For those of your who are visiting for the first time, 10Flash is a quarterly on-line magazine dedicated to genre flash fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, crime capers and slipstream.

Each of this issue’s ten stories is a response to this statement — It’s the end of the world as we know it..

The stories were written by established and emerging authors in the flash fiction market — including such talents as Ken Liu, Shauna Roberts, D. Thomas Minton and Karina Fabian, who offers us another tale of Vern, her private investigator who also happens to be a dragon. This one is a story from Vern’s past. Each author was free to interpret the theme in any manner (and in any of the genres) he or she choose.

The result? A great bunch of genre stories for you to peruse this issue.  We think they’re all great reads, so have at them.

Things That Matter

science fiction by Amanda C. Davis

My brother Rory hunched in the mouth of our cave and cut a groove in his index finger, like a spiral, from nail to base. He crooked it like a crescent moon and looked it over for a while; then he grinned at me and licked off all the blood.

I said, “Why did you do that?”

“Because it’s snowing,” he replied. “It’s really important.”

He does this every year. We ran out of plastic bandages so long ago I can barely remember using them, but our box of books is still plenty full. I tore out page 130 of The Lovely Bones to wrap around his finger. He took it off before he went hunting, though. I burned the paper in the fire, blood and all.

When Rory came back after checking the traps, he had three birds in his hands and one on his head, turned inside-out, a red cone with dirty white feathers entwining with the black of his hair.

I made him take it off, but he made me leave it by the fire while we plucked the others and set their meat to boiling. He kept looking at it like he wanted to put it back on. I combed the blood and feathers out of his hair. He twitched under my fingers.

“Somebody is supposed to wear it,” he insisted, and since he’s seven years older and was around before the New Winter I didn’t argue.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Wolf Eyes

fantasy by Shawna Reppert

I knocked back the shot with a lot less respect than Glenfiddich deserves. It had been a gift from an ex-boyfriend. I’d been saving it for a special occasion. This wasn’t what I’d had in mind.

My companion refilled my glass with a smile that showed canines just a little bit longer and sharper than normal. “Don’t be melodramatic. Nothing’s changed. You just have more information than you had yesterday. Think of it as learning that the earth isn’t the center of the universe.”

“Because that turned out so well for Galileo.” Not entirely relevant, but I felt entitled to be snarky.

Yesterday my wolf sanctuary held twenty wolves and wolf-hybrids. Or so I thought. Now I knew that it held nineteen wolves and wolf hybrids, plus the. . .thing that sat across from me. The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee and the pies I’d baked for a fund-raiser, normal scents out of place with the weirdness of my evening.

In the books, the heroine discovers that the myths are real and barely blinks. It wasn’t so easy for me to have reality turned upside-down. I was seriously creeped out.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Storm Front

science fiction by Greg Leunig

Victor had only known Dawn for three weeks when she showed up at his door that warm Saturday night in early September, wearing a heavy jacket. She pulled him by his hand to her car. In the distance, thunder rumbled and clouds pressed in from the east.

“Get in,” she’d said, her voice laced with urgency. Almost hyper-ventilating.

He could tell from looking at her something wasn’t right. It was a weird request, but he was already half in love with her. He got in.

Dawn was his exact type: small with long dark hair, and much smarter than him. She worked as a chemist for some government agency with a long and forgettable acronym name. She hadn’t told him what it was her agency did – she didn’t really like to talk about her work.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Ain’t No Gods Crying Down Here

science fiction by Michelle Muenzler

The railers sweat plenty on their tracks, heaving their metal arms overhead between pulls and dripping down an oily mess on those of us digging holes below. My mam said they crying for what they done to us, but I ain’t ever heard a railer cry for real. Nothing but their clinkety-clank echoing cavern-wide until you have to shove rocks in your ears to stop up the din.

Ain’t no crying allowed, anyhow, railer or otherwise. Soon as any of us otherfolk starts wailing up, the railers cart them off just like they do the oldfolk, and ain’t no amount of rocks that can stop up that caterwauling mess. Best just to sing, sing so loud your hands strain all a’trembly, and be glad it ain’t you heading up the line to the end of times. No good ever come of going up.

My mam told me that when I was first brought down, all newfolk pink and empty as air, and she weren’t never wrong but the once. And for that once, I got no choice but to hand her peace and let it go.

Wrong as she was, my mam told me there weren’t no rain underground. Just sweat and tears and everywhich shade between. Count our luck seven ways up and down we got light, she said, and leave it be at that.

I didn’t know about luck, but I learned about rain fast enough.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Base Instinct

horror by Rebecca Stefoff

I stopped to watch the beads of sweat roll on Lila’s tan shoulders when she swung the axe. “Poor zed,” she said without looking down.

Lila’s British. She’s the best-looking of the women who won’t sleep with me, which is all the women. The others were starting to say zeds, too, not zombs or zees like at first. Trying to be like Lila — or on her.

Meatbags is what I’d called the zombs, until I saw it wasn’t making points with the ladies. Not that I ever had a chance. Just my luck to be on delivery at a lesbian vegan organic anarchist collective when it all hit the fan. Sure, I was still alive, if you can call this living, but a man has needs, you know?

“Mr. McConroy?” Lila called. “The wood?”

I came up behind her and dropped my load with a grunt. “Here. And it’s –”

“Mac. Right.” A quick smile. Impersonal. Dazzling. Who says Brits have bad teeth? “Good job.”

Hells yeah it was. I can carry a lot of deadwood with a UPS packing strap as a tumpline. I piled branches around the dismembered remains. A chunk of wood knocked the head rolling, but I stomped on the blonde hair and kicked the head back onto the pyre.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

The Hamelin Event Horizon

slipstream by Jen Volant

Greetings all. The Head of Surveillance Engineering assures me we have enough scramblers to prevent any corporate transmitters from reporting their information for at least an hour, by which time we’ll have dispersed. Folded post-its are being passed around – they contain a riddle answerable only if you attended last month’s presentations. That answer is the location at which the Ongoing Academy of Sciences Conference will reconvene in one month for our next set of sessions.

This session is our banquet and keynote speaker, though unfortunately Dr. Griffin was ambushed by corporate interests just outside Cincinnati, so I will be speaking instead. Please be sure to take some of the energy bars and bread being brought around.

In lieu of Dr. Griffin’s speech, I will recognize the work of our colleagues, working at the cutting edges of their fields.

First, Drs. Chitteranjee and Goldblum, for their paper, “The Spread of Nanocytic Swarms across the Post-National Landscape” which the Academy feels is the clearest mathematical model of the way these bugs move from household to household, expanding from their origin points in New York, London, and Hong Kong. It confirms the first bugs were almost certainly released on the day the transnational corporations seceded from governmental oversight.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Clownspace

slipstream by D. Thomas Minton

Rene de Huygens’ has always appreciated a clowning challenge, but this time Peejay’s efforts to increase gate sales have gone too far.

