Matthew McLean

“Baker's Practical Segue” by Matthew McLean

Everything was ready for the ritual. The pentagram was correct, the symbols along its border perfect. Dee had double checked each facet of the summoning circle seven times, once with the computer’s scanner, making sure everything was in place. The salt made a mess on the Persian rug, but he’d clean it up later and, if he couldn’t, it was worth the price. The ritual had to be performed in the perfect privacy that only his penthouse could afford. Otherwise, his public might find out his secret, and the ideal life he had carved out for himself...

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“The Divorce” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #101

Jacob found himself somewhere at the beginning of the 21st century with what felt like a very anachronistic life. Commuting home in his sedan, he was grateful for the lighter traffic the pandemic had wrought, even as it caused him to reflect on his life. Most people were still working from home, if they were lucky enough to have a job, but here he was, traveling after a long day of work as the director of engineering at his firm. It was the old way of doing things, and those things had served him well; They had allowed him to provide for a f...

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“The Past and Future Haunting of Becksworth Mansion” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #97

The clatter the accident caused was a magnificent noise, the shattering of the window reverberating throughout the neighborhood. Every child playing stickball in the street groaned, except for Hal. Hal’s mouth hung open in stupefied horror, watching the last few pieces of shattered glass hold onto the window frame that sat in the Becksworth mansion. The home would only be called a mansion by children, three stories tall and bristling with peaked roofs and dormers. But standing behind its wrought iron fence and neglected brown lawn of scrub...

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“The Lawmaker” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #89

C/W: sexual assault   Jeffries smiled at the young lady across the reception desk. She briefly returned his smile before pretending to find something on her computer monitor that required her attention. He could tell she was pretending because of the hesitant yet random noises her long fingernails made against the keyboard as she pecked at it.   He broadened his smile, letting his eyes wander away from her. Her current indifference wouldn’t matter for long. Soon he’d be installed into his new position and he’d rise up the corporate...

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“Found Family” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #79

It had been four years and 8 months since Jacob had last seen the Crew and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Memories of Angie’s Molly parties or Tom’s ridiculous tall tales, or the laughter either could cause, competed in his memory with the yelling and the fistfights, the hours of waiting on bail, the wreckage of failed schemes. He stared at his whiskey as he wondered if any of it had mattered. For a long time, for years, they had managed to stick together because they could only depend on each other. Starting at the Orwellian soun...

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“Red Snow” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #77

On days like today, Taci tried to remember how much she used to like her job. She sat behind her desk, hands clasped in front of her, trying to bring out the shining, white grin that the parents of Personville students had come to expect and love. It wouldn’t come. Instead she shuffled through her notes, thinking about what she would say to each couple at today’s parent-teacher conference. She reflected on the observations she had made on each child and, in doing so, thought about the carefully curated half-truths that the notes represented....

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“Tuesday Morning Crush” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #51

In his more guarded moments, when he was the least honest with himself, George never thought of them as victims. Like most humans, he had a curated version of his self-image; in it he was a trickster who used his cleverness and secret knowledge to make his way through the world, leaving those he interacted with feeling a bit foolish, but none too worse for wear.Then there were moments like these, sitting on the stairs of the subway entrance, watching the morning crowd move by like fish in a fast river, and he knew what he really was. From th...

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“His Lordship Returns” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #50

Alma threatened Sukie with a raised fist, shaking it for emphasis. “You clean him up!” Short and squat compared to the lithe and taller Sukie, the quakes this exclamation sent through her body greatly amused the baby that was the ‘him’ in question. She brought her fist down on the counter hard enough to shake the hanging pans in the kitchen. Sukie made a show of examining her lacquered nails. “Why should I?” Screening her grey eyes behind a curtain of long, black hair, she was nearly successful in her attempt to hide her fear of the older ...

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“Bennu, Inc.” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #43

“My great-grandfather died of syphilis.”Gerard Calvaire feels the intended shock of this statement land, and seeing the perverse smile stretch across the face of its speaker, he doubts the truth of it. Across from him, in a directors chair, sits Kate Watson, CEO of Bennu, most promising young chief executive in Silicon Valley. And Gerard is almost certain she is lying to him.Both of them sit on the stage side of a dark curtains and they can hear the audience milling beyond its muffling border. The crowd is here to listen to Ms. Watson’s late...

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“The Postcard” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #33

The street is lined with high-cut elm trees which provide shade for the children who play along it. They’re also a boon to Jerry, who on sunny days like today, in his dark blue uniform, enjoys the cool they offer. Gazing down the street, with its family homes and wide sidewalks, he smiles. He smiles because no one here has ever received the Postcard. Jerry has been working as a postman for 32 years and still walks his route despite all of the technological changes that have occurred in those decades. But no matter how advanced or smart the w...

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“Ordinary” by Matthew McLean

It all seemed very routine to them. I had only been visited by the police once before and that had been when they had come to inform me of Julia’s suicide. So seeing them exit their Buick to walk up my garden path stirred a dark tide in my chest that made me gasp for air. Their expressions were wooden, unmoving and spoke more of boredom than urgency. Both were in plain clothes, but there’s something special about a detective’s cheap suit that makes them unmistakable. That same rise in my chest compelled me to meet them at the door. The firs...

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“Hungry Ghosts” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #27

“Is this seat taken?” Joel looked up from his copy of The Brothers Karamazov to the person asking. Of indeterminate gender, with a slight female cast, s/he wore a natty suit cut well to their slight frame. S/he was smiling with small, perfectly white teeth, a bob in their hair swooping down to frame their mouth. That was all fine and well but Joel had picked the empty train car so he could read his book in peace. Too many people brought up thoughts about the failings of his life and for a short period, while he travelled to his third shift j...

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“Sorry” by Matthew McLean

Submitted to Contest #25

Amanda had come to expect to hear ‘sorry’ multiple times a day, each of them meaningless. Particularly in the South where she had been raised, particularly from women who would apologize for multiple things, often mysterious and frequently for nothing that was their fault. They apologized for dropping things, for passing too close in the supermarket aisle, for their children’s perfectly acceptable level of noise.This was to such an extent she had resolved not to use the word ‘sorry’, or apologize in general, as her own personal stake in the ...

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