Short Story
The Pocket Guide to Practical Homesteading
I was madly in love for a short time, years before the war, The Pioneers and their Academies. He was the strangest, kindest and most interesting person I have ever met. For a fleeting moment, I thought I had found someone to build a life with, and then he disappeared.
By Christina Blanchette5 years ago in Fiction
The Disaster
"I must get to it," I muttered as I saw a faint glint of light across the broken and crumbling streets. The fading sunlight gave an almost peaceful feel to the evening air - almost. Dead bodies scattered the entirety of the city either drowned or crushed. Animals fed on what they could find and the crunching of leaves and splashing of puddles reminded me all too well that peace was just a far-fetched notion now. The scavengers that I scouted out the previous night were here to pick the items from the dead just as the animals found a free meal.
By Jessica Shaw Huntington5 years ago in Fiction
Mementos
I found the locket hanging on the neck of a woman long deceased. Though she was nothing more than a collection of bones when I found her, she still wore a faded paisley dress, cinched at her forgotten waist with a simple belt that may or may not have been brown leather at some point. Faint wisps of copper and rust red strands still clung to her dusty skull and her hand clenched tightly in her husband’s. He wasn’t much better off, his remains having long deteriorated to skeletal aspects, though he still wore a faded tweed suit and his dancing loafers. The couple were draped in Death’s wedding veil of cobwebs as they sat haphazardly together in the ruins of what was once their family home.
By Renee King5 years ago in Fiction
The Viper Has Fangs
“Well, looks like our information was good,” Kit Dunaho said, peering through her view finder at the Counter Propaganda building across the street. She handed the view finder to Justin Simmons, sitting next to her, and he took a moment to study their target. Guards posted at regular intervals, the “The Viper Will Poison Us All” poster that was said to delineate the emergency exit. Everything looked like the briefing had led them to expect.
By Micaela Sparrow5 years ago in Fiction
The Magpie
The magpie crunched a still-kicking beetle in its cadmium yellow beak while perched on the skull that had once been used by a special-needs schoolteacher named Stacey Dobbs, but which presently housed a cacophony of insects harvesting the few remaining bits of soft tissue. Mrs. Dobbs’s last favorite student had been Max. Seven years old. Adopted from Ethiopia by Steven and Miranda Schwartzberg. He was so sweet. And the way he beamed every morning when he arrived at school was that year’s reminder why she did what she did, despite how heartbreaking the job could be at times. Yet, for some reason, the last image to light up the hippocampus, neocortex, and amygdala—all long-since digested into the biosphere—happened to be the inscrutable frown worn one afternoon on the face of little Eileen Davis, one of her first students. Strange. She hadn’t thought of Eileen in years.
By David Newhoff5 years ago in Fiction
The Coils
Rotting grime caught my leg in its grasp, threatening to halt my already sluggish progress. Wrenching my ankle free, I continued my laboured wading through the murky liquid. I focussed my thoughts on what I came here to do, rather than what might be lurking beneath the surface. It was not far now.
By Lisa Jacobs5 years ago in Fiction
The Internal Apocalypse
I am so hungry. It has been 11 days since I last found any food. My water is running out. My backpack, despite having less that I have had in weeks, feels heavier than before. My stomach is screaming at me. I must push on. There must be food somewhere.
By Luke Patten5 years ago in Fiction
Blood Sky
I take my place on the low plinth, adopt the star pose. Orin glides the soft tip of the brush over my skin, up and down, long strokes. Ankle to hip. Wrist to shoulder. I feel his breath on my neck, on my freshly shorn scalp. His hand is steady, muscle memory perfecting his movements, but I can feel tension in him. It’s in me too.
By Sarah Cooper5 years ago in Fiction
Chasing the Stars.
On this starry night, silence engulfs me. Even the shadows are something that won’t come near because there are no trees anymore. Just land, an occasional overturned vehicle, and darkness. The desert stretches for an eternity. Sometimes there are even some human articles of clothing left behind and, more often than I like to see, human bones. It has been this way since I was a pup. I learned very early on not to touch the human bones, no matter what. When I grew into my wolf-like self, I steered clear of all living humans as well, if I could help it.
By Hannah Marie. 5 years ago in Fiction
