Menu

Prompts

Directory Contests Magazine FAQ

Apps

reedsymarketplace

Hire professionals for your project

reedsyblog

Advice, insights and news

reedsylearning

Online publishing courses

reedsylive

Free publishing webinars

reedsydiscovery

Launch your book in style

Bestseller Podcast Book Cover Art Success Stories

Tools

Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Sue Hunter

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2022

Stories (26)

Comments

Library

39 Followers

10 Following

26 Stories

604 karma pts

?

This House Can’t Stand Forever

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #253

Summer in the South means the air becomes laden with pollen, sweat, and pregnant rain clouds. Ominous darkness was barely hidden behind the tall evergreen trees that made up the forest behind our house. The faint scent of pine mixed with that of petrichor. A week's worth of rain had saturated the ground. Every footfall sunk into the mud and was quickly followed by a squelching suck as I moved forward. We only had a few moments before the next storm would roll through. As pointless as it was to try painting a house in the middle of bad weathe...

9 likes

Vicissitude

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #240

The air on the vessel is thick; with each breath, the heat of the sea invades the lungs and taints the ridges of the throat. A woman, too young to be a child but too old to be beautiful, sits at the bow of the fishing boat, her feet nestled underneath her splintered seat. Behind her, struggling to stand against the vicious coastal air, a man pulls at two ropes connected to the boat’s sail. It’s patchy and discolored from years at sea. With each gust of wind, the yellowing fabric undulates, pulsating feverishly. The woman grips the boat's si...

9 likes

The Last Valentine’s

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #237

The world ended on Valentine’s Day, leaving the destroyed strip mall bathed in pink and white decorations. Roses that had once been carefully pruned now drooped in their vases, some of them completely deteriorating into piles of dusty petals. Songbirds would dart through the broken windows, grabbing colorful streamers and confetti to add to their nests. Emile sat behind the register, watching a bright red cardinal hop along the counter. He had only just woken up himself. It would be a few more minutes before his brain would decide to fully t...

10 likes

The Girl on the Gravel Path

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #235

         Torrential rains poured from the sky, obscuring the gravel road in a mist of white. Nadia’s sneakers sank into the ground as she ran. Her hair clung to her skin, its brown color darkening to a pitch black. She had no umbrella or coat. She was forced to blink the ice-cold raindrops from her eyes. But she didn’t have time to sit under a tree and wait out the storm. This would be her only time to escape. So, Nadia clenched her teeth, tightened her grip on her backpack straps, and kept runnin...

9 likes

Keep Your Hand on the Stove

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #232

CW: This story contains themes of suicide and suicidal ideation. Read only if you are in a good place. The suicide hotline is 988.The room was filled with the smell of metal and the rushing torrents of blood swirling around infinitesimal tubes. There was a pounding in every space, a rhythmic thump that was both harsh and soft, beautiful and overwhelming. Mucus, bile, and fluid invaded every millimeter of the void. Everything was covered in warm liquid. Electricity danced across the tubes and wires and muscles, carrying information across the...

15 likes

Have You Seen Me?

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #230

CW: This story contains elements of child kidnapping. The following is a collection of missing children’s reports found on the back of milk cartons. All reports were being investigated by the Marble County Sheriff’s Office and the Penny Hill Police Department. Blanks indicate missing information that was illegible. [A picture of a young boy wearing a blue and white striped shirt. His teeth are crooked and yellowed. Brown hair is cut short. In the background of the picture are the torsos of two adults, their heads cropped off.] Thomas O...

13 likes

Retail Hell

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #227

Lucy had been organizing the return rack of clothes when a child squealed at a frequency only dogs should have been able to hear. Working in retail, she knew that it usually meant one of two things. The first was that they had somehow managed to find a way to tear open one of the toy packages in the back of the store and were currently having the time of their life bashing Barbie’s brain into the linoleum floor. But the scream was coming from the front door, so perhaps this was one of the few times that she should go investigate. She relucta...

