“Either God is a bastard or He enjoys seeing people suffer, which makes Him a sadistic bastard,” David moans next to me. I motion him to shut up but he keeps going.

“I worked three years to keep a 3.9 GPA, I didn’t do anything but study and suck up to teachers so they would give me good recommendations. Then, when I’m finally on the right road and I get that internship with Google lined up for next spring, Google, man. Imagine me at Google. But it just couldn’t happen. No sir. Instead the whole world goes insane and look at us! God damn it! Trapped in a frigging library, God damn it!” (more…)

Vass, North Carolina

[Aaron Worth stands in the middle of a field, tugging a hoe through the dirt of a large, walled in garden. Beyond him is a stilted house that is clearly a post-war build. A rifle is still slung on his back, despite the fortification. During the war, Worth served as a special attachment to Army Group South – he was the first of many “Whistleblowers” to aid in the relief of the larger cities of the eastern U.S.]

It wasn’t my idea. A lot of people ask me that. Nope. Some guy with thick glasses must have dreamt this up, because the idea at first seems ridiculous. I know I laughed in the Sergeants face when he proposed it to me. I mean, seriously, take a loud ass train deep into Zackland and hope to God you don’t get bogged down and eaten alive. Yea, sure, sounds like a plan. (more…)

I follow along a large cornfield. The field has been neglected and the stalks have begun to wither and lean towards the earth. Weeds populate the rows and have been left unchecked and are growing wild. A small path leads up a hill. The corn in bordered by a thick wood and I can see little as I walk. I walk straight and quickly until it ends. (more…)

The first indication Gil Pevney had that anything was wrong was when the power blipped, just past 3:30 am. He was sitting in the station’s small common room with his feet up on a table eating his lunch: a sardine sandwich. It was a little silly to call a meal eaten at that hour “lunch,” but as it was the second meal of his day, “lunch” would have to suffice.

“Aw, shoot,” he said as darkness enveloped him. He waited expectantly for the backup generator to come online, and relaxed when he heard it powering up, exactly as it was supposed to do. The generator at the transmitter shack a mile or so away would be doing the same, he knew. Sure enough, within 15 seconds of the outage, the lights came back on. The security lights outside in the parking lot stayed dark, but this was no surprise. They were off the main circuit and wouldn’t come back until full power returned. Gil glanced around while the fluorescents flickered back into life, waiting for further problems, but nothing else happened. It was unlikely that any listener would notice the brief signal drop-out. (more…)

Timothy’s neck and arms felt hot and scratchy as he pushed through the tall, brownish-green grass behind the outfield fences. Randy Parker had smacked a home run right over the fence and into the unkept fields beyond. He swung his mitt like a shield in front of him scaring up small insects and pieces of vegetation as he walked.

Timothy knew he would likely get in trouble. His mother had told him to be careful and not get burned. However, when his parents said he could go play ball at the park with his brother all caution had disappeared. The same way Randy’s home run ball apparently had. (more…)

As I wandered back into the Hotel St. George, it was summer, and my mouth was still sticky from the wine tasting next door.  Pete, Pete, possibly the greatest human that had ever lived was there, in the doorway, holding his cart, his beads around his neck.

He did look a bit like a homeless person, but he was not.  He was so “not homeless” that it pissed me off when he was regarded as such.  He was old, weathered, educated, alive.  “Helooooo, Ryaaaaaan, how are you?, are you getting good maaarks in your school?”, he dragged every word out, each syllable passing through its own accent, French, Jamaican, English, erudite, academic, compelling.  This man could read the phone book to me and I would sit, glassy eyed and cross legged in front of him until the birds stopped singing. (more…)

The fog clung to the October air like a desperate lover. The horizon sucked the sun like quicksand, and the sky bled the sickly color of a hemorrhage. Frank saw movement by the bushes. He squeezed the trigger, and the shotgun’s recoil hammered against his shoulder. The blast shook the evening, startling a nest of starlings from the trees. From the rear of the cabin, Cyril’s Glock let out three shots in rapid succession. (more…)

Continued from Untitled part 2

I’m looking up, miles and miles away from anything.  Miles from the asphalt beneath me, miles from her teeth.  I’m looking down an extremely long soundproof tunnel.  The only thing I can hear is a heartbeat, some muffled noises…the sounds brain cells make when they die screaming. (more…)

I am not a smart man. I’m not stupid either. I never figured out how a BluRay disc could hold more information than a DVD. After all of the books I’ve read while in here you would think I would have come across something or other that would have explained that to me. It’s funny, I use to watch a lot of movies when I was on the outside and never understood how it was all made possible. All of that information packed onto a flat piece of plastic. I remember seeing all of these movies about guys in jail who had libraries to check books out of or at least carts that one of the old-timer screws would walk around with and hand out books. Thanks to the money my wife puts into my canteen account I’ve been able to buy books written by all the greats, even a few of the not so greats. (more…)

Trevor pushes a button on the cassette recorder. The tape begins turning. Grunts and growls, like some wild beast rooting in the forest, crawl out of the tiny speaker. What follows is a meaty tearing noise, with chewing and slurping. Then a voice comes from the past. (more…)

*click*

My name’s Lucas Gallagher, and if you’re listening to this, you’ve probably done a whole lot better than I did. It probably means that I failed myself and everyone I love miserably. But I want you to know that I tried. God, I tried. (more…)