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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…

“I just have a few more questions, if that’s alright,” I said in my professional, sickeningly sweet voice. “This is information goes straight to the funeral home to speed along the death-certificate process,” I explained. The son nodded and stepped forward.

“Was your mother on hospice?” He nodded again and told me the provider and what she was being treated for.

“Did she pass today?” He said that she did, around three that afternoon.

“Are there any personal belongings of hers that I’m taking with me today, like jewelry, clothing, photographs?” He shook his head, lip trembling. I closed my binder. “Would you like any more time with her?” I asked as gently possible. The family glanced at one another, heads shaking.

I said okay, pulled the white sheet up over the decedent’s face, and finished zipping the cot cover over her head. I draped a pretty quilt over the ugly fabric, and slowly pushed the cot with the decedent out of their house to the back of my van. I opened it, and started to load her in. It was slow work because the trunk of the van was just a bit higher than the end of the cot, but I got it in as elegantly as I could.

I braced my hip against the gurney and gave a final shove, settling it into the grooves in the floor of the van. It was hard to gracefully grunt with effort with a grieving family watching me load their dead loved one into my van, but they thanked me again. I pulled off my sweaty latex gloves, shoved them in the pocket of my pants, and shook everyone’s hand one last time.

“You guys take care,” I said lamely before climbing into the driver’s seat of my van.

As soon as I drove around the corner, I shrugged out of my blazer and plugged the funeral home’s address into my GPS. The city at night was almost as bright as it is during daytime with all the lights from shops and cars and streetlights. I loved driving at night because of the traffic, and the beautiful views of the twinkling lights of the city like a night sky of yellow stars on the ground. I could never see the real night sky, so the city lights sufficed as stars as I sped down the highway. The city slowly shrank behind me and to my left, the stars becoming one big mass of yellow. Store fronts eventually gave way to barely lit farmland and sparse trees. The highway darkened and only the occasional oncoming car drove by to temporarily light up the road and blind me. Vast expanses of crops stretched out on either side further than I could see.

A muffled groaning sound pulled me from my daydreams. I let off the gas and felt the van immediately start slowing down and put my arm around the back of my seat to turn and look behind me. I glanced to the road ahead of me, and back to the gurney on the bed of the van. I felt my stomach flip inside out as a throaty, hoarse groan sounded again, but much louder. My heart skipped into double time as I slammed on the brakes and turned on my hazard lights. I got the van to a stop in the wide shoulder of the empty highway as soon as I could.

Frozen, heart pounding, I stared intently at the cot. Suddenly, the bag bulged and moved, rocking side to side as the deadly silence was broken by groaning that turned to bestial growling.

 

Bio: J. Davis is a journalism student at the University of Oregon. Her love of writing and editing began at a very early age and she has plans to write for fun no matter where her paths leads.

 

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