6 likes

Choking on Citrus

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #216

It was bad enough that AI had overthrown humanity. It was even worse that Harri had to work in retail for them. He was on his knees, scrubbing the linoleum floor with a sponge that had long since lost its bright yellow color. He tried to ignore his boss’s eyes on him as he dunked the sponge into a bucket of soapy water. If he let up his cleaning regimen for even a moment, Robo-Boss would be on him in an instant. Harri had no idea why people thought robots couldn’t express emotions because his boss was the moodiest AI on this side of the co...

10 likes

The Pripyat School Librarian

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #211

The large rectangular windows were speckled with spiderweb-like cracks. Years of heavy snow and brutal winds had battered the library walls and left a few gaping holes in the plaster. Pieces of the green wallpaper had begun to peel, revealing dark brown trails of rotting wood. Bookshelves had toppled over, sending their precious cargo careening into the floor. Those books, their pages faded from exposure to the elements and their bindings snapped on impact, carpeted the floor. You could only imagine the mess Duste Bunni had to wade through ...

7 likes

Carpool to Heaven

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #209

When Tabby imagined going to heaven, she had envisioned a golden staircase leading her toward the perfect sky, with angels and saints greeting her every step of the way. So she didn’t understand why she was walking along what looked to be a desert road. A tumbleweed danced by her feet as she continued to walk down the straight, sandy path. The road wasn’t packed enough to support her weight. With every step, she sank into the sand. Without her walking stick, she feared it would only be a matter of time before she fell. If that wasn’t bad en...

10 likes

The Bottom Line

Sue Hunter

Shortlisted for Contest #207 ⭐️

CW: The story includes elements of child harm and child death. A brief sentence alludes to predatory acts on a child but was kept as brief as possible.            The first word that came out of your one-year-old mouth was ‘cut’, though it probably sounded more like ‘cuh’ to the production staff around you. Daddy liked to yell it to his small studio, and you echoed him as a black and white board was slammed together in front of a camera. Your daddy leaped from his chair when he noticed y...

23 likes

Unwanted Chatterbox

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #194

Worn boots trudged through the fresh mud. It clung to the laces and wiggled its way into the hole near Barnaby’s left sole. He tried his best to ignore the raindrops striking at his face and tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Beads of water ran down his glasses. They returned seconds later, no matter how much he tried to swipe them away. He didn’t dare complain, though. His mother would scold him if she heard another peep out of his mouth. Barnaby could only grit his teeth, hoist his pack over his shoulder, and continu...

18 likes

The New and Improved 2023-24 Faculty Handbook

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #186

“Good morning, everyone! I do hope you are having a wonderful prep week. I managed to stop by a few classrooms today, and wow! You guys have really stepped it up this year, I gotta say. We sure have improved your classroom setups. I was just talking to Tammy Belford about her putting tennis balls on the ends of those chairs in the lab. We didn’t really have the budget for new tile, so I for one am glad our kids won’t be scratching up the floors this year!” “Now before we get into the changes to the handbook, I want to introduce some of the ...

20 likes

The Station

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #168

The Station was falling apart, and there was nothing Shyla could do about it. The battered walls did little to protect from the cold. It was an old train station, really only a rectangular box with one open wall. Even with her multiple warm layers, the chill would sneak its way through her shoes, freezing her toes until they went numb. More often than not, she and the other survivors would huddle in the corner least damaged, waiting out the night. The sun didn’t shine bright enough to pierce through the ever-present clouds, but with the day ...

11 likes

All Hail the Metronome

Sue Hunter

Submitted to Contest #154

Sometimes, teaching kids makes me want to put my head through a wall. I’m not talking math or science, either. That stuff is easy. Even the slowest kids will understand multiplication after a good tutoring session. I can teach almost anyone anything. I have a shortcut for almost every type of problem. Give me an hour with a D student, and he’ll start understanding how to multiply fractions or solve for x. 5th graders are annoying, bratty, and unusually idiotic. But they’re also pretty darn smart, and a good tutor can usually help them o...

14 likes