Toby stared at his ticket: Bus 666 to Hell. After a lifetime in politics, always with the best intentions, this was his reward? The last thing he remembered were chest pains and falling to the ground...
[Part 1] Dani woke with an unfamiliar weight on her hip, and she was reaching for her knife before she quite knew what was happening. “Of course,” a familiar voice said. “Kill first, ask questions once it’s too late.”...
Late one evening, the sound of fluttering wings disturbed a suburbanite who was sitting in his easy chair, reading a book. The man got up to investigate, quickly assessed the situation, and then yelled at the top of his lungs...
“You see? By carefully tracking the field, we’ll be able to find mass, even types otherwise undetectable.” “Hmm… might just work. Let’s do it.”...
The local dragon had made its annual demand for a new cat for its collection. Arms crossed, Daniella stared the village mayor down. She knew what he was thinking—that she was a silly little girl with no business undertaking such a vital enterprise. He’d turned it into a competition...
Sebastian Kane flew across the second floor of the mansion like his ass was on fire and his head was catchin’. His blue shirt was torn and bloody, his jeans were rags and equally as red, his chest would need an entire spool of thread to put back together, and he would be eating soup [&hellip...
The stingray swam out of the pile of leaves and whipped its barbed tail around Dale’s ankle. Dale dropped the rake and fell into a puddle of salt water. The trouble was, he was hundreds of miles from the ocean...
“Time travelers brought us to our present situation,” Senator Aciedo said loudly, trying to have his voice heard over the muffled roar of screams, grunts and groans echoing through the Capitol building from outside its thick walls. He paused as the chump!-chump!-chump! of AZ-47 decapitation rounds from the Capitol Guards’ guns grumbled loudly...
Jennifer stared at the man sitting across from her. “Excuse me, what was that again?” “I’m a vampire.” “You’re a vampire?” “Yes.” “As in—dead?” “We prefer the term undead.” “As in a drink-blood-sleep-upside-down-live-forever-kind-of-thing?” “In a nutshell.” “Any other tidbits I need to know about?”...
The hunchback reminded Cassius of his first servant, Grimly. The gorilla-like-arms, heavy brow, and dull eyes; it was as if Grimly had returned from the Abyss. Cassius supposed that’s why he agreed to interview Erogi in the first place...
Dr. Edward “Eddie” McDaniels knew that if there were two things that went together, it was horrible weather and revenge-obsessed undead. And that night, the weather was positively crappy. Wave after wave of heavy, autumn rain crashed against the sliding glass door. In the center of the living room, Eddie waited...
On a morning in late October, the alien stepped out of his spaceship into the bright morning sun in the Boston Commons. For all intents and purposes, Gomph looked like an oversized porcupine. At 60 kilograms, he stood nearly one-and-a-half meters tall...
The heavy ceramic angel sitting high on the shelf above the sliding glass door was perfect for what Sham, the ethereal, had in mind. That fat, orange cat had to die. Its death was the only way he could become a real ghost...
TRANSACTION COMPLETE **PLEASE READ THIS FULL DISCLAIMER BEFORE CLOSING** Thank you for pressing the “Accept” option on the previous page and legally completing the transfer of ownership of rights and obligations of authorship in the work of fiction entitled My Five Minutes in Hell (MFMIH), penned by Howard Phillips Derbury sometime in ...
In retrospect, I should’ve realized there was something bizarre about Analyn much earlier than I did, certainly before we’d been dating for six weeks. But I was a college freshman, barely away from my overprotective mother, and eager to live life...
I’d been born and raised in sunny Florida, so isn’t it ironic that the one thing I fear most in life is a night-stalking bloodsucker? I’ve spent many nights staring out my bedroom window at eyes glaring back at me from the trees. My friends and family think I’m crazy, of course...
While I’m in the throes of having lots of Meaningful Learning Experiences with this new website, you might want to click the Back Issues button in the upper right corner and take a last look at the stories on the old SHOWCASE site, before the bulldozers of the Virtual Urban Renewal Program...
Floriel’s eyes were gold, her hair silver, and her features so fine, Jack thought they should be chiseled in marble: paint and canvas would be too temporary. Her smile made him ache. Braless, she wore a bright pink t-shirt several sizes too small that proclaimed her the World’s Greatest Grandmother...
“Hurry, Atalanta,” Hermes said. “You’ll never outrun the suitors your father has gathered if you can’t keep pace.” Silver wings flapped casually on his heels, while another pair on his golden helmet suspended him inches above the asphalt jogging path. He glided a few feet in front of his running partner...
I have it bad for la chica bonita. Go figure. I live in Minnesota. I’m as Nordic as Nordic gets. I come from that ancient genetic factory somewhere north of Oslo that makes ’em tall, broad, and strawberry-blonde, with a beard you could hide a battle-axe in. In school they called me...
Badger: Okay, I’ve seen it. But rather than comment on it at any length, I’m just going to toss out a topic question. Why was Captain America: The First Avenger such a great movie, while most of the Marvel products since then...
For thousands of years, we did not understand our purpose. Those were dark times, times when we poisoned the sky and soured the land against us. We flailed, searching, ever searching without knowing what we were searching for...
A week ago, my Uncle Rob died. The priest at the funeral talked about how everyone who knew Rob was blessed. That made me sad. I’d only met him a few times and never had much of a chance to hang out with him...
She couldn’t remember the last time a family Christmas had been so pleasantly uneventful. Even Becky was enjoying herself. Smiling, no less. She was at the dinner table holding the attention of a small army of wonder-struck kin. “What are you all up to?” Isla asked...
