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Latest Stories

December 04, 2025
Horror Stories Alizah Zaidi

The Apartment That Remembers

Elias Trent signed the lease for Apartment 4B on a damp Sunday morning in October—one of those mornings when the sky felt heavy with secrets. He had moved to Hawthorne City for a fresh start, a quieter life, and an escape from the noise of the world. The…
December 04, 2025
General Stories Ben Macnair

The Silent City

John awoke not with a jump, but with a profound, unsettling lack of noise. Usually, Tuesdays in his high-rise apartment were an orchestral assault: the insistent moan of the sanitation truck, the 7:05 a.m. argument between Mrs. Petrovich and her potted fig…
December 04, 2025
Crime Stories Ben Macnair

The Shoplifter

The city was a bruise, the sky a bruised purple at dawn, bleeding into a sickly yellow by noon. Sarah knew its various shades intimately, mostly from beneath the hoods of stolen jackets or the weak, flickering bulbs of forgotten alleyways. She was a ghost in…
December 04, 2025
General Stories Tom Kropp

Shannon's Date

Recently I testified at a murder trial. My big brown Quarter Horse named Buster snorted and stomped his hoof with clear protest at the prospect of moving farther into the forest patch. It was a cool September evening with the sun slipping over the horizon in…
December 04, 2025
Crime Stories Tom Kropp

Astral Homicide Hunter

Scot put his back to the hall wall and shifted to see all three members of the football team as they approached. All three football heroes stood over six foot tall and weighed over 200 pounds. In contrast, Scot was short and only weighed 165 pounds. His small…
December 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Ben Macnair

The Mirror

Laura stepped into the pulsating nightclub, the bass thudding through her chest like a primal heartbeat. At 29, she had seen her share of wild nights, but tonight something felt different. The air was thick with smoke and neon haze, and the crowd swirled…
December 04, 2025
Crime Stories Ben Macnair

The Shoelace

The field was a tapestry of amber and gold, the dying grass whispering secrets to the wind. It was a beautiful place, usually. But not today. Today, it was a crime scene. And among the scattered debris of a struggle, a single, mundane object held a chilling…
December 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

When Santa Comes Downunder

when santa comes down under- he would leave behind snow and thunder. he would cross scenic beaches of golden sand- instead of crossing an ice and snow covered land. he`ll would fly over dirt river beds dry- while constantly swatting away a fly. would he swap…
December 04, 2025
Romance Stories Anthony L

Mr Big

Scotty Biggs lived his life like most people. He lived in New York, in a small apartment above a little bodega that one of his friends still owns. His routine was familiar: wake up too early, make breakfast, hit the gym, work, go home, repeat. His friends…
December 04, 2025
General Stories Ben Macnair

Subjects

The air crackled with a synthetic euphoria, a blinding kaleidoscope of LED lights and projected confetti. Rex Sterling, a man carved from polished charisma and a thousand-watt smile, strutted across the stage of "The Gauntlet of Fortune." His voice, a booming…
December 04, 2025
Romance Stories Alizah Zaidi

Love In The Letters

There was something about the writing cabin at the edge of Windmere Lake that felt suspended in time. The locals said that the cabin had heard more confessions than the village chapel and held more secrets than the town library. It sat halfway into the woods,…
December 04, 2025
Crime Stories Ben Macnair

The Photograph

The air in the abandoned Jones house tasted of fine dust and forgotten dreams. Detective Miles Corbin pushed open a warped door, the groan of protesting wood echoing through the desolate silence. Sunlight, fractured by grimy windows, painted stripes across a…

It was supposed to just be a joke.  Really…

Josh, Pat and Casey drove over to the house of Rachel Vessing with the intent of play a bit of a joke on her 17th birthday.  The “mooning” of the attractive redhead while singing “happy birthday” was intended to in fun.   They were sure that Rachel won’t be offended and would take the gesture in the manner intended.

Hey, it was just a joke, right?  But unbeknownst to the boys, Rachel’s father, the Reverend Josiah Vessing, was at home that night and not at bible study as was usually the case for a Wednesday evening in the fall.  The widower was protective of his only daughter so what happened was not totally unexpected.  So the boys were surprised when both Rachel and Reverend Vessing opened the door.  Turned around and bent over, the boys thought that just Rachel was there when she gasped “oh my god” at the sight of their bare buttocks.  But they quickly realized their mistake when they heard a male voice boom out “what the hell??”

Fleeing off the porch while simultaneously trying to buckle their pants, boys might have been a bit too distracted to hear the reverend’s final comment to them as they ran off his property.

 

“That is not what I was talking about last week when I said that we all need to turn the other cheek…”

 

 

The End

 

Author’s Bio:   Tom Schmidt is a Chemical Engineer working in medical diagnostics in upstate New York.  He enjoys creative writing and has been published on www.short-story.me as well as on www.fartherstars.com and in www.overmydeadbody.com in the past.  He is currently working on the “Paul Garigan Crime Mysteries”, a collection of short stories centered around a Malibu based police detective which he hopes to publish in the future.  Tom can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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