"Midnight Road" Short Fiction Contest

CONTEST HAS ENDED

Click HERE for the winners announcement.

Click HERE for the contest announcement, information, and rules.

Index of Entries

Amadeo, Jenny, "Long Distance" (#55)
Anderson, Peter, "Quit These Hills" (#35)
Avila, Esther, "It Is Finished" (#9)
Ball, Jr., Robert H., "Exit Plan" (#24)
Berg, Jack, Entry #54
Blackwater, Jade L., "Picking Cattails" (#52)
Bofire, "Last Call" (#44)
++Bridges, Elisha, "Jimmy Crick" (#42)**FIRST PLACE & READERS CHOICE AWARD**
Chris C., "In a Yellow Wood" (#48)
Cozine, Herschel, "Tomorrow" (#13)
Dufresne, Jerilyn, "Possibilities" (#2)
Eggman, Phil, "The Question" (#15)
Ellis, J. Scott, "Out With the Old…" (#28)
Emeraldcite, "Fishers of Beasts" (#7)
Flemming, Susan, "Frozen in Black Ice" (#45)
Flood, "The Marker" (#10)**2nd Runner-Up, Readers Choice**
Ford, Jamie, "Anytown, USA" (#36)**1st Runner-Up, Readers Choice**
Forgottenmachine, "Nightendday" (#40)
Fort-Bolton, Linda, "The Immortal Flight" (#33)**Honorable Mention**
Ghosh, Bhaswati, "The Eyewitness" (#19)
Gilbert, K. Lawson, "Atonement of Atomes" (#27)
Haring, Bev, Entry #32
Haws, Joni, "Tuesday" (#49)**FOURTH PLACE**
Hendricks, Rebecca, "Tiger Tale" (#6)
Hood, Anna, "Thirty Years of Marriage" (#46)
Hugenbruch, Brian W., "Homecoming" (#31)
Jane, Rebecca, "Escaping Through Lightning Alley" (#50)
Landry, Forrest, "Caste Keep" (#11)
Little Puddle, "Broken Fairy Tale" (#41)
Long, Chong Yen, "Midnight Sanctuary" (#18)
McAuley, John, "Hoboken Haiku" (#16)**SECOND PLACE**
McCracken, Kristi, "Hold on or Move on?" (#14)
McDermott, Steven J., "FNG" (#56)
Melly, "The Highest Point" (#5)
Merriman, Melissa, "The Body On The Grave" (#43)
Neale, Jeff, "A Separate Journey" (#23)
Owens, Fritz, "Midnight Assignation" (#17)
Pajalic, Amra, "Appetiser" (#37)
Piper, Fran, "Disconnection" (#39)
Puch, César, "Silhouette" (#20)
Rapino, Anthony J., "I See the Light" (#21)**Honorable Mention**
Rapoza, R.R., "When the Lights Go Out" (#25)
Rohloff, Robert, "The Keeper of Souls" (#22)
Rooney, C., "Fetish" (#4)
Roy, Entry #47**FIFTH PLACE**
Seamans, Sandra, "Civic Duty" (#26)**THIRD PLACE**
Sig H., "We Are the Hollow Men" (#53)
Smith, Christian, "Indoor Recess" (#29)
Snowden, Rebecca, "Night Blindness" (#51)**Honorable Mention**
Stitzel, Jim, "The Midnight Road" (#12)
Terrill, Cavan, "Blood Electric" (#3)
Thornquist, John, "Midnight Call" (#30)
Ultra Toast Mosha God, Entry #1
Wells, Jaye, "Going Back to Basics" (#8)
Woehr, Deborah, "The Death Penalty" (#38)
Workman, Jim, "The Last Train" (#34)

++Elisha Bridges is the pen name of S.F. Johnston, a Canadian currently living in Holland. He won an honorable mention for his story "Every Hope and Dream" in the "Two Lights" Short Fiction Contest.

Winners Announcement--The "Midnight Road" Short Fiction Contest

My friends, I'm happy to announce the winners of the "Midnight Road" Short Fiction Contest! Before you scroll down (and I know you already have, LOL), just let me say that your writing has been amazing. There are many more deserving entries than can be reflected here. While winning is fun and rewarding, I hope you all have taken away something valuable from this experience. I think you'll agree we have proved the old saying, winning isn't everything.

1st Place--ELISHA BRIDGES, "JIMMY CRICK" (#42).
$35 Amazon gift certificate.

2nd Place--JOHN MCAULEY, "HOBOKEN HAIKU" (#16).
$25 Amazon gift certificate.

3rd Place--SANDRA SEAMANS, "CIVIC DUTY" (#26).
$15 Amazon gift certificate.

4th Place--JONI HAWS, "TUESDAY" (#49).
$10 Amazon gift certificate.

5th Place--ROY, ENTRY #47.
$5 Amazon gift certificate.

Honorable Mention--REBECCA SNOWDEN, "NIGHT BLINDNESS" (#51).

Honorable Mention--ANTHONY J. RAPINO, "I SEE THE LIGHT" (#21).

Honorable Mention--LINDA FORT-BOLTON, "THE IMMORTAL FLIGHT" (#33).



And now, for the first ever READERS CHOICE AWARD, the winner is:

Readers Choice--ELISHA BRIDGES, "JIMMY CRICK" (#42).
8 x 10 signed print of the contest photo commemorating the win.

First Runner-Up--JAMIE FORD, "ANYTOWN, USA" (#36).

Second Runner-Up--FLOOD, "THE MARKER" (#10).


Congratulations to the winners!! And let me give a special congratulations to Elisha for the double win. Your piece, "Jimmy Crick," transcended excellence. (If you are wondering, I did select winners prior to counting the Reader Choice votes).

Thank you again for such an amazing contest. During the its course, your writing generated 12,099 hits! I'm absolutely astounded! I was also very impressed by how supportive you have been. Not once did I have to moderate comments.

I hope to see all of you back here and on your own blogs. Drop me a note if you'd like to trade links. As I mentioned in the last post, my comments on entries will be posted over the next several days. Also, I will be providing constructive comments to those who ask.

One more thing, in a couple of days, I will have a very exciting announcement about the next contest I will be holding later this summer. You will not want to be on the sidelines for this one!!

Happy writing, and have a great weekend!

--Jason

The Readers Choice Award Voting is Closed

The time for voting has passed. All of the results are in.

Tomorrow evening (Friday, June 30th), the winners will be announced. Afterwards, I will begin posting comments on what I liked the most about each entry. If you would also like me to give you constructive comments in private, please drop me an email. If you asked for constructive comments with your entry, please drop me an email to remind me, if you don't mind. It's easier for me to stay organized that way.

Thanks!! You've made this contest a blazing success!

Sleep tight.

While You are Reading and Voting....

Now that the whirlwind of posting has calmed, I'd like to give you all a proper welcome to The Clarity of Night! This blog is a themed blog with fiction, poetry, photography, and a few stray insights. Also, don't be alarmed if you stumble on a gravestone or two.

If you'd like to explore, I'm sure you'll find a cozy corner to relax. The index to the right is there for your convenience. In particular, you might enjoy:

My Interview with Flood (Entry #10).
"Flashlight Tag", my most recent short story.
"Stand-Up Man", my most recent flash fiction.

Also, I'd like to share the work of folks who missed the deadline for one reason or another. Please read and enjoy them as much as the official entries (I'll add them as I get them).

*****

"The Strings"
by Sanjaya Mishra

The frothy clouds tapped the green hills like big balloons. The earthy smell due to the light drizzle and the fragrance of the blooming flowers pervaded all around.

She played the Veena, her small delicate finger deftly touching the strings. Everybody huddled around her - enchanted.

The gusts of wind was sudden and severe as if it was lying captive since long and now in its wild freedom yearned to blow away everything that came its way.

Tucked away somewhere in a remote corner of her memory, it came riveting back, ready to sweep her with all its fury - the accident.

Do accidents always occur in dark stormy nights?

“She will survive…she will be alright…the fingers are crushed though.”

She can no longer pull the strings, can’t play the Veena!”

She never did again.

She looked through the window as the azure landscape was enveloped by a sepulchral darkness.

“One day, surely you will play it again my dear…”

“You can play it in your mind…”

Outside the intermittent lightning dazzled the horizons spasmodically.

“You never know when it will be…but time will come when you will play it again…”

The time had come.

Straining her eyes she saw it there, atop the pole, bisecting the dark expanding skylines.

The cable…the wires…the strings…

Yes, there…that is where her Veena is – inviting her, enticing her.

Her eyes glistening, she grasps the ladder and sneaks out into the night.

Do accidents always occur in dark stormy nights?

Thank You All!

The "Midnight Road" Short Fiction Contest is now closed to submissions.

You have made it a wonderful success! We have a record number of participants and a record number of visitors. Tuesday alone, your writing has generated 2,340 hits from 583 unique visitors. You all deserve a round of applause!

And it's not over. Winners will be announced the evening of Friday, June 30th.

But in the meantime, I have a little surprise for you. I've decided to add another winning category: The Readers Choice Award.

Here are the rules:

1) Voting is open to any writer who participated in the contest.

2) By email (please use the same email address that you used to send your story), send me your top five choices for favorite entry. Please number them 1 through 5. I will award 5 points for your first choice, 4 points for your second, 3 points for your third, and so on. The entry with the most points will be declared the winner.

3) You cannot vote for your own entry.

4) Voting ends at 11:00 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday, June 29th (Eastern time, United States).

What do you win, you ask? The prize for The Readers Choice Award will be a signed 8 x 10 print of the contest photo commemorating your recognition by your fellow writers.

