The Emperor’s Thumb
It was fucking noisy the next day. Keisha stared at the window. She’d never been a morning person. She was more the midnight party sort of gal. But it was dawn. Somebody showed up at dawn with a weedtrimmer and …
The Principle Of Moments
Heat Coming On
“Okay, there’s the breakers in that locker behind the bedroom door, and there’s the last closet, and the bathroom’s right handy here,” Emma said. She rummaged in her purse. “I’ve got the name of the service here where you call …
Due Process
Grace’s pleated paper fan rustles. Beside her, Dance is humming, one hand describing circles on the beat. A few couples are still on the floor even with canned music, reluctant to let the evening end. She’s pleased to see that …
Other Truck
Peach heard the noise first, and her ears twitched alert. She sat up baring her teeth in the dim strips of light from the boat dock outside. She hissed, scrambling backward into Keisha’s embrace. “Truck!”
“I hear it. Easy now, …
Gurney to The Clinic
“I hear you been giving it away with both hands, as the Good Book says you should do,” Preacher says, walking up the parking lot slowly, hands wide, “but of course some of them guys down at the co-generation plant …
Road Warriors
There wasn’t even a scream.
Just Dan laying full-length in the parking lot, face down, with a massive splat of red sprayed out onto the wall of the restroom behind him. His dreads fanned out, his jeans all red, his …
Monster Bargains
Keisha drove in silence for awhile after that, the white line blinking like a metronome in the corner of the windshield. Just trying to breath, around the hurt that Dan was gone, and this Chinese-looking guy was sitting there in …
A Coney For Peach
Keisha woke up from dreams of driving endlessly, aimlessly, in the fog. She blinked sandy eyelids, and turned her head sharply, winced and waited for her neck muscles and rib muscles to calm down. “What?”
“Not watch now,” the Chinese …
Days of Strength
It hurt climbing down the rungs from the sleepover cab one-handed, carrying his gun.
“Hey, my man,” the woman said to him. “You feeling a little rested?”
He shook his head. It didn’t do any good to lie to a …
Kissing Peach Happy
Well, at least the credit card worked as advertised. Round about dusk the second night, Keisha pulled off the road and picked a cheap motel with a weird-shaped parking lot on a hill that couldn’t accommodate a lot of big …