-The best stories on the web-
Read or link to over 1000 stories listed under Stories to the left.
Submit your short stories for review as a Word document attached to an email to: Read@Short-Story.Me

Latest Stories

June 04, 2025
General Stories Dylan James Harper

The Bylaws Of The Revolutionary Council

A loud clang rang through the bunker as the door slammed shut. “I really think we have a chance to win this thing!” Greg’s voice echoed throughout the cold walls. The three other inhabitants of the bunker, Jeff, Ben, and Malcolm, all sat around a table…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Resurrection

The man lay there in extremis, no longer thinking of cool abstracts like ‘catching the last train for the coast.’ He gulped great rasping breaths – holding them impossibly long – before finally exhaling in a shuttering burst of putrid air. He had been…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Time Warp

Nothing was in order, nothing optimal. Germany was awash with refugees and adventurers. Only Angie could hold it together; but then she opened the gates! Who knows why? Other politicians were dinosaurs in the museum. Integration was the solution, was it? That…
June 04, 2025
Fantasy Stories M.D. Smith

Car Of Dreams

Randy Jenkins, age sixty, lived the kind of life people don’t write stories about. He sold office supplies out of a small showroom in the back corner of a strip mall just outside Corpus Christi. He wore beige. Ate microwave dinners. And spent more time…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories David Rich

Earth Forever

With an exhale, Damerae unclipped a lint-free cloth from his desk, snatched it from the air, and wiped his glasses. He preferred staying hidden in his cozy interior office in the bowels of Orbital Counterweight Station of the International Space Elevator. But…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction George Vu

A Stolen Kiss A Beautiful Dream

It had been a long, exhausting day for her – a blur of endless tasks and demands. Yet, despite it all, she had fought for a moment to be with him. Stealing time from the world around her, she walked into the room quietly, hoping to surprise him. After a few…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Cow Bells

Based on actual incidents. Swiss Cabinet meeting, 15 March 1943 The American Ambassador has no comment, no explanation. We can expel the Ambassador in protest. I prefer he remains here under close surveillance. The bombing yesterday was of nuisance value; it…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Signed To The Message

do your bit for king and country. are you a coward? or are you brave? so now is the time to sacrifice you don`t want to let your mates down it`s a kinship of the soul you know that’s the Australian way it was the message that was kept being sold so they…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

On The Rebound

I was sitting in a bar knocking back my third Jack Daniels, when a drop-dead gorgeous blonde walked in. As she paused, surveying the room, I raised my glass in a complimentary salute. It was a ‘Hail Mary’ move, and I could hardly believe it when she came…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories M.D. Smith

Unplanned Landing

Red lights pulsed. Sirens howled. “Alert. Navigation failure. Proximity alert. Impact in thirty seconds.” Captain Mara Voss shot upright in her cryo-pod, lungs gasping like a drowning swimmer. Across the chamber, the rest of the crew jerked awake, groggy and…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Marching To The Same Beat

an angel stands under a lonely pine showing the way to the lost souls the ones who innocently answered the king’s call and now flags fly half mast for those that no-more stand buried in some far off foreign land the pipes call out to the brave and the angel…
April 29, 2025
Fantasy Stories Chris Turner-Neal

The Gorgon’s Climb

I am the only one of us who calls it rape. Stheno, when she must mention it, says “our bad luck;” Medusa shrugs and says “gods don’t have to ask.” And I say but they should and she says but they don’t and Stheno says this attitude doesn’t help, and she’s…

How shallow was a shallow grave?

He’d never dug one before.  The hole before him, which he’d gouged out of the sandy soil in the heat of the desert looked deep, but now he’d pushed the man’s body into it, suddenly it looked awfully shallow. Could animals or other things get down to the body? Or maybe that was the point? Just deep enough for cover, but not so deep that it took too long for the flesh to turn to corruption.

This was really something TV should have taught him better. He hunched down and drank from his water flask.  Dragging the body the hundred feet from the car had been exhausting enough so he wasn’t about to drag it back.

 

Something squawked overhead.  It looked real. Not a drone. Maybe a bird.  Nothing man-made that would record what he was doing.

Then an idea hit: there were bound to be other bodies buried out here.  Maybe he should find another grave and dig down a little?  Maybe he could find the body of a ‘whacked’ guy and see how the professionals did it? A little river of sweat ran down his back, reminding him that it was a stupid idea.  He took the map (which had instructed him where to bury the body) from his satchel and tucked it into the dead body’s pocket.  They’d written ‘bury with body, do not burn” on it.  It was paper, so would decay quickly enough.

Overhead more of the birds were circling.  That didn’t look too good.

He stood up.

The desert plain shimmered with heat.  It looked alien enough already, but through the lens of hot air, the rock formations and scrub seemed even more curious and distant.  This wasn’t a place for him.

“Sorry buddy,” he said to the body and shovelled the first pan of dirt over it.  It took forty minutes and plenty of foot stamping, but finally the grave was filled.  He kicked some topsoil and rocks onto it, hoping to disguise its unnaturally rectangular outline.  Maybe he should have dug something with a more organic shape.

Too late now.

A wind whipped up and then was gone.  The desert was an ever changing place.  People didn’t belong here (at least not above ground and breathing) unless of course they were gambling.   For a moment he considered whether he should say some words over the unmarked grave, but it didn’t seem right.  And there was nothing he wanted to say.

He walked back to the car, drinking from the flask.  It was insulated, but the cool water inside had started to turn tepid already.

On the passenger seat was a white book: The Manual.  It was why he was out here in this place. He picked it up and opened it to page 1.

ITEM (1): The body of your predecessor must be disposed of in a location, such that the family and friends of the deceased will not detect it or have reason to detect it.  (see detachable map for disposal suggestions for your location).

There was a box next to the item line.  He ticked it and threw the book back onto the seat. It landed title up:  “Protocols for Seamless Human Interaction” it read in pompous type.  Below it, sarcastically, was scribbled: “How to be a Good Clone.”The handwriting belonged to the man in the ditch.  The handwriting belonged to him now. He turned the book over and drove off, back to civilisation, back to the people who ‘knew’ him.  Ready to continue the life of the buried man.

 

End

 

Bio: By day I write adverts and TV for other people, but by night I indulge my real passion: writing fiction. I have a deep love of genre writing be it science fiction, crime or horror.  Find out more here at my website: http://kavanaghauthor.moonfruit.com/

0
0
0
s2sdefault

Donate a little?

Use PayPal to support our efforts:

Amount

Genre Poll

Your Favorite Genre?

Sign Up for info from Short-Story.Me!

Stories Tips And Advice