Now, one last thing before I leave you to your voting. I would never ask you to do something I'm not prepared to do myself! Here is my own walk along the Midnight Road:

*****

"Healing"
by Jason Evans


Country roads never end. Until they do.

Sebastian learned that. Driving for two weeks. Driving since he left. The moon crawled through great holes in the sky, and the road rolled on.

He blinked and rubbed. Three thirty in the morning. His ankle ached against the gas pedal.

He eased back.

The roar of wind in his windows softened as he rumbled onto the edge of fields. The car stopped, and he breathed the silence. Outside, the ground under his shoes felt good.

He walked and lit a cigarette, although he never smoked. He just grabbed a pack in the gas station. Strange, but he liked the billowing warmth right then.

Closing his eyes, he wrapped himself in moist air and listened to the night whispers. For a long time, he leaned against the pole, and moonlight sliced him with the shadows of wires.

Then, in the distance, the sound of a truck. Headlights winked behind a hill and grew. Sebastian dropped the cigarette and grated it in gravel.

He started the car and waited. Light flooded the interior, blinded him, then whipped off into the darkness. A voice from the pickup shouted, but Sebastian didn't care.

As his eyesight returned, he saw the skies unraveling. Starlight sprinkled from the beginning of time.

He rolled the steering wheel and began moving again.

Country roads never end. Until they do.

Entry #56

"FNG"
by Steven J. McDermott


Parked under the power pole I still wonder what I did wrong. Why the fuck was the transformer hot? I used to come here only on the anniversary of Jess's death. Now, it's becoming addictive.

Even with the klieg lights blazing night to day his wire cutters had glowed, then went molten, melting his gloves, before his flannel shirt flamed, burning up from the cuff, while he jittered--no harder than if he'd been running a jackhammer, really--until the transformer blew, all arcing wires and shrapnel, including the biggest chunk, which was Jess, launched from the cherry picker to bounce from the truck's roof to the pavement while the snapping wires tossed sparks.

CPR? Yeah, right. Ever burnt a piece of toast?

For years I'd dodged up side roads to avoid passing this stretch of highway, but three years ago I started returning to the power pole more frequently, every couple of months at least. Another rookie linesman had joined our crew; the first FNG they'd trusted us with since Jess's death. Chris, who'd been in Nam like me, chided the rookie continuously about being a Fucking New Guy, but I couldn't; Jess had been the last FNG, the guy I'd crispy-crittered by . . . how the fuck I don't know.

Six nights running now I've parked here, ticking down to the decade since Jess died, and I am so fucking scared. Of what I'll do, and what I won't.

[Steven J. McDermott is the editor of Storyglossia.]

Entry #55

"Long Distance"
by Jenny Amadeo


Wow – it’s really storming out! Is it raining by you? Should I be on the phone right now? Can’t I get electrocuted or something?

I don’t know, didn’t your mom always tell you not to be on the phone during a lightning storm? And to unplug the TV’s? Reminds me of when the tornado sirens would go off and we had to go down to the basement.

She didn’t? Huh. Guess it’s a Midwest thing. I always thought it was kind of fun. We would all get to grab pillows and blankets, and my mom would bring food. It was our version of camping. She always brought olives. And stale Italian bread. I mean, how are you going to survive on olives and bread crumbs in a basement?

Holy crap! Did you hear that?

Okay, how could you not hear that? It sounded like a bomb just went off in my apartment! I think I need to go. I don’t want to get electrocuted.

I don’t know – through the window? Look – if I get electrocuted it’s going to be your fault. How are you going to live with that?

Exactly. All right, I’ll talk to you later.

You too. ‘Night.

Entry #54

Entry #54
by Jack Berg


The priest was near the end of his sermon.

"The missionaries were trussed up like the pigs recently roasted and tossed into a blackened pit lined with human skulls. The cannibals laid faggots of freshly cut trees limbs. The preachers said their last prayers, putting their trust in God. One of them saying aloud, 'Into your hands I commend my spirit.' The tallest cannibal, Quatchacabel, threw in a torch, igniting the wood. A shower of sparks rose up like the prayers of the priests. Flames slowly rose up until they licked at the cheeks of the victims. One of the priests rose up, rigid and tall shuddered and fell limp into the consuming fire. Another one screamed in agony, 'My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me.' In his last breath the third missionary let out a horrible animal like scream, a final gurgle, and then succumbed."

The priest ended his sermon, circled the campfire, poking the head of each boy.

"What does THIS mean?" The boys recoiled from the pressure of his finger.

"What will you learn from THIS?"

He came to his last boy. This fair-haired, blue eyed boy was his favorite student. This was the boy who stayed after school every night--the boy he controlled.

"We should put our trust in God," the boy answered.

The priest leaned over, whispered something in his ear.

The boy stood up, erect, attentive. Whatever the priest said, the boy was touched.

Entry #53

"We are the Hollow Men"
by Sig H.


You lean back against the line, electricity thrumming under you. A road runs above you, deserted at this time of night.

It's unfair that you still don't know the answer.


You can't remember the details of your death, just that it wasn't unusual. A car accident, your body becoming skin and bones and a heart that kept blood pumping even after the soul had left it. You remember being pulled up, up, thinking you might never stop.

Until you did.


"A new one, eh?" the old man said. "You still look human."

And later, "Our souls were caught by the electricity. Like needles to a magnet-"

"Like bugs on a spider web."

His face wavered, disappeared and reappeared. "No. We're the lucky ones."

"Old man, you call this luck?"

And he snapped, "I'm almost as young as you are."

But he wasn't.


You don't know when you last saw him. Time, memories, slip your grasp. The sky takes them. You're a glitch on the line, a stubborn anomaly. You won't let it take you whole, so it takes you in pieces.


You tried to jump once. Looked down at night, stars and a fraying darkness. The pull filtered through you like light through stained glass, and you swayed towards it, wavered like static. You thought, this is what the stars feel, the universe falling towards the center to disappear into nothing, and it's taking you with it, taking you taking you taking you with.


It's not death you fear.

Entry #52

"Picking Cattails"
by Jade L. Blackwater


Damian turned his collar up as he shuffled quietly along the shoulder. The highway was strangely void of traffic, even for 2am. Beside the road a marsh began to speak as the warm night gave way to soft drizzle. Damian paused to listen to the rustling cattails. Their even motion beckoned like a porch light; he turned and waded in among the punk of damp earth and skunk cabbage.

Water poured over the tops of his boots as the marsh's true depth became clear. Now with the cattails reaching above his head, Damian's thoughts drifted. It was the kind of peaceful night that only solitude could perfect.

A loud snap jolted Damian from his repose and sent his blood flashing. He squatted low among the cattails as the sound of rapid movement approached him. Damian's fear thrust his feet into action; he turned back towards the road, his boots sticking heavily in the soft bottom of the marsh. Cattails clapped his face as he grasped for the safety of the shoulder.

Damian's boots hit gravel and he tumbled forward into the road. A bright light overtook him, and he froze on the dividing line, eyes widening. As the rush of wind came upon him, Damian turned to glimpse his pursuer. Staring from the reeds stood a young buck, its tail flipping placidly at the early morning moths.

Entry #51

“Night Blindness”
by Rebecca Snowden


She felt it before she saw it, the dull, soft thud of metal meeting flesh. She heard the headlight shatter, the violent crunch of the fender crumbling and then—silence.

Be careful, her husband had said before she left the house. Keep your eyes open.

She’d blinked, for just a second. A small moment, but one with consequences.

The deer lay a few feet in front of the car, its legs splayed out at odd angles. A fawn, its brown fur mottled with white, soft nubs in place of where antlers would eventually grow. Most likely, he’d wandered off from his mother and gotten too close to the road. A small moment, but one with consequences.

Its mouth was open, the soft pink tongue exposed to the cold. A thin trickle of blood ran down to the pavement and its breath came in short, shallow gasps. The eyes, a glossy black, rolled wildly in their sockets.

She reached out a hand and laid it flat against the deer’s heaving side. The hind legs kicked feebly, animal instincts taking over. She could feel its heartbeat slowing, weakening. She had never killed anything before. This was not a power she relished.

The only witness to her crime, a lone utility pole, stood silent in the darkness. She wanted to offer up an apology, a prayer. She owed the deer this much at least. In the glare of the remaining headlight, she knelt in the snow and paid her penance to the moon.

Entry #50

“Escaping Through Lightning Alley”
by Rebecca Jane


"Is he unconscious, or…?" Marcus had worked hard to give his stutter the boot, but the dreadful words still got the best of him, "duh du.. d… dead?" Abe didn't answer; he set his jaw to keep from howling. Much harder to suppress was Abe's urge to strangle his schizophrenic brother. "Dad?" Abe inched closer and Marcus clung to Abe's shirt; they whimpered and called again to the fallen man. Was it safe to touch him? Moments ago he'd been running ahead of them, shouting: "They're coming!"

Though they knew the risks, Abe and his father had freed Marcus from the Florida institution, freed him from doctors who insisted on misdiagnosis and experimental shock treatments. His father told Abe, if they played their cards right, they could use Marcus's awful gifts to get them out of The Projects. But while they ran from the clinic with its gruesome walls, the sky had turned suddenly more gruesome. A bolt of lightning struck the nearby pole and a high voltage splash zapped the boys' father.

When the clouds cleared, the man came to. Two strange children knelt trembling beside him and his entire body was covered in burns that doctors call "lightning flowers." There was only one thing to do. He walked for hours to the place where the boys' mother lived, though they hadn't seen her in over nine years. He knocked on her door with the two astonished boys in tow and said, "Hi hon! Brought you some flowers!"

