Genre « FictionDaily

He reached out a thin, muscular arm, the tatters of his flesh still clinging wetly to it, almost no humanity left

GENRE

In Genre on September 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

Ten of those and your pretty little eyes would never open again.

GENRE

In Genre on September 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Bon appetite.” Except for a big, toothless smile, he was invisible.

GENRE

In Genre on September 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

In all fairness, Panther McDaniels had to, quietly, see and admire the logic of a lowlife scumfuck like Poncey Wilkins.

GENRE

In Genre on September 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

Meanwhile, tweaked out on hormones and adrenaline, I refused to sleep, fervently convinced that the only reason this tiny, fragile creature was alive was because I was there to monitor each breath, keeping her alive through sheer force of will.

GENRE

In Genre on September 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

But these here in the Zoo of Allah are the ones who never reverted back to their former, fully human bodies, and they have born the social stigma that came with it ever since

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In Genre on September 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

Utriu lay whimpering, but her sobs became quieter and, when he looked down, he saw blood bubbling over her lips.

GENRE

In Genre on September 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

She remembers Richboy stopping and saying, The media has conditioned me.

GENRE

In Genre on August 31, 2010 at 7:30 am

Lindsey, there’s one of those wild beasts in my shower.

GENRE

In Genre on August 30, 2010 at 7:30 am

I’ve never felt so alive, behind that mask when I was with the boys out in the woods.

GENRE

In Genre on August 29, 2010 at 7:30 am

Lethal injection couldn’t be any worse than the formaldehyde already oozing through my veins.

GENRE

In Genre on August 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

In her head, in the ten thousand times she’d found him again, it had gone better. It had been smooth and perfect. This was jagged and bloody.

GENRE

In Genre on August 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

Amidst the distant screams of defenders, a hummingbird landed on the General’s hand.

GENRE

In Genre on August 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

I liked her eyes, kind and a little bit scared. I didn’t know too many people who allowed fear into their eyes.

GENRE

In Genre on August 25, 2010 at 7:30 am

Finally, he learned of a lasting remedy from an ancient Vodou manbo who recognized the curse, knew the story, which was infamous in New Orleans for years, and laughed her head off remembering it.

GENRE

In Genre on August 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

Sally’s flesh crawled, as she watched the charming smile transform into a beastly sneer, revealing a set of horse-like teeth.

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In Genre on August 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

A hand is pulled out of his pocket long enough to point at a star which lies on its own, part of no constellation.

GENRE

In Genre on August 22, 2010 at 7:30 am

Churchill was right. Fight em on the beaches, he said. Fight em in the clouds, fight em every fuckin where.

GENRE

In Genre on August 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

Mommy must be really sick because she’s all green-like and she has a hard time talking.

GENRE

In Genre on August 20, 2010 at 7:00 am

She’s a murderer. Her hand flies out and I see the stars moving together in unison, a forward arc.

GENRE

In Genre on August 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

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In Genre on August 18, 2010 at 7:30 am

We will UNRAVELhim and make him see things YOUR WAY. CALL NOW!

I’m so happy to see you again. Born again, fresh body, new name. I’ve missed you.

GENRE

In Genre on August 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

The crowd had turned on him, laughing at his discomfort from the safety of a few feet away. Anonymity is a hell of a cure for cowardice.

GENRE

In Genre on August 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

The pain of Humpty Dumpty’s razor edge and the memories of joy it had brought her child mixed bittersweet emotions within her.

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In Genre on August 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

I cast the spell that set them free.

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In Genre on August 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

The boy opened his mouth. It formed a black O, his lips and skin stretched to the point of tearing. But the mouth did not stop opening.

GENRE

In Genre on August 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

Thick dark hair hung limply in Hannah’s face. Angrily, she shoved it to one side and took Cole’s castle. ”I never asked for this.”

GENRE

In Genre on August 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

He was getting older. He used to win all his fights. Not anymore.

GENRE

In Genre on August 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

Up ahead, there’s a beat-up old caravan. It looks like God took his fists to it for whatever secret abominations go on inside.

GENRE

In Genre on August 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a high-density pre-baryogenesis singularity.

GENRE

In Genre on August 9, 2010 at 7:30 am

There was a time Roachkiller would have killed a man for a six pack. Even just one beer. If it was cold.

