Dennis had seen airport bathrooms bigger than this place. A few small wooden tables pressed up against the faded wallpaper, and a counter ran across the far end, where Jerry stood behind the cash register. A sign read “Cash Only,” and the menu above Jerry’s head was handwritten and messy….
The creature was huge and descending rapidly from the clear sky. On Earth it would have been called a dragon, with its huge wings and long, sinuous neck. It was more bird, though, than reptile, with feathers that caught the sunlight and refracted it in an ever-changing pattern of colors….
“Pizza’ll be here in a few minutes,” Toby said, lowering himself into the couch. The springs sagged deeply. The couch had been used and abused by various apartment dwellers for years. “Wanna beer?” The wizard shook his head, thoughtful. He was not one of those wise, wizened, white-bearded wizards, but…
“Honey, could you get that?” Paul extricated himself from the small boy hanging onto his ankle and stepped over a pile of Legos to the front door. Outside was a clean-shaven young man in a suit, which worried Paul. What young man didn’t have a bit of scruff these days?…
Charles lay awake in bed. He had woken up with the same thought that had pursued him for weeks. He had made the preparations. Now, while his wife slept, he could do it. She would never know. He turned in bed toward her, trying not to disturb the covers. She…
Selena knocked hesitantly at the door to the old house. “He won’t answer,” they had told her. “You have to just go in. It’s part of the process.” She waited for the door to open anyway. A stray dog watched her from the alley. She didn’t know what street this…
Aaron found himself awake sometime in the deep hours of night in a strange room, aware of the person beside him in the bed. He didn’t move for fear of waking her. He could hear her breathing slowly beside him, her back to him. He wondered if she was awake…
They led him into a sterile white too-bright room, which held a table, a chair, and it. They placed him in the chair and shut the door. Upon the table was a white file folder. His brain was fuzzy from lack of sleep, lack of food, and whatever concoction of…
Arieos and Falson were brothers, light-skinned, dark-haired, large-eyed young men who understood one another without words. They were not alike in temperament, Arieos being bolder and quick-witted, Falson more perceptive and deeply rooted in the history of their people. They sat together upon a rocky, lifeless land beneath a brilliant…
I woke up and knew I was going to die. It was sometime past four in the morning. The dream was still vivid–not the images, those had already dissipated–but the certainty that my end was near. It felt solid, a physical presence, and oddly unemotional, like a date on a…
The agents kicked open the door and rushed into the room, guns ready. The target, Chad Starn, sat at his computer, hands raised above his head. Agent Simon Adamson strode up to him and cuffed him. “Game over, kid.” “It’s not a game,” Chad said, looking up at Simon—not defiantly,…
It was mid-May, and Todd was taking a walk as an act of protest. The cold wind gusted around him, making him hunch as he plodded forward. The light mist, almost a fog, splattered him. He would be soaked by the time he got home. “Stupid weather,” he muttered. It…