The phone rings in the front office. Two weeks ago our receptionist had gotten her fill of Red Valley and moved out, so Ernie and I have…
The box was bigger than I was. When my father hauled it into my room, it sounded as heavy as lead when he thumped it down on…
Kevin looked dazed when he sidled into the office forty-five minutes late for Rich’s recently concluded mid-week…
Rotted Roots — Part 13: Loose Ends
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Rotted Roots — Part 12: Adverse Parties
No one moved. Each breath was like sawing through steel tension with a handsaw. Only Ryder, adjusting his sleeves, seemed calm…
Where I came from, we didn’t have stars. Well, I suppose we did, but thanks to the smog and the blinding lights of the neighboring city, I…
When Ethan Ryder stepped off the elevator for the fifty-second floor with his sister, the only thing keeping the fury from his face was the plastic surgery he had done.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” moaned Abraham in the early morning sun.
Somewhere; somewhere, down the ruined back alley of a seedy bar in the unlit district of the devil-knows-where, this, every last painful detail of it, is the elaborate and vicious setup to the most gruesome joke you’ll never hear. For me, it’s about to be the most…
Rotted Roots — Part 10: The Calm Before
The sirens had begun to abate, but the smoke column still rose like a skyscraper into the morning air. Sunlight tried to poke…