“It can’t be done.” Paolo’s face is painted into a frown beneath a frizzy shock of purple hair.

Like Rene, Paolo is a clown. So are Johan and Mitchy and Angus and Beerface Betty, to name only six.

Forty-two clowns in all; one car much too small.

At least that’s Paolo’s assessment as he stares through the slit in the curtain at the garishly-painted, vintage VW beetle parked in the circus ring. “One hundred and seven cubic feet,” he says, citing the volume of the car.

Rene knows the number like his own name.

“Three cubic feet per clown,” Paolo continues. “That’s what? Thirty-five clowns?”

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Moonlight, Reflected in Dewdrops*

magical realism by Shauna Roberts

“Whatever is born, become, compounded is subject to decay,” the Buddha said. Despite my beliefs, I could not accept my father’s death. My teacher at the Buddhist center suggested I take photographs demonstrating annica, impermanence.

The series, showing Ohio wildflowers as buds, in bloom, and in decay, was now touring Japan. Reviews praised it for evoking mono no aware. Orders for prints poured in. But I was no closer to acceptance.

So in the fall, I headed for Shawnee State Forest to take more pictures. I never arrived. Driving south on Route 125, I saw a brilliant blaze of flaming scarlet. I clutched the steering wheel, for a moment back in Cincy watching a skyscraper burn, the skyscraper my father could not escape.

I blinked away tears and saw no fire, no skyscraper, only a grove of Northern red oaks in full fall glory. I had to capture it! A dirt road took me close. I spent hours fixing the fleeting display permanently on film.

Two months later, I bundled up against the icy wind and returned to photograph the oaks in winter, naked of leaves and reduced to stark silhouettes. But when I got to the turnoff, I screeched to a stop.

To my left, a new Arby’s stood on a spot carved from the rock. To my right, an asphalt road lined with house frames had replaced the dirt road. I parked and photographed the scarred hillside, the corpses of downed sassafras and hickory trees, and other destruction.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

Of Slings and Feeling Vexed (and Other Aztec Stuff)

“You want me to do what?”

“You will defeat the Aztec’s false god,” Cortez said.

“And bring these people to the True God,” Father Jose Dominguez added.

The conquistador ignored the little priest who stood next to him, and regarded me with a haughty glare. Although a small man, Cortez had presence.

That irked me. I was more the size of one of his dogs than the great dragon I once had been. St. George had spent forty days taking away just about everything that made me dragon, then forced me to serve the Church to get it back. At the time, I thought my wold had ended. Instead, it opened doors to a pretty interesting new one.

Of course, some days were more “interesting” than others.

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” I replied, with acid in my voice to replace the fire I no longer breathed. “I’m no heavyweight. Even when I was, I didn’t mess with demigods. What makes you think this will end well?”

He didn’t deign to answer.

“You will be as David against Goliath!” Father Jose said.

I snorted. And me without a slingshot.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

The Last Summer

slipstream by Ken Liu

Eleven-year-old Eddie sat alone on the evening beach, surrounded by piles of fireworks.

Thirty, count ‘em, thirty roman candles were stuck into the sand, plus a whole army of miniature tanks, rocket launchers, space shuttles, and a battleship. They had cost him all the money saved from mowing neighbors’ lawns earlier in the summer.

The packaging for the battleship showed a goofy-looking kid marveling at the vessel — bigger and ten times better made than the crude ship-shaped cardboard contraption inside — zooming around, shooting exploding lasers every way.

He imagined Alex’s voice: That’s some camera they used to take that picture. If it could make a cheap toy look that good, imagine what it would do for you!

Ha-ha, he answered in his mind. Look, they spelled it battleskip!

He had been looking forward to shooting roman candles together into the night sky, pretending to be stalwart defenders manning the ramparts of a castle assaulted by monsters and dragons. They always did that on the Fourth of July.

But Alex wasn’t here tonight.

{Click on title to read the rest of the story]

We hope you’ve noticed that we have a new look. We’re also at a new web address: 10flashmagazine.com. Our interest in and promotion of genre flash fiction hasn’t changed, though.

10Flash is a quarterly on-line magazine dedicated to genre flash fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, crime capers and slipstream.

Normally, each issue  offers up ten flash fiction stories written around a common theme. The October 2011 issue has eleven. We had so many great submissions that we wish we could have offered more.  Each of the eleven stories in this issue is a response to this realization — It’s quiet. Too quiet.

The stories were written by established and emerging authors in the flash fiction market — including such talents as John Pitts, Cat Rambo and Ken Scholes — and each author was free to interpret the theme in any manner (and in any of the genres) he or she choose.

The result? A great bunch of genre stories for you to peruse this issue.  We think they’re all great reads, so have at them.

K.C. and Jude-Marie

#

The Truth About Woodpeckers

slipstream by Folly Blaine

Brian told me the truth about woodpeckers.

We was watching Ol’ Hammerhead rattle a tree — he’s the red-headed pecker lived in my yard — and I asked him why don’t they get headaches with all that jerking. He said, Sam — he was the only one didn’t call me Samantha — woodpeckers got the longest tongues of anything. Usually they keep those tongues tucked behind their beaks. But, he said, when they see a tree they want to poke, they unroll ‘em like a carpet and push ‘em way up inside their skulls — wrap those tongues around their brains so tight they don’t get hurt.

He knew all sorts of truth like that ’cause he was two years older and read better. Then he got serious and said, you know what woodpeckers like stabbing better than trees? I said what. Fairies, he said.

I doubled over laughing, sure it was a joke, but Brian got real mad. I’ll prove it, he said, for a pop. We’ll catch ourselves a fairy at the lake and you’ll see. I shrugged. That pop was as good as mine. Everybody knew how hard it was to catch a fairy.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Time Dancing in the Key of E Minor

fantasy by Ken Scholes

“It’s quiet,” my wife said.

I sat up in bed. “Too quiet.”

We both stared at the conch on her nightstand.

Emily looked at me, her gray eyes narrow. “Do you feel it?”

I took a breath, tasted the air. It was humid and I was sweating through my nightshirt. It was cool when we’d fallen asleep two hours ago. “Yes. It’s too warm in here. Muggy even.”

“Chronotrogs,” she said.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Watch Out for the Megafauna

fantasy by Brenda Anderson

The long train slid across the West Australian desert. In the seat beside Bert, a sleeping man shifted position. A sheet of paper slipped from the man’s lap to the floor. Bert reached for it, but his neighbor’s hand closed on the paper, produced a pen and wrote:

‘Wirth’s Circus, coming soon to a window near you.’

Bert looked at his neighbor. The sleeping man’s eyes remained closed. His chest rose and fell slowly. Some sort of trick, maybe? Bert looked out of the otherwise empty carriage. Telephone poles ran parallel to the train line. The clear blue sky was as empty as the desert. Bert looked back. The words ‘Someone always dies’ now trailed across the paper.

