Just an FYI, the computer I typically use for Shred stuff—reading and editing stories, yes/no/maybe, upcoming schedule, payment tracking, etc.—has given up to ghost. The data may be recoverable, which would be convenient and save me a bit of time; if not, I’ll just spend some time digging through other records to recreate the missing info. Bobbles will, hopefully, be limited and not extend past this week.
Gecko sat in a booth at the back of a club on the Sunset Strip, nursing a beer and trying to tell himself that things were not so bad. They weren’t, not really, at least when compared to his life before Los Angeles. Even that life had not been so bad. Sure, he had had to try to finding bars and halls in Iowa that would let him and his band Hydrahead play for a measly two hundred dollars a night. Life had been hard, but fun. Now he had a huge house, a wife with plastic surgery habit, and Hydrahead was steadily putting out albums on a major label.
“You stay here. I’ll get the shit.â€
“No way,†She says. “You ain’t goin up there alone.â€
“Fuck I ain’t,†I tell her. “You ain’t gonna risk it neither.â€
Glenn Gray is a Radiologist in private practice. His stories have appeared in Thuglit, Blazing Adventures Magazine, Powder Burn Flash, DZ Allen’s Muzzle Flash, Bewildering Stories, Underground Voices, Thug Works, and OOTG 3. He is at work on a novel.
The kid, he couldn’t have been more than 23 or 24, sat on the hood of the cruiser, starring up at the sign.
The round sign tried to take on the look of a donut. In case you couldn’t tell, the word “donuts†was written in red neon across the middle of the sign. Above it was the name Joes and below, deliberately misspelled, was tastee.
I don’t care for people who abuse children. People who abuse children are not among my favorite kinds of people.
I stopped counting bullet holes in the sedan when I got to thirty. It didn’t make any difference to my investigation and besides the sticky blood on the seats kept getting on my pants.
I looked across the garage at Sheriff Cooper and Deputy Weidman and asked, “What are you going to do with the reward money, buy more ammunition?â€
Dave Hardy has had fiction published by RAGEMachine and 1018 Press and literary criticism published in The Cimmerian. He lives in Austin, Texas.
The usual collection of tale mongers had their tongues in hyper overdrive when Randall Weeks walked into Sid’s Diner. He weaved his way through the chatter, sitting down in his regular spot, just as Sid’s wife, Ruby, placed a cup of coffee on the counter in front of him.
“What’s got everyone in an uproar today?” asked Randall, shaking a cigarette out of his pack. Flicking his lighter, he watched the flame torch the end, then grinned as he saw Sid clutch his stomach and run to the men’s room.
It is a little before dinnertime when they approach my rented cart, the woman and her baby boy, the woman winding her way through the crowded mall while the baby squirms in her arms. She looks like she needs a place to rest. Her little one throws himself to the side and I see shoes on his feet; clearly he wants to be allowed to walk, but his mother, she will not allow it. Maybe because there are too many shoppers, this evening a week before Christmas.