warehouses—everything from TVs and stereos to dishwashers to truckloads of booze and cigarettes, racks of ladies’ dresses and coats, men’s expensive suits—and how every day that illicit inventory would like magic grow or shrink.

Then there were the card games and craps games pops had me watch over, and the daily drives around the city to pick up betting slips.

One day I realized that in three years I’d been away, the downstate boss let Pietro’s disappearance simmer on a back burner. Seemed if anybody in the neighborhood knew what became of the brute and his .45, nobody ever talked. The day Pietro died, he didn’t have one friend. It puzzled me, haunted me that the big boss never replaced Pietro.

On a numbers run one afternoon I saw a figure, partly in shadow, sauntering toward me. As the figure drew closer, I recognized Sammy; but not my boyhood buddy Sammy. This guy was dressed to the nines. Gray sharkskin suit, pale blue silk shirt, pale rose necktie and a shoeshine you could see your reflection in. He must have owned a Brylcreem factory the way his raven black hair had been slicked down.

That night, we went to Lucky Louie’s for drinks.

“You won’t believe the broads there,” Sammy boasted.

When we walked in everybody greeted Sammy. Some guys knew me and nodded. Sammy took me to Dom Fenella, Jr.’s table and said to Junior, “You know Rocky’s old man. Rocky’s a friend of mine.”

We drank for hours and the guys told jokes and busted each other’s balls. Some of them danced with different girls. Those guys were lousy dancers, but the girls pretended not to mind. Sammy alternately gladhanded or bullied one person or another.

Eventually, I had to hit the head, so, acknowledging Dom, Jr. I excused myself. Sammy said, “Hold up. I gotta piss like a racehorse.”

Standing at the urinals, Sammy pulled his piece.

“Jeezus, Sammy—what the fuck?”

Sammy laughed, a lunatic laugh. “You didn’t think?”

Hell yeah. Exactly what I thought. Being the only person who knew about Pietro del Monaco, friend or no friend, my existence threatened Sammy.

He held out the former Pietro del Monaco’s Colt .45 semi-auto.

“You crazy fuck. You’re carrying that piece around for everybody to see? You killed a made guy. Everybody at that table’s got to know where that gun came from.”

“Don’t worry about a thing. I’m in with these guys. I’m in so good that I’m gonna marry Dom Fenella’s daughter Marisa.”

“But still….”

“I’m in with these guys because I have this gun, because I used this gun. They respect me because they know I’ll use it. Since I offed that pig Pietro, I’ve clipped eighteen other guys. People who don’t respect me, fear me. I don’t have a worry in this fuckin’ world.”

Next morning I had breakfast with pops and told him about Sammy. Told him how Sammy waved del Monaco’s .45 around, how he bragged about his hits.

“Yeah,” pops answered. “He’s a natural born killer. Some guys he clipped were nobody—civilians. A guy walking on the street. Somebody who beat him to a parking spot. Never knew ‘em. Never had orders to pull the trigger. Bosses think he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s good at contract hits. He’s a good earner. Took over Cappy’s car theft thing. Never pinched for the murders. He’s led a charmed life—so far. But some day—it won’t be the cops who get him. Keep your distance.”

The next day I went back to my paving job.

Sammy took me to lunch a few times, and I’d see him when I stopped for an espresso and he’d pop in to do business. He’d bust my chops about working with a paving company, getting my hands dirty when easier money could be had. I’d say how doing small things for pops was enough for me. I liked working outside, liked working with my hands. Once I said, “And the dirt I work with is clean dirt.” You should have seen his face. Reminded me of the shit my pants look I once got from Pietro del Monaco.

# # #

Years passed. Sammy married into the Fenella family, believing more than ever he’d be bigger and worser than old Dom. Of course he cheated like a dog on poor Marisa, screwing one goomadah after another. Always thinking he’d be a made guy once la familia reopened “the books” for membership. But he waited and when nothing happened he got more frustrated every day. He made trouble. Brazen heists. Beat schleps almost to death who were late paying small debts. And he couldn’t keep that .45 in his pants.

The day before his twenty-eighth birthday, Sammy, all excited, found me, said, “Rocco—finally those fuckers are gonna give me what I deserve. The bastards opened their books a year ago, but only now my name came up. Tonight’s my night. By tomorrow, my birthday no less, I’ll be a made guy.”