GENRE

In Genre on August 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

“My boy, my poor little boy,” she said. “Why did God do this to you?”

GENRE

In Genre on August 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Do you want father’s wings to be chopped off? Is that what you want? You march yourself right back there.”

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In Genre on August 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

He reached out for her, but the sight of the ears made him stop. She had broken out in them.

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In Genre on August 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

A brain surgery? Wendy couldn’t have asked for more. This would be so much better than scraping up road kill or hanging out at salt licks.

GENRE

In Genre on August 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

The greatest pleasure, I will always believe, occurs exhaling a single breath into a dark room.

GENRE

In Genre on August 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Toys, silly!” She smiled seductively as he nearly passed out at the thought.

GENRE

In Genre on August 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

As he pounded away, Ivan kept making her say his name over and over as she moaned.

GENRE

In Genre on August 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

Onions and death I can understand; love is complicated.

GENRE

In Genre on July 31, 2010 at 10:30 am

“Trained Dragoons, Mr Johnson, Trained dragoons against a rabble of drunkards and ne’er do wells, there will be no need to worry,”

GENRE

In Genre on July 30, 2010 at 7:30 am

Considering aliens and anal probes, Brice wondered why the two were linked: abduction implied penetration, but why?

GENRE

In Genre on July 29, 2010 at 7:30 am

If your mask filter is dirty you get lightheaded and your sight goes reddish, so it looks as though the balloon is falling in love with you.

GENRE

In Genre on July 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

The first time she’d gone to the mine, he’d tried to help her. She pulled and prodded at the rocks. Her hands had bled.

GENRE

In Genre on July 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

Their fishhook claws and teeth gouge my arms, face, legs – barbs in my flesh pinning me to the chair like an insect specimen.

GENRE

In Genre on July 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

He flinched as her fingers traced the edges of the scar on his sternum. “I cannot live without you,” she said.

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In Genre on July 25, 2010 at 7:30 am

I can still see it, her perfect calf leading out from the hem of her tight skirt and the red shoe connecting with him in ways he’d never imagined, his face crumpling like a piece of soiled paper.

GENRE

In Genre on July 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

The shadows came apart, like a zipper being pulled.

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In Genre on July 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

Coptic crosses and peace medallions catch the yellow street light as he bends to unlock the car door. The silver filigree-work of the hru-tesh crafted by the three-hundred-year-dead hand of Josias Cunningham, Gunsmith by Appointment, glitters in that same light.

GENRE

In Genre on July 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

The guy chuckled. He didn’t sound four hundred pounds. He sounded like he could slither under Julio’s door.

GENRE

In Genre on July 20, 2010 at 7:30 am

Thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat.

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In Genre on July 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

Jim shuffles down the hall and when he cautiously opens the wide door Ellen is there, fifteen and lovely, framed in the sun like a miracle.

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In Genre on July 18, 2010 at 7:30 am

Then I went to the tree where I had seen the girl weeping in my dream and dug down at its foot.

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In Genre on July 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

Rubbing the mucus-red mixture from Pine Box’s busted nose and warped lips, feeling the same pain she’d known since having sight in this hell that everyone called living.

GENRE

In Genre on July 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

Your offer is foolish and has the mark of a man stupid enough to love a creature beyond his reach.

GENRE

In Genre on July 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

She looked like something out of a Wes Craven flick, a thick sheen of plastic reflecting off the dildo-flashlight. Like Freddy Krueger in a bad porno movie.

GENRE

In Genre on July 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

They’re not hunting people exclusively. They’re not strictly cannibals.

GENRE

In Genre on July 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

There are no pretty virgins in Havana.

GENRE

In Genre on July 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

Choorsa’s winged monkey glided down out of the dark with a huge winged moth in its mouth.

GENRE

In Genre on July 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

The goofy fuck could shoot the lips off a cockroach.

GENRE

In Genre on July 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

‘And miles to go before I sleep.’ It makes me think of someone with a job to do who’s professional about it…

GENRE

In Genre on July 9, 2010 at 7:30 am

The rest of the lights dimmed in obedience to her radiant presence.

GENRE

In Genre on July 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

Someone is reciting the Canticle of the Ship loudly. Then, the fire comes.

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In Genre on July 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

Then he tells me I am an idiot and a whore and he says he loves me.