The sleeping man slumped sideways. Bert leapt up. A passing attendant sprinted past him, leaping over seats to get to the window. Outside, a colossal kangaroo thumped into sight, jumped, sailed right over the telephone wires and landed, thunk, on the other side.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

The Harp

 slipstream fantasy by John A. Pitts 

“It’s a fucking harp, okay?”  Jack said over Karen’s laughter.

He pulled his waistband back up, covering the tattoo, and buckled his belt.  The Escher print on the wall over her desk accentuated their conversation: highlighted the juxtaposition of their relationship to the hand drawing itself on the wall in front of him.  Does the heart know of beginnings and illusions?

Or of endings.  This was their third date, but he feared it may be their last.

Karen laughed into her fist.  “Why a harp?  Did you date a harpist?”

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Lost in Drowsy Dreams

fantasy by Cat Rambo

Bill couldn’t sleep but his wife Marianne could. It drew him to her at first, the way she’d close her eyes and slide into sleep, even sitting upright or curled in an armchair, no matter how much noise surrounded her. She’d smile, serene in her slumber, and he could tell she was far, far away. On their honeymoon, he slept as well as she did. They curled in each other’s arms and dreamed and made love and dreamed again of making love.

Back home though, Bill’s usual insomnia returned. It wasn’t that he was too energetic to take time to rest. He yearned for rest, lay there trying to relax, to pin sleep to the mattress so he could escape into it. He stared at the ceiling through the darkness and yearned for the oblivion in whose embrace Marianne lay, breathing deeply, evenly, irritatingly, in the bed beside him.

He was jealous. He’d yawn during the day and angry thoughts would dart through his head. Marianne wasn’t sleepy, she’d consumed every scrap of sleep available to her. In the evenings they would eat and watch reality television and he would glare at her from the corner of his eye as she nodded off.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

A Creature Stirring

suspense by Milo James Fowler

“Don’t leave me in here.”

Alfred shut the closet door on his kid sister, blind to her trembling, deaf to her whispered pleas.

“It’s too dark. Please, Alfie.”

Alfred held the doorknob in place, resisting Lillie’s attempts to turn it from inside.

“I won’t be a pest, I promise.”

“You must be quiet,” he hissed, pressing his forehead against the cool semi-gloss. “Remember?”

“But that was just a story, Alfie. It’s not real.”

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Red

slipstream by Amanda E Forrest

Well, now. That’s a fine thing.

Nothing out here but tumbleweeds and dirt. And you, señorita, sitting underneath the last shade tree between here and Tucson.

Nice dress. I like red.

No need to talk. It’s okay. Tree’s yours by right, on account of finding it first. I got a few sips left in my canteen, and when that runs out I got a fifth of whiskey.

You don’t mind if I grab a squat, out here on the edge? Just a drop of shade before I’m on my way. I won’t reach in at you or nothing. Wouldn’t want to smudge that dress of yours.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

The Yakhchal

horror by Dan Larnerd

Clark Bryant held on to the dashboard as the jeep bounced down the mountain trail. He pulled the brim of his ball cap tighter, pushed his wire-frame glasses back up his nose before he peered over the vehicle’s side and down the cliff’s face just beyond the berm. This part of the trip always made him nervous, particularly this close to dark. He should have stayed another night in Jalalabad.

“Doctor Bryant, we all are excited,” Omar Ibn Yusef said, from the driver’s seat. “Doctor Whitman says it’s like we’ve discovered another Pompeii.”

Clark took a breath. “The investors are adamant, Omar. They don‘t care about ruins, only the lithium. It’s why they sent us here in the first place.”

“This could be the legendary city of Ash’ abah,” Omar replied.

“Never heard of it.”

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Mr. Quiet

fantasy by Brian J. Hunt

Drip.

The sound is loud in the otherwise completely silent house. The man in the bed opens one bloodshot eye.

Drip.

Not for the first time this evening, he rearranges the pillow over his head.

Drip.

Sighing resignedly he gets out of bed. Yet another night’s sleep eludes him. He feels somehow that his sleep addled brain is trying to remind him of something. Something important, but it just won’t come.

While stumbling down the hallway, he is startled by the gold coin that rolls out of the bathroom and through his legs. Bending over and looking between them he sees a two foot tall man snatch up the coin and put it into the coat pocket of the his old fashioned outfit.

“So I be correct in thinking you can see me now, Daniel Donovan?” the small, stout figure asks.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Silence

fantasy by Dale Ivan Smith

I sat on the bus bench and watched Dori Little sing and play guitar, green eyes half closed, wind ruffling her short orange hair. Her voice soared along Fifth Avenue, honey and steel, making passersby stop and listen with wide eyes, as she sang about love lost, about regrets, and about redemption. My old bones ached a little less as she strummed her guitar, the chords an angel’s promise.

I used to be a wizard but my magic wasn’t worth a damn compared to Dori and her music. I still hung on to a couple of spells, but it wasn’t like the books or the games where you could keep using the same magic over and over again. You could only use a spell once.

Not like Dori’s songs.

The open guitar case brimmed with coins and money and it wasn’t even noon yet. It was shaping up to be a good day for Dori. As for me, any day spent listening to Dori was good.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story

Nacht und Nebel

horror by  Stephen D. Rogers

I wake and it is quiet. Too quiet. Even in the dead of night, a full Kompanie makes noise. Bodies shift. Equipment rattles. Horses nicker. Men snore or fart, murmur to each other. Fire rifles across the line at unseen Bolsheviks because the men are bored.

A Kompanie of men breathes and dreams and lives.

“Ritcher?” Thick fog pins me in place. I can’t see Ritcher at the other side of our hole and I’m afraid to reach out for him. I call his name a little louder. “Ritcher?”

No response.

Gulping, I scramble across the hole but I don’t find him.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

10Flash is a quarterly on-line magazine dedicated to genre flash fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, crime capers and slipstream.

Each issue  offers up ten flash fiction stories written around a common theme. Each story in this issue is a response to this caveat — Two Years and Still Counting.

The stories were written by established and emerging authors in the flash fiction market and they were free to interpret the theme in any manner — and in any of the genres — they choose.

Thank you all for stopping by.  There is a great bunch of genre stories for you to peruse this issue, some by authors whose names you’ll know and other by newcomers.  We think they’re all great reads.

K.C. and Jude-Marie

Down Where the Best Lilies Grow

fantasy by Camille Alexa

Odette’s maman says she plucked her along with other skinny reeds down by the shallow brackish waters of the Durendal Fen near the water’s tail end where the best mud lilies grow among the beaked sedge and whorl grass.  There the small lilies push up, tiny stars tossed against green and black, blossoming like white prayers to hazy dappled cloudshine, offering themselves like virgins opening legs after wedding vows.