“Congratulations, Sammy.”

We embraced. Kissed cheeks.

“Now all I need is for Dom, Jr. to have, you know, an accident, and I’m set for life.”

We stopped for a couple shots. I said I had to go. Business for pops. Sammy said he had to pick out the just right suit for the occasion.

# # #

That night, just before midnight, I got a call. I heard my boss say, “Got a rush concrete job; got to lay a patio tonight.”

“Who pours concrete in the dark?

“Just get here.” He gave the address: Sammy’s father’s place.

The old man had been expanding to make a classy trattoria with a patio in the back, you know, the alfresco thing. Why did he need it done that night?

I drove up behind the luncheonette. Sammy’s dad wasn’t there. I saw my boss. Then Dom, Sr. stepped out from the darkness and said, “Bundle’s in the trunk.”

Dom, Jr., half in shadow, stood next to the Caddy; flashed me a psychotic grin. Fingered the .38 in his waistband. When my boss and I lifted the dead weight, I saw the face—what was left of it. “Sammy. You dumb fuck.”

Junior sneered.

“Why under his dad’s patio?”

Senior said, “Mouth shut. Dig a hole. Dump the body. Fill it in. Lay the concrete.”

The Fenellas left.

I dug the hole. I removed the crucifix I wore on a chain around my neck and tucked it inside the bundle as close as I could get to Sammy’s heart. He wasn’t wearing a suit. I covered his face—what was left of it. We dropped him in the hole. The cement mixer rumbled behind us.

I shoveled the last bit of dirt. “Sammy, you got made alright—made dead.”

I stared into the pitch-black dirt patch and watched darkness devour Sammy. I reached out my hand. “Sammy,” I said. “Come back.”

Boss said, “Concrete’s ready.”

BIO: Nick Di Carlo has careened about this planet for almost eight decades, and wonders if his next stumble might take him to the edge of his journey. He’s taught writing and literature in universities on both coasts as well as on wilderness treks and in New York’s Maximum Security Correctional facilities. His writing has been influenced by many of his own experiences and some colorful characters he’s encountered. Read his work in The Muleskinner Journal, Literary Garage, The Orange Rose Literary Magazine, BULL, Shotgun Honey, Guilty Crime Story Magazine, and The Yard.

Subscribe now

The police are looking for him. A woman is dead. And the boy she once promised to protect may be counting on her to keep that promise—no matter what he’s done.

Told as a desperate prayer from a woman caught between love, guilt, and the truth, “You and Me, Kid” asks one devastating question:

What does a mother owe her child when protecting him may mean betraying someone else’s?

I wasn’t looking for nothing. I don’t know why I needed to tell you that – just felt like it needed to be said.

I mean, Curtis is nearly a grown man. I haven’t gone poking around in his room in a long time. Probably since he was thirteen, I thought he might be queer. Never thought I’d be so glad to find a pile of girlie rags stuffed inside the box spring. I’m not proud of it, no, but I was happy.

Course, if I had known those magazines would have led to my baby spending a year with that whore Nicole Ryan, I wouldn’t have been so happy. Little tramp – apple didn’t fall far from the tree there, did it? Girl never stood a chance, mom like that.

Anyway, like I said, I wasn’t snooping or nothing. Just went in yesterday to put some clean towels in his bathroom. Never seen nobody use the same towel as long as Curtis does – by the end of the week, the thing’s walking out of the bathroom on its own, begging me to wash it. So, I grab the old towel, leave him nothing but new ones, hoping he’ll take the hint, you know?

His father was like that – couldn’t take a hint. I know I don’t talk about him much – don’t know that I’ve ever even told you his name. In my head, I call him Donor Number Nineteen, on account of that’s how many months he laid around on my couch before I wised up and threw his ass out.

Sorry – threw his tail right out in the street. Heard he’s back in prison again. Funny – Curtis never wanted for his advice the whole time he’s a kid, but I reckon he could use it now.

So now I got the towels in the basket, headed for the laundry, and I figure I’ll go ahead and do the sheets, too – they smell bad enough, anyway. I reach down, pick the top sheet off the floor, toss it in the basket. I grab the fitted sheet, pull it off the mattress – and that’s when I see it.

