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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…

Driving down State Highway 86, Donelli saw a sign, “Speed Limit Enforced by Airplanes.”  He started laughing.  Only in California.  He wondered if they really did that.  He pictured a Cessna coming out of the air in front of him, touching down on the pavement with a light bar on its tail.

He eased back to sixty-five and kept it there.

He watched the signs.  There weren't many.  Lots for sale.  Cheap.  A billboard said there was an Indian reservation  ahead, with a casino, natch.  He thought about stopping in when he was done, maybe try a little blackjack.  Probably not.  He was supposed to be low-profile.  Do the job and move on.  Another time.

The Salton Sea was off to his left, about a mile down.  White sand beach, powder blue water.  The sand reached way down from the shore.  It looked like low tide.  Donelli didn't think there were tides this far inland, but he wasn't sure about that.  There was a drought on.  Maybe that was it.  Had to be.

There was the sign.  Salton Sea Beach.  It sounded nice.  What the guys back in Vegas said was, it used to be.  Not now.  They kind of grinned when they said it.  That was all they told him.  He took the turn.  Brawley Avenue.  It was a straight road with small houses on it.  White stucco, one-story.  Some nicely kept up, some not.  It reminded him a little of Jersey, the kind of beach houses they had back there.  It seemed nice enough.   He had some time before dark, so he thought he'd check out the beach.  It'd be right down at the end of this road.  Maybe there'd be some girls in bikinis.  Local talent.  Place like this, there had to be some.

He passed a house with a trailer in the yard.  It looked like the family was living in the trailer. That was odd.  He hadn't seen that before.  The next block, a couple of the houses looked abandoned.  One of them was spray-painted with graffiti.  The yards were mostly bare dirt.  Then another house with a trailer in the driveway.  Another with a moving van.  The block after that was worse.  One of the houses had been torn down, the pieces left to rot in the dirt.  Now all the homes were empty.  They looked like they had been for a long time.  He was close to the water now.  He could see a marina, deserted, like everything else, the pier rotting away.  And the water looked wrong.  Something floating in it.

He rolled down the window for a better look.  Then it hit him.  The smell.  Dead fish.  Lots of them.  And rotten eggs.  Some other things he couldn't name.  Some salt, like a real seashore.  Not enough.  He thought back to what Arnie had said.  “By the time anyone notices the smell, it won't really matter.”  They'd all laughed.  He hadn't thought much about it at the time.

He thought about it now.

He rolled up the window.

He made a right, then a left.  Second house down.  There it was.  Pinkish stucco with flamingos on the lawn.  There was no lawn but there were two plastic birds lying in the sand.  Close enough.  He was supposed to wait until dark, but he didn't want to be here a minute longer.  There was no one around.  He pulled into the driveway.  He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and tied it around his face.  He looked like he was in a cowboy movie.  He didn't care what he looked like.  He just wanted to get it done.

He opened the trunk and pulled the bag with what was left of Lenny Mullens out onto the driveway.  What was inside felt soft, like it'd been in the trunk too long.  He dragged it up to the front porch.  There was the key, right where it should be.  He got the door open and the smell from inside hit him.  The smell of death.  He knew that smell.  He managed not to puke.  He went in, dragged the bag after him to the door that led to the basement.  He opened that and a stronger smell hit him.  The same smell, but more of it.  The handkerchief wasn't near enough to help.  He lifted the bag and pushed it through the opening.  It bounced down the stairs and landed with a wet thud.  For a second he saw a pile of black bags just like the one he'd thrown down there.  Something was moving down there.  Insects, crawling around.  He heard the chittering of rats.  He felt his stomach lurch.  Then he got the door closed and puked on the linoleum.  He couldn't breathe.  Sweat was popping out of his skin.  He staggered out onto the porch and fell to his knees.

He made it to the car and got back on the road.  He wouldn't be hitting the casino now.  All he wanted was a shower to get the stink off him.  And something to rinse the puke out of his mouth. But not here.  Not anywhere near here.  He ran the side streets back to the highway.  Then he turned right and floored it, got it up to eighty.  He wasn't worried about airplanes now.

 

End

 

Brian Haycock is the author of Dharma Road, a book about Zen Buddhism and cabdriving from Hampton Roads Publishing. His short fiction has appeared in Thuglit, Yellow Mama, Amarillo Bay, Pulp Pusher, Swill and other upstanding publications. Unlike the people he writes about, he is law-abiding and reasonably sane. His website is  www.brianhaycock.com. Visit anytime.

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