Now Maman lies dying, a bitter-spirited woman calling her only daughter a thing of bleached bone, leached blood and dank marshy waters, fashioned of the sodden limbs of the fen’s waterlogged dead, not birthed at all.

You’re not my child, she croaks, twig fingers clutching the neck of her elixir bottle.  You’re a marsh baby, just a Little Bit of the bas lieu.  A creature of fenwater blood and hollow reed veins and sponge moss muscle.

[Click the title for the full story]

Time, Time, Time

science fiction by Blythe Ayne

Dr. Justin Williams, Psychiatrist it says in tall, square-cut letters on the smoky glass door.

I’ve never been to a psychiatrist. I wonder how he might be able to help me with my problem. Will he have the same prejudices I’ve been encountering since arriving here when people take in my long, tangled hair, my rumpled clothes? I’ve heard them say hippie behind my back.

But I’m not a hippie. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not. The truth is, I don’t know what a hippie is.

[Click the title for the full story]

The Whale Wore White

fantasy by Anatoly Belilovsky

My own darling boy,

Two years passed since last I saw you, and yes, I freely admit: it was my fault we parted on less than friendly terms. I paid the price, I learned my lesson. I’m sorry. Please forgive me for leaving you that way – clinging to a coffin in the middle of the storm-tossed sea.

I had my reasons. I was confused, hurt, angry, bewildered, bothered. I hope you understand. I’m different now. I thought things over, I decided what I needed to do. Being a whale of action, I wasted no time dithering. I dove right in, or rather, out.

You’ve no idea how traumatic it was to come out to my family.

“And what, exactly, is a, how do you say it?” Aunt Dora asked.

“Homosexual,” I clicked crisply. “It means I like men.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Aunt Dora. “I like men, too. They are crunchy, and good with seaweed.”

[Click the title for the full story]

Information Exchange

science fiction by Gitte Christensen

They think I’m unconscious.

Fools. Their drugs don’t work on me. I’ve got bits missing, bytes added.

I can hear them moving about the room – the medsims, the human doctors and nurses, the politicians and scientists, the military people.

At first, I listened to their hypotheses and debates, eager to stay informed, a good little soldier ready to participate once they woke me (though for my own peace of mind, I learned to zone out whenever they talked of contingency plans) but now they’re silent and secretive around me. No-one uses my name anymore. No-one has patted my hand or stroked my brow in over eighteen months.

I’m no longer a person to them. I’m a package.

[Click the title for the full story]

Its Petty Pace

fantasy by Karina Fabian

The FBI agent glared at me from across a metal table.

“Don’t I get a lawyer?” I asked.

He snorted. “You got rights, dragon?”

“Back in Faerie,” I mused, “I could bite your head off for insolence. Don’t know if that’s my right, but it’d be my pleasure.” I leered.

He reached for his gun, but Sheriff Bert growled.

“Play nice,” he ordered us.

I brought my fangs back behind my lips. Bert’s a friend–and I am stuck in this dimension, rights or no rights notwithstanding.

FBI holstered his weapon. “State your name.”

“Among humans, I’m known as Vern d’Wyvern. I didn’t pick it. Call me Vern.”

[Click the title for the full story]

Number One on the Hit Parade

crime caper by Lee Hammerschmidt

Of all the tiki bars in all the world, she walked into mine.

I was just finishing the early Happy Hour shift at the Tonga Tiki and Tattoo Lounge, playing tropical favorites for the let’s-get-drunk-and-screw crowd of mystic travelers who were there to pound down the tiny bubbles of cheap tropical drinks. I was one chorus of Two Pina Coladas away from being home free.

“You know Hello, Stranger,” she said, dropping a five in my ukulele case.

“How about A Little Less Conversation,” I said trying not to make eye contact. I instinctively reached into the case for the Beretta .25 automatic I had picked up at the flea market. It wasn’t that after all this time I wasn’t glad to see her. It was just that wherever Allison Vega went, Lester Quarles was sure to follow.

[Click the title for the full story]

Tallgrass

slipstream by Gerri Leen

You dream of grass blowing in the breeze — not this short growth that surrounds the houses in the fort, but tallgrass, covering the prairies. Your pony would race through the grass — if he were still alive and not shot out from underneath you in that last raid. You had to ride behind Tall Smoke just to get home.

But if you still had your pony, his legs would swim through the grass, and the grass would tickle your feet as you rode, as you led the People from the summer camp to the winter.

Buffalo would roam. Thundering darkness sent by the Spirits of the Grandfathers for the People’s use. The Grandfathers would never have made peace with the white man. You know this and if you ever forget, Tall Smoke reminds you of your bad decisions whenever he gets the chance. But you ignore him. The Grandfathers are not here and you are.

[Click the title for the full story]

Fissures

science fiction by Shauna Roberts

Cassandra rushed into the breakfast room, her hands full of papers. A murder of crows winged past the window, making their daily commute from mountains to town.

Eric slammed his mug down. He hadn’t shaved. Again. “You woke me when you got up.”

Whine, whine, whine. It never ended. Cass sighed and dropped signed permission slips for a Central Union freshman field trip on the twins’ placemats and set stapled printouts on Eric’s. She grabbed a container of strawberry kefir for a quick breakfast.

Eric glanced at the printouts, then swept his arm across the table. The mug shattered when it hit the tile. Coffee flooded the papers and made the ink run. “Boarding school? Your little mistake got me fired, remember?”

[Click the title for the full story]

Counting Up to Counting Down

horror by Josh Vogt

She scrutinizes her profile in the mirror, shirt pulled up to just beneath her breasts. The sunlamp is tilted at an angle behind her, propped up on a sofa cushion. She both hopes and fears the light might shine through her swollen belly to illuminate the stubborn creature in her womb. The same way a flashlight pressed to a fingertip suffuses the flesh and outlines the bone and nail.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, paused in the doorway to their bedroom.

Her breath catches. She keeps one fist clenched where he can’t see. Her skin warms but resists the light’s probe, and only shadows are cast onto the glass. Whatever grows within her continues to bide its time. To lurk, her mind whispers, but she shoves the thought aside with polished habit.

“Two years today,” she says. “I wanted to see if there was any change.”

[Click the title for the full story]

Leaving Chelsea

fantasy by Dean Wells

Gavin drifts through the Lower West Side slowly and with great effort, carrying the weight of the world in a guitar case of worn brown leather and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

A warehouse not far from the pier looms before him, its heavy doors etched in frost. A bus is parked in front, a tangle of cables and equipment on the sidewalk, roadies hustling about. He looks up the impossibly tall stoop to the warehouse doors and feels every hope and dream he’s ever known collapse under the weight of the guitar case. He stops, uncertain, winter cold stabbing through the soles of his sneakers.

“Hey, Danko. You coming up or not?”

