Akiko’s Legacy

by Eugie Foster

narrated by Kara Grace

“Mother, why are Grandma and Gramps ashamed of Father?”

Akiko smoothed back the unruly curls from her son’s face. Robert needed a haircut. The tips of his brown hair had begun to feather up around his ears. His father’s hair had done that. Martin had called it his “bozo-the-clown look” and had the offending locks lopped off as soon as possible.

“Why do you think they’re ashamed of him, darling?”

Robert tolerated her ministrations, although she saw a glimmer of impatience behind his eyes. “They don’t like talking about him,” he said. “Every time I ask about him, they change the subject or get sorta quiet and weird.”

“People sometimes don’t like to talk about the deceased.” Akiko forced herself to stop fussing with her son’s hair. “It makes them uncomfortable.”

“It’s more than that.”

(Continue Reading…)

The Withered Heart (abridged)

by G.G. Pendarves

Dear John,
If a fifteen years’ friendship means anything to you, come at once.

My whole future is at stake and you’ve got to come and help. It’s a very very queer thing, and Jonquil and I don’t agree at all about it. I wish to heaven we’d found the box earlier and had more time to argue it all out.

Come and see us through it.

Rafe.
May 27th, 1938.

(Continue Reading…)

Little Worm

by Geneve Flynn

Ping-ping-ping-ping.

The incessant chiming underscored the cabbie’s music and the occasional blare of a horn. Theresa wondered what the hell it was as she braced herself. There were no seatbelts in the back of the taxi. Hopefully, wedging herself tight between her luggage would work just as well.

The taxi casually swerved within inches of a looming truck. Theresa’s foot jammed down on an invisible brake pedal. “Christ! Careful!”

The Malay cabbie twisted in his seat. “Ah?” A grin split his face, showing teeth stained yellow with tobacco.

Brake lights flashed in front. (Continue Reading…)

To Witness

by Luciano Marano

Wesley had beaten the cops. It happened sometimes, but not often. So he quickly pulled onto the shoulder, leaving his car running and the door open, grabbed his camera off the passenger seat and leapt out, determined to make the most of his good fortune.

The drivers looked to actually still be inside their vehicles this time.

He needed this. The supposedly epic car fire his editor had ordered him all the way out to Port Orchard to shoot had been a bust, nothing but a torrent of smelly smoke pouring from under the hood of an old VW van in a diner parking lot and some geriatric hippie telling annoyed firefighters, “It’s never done anything like that before!”

(Continue Reading…)

Exquisite

by Alan Baxter

Tim Rinneman had never met a lock he couldn’t pick. It was his expertise, his pride. And his curse, as it had become a compulsion he could not resist. He grinned as he worked at the front door of his latest target, hidden in the night shadows of the porch. He had cased the joint for nearly a week, established it was occupied by a lonely but wealthy-looking man in his late forties or early fifties, who went drinking at the Blakeley Hotel every night from seven until around nine. Easy mark.

The lock barrel turned and Tim let out an almost silent, “Yes!” He slipped his lock picks back into the pocket of his dark grey jacket—everyone knew you didn’t wear black to be camouflaged at night—and pushed the door open. His wool cap was low over his brow and a grey bandana masked the lower half of his face. Tight, rubber surgical gloves kept his fingerprints private. (Continue Reading…)