The tourists had left by then, leaving Charlie Copper to finish his day’s chores in peace.  They were summer people mostly and, apart from a few die-hard fanatics, were harmless in their visits to the oldest lighthouse in Connecticut’s history.  Mary, the gift shop girl, and Ted, the tour guide and resident aficionado on all things lighthouse had gone home an hour before, leaving Charlie to close up shop on his own.

In less than two hours, four people would be dead in Charlie’s living room. (more…)

Molly looks up at me from the bed with her yellow eyes.

The left is bloodshot, not pink but a deep, blood red.

I stand in the doorway and watch as she tugs at the ropes that bind her wrists and ankles.  The rough weave digs hard into her skin, rubbing it raw.  She would keep trying to reach me until her flesh gives, I fancy, until her hands and feet come off.

Good morning, dear.  I don’t speak aloud; talking to yourself is for crazy people.  I know exactly what I’m doing. (more…)

It doesn’t seem so long ago I hated that dog with all my heart.

I was just back from the war, about two months, still feeling like I was cleaning sand out of my private parts, if you know what I mean. I also had the bum ear and the bum leg from the war. So all in all I was feeling pretty useless to my family. We were in a tight spot, with Dad long gone, my brother Jorge deep into the meth, my sisters married off and living back in Mexico, and with a tiny sheep ranch that pretty much had no sheep. Well, there we had the two left. Ma tried to hold our family together. She kept saying the Sun always had to shine again sometime. But I could see in her eyes that things looked bad even to her. (more…)

Once upon a time – and not so long ago, either – when I was properly, certifiably mad, I almost traipsed, in my lunacy, right past this unlikely sanctuary.

How could I describe this refuge? If you can imagine a powerful subterranean deity angrily punching the earth from below and forcing one hundred acres of passable farmland three metres straight up, then you have an idea of it. How more people haven’t stumbled upon this place baffles me. Perhaps there’s no one left alive to find it. (more…)

Jim Bramer, Minister of Special Circumstances, stood and gazed out of the grimy rain-slick window of The Houses of Parliament office that was his home. Casually he picked at the damp peeling paint on the window sill, and dropped the flakes onto the aging, stained carpet. The office was once opulent in the seat of government, now faded and ruined as the city around him. He looked out into the night, and the further he looked west, the more dread snatched at him. He could feel the rising panic in the city below, queues of shabby workers rushing down Abingdon Street towards Westminster Bridge and the Isle of Dogs. They moved together in the vain hope there was still a boat with a friendly Captain. In his office he could hear the murmurs and shouts of the crowd, people shoving and arguing, fear barely concealed as they hurried along. Bramer knew that all the boats were gone, and that Death was coming. He knew this because The Minister had phoned him and told him so. (more…)

1.

“Look,” Kathryn said, “this one has the keys in it.”

“It’s probably out of gas,” Maureen acknowledged, “most of the ones with the keys left in them are out of gas.”

“Well,” Kathryn stripped off her business suit jacket and searched the mercifully empty streets, “we’re gonna have to give it a try.” She climbed behind the wheel and unlocked the passenger door so that Maureen could climb in the other side. (more…)

1

I barely smell the burlap smoke anymore, but I remember that it used to burn my throat and water my eyes. I blow into the tin fume-canister until a little flame leaps up then I slap the top closed and squelch the heat. I want the smoke, not the fire. A thousand or so honeybees swarm around the two hives I’ve placed at the edge of Old Man Orchard. I should camouflage them or put them a little deeper into the woods, but the big white boxes need sunlight if I want the bees to survive the long winters, so it’s a tradeoff I guess. (more…)

Please see Verse 1 of The Minister

The Minster: Verse 2

Against the gentle whump, whump, whump, of the helicopter blades, Paul Jollie listened to the last thirty seconds of the mp3 over and over again. He’d put the earpieces of his ipod underneath the bulky headphones to try and drown out the noise of the ancient Huey he was now sat in. He was studying the photographs of the living room of the old croft where the attack had happened. He tried to visualise the knock at the door, the surprise of the occupants, that final desperate struggle and what had happened after the tape stopped, after the bloody violence ended. He had listened to the MP3 over and over again, studying to every nuance of Joe Wyndhams voice as he described the Minister and that final line, the voice of the Minister himself; that drawn out Scottish brogue dripping with menace. No matter how many times he listened, he couldn’t gather any further information from it and yet every time he listened to the recording the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. (more…)

Dr. Amanda Mackenzie zipped herself into the bulky, blue biosafety suit, slipped on her yellow boots, and stepped through the first airtight steel door. She waited for the buzzing sound that signaled the depressurization of the closet-sized room she stood in and the green light that told her the final “Slammer” door was now unlocked. Stepping aside, she waved goodbye to a coworker, secured the door behind her, and watched through a small window as a chemical spray showered the leaving researcher. Next, she attached an air hose, cranked the little yellow handle which allowed fresh air into her suit, and found her place at the lab table where part of the anomaly squirmed in a Petrie dish. (more…)

Johnny was the one who told me that she was still alive. “But don’t go over there.” He cautioned, turning his back on me as he walked across the room. When he got to the window he told me that he thought they had all the women they needed. He had even seen two teenage girls walking down the street unhindered. (more…)

Morris blinked, looked down at his coffee on the table, then back at the restrooms where he’d been. Something had happened. Something big. The whole coffee shop was empty, only wisps of ash floating in the air. The peppy morning music still poured out of the CD player on the shelf above the milk machine.

There were no sirens, no honks from the street, though it appeared there’d been a massive accident, and several cars were pushed out of line. An SUV was actively burning, but no one was doing anything about it. Morris swallowed, took a big sip of his coffee, and put it down. He had to see this. (more…)