Gavin looks through icy mist from the river. Arlo sits cross-legged at the top of the stoop, plucking out a riff on the acoustic bass that’s balanced on his thigh, a smoke dangling from the side of his mouth.

Gavin stares. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” he says, taking in the incongruity of the moment.

[Click the title for the full story]

For those of you who dropped by Wednesday, looking for a new One-Off story, I’m sorry there wasn’t one.

Someone e-mailed me Thursday.  “There was no story yesterday,” they said. “Is everything all right?”

Everything is fine.  In fact, Jude-Marie and I are hip-deep in stories submitted for our July 2011 anniversary issue.  There are other new things coming over the next twelve months, too, things we can’t talk about yet, but that are exciting.

So, stop by July 1st for the “Two Years and Counting” issue. Or stop by anytime, to catch up on great stories you haven’t read yet.

And thanks for thinking of us.

– K.C.

This time up, we present a poignant piece from a well-established flash fiction professional — Michael Ehart.  Michael says he writes adventure stories.  To Have and to Hold is a brutal hike through a good man’s personal hell.  It’s also a love story.  Enjoy.

To Have and to Hold

suspense by Michael Ehart

Julie fell off the meth wagon again. Because I was in Chicago on a case, I didn’t learn about it until I got home Sunday night. By then she had at least a two day head start into the dark.

I went through her things, hoping this time to get some indication of who she was with or where she had gone, but besides the realization that I had missed the warning signs again, there was nothing but unwashed dishes, dirty clothes and the other signs of depression that precede one of her episodes.

I grabbed a recent picture from my digital camera, taken surreptitiously a couple of months before. Her appearance changes fast, and a picture taken even a couple of years ago would be useless.

I found Tony, her sponsor, in the pool hall where he worked. “Ain’t seen her, man. Haven’t seen her for about a week.”

I glared at his gap-toothed smile. “Aren’t you supposed to keep an eye on her?”

He shrugged. “I try, but you know, a week ain’t that long, bro.”

A week is forever sometimes.

[To read the rest of the story, click the title]

He also had this to say about Sandra M. Odell’s As Is. “Very cute and funny. The story isn’t at all disappointing, even if Hank doesn’t like the results he discovers. Likely the most fitting time machine story I ever read.”

Much thanks, Frank!

10Flash is a quarterly on-line magazine dedicated to genre flash fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, crime capers and slipstream.

Each issue  offers up ten flash fiction stories written around a common theme. Each story in this issue is a response to this warning — Not with That You Don’t.

The stories were written by established and emerging authors in the flash fiction market and they were free to interpret the theme in any manner — and in any of the genres — they choose.

Thank you all for stopping by.  There is an interesting selection of genre stories for you to peruse this issue, some by authors whose names you’ll know and other by newcomers.  I think they’re all great reads.

We’re loaded with writers from the Pacific Northwest this issue.

Portland’s Jay Lake takes us on a journey home, in Brown Bottle Nostrum,  that will have you thinking twice the next time someone suggests that you have your mother’s eyes or your grandfather’s nose.

From Seattle (and its many neighborhoods and suburbs), Cat Rambo leads us to a very special map held together by The Forbidden Stitch, Keffy R.M. Kehrli’s Accompaniment presents a wicked lesson in honesty, Janna Silverstein examines the consequences of indiscriminate wishing in The Misanthrope and Sandra M. Odell (from across the Sound in Bremerton) keeps her tongue firmly planted in her cheek while offering a piece of garage junk As Is.

Karina Fabian introduces us to a private eye who just happens to be a dragon, too.  We giggled a lot over this one and send it along with the hope that we’ll see more of Vern, who has a taste for most things A La Mode.

Anne Patterson Friedman’s With Gleaming Blades suggests that you might never be too old for adventure, while Douglas Swatski weaves a sweet little story about teen-aged boys and flying saucers and worried mothers in Aliens.

Data De Morte is a snarky romp by Lorna Keach.  Remember it the next time you apply for a job.

And speaking of applying for a job, after reading David Grant’s Open-Door Policy, you may have second thoughts about ever returning to the work place.  Neither of us are known to cringe reading a story.  This one is genuinely creepy.

Ten great stories. Have at them.

K.C. and Jude-Marie

Accompaniment

fantasy by Keffy R. M. Kehrli

“You’re making me crazy,” Jonas said. “Can’t you play the fucking thing any quieter?”

I didn’t speak. I just kept playing the damn guitar while my cracked fingers bled rivulets that clung to the strings and dripped down the lacquered wood. Eventually I did say that I was sorry, that I couldn’t stop, but he’d already gone out for a smoke. He left the shed door cracked open, so the nicotine-laden winter air flooded in and froze my lungs.

Outside, Jonas’ phone trilled. He answered with a sharp, “Yeah?”

I thought that if I’d known how to play, if I was breaking out into a moving cover of a Simon and Garfunkel song or something, then it wouldn’t be as bad. But I’d never before picked up a guitar. I’d only ever played music in elementary school when we all had to buy plastic recorders and learn “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” So my fingers danced to the compulsion in a cacophonic jangle, caressed strings and frets and made nothing but noise with my pain. I tried to pick combinations of strings that sounded like chords and mostly failed.

“Yes, I realize we’re late. We’ve got problems.”

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

A La Mode

fantasy by Karina Fabian

He sat in my office chair and stared at me, while attempting to look like he wasn’t staring. Trying to get his head around seeing a live dragon, no doubt. I get a lot of that. What I don’t get a lot of is clientèle. People want to believe in dragons – dragon detectives, not so much.

I didn’t have to stare back. I got the gist of him from the moment he entered the warehouse I call home. Common enough face and build as to be unmemorable, cautious by nature, nervous but determined to do a job. Lots of professional ethics, not a lot of morals.

A high-class thug hired by a higher-class human to do their dirty work.

And he wanted to sub-contract. Joy.

Maybe I should have thrown him out, but last week I’d had to resort to eating rats and gophers again. At some point, the bank would overcome its fear of a dragon on the loose and try to foreclose on this dump I call a home. I needed a job – bad.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Aliens

science fiction by D. J. Swatski

“They’re landing,” Mother yelled from the living room.

Jason tapped at his computer screen to display the image. The snowstorm made for a fuzzy, yet colorful picture. Plasma streams striking the snow and air cast neon blues and reds across the sky.

“Are you coming down to see this?” Mother urged.

“Plink,” sounded the computer. Jason pulled his feet off the desk and leaned forward to study the map. The globe sported a dozen red dots, each starship aligned with a different capital. The dot over Washington, D.C. appeared last. The doorknob clicked as his mother tried to enter. A moment later she popped the lock with a paper clip.

“What did I tell you about locking the door, young man? You will not –” She stopped when she saw the images on Jason’s computer screens.

The dot over Buenos Aires turned black as the picture showed the brilliant flash of an explosion. “No,” Jason whispered.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

As Is

science fiction by Sandra M. Odell

“What’s this?” Hank said from the back of the garage.