GENRE

In Genre on July 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

On the bookshelf, next to the leather bound copies of Treasure Island and The Princess Bride, was a birdcage that glowed.

GENRE

In Genre on July 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

On the bookshelf, next to the leather bound copies of Treasure Island and The Princess Bride, was a birdcage that glowed.

GENRE

In Genre on July 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

It was him—Heaven—the guy who brokered the strippers for that bachelor party oh so many years ago and brutally pistol whipped him to the floor.

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In Genre on July 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

Later, shamed and elated all at once, he would return to her.

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In Genre on July 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

The redness meets the clear water in soft spirals traveling down the length of my body…

GENRE

In Genre on July 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

The wisdom teeth, contrary to their moniker, are slow and clumsy, fat and dimwitted.

GENRE

In Genre on June 30, 2010 at 7:30 am

It was Blane’s turn to go mad.

GENRE

In Genre on June 29, 2010 at 7:30 am

Delores was born with a strawberry birthmark on her face. It covers her forehead and dips on either side of her left eye like a seeping wound.

GENRE

In Genre on June 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

For all I knew, she was a bug-eyed wallaby with a taste for gallium arsenide: the stuff my brains are made of.

GENRE

In Genre on June 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

No one can remember the exact day that the smileys became sentient.

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In Genre on June 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

They went upstairs to the cafeteria and ate Swedish meatballs. They observed that everyone around them seemed to be in love.

GENRE

In Genre on June 25, 2010 at 7:30 am

Behind the big desk were pictures of the son they’d spent years molesting.

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In Genre on June 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I hope you don’t mind, baby” she said, then sucked on her finger until it was just flexing muscle and white bone.

GENRE

In Genre on June 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

Then her flesh falls open and starts to sing.

GENRE

In Genre on June 22, 2010 at 7:30 am

Indonesian music played through tinny speakers in the ceiling, the hypnotic patterns of chimes and pattering drums muddling her thoughts and increasing her sense of unreality.

GENRE

In Genre on June 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

the rarest diamond imaginable, jet black with just enough refraction to sparkle, primal and priceless.

GENRE

In Genre on June 20, 2010 at 7:30 am

After several agonizing minutes of attempting to pop his eyeballs from their sockets, he sadly realized they wouldn’t come out.

GENRE

In Genre on June 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

She marveled that she had not seen any of Father’s clockwork bees buzzing past her.

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In Genre on June 18, 2010 at 7:30 am

“You’re nothing but a fat, trifling hussy.”

GENRE

In Genre on June 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

…his mouth was moving in slow motion, a thread of saliva between his teeth as he tried to speak in their secret language.

GENRE

In Genre on June 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

Crew questions third arm, but I trust it implicitly.

GENRE

In Genre on June 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

Stealing, Sister Michael always said, is a mortal sin.

GENRE

In Genre on June 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

Later, I thought there was something reptilian about Emma’s revenge…

GENRE

In Genre on June 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

She was beautifully broken, and I wanted her.

GENRE

In Genre on June 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

And then it all went pear shaped as quick as spit disappears on hot pavement.

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In Genre on June 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

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In Genre on June 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

I think Grandma is a zombie.

He does not make my illness worse; he is my illness.

GENRE

In Genre on June 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

People didn’t talk about the gangster motel outside of town with about the same intensity that they didn’t talk about the Klan meetings at the courthouse inside of town.

GENRE

In Genre on June 7, 2010 at 10:45 am

A man’s breath on her neck, his hand on her thigh, these were the things that lit her up and let her forget what a decade of hard luck had already cost her.

GENRE

In Genre on June 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

He’d make me watch as he’d string it up in the garage and split the animal’s belly.

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In Genre on June 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

We were prototypes. Bleeding edge technology.

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In Genre on June 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

The children were growing hands, like octopi tentacles.

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In Genre on June 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

5) Andrea Parker “Melodious Thunk“, 4) Gary Numan “Are Friends Electric”, 3) Vangelis “Blade Runner theme”

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In Genre on June 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

The fat man darted around the same corner and Purcell grabbed his spongy arm and sweaty neck and slammed him against the rust colored brick wall of the rundown apartment building next to the bar.

GENRE

In Genre on May 31, 2010 at 7:30 am

He licked his thin lips with a globby tongue a chameleon would covet.

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In Genre on May 30, 2010 at 7:30 am

They strutted, pranced, and gyred in their abysmal procession toward the sarcophagus.