I probably wouldn’t even have noticed it if that detective hadn’t stopped by last Sunday. Said he was looking for Curtis – that part didn’t surprise me, not really. I was a little surprised that I wasn’t surprised, if you know what I mean, and I was a little surprised that it had taken this long for somebody to come knocking. But I wasn’t surprised. Not really.

Anyway. I told the detective the truth – Curtis wasn’t around, he’d been staying the last couple weeks over at Barry’s. I got the feeling the detective knew all that already – he never even asked me Barry’s last name.

Say I was to have seen something, I said to this detective, looks like he cuts his own hair. I tell you, I said to him, send my boy off to prison – what kind of mother does that make me?

That woman, Ms. Thompson, the one Curtis and Barry killed, he said to me, She was somebody’s mother, too.

I didn’t have much to say to that.

I’m not gonna insult your intelligence, say I don’t know nothing about guns. I’ve made enough mistakes in my life – Curtis’ father for one, plenty more just like him. Not gonna lie to you – I know guns.

And the gun that detective asked me if I’d seen, the one he said the boys used? That’s the exact same gun I saw stuffed in the hole in the boxspring, right on top of those same old girlie magazines.

My first thought? Not the same gun. Not necessarily. Same kind of gun, yeah, but not necessarily the one killed that lady.

My second thought? It’s the same gun.

So, I leave it there – don’t touch it, just grab the basket, toss it in the wash. The detective had left his card there in the kitchen, laying on the table. I picked it up, flipped it a couple times in my hand, then picked up the phone and dialed Barry’s mama at her job to see if she had a number for where the boys were staying. She did, and I wrote it on the back of the detective’s card.

Why you asking, Shelly? she said.

Just want to talk to my boy, I said.

Get him away from that little prick son of yours, I wanted to say but didn’t.

I thanked Wanda, hung the phone back on the wall. I sat there a minute while the washing machine filled beside me, the water so loud I could barely think.

So, I guess what I’m asking you – what would your mama do? I think I know the answer – she give you up when it came time, just like they asked. Anybody ask her how she felt about it? Maybe they did, I don’t know. I don’t remember reading that part in Sunday School.

See, the thing is, that boy’s all I got left. Like that song – the one man that’s left in my heart. I know that ain’t quite how it goes, but that’s how I hear it in my head. My baby boy.

When Curtis was four years old, we hit a pretty rough patch. Not that I’m telling you nothing you don’t already know – I was on the line pretty regular to you back then. Anyway, one of those nights we was sleeping in the back seat of the car, Curtis just wouldn’t stop crying. Yelling, shaking, carrying on and on – I couldn’t do nothing to calm him down. I wasn’t mad at him – nobody should have to see the things he’d seen, especially not a little boy that still wet the bed.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I pinned his arms up against his sides and held him like that so he couldn’t move, his back up against my chest. I whispered in his ear – you and me, kid, over and over. You and me, kid. Mama won’t ever let anybody hurt you. Just like that, over and over, and eventually he stopped shaking. Then he stopped crying, and then he went to sleep.

Another story: when Curtis was sixteen, my back went out and I couldn’t work, so he had to quit school for a while so we’d still have some money coming in. He wouldn’t let me ask where he was working, where the money was coming from. It was probably better that way, the part of me not wanting to know bigger than the part that did. He was so proud, handing me that envelope with two months’ rent inside. You and me, kid, he said, and my heart just about burst.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s been times before I’ve played dumb, not remembered things, out and lied, even. I ain’t proud of it, but I did it.

But this one feels different, somehow. Maybe it’s what the detective said about that woman being somebody’s mama, I don’t know. There must not be much of a case without the gun, or that detective’d be talking to Curtis downtown instead of talking to me out here at the house. He’s just working a hunch – without that gun, he ain’t really got nothing.

But what if Curtis is just holding it for Barry? He better talk to the police before Barry does. That little bastard’ll pin the whole thing on my baby in a minute, just to save his own worthless ass.

Neck. Sorry.

So, I guess I’m just looking for some help. I never asked you for much, just the strength to stack one day on top of the last. Just give me a sign – I don’t need a burning bush or a rainbow or nothing like that.

Just give me something.

Anything.

Tell me what to do.

BIO: Frank Byrns lives in suburban Maryland and writes about the rural South. Some of his previous stories have been published in such markets as Shotgun Honey, All Due Respect, Plan B Magazine, and the WW Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction.

Subscribe now