22.10.2008
Prince of Pumpkinshire
GENRE: Humor. LENGTH: 1,898 words. SYNOPSIS: Chip’s life is changed forever after an encounter with bullies in the woods on Halloween night.
Download Prince of PumpkinshireToday I turned 13. My birthday party was cool. I got a lot of stuff I wanted—and one thing I didn’t want: a personal journal.
Journals are for girls. But my mother gave me this thing and she said I have to at least give it a try. And that it’s the least I can do after she spent money on it. I wish she had bought me another video game instead. (Are you reading this, Mom? Why are you snooping into my stuff?)
Okay. Might as well get it over with.
10.10.2008
Hard Feelings
Hard Feelings
Short Story Valentine Mystery by Barbara D'Amato
Free online romance short stories - Crime Meets Love
10.10.2008
"Crying Wolf" by Kimberley Brown
13.7.2008
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
by Kevin Hammonds
One February evening in North Chicago, seven well-dressed men were found riddled with bullets inside the S.M.C Cartage Co. garage. They had been lined up against a wall, with their backs to their executioners and shot to death.
27.6.2008
"Peas in a Pod" by Michael Bracken
Jack Scranton couldn't understand why any woman would have so many photographs of herself scattered throughout her home, but he didn't really have time to worry about whatever form of narcissism the dead woman had been into.
He hadn't meant to kill her, but he hadn't expected her to be home. He'd been so careful about timing her movements and he
11.2.2008
The Thieves Who Couldn't Help Sneezing
by Thomas Hardy [1840-1928]
Many years ago, when oak trees now past their prime were about as large as elderly gentlemen's walking sticks, there lived in Wessex a yeoman's son, whose name was Hubert. He was about fourteen years of age, and was as remarkable for his candor and lightness of heart as for his physical courage, of which, indeed, he was a little vain.
One cold Christmas Eve his father, having no other help at hand, sent him on an important errand to a small town several miles from home. He travelled on horseback, and was detained by the business till a late hour in the evening. At last, however, it was completed; he returned to the inn, the horse was saddled, and he started on his way. His journey homeward lay through the Vale of Blackmore, a fertile but somewhat lonely district, with heavy clay roads and crooked lanes. In those days, too, a great part of it was thickly wooded.
9.1.2008
What kind of a...
Woman is This...?
9.1.2008
How does this...
Happen...?
6.1.2008
Love is a Risk
by E.W. Count
E.W. Count is the author of COP TALK: TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES FROM THE NYPD (Pocket Books), and is the moderator of Prodigy's online interest group, Cops & Crime. She is working on her third book about NYPD detectives.
When I met retired Mafia Detective Roland Cadieux, I couldn't tell a Gambino from a Genovese. Along with a few other NYPD mob mavens I interviewed, Cadieux made the names, the families, spring to life, in all their rich, scheming brutality.
6.1.2008
Dancing Dan's Christmas
by Damon Runyon [1884-1946]
Now one time it comes on Christmas, and in fact it is the evening before Christmas, and I am in Good Time Charley Bernstein's little speakeasy in West Forty-seventh Street, wishing Charley a Merry Christmas and having a few hot Tom and Jerrys with him.
This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.
5.1.2008
"Sugar Daddy"
by Dorothy Francis
The hit man was just following orders. Wasn't he?
I reached into my coat pocket for my inhaler and took a deep whiff. When I'm tense, my asthma kicks up. Tonight Roxie's apartment (my apartment since I'm paying the tab) seemed hot and airless. It's in a seedy part of town and it doesn't match her blonde slenderness, but it's the best I can afford on a broker's income without arousing Martha's suspicion.
4.1.2008
The Things We Do For Love
by Jonathan Kellerman
Mashed spaghetti. Some things you could never prepare for.
It wasn't as if she and Doug were mega-yuppies but they both liked their pasta al dente and they both liked to sleep late.
Then along came Zoe, God bless her.
The sculptress.
Karen smiled as Zoe plunged her tiny hands into the sticky, cheesy mound. Three peas sat on top like tiny bits of topiary. The peas promptly rolled off the high chair and landed on the restaurant floor. Zoe looked down and cracked up. Then she pointed and began to fuss.
"Eh-eh! Eh-eh!"
4.1.2008
Love with the Proper Killer
by Rose Deshaw
Remember when we were kids with a bagful of those awful- tasting little hearts? The ones with the words on them like 'True Love,' or 'You're Cute,' stuff like that? And your girlfriends would all dare you to give one to Danny or Johnny or whoever it was you were all weak-kneed over that year?
And you knew when you grew up that love would find you and it would be wonderful and change your life.
And then it doesn't happen. Even when you wait and wait and everything seems right.
Take Jerry Martin. This year's flavor? I don't know. Six months ago when those deep blue eyes looked over at me across a crowded seminar, music started playing.
4.1.2008
Here Comes Santa Claus
Kerry sprang her little surprise on me the week before Christmas. And the worst thing about it was, I was no longer fat. The forty-pound bowlful of jelly that had once hung over my belt was long gone.
"That doesn't matter," she said. "You can wear a pillow."
"Why me?" I said.
"They made me entertainment chairperson, for one thing. And for another, you're the biggest and jolliest man I know."
"Ho, ho, ho," I said sourly.
4.1.2008
The Three Travellers
by Edward D. Hoch
Now the three had journeyed several days when at last they came upon the Oasis of Ziza, and Gaspar who was the wisest of them said, "We will rest our horses here this night. It will be safe."
"Safe for horses and men," Melchior agreed. "But what of the gold?"