Entry #49

“Tuesday”
by Joni Haws


She felt the mist roll in, sticky and seeping, the cold finding her deepest places. Thumb and ring finger rubbed the skin of her eyelids and she popped the tasteless pill the color of her midnight tulips. She gulped it down without water.

I know he loves me. It was a plain truth, but the mist sparred and rejected it, her chest just swampy and dark.

How long had that baby been crying? Leaden bare feet trudged across the gummy linoleum. The gray air in the house hunched her back with its weight. The stairs loomed, daunting.

She noticed her hand on the railing and stopped. The chipped red paint on her toenails stared up and mocked her. The mist was thick this time.

He’ll call soon. But what time was it? She must have sat down. She fingered a thread trailing from the sleeve of her night gown. Tearing at a hangnail, she felt the sting, saw the blood, and did not fight the compulsion to pull it further. Like ripping paper. The tender skin was rich with pain. She could feel this.

Had the baby stopped crying? No. The angry screams barely reached her. What did he need? She could not remember.

It’ll be okay, he’ll say after the muck has drained a bit. And I’ll produce another smile, and keep my lips closed so he won’t see the shadow inside.

Entry #48

“In a Yellow Wood”
by Chris C.


The electrical post was the last thing Charlie Danvers saw in his lifetime, which is not to say that he died immediately after seeing it. In fact, he led a fruitful existence well after that post on Route 80 faded from sight, and it wasn't long before the electrical post, the color of the sky and the number of sparrows perched on the cables faded from memory.

The question posed was this: sight or sound?

Despite the grievous situation leading to it, the question itself was, in essence, a philosophical one, so Charlie showed it the respect of approaching it philosophically.

He stopped after several hours, when his head started to hurt.

"You can read words but not hear pictures," said Marietta, which sounded sensible, but Charlie remembered her gushing over the Da Vinci Code, and could place no faith in her judgment after that.

"Dude, think of the porn you'd be giving up," said Ethan, and that seemed to clinch the matter, but, well, dude. Charlie had an ongoing war with the mangling of the English language with unnecessary verbal punctuations.

In the end, he flipped a coin.

But when people asked him afterwards how he had managed that awful choice, he told them that sight defined the concrete while sound expressed the spiritual, sight was the plebian choice and sound the profound, and he believed it himself, because Charlie was a sensible guy, who showed his answer the respect of respecting it.

And he lived happily ever after.

Entry #47

Entry #47
by Roy


Far out. I was just talking to Rainbow and Moonbeam about the very idea--but after awhile I couldn't concentrate because Rainbow had a fly in her hair and Moonbeam was saying here use my hairbrush and brush it out, and Rainbow was all, hey I don't want to hurt it and Moonbeam was like, hey, it's a FLY, and Rainbow said well that's the trouble with you because you don't have strongly held BELIEFS like I do, and Moonbeam started crying and I was all SHUT U-UUUP!!!! and then because it was raining our VW bus slid off the side of the road and we drove sideways through the front window of a grocery store and knocked these Hostess cupcakes off their display and they were, like, everywhere, so we got out and ate a bunch of them before the cops came, and so that idea that the universe will take care of us, that was really heavy. I was just thinking about that.

So the cop is sitting at his desk with a cup of coffee and half of this dried out doughnut and says hey, we still had our one phone call, which I made. It was dark now, and the weather had gotten worse, and I could barely hear the guy, who is shouting, over the buzzing phone line, “What?? What??”

I say, oh yeah, and some of those cinnamon dessert stick things. I glance down at my jailer and say, better make that two orders.

Entry #46

“Thirty Years of Marriage”
by Anna Hood


An old Dodge pickup huffed along the ribbon of melted blacktop that is Highway 1A, the driver, Pete Gonzales, groaning, cursing the busted AC, shifting his ass from side to side, vinyl sticking to his aching back.

“Gettin’ too old for this shit.” He must have lugged ten tons of concrete blocks up a ladder that day.

Pete was hoping his old lady wasn’t having a bad day. He loved her, God knows they’d been married thirty years, but she always got a little testy with the heat. He couldn’t blame her, he was a bit snarly himself, but just once he’d just like to go home, have a cold one, kick his boots off. Chill.

She met him at the door. “Sorry,” said she. “Another damn bill collector. I tried Pete, really, but he just kept pounding and pounding so I finally had to let him in.” She started to cry. “I know you work so hard and then you have to come home to this.”

He took her into his sweaty embrace, stroked her hair, “Never mind,’ he said, “this heat’s enough to drive anybody nuts. Where is he?”

“The porch.”

Hand in hand they walked to the porch. Each grabbed a bill collector leg. “Let’s leave him in the garage; we’ll bury him later when it’s cooler,” she said. “Tomorrow I promise, I’ll try harder.”

“You’re doing great Babe. I’m proud of ya. Just think, only one today. Damn heat does it to everybody.”

Entry #45

“Frozen in Black Ice”
By Susan Flemming


The moon slipped behind a veil of clouds as Howard stepped down from the cab of the truck. He reached across the seat and carefully lifted the bag into his arms. He knew which pole marked the spot and he made his way through the grass and weeds in the ditch to it's base.

A fine mist of rain fell. Howard felt the wetness soaking through his shirt; felt the chill wind begin to freeze the fabric. It had been drizzling and cold that night too.

He set the bag down and began clearing a circle at the base of the pole. Memories flooded his mind. Always they brought with them the questioning; the if onlies. How many times over the years had he played the if only game.

If only they had waited until morning to head out. If only he'd been able to maintain control a moment longer. If only they'd hit the ditch a few feet further on. If only...

When a large enough circle was cleared, he opened the bag and lifted out a bouquet of white lilies and a wreath. He nailed the wreath to the pole and laid the lilies on the ground.

He stood a moment longer remembering and then returned to the truck. As he pulled away, Howard cranked the heat to high and felt the warmth spread through his body. Somehow though, it could never quite thaw that place in his heart frozen in black ice.

[Published short story and article writer Susan Flemming is currently working on her first fantasy novel set in ancient times; where the magic and mystical meet. Visit her at her website: www.susanflemming.com.]

Entry #44

“Last Call”
by Bofire


I looked up at the post with the electrical wires menacing above me like a crucifix suspended in the sky. The clouds, black and blue, like a swollen eye.

The bolt of lightning hit the post like a jackhammer ramming its way through a slab of concrete, and bounced off into my body like a spirit trying to find a home.

My Mother is holding me in her arms and they are dripping water on my forehead.

My father is holding my hand while we are walking through the woods.

My brother is laughing while holding my head under the water at the swimming pool.

My sister is pouring me a glass of lemonade for 10 cents.

I am standing, with my best friend at my side, my graduation cap in my hand ready to throw it into the air.

I am holding her hand, looking into her eyes, and whispering, "I do."

I am cradling a little bundle of blue and watching as the water is dripping off his forehead.

I watch as Nicki, my dog and best friend, wags his tail until I am out of sight.

I am carrying a little child from the fire and the KCFD reflects in the sun off my helmet.

I look down into the earth and I see the shiny silver casket lying in the ground.

I will miss my best friend, Nicki, who knocked me over and took the charge in his little black and brown body.

[Bofire is a fireman from KC, MO.]

Entry #43

“The Body On The Grave”
by Melissa Merriman


Evil didn’t creep in with the night, Jana thought. It swept across you like the clouds of an incoming storm.

She stared up at the fast fading sky. The ends of her hair lifted gently in the breeze. Cold caressed her cheeks.

It was only a matter of time. There was nowhere to hide. She had come to the cemetery to wait. A symbolic jab. Death finding her at death’s door.

Jana gazed down at the tombstone. ‘Jed Curry’. Her husband. Soon, she knew she would join him in the chilled earth. She felt it.

“You should have left well enough alone.” She thought of the old book they’d found at the flea market.

‘Conjurations’.

Jed thought it was funny.

“That’s not even a real word,” he’d said. “I bet there’s a great chicken soup recipe in here somewhere.”

That night, he’d brought out the book and read a page out loud. Thunder had sounded in the distance.

“Stop, Jed. Leave it alone.” She’d been frightened.

“It isn’t real, Jana. It’s a game. The storm is a coincidence.”

But, it hadn’t been. Something had come for Jed that night. She’d found his body the next morning, twisted, grotesque. The shadows had followed. Now, they would come for her, too.

A screeching sound rose from behind her, building gradually. As the evil embraced her Jana cried out Jed’s name.

The storm swept out with the morning sun leaving a dim light shining down on the body on the grave.

[Melissa Merriman is a Horror Writer who recently won First Place in the 'From The Asylum' T-Shirt Contest. She has a story coming out in July in Apollo's Lyre Ezine and her novel, 'Emily's Rage', placed in the finals of the PPW Frontiers in Writing Contest in June 2006.]

Entry #42

“Jimmy Crick”
by Elisha Bridges


See if I don’t climb that pole says Jimmy Crick. Kisses me hard, we all laugh and up he goes. I say hey and he looks down and I flash him my titties because they’re new and I love him more than I love my own breath. He gives me his white-tooth smile, slips and grabs the line, his face all twisted.

Frank drives out from the station and I’m on the ground with Jimmy, my ear on his heart like we was sleeping. Just like that. But it don’t beat my name no more, all I hear is them saying he's dead Ellie. He’s gone.

After a bit Frank starts up with his Ellie you too pretty to be alone, and the years pass on by, and I don’t know why, I just go and marry him to get the dead out of my soul, which it don’t.