Gary glanced up from a cardboard box of knick-knacks. “That’s my MacGuffin.”

“Your what?”

Gary snorted and shook his head. “It’s a time machine.”

“Get out of here.”

“It is. Doesn’t work, though.” Gary closed the box and added it to the pile on his left. The warm Saturday afternoon was better suited to napping in the backyard hammock than organizing the garage, but Marge had threatened to do the job herself and his pride still hadn’t recovered from her crusade against his attic workshop. “Give me a hand with the skis.” All with broken bindings he would fix one day, honest, honey, I mean it.

“Seriously? A time machine?” Hank said as they hoisted the skis into the loft. “I mean, you’ve invented some cool stuff before, you know, but a time machine?”

“Yeah,” Gary said. “I could never get it to work, though.”

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Brown Bottle Nostrum

fantasy by Jay Lake

The bottle sits at the back of my grandfather’s medicine cupboard.  It’s old, in that way that so few things are, as if it has accumulated extra mass, extra layers of reality like coats of varnish.  The shoulders are slightly uneven, clearly hand blown, and the brown glass is full of bubbles.

The cap might be cork, but Grand wrapped duct tape around the neck years ago, so long ago the wrinkled gray stuff has had time to generate its own ecology of dust and mites and cobwebs.  There’s a faded label, blank except for one word written in spidery Palmer method script:

Facial.

Facial what? I used to wonder when I visited summers as a kid and he’d send me to the cupboard for Pepto-Bismol.  “Don’t touch that other crap, kiddo,” he’d shout from the couch — that old tartan one that was so ugly it could have disguised dog vomit — “it’ll take the hair right off’a your chest.”  Then he would collapse into heaving old-man laughs.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Data de Morte

dark fantasy by Lorna D. Keach

Shelby put down the gigantic ebony horn she dragged, long enough to wipe the gore from her glasses.

So far, she’d felled the Great Blood Beast of Hanthor, mastered the mysteries of the Foul Scribe of Felchamathea, and polished the floor of Yagfargain the Terrible’s summer cottage, so her long and harrowing journey was near its end.

The temple of the Dark Lord de Morte loomed above her, glistening white under the moon. Its walls had been forged with the bones of countless fallen paladins who had attempted to knock the necromancer king from his throne.

Shelby limped up the stone steps that lead into the Dark Lord’s temple,  kicking away the stray skulls that the ancient desert winds had tossed across the threshold.

A green light beckoned to her from inside. A bonfire of emerald flame burned there, as evil and eternal as the thirteen robed figures who surrounded it.

“Approach, supplicant!” The Dark Lord De Morte’s fiendish voice echoed over the temple ceiling.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

Open-Door Policy

horror by David S. Grant

Maybe it’s because I drink Red Bull, maybe because I’m the newest member of the team.  I’m not sure the reason, but I know I’m not one of them.

Maybe, there’s an initiation.

They stand around the Phaser 2000 laser printer and drink coffee, they do this every morning.  No words, just standing in a circle, drinking coffee and collectively taking deep sighs.

There’s something I’m not telling you.

Dale doesn’t have a right ear.  Not that he doesn’t have any ear, just most of it is gone, as if he lost it due to disease or lost a major bet.

Jason?  He doesn’t talk, I’m not just talking about the circle, but at all.  He only mumbles occasionally and drinks his coffee, black.

Chris is bruised.  Not ran-into-a-door type bruises, but deep bruises.  The ones that hurt mentally.

Then there’s Andrew.  Scarface.  No one would ever say this, but everyone is thinking it.  Someone took a knife and slashed an “X” on his face, probably foster parents, I hear this is common.

[Click on the title to read the rest of the story]

The Forbidden Stitch

fantasy by Cat Rambo

When you looked in the book, Chicken Soup for the Soul Lost in Ennui, there it was, tucked between pages 22-23.

A slip of paper, translucent and fragile, covered with someone’s scrawl, as thin and crooked as insect legs.  Fishing it out, the paper fluttering helpless between your fingers, you spread it out on the table before you.  Forgotten, the book splays itself to the air, pages promising panaceas for the angst ridden.

You recognize it as a map, that much is true.  But a map as drawn by M.C. Escher, tortured boundaries intersecting and re-intersecting in kaleidoscopic fragments, melancholy fractals.

The territories of the land are labeled: Self-Pity, Mischance, Indulgence, Unhappy Coincidence, Regret.  An unnamed road runs through the middle, marked with a line of dashes, stars and circles showing the cities and towns.

A castle, drawn in patient detail to show the flags fluttering above its towers, bears the legend Doldrums.  A blank space in the center has the inscription above it: Nowhere.

[Click the title to read the rest of the story]

The Misanthrope

fantasy by Janna Silverstein

I hate people. Really. Big genuine hate. So when I discovered that if I hated someone enough I could make them die, disappear, whatever, it seemed like divine intervention.

First it was Jasper Collins, who lived down the hall with his nasty, yappy little dog, Elmo. It was a pug, I think, with a pushed-in face and a constant frown.

Collins played his damn guitar at all hours of the night, croony-swoony songs you played in high school to impress cheerleaders. He was tall and lanky, with black hair too thin and straight to do anything but hang down on either side of his face like cheap tassles on a whore’s lamp shade. He had this adenoidal snort when he talked that made you want to push a handkerchief up against his face and make him blow the snot out of his head.

I went to bed one night wanting nothing more than to sleep when, on the other side of the wall, Jasper Collins started to play his guitar, strum strum strum, the same damn thing over and over again. It went on for hours. I wrapped my head in my blanket. I covered my ears with my pillow. I got up, put on my bathrobe, traipsed out into the hall and knocked on his door to politely ask him to stop. No dice.

[Click on the title to read the rest of the story]

With Gleaming Blades

fantasy by Anne Patterson Friedman

Melinda closed her AARP magazine, pushed back from the kitchen table, and shouted, “Turn that thing down.” Still, the TV’s volume failed to drop, allowing no relief from the screams of slashed Japanese farmers, victims of feuding samurai.

She tromped into the living room where her husband, Gordon, lay stretched out on his recliner with his morning coffee in one hand, the remote in the other.

“Please, Gordon, just pause that a moment.” When flashing swords froze on the screen, Melinda used her softest voice and said, “Honey, I’m worried about you. You’ve watched that same DVD a thousand times. You’re obsessed with that movie.”

He huffed. “Yeah, ’cause the hero’s amazing.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“He’s blind, but he’s got special abilities. Toss a candle in the air and stand back. He can raise his sword cane, unsheathe its hidden blade, then slice that candle clean in half, lengthwise, wick and all.”

As a crazed look settled on his face, Melinda shuddered. Was he losing it? She could live with his forgetfulness, but what if he turned violent? It seemed easier each day to trigger his anger.

