Skin Seeker by Lily Childs

Her neck glistened in Romeo’s rear view mirror. Perspiration bubbled up through her skin and popped against the hair curling at her nape. She’d be mouthing at the driver in the Chevy behind if Romeo hadn’t taped her up and painted a grin over the bumps where her lips should be. Strapped, wrist by wrist to either side of the backseat she looked like she was straddling a honey. Honey wasn’t there; the leather between her thighs gleamed clean.

Shake Moves On by Pamila Payne

The corpse at the bottom of the pool lies on her back, illuminated like a ceramic mermaid decorating an aquarium. Her serene face tips up, seeking the surface twelve feet above. Her pale, naked limbs look longer than they should, distorted through the water’s strange lens. Her lurid red hair gently snakes out from her head like seaweed. As the

Grub by A J Humpage

It burned on his tongue and scraped down his throat, leaving behind a deep, smoky aftertaste. The heat exploded in his stomach, made him cough.

Chris Grogan refilled his glass and found his voice above the music in the next room. ‘That’s some serious shit.’

Requiem by Katy O’Dowd

‘I will miss you.’

‘So you have said.’

‘Do you have to go?’

‘I do.’

‘Will you come back to warm an old man’s bed again?’

‘I will.’

Lacrimosa’s heart, supposing she had one, felt suspiciously heavy. She didn’t like the feeling. He was just another conquest after all.

‘Then come. Time grows near and we have taken too much of it already when we should have been preparing.’

In the Pines by Jodi MacArthur

The snow falls soft and red in the pines, as does the knife from my hands. The moon sings above the frost and layered mist. I look at the blood on my hands still warm, now cooling, and I shiver. I feel sore, tense, as if I’d just ran for my life or fought off King Kong, but I am uninjured. The blood splattered on my WICKED WOMAN tee and the

The Fog by Carrie Clevenger

The sentry chopper turned away as we drew nearer, leaving us with only the sound of the poisonous wind as it whistled through the open windows and the squeak of old U-joints underneath the bus. The fog was thicker here, and I tightened the straps on my gas mask, praying silently it would last long enough for me to help make the stand.

Buttercup by Julia Madeleine

I met her on the ferry heading to Victoria Island. She was alone, standing by the railing snapping pictures of the scenery. A girl in a ruffled skirt, early twenties, dark hair spilling in exquisite curls down the back of her denim jacket, pale legs smooth as ivory in the afternoon sun. She was an obvious tourist.
Of course I approached her. Was never one to let an opportunity pass me by, especially when it fell into my lap.
“

Awake by Mav Skye

1. Truth

If it feels too good to be true, it is.

The Poifect Crime by Absolutely*Kate

 “I tell you, Momma said there’d be days like this . . . but she never, never ever mumbled they’d be so gosh darn messy. Eeeeeyewww! Say — Whatcha gonna do with that extra piece you got there, Bessie?”

“Steamer trunk, headed in the wrong direction when our stage crew heads outta town?”, mused curvaceous Flossie Fairmont, swiftly rolling, tucking and nestling white rayon

A Losing Life by Aleathia Drehmer

Delilah and Thomas sat slack jawed in front of the television. They weren’t quite sure what they were watching, but neither of them could avert their gaze from it.

 

“….are you tired of seeing all that good land go to waste?” the announcer said over the piercing sounds of the slide trombone. Delilah didn’t think the trombone should be

Killer Revolution by Craig Wallwork

That lousy bitch! I’ll say it again. That lousy bitch! I fuck one French girl and I end up having my heart and nose broken. Paris was supposed to be romantic. I’ve seen the films. Midnight walks down the Seine, a kiss by the Hotel De Ville. No. This city is a guillotine decapitating love at the neck, and from its weeping wound

Supermarkets Are Where The Money Is by Les Edgerton

We went in like insurance salesmen just like Tommy’d laid it out. Three-piece suits, briefcases, the whole bit. At six-thirty in the morning. Seems Tommy had a friend who was an assistant manager at the Men’s Warehouse who could be talked into letting us have some threads on credit. We’d just have to pay double the price on the stickers. Seemed reasonable usury, the credit place we were in.

Temporary Things by U.V. Ray

In the club Ian had some blonde straddling him. On the black leather bench seat that ran the full length of the wall each side of him couples’ were either fucking with theatrical revelry or in various stages of reckless foreplay. As the blonde rode Ian he saw over her shoulder that through the murk of hazy spotlights Erin was navigating a route towards him. Ian eased the blonde off his lap, “Sorry,” he made a gesture at Erin, whose petite frame stood there completely naked apart from her high red stilettos. “Girlfriend problems,” he joked. The blonde

Future Past by Christopher Grant

Pool of blood, spreading outwards, towards my feet. Warren laying on top of it, his chest eaten up by four buckshot holes. His right arm is twisted and he has a revolver in his hand.

I look down at the pool, which has become an ocean. It’s contracting now, moving back towards Warren.

That Fat Red Bastard – A Dick Dice Problem Interception by Paul ‘Deadeye’ Dick

They say that you always remember your first love. Your first fuck. I remember my first kill…A loveless virgin at 12 years old, I killed the pimp who murdered my mom…

But as I stalk up the stairs, to find that rat fuck mayor who tried to kill me, I can’t help thinking about that first kill I did for my first employer – ‘

Ice In The Veins by Richard Godwin

The rosary, if counted a certain way, shows much about the hands and character of the man who counts them. The beads themselves may point the way to deeds that are unspeakable to a man of the cloth. A symbol is a matter of time locked in a moment and open to interpretation. It is a sign of what is to occur in a latitude that