Bob Faszczewski

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2021

Stories (126)

126 Stories

2522 karma pts

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“Truth Among the Shadows of My Mind” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #230

Truth Among the Shadows of My Mind It seemed like some bizarre magical power had broken into my dreams, taken over my mind and led me from my student apartment on the campus of Salisbury University into a fog-covered woody area deep in Pokomoke State Forest. Unfamiliar music had interrupted my dreams and led me as if in a trance to follow twists and turns a...

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“Too Soon to Tilt” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #229

New Year’s Eve–another boring party with inane gossip, too-loud music and guests robotically rattling off resolutions they knew they had no intention of keeping. Another year gone by with Wilson looking forward to almost nothing–except: The software salesman’s annual turning-of-the-calendar-page ritual did have one very bright spot–across the room stood the stunningly beautiful and intelligent blonde lady as she had for the past two years. Aside from her tantalizing appearance ...

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“What Was in That Batter?” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #228

I sat with anticipation in the West Ocean City Breakfast Club, waiting for Sam, my waiter, to make his entrance with a plate of fluffy, steaming goodness topped off by the rich, brown sugary liquid designed to lift me out of my late summer funk. Every year on the Saturday before Labor Day I had made it my tradition to end my vacation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore with a trip to the area’s best morning eatery and treat myself to a heaping platter of Delmarva pancakes. This time, though, my annual journey would lift me into a world I could nev...

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“Mirror of the Soul” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #225

Ralph threw the last carton on the shelf. This finished the final incoming load of the week in the stifling moving company warehouse. He couldn’t wait to shower, change into street clothes and head for his favorite watering hole down Main Street. After a few cool ones, even the flea-bitten, fly-by-night boring rural outpost of a town where he had wasted much of his life might start to look good. When he looked in the locker room ...

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“Forced to Become a Creature of the Night” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #224

Tom Jepson had worked his way up from rookie programer to become the top project manager at Apex Computer Consulting in only five years. His clients relied so strongly on Tom’s expertise that, if he had taken one of the extremely infrequent vacations, they had threatened to pull out of a number of important projects rather than entrust their operations to anyone but Tom while he remained out of the office. Thus, for half a decade, he had put in extra time late into the night a...

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“Secrets of the Forbidden Room” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #223

Secrets of the Forbidden Room On one quiet Friday evening, Rutgers junior Jan Newsome sat in the still corner of the university library studying for her psychology final. She found it difficult to concentrate–that mysterious room a few feet away kept attracting her, as it had for each of the la...

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“Up From Extinction” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #220

The skies over Witchita opened up to dump a torrential downpour just as Sam Johnston finished his shift at the area’s Burger Barn on Thursday night. He had to run for shelter under the bridge and hope he didn’t get struck by one of the lightning bolts that seemed to descend in front of him every few seconds. Only a high school junior, Sam still hadn’t put away enough spare cash to buy the used Honda Accord he had his eyes on for the last six months. &nb...

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“Yanking Good Out of the Jaws of Bad” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #219

Plagiarism–a word that should strike fear into the conscience of every aspiring author–no matter how young or lacking in experience. Society has many ways of exacting revenge on those who steal the writings of others by trying to make it their own. These penalties can range from putting a serious dent in the offender’s bank account to locking them behind bars for up to a decade. Not to mention putting an end to any ambitions in the realm of publishing. To a high school student with little exposure to the niceties of the adult leg...

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“The Not-So-Happy Romp in the Woods” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #218

The acrid odor of burning wood made it impossible for John to inhale the freshly sprouting greenery in the spring pasture. His dried out taste buds made his tongue stick like glue to the roof of his mouth. Thus began another chapter in a dreamed-about fairytale that eventually turned into a nightmare. John and his friends had looked forward to the camping trip at Emerson’s Lake for their entire final semester at...

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“Agatha Christie--Not!” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #217

The decrepit door on the rundown building creaked as he opened it, almost falling off its hinges. The eerie light in the cobweb-covered interior revealed a long, dark corridor illuminated on each side only by a series of book lights, one every few feet. John’s girlfriend Jane had texted him a half hour before and told him to drive to an abandoned mansion on what had deteriorated into the seedier side of their small rural town. She had forwarded directions, one message at a time, separated by agonizing intervals of five minutes. Her voice so...

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“Takedown at the Beanery” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #216

As the rich, brown liquid flowed into his ceramic receptacle FBI Special Agent John Arrington mentally reviewed his plan to tighten the noose around Columbian drug lord Bochampo. The special agent’s investigative unit had gathered every shred of evidence it needed over one of its most extensive probes in recent history, lasting more than six months. Hiring a squad of carefully selected and vetted informants, Arrington’s team had traced Bochampo’s trail of dea...

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“Pulling Back the Shroud” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #215

A full night’s sleep had become virtually impossible for Jeremy Stuart since he moved into the apartment above the Barcom & Sons Mortuary three months ago. Of course, one would expect trouble resting in a building housing the remains of the dead, and possibly their spirits. Jeremy’s sleeplessness, it seemed, stemmed from much more than b...

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“A Matter of Degrees” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #214

As a lifelong resident of the Northern Hemisphere, I normally looked sadly on the onslaught of fall and winter. During the summer my friends and I had romped with as little attire as possible in our local lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. This year, though, we didn’t realize that the sun whose disappearance we so sadly mourned could become the instrument of the world’s destruction. As Mother Nature began to close the curtain on 2300, news reports began to surface about natur...

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“Be Careful What You Read After Dark” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #211

Words have meaning--but do they have life? Can they actually leap off a page to take you on adventures--even those which you don’t want to go on? Berlin, Md. historian John Simpson, a long-time friend of mine, called me one Friday and excitedly asked me to meet him at the back door of the Berlin Library at 4:15, right after closing. I couldn’t figure out why he wanted to meet at the library and why not during regular ...

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“Unscheduled Lunar Touchdown” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #210

The July humidity continued to hang across Delmarva’s Ayers Creek this Friday long after the sun set and the full moon encased the area in its heavenly glow. The hot moisture imprisoned the lone fisherman floating his kayak along the surface like a straight jacket. Yet Dr. Fulbright at first had embraced the relatively minor discomforts of the eerie evening. He thought they would provide a quiet retreat from the pandemic-induced terror he had faced in six months of 18-ho...

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Author bio

Bob Faszczewski is a curious writer who loves exploring different themes and motifs. He has produced two recently-published collections of fiction-science fiction stories about travel across the timeline, "Taming the Timeline" (available for sale on saltwatermedia.com) and "Locking Arms with Giants (available for sale through Amazon Kindle and Amazon.com.). Both also are available for sale at Greyhound Bookstore in Berlin, Md. Bob has published the following short stories in magazines in a number of genres: ."Bloodstains on the Ledger"--Ink and the Sword.com . "Tragedy Near the Corpse Light--or Because of It"--Mystery Tribune.com . "Cadaver in the Forest"--Adelaide Literary Magazine . "Heard It Through the Grapevine"--Flash Fiction.com . "Resetting the Clock"--Academy of the Heart and Mind . "The Turkonians Are Coming"--CleverMag.com.