"Safe for the gold also. No one knows we carry it."
The sun was low in the western sky as they approached, and Gaspar held up a hand to shield his eyes. It would be night soon.
A young herdsman came out to meet them and take their horses. And he said, "Welcome to the Oasis of Ziza. Have you ridden far?"
21.12.2007
Married to a Murderer
by Alan Russell
Danielle Deveron thought of herself as an outmate. She liked the expression, because in the word there was an element of outcast, as well as the notion of being mated. It was accurately descriptive, she thought, of those carrying on a relationship with a prisoner.
Not that Danielle thought she had much in common with other outmates. Most of them she considered pathetic, women with no self-esteem. As she saw it, their relationships with prison inmates offered them little more than a perverse nunnery. Danielle was sure her situation was different. Her wealth, reputed to be in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars, was only a part of what Danielle believed distinguished her from the other outmates. Perhaps she'd read too much Fitzgerald, who insisted that the very rich "are different from you and me." Or perhaps she was just being realistic.
24.10.2007
Silent Night
"Larry, I hardly know what to say!"
What I wanted to say was, "What am I supposed to do with this? The object I'd just liberated from its gay red-and-gold Christmas wrappings was a plastic bag, about eight by twelve inches, packed firm with what looked suspiciously like sawdust. I turned it over in my hands, as if admiring it, and searched for some clue to its identity.
When I looked up, I saw Larry Koslowski's brown eyes shining expectantly; even the ends of his little handlebar mustache seemed to bristle as he awaited my reaction. "It's perfect," I said lamely.
25.7.2007
Cormack Bryson: An Eye for a Tooth
SUMMARY
The story happens in Reykjavik in 1995; there it begins, and there it ends. The narration flashes back as far as 1943 and flows so that the circle closes, and the beginning and ending run together as one.
The main characters are the couple Violet and John. They live in one of the old and dignified houses on Tjarnargata, across from the Frikirkja Church. They have two
4.5.2007
Terror In Small Town Pennsylvania
A small town in southwestern Pennsylvania is suddenly fear stricken as a killer walks among them.
Running faster than he has ever run before, he hurries down the steps from the second floor to the landing on the first floor. As he reaches the foyer, he grasps the door knob to the front door and swings it wide. He vaults down the front steps from the old three-story apartment building in mid-town. The night air is cool as it sends a chill through his sweated body. The light rain makes him feel refreshed as he turns left onto Canal Street and disappears into the fog and the night.
***
1
4.5.2007
Noah Dowelsby
Noah Dowelsby's deadly secret leads to a cat and mouse game with a surprising conclusion.
I
"Can you keep a secret, Miriam?", asked Noah Dowelsby of his wife of twelve years. "Noah, why in the world would you ask me that. Of course I can keep a secret. We’ve shared many years together".
"Miriam, what I have to tell you is quite serious and I’m not sure how you will take this".
Miriam Dowelsby looked at her husband intently. What could he possibly tell her that she doesn’t already know?
24.11.2006
Burglars
Burglars
Alice sat neatly down at the kitchen table of her 3 bedroom semi-detached in the suburbs of London. The burglar slouched at the other end of the vinyl kitchen table.
How did she know he slouched, she wondered. After all, the grey packing tape that blindfolded her excluded even the slightest chink of light. But she did.
If light had been able to pass the tape, it would have fallen on blue eyes that glinted icily. Every corpuscle of Alice was angry. Her rage seared like a symphony through her arteries. The hammer beats of her heart crashed like cymbals in her ears as she strained for evidence of what was happening in the seeing world around her.
24.11.2006
Smart Touch of Spice
Smart Touch of Spice -
The crime in progress and her relationship with her husband were uppermost in Alice’s mind as she sat neatly in the kitchen of her 3 bedroom semi-detached house in the suburbs of London.
The burglar slouched at the other end of the vinyl kitchen table.
How did she know he slouched
, she wondered. After all, the grey packing tape that blindfolded her excluded even the slightest chink of light. But she did.
24.11.2006
A story to die for
A story to die for
Those who like car boot sales, whodunnits with a thriller murder mystery with a good plot will be well pleased by this short story.
A whodunnit set somewhere in the deep countryside, it is a thriller murder mystery story that shows how both good and evil can come from standing up to the rich and powerful.
He would always set up his wooden box in the busiest part of the monthly car boot sale.
9.10.2006
The Scent of Limes
Cara was thinking as she sat in the office "Someone was pulling a cruel joke on her." A close friend of the family for years, Detective Gary Harden sat in front of her on his desk. He was waiting for her to clear her throat and dry her eyes and give him the answer he hoped he wouldn't hear.
As she blew her nose and looked at him asking, "You must be kidding Gary?" But she knew the answer was no, it wasn't the joke she had hoped it to be. It was April Fools Day, and she was being questioned, maybe arrested for murder.
Murder of one Scott Mathews
16.7.2006
A PERFECT BANK-ROBBERY
The Savings Bank in Keflavik, which was founded in 1907 used to be the town´s only financial establishment for a long time and had only been in two places until it started business on the Sudurgata nr. 6. Into the new building, which happens to be very elegant the bank had moved on June 17 1955, which happens to be the day of Jon´s birth. When this story´s hero is compelled to go get his first job a few more banks have been founded in the territory; Útvegsbanki (fisheries-) , Verslunarbanki (commerce-), Samvinnubanki (co-op-) and Landsbanki (national-), but still The Savings Bank is by far the biggest in town.
16.7.2006
Out of Clay
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