£18000. That's all it would take. But it was more than Charles had, that was certain. He gazed in wonder at that glossy, dog-eared magazine page. Awe, even. He had been looking at that same page every morning for the past fourteen years and with a sigh he would fold the mag shut and let it sit on his lap and lean his head back and rock. The rocking chair had belonged to his father. That was the only thing of his father's that he ever got. The cancer got him, a few years earlier. The rest of the family...
The gate closed behind them. Jeremiah and his little sister Kari glanced back to where the shimmering portal had been, only to see a green expanse behind them leading towards a large mountain chain.
"I guess we're not in Kansas anymore," Jeremiah quipped. His blue eyes crinkled as he smiled and Kari shook her head.
"Lame Jerry," she said in her high voice. "Very lame. Couldn't you come up with anything more original than that?" Jeremiah shrugged, his face flushed, and they started walking down the white path in front of them. "Do you think we'll find it here?" Kari...
Some people in masks of Guy Fawkes
Stood to protest Scientology's flocks
They wore them because
It gave them a buzz
And otherwise they'd get sued by those cocks
"Tell me what she looks like," said the young man.
The young man had managed to find a box to sit on. He was resting with legs crossed at the ankles. He peered straight ahead, smiling slightly, like he was the only one in on the joke. But of course he couldn't see anything because he was blind. You could have told that just by looking at him, the way he was faking concentration on the scene before him with that sadly unfocused gaze.
The older man, who was much shorter, stood only a few steps away, with his hands...
When the department store exploded, fine home furnishings, clocks, toys and various fruits and shoes came raining down like a merchandise monsoon. Most of them landed harmlessly in the parking lot.
The people, however, did not fare so well. Most of them were dead from the initial blast, but those who weren't landed with a meaty thud, skulls fracturing like the pineapples that were also cast through the air.
It was one of the worst department store explosions of the decade, though strangely, not the very worst--that one came about three months prior, when the detonation occurred near the hardware...
They gathered in the woods.
The circle wasn't complete. It probably wouldn't be - they were a dying breed, a dying art.
None of them were sure if the ceremony did anything - if it ever had. The elder members of the group - the ones who were dying out, the ones who were disappearing before they could share enough information to perpetuate them - claimed that it had worked, that it still worked, but the magic was dying with the belief.
The youngest walked the path of the circle, her bare feet already dirty, her old dress (torn, ruined,...
Deluxe. Five bedrooms, four baths. Swimming pool.
So are they all. Four solid blocks. Beach all the way to the highway. Green roofs and white polyurethane fences to separate properties.
The mall, when I was young, Had three shops and a bar. When we stopped going, they had a movie theater built.
And there were horses too. Wild horses. The shit you see in movies. Harming one carried a $50,000 fine.
They moved them out to an island off the cape, I've heard. The developers weren't happy when they started getting hit by Excursions.
The mall is gigantic. It has...
Long after the fireworks, Katie was returning form the lake side. It wasn't a long walk back to her home. She walk along the road. She was passing a house the paint a yellowed white, this was her boyfriend's house she stood there, and began to remember the the happy time she had with him, and as she remember all the good a phone rang, then the sound of a crying woman, she realized it was her voice.
He counted the cards in his hand, five: an ace of spades, a king of spades, ten of diamonds, nine of diamonds, and a two of clubs. His lips were terse and his eyes sunk deep into his head, staring at the hand he was dealt. Clearing his throat, he bunched the cards up, fanned them out, and bunched them up again, lightly tapping the small deck against the table. The game was poker, ace high, and John only had his land to back him up. John thought that if a man didn't have any money, well, at least he...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. She must have damaged it when she fell and she kicked the small wooden table it rested on in frustration. "Damnit!" she whispered to the empty room. "Damn, damn, damn!" Then she felt ridiculous. Imagine throwing a tantrum like that when she had other things to do, such as search the room, find the treasure, get out with all her bodily organs in tact... That sort of thing.
Not daring to switch on the main light and not able to use the lamp, she pulled her lighter from her pocket and flicked it on. There...