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In Genre on May 29, 2010 at 7:30 am

Death sailed the Great Western Sea in a cockleshell boat.

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In Genre on May 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

“If I were a sexy space alien, would you go to bed with me?”

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In Genre on May 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

He could see her teeth, gleaming impossibly bright and tinged with blood from the slashes that cut her ear to ear, opening and closing in horrible anticipation.

GENRE

In Genre on May 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

The photo cut him off just below the neck, but it wasn’t the body that drew his attention, it was the automatic pressed against his wife’s temple.

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In Genre on May 25, 2010 at 7:30 am

Some people have an allergic reaction to their god’s venom.

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In Genre on May 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

As he drew near, she saw the slits opening and closing, revealing small, jagged teeth.

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In Genre on May 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

“There they stood frozen while Skinner pulled out their secrets, dismantled their very identities and obliterated every shred of self-deception.”

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In Genre on May 22, 2010 at 7:30 am

She turned in his arms. “Did you know barnacles have the longest penises of any animal–proportional to their body size?”

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In Genre on May 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

When men weren’t segmenting the dead or working a corner of flesh rule, they were chained to the basement walls.

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In Genre on May 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

Then he bore down on Son of God and bit his arm.

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In Genre on May 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I’ll pull, you snap and tuck.” Automated grapplers on Xiao-Dan’s ship reached for the leading end of the solar film, mated with the border openings. A faint vibration shook the craft as green lights congratulated him.

GENRE

In Genre on May 16, 2010 at 9:48 am

Instead, the can went right into the black spot and disappeared.

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In Genre on May 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

We stretch out together, hungering in earnest, seeking, perhaps for a moment, an elusive human connection, until flesh gives way to rot.

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In Genre on May 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

“And there he was, standing under the very tree called the widow-maker…

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In Genre on May 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

When gaunt Alsatians loped beside us like feral guardians, tethered to us with silver and leather chains.

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In Genre on May 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

Having left the seminary six months before ordination, I had no recent experience with female relationships. I’d retained my celibacy. Andrea knew nothing about this, because our conversations were always about her.

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In Genre on May 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

It was a hot day, and sweat pooled under her breasts, dripped down her belly so that the thin fabric clung to her, like Jerry’s lizard fingers.

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In Genre on May 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

A bit of skin has pulled away from his frame over his left eyelid. I decide I need to shut him down. The company can walk me through the rebooting process.

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In Genre on May 9, 2010 at 7:30 am

I will kneel in the corner and stab at the air until my shadow walks into me—jumps with knife pointed downwards to the earth, and you will be asleep.

GENRE

In Genre on May 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

Ok, test results. You better not be planning to eat me.

GENRE

In Genre on May 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

The light played across the small space, showing a fresh mound of disturbed earth in the center of the floor. Thoughts of spiders faded as a small hand pushed up through the dirt, tiny fingers curling once before hanging limp.

GENRE

In Genre on May 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

Evenings like this one lustfully predispose to foul silence. You just sit and watch how the questions take you by surprise.

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In Genre on May 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

Though alone, alone. Some things had to be done alone. And today had to be different. Today she had to change it all.

GENRE

In Genre on May 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

After a while, they came to a cave, set into the cold gray mountainside. Chain-link fence and a lonely-looking guard shack stood vigil, with a faded sign announcing this was a RESTRICTED AREA.

GENRE

In Genre on May 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

If there were a body stashed in his mom’s trunk, nobody would know it.

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In Genre on May 2, 2010 at 10:59 am

The library patrons liked to refer to Taliba as a “her,” though there was nothing particularly feminine about the machine’s boxy shape, voice, or disposition.

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In Genre on May 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

When I woke up my eyes had darkened from blue to green, and I could hear everything. Read minds I mean.

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In Genre on April 30, 2010 at 7:30 am

He heard someone say “Good, he’s waking up now,” and fell back to sleep.

GENRE

In Genre on April 29, 2010 at 7:30 am

I’m not lying when I say that fucking Jane Austen brought Bettie and I closer together.

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In Genre on April 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

Strange though, she’d thought that when Death came to collect her, he’d be skeletal or riding a horse.

GENRE

In Genre on April 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

Scientific consensus: each man takes his turn. Each one conspires with the other to keep silent even though it will not keep silent. Each man is a mirror image of the other–a smooth manifold equipped with a closed interior switch.