[Click on the title to read the rest of the story]

This month, we have the second half of Sandra Odell’s review of speculative fiction podcasts — Do You Hear What I’ve Heard – Again? These aural presentations are becoming more and more common, the internet version of books on tape, as web publishers and authors explore new ways to tell stories.

And while Sandra explores the wonders of the internet, author Jim Young spins a cautionary tale of the web’s nasty flip side in Spamhead.   This one gave me bad dreams, the night after I read it.

Next month is another full issue, our eighth quarterly outing. Until then, sit back and enjoy.

Do You Hear What I’ve Heard — Again?

Spamhead

science fiction by Jim Young

“Can you hear me, Mister Johnson?” the doctor asks.

I stare at the ceiling. I can hear fine, but can’t answer because my mouth isn’t working.

“We’re monitoring you. Don’t worry.” And the crew leaves, two nurses and a doctor. The door closes and all I can see is white, anechoic baffling.

Even though my eyes are wide open and I’m not wearing netlenses, the images appear again. I know I’m not wearing any lenses because there’s no grid, no guide, nothing. Just this beautiful, dark-haired woman, with a languorous smile, popping contacts into her eyes.

[To read the entire story, click the title]

We’re pleased to present a special One-Off story this month from Jay Lake, the first established professional author to present his flash fiction at 10Flash Quarterly.

Jay gives us a story rife with a commanding melange of metaphor and lush imagery.  What do scavenger beetles and corporate executives have in common? To find out, visit Jay In the Green Jungles of Envy, a place that promises so much but offers no way out.

Gay Degani, Editor of Flash Fiction Chronicles, elucidates the reasons why a writer should enter writing contests at Six Reasons Why Entering Contests Pays Off.  Sandra Odell is with us, too, with the first of a two-part review of SF podcasts — Do You Hear What I Hear? And Jude-Marie examines the power of names in By Any Other Name.

Thanks for dropping by.

K.C. and Jude-Marie

#

In the Green Jungles of Envy

slipstream fantasy by Jay Lake

In the green jungles of envy the tiger stalks his prey.  Stripes flicker through shadows, the casual eye seeing nothing more than the flicker of sunlight on the trees.  Monkeys scream from their high perches, throwing mud and sticks and worse down like a solid rain, as if the earth had mistakenly risen to beat against the uncaring tropical sky.  There is always too much water or not enough.  The word “sufficiency” is not in nature’s vocabulary, not here.

#

“I don’t give a flying god-damn what the FAA says.”  The CEO, whose name was on the building, screamed into the telephone, pounding his teakwood desk with the butt of his letter opener — an antique Turkish dagger worth more than most of his employees’ homes.  “You’re the broker, straighten it out.  I’ve been waiting too god-damned long for this jet.  I’ll get it somewhere else if I have to.  Do you hear me?”  He shook the phone in his fist.  “Well?”

[To read the entire story, click on the title]

Six Reasons Why Entering Contests Pays off

commentary by Gay Degani, Editor of Flash Fiction Chronicles

Most writers hanging out on the internet know about flash fiction, that pesky stepchild that’s dug in its heels and demanded equal consideration as a viable genre of literature.

Most writers are also aware of the multitude of contests springing up at flash fiction sites, but these writers just might wonder why bother?

As the editor ofFlash Fiction Chronicles, sponsor of the String-of-10 Micro-fiction Contest from February 6 through February 12, 2011, let me count the whys.

[To read the entire commentary, click on the title]

Do You Hear What I’ve Heard?

a review by Sandra Odell

To those of you caught in the seemingly endless loop of too much to do/too little time to read, I say:  “Podcasts!”

“You can’t read podcasts,” you say.  True, but you can read on, dear friends, for with the next two columns we shall tour the internet in search of quality genre short fiction in the form of free audio and mp3 files available directly from the websites or through services such as iTunes.

Podcasts come in all shapes and sizes these days:  mainstream; alternative; music; literary; political; interview; DIY; butchering; baking; candlestick making.  You name it.

[To read the entire review, click the title]

By Any Other Name

commentary by Jude-Marie Green, Co-Editor of 10Flash Quarterly

Paul Atreides.

How does one even pronounce that? Or “Maud’dib”?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet — but how would we pronounce it? Once we name it, we own it, and its story joins the collective. We know who Paul Atreides is, even if we debate on how to say the Latinized Greek of his name (or the Latinized Arabic of his Fremen name.)

Elton John (singer/entertainer, big glasses!) wrote A Candle In The Wind orginally for Marilyn, then rewrote it for Diana. Those are all very well-known names; we know who they are, their public personas, and a bit of their tragedies just from their names.

[To read the entire commentary, click the title]

10Flash is a quarterly on-line magazine dedicated to genre flash fiction — science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, crime capers and slipstream.

Each issue  offers up ten flash fiction stories written around a common theme. Each story in this issue is a response to this directive — Santa Claus Ain’t Coming to Town.

The stories were written by established and emerging authors in the flash fiction market and they were free to interpret the theme in any manner — and in any of the genres — they choose.

Thank you all for stopping by.  There is an interesting selection of genre stories for you to peruse this issue, some by authors whose names you’ll know and other by newcomers.  I think they’re all great reads.

Robin Walton offers his very first published story in this issue of 10Flash.  Unlimited Delta is a sweet little tale that illustrates the notion that people are people, wherever we may go and how our technology may change.  We should all hope to have neighbors like the Fernandez family.

Gerri Leen returns once again with a poignant story of love and friendship — The Night Before Never.  C. L. Holland is back, too,  with And a Cup of Good Cheer, a piece of dark fantasy that may make you shiver the next time you’re offered a cup of eggnog.  Mike Alexander joins us for the first time with It’s the Real Thing, another dark fantasy tale about a face-to-face encounter with the jolly old elf himself. You’ll get a bang out of Mike’s tale.

And talk about wicked fun.  Cooper’s Cut, from Lee Hammerschmidt, crawls inside the head of a compulsive loser who learns that you should take all of those familiar family stories with a grain of salt.   Cheryl Losch gives us Girls’ Night Out,  Jennifer Campbell-Hicks introduces us to Man of the Stars and Shauna Roberts takes a gentle look at Global Warming.  Lael Salaets lets us ride the way-back machine to the sixties and sneak into John Kennedy’s oval office to watch The Nicholas Incident unfold.

Finally, Jodi MacArthur stops by once again to tell us about The Girl Who Was Chased by an Abominable Snowman with a Machete, a loopy story filled with valley-girl dialog and magic flying carpets and Big Foot and the Abominable Snowman.  Somehow, she manages to work in Santa Claus and nasty, edged weapons, too.  It’s bizarro fiction, something of a recent thing.  We hope you like it.  Hell, we hope you giggle out loud most of the way through.  We did.

All ten are swell stories. So have at them.