One day he’s in my face in the double-wide how I loved Jimmy Crick more than him. Then he’s calling him Jimmy Crisp and punching me and such, and then I’m bruised in the bath and he's got the toaster saying if you love him so much.

And if I hear one more yellow-tooth snore. So I get the deer gun, make some noise, and Frank stops. Throw the ladder in his pick-up and drive on out through the night to the pole.

Want to grab that line, I want so bad to go see Jimmy Crick.

See if I don’t.

Entry #41

“Broken Fairy Tale”
by Little Puddle


Serena's father sat across from her in his reading chair. She was thinking about inviting him for a game of cards, but decided against it. She knew that he wouldn't be interested. Her eyes looked to the window opposite to her father.

A tall electric pole looked down at her in a flash of lightning that marked the end of the storm. It gave Serena a feeling of loneliness in her heart. She then realized that she never had that security blanket, or toy to cuddle with since the death of her mother. She had no special friend to call after a bad day of school. Her father, now, was just a food and shelter provider. Serena had tried many times to make the father-daughter relationship work, but he wouldn't let her. He was the corner, the dead end in Serena's life.

Serena fought to hold back the tears, but she lost the battle. Three heartbreaking tears fell down her cheek, without her father's notice. She looked at him with a wailing scream, "Why? Why do you do this to me?!"

Without time for him to reply, she glanced back at the moon lit power pole. "Why?" She repeated softly to herself. With a shattered spirit longing to join her mother and a desire to let go of her dreams and future, the teenager fell to the floor.

With cold, open eyes, Serena's body faced the distant midnight road.

[Little Puddle is a 12 year old blogger that is not allowed to visit other blogs (except this one) yet.]

Entry #40

“Nightendday”
by Forgottenmachine


There are faces in the clouds, misconceived and gormless . The sky is a negative aurora, all threshed silver and scorched grey. Yet strangely, a sense of expectancy seems absent. There is no charge to the air; power poles stand like impotent scarecrows, taut cabling the only thing linking each to the other.

Yes, a storm approaches, but it brings with it as much sound and fury as a murder of wingless crows. This does not mean that it is quiet; the silence is littered with a chorale of God's tiniest creatures. Their chittering has been my only lullaby for countless passings of this phase. Still, I suppose this desolation is of my own doing.

I have been perched here an age, far beyond the brittling of bones, the staining of skin. A shadow should never have to remember pain, so perhaps I am not a shadow. I can even remember the face of the last who tried to slip past. My arrow split his skull like an opened, dusty book.
And thus did Affinity join his brothers, bloodied and beaten. We can't have them scurrying about like lice.

My name is Daniel. And I guard the Midnight Road.

[Forgottenmachine is an aspiring author who at one point considered calling his entry, 'I'm Getting Just a Smidge Predictable'. Wisely, he changed this at the last second.]

Entry #39

“Disconnection”
by Fran Piper


Jake stared up through the windshield of the electric company truck. Clouds roiled against the darkness, and over towards the horizon, lightning slashed down into the fields. He thought he should head for home; he'd probably be up all night fixing lines after the storm blew through. Then he thought about the empty apartment and the divorce. To hell with it. He stopped the truck, got out, grabbed his climber from the back.

The wind tried to tear him from the pole. When he looked up, the clouds seemed to be coming down to meet him. He monkeyed all the way to the top and clung there, screaming his rage at the boiling sky.

"Come and get me, you bastard, come and get me!"

It came and got him. The hair all over his body stood up suddenly, and his skin tingled. Abruptly there was light; the pole was gone, and he was dancing through the wires, in homes and on streets and stretched along endless lonely roads. His electron fingertips touched street lights, table lamps, giant turbines. He was power, and he was everywhere. Then the transformer exploded, and he felt himself scatter, a billion pieces separating, disconnecting, falling.

The sun rose. Linemen, silent in the early light, prepared to bring him down; while here and there in the power grid, consciousness flickered momentarily, but knew only puzzlement and loss.

[Fran Piper is that unlikely combination, a grandmother and a Silicon
Valley software developer. She writes in the spare time this leaves her.]

Entry #38

"The Death Penalty"
by Deborah Woehr


Lightning flashes. Telephone poles whip by. I can't feel my fingers against the steering wheel anymore.

Just get away.

I've driven a mile so far. How soon until the neighbors find out what I did? I'm sure they heard the screaming, but that was normal.

Did it sound normal this time? Don't worry about it. Just get away.

He was a mean bastard when he was sober, and he was sober tonight. God, was he ever. I check the rearview mirror, then the sideview mirror. Nobody's following me, except my paranoia.

I've never killed anybody before tonight. If I had thought to plan it, I would've poisoned him. This wasn't planned. He's still sitting in his recliner with his throat slit ear-to-ear.

The police will find the knife in the dishwasher, along with the dishes we'd used for supper. They'd see the shackles and the studded whip and the fresh blood spatters from tonight's Penalty, which happened because I'd given him the wrong salad dressing. Will they still consider him a victim after seeing all that?

Another mile passes on my odometer. Lightning flashes in the distance. Small fingers tap against my shoulder.

"Mama?"

Entry #37

"Appetiser"
by Amra Pajalic


He didn't notice as I followed his car in a borrowed truck down Midnight Road, so called because there no street lights and on a clear night the road lit up in the moonlight.

He'd promised he'd ended it with the skanky bitch, but when I saw him putting on aftershave and slicking his hair back for a night out with the boys, I knew he'd lied.

I told him I was going to visit my sister, which was true. I snuck into her house, taking her boyfriend's keys from the hook beside the back door, while they played hide the sausage.

He turned off the road and parked his car among the trees. I passed him and parked a few hundred metres away. When I reached them on foot I saw her feet propped on the car roof through the windshield.

By the time I'd returned with the truck, keeping the headlights off and driving at five miles an hour as I approached their hideout, they'd finished and were kissing beside his car. I hit the beam lights. They covered their faces with their hands and squinted in my direction.

I hit the gas and sped toward them. They made a crunching sound as they were crushed between the truck and the bonnet of his car, kind of like the sound of chicken bones popping as you eat it. After I dropped off the truck at my sisters' I went to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Murder was an appetiser.

[Amra Pajalic is an aspiring novelist and has placed in short story competitions, been published in magazines, journals and in anthologies. Her blog is www.amrapajalic.blogspot.com.]

Entry #36

"Anytown, USA"
by Jamie Ford


Norman Harwood stood in the gallery of Walla Walla prison’s execution chamber. Behind the glass, he watched his cousin Ray, twitch like a horse carp in the bottom of a fishing boat. His cousin’s limbs thrashed, while his head jerked back.

The body of his oldest daughter, Neela, was found in the shed behind Ray’s house, and though Ray denied it, his underwear was found stuffed in her mouth. Despite four years of appeals, Ray was lit up at the stroke of midnight.

On the long road home, Norman thought about what he’d say to his other daughter, Angie. She was almost eight and had cried for days when her big sister went missing, but now seemed at peace.

“Do you think it hurt when she died?” Angie had asked.

Norman said what made sense. “I bet angels took her to Heaven. She was long gone by the time it happened.”

“I think she was happy to go.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’d be.”

Norman thought about that all the way home. What does she know? She’s just a babe. Not old and spiteful like her older sister––so strong natured. Eager to get out on her own. Likely to run her mouth. Can’t have that can we?

When Norman got home. He wasn’t thinking about Neela, or his cousin. He had closure now. My worries are over, he thought. What’s done is done.

With that, he went alone into Angie’s bedroom and showed her how all daddies protect their little girls.

[Jamie Ford grew up near Seattle's Chinatown and is busy querying his first novel, Surefire. He hangs out at www.jamieford.com and has been known to eat jellyfish, sea cucumber and chicken feet on occasion.]

Entry #35

"Quit These Hills"
by Peter Anderson


I lean out the window again, craning my neck upward to look at the sky, never removing my hand from the steering wheel. Still no good, I think, as I duck my head back into the car, returning my eyes to the road speeding beneath me. The clouds never seem to give me the thick bank of cover I need, with the moon peeking out again and again. Complete darkness is required, no moonlight.

At least I've left the streetlights far behind, their last bit of fake amber glare fading away maybe ten minutes ago, on the outskirts of Williston. But I must still be close to town, too close, for the power lines continue along, their peaks and dips following beside me on my journey, my mission, my unpleasant task. The presence of power lines means I have yet to reach nowhere—those lines are taking their power to someplace or someone, and as long as that place or person is nearby I haven't gone nearly far enough.

I need remoteness and darkness, and those power lines and that peekaboo full moon show me I still have neither. Remoteness is needed to avoid strangers passing in their cars, darkness to prevent any that do pass from spotting what I'm hauling out of my trunk and dragging into the woods.

I've got my shovel and a strong back. The job shouldn't take more than twenty minutes, and once it's done I'll be gone. I'll quit these hills, forever.

Entry #34

"The Last Train"
by Jim Workman


I gaze down Pennsylvania Station’s long corridor. It reminds me of a giant throat and smells as if all of New York is exhaling at once. The soldiers are standing in pairs clutching their M-16s in one hand and a Dunkin Donut in the other. Their camouflage fatigues make them stand out. I board the last train to Ronkonkoma then everything goes dark as we slide under the river.

The clackety clack of the rails becomes hypnotizing but no more so than the utility poles outside the window: the endless line of midnight wraiths pretending to guard Long Island’s life-line to the City. The gentle swaying of the car lulls me to half-sleep.

“Bethpage” The conductor sounds as if his nostrils are frozen together.