GENRE

In Genre on April 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

Most of you’ve probably heard about that armedon ghost up in the hills. Your parents might’ve told you if you don’t do your chores, he’ll come down to the valley and chew off your hands, or slice you up with his razor scales. Maybe you’ve even seen him trottin’ between the trees, or heard him barkin’ at the moons on a cold night.

GENRE

In Genre on April 25, 2010 at 8:30 am

Ilha Formosa. The beautiful island discovered by the Portuguese is now but a site of rack and ruin, a living hell on earth.

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In Genre on April 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Well, this street is called Misery Isle.” Austin sat next to her, flashed his partner a smile as he finished setting up the long-range camera he held.

GENRE

In Genre on April 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Steve, can’t we do this later?” “No, Delilah. For the last time, do you want to be stranded down here and find that we’re missing oxygen masks or beans? Get with the program.”

GENRE

In Genre on April 22, 2010 at 7:30 am

Jackson cracks a new can. “I don’t want to moralize, Mark,” he says, “but you better be careful. Lisa will kill you if she finds out.”

GENRE

In Genre on April 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

“They look happy enough,” one of the paintings said. It was Van Gogh’s green portrait of his mother. She had the straining smile of a woman who worked hard to see only the things she wanted to see.

GENRE

In Genre on April 20, 2010 at 7:30 am

Internal Status Update: Allison Trainor is going to have an internet affair while her children nap.

GENRE

In Genre on April 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Mephias is gone. He’s gone, Lil. Roland can’t take much more of this losing business. I think this is the last straw so to speak.”

GENRE

In Genre on April 18, 2010 at 7:30 am

He had gone from the cerulean blue penthouse studio he lived in down to muted shadows of the city to rescue her.

GENRE

In Genre on April 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

There are three hares in my bedroom when I wake up on Wednesday. Long-legged and soft-furred, they hop about agitatedly. One of them has made a nest out of yesterday’s sweater and four brightly-coloured eggs lie snuggled up inside. I take care not to step on them as I get dressed.

GENRE

In Genre on April 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

Her mother grabbed her upper arm, long fingernails digging into Shanna’s flesh, and jerked her backward. Shanna fell off the ledge and landed on the hard white bench, one leg twisted under her. Her mother lifted her quickly and placed her on the floor, looked at her once to make sure she wasn’t hurt, then slapped her.

GENRE

In Genre on April 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

Oh, damn you, she thought. She usually avoided talking to the trees. It inched her that much further towards the madness that took her mother in the end. Tell me something I don’t know.

GENRE

In Genre on April 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

Diagnoses told those at the Facility that I was fit to travel, that I have the necessary knowing and composure. I am going to see the woman who arranged my freedom. I’m thrilled to be making this journey on my own.

GENRE

In Genre on April 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Raven Raven Raven. Pray tell, what are band-titties?” He couldn’t prevent a giggle.

GENRE

In Genre on April 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

The sky opened and let loose a rain of maggots and worms that covered the ground in a fine, wriggling blanket.

GENRE

In Genre on April 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, “in these corridors you’re an angel.”

GENRE

In Genre on April 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

I will tell you that, for once, with the river’s breath still on them, my grandfather did not demand to know where they had been so late in the dark alone. Together.

GENRE

In Genre on April 9, 2010 at 7:30 am

But there is no God, only sun and nowhere to hide. Me wearing a suit and tie, melting inside out. Dead inside like my grandfather lying there, in his metal coffin.

GENRE

In Genre on April 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

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In Genre on April 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

Only the shrieking of carrion birds disturbed the silence looming over Constantinople. (Gordon Doherty’s ‘Into the Breach’)

Grandpa had been a worthless lout. He’d traveled the back roads stopping at little theaters, where he’d played Hamlet, Richard II and Willy Loman. He was a good actor, but a lousy listener so directors would fall in and out of love with him every other week.

GENRE

In Genre on April 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

When I think about youth, I picture you sitting there, the skin of your ankles brilliantly white against the hem of your pomegranate sarong.

GENRE

In Genre on April 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

“She’s disappeared,” Fionn said, to the linoleum, the oven, the snake-like curve of his wife’s neck.

GENRE

In Genre on April 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

It has been forty days. Forty days since I last looked down at my underwear and saw a stain like rust telling me it’s time.

