Freddie knew it was going to be a bad day when he checked his RSS feeds and discovered Chuck Norris had exploded during the night. There were no details, just the bald fact of his demise. This shattered Freddie’s entire existence. He climbed under his bed, clutched the crocheted Dalek…
What surprised him most was how vividly he remembered it all the moment he stepped inside—the linoleum tiles, the blue lockers, the stained ceiling tiles, the tired yellow fluorescent bulbs. He had hated those bulbs. They made the hallways feel more claustrophobic than they already were. Add to that the…
Alex lay on the floor, crying inconsolably. “Do you want to play get-you? Why don’t we play get-you?” A new, hysterical pitch entered Alex’s fit. The boy was overtired. But Grandma was not without resources. “Maybe we can go outside and jump in the puddles. Doesn’t that sound fun?” Alex…
Without looking back, Lamar stepped through the rip in space-time, knowing well he might die. It didn’t bother him much. Treated like a mech-drone, abused by the whole star-lost community, if he died, he’d find peace sooner than later. A strange pulling sensation gripped his body, as if he were…
Six I asked mom for a dog. She said no. I asked mom for a dog again. She said no. I asked dad for a dog. He said yes. I named him Jumper. Eleven Suddenly, the alien attacked me, but I punched him and he flew through the air and…
Peter held the gun in a trembling hand. He had never before fired a gun. This one had sat by his bedside for the last month, new and unused. He sat in the balcony of the Embassy Theater, staring up at the domed ceiling. The stage lay empty below. He…
Mark had enrolled in the Eden Project just out of college, nearly twenty years ago, when it was still an experimental government program. It was strange to look back on those pre-Eden days. At 40, he was fitter than he had been at twenty. He was well-fed, but he completed…
The defendant stood when he was called, a tall, handsome figure in the mold of Jimmy Stewart. He blinked a little and ambled to the stand, his back erect, but not proud—assured. There were some growths of hair upon his chin and upper lip, as if he had forgotten to…
After a day and a night, the wind died down and the whirling white of snow settled onto the frozen ground. Stephan stopped dead in his tracks, caught completely off-guard by the sudden change. The strange calm dislodged even that from his head. The black sky was deep, like the…
The bell in the crumbling tower struck two, and the sanctuary resounded with the tremor of its solemn cry. It broke through the fervency of Elizabeth’s prayers, and for the barest moment she recalled the dim, damp stone room, full of half-ruined structures and soaring bats. It had once been…
Daniel and Ellen Parson sat on a bench outside the library. They had come to drop off a book their youngest son had borrowed, and it being the first day with all their kids at camp, they had decided to make it an outing and walk the mile from their…
Turquoise water, white sand, cloudless sky. A perfect day. The shout goes out—“Beach volleyball! Starting a game of beach volleyball! Come on, you two, and you also!” Soon, teams are formed. A young couple, the man sun-burnt, the woman with an unusually long neck, decline the invitation. They lie side…