K.C. and Jude-Marie

Cooper’s Cut

crime caper by Lee Hammerschmidt

“You’re almost there, don’t get greedy,” Cooper said to himself, as he pulled a mittful of fifties from the purse.

He had gone through two-thirds of the purses and coats piled on the bed in the upstairs bedroom, their owners boisterously slugging down the holiday cheer downstairs. The party was in full swing, but it wouldn’t be long before the bird was on the table, so he had to work fast.

It was slow going, searching through each belonging and skimming accordingly.  Clean somebody out, they would notice and cause a ruckus.  So just take a percentage.  With all the hooch these clowns were downing they’d never know how much, if anything, was missing until much later.

He wasn’t quite there, but getting close. About seven grand in cash and a dozen credit cards. Then he would start on the jewelry in the dresser.

“Santa Claus ain’t coming to town, this year,” he chuckled.

[click the title to read the complete story]

The Night Before Never

e peeked out the window.  Elves hooking up the reindeer?  Check.

Reindeer fat–but not too fat, they did have to fly–and happy?  Check.

Rudolph’s nose at full power?  Check.

As Kris moved from the workshop to the adjoining kitchen, he sniffed.  Apple pie baking, ready to eat when he got home?

No.

[click the title to read the complete story]

Girls’ Night Out

fantasy by Cheryl Losch

“So here’s the thing,” she said, tension building with each sentence. “Every year I work my butt off to make sure you’re fat. I clean your suit, I polish your boots, and I make sure the elves build you a new pipe that won’t make you cough and wake up all the children.

I help you with the letters and the emails.  For crying out loud I’ve set up a naughty and nice sort on the desktop so you don’t even have to spend endless hours writing lists yourself any longer.  We’ve been able to eliminate those millions of rolls of paper that keep spilling around the den and down the stairs.

I keep the sack in good repair so the toys don’t land where they don’t belong and I even make the annual appointment for the sled tune-up. I can’t count the number of years I’ve kept this operation running smoothly and the one night, the one night we could possibly go out and I don’t even get to enjoy it.

[click the title to read the complete story]

It’s the Real Thing

dark fantasy by Michael Alexander

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

A plate of cookies and a glass of cola sat on the coffee table. Over on the old Bang & Olufsen, Burl Ives was singing Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas.  The television, volume down low, was playing a tape of It’s a Wonderful Life.

The taser was on my side table next to a glass of scotch and soda. I picked up the glass and took a sip, all iodine and peat, then idly played with the big black button sewn to my shirt. All in all, I was ready for the appearance of that Haddon Sundblom fat red jolly freak.

[click the title to read the complete story]

And a Cup of Good Cheer

dark fantasy by C. L. Holland

The magic was all in the hat, of course.  It had to come from somewhere and it certainly wasn’t him.

He hated it.

Made of festive red velvet with trim as white as fresh snow, it perched on a hat stand that bore a blank mannequin’s face.  It was an accurate representation of what it made of him.  Sometimes he woke from nightmares where he knocked the thing to the floor and, devoid of even an imitation head to sit on, it slithered across the room seeking him.

“Eggnog, sir?”

He turned to the green-clad elf who’d spoken, who was half his height and holding a steaming mug of creamy liquid.  He hated eggnog, but he’d learned over the years that the elves were literal creatures so he nodded.

“A large one.  Without eggs, milk, cream, sugar, or spices.”

[click the title to read the complete story]

The Girl Who Was Chased by an Abominable Snowman with a Machete

bizarro fantasy by Jodi MacArthur

So, I was camping.

At the north pole.

On a Sunday.

In winter.

And this giant ball of snow came rolling up to me. I thought it weird, but I was like, in freakin’ Antarctica. Or Artica. Which eva one’s on top, like who cares? The point is weird things happen there. Santa and shit. Anyway, I poked at it with my rattlesnake boot and it grew teeth and coal eyes and started chomping at me.

Of course, I ran.

[click the title to read the complete story]

Man of the Stars

science fiction by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks

First came the hiss, like water on hot metal and the windows rattled. I lifted my brush from a half-painted toy train.

Outside my workshop, light flashed across the sky. Impossible. The sun would not peek over the horizon for another four months. I wiped my spectacles on my apron and looked again; the light now emanated from the ice close by.

I whipped off the apron and peeled out the workshop door, clearing the steps with a leap to land with a soft crunch. Snow soaked my pants. Mary would scold me for that later.

The light had gone out, but the impact point was easy to spot. The snow had melted in a funnel shape, and at the bottom was a rock. I poked it — cool now — and picked it up.

Fist-sized, pockmarked, metallic sheen.

A meteor.

[click the title to read the complete story]

Global Warming

science fiction by Shauna Roberts

The first hint of the disaster appeared as filler on the evening news, another novelty item like the earlier “Big Alligators Found In Ohio’s Little Beaver Creek” and “Ice Floe Carries Polar Bears Into San Francisco Bay.”

When the perky news anchor leaned toward the camera, I stared at her exposed cleavage and paid little attention to her words. “This fall we’ve seen seals on ice, caribou on ice, even a frozen mammoth on ice. But this is a first. A bicycle on ice.” The film clip showed a bobbing ice floe with a partially constructed bicycle on top.

“Huh.” I went to grab a Pabst and adjust the A/C unit. I grimaced as I turned the knob to a cooler setting, thinking of the electric bill. But this November was even hotter and more humid than last year’s. The doctor had warned me that such weather could trigger Joey’s asthma.

When I returned to the living room, Joey was watching a toy store commercial. “Uncle Dave, I want a bike.”

[click the title to read the complete story]

The Nicholas Incident

science fiction by Lael Salaets

On October 30th, 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the “Tsar Bomba” over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range, north of the Arctic Circle on Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea.

The hydrogen bomb was the largest and most powerful nuclear device ever detonated with a yield of fifty megatons, equivalent to one thousand four hundred times the combined power of the nuclear explosives that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

U2 missions were deployed from Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to collect fallout data for the U.S. Defense Atomic Support Agency. One particular mission of this deployment, code name Toy Soldier, was to take aerial reconnaissance photographs of the North Polar Region.

President John F. Kennedy feared the worst.

[click the title to read the complete story]

Unlimited Delta

science fiction by Robin Graves

“We have a distress signal coming in.” 16-year-old Jenny Alvarez called to her family over the ship-wide com system.

Her father, Fernando, stopped his lunch preparations and stepped to the intercom.  “You’re the captain. Make the call.”

“Already have. They’re a little over four days from here,” Jenny said.

“Hmmm. Do we have the delta to get there and then home?”

“Still checking,” she said, in a tone of voice that meant leave me alone, I’m working.

“Fuel, velocity, momentum, gravity wells, mass,” Fernando prompted.

“Dad, I’ve been a pilot five years and a captain for three. Don’t you think I know how to calculate delta?”

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