Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

Stories (284)
Comments
Library
331 Followers
3 Following

284 Stories

6155 karma pts

?

Marshall Pat Garrett Comes to Call

Submitted to Contest #254

July 1881McSwain Ranch House Marshall Garrett came to Maxwell Ranch on July 10, 1881, to talk to Pete Maxwell.  Maxwell was well-known to Marshall Garrett due to his loyalty to the Regulators.  While he had reservations about the most famous outlaw in the territory, Billy the Kid, he knew if he could get him to surrender for his most recent murder of Joe Grant. “So, you are gonna bring the Kid to justice, marshall?” Pete stroked the gristle on his chin.  “Governor Lew Wallace is putting one of the biggest bounties ever on his...

11 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

Stopwatch

Submitted to Contest #253

Coach Harper Brauer was given a new stopwatch to help record the times of his runners on the track and field team. Harper had been hired two years before to guide the Pleasant Valley High School to a state championship.  The Hyenas had been state champs twenty years before when Coach Brauer was one of their best milers, but that was a long time ago.  Since that championship, the track and field team continued to wind up last in the conference.   He toyed with the stopwatch when he found it in his box in the teacher’s loun...

13 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

The Midas Touch

Submitted to Contest #252

There is a lesson in the story of Midas king of Phrygia about wishing for something and then finding out that it was not really what you wanted. The Greeks used this as a life lesson about greed and an insatiable appetite for luxury.  The king learned quickly enough that having a golden touch was not a blessing.  It was a curse. Barney Jackson was dejected when he walked out of Cashman’s Bar and Grill, his favorite watering hole.  His gait was unsteady as he approached the wishing well in front of the bar. He stopped and stare...

14 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

Is It True?

Submitted to Contest #251

Sky Ranch Retirement Community Santa Rosa, NM June 2002 Grady was the only one who was awake in the recreation room at Sky Ranch Retirement Community.  He was watching reruns of M.A.S.H. on Channel 12.  No one, not even God Himself, dared disturb this sacred nightly viewing ritual of the antics of the 4077 MASH Unit.  It was a known rule within the community, written in stone, that no one should venture into the recreation room and disturb him.  No one, no matter how many dozens of times he had seen the episode. &nb...

7 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Turkey in the Straw

Submitted to Contest #250

Elliot D'Blanca was a career diplomat in the United State Department.  Like his father and his father before him, serving his country in a diplomatic capacity was what he was born to do. Educated in the terms and meanings of the diplomaticese  language, Elliot moved in the elite inner social circles reserved for ambassadors and heads of state. Involved with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the Hague in Brussels, Elliot was hosting a gala for some of the top brass who occupied offices at the NATO Headquarters, strict...

11 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

The Day I Met Billy Smith

Submitted to Contest #249

January 23, 1947Somewhere in New MexicoLost!Craning my neck in all four directions, north, south, east, and west, I didn’t see a single living thing in any direction I chose to look in, let alone any sign of human inhabitation. The sun was setting around a mesa in the west leaving long shadows in the dirt and rocks.I sat on the floorboard of my truck and emptied the stones from my work boots. In less than an hour the entire world would be dark with nothing to light the landscape other than the stars and crescent moon. I was su...

14 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Persuasion

Submitted to Contest #248

Kensey McQueen’s body was found floating in a marsh between Eagle River and Chugiak on October 2, 1977 just before the first freeze of the season.  Working as a patrol officer for the Anchorage Police Department, I heard about the fate of this poor eighteen year-old who had just graduated from Chugiak High School, Class of 1977.  There were those who saw this cold case as an accident along the road connecting the two communities.  Back then things were pretty desolate.  Eagle River had one stop sign and Chugiak didn’t hav...

16 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

South Fork of the American River

Submitted to Contest #247

I had been a group counselor at a juvenile boys’ rehabilitation for substance abuse in the Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa California known as R-House for about ten months when I volunteered for a summer excursion that included a white water rafting tour down the American River.   I must admit I was quite apprehensive about making my first white water rafting trip with a group of teenage adolescents who had been court ordered to R-House due to their criminal offenses that included substance abuse.  The program at the facility was ...

13 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Emerald Nightfall

Submitted to Contest #245

You can tell when it's coming.  Sunset brings on a strange vibration even that the sylvan creatures feel.  The birds change the mood of their twilight songs to a more somber melody.  We hillfolk know all the signs of this rare phenomenon that is coming at night fall when the clouds float like ancient spirits and a wave of rich emerald bathes the rocky landscape.   It is the night of their return and woe to those who do not heed the coming of the Emerald Nightfall.  Some of the creatures start to howl or screech ...

14 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Mr. Timerack's Gallery of Lost Souls

Submitted to Contest #244

“These are truly remarkable.” George Dundee commented as he continued down the hall.  “My late grandfather Sidney Timberack believed that every photograph told a story.” Lewis Stanrick led his patron down what his grandfather had called his gallery of lost souls.  “These tintypes are in pristine condition.” Mr. Dundee ran his finger along the base of one of the photographs, not knowing his grandfather would rage at anyone who dared run a finger over one of the portraits hanging in the hallway. Since he inherited the portraits from ...

18 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Nineteen Sixty-Five Mustang

Submitted to Contest #243

The story I am about to tell you is as incredible as anything you have ever heard and the fact that I’m the one telling you this story is even more unbelievable.  From my glimmering front bumper to my cherry red tail lights, I am a first generation Ford Mustang, one of the first real muscle cars on the road and for reasons I do not know, became known as a pony car.  I came from the factory in San Jose in 1965 and was purchased by Isaac Reynolds.  Nothing about that is incredible, I know, but what follows is.  I must admit...

13 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Legends of the Midnight Gallery

Submitted to Contest #242

Joe Klimazawa knew the secrets of the Midnight Gallery. He knew what happened when the clock struck midnight.  He knew because he had been the night watchman for over ten months.  While the De Young Museum was the most popular in the city, Zaroff’s Museum of the Occult attracted many patrons who were curious and fascinated with the bizarre displays of ornamentation from all over the world such as head hunters’ trophies and voodoo dolls left dangling from the rafters of the Dark Arts Wing. Joe knew that strange things happened at mi...

20 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

The Ick Effect

Submitted to Contest #241

What I am about to tell you must be held in strict confidence, because I hold a secret that will put me in peril.  While it would serve me better to keep this to myself, I feel that I need to tell someone, a living human being, this deplorable secret or curse as I have come to know it.  A betrayal of the unnatural order. Let’s start with my given name, Ichabod Soletelk.  You probably have never heard the name before , but I fear you will since my name will become notorious in a short time.  Bartender, can you get me and m...

11 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Witch of November

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy Gordon Lightfoot Bored to death and itching to get outdoors, I found an excuse to drive from KI Sawyer into Marquette to get a couple of things.  It was November, but so far we had not had a lot of snow.  The snow that had fallen was just a light dusting and the roads were clear for the forty mile round trip into town.   If you have never been to the ...

2 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

O-Bec

Submitted to Contest #239

“Nurse Billups!  Paging Nurse Billups!” The intercom disrupted a rather placid evening shift at St. Michael’s Psychiatric Hospital. Employed here for over twenty years, I had been head nurse at the emergency admissions unit for the past five years.  As I walked with purpose to the intake desk, I wondered what this call was all about.  It didn’t take long for me to see the skinny wide-eyed man sitting at the desk.   “Nurse Billups?” The police officer stepped forward as I sat at the desk. “Yes.” “We found him in o...

16 likes 6 comments 6
Read story