GENRE

In Genre on April 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

The echo pains your ears. The shower from the faucet fills a sink full of dishes in the far end of the kitchen in the diner where you work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

GENRE

In Genre on April 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

One by one we lost our grip until only one remained. I downloaded my core being into this last unit in hopes that one of your followers would yet seek you out and help me execute the reactivation subroutine.

GENRE

In Genre on April 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

When Rachel wakes up, trembling, she tells her husband she’s going downstairs for a glass of water and she’s careful not to make a sound grabbing her keys from the hook by the door.

GENRE

In Genre on March 31, 2010 at 7:30 am

I fail to believe that passing paper and ink through the quantum quarantine blanket is any more secure than passing EM waves.

GENRE

In Genre on March 30, 2010 at 7:30 am

Churro stands, zebra-striped donkey’s, and shoe-shine boys line every street. And of course there are whores.

GENRE

In Genre on March 29, 2010 at 7:30 am

Inside, lit now with portable halogens and the repeated fire of the investigator’s flash, were five bodies. Twisted into painful positions, clutching their their insides or the the empty air.

GENRE

In Genre on March 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

Bernie’s holding that gun of his out like a solar flare with the ivory handle and silver etching and both our mouths are moving and one of us calls the other Cocksucker but the voice is laced with razorblades…

GENRE

In Genre on March 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

I just couldn’t shake this undeniable want for you and ended up climaxing to that first video I ever recorded of you.

GENRE

In Genre on March 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

Lori heard banging pans in the kitchen and knew that the ghost must be cooking again.

GENRE

In Genre on March 25, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I don’t get it. I don’t believe it. I don’t get it. How?” I asked, in disbelief and disgust. I had always hated the taste of blood.

GENRE

In Genre on March 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

“A couple of teenagers called it in this morning,” the officer said as we walked towards the body, to the very end of the alley. “The heart was cut out. We found a part of it on the ground. We think he ate the rest.”

GENRE

In Genre on March 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

In some ways we are all the same in Brooklyn in a way, though if you actually take a hard look at it you’ll see we’re pretty different.

GENRE

In Genre on March 22, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I was just saying, Sarge, it didn’t look dangerous or anything, it didn’t try to attack us or steal anything from us. So why’d you go and kill it?”

GENRE

In Genre on March 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

In some parts of the galaxy one could be killed for being human. Betsy wasn’t sure if this Eluder Ship was such a place. But death was coming for all soon enough. So why fear it now?

GENRE

In Genre on March 20, 2010 at 7:30 am

“How many people have you told that you are afraid to fly?” asked Gideon.

GENRE

In Genre on March 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

If Herb Caen was right, if this is Baghdad-by-the-Bay, then the Mission is the back corridors of the seraglio, where the eunuchs trot about with chilled sherbet and headsman’s axes. You’ve got Ethiopian restaurants next to crack hotels next to cock-eyed little bookstores with fat bald cats inside.

GENRE

In Genre on March 18, 2010 at 7:30 am

Osama’s hand slipped over Petunia’s mouth, trying to muffle her groans of pleasure. The feel of her pink skin beneath his naked body made his loins ache.

GENRE

In Genre on March 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

And when I faked that orgasm with Terry for the thirteenth time, did I know I was really doing him a disservice? Most likely yes. But then I see things I’d never even begun to consider:

GENRE

In Genre on March 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

Genetically engineered piranha head for a beach resort. A man takes singing lessons from drag-queen neighbor.

GENRE

In Genre on March 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Fuck. C’mon. C’mon c’mon c’mon. Fuck. C’m- Hey. Hey hey hey. I go loopy and leave my backpack at your digs last night? Well shit. Shit all over me. What the mother Christ’d I do with it? No. No. He’s AWOL. Christ on a pony if he took it. I told him to get his own shit and keep his brown paws off my shit; this is how shit happens, people messing with other people’s shit.

GENRE

In Genre on March 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

I said I think Diary is a meteorite and a diploma and future…responsibility falls on all of us…so everyone please turn around. So we didn’t face each other during the imagining exercise a long time.

GENRE

In Genre on March 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

Somewhere, there was another world.

GENRE

In Genre on March 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

I studied his hands, compared them to my own, their certainty, digital reticence, blind worms sucking dirt, paining themselves against soapstone. I whispered hard, broke his posture, and Burt fell back, a mess of shoestrings and torn elbows.

