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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023
Submitted to Contest #291
T/W. This is based on a true and gruesome story reported in the New York Times in 1898. I could barely keep up with Gustafsson. He handed me his hat and cane, and his heavy portmanteau for safekeeping. “I will need you to do the paperwork when all is said and done,” said Gustafsson, absent-mindedly. When we entered the dimly lit basement, it was like walking into a steam room, and I was struck by the irony and the stench. Gustafsson didn’t miss a beat. He was kneeling beside the body before my eyes had properl...
Submitted to Contest #290
“Oh, but he’s adorable. We can’t just leave him here,” said Sammy, crouched beside the dumpster in the alleyway at the back of our tenement building.I’d caught a glimpse of the thing earlier, and figured it was half dead, dying, and would be dead by now on account of the bitter Chicago cold, but apparently not. I pretended I was deaf.“Poor thing!” said Sammy, who looked up at me. There was no escape. I was forced to acknowledge the dying thing’s existence, but I could only go so far, lest the concession appear a wea...
Submitted to Contest #289
“The room is unfamiliar, I don’t know how I got here.” He was mocking them.“Oh la-di-da. Unfamiliar? Disquieting? Is the room inconvenient too? Do you need the heat adjusted?” Detective Trench leaned in toward the suspect and breathed pepper and garlic at the man with the face tattoo. Sergeant Reilly nearly leapt forward to grab the detective before he did something stupid right out of the gate. The suspect was cuffed, so it would be hard to explain a boxing match to the brass.“Fuck you,” said the...
“Let me take you. It’s no trouble” said Maeve from the front door. She had the Subaru keys in hand, just in case. She wanted so much to help.“I’m fine. I need some air,” said Tyrone.Tyrone was already walking up the hill towards town. It was getting dark. Did he know to walk on the left-hand side, facing the traffic? To wear something bright?Tyrone knew neither of these things. Maeve closed the door. The patrol car pulled up just ahead of him, near the airfield. The lights started flashing.&n...
Submitted to Contest #288
And then there was no light at all in the East, save the flash of lightning out over the archipelago, which gave brief glimpses of the raging Atlantic, of giant monsters rolling directly into the cove, which was our supposed haven from the storm. The Steamship The Royal Tar was tossed around like a child’s toy, and we with it like ragged dolls. The captain stood grim-faced in the pilot house. None of the crew dared say what all were thinking, nor need they; the skipper knew what he was doing, and knew what he had done.“Check the hold, that t...
Submitted to Contest #281
Bairstow is an isolated harbor town at the end of a peninsula on the Coast of Maine, organized as a self-governing Plantation, a law unto itself. It is a blue-collar place, with a dark past and dormant secrets. A place of mutant horrors, of terror beyond the breakwater and reefs, where the warming ocean and over-fishing is denuding the sea floor, urging lobsters north, weakening the Deep Ones, driving them to despair. Ignorant or dismissive of its murky history, nervous tourists slum here in fair weather, looking for elusive monste...
Submitted to Contest #278
He’d once been affable, pleasant, uselessly handsome, but in old age, Peter Clarke’s demeanor was curmudgeonly, his unpleasant puss-faced pout quite repellent. He was the sort of old man that really should grow a beard. ‘Those damn trees. If only that bitch would cut them down so that we had a better view of the harbor. It would improve her view too, a win win. We live next door to idiots.” Peter Clarke and his wife, Patty, lived alone in a pretty cottage overlooking the beautiful tranquil harbor of Bairstow, Maine.“Have you tried talking wi...
Submitted to Contest #275
The knock on the apartment door was so loud that it sounded like rapid-fire gunshots. Simon woke up instantly, and then lay frozen still in his bed though his heart was pounding out of his chest. It was like waking to a nightmare. Bang, bang, again, “Open up, Garcia, open up, this is the Federal Immigration Enforcement Agency, open up the door now”. Simon reached for the wall switch and the naked bulb bleached the room with cold white light. It was 3.15 a.m., according to his alarm clock. He prayed for deliveran...
Submitted to Contest #274
Wessex, it was autumn, the glossy green fields shone in the thin sunlight, the woodland canopy flared orange and yellow. In the nook of a secluded valley, a brilliant silver unicorn grazed on the pastureland. Chalk Newton was bucolic, peaceful, and ever England. Lady Stacey Maxswill stood alone on the carriage path, blocking the way of the crimson-clad hunting party. She recognized most of the huntsmen and women, did business with more than a few, and counted several as friendly acquaintances, so she was shocked at their condescend...
Submitted to Contest #273
The stepbrother, David, older than me by six years, was a fastidious and fussy teenager. Everything in his bedroom was orderly. His math books were organized by color, his clothing was folded and put away, and his bed was neatly made each morning. He was pathetic and cold, like a fish stranded on dry land; I instantly disliked him, and the feeling was mutual. I thought the marriage a hasty, ill-conceived idea – Blaine Curtis, a goofy Caltech mathematician seemed a poor match for mother – and his son, David, was a definite weirdo, a psycho. I...
Submitted to Contest #272
My new wife adopted a rescue dog that came into my surgery for a simple vaccination. Typically, I try to keep a professional distance, but she fell in love with the shaggy mutt, and I was trying to be a good father to her son, little Nate. She called the dog “Ketch”. What fun it was to make Ketch fetch! Fetch Ketch! Fetch Ketch! It was a big tease, faking throw-ball, making that big dog lope about looking for the ball, and one day my stepson joined in the fun, “Fetch Ketch”, he cried, swinging his arm in that clunky ...
Submitted to Contest #271
I was a tunnel rat for Halloween, and my nerves were on edge right from the start of my shift downtown, strap hanging between Canal and 14th Street, following my nose. A full moon brings out the crazies and the repeat offenders, but Halloween doubles down on the madness, lets them operate in disguise, indistinguishable from the civilians. Tonight, it was both, Halloween and a full-moon, and the city was febrile and electric.Gangs are hard to spot on Halloween. Is it just a bunch of revelers, or is it a marauding pack of animals, their blood ...
Submitted to Contest #270
The Recipe.“No, you are staying home and helping out with Rosh Hashanah.” said Naomi, who was starting to wind up to full-on manic mode and looked like she’d blown in on a storm. She threw her son’s laundry on the foot of his bed, then pulled up the window shades, throwing light on things best kept obscured. “There’s only one other trombone player, and she’s got Covid,” said Adam, hitting the pause button on his computer game. “Don’t they know it’s a high holiday?” said Naomi. “There’s only five Jews in the entire school,...
Submitted to Contest #269
A black limo with tinted windows pulled up on Washington Street in Hempstead. Two burly men, dressed in black shirts and slacks, got out of the vehicle and headed for the front door of a small run-down house. Their arrival was observed by two Englishmen crammed inside a Mini Cooper, parked further along the road.The buzz of excitement around the start of the new school year had worn off. For Nick Palma, a Senior at Hempstead High, widely considered a nobody, it was a just another fall afternoon, the intermission between the drag of school an...
Submitted to Contest #268
Tiffany, wife number four, was eye-candy, every inch the All-American cheerleader, but – frankly – I was relieved when she’d left the room. Yes, I’d miss that smooth youthful skin and the sinuous curves, but I’d see her again in a year or two, maybe a little bit longer. All she had to do was live within her allowance, sign some paperwork, and stay out of trouble… out of other men’s beds. Simple enough. Anyhow, she’d gone now, part of Larry’s big scheme. It was nearly the end of the long goodbye. “Not goodb...
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