I remember this stop one year ago today. I was forced to deboard the train with hundreds of upset passengers - until they heard the news. There had been an “accident” at the towers.

“Farmingdale” His nose hadn’t defrosted.

I had woken up to the smell of coffee that fateful September morning and read the love note promising a better evening if I was up to it.

Firemen from this village had died trying to save my Emily. It wasn’t enough.

“Ronkonkoma, end of the line”: my stop.

Finally home, I inhale and think I catch a faint wisp of her perfume. But it’s a lie.

I still sleep on the couch and never make coffee. Never.

Entry #33

"The Immortal Flight"
by Linda Fort-Bolton


“A little bird flies around the world and as it flies past the empire state building it brushes its wing on the building. Then, it flies around the world again and brushes its wing on the building as it passes by. The bird continues to do this. As long as it takes the little bird to rub that building down, THAT is how long you will burn in hell.”

I wake up with this pounding in my head over and over again. Sweat is dripping off my forehead. I look through the window and the shadow of the electrical pole reminds me of the crucifix hanging on the wall in front of the classroom.

For twelve years I attended a Catholic school and the nuns scared us to death, willing us to be good.

I am an old woman now, but I keep asking myself. “How long will it take the little bird to fly around the world? Will he ever wear that building down? What if the little bird dies, then what happens?”

FOREVER! That is how long it will take. FOREVER! He will NEVER be able to brush that building down with his little wing. I WILL BURN IN HELL, FOREVER.

I look out the window. The electrical pole is no longer that wooden crucifix, just a post with wires strung from it. On top of the pole sits a very small bird. He looks over at me as if to say, “No, I cannot do it.”

[Linda Fort-Bolton is a fifty something government worker and aspiring writer. She grew up in a small town with 8 brothers and sisters. She loves to read, travel, and listen to jazz outdoors.]

Entry #32

Entry #32
by Bev Haring


The clang of the steel door and the thunder came at the same time, reverberating on the hard surfaces all around her.

The room offered nothing of comfort. She had given up her valuables and walked in the door with only her ID card and they had taken away every other vestige of individuality; even her own clothes had been bagged and taken, leaving her in the poorly fitting uniform of everyone else in this place.

“Read the rules and follow them” she had been told, and that was the only thing in the room to do. A stubby poorly sharpened pencil was the only other object in the room other than the blanket, towel and wash cloth that she had been given and carried in herself.

She didn’t know how long it would be before she would be able to leave. She had been promised that she would never have to be here in the first place.

Inside her head the storm was raging as loudly as the one outside the walls. “Why did you do it? What were you thinking? How could you be so stupid?” went around and around in her brain.

And as she stood and looked out the 10 by 12 inch window that only looked out on a long, blank corridor she thought how good it would be just to see a flash of lightning light up the clouds behind a humble telephone pole.

Entry #31

"Homecoming"
by Brian W. Hugenbruch


The storm swoops in suddenly: nebulous clouds the colors of a bruise engulf what feeble sunlight had been straining to illuminate the day. My umbrella – a blue and white piece of garbage that had survived two hurricanes and three girlfriends – tears itself out of my hands and flies back the way we came, toward the comfort of city living.

Just as well. With rain coming at me sideways, it wasn't going to be of much use.

The country road had delineated itself into "mud" and "not-mud". I slog through the not-mud as best I can ... but around these parts, "pavement" is a dirty word. Soon I'm up to my ankles in a light brown gunk that is struggling desperately to acquire my boots.

After what seems like years, I trudge up the stairs of the rickety front porch, nodding politely to the water-spouting frog as I pass. I glance at the doormat, and then at my footwear, which has become more mud than boot. Still, I make a valiant effort to leave the road behind me as I opened the door.

The cottage smells of coffee and fresh bread, the way home always is. Soaked to the bone, I quickly shed my boots and yell out: "Mom! Dad! I'm home!"

No answer.

On the kitchen table, though, is a piece of paper:

"Son— went off to visit the Lunsfords next door. C'mon over, we miss you! Only a mile, but take your car – storm's comin' tonight. --Love, Ma."

[Brian W. Hugenbruch is an aspiring writer living in upstate New York. He spends his time working on his house, writing, reading and neglecting his long-suffering writer's blog.]

Entry #30

"Midnight Call"
by John Thornquist


“You know, Dodson, I believe you,” Duffy was saying. “Me? I don’t think you ever crossed Eddie.” He shifted his bulk in the chair. The man was a mess: sweat-stained collar, fat gut spilling over his trouser tops, pasty complexion. Dodson watched him light another cigarette and inhale the smoke deeply. Duffy looked like a pig trained to walk on two legs. Dodson would have told him so too, but for the duct tape.

“You’re lucky he gave you this chance,” Duffy continued. Then he glanced at the clock, a wind-up Baby Ben. “Uh oh,” he said with a snorting laugh. “Tick, tock, tick, tock.”

Duffy took another long pull from his cigarette and regarded Dodson through squinted eyes. A minute passed. Finally he said, “See those telephone wires outside the window?” Dodson pulled at the chair’s leather restraints to spy a telephone pole pierced through by cables, rigid as a crucifix against a murky sky. “Sound travels very quickly through those things. Dial a number, make a connection, and . . . salvation!” whispering the last word with outspread hands, like a
conjurer. “If your friend dials that number.” Pause. “And tells us what you say happened, happened.”

Suddenly the alarm clock shattered the air with its bell. Duffy reached over and cut it off.

Then he picked up the pistol.

“I am truly sorry, Dodson,” he said.

Duffy fired once, a loud, banging shot that momentarily impaired his hearing.

But he heard the telephone ring afterward all the same.

Entry #29

“Indoor Recess”
by Christian Smith


Ms. Green glances at the third graders trapped in the room with her. Their outdoor recess has been cancelled due to an impending storm. To her, the hour of peace she normally enjoys at lunchtime is well worth the risk of losing one or two of them to lightning.

She looks out the window. The view bothers her. Power lines thrown in silhouette against an unnaturally dark and roiling sky. The scene recalls a dream she’d had the night before. The details elude her, but the power lines had looked exactly like that. The fluorescent classroom lights cannot exorcize her sense of invasive, creeping darkness.

A scream snaps her from her reverie. The children are capable of banshee shrieks which cause her every nerve to twinge. Outdoors they can be heard for miles. In here the sound is trapped by the walls and the echoes never die. This scream has been loosed by actual injury. Jacob Frost has bitten Donnie Stephenson. Jacob, a serial biter, flashes her a bloody tooth fairy grin.

Before she can reprimand him, she recalls more of her dream. Blood, hers, caught with a strand of hair in the cracks of a shattered windshield. Splattering rain falling on her devastated skull. The dark power lines looming above like a god come to claim what was owed.

Donnie’s scream grows louder in her broken head. She realizes the accident had not been dreamed.

She’d always said hell to her would be like indoor recess.

[Christian Smith is a stay-at-home Dad (dream gig for a writer) living in Flagstaff, AZ. with his wife and two kids. He's also a writer for Coyote Radio Theater, a very unique audio comedy troupe based in Prescott.]

Entry #28

"Out With the Old… "
by J. Scott Ellis


Jonah popped a camel from the pack and snatched it with his teeth. He snapped open his Zippo and inhaled a waft of butane from the wick, then thumbed the striker once, twice. Oh for fucks sake.

“I need a light,” he said. An approaching semi flashed bleaching light through the windshield. Hollow steel-grey eyes scrutinized him from the rear view mirror.

“You should quit,” his father said through a swirling flume of smoke, “that shit will kill you.”

“Leave him alone you big bully,” Sherry said from the passenger seat in a playful tone. She was barely older than Jonah. Her breasts brushed his knees as she leaned into the back seat. Rubbing delicately against him like a cat, she kissed the end of her cigarette to his.

His father jerked her back by the hair and tossed her into a heap on her seat. “Asshole!” she screamed.

“Leave her alone!”

“Shut the fuck up boy.”

“You shut the fuck up old man.”

Brakes squealed. “Out of the car--now!”

They squared off on rough, pock-marked pavement. Electricity sizzled and hummed through wires draping overhead from a wooden telephone pole like clothesline.

“You don’t have the balls Jo--”

A lifetime of fear and resentment balled into Jonah’s fist, caving his fathers face like a cudgel through ripe melon. Death was instant.

Jonah whirled to the muffled cry behind him as she stumbled backward onto the car hood. Steel-grey eyes of the conqueror bore down on her.

Entry #27

"Atonement of Atomes"
by K. Lawson Gilbert


on that dark day
of the crucifixion
the sky opened up
and the moon
illuminated our sins

was it sweat or blood
that ran that day
was the altar marble
or pale cold skin

why still the darkness
creates our shroud
that hangs off beaten bones
and stirs us to awaken now
as undivided atomes

we were electrified
by an Ionic Savior
his words in us were charged
did not we feel them
stirring in our wombs and
burning in our hearts

we lost an electron
on the midnight road
but in our souls we keep
electricity to light the way
and tears of blood to weep.

[K. Lawson Gilbert was raised in the hills of West Virginia, an area rich in folklore, legends, and superstitions. “The hills and hollows were my muse,” she says. When she was five years old, she wrote a poem about a cardinal sitting on a snowcapped bush. Her mother made her recite it to every passerby. After all these years, she still sees the world as poetry, and still writes about what she sees. She is a teacher, poet, and writer and lives in Centermoreland, Pennsylvania.]