GENRE

In Genre on March 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

Constant gravity inhales, a bottomless hunger drawing everything into this pit of living darkness. Lot crawls back and wraps his arms around a charred boulder.

GENRE

In Genre on March 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

You see, you’re standing next to the edge of the world. Maybe the only way I can describe it is a Lovecraftian spot where the veneer of this reality simply fails to overlap itself. Do you see it? Only a few paces away–you can’t miss it–that 2 or 3 yard gap that runs due North & South as far as your eyes can see.

GENRE

In Genre on March 9, 2010 at 7:30 am

It was time, he thought, yet he didn’t move—preferring to wait, watching the window for any sign of movement within. A sudden noise on the street startled him and he pressed further into the shadows…

GENRE

In Genre on March 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

It’s good to know a Tony. I tell him, “About—” before he cuts me off and tells me how he’s saving 200 every half year going with Geico instead of All State. “But the bitch I get on the phone,” he says, “keeps saying to me, ‘Ohhh, you gotta fill out these forms; you can’t switch without—.’

GENRE

In Genre on March 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

Reykjavik is building a wall against the tundra, the abominable pools of earth boiled up in tar as changing and hot as the crawling and transmundane hand of the pipelines, their shells greedily hording the ivory of this big, elephantine land.

GENRE

In Genre on March 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

I smiled. ‘Excellent. Now we just need to decide; right leg or left?’

GENRE

In Genre on March 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

The copy father’s fat ring finger had on thirteen copy rings.

GENRE

In Genre on March 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

There was some strangeness about her ex husband and zoos. Whenever they went to the Memphis zoo, the tiger would go crazy.

GENRE

In Genre on March 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

Opacity sortie ignominy tutelage chickens bathtub scratchpad interfacce dwindle.

GENRE

In Genre on March 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

GENRE

In Genre on March 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

They didn’t know who the hell I was talking about. (Let this one load.)

And you don’t ever leave intelligent, learning robot swarms on for too long. They start to evolve. Get ideas.

GENRE

In Genre on February 28, 2010 at 7:30 am

When I enter 401, I see a gorgeous rainbow. It is like a huge bridge over the highway. To the left there is another rainbow, a smaller one. The bigger one consists of two rainbows, as if glued to each other. I think than two glued rainbows are me and Alex.

GENRE

In Genre on February 27, 2010 at 7:30 am

It’s a secret woman to woman glance, a brief smile with no nod from one to another whose reproductive and neurological chemistry is synchronized through proximity.

GENRE

In Genre on February 26, 2010 at 7:30 am

GENRE

In Genre on February 25, 2010 at 7:30 am

She is looking at me. Not looking at me. Her eyes are wide open. They are not looking anywhere. I can smell decaying roses. Vomit rises in my throat. A pain in my head like dull metal slapping inside of it. (This story comes after the first poem on the page. It’s called, “His Real Doll.)

Ozzy entered without knocking. Mommy and Daddy lay in twin beds. They were hogtied and gagged under the covers, but their eyes were wide open, gleaming with defiance. Another few minutes and they’d begin to grunt and struggle.

GENRE

In Genre on February 24, 2010 at 7:30 am

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GENRE

In Genre on February 23, 2010 at 7:30 am

Her gravitational field was a maelstrom of midnight obsessions, a vortex of multiple personalities, a whirlpool of parasomnias, and it pulled him in, sponged him, imbibed him…

Startled, M hooed this time and shimmied. Typing paused. Eyes and mouth bunched shut, M touched the small of her back, and horrifying papery wings brushed her fingertips.

GENRE

In Genre on February 22, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I’d like to give you an injection of contrast,” I say. “Ever have it?”

GENRE

In Genre on February 21, 2010 at 7:30 am

His bloody fingers reached deep into the pocket of his brown overcoat, immediately finding what they were looking for.

GENRE

In Genre on February 20, 2010 at 7:30 am

“But there’s a unicorn out back, in the alley, who’s just begging to be pissed on. You should go piss on him.” She smiled, sexy.

GENRE

In Genre on February 19, 2010 at 7:30 am

Enter GIANTIST MAN IN THE WORLD.

