Trench was stacking stones from a cleared field. Bone breaking but honest. His older sister Abby, stood in the sun and did what sisters do well. Cried a bit, then stopped, then cried some more. “Their young, impetus and they had you as an Uncle.” “Look Sis I told you and the boys, them days […]
“It’s an ugly business, Dusty, ugly, and the people I deal with are raised from the gutter to make the world even more ugly. I have to spend hours in filthy saloons like this one, reeking of stale beer, bad whiskey, spilled wine, ancient tobacco residue. “Why would any respectable man do this?” “Prob’ly wouldn’t,” […]
On this cloudy autumn day I take the lite rail cross town through a tunnel under the river to the North Side. I scan a discarded newspaper on the clattering train, read about grisly murders that stretch from Canada through Michigan into Pennsylvania, a letter “S” carved on the female victim’s forehead, the “S” meaning […]
For years I’d fooled myself into believing there was a hole somewhere deep under my skin and what I needed was something to fill it. Someone who’d fit snug in that space forever. Romantic bullshit they force us girls to swallow, from childhood. But I couldn’t see the truth, at least not before the thing […]
Dan Byrne received the news during a poker game at The Round-Up. He turned his upper body around, empty beer mug raised in his right about to scream across the noisy saloon for a refill when he noticed Sheriff Beckley bearing down on him. The lawman’s look said trouble. “See you a minute, Dan?” his […]
“Welp, that’s it,” I said after I shot the last one in the head. This job was getting easier by the day and the beauty of it was that I didn’t even have to clean up anymore. Not since Rory was hired. As a matter of fact, Rory was walking in now wearing a pair […]
I shiver at the doctor’s scrawl, at the sterile clinical edges of the medical terminology that tears into the brain like barbed fishhooks sunk to their eyes. The diagnosis is terminal; my old man’s another zombie in a B grade horror movie stumbling his way toward a gaping pit at the local bone-yard. A wave […]
Tick, tick . . . 11:52pm. They die in eight minutes. Shadows crept across the outside walls of