Entry #26

"Civic Duty"
by Sandra Seamans


Waking up with the chickens, I can get a pretty good leg-up on the goings on in our small town. Take this morning for instance, there's a body dangling from the electric pole out front of my house. Such a ghastly thing to see before my morning coffee.

I called the sheriff, but I don't think he wanted to believed me. After all, I'm seventy-three and my eyesight isn't what it used to be. Of course, when I called him about the bear last week and it turned out to be nothing but Emmett Caldwell without his shirt, I can understand him hesitating. But there’s no mistaking that body this morning. I even dug out my binoculars to get a better look, and judging from that scarlet colored nightie the body's wearing, I’d say that's Pearly Jones hanging up there.

Pearly and her husband, Joe, have been keeping folks up at night. One knock 'em down after another. Night after night. Disturbing everyone's sleep. Why, just last night, the feuding got so loud, the sheriff showed up to quiet them down. He made Pearly and Joe kiss and make up, though by the looks of things, it didn’t take. That's probably why the sheriff wasn't too happy when I called to tell him about Pearly. But what was I supposed to do? Pearly's hanging from the electric pole, I had to notify someone. The dead deserve a little respect.

Entry #25

Entry #25
"When the Lights Go Out"
by R.R.Rapoza

In 5 seconds 450,000 volts of electricity travels unseen like the wind thru the trees across numerous power lines lighting up countless cities around the world. Barry Levine knew this all too well from years of working for the Citrus grove electric company to ‘keep the lights on’ as they say in the biz. How many nights had he braved the elements while Mother Nature threw tree limbs and debris at him aided by 40-80 mile an hour winds in order to ‘keep the lights on’?

His loving wife always told him his job would be the death of him. He set out every night for 17 years to prove her wrong and until now had succeeded. She had also accused him on numerous occasions of putting his job before his family which irked him to no end. Sitting here now, just before midnight he knew she was right on both accounts.

The lights had gone out for him at 4 minutes till midnight when the guard pulled the mask down over his face. How much time was left? Two minutes or mere seconds he did not know. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his left temple just as officer Ulrich finished checking to make sure he was strapped in tight. At this moment, most people would be thinking about their
family, heaven, or hell. All he could think was

450,000 volts………

5 seconds………….

and God I HATE when she is right!

Entry #24

"Exit Plan"
By Robert H. Ball, Jr.


The finger-like shape jutted out of the crusted earth toward the nighttime Nevada sky – the ubiquitous utility pole. A blacktop road receded into the darkness. “So this is NV-375, the so-called Extraterrestrial Highway”. Ilsa thought. Her escape attempt had turned ugly when she unleashed a telekinetic firestorm upon her pursuers leaving a trail of bodies and debris scattered into the distant Papoose mountains toward Area 51. The black-skinned petite green-eyed female was the second-generation result of DNA experiments conducted by ex-nazi German scientists secreted away at the end of WW-II. The “grays” found at Roswell in 1947 mixed with radiation burned female workers from Yucca Flats provided the ingredients. Omnipotence with attitude was why she had been confined since birth, and why she was being desperately hunted now.

Ilsa could always sense the presence of alien spacecraft and she felt one nearby. It emerged from the glowing clouds above the utility pole. A yellow beam emerged seeking out the human-like figure. She was bathed with the pulsing light, but then the beam hesitated sensing a non-human presence. It was too late, the girl’s eyes glowed green as she uttered “gotcha” and popped out of sight as the alien ship gave an inaudible shudder. Ilsa sat before the controls studying them intently, then looked over at the crew strewn about the far side of the cabin like discarded dolls. She thought: “I simply must work on my inter-personal skills.” The craft slipped Earth’s gravity heading toward the Alien mother ship.

[Robert H. Ball, Jr. is retired from the Federal Government - Information Technology (old-style room sized computers). He has a B.A in Mathmatics, served in Vietnam, and is married with two grown children. He has an interest writing short fiction but is as yet unpublished. He started a blog on non-fiction items - Budgeting: basicbudgetingconcepts.blogspot.com. Check out his fiction blog at www.robertsfantasycollection.blogspot.com.]

Entry #23

"A Separate Journey"
By Jeff Neale


"I'm leaving you Harry," she said, her eyes filling with tears.

"Please, Catherine, don't say that, things can change," I said.

"No, Harry, the reality is we must both travel a different road now."

I reached for her hand. The same delicate hand I have held for so many years. "I don't want reality," I said. "I want things like they were before. And any road I traveled without you would be dark and lonely, like a midnight road leading nowhere."

"Harry" she said softly, while intertwining her fingers in mine. "You have been my husband for forty years. I have never once looked at or desired another man the way I look at and desire you. Together, we have raised two beautiful children who love us as much as we love them. We have so much for which to be thankful."

"Then why does it have to end this way?" I asked, feeling angry and helpless because there was nothing I could do to change the situation. It was like teetering on the edge of a cliff and frantically waving my arms for balance, but all the while knowing it was only a matter of time before I plunged into the chasm.

"I love you, Harry . . . Goodbye."

"Catherine?"

She was gone. The EKG monitor above her hospital bed confirmed the fact.

Two days after the funeral our children returned to their homes, and I began my journey along the midnight road.

[Jeff Neale is the author of several short stories, many of which are available on his blog The Write Thing. He has a short fiction piece published in the first edition of the online magazine The Picolata Review. Jeff is in the process of writing his first novel.]

Entry #22

"The Keeper of Souls"
by Robert Rohloff


A rugged cross stands beneath the darkened sky, its roots buried deep into the rancid soil. Thin snakes, protrude from the crossbars, and stretch transversely into the dead heavens. In the year of 1886, the great white army butchered my people, and let their corpse rot into this lifeless garden beneath the symbol of Christianity. My spirit stands guard for the souls of those small children and women that died that day. My loved ones bodies have long since turned into human dust, their souls have departed, but mine is still here. My place of duty is hour upon relentless hour, day after day, month after month, and year after year on these bare horizons, with cold winds, snow, heavy rains, and scorching heat.

That day I held my daughter’s lifeless, tiny carcass of flesh and bones in my arms while I cried. My young beautiful wife laid by my feet in a ball of blood soaked buckskin. Her interrogating eyes were open wide, asking why this massacre of the cruelest form took the breath from so many women and children.

Suddenly, a shadow fell across me. I looked up. It was a tall, thin, colorless man with yellow hair upon broad shoulders, sitting upon a great white horse. The stranger lacked a mouth or any face features, and his eyes were full of dread.

Everything went silent when he pushed a steel blade into my throbbing heart. My throat tightened, my eyes got heavy and closed.

Dead is dead.

Entry #21

"I See the Light"
by Anthony J. Rapino


At first there is nothing.

Something pushes me, and I push back.

Then thought.

It forms in the dark like bits of illuminated dust floating past a window. I see each speck burst into being like electric awakening.

Against this glowing knowledge are my true surroundings: obscuring pitch compared to the bright dust. As the hallucination of light fades, my eyes refocus and begin to define objects moving against the sky.

They drift as the dust.

They catch light—though fainter—as the dust.

And I know they hold electricity.

On cue a humble buzzing enters my perception, as if an unknown child turned up the volume of a radio, the broadcast of which I do not comprehend.

Again things come clearer, and I see the silhouette of power lines. A voice says something from far away and I comply. I hand over the source of a burning, red light. Hair on my neck pricks up as female breath tickles my ear and a pungent scent tickles my nose. In the dark she conjures new electricity.

The joint is again in my hand, and I hit it.

I hold it.

I exhale, pushing.

I say, “At first there was nothing.”

“And now?”

The lines—far above my eyes, hidden in darkness—seem dead. Next to me power surges. I turn and squeeze close to the source.

“Now there’s life.”

We two nameless create as blackness pushes against us.

We push back.

Entry #20

"Silhouette"
by César Puch


It was a blur.

Nothing ever was clear. Only the silhouette was real to her. It had been there when they brought her home, when they lay her down on the bed like a china doll. She’d thought it was odd, just standing there on top of the electricity post. She couldn’t tell for sure if it was a man, but it was there, every night.

She dreaded it at first. She wanted to shriek for its presence, but how could she? She would never utter a word again, of that she was sure. She could hear fine. A bad accident it had been. Maybe she should have died.

Maybe it was here to collect her.

As the time passed though, the figure never moved. Not once during all those years, one big blur for her, just a single day looping again and again. The lifting, the cleaning, the changing of the sheets. The feeding.

And it, perched on top of the post.

Eventually, her fear retreated. She needed it –him– up there. Her world was so small.

He was a big piece.

The last time she awoke, it wasn’t there anymore. She struggled to see better. So much rain outside. But it was gone, she was certain. .

And then the pain came, and she welcomed it, for she’d felt so little for so long, but it then overwhelmed her and she screamed and her screams pierced her mind, though were hardly heard in the house.

[César Puch lives in Lima, Peru where he studied multimedia development. He is currently working as art editor and layout designer for Surreal Magazine. He has also published a couple of horror stories under a pen name and has one featuring in the upcoming Shadow Regions anthology.]

Entry #19

"The Eyewitness"
by Bhaswati Ghosh


“Quit it.” Her words stiffened his limbs every evening, as he lumbered his way back home. They got married just four months back. He could sense her yearning for security.

The day job helped little more than pay for the bills and groceries. He couldn’t afford quitting the evening MBA classes. But…

The dark stretch. And the portentous pole.

There were already two cases of electrocution since they joined the neighborhood a month ago. It was a weird road, he thought. No matter how many times the municipality fixed the street light, it stopped functioning.

It’s always midnight here.

But it was the only route to walk back home. Thus her warning, laced with premonition.

