By:Rebecca Laskowitz

Kaylee grasped her mother’s hand as they made their way up the icy stone walkway. Snow covered the edge of the path where flowers usually blossomed during the spring. She watched her step so as not to fall and ruin her new pink puffy coat. It was her first Christmas present of the year from her parents. Even though Christmas Eve wasn’t until tomorrow night, the frigid weather allowed for Kaylee to receive her coat a few days early.

While one gloved hand clung desperately to her mother, the other held just as tightly onto Bunny. Bunny went everywhere with Kaylee since she was two. The stuffed rabbit’s ears were tattered from months of teething, and his yellow coloring faded from hundreds of journeys through the washing machine. Kaylee held him by the ears and raised her arm just high enough to keep his fluffy bottom from dragging on the cold, wet ground.

Story Tags: contest entry || general fiction || Rebecca Laskowitz || short story

By: Rebecca Laskowitz

There wasn’t much time left. Philip knew this. The entire village knew as well. What did they have? Hours? Very unlikely. More like minutes. Minutes that flew by with increasing speed as the enemy drew closer.

Philip looked at all they had accomplished. The walls were high and foreboding, but size was not enough to prevent annihilation. Strength was the key factor to guard against the great enemy, and Philip prayed to the gods that the fortress held strength.

The villages that had once stood here obviously lacked the strength needed to keep the enemy out. How many fortresses—great fortresses built with the blood and sweat of great men—had stood here before today only to be wiped away by one pass of the great enemy? There must have been hundreds, maybe even thousands, of towns that have been destroyed. Completely and utterly erased from the map.

Story Tags: contest entry || general fiction || Rebecca Laskowitz || short story || The Final Fortress

By: Christopher Brancato

To most people it was just another Monday, but this wasn’t the case for a selected few. The day started like any other for Mike Johnson. Mike would wake up, organize his attire for the day on his bed in a very civil manner, jump in the shower, get dressed, and head downstairs to read the paper over an oversized cup of coffee. Mike was glancing through the pages before approaching an article that seemed oddly familiar. The caption read “Five Car Pileup Leads to the Death of a Police Officer.” The reason why this article seemed so familiar to Mike was because Mike happened to pass by this ghastly scene as it occurred the night prior on the way home from the office, but was stricken with fear, that he impulsively continued en route.

Story Tags: Christopher Brancato || contest entry || general fiction || short story

By: Bryan Kaminsky

Dark clouds spanned the early afternoon sky as Edward walked out of the back door of the storage room of a florist. Edward was wearing a black cloak, ripped black jeans, and a black shirt. Edward liked the color black because it absorbed every spectrum of light, and he liked to absorb any information he could obtain or observe.

He was carrying a rare plant which most people do not think of owning, growing, or planting. It was a carnivorous plant. Its appearance is similar to the ones people think of being located in jungles. It had a stem, a big mouth with teeth which could snap, and thorns. It was small though, smaller than the pictures seen of them in a jungle habitat.

Edward approached his car, a black sedan with lightly tinted windows. He owned a black car for the same reason he wore black clothes. He got behind the wheel and placed the plant on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Edward thought to himself as he did each step, “put key in ignition, start engine, move stick, pull out, and drive.” He drove seven miles to his apartment in a neighboring town.

Story Tags: Bryan Kaminsky || general fiction || short story || Too Low for Dinner

By: Akilah C. McDaniel

The Beginning

Imagine a nice neighborhood with somewhat quiet streets and nice neat little houses with nice, manicured little yards. Now we will zoom in on one house in particular. This house is a small red-brick one with a dark red door. As we look through the kitchen window, we will see a black woman, in her late twenties or early thirties, drinking a cup of tea while waiting for her toast to toast in the toaster. Just as she turned to get a jar of jelly from the refrigerator the toast began to burn and smoke began to float up from the faulty appliance. By the time that she finally turned back around with the jar in hand, the smoke was pouring from the malfunctioning toaster. She gasped and ran to the dishrack to grab something that would pull the burning bread from the toaster. She grabbed a fork and used it to pry the now charcoal out. But as soon as the wet metal touched the still plugged in toaster…ZZZZZZZ. LaBertha Johnson got a jolt that would forever change her life.

It was her luck that Mrs. Snooker, her neighbor, walked in the back door.

Story Tags: Akilah C. McDaniel || general fiction || short story || The Adventures of LaBertha Johnson