I was doing time at another warehouse.
Another W2 in a factotum year.
Maurice, pudding formed with a handlebar mustache, sat across from me.
He liked security. “I keep a weapon in every room. I don’t even lock my door. I have got a shotgun on the wall, a handgun in each room unregistered. I got a bat in the bathroom and a sword under my bed with a knife between my pillows.”
“Expecting trouble?”
“My dad was in the navy. Antiwar activists target the relatives of veterans.”
Maurice was found dead in his apartment.
Stabbed in the eye.

From Guest Contributor Michael Zone

Michael is the author of Fellow Passengers: Pubic Transit Poetry, Meditations & Musings and Better than the Movies: 4 Screenplays. His work has been featured in Because Eileen, Dead Snakes, Horror Trash Sleaze, In Between Hangovers, Three Line Poetry, Triadae, and The Voices Project. He scrapes by in Grand Rapids, MI

“Take my wedding rings. I don’t use them anymore,” the hobo said to me.

“Thank you very much, sir.”

From Guest Contributor Mark Beddard

In a year in which everything was falling apart, both personally and globally, Joe wasn’t prepared for the news of Scott’s death. The impact was more devastating than any of the hundreds of punches he’d absorbed during their fight trilogy.

Now Scott was dead, too young and too soon, reminding Joe of the one fight he, like everyone else, had no chance of winning.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

The man strolled to the saloon, thinking about what he had done and what he would do now. His family had been killed and thanks to him their murderers were dead too. Revenge had been his life from the time he was fourteen.

“I’ll see you all soon,” the man muttered as his tears fell. “Now draw!”

From Guest Contributor Dylan Baker

After midnight, we climb the cemetery fence.

I’ve seen the stripes on Gordy’s back, his broken nose, of course, but when Gordy takes out a sledge hammer, winding up, I grab his arm, saying, “Do that and he wins.”

From Guest Contributor Len Kuntz

Len is a writer from Washington State, an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans, and the author of I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE AND NEITHER ARE YOU out now from Unknown Press. You can also find him at lenkuntz.blogspot.com

He didn’t want anyone to take this wrong but granny was a bit of a pain! She just sat in that rocker like a dried up old prune. She just sat there not moving or saying anything. But those pension checks kept rolling in, and he kept cashing them. He had power of attorney for her. He hated her place. The air was dry and smelled stale but he went there every week, making sure no one disturbed her. He couldn’t have that of course. If they found out she died three years ago, there’d be holy hell to pay!

From Guest Contributor Derrick Fernie

Dr. Philippa Marsden awoke with a start, the hard cold wood of her desk on her forehead. She clasped her hands to either side of her head, as if she was trying to hold her splitting headache prisoner. Her breath wheezed through her pursed mouth, but the fever was gone.

“HELLO! ANYONE?” Nothing but silence.

From Guest Contributor Ross Clement

As the videostream it was broadcasting ended, ComStar-88b paused. The final frame – explosions flowering across the Earth – stood frozen in its buffer.

ComStar-88b broadcast its news to the dead planet below for one more minute, before finally going dark.

From Guest Contributor Simon Kewin
Science Fiction and Fantasy Author

I like watching my nails grow. I eat enough proteins to create dead cells to convert into nails and hair. Every week, I trim my nails, and every two weeks, my hair. But they grow back with a vengeance each time. When I forgot to trim my nails once, my infant brother got a large scratch on his face. I forgot to cut my hair, and my mother had a nasty fall entangled in them. No one comes near me now, except to cut my nails and hair. I’m the keratin child demon everyone has learnt to be scared of.

From Guest Contributor Namitha Varma

Namitha is a media professional based in Bengaluru, India. She has publishing credits in over 25 literary journals including Sahitya Akademi’s journal Indian Literature, eFiction India, Gone Lawn, Postcard Poems and Prose, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday Magazine, and Cafe Dissensus Everyday. Her micropoem has been read out on NPR Radio as part of the National Poetry Month 2014, and her works feature in two anthologies. Read more on her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Sunil’s adolescent fantasy of being a bus conductor was now fulfilled. Nubile women pressed against him in strategic spots, he smirked.

When the bus pulled into Ramanattukara bus stand, Sunil was no longer in this world. Literally.

From Guest Contributor Aparna Nandakumar

Aparna lives in Calicut, India, and writes stories and poems. Her work has been published in Atticus Review and previously at 100 Words, and is forthcoming in Cafe Dissensus and Red River Review.