“Alex” by Chris Roy

It was trying hard to bite him. For a moment, the lean muscled young man thought the soupy mud had trapped his foot. A sac of cold nerves dropped into his gut, loosening crucial leg tension right as he leapt. His arms stretched thin, grasped a pine bough. Uncertainty protruding from eyes that flashed forward […]

“Writing Saved My Life” by Chris Roy

I believe that 90% of creativity is putting in the work. Start with an idea and expand on it. It’s awful at first. Make revisions, additions, trim and polish, until the final product is a single piece of art that will dazzle and baffle and few will know how much work was put into it—most […]

“The Forest for the Trees” by Thomas Pluck

Sirens echoed off the towering oaks of Branch Brook Park. Paulie ignored them. They’d find the wreck soon enough. Cherry blossoms made a white belt across the rolling green. He slid under a bough. The petals left confetti in his hair. Was it this one? He ran his sticky, stained fingers over the bark. No. […]

“Requiem For Spider” by Reed Farrel Coleman

Her heart was lonelier than Sergeant Pepper’s and the whole fucking band. I could see that from across the bar, not that across the bar was like seeing across space and time. It was more like twenty feet and, at that time of night, the view was relatively unobstructed. She had last call girl written […]

“Key to the Highway” by Joseph Goodrich

Sometimes the fabric of your life rips, and you get a true look at someone or something you thought you knew. Or—even worse—you get a look at yourself. And maybe you don’t like what you see. Maybe you’d like it to change. Maybe you’d change it if you knew how. Or maybe you’re left with […]

Excerpts from “Hostage for a Hood” and “The Merriweather File” by Lionel White

Lionel White wrote such clever and realistic crime novels that when a petty crook in France read one of his books, he used it as a blueprint for his own crime. It seemed clever to him, and foolproof, although a series of coincidences and flaws in human character made the scheme fail in the book. […]

“The Cleaner” by Sharon Dempsey

Silvia sits on the back steps poking at the clogged head of the cleaning stick with her knitting needle. She feels pleased with herself for thinking to bring the needle with her. As usual, the machine is sucking up nothing at all, just blowing dust back at her. The rotating bristles are a mess of […]

“These Toys Are for Tough Boys” by Graham Wynd

“But why do you want to kill him?” Patrick tried to pay attention to the words instead of the way Simone’s low cut dress revealed her ripe breasts a little too evidently to the eye. “Does it matter? He has to be dealt with and I need one more in on the job.” Simone gave […]

“Venus in Fake Furs” by Tom Leins

Frank Farris was born in the brothel his mother owned, back in 1958. Even face-down on the zebra-print sheet he looks good for his age: bullet-shaped head, cropped black hair and a deep tan. He’s running to fat, but still well-muscled enough to give some poor fuck a hiding. The Cantonese girl in the latex […]

“Boom” by Mark Mayes

W11. I live in the postcode area which is meant to be the richest in London. No, the richest in the whole bloody country. The news told me that this morning. There’s a one-time film director who lives down the road in a ten-million-pound house. We’ve got a shed load like that. You can spot […]