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Bob Faszczewski

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2021

Stories (159)
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159 Stories

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End of the Party

Submitted to Contest #321

On New Year’s Day, Wilson gingerly sat up at 7 am and tried to clear the throbbing pain from his head. When he opened his eyes he found a 50s-era classic pinball machine wrecked and laying destroyed in a corner of the barroom. Disgusted and on the verge of vomiting, he fell back into a deep sleep that led him into a nightmare that never seemed to stop replaying. In his dream he had gone to the same country club party to which one of his software clients had dragged him for the last three years. It again featured the usual inane g...

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Mystery Island

Submitted to Contest #320

John Fosteri and Tom Cranston carefully paddled their kayak across the narrow section of Long Island Sound leading up to Hunsinger’s Island one quiet Saturday in mid-summer. For years the locals on Montauk had whispered about the unexplained disappearances of those who attempted to explore the hidden reaches of the private stretch of land tucked away in one of the darkest corners of the sound. Rumors had persisted for decades about the swift and cruel punishments the Hunsinger family would exact on anyone even attempting to invade their...

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Touchdown Reversed

Submitted to Contest #318

Sam Jones, Sr. noisily started up the front end loader, anxious to put the finishing touches on the new Bonn High School athletic complex. Then, just as he began smoothing out the soil to make room for the football field goalpost, he struck a hard object that almost knocked him out of the cab. He jumped down and rushed to see what was standing in the way to completing his greatest construction project. To Sam’s surprise, he had uncovered a rusty gym locker from the school’s old gymnasium. The fact that his crew did a sloppy...

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Mugged

Submitted to Contest #317

Allen Burnside grew up in a modest two-story home on Court Street, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. His parents rented the six-room first floor from the Glombosky family, who lived on the second floor.“Port” natives and those from outside the area considered the neighborhood of his youth—from the early 1950s and the mid-1990s—as among the toughest in that area of the “Garden State.” Elizabethport often presented dangerous obstacles to a young boy who simply wanted to be left alone to enjoy his friends, his neighborhood and his childhood.Allen, arou...

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Who's Really Buried Below?

Submitted to Contest #316

After the funeral for Fred Harris the line of family and friends saying their final goodbyes stretched from the living room of his large Colonial home, out into the street and well down the tree-lined block. Greetings and expressions of sympathy lasted well into the evening. Since the family had chosen me to handle the greetings, I didn’t return to my home until well after 10 pm. Exhausted and worn down with the emotion involved in paying final respects to one of my dearest friends, I parked my car in the garage and walked towar...

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End of the Party

Submitted to Contest #315

On New Year’s Day, Wilson gingerly sat up at 7 am and tried to clear the throbbing pain from his head. When he opened his eyes he found a 50s-era classic pinball machine wrecked and laying destroyed in a corner of the barroom. Disgusted and on the verge of vomiting, he fell back into a deep sleep that led him into a nightmare that never seemed to stop replaying. In his dream he had gone to the same country club party to which one of his software clients had dragged him for the last three years. It again featured the usual inane g...

5 likes 0 comments 0
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Be Careful What You Wish For

Submitted to Contest #314

At the end of most years, residents of the Northern Hemisphere looked forward to throwing off their layers of winter clothing and romping in the water with as little attire as possible. They didn’t realize that, this year, the sun they so fervently wished for could become the instrument of their destruction. As Mother Nature began to bring 2300 to a close she decided to play a cruel joke, starting on one of the most desolate places on earth, Oymyakon, Russia, by having the sun shine 24 hours a day. Medical personnel working in the area’...

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End of the Road?

Submitted to Contest #313

It started out as a pleasant jaunt along Route 50 East to Maryland’s coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. We headed out in the early afternoon, figuring it would give us plenty of time to bask in the sun of Ocean City and later frolic in the waves–perhaps spotting a few dolphins or whales breaching in the surf. We stopped in one of the boardwalk eateries for a little pizza and a few adult beverages before continuing our trip. We figured we’d return in the early evening to our bed and breakfast in quaint and quiet downtown Berlin. ...

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Time Runs Out

Submitted to Contest #311

CW: Contains depictions and/or references to gun violence, armed robbery, and kidnapping. Annapolis Police Sergeant Jim Jenson and his squad had their hands full in their crowded precinct as they tried to pin down the details of the busiest crime spree the capital had seen in his lifetime.Their unit had arrested so many suspects that no chairs remained in the bullpen. Smash and grab bandits had knocked over many of the town’s most exclusive jewelry stores so quickly that, between police, suspects and their attorneys and witnesses, not a spar...

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Stolen Pages

Submitted to Contest #310

One of the great unsolved mysteries in my small, upscale town of Westbridge, New Jersey, stumped police and amateur detectives for almost five years. A high-end home in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in town had burned to the ground six months after the murders of two relatives and the suicide of the home’s owner. One of the community’s continuing mysteries stemmed from the fact that authorities never found the arsonist who torched the home. Shock had gripped that Thanksgiving weekend in 2001 when we found out about ...

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The Last Alarm

Submitted to Contest #309

Harry Spencer sat alone in his den, with the silence pressing in on him like a heavy blanket, smothering the usual sounds of his dull existence. He had become so used to the constant joy of every day in the company of his beloved Karen that the strains of his life since her death had enveloped him with an increasing cloak of loneliness. Afraid this cloak might close around him and choke him, he tried to contemplate a future without his lifelong companion. The all-engulfing flames of sadness that now confronted Harry seemed to s...

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New Year's Bashed

Submitted to Contest #308

On New Year’s Day Wilson awoke at 7 am and tried to clear the throbbing pain from his head. He sat up in bed to find his old-timey pinball machine wrecked and laying destroyed in a corner of his room. After running the strange turn of events from the night before over and over in his mind he fell back into a deep sleep that led him into a nightmare that never seemed to stop replaying. In his dream he had gone to the same country club party to which one of his software clients had dragged him for the last three years. It again feat...

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Shutterbug Shutdown

Submitted to Contest #307

On a boring Saturday morning I decided to take a hike on the outskirts of my home town, Berlin, Maryland. My adventure began on one of the many cornfields in the area.A thriving chicken-raising industry long ago had dominated this area, but now only abandoned grow out houses dotted the landscape. This seemed like the ideal place to search for historical treasures that might help me discover a forgotten link to the past that could highlight the new book knocking around in my brain for some time.Possibly risking a confrontation with some gun-t...

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Ruffles and Flourishes

Submitted to Contest #306

Ruffles and Flourishes Ruffles and Flourishes Tears filled the eyes of Sara Tomlinson as she spoke to her niece, Jane, and her graduation class about the world they would face after closing the door on four years at John Paul Jones High School in Bondsville, MD. On the one hand, tears of joy sprung from the aunt’s eyes because her brother’s daughter, the valedictorian of her class, would start her freshman year at Towson University in the fall to pursue a bachelo...

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Big Apple Takedown

Submitted to Contest #304

Publisher Joe Paulson laid it all on the line, “Dan, you either produce the next three chapters of Homicide on the Nile by the September 15 deadline or we will immediately drop you from our stable of writers. Paulson and his Magnifying Glass Publishing Company had released three New York Times bestsellers written by Dan Rodriguez in just five years. The Covid Pandemic brought everything to a standstill when the writer contracted a recurring case of long covid that played havoc with his immune system. Homicide on the Nile stood unfin...

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