Left for Dead

They'd left me for dead. I wasn't. Didn't intend to be, either. Just had to figure out how to call for help. Fingers busted, tendons severed in my left foot. Maybe I could commando-crawl down the road. But if I rolled over, my guts would spill out onto the road. Had to do something. Couldn't stay …

Phantom Mourning

"It's been long enough." Karen's teeth chattered more from fear than from the plummeting temperatures. "The terms of the dare said to spend the whole night in the cemetery. Not to leave before dawn. Besides, the sun'll be up in another hour or so." Moonlight barely filtered through the canopy of trees, so Karen felt …

Facing Fear

"The best way to overcome your fear is to face it," Doc Freeman said. "You'll never live a full life unless you can do that." Second worst money I ever spent was on phobia therapy. First worst? The amusement park ticket. A two-hour line did nothing to convince me the ride was safe. Each step …

You Stand Relieved

This flash fiction piece, while not based on any real life event I've experienced, is all too real all too often. This is my tribute to our fallen heroes and their sacrifice. All she'd done since the doorbell rang a week earlier was sob. As she sat in the cemetery, the tears continued to fall. …

King of the Beach

Cortland Prescott was born with a gilded spoon in one hand and a jewel-encrusted knife in the other. One was for satisfying his every craving, the other was for stabbing his competitors in the back. He insisted on the finest things in life---often to the detriment of his business, his family, his friends. A critical …

When He Needed Me, I Let Him Down

This isn't really a story. It's more of a character sketch/concept piece. When he hid in his room, bruised and battered, I cried for him. When he came home from school smiling, blood on his clothes, I wondered what happened. When the school scheduled a conference to discuss his behavior, I ignored their concerns. When …

Paragon of Virtue

Paragon derives from the Old Italian word paragone, which literally means "touchstone." A touchstone is a black stone that was formerly used to judge the purity of gold or silver. The metal was rubbed on the stone and the color of the streak it left indicated its quality. Day of Tribute was upon them. The …

Completing the Codex Gigas

Bram's shaking hand rattled the pages as he offered them to Viktor. His master snatched them from him, caressed them as he would a delicate instrument or a fragile glass sculpture. "Where are your gloves? Didn't I tell you to only handle these pages with the utmost care? You fool! You could have destroyed everything!" …

Waiting in Whitechapel

Maniacal desire surged through his heart—pulse racing, fingers trembling, palms sweating. The taste of impending satiety metallic on his tongue, making him salivate. He swallowed and licked chapped lips, then wiped his hands on his trousers before tugging on his gloves. Panic licked the fringes of his thoughts when his damp digits wouldn't slide into the …

Open Your Eyes

"Open your eyes, John." The demonic voice echoed through the cave, reverberated off the walls until it rocked his very soul. He shook his head, whimpering and quivering in a crumpled mass on the floor. "Open your eyes. See your future." "N-no." John barely heard his own voice. He doubted the sound carried any further …