Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Dorothy sighed and pushed herself back from the gurney on which her husband's motionless body lay. Not for the first time she wondered if she shouldn't just throw in the towel and buy a new one. His head plate removed, and the ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “You have to understand. He is an exemplar of all that is godless in our society. He and his ilk will lead us down the road to perdition.” I reached out and lifted his chin with a finger. “What will you do afterwards?” He looked ...

Author: D J Lunan From open-cast cobalt mines to litter-foraging on landfill, BudBot’s rental armada of vaguely-affordable ‘displacement robots’ were sanitising the human labour from the most awful, unsafe, and extreme jobs. Sitting in her mother’s basement in suburban ...

Author: David Gianatasio *Click, click, click!* It's on every channel. See what I mean? The show's been off the air for years -- what the hell? It wasn't even that popular. There’s nothing on the screen. Excuse me? There’s nothing on the screen. Pfft. ...

Author: Matt Forshaw It will not heal because I pick at it. I peel back little dry threads of skin from the edges of the wound, and they unwind around its circumference like old, coarse rope. When the scabs on the surface thicken like dirty ice growing solid over a lake, I ...

Author: David Barber "The procedure is not an estimate of your lifespan," the voice said. "It is not like actuary tables. Nor will it tell you the cause of your death. All living things follow a trajectory in time which the scan tracks to the moment of your death. You can ...

Author: Brian C. Mahon Blank mind - you got to have a blank mind and no emotion out there. I do my thirty-second deep breathing routine, knock loose the naughty words from my cerebrum, and stare at the door latch. Is it worth it? A man needs to eat after all, but how ...

Author: Thomas E. Simmons The rooms are less than luxurious. Indeed, there are no rooms as such. Instead, an assortment of squalid pup tents greets each visitor. Pitched there haphazardly among the campsites nearest the inclines are numerous corrosive mists of carbon ...

Author: Kim Farrell The thick foggy sky seemed to press down on her in the empty lot. A tangle of leaves and branches scraped across the vacant space where the kitchen used to be. She could she her mother standing before the hot stove, stirring a large pot of bubbling ...

Author: Bryan Pastor “It started over a year ago because I couldn’t find a pair of wireless earbuds that worked.” Tom began telling the stranger sitting next to him his story. He paused, looking around. The diner was crowded for a Wednesday. There was a youth soccer team, ...

Author: Alan Moskowitz It was just a tiny blemish on her thigh. She smiled at the memory and then gave it a few swipes with her fingernail to stop the itching. She went back to work on her computer. Data entry - boring. But it kept her fully engrossed twelve hours a day, to ...

Author: I.W.Ray “Please stop?” I scream. Ten minutes ago, I had the most devastating news one could ever imagine. Everything became worse two minutes ago. A wall of fire is devouring the room that contains diaries and handmade books of children. The enormous room will take ...

Author: Robert Beech There was a snowblower in the living room. If the weather broke soon, they wouldn’t need it much longer, but for now it sat by the door, intermittently belching a spray of fine white crystals over the living room floor. The snow dragon nestled down into ...

Author: Mark Renney To imply his job was monotonous and boring would be an understatement; the work that Jackson did was mind-numbing, soul destroying. He joined together little pieces of metal, to be precise they were triangles of stainless steel. These triangles were ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “You’re a killer, Jorn. What you’re doing out here? Everybody whispers about it.” There’s only so many precautions you can take when you’re planning escape routes. Eventually, you will arrive somewhere others know you want to be. “Why, ...

Author: Grant Goehrig Everyone knows not to step foot on Ms. Hellebore’s property. Everyone knows those high peaked gables where the crows go to scream, that rotting balustrade with the termites inside, the black shingles that curl at the ends, the conical witch’s hat ...

Author: Terence Wilson Another name for N.A.S.A. is Never A Straight Answer. When one considers the facts, it fits quite well. Among the inner circle of Star Chamber elites, the true purpose of Explorer is far different from what the history books and fake news would have ...

Author: Bruce McAllister There was a Martian kid I got to know in Palo Alto, California, when we lived there and I was in the third grade. This Martian kid, who had no other school to go to, sat up toward the teacher’s desk, and when we made the California Gold Mine out of ...