“Silly girl, always thinking the worst. I am not the only one who walks on that road.”

Faking reassurance. Easy. Plodding through that dark track every evening. Creepy. The pole alone didn’t bother him; in the back of his mind, snapshots lurked—of pickpockets ruffling his trousers’ back pocket…

A .410 handgun did it in the end. It was Diwali eve, and he bought her favorite sweets. As he wound his way through the dark road, humming a song, three gun shots twisted his gait into a red rivulet. Unarmed civilians were the best targets to drive home the demand for a separate state.

His cellphone, lying unclaimed with his corpse, beeped twice. There was just one eyewitness—a live, mute electric pole.

It was midnight when the police contacted her to identify the body.

Entry #18

"Midnight Sanctuary"
by Chong Yen Long


"I'm sorry. I can't help it," she said it a few times, each time sounding more apologetic. Veronica's call was unexpected, ending a long week of self imposed exile. The girl I had loved for five years now was saying goodbye. Without telling why.

And the following morning, she had taken flight, wishing that I did not go to the airport to say adieu.

Weeks passed, and daily, I buried myself reading our letters of exchange -- with funny poems sprinkled here and there. I believe my wordsmith ways and wiles won the fair maiden's heart, and my sincerity, of course, for I told her often I would sacrifice the world for her happiness. I also wooed her with cowboy songs, strumming the guitar by moonlight. Now I see irony in the ditties, mostly about broken-hearted lovers. "Do not forsake me, oh my darlin'…", remember?

This morning the postman delivered a letter. The writing was distinctly by Vera's hand, more firm definitely, less flowery, and by nightfall I could have quoted every line.

"Hi, Desi, Remember on our tour to Switzerland five springtimes ago? Our car broke down near an abbey and it's nigh midnight. I am training now at the Abbey's nunnery."

Enclosed in the envelope was a solitary photograph, showing an imposing castle with just some flicker of light from what looked like the belfry. It was taken just before we entered to enjoy the hospitality of the sanctuary one spring, accidental night years ago.

Entry #17

"Midnight Assignation"
by Fritz Owens


I barely reached the telephone pole on time and she wasn’t there. My heart fell as I remembered our last conversation when she promised she would arrive at midnight. It was ten minutes after twelve. Then I heard her singing that silly little song she had made up about our cat. No words but silly just the same.

As the full moon broke through the clouds, I could see her coming down the road in that little jumper suit I liked so much. Her hair was tied in two pigtails. She looked like she was 16 years old. As she came closer, I said “Hey little girl! You want some candy?”

She laughed and said “you really got some?”

“Right here in my pocket. But you’re going to have to take off that silly little suit before I give you any.”

“The whole thing off?”

“That’s right, the whole thing off and everything that’s under it!”

“Wow, I don’t know about that, Mister. What if someone comes along?”

“Well, we can hide in those bushes over there, can’t we?”

She leaned against the telephone pole and coyly asked me “Is this really necessary?”

“It is if you want that candy!”

“Well, you got me there. I’m a confirmed chocaholic and you know it. It is chocolate, isn’t it?”

“You bet it is, sweetie. Your favorite. Godiva”

As she slowly took everything off, I said “How long before the baby sitter has to leave?”

“Three o’clock”.

“Perfect! Just enough time!”

[For over fifty years Fritz Owens has been a professional pianist, composer and keyboard recording artist. Check out his website at www.OwensStudios.com.]

Entry #16

"Hoboken Haiku"
John McAuley


Bright part of dark sky,
open eye of a witnessing angel?
Forgive me for what I've done
in the shadow of an electric crucifix.

Dreck. Written while drunk after a job. Maybe I should stick to haiku. And teaching.

Teaching poetry part-time at Hoboken Community College barely keeps a roof over my head. But my side-job keeps a decent car in the garage and allows me time to write.

I would've done the last job for free though.

Somebody powerful was taking heat over the unacceptable activities of one of his "family" members.

I was the perfect outsider to clean things up.

It was easy. The target bought my story about having car problems and invited me into the house.
He was still staring at my chest when I shot him.

Tony Pallazio wouldn't be hustling any more twelve year old kids with booze, drugs and video games.

I set the house on fire when I left.

In the movie, "Unforgiven," Clint Eastwood's character ponders his motives for killing. The sky above him is dark on one side, bright on the other; with a gray, jagged strip in between.

I was thinking about that scene when I was settling up with the man who'd hired me.

"You did good. "

"Thanks," I said, handing him a note before taking the money.

Under Eastwood's sky;
Old house, dead end road of dirt,
Murder, justice, cash.

He laughed when he read it.

"Think I'll call you, ' The Haiku Hit Woman From Hoboken.'"

Entry #15

"The Question"
By Phil Eggman


The question is always there, always present. I am talking about the secret question we all ask ourselves at one point or another.

“Why do we die?” I asked my dad at grandma’s funeral.

“Everything dies, son,” Dad whispered softly.

But the question is not so much 'why', but 'how', and more importantly, 'when'?

I had my answer today. I did not expect it.

You never do.

I started my day as I always do – morning coffee, short shower, quick shave, work clothes on, tie my boots, kiss wife goodbye, grab tools and out the door. I made the commute to work and ignored the news while the wipers on my windshield swished back and forth.

I thought about the new patio I wanted to put in. I wondered when my son would come home from the Iraq. My knee hurt from yesterday’s job out on Highway 67.

I climbed the last pole, my 16th for the day, strapped on my safety belt but I was in a hurry. I was cold and it was raining hard and I made the mistake of not making sure my safety strap was securely in place. I was thinking about everything else but my work when I leaned back on the tool belt and it came undone.

It was too late to grab the pole or anything with my hands.

I fell backward.

[Phil Eggman was born and raised in rural California before joining the military out of high school. He traveled the world as a Navy photojournalist for 27 years. He currently serves as the public information officer for USDA Rural Development for Washington State, with a heavy emphasis on photography and graphic design. Phil has a Bachelor of Science degree in communications and is currently working on his graduate degree in Cultural Semiotics. He has seven children and two grandchildren and lives in the Tacoma area.]

Entry #14

"Hold on or Move on?"
by Kristi McCracken


I looked up quickly hoping the clouds would part and shine a sliver of moonlight on the form lurking in the trees. Was it a coyote, bobcat or just the neighbor’s dog? Heart pounding, I ran along the ditch too frightened to walk. In spite of the exertion, I shivered. Whether from fright or cold I was too numb to tell. I had to make it home before him.

Headlights behind me grew brighter and reflected off the huge puddle in front of me. Too pregnant to jump, I chanced the barb wire on the far side of the ditch rather than the approaching vehicle.

I looked up again, willing the power lines to come into focus. I couldn’t pass out now. Dare I signal for help or was it him? Had his rage dissipated?

I feared for the babysitter and Sammy if he got there first. He was a good man, but for his temper when he drank. If only I’d agreed with him, but I hated giving in.

The car sped past. It wasn’t him. Still I clung to the pole. He’d stopped the truck before he shoved me out 2 miles back. Peeling out, he headed back toward the bar.

I knew Sammy and I would only be safe if we left him. I said a prayer. The ghostly clouds parted and moonlight shone. Somehow I’d support Sammy and his new sister. I released the pole and patted my rounded tummy.

[Kristi McCracken teaches gifted fifth graders by day, writes in the evenings and then presents at book stores and state teacher conferences on the weekends. Her first nonfiction children's books The Lost King: Akhenaton by Artesian Press is now available. Her second book, Ancient Olympics is due out first of next year. She is looking for a publisher for her children's fantasy novel, Misty's Pixie.]

Entry #13

"Tomorrow"
by Herschel Cozine


What is tomorrow?
Tomorrow is a magic place,
Where time is born.
And in this land are things we don’t yet know,
Like sunshine and raindrops,
Snow and fluffy clouds.

Where is tomorrow?
It is a sunrise away,
Hiding behind the hill where no one has ever been.

What is tomorrow doing?
It is waiting for the cloud of night to float into yesterday.
It is sleeping while the moon drifts through the sky,
Collecting dreams and wishes.

Can we see tomorrow?
No, but if we are very still, just before we go to sleep,
We can feel it’s velvet cloak as it steals across minds,
And takes away the tiredness of today.
And, when the rising sun chases the stars away,
Tomorrow will be riding on its golden crown.
But, when we awake, it will be today.
And a new tomorrow will be waiting, just a sunrise away.

[Herchel Cozine has written and published extensively in the children's field. He has also written and published mysteries that have appeared in AHMM, EQMM, and many on-line e-zines, particularly Orchard Press Mysteries. He has a story scheduled for publication in Woman's World in August and another in the new magazine, Great Mystery & Suspense.]

Entry #12

"The Midnight Road"
by Jim Stitzel


Drive faster!

Rain lashed, wipers slashed, Cort plowed through the pouring rain, the demons of his past - both real and imagined - pursued him close behind.

Wind whistled, debris whirled into the road ahead of him, utility poles fell behind him. That's how he knew they were still chasing him.

Stomach tied in knots, sweat pouring down his face.

A bump, thump, and the car died. The tension in Cort's body ratcheted up another few notches.

Gotta run, gotta get away.

Then, They're here!

He leaped from the car even before it could come to a complete stop. Left the road - that's where they were - and dashed into the open field beside it.

Gotta hide. Oh, god! Can't shake them. They'll find me, anyway, his fevered mind screamed.

Shadows whipped about him, flittered, fluttered. Low hisses of eagerness issued from the assailing darkness.

Skin prickled; invisible claw briefly caressed the back of his neck and was gone. He ran harder.

