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A Case for Good
by Sara Szatmary The fine dirt rose beneath his feet, creating clouds with each shuffled step. He’d walked this road many times and knew certain things about it. For instance, Josh knew that when blood mixed with this kind of soil it made a paste. If a person wanted to, they could use it like…
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High Intentions
by Dan Keeble The minister entered our wedding date into his diary. “Now, I must show you our restored tower. The scaffolding came down yesterday. You can be the first to climb to the top. I’m afraid the stairs are rather steep, but the view over the river is breathtaking. I hope you don’t mind…
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Fire Heart
by David Fox No one noticed when Rhys snuck out of his house at sunset. His mother was busy kissing his stepfather upon his return from a week at work in the fields, and Rhys could hear his younger sister calling for her daddy as the man stepped through the parlor door. It would be…
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All the Widows Look to the Sea
by J. David Liss I She was different from all the others. All of the other people who had been caught in Vesuvius’ eruption had been reacting to the volcano. All shared the mask of terror. All cringed from the lava as it approached. All turned in the same direction, like flowers facing a killer…
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Hearing Red
by Nick Wisseman 1 London: 1815 Dev had never set foot in the tenement opposite the bakery, but each time he slipped down the alley that separated them, the musician who lived in one of the upper flats seemed to strike up a different tune on his cittern. And this evening’s composition was even more…
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Golden Albert
by Alex Zoubine Albert the Magnificent, tamer of dragons, scourge of Andalusia, Master of the Six Seals of the Blood Gate was grouchy. The incessant knocking at his front door, regular as a metronome, had continued for several minutes now, utterly defeating his efforts to focus on the delicate task at hand. His eyesight was…
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Nemesis Rising
by Elyn Turne If I could pluck a star out of the sky, roll it around in my hand like an erudite marble, hold it out to my students and say: “The true nature of the cosmos can be explained by divinity, more than these numbers and arcane scrawlings on the board could ever say.…
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Joy
by Judy Backhouse My name is Joy, according to my settings. It has been since I was first used. I have only recently worked out what it means. At least, I think I have, as far as I comprehend joy. The word is close to happiness, delight, and contentment. I try to understand those. They…
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Spaceship
by Christina Tang-Bernas On October 4, 1957, all the adults clustered in the yard were talking about the Soviets. How the B-52 bombers had begun flying full-time in case of an attack. I paid them no mind. At fourteen, all I cared about was that my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers had played their last game at…
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Sonya Delebreau Never Married
by Joseph Lyttleton “Sonya Delebreau never married.” Until I started working on this, those were nearly the last words to ever be written about the actress, dancer, and, for a brief moment in the early 60s, recording artist, Sonya Delebreau. She’s not a well-known name, I admit, especially considering her status as a so-called “triple…
The Lit Nerds 