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Latest Stories

July 08, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Dance Of Death

CHAPTER ONE 1940 Chief Inspector Kenneth Langford offered the Commissioner a crisp salute, and then walked back through the labyrinth of passageways to his own small office. Langford was a member of the London Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as…
July 08, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Winter Blues

the winter blues has a grip on me, all so tight Its icy tentacles wrap around me and squeezes freezing my fingers and toes with its nasty frostbite staving off the cold is a battle, an endless fight it brings forth an assortment of nasty diseases The winter…
July 08, 2025
Horror Stories Sushma R Doshi

Deliverer Of Messages

A loner in my childhood, my scrawny and weak figure prone to being bullied by sturdy and robust boys, I tended to wander around places frequented by few. Those curvy roads which fell into darkness after evening without street lights, the area near the pond…
July 08, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

With A Side-Eye I Cherish

for Brittany ma amour Up to my neck in sadness for something just out of reach and she came along and fired up my life with kisses and the physical. The moment I looked into her eyes I didn't want to share her with anyone else and keep her all to myself. In…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…

Benito Guzman carried a gun. He shot the men who came after him. A woman, his foster mother, lay on the floor stunned from the blow the man delivered. That moment had given Benito time to shoot them. He walked between the men. The one to his right twitched. Benito shot him between the eyes. The other man looked dead. Benito shot him between his eyes. He didn’t bleed. Benito searched their pockets. Numb with fear, he took cash, plastic cards, full clips, loose bullets, and guns. He put them all in an old bag and left it by the woman. He pocketed their keys and his gun.

If he could run without her, he would have.

He heard the baby crying. He got a second bag, went to the bathroom, and put in all the stuff they used in the morning, and pills he saw the woman take. He pulled the diaper bag from behind the door and dropped the plastic bag of dirty diapers in the shower and stuffed in clean ones.

The baby wailed as Benito changed her diaper and dressed her in two sets of clothes. His mother taught him how to run. He pulled her into her carrier whispering, “Don’t cry. I love you. I’ll keep you safe.” He pulled the carrier to the kitchen.

The woman lay still on the floor.

“Wake up. We have to go.”

Bento shook the woman’s arm gently. “Wake up.”

He shook her harder. Scared, he pounded on her chest.

“Wake up. Wake up.”

She opened her eyes. Her baby in the carrier captured her attention. As she pushed herself up, she saw shoes and pant legs and that the men were dead.

Staggering, she tried to walk straight to the bathroom, whispering, “This is bad. This is bad.”

“We have to go.”

In the mirror, she saw blood on her left temple. She pressed a cold wash cloth on the spot.

“We have to go,” Benito yelled. “We have to go.” He thought about running without her.

Benito’s fear filled her. She jammed everyone’s clothes into suitcases.

“Wheels,” said Benito, holding up the keys to her.

“Let’s find that car.”

Three doors down stood a grey sedan that didn’t fit the neighborhood. The keys started it.

She pulled as close to the back steps as she could. Benito watched as she struggled with the suitcases. He popped the trunk. She pushed the suitcases into it and Benito crawled into the trunk and pulled them in. In the back of the trunk he found a gym bag filled with bundled money. He handed a bundle to her. She counted the bundles.

“That’s enough to support us for years. This is bad. Real bad.”

“We have to go.”

#

Hours later they crossed the state line.

Stopping at a drive thru, they ate fried chicken in the car. She nursed the baby. Benito fingered the door handle ready to run.

“How would you like us to be a family? You didn’t want to live with me.” She paused and switched the baby to the other side. “You scare me.”

 “You’re scared because of those men.”

“They tried to kill us. Somebody gave them a lot of money to do that.”

The baby made smacking sounds. The scent of the milk comforted Benito.

“We’ve got it now,” Benito said.

“You saved us. You killed them like the men killed your mother.”

“Those men shot her in the head. These men, I shot them. They fell down. I shot them more. One was dead already.”

“That’s what’s scary. You know those things. You learned fast. Can you learn other things?”

“Sure.”

“Can you learn to be my boy?”

“You took me just to get that house.”

Benito fingered the gun.

“Now I care about you. Love you, just like they knew I would. You, baby, and me all got a house.”

“I have a mom.”

“She’s gone now. If I were dead and she was here, I would want her to take my baby and be her mom.” She burped the baby. She tears rolled down her face. “I did a dumb thing. He was a bad man. I didn’t leave soon enough. He killed my little boy. Nobody knows. His name was Steve.”

Benito hated his dad. The last day, his dad pushed his mom’s face into the dish water until she was quiet and limp. He pulled her from the sink and smacked her back until she started gasping.

Then, like every other day, his father said, “Time to memorize.”

It wasn’t complicated: name, date, place, weight, price. His dad read from a sheet of paper that he’d burn.

The men killed them because of those lists. He still could smell the farts of the man who killed his mom. Each day he rememorized the lists, because someone wanted it. “They’re after me," Benito said.

“Together, we can hide," she said. “A few days ago, a friend sent a copy of that man’s death certificate. He died in a bar fight.” She blurted, “Can you be my boy? We’re safe from him.”

Benito felt sad for his mom and Steve.

“Can you be just plain Ben? Never again Benito? You can go by Ben? If someone pushes, say your name is Steve. We can use my real last name. It’s Appel.”

Benito, antsy to leave, said. “Ben Apple. I like apples. Who’s baby? You?”

“Baby doesn’t have a name, yet. I’m Cloe Appel. Mom. OK?”

Benito fingered the gun then decided to love his new mom.

“We gotta go, Mom. Now.”

“Steve’d be six come Halloween.”

“Steve was twenty–two days older than me.”

She put the baby in the car seat and drove. They both had the instinct to keep moving. They both relaxed to the sound of the tires.

The End

M.J. Holt lives on a certified organic farm with her husband and many animals. Her stories have appeared in "Low Down Dirty Vote Volume II," "Alternate Theologies," "Short-Story.me", and her poetry may be found in "Gutter Eloquence," the poetry anthologies "300K," and "Timeless Love", and other periodicals. She studied history, English, education, and holds a Masters in English Literature. She is a member of SFWA and MWA.

 

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