GENRE

In Genre on February 18, 2010 at 7:30 am

(For this story, see BP Whalen’s “Chekhov’s Nightmare” on the left index.)

She signed up for a natural birth class. The teacher gave tips on breathing, relaxing, thinking soothing thoughts. She thought about chocolate, a spoonful of pudding filled with explosives. Kaboom! In her mouth.

GENRE

In Genre on February 17, 2010 at 7:30 am

“I know. Did you see anything else? Fins, tail, anything?” “No. Just a massive, black…thing. With those huge spikes on it.”

GENRE

In Genre on February 16, 2010 at 7:30 am

There will be a delay in today’s service. Unfortunately, there is a rhinoceros on the line, and it will take ten or fifteen minutes to get the train moving again. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

GENRE

In Genre on February 15, 2010 at 7:30 am

I ignored the approaching craters. So slow was their expansion, I could pretend I was simply in a holding pattern. And then you came aboard, teleported through the titanium hull.

GENRE

In Genre on February 14, 2010 at 7:30 am

When we first moved in, the insects wanted in.

GENRE

In Genre on February 13, 2010 at 7:30 am

I am neither sow, hare, yale nor tragelaphus, nor can I be found in Gerald of Wales’ Topography of Ireland. Name me neither badger, barnacle, goose, osprey nor water ouzel. My name is not among the bestial dignitaries of the 12th century Bestiarum Vocabulum.

GENRE

In Genre on February 12, 2010 at 7:30 am

GENRE

In Genre on February 11, 2010 at 7:30 am

As much as I miss my hands, I miss my feet even more. (For this story, see “Un-Opposable” by Steve Krause at the bottom of the page.)

Severed heads of patriots used to hang from the roof of the building behind me, but I’ve been here long enough to take that bloody history for granted.

GENRE

In Genre on February 10, 2010 at 7:30 am

I looked at him for a moment in the rear-view mirror. My boy. I was going to take good care of him. This could be a new beginning for us. The radio broke in: “Police are reminding everyone to be careful following the escape of a repeat sexual offender from Dengie Prison. The man-”

GENRE

In Genre on February 9, 2010 at 7:30 am

“It’s three in the afternoon, Serge. You need to get up.” His room was a wreck. His works and his gun were in the bed with us.

GENRE

In Genre on February 8, 2010 at 7:30 am

“Don’t worry about Mare Ibrium thirteen. There’s a charter riding her this trip, and I hear the woman is deep-fried trouble on a fuckstick, if you catch my datastream. Let’s have a drink and, I don’t know, go dancing. Forget about starships, kid. They never mattered to you before, did they?”

GENRE

In Genre on February 7, 2010 at 7:30 am

I knew a lot of wild people growing up—my brother for one—but they didn’t all turn out like Lester did, they didn’t all pick up a gun. But I couldn’t figure out the balance of it.

GENRE

In Genre on February 6, 2010 at 7:30 am

The Dial-up preacher said it this way: “Love is similar to the voice of God, and a very, very, very special fruit.” Each “very” he said softer than the one before it. “Fruit” was whispered.

GENRE

In Genre on February 5, 2010 at 7:30 am

In the name of our bored Jesus Wrist: this connection of every body.

GENRE

In Genre on February 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

Eating shit is his religion Cock Out tells us but I know it’s not he just likes to eat shit and he throws up on it first or gets someone else to that’s his religion as well he says with sick mouth tucking in.

GENRE

In Genre on February 3, 2010 at 7:30 am

“This isn’t some fucking low budget torture porn,” he says. “This, my man, this is going to be high art.”

GENRE

In Genre on February 2, 2010 at 7:30 am

Lawford placed a finger to his lips. His left hand bobbed up and down in sympathy with the second hand of the grandfather clock. ‘Always three minutes past,’ he said. ‘Please say nothing. I don’t want you to scare her away.’

GENRE

In Genre on February 1, 2010 at 7:30 am

“D-don’t forget, you have to shoot that bastard in the b-brainal nucleus. Otherwise you might as well be whistlepiggin’. Now, the BN’s not located in the head, as most people mistakenly believe, but rather underneath the glow panel –”

GENRE

In Genre on January 31, 2010 at 7:30 am

Like the other Semanticas, Semantica Eight was a planet made entirely out of organic meaning, built by unknowns beings in the distant past.

GENRE

In Genre on January 30, 2010 at 7:40 am