Out of breath, out of time, out of options.

He screamed in fear and pain. Red ribbons slashed into his back.

Stumbled. Fell.

They were on him in an instant. Dozens of them. Tearing. Clawing. Ripping. He'd never had a chance to get away, even on the highway. Their claws had already been too deeply embedded.

Moonlight filtered through wind-driven clouds. And he was alone, then, as ever he had been.

But the damage was done, life leaking from his savaged body as it lay sprawled there in the moon-washed openness.

[Jim Stitzel writes a lot at Writer's Blog and also contributes to The Curveball Conspiracy.]

Entry #11

"Castle Keep"
By Forrest Landry


Jolts of pain shot up Don's arms as he slid down the electric cable to the old castle. It was so dark he couldn't even tell when he was close to the wall. Then a crack in the heavy clouds gave him just enough moonlight to see he was about to smash into it.

He kicked his legs up and brought himself to a halt. The weak lunar glow showed his hands just inches from the other line. If he moved wrong, he'd be fried.

Still, there was space to reach up and grasp the pipe which ran across. He hoped it would hold, then jerked himself up and inward.

The pipe held. He clambered up over the ancient stones and stood on top. The faint light limned the rotten wood decking just below.

"Lousy maintenance," he thought.

A sharp gust threatened to topple him. Now pissed, he grabbed the rod standing up from the crenulations.

"Come on, there's GOT to be a way to get in there."

The clouds didn't help, closing tightly and shutting off the moon.

"Well, no time like the present. Charge!"

The ancient crone standing in the dark window across the inner courtyard waved her fingers. One snap and lightning struck the rod, searing Don's membranes into chitterlings.

He didn't fall, just stood there, burnt to a crisp.

"Did you get a charge out of that?" the old woman asked.

[Forrest writes stuff. He makes stuff up. He blogs at forrest-landry.blogspot.com and has a web presence at www.lulu.com/forrest-landry. In his spare time, he tends two old cats and a kitten who acts like she's on methamphetamines. ]

Entry #10

"The Marker"
by Flood


Jesus told me to stop.

We're here.

Anywhere, I begged him. Anywhere to hold my sins.

This is it.

I looked around the area. Remote enough. The utility pole, a makeshift cross of wires and wood, consecrated the ground.

There's no better place.

I nodded and opened my backpack to find the retractable spade. The bottom of the pack kept my oblivion, my ignorance of women. Some mistakes were better known only to God. Her mother's pleas echoed somewhere in my brain.

In time, as the moon hung low through the clouds, the hole of my faith was dug.

Better the sins of the father be paid through his spirit than that of the child.

Jesus rambled in riddles, but it didn't matter. She would be safe in His arms and I was willing to pay with my soul, rather than my future in this life.

She cooed softly as I piled on the dirt.

[When Flood is not writing, she's thinking about writing. Or writing about writing on FlashFlood.]

Entry #9

"It Is Finished"
by Esther Avila


Jan stood by a large window, unable to move, as she watched a single lightning bolt pierce the darkness. She shivered as she pulled an old torn blanket closer to her body.

She had sought the house as a refuge from the storm. Her mountain bike and wet clothing lay in a heap on the front porch.

"You really ought to get away from that window."

Jan turned her expressionless face towards the raspy voice.

"You don't scare me," Jan replied in a firm voice as she glared at the man who had just assaulted her.

"You can't run," the male voice said. "There's no where to go. Come. Tell me your name."

Jan turned her attention to the power pole. It gave her comfort as she thought of Jesus dying on the Cross.

She felt alone and betrayed. Could this be what Jesus felt?

"I said, tell me your name," the man demanded as he stripped her of the blanket and jerked her by the hair.

Her naked body fell hard on the cement floor.

The man struggled to keep his balance. This was not supposed to happen.

Even through blurry vision, Jan noticed his petrified face as he grabbed at the curtains while another bolt of lightening gave him a fraction-of-a-second glimpse at the thick substance pooling around her head.

"It is finished," she whispered as she closed her eyes.

Entry #8

"Going Back to Basics"
By Jaye Wells


At midnight, the transformer on the road next to my house blew. The sound was indescribable, but the image burned itself in my brain. White sparks rained down on the asphalt, which steamed from the August heat wave. The moon hid behind clouds, as if shy. Or frightened.

I watched the scene from my bedroom window, adrenaline coursing through me. As people spilled from their houses, I wondered what the old time settlers did without electricity—their nights dark and silent as death.

Neighbors chatted in their yards as the utility truck pulled onto the street. I pretended they were discussing me and why I never left the house. If they only knew.

In the next room, the muffled sounds of thrashing let me know she was awake. The explosion probably scared her.

Good.

I thought about the frontier natives. How they used simple things to elicit fear from their victims. Scalping sent a clear message, unhindered by the unnecessary flourishes so common in our modern times.

With one last look outside, I closed the curtain. I had been going about this all wrong. The electric knife and frayed lamp wires were too elaborate. It was time to go back to basics. All I really needed was a good, sharp knife and a candle to see by. A pioneer of pain.

Tonight, I decided, she would experience true terror—Old West style.

[Jaye Wells swears she's never scalped anyone. But check out her blog to see how she poisoned Fabio.]

Entry #7

"Fishers of Beasts"
by Emeraldcite


Some of us were sent out to be fishers of men, but there are those sent
out to be fishers of beasts.

Azazel, one of the Grigori, the Watchers of Men, had fallen and
revealed the art of sword making. Now, he stood at a corner smoking a
cigarette, his dark hair matted against his forehead, hawking cheap guns.

"Men shouldn't fight," I said.

"We're not men, are we?" He stamped out his cigarette.

"It's never too late. I've recruited many and they believe this too."

Azazel laughed through a deep cough.

I smiled. "Not as well as we used to be?"

Azazel pulled a .45 from his vest. "These are not mortal bullets, my
friend. These are consecrated with the secrets of our kind."

I slipped a hand inside my coat and brought out a small piece of chalk.
I knelt and drew a circle around my feet, marking symbols in each of
the cardinal directions.

Azazel erupted into another coughing fit and squeezed off a shot. When
I didn't react, he fired twice more.

I tossed a small white card outside the circle. "Call me when you
change your mind."

Azazel picked up the card, squinted at it, and tucked it into a pocket
on his vest. "Don't count on it."

He tore off down an alleyway.

Some were meant to be fishers of men, but I am a fisher of beasts
because when I look up at the midnight sky, I see home.

Entry #6

"Tiger Tale"
by Rebecca Hendricks


Ran cloth final time over smooth wood, hollow body, long neck. Admired delicate inlay. Master claims teeth of tigers slivered and tucked into geometric designs, matching tiger-stripe grain, white on battle between honey, shadow. Extinction of tiger makes story unlikely, but suffering Master’s whimsy first order of business.

Considered strings, fingers hovering. Whether energy own or instrument’s, palpable. Tiger striped vessel will translate important news to music, song: Local baker’s wedding; birth of new Teacher; summer's kudzu crops damaged by rains; alliance.

Capitulation, more like. Outsiders in heart of town. Outsiders setting up shop, adding vocals to worship, government.

Why carry latest song? Why share, why spread misfortune?

Brushed fingers softly on strings, causing slightest breath of sound. Rich, full of promise. Brows knitted in frown. Temptation strong to deny transaction! Town's recent decisions poor, dangerous. Put to song, events legitimized. Perfect vessel of tiger’s hide, white teeth too strong, too fine to be carrier of illegitimate choice. Master would agree.

Master would beat senseless, if were here.

Plucked single note. Tone rang out. Ear disagreed. Fingers of left hand stretched angrily to tuning key, slowed, touched lightly. Tone dropped subtly, matched frequency, came to agreement with ear. Tone sang freely. Tension in own shoulders likewise eased. So fine, this hollow form. Just… needed tuning.

Storyteller --newsmaker-- called from outside shutters. Allo, est-ce qu’a guitarra prêt? Fingers lingered, though hesitation passed. Then lifted away.

Tiger’s teeth may bite. Story at least will carry on clean tones. Future will decide importance.

Entry #5

"The Highest Point"
by Melly


Drew howled. With his head outside the window, he howled.

It made Lydia laugh. "Gosh, I'm gonna… pee… my pants."

Lydia opened the window and leaned over. She felt the cold night air gushing towards her along with Drew's howls. She answered. Not in howls, but in barks. Small high-pitched barks, like those of a pincher's.

The electricity poles whizzed by as the car drove past them. "Hey, did you notice the sound each pole makes?" Lydia asked.

No one replied. No one heard her. It didn't matter. She continued barking. Drew continued howling.

A new sound. Lydia stopped barking for a moment, listening. It was a hoot. Hoot hoot. Strong. Right near her. She sat back down looking for the source of the hoot.

It was almost as windy inside the car and her hair was flying all over, like Medusa's snakes. Howls and hoots and coughs came forward in her mind again, pushing aside Medusa's image. Lydia searched for the sounds. Tom, near her, driving, hooting, Drew in the backseat still howling and Kathryn, behind her, coughing.

Lydia twisted to look at Kathryn; she was coughing with her hands around her neck and some foam coming out of her mouth. Lydia laughed. She reached a hand out to Kathryn while something in the back of her head was trying to tell her something.

Lydia squinted, concentrating, trying to. Kathryn stopped coughing. She stopped moving too. Lydia shrugged. She turned and with her head outside the window resumed barking.

[Melly lives in Toronto, Canada and does many things for a living, among them write. She blogs about writing and some other interests, mostly science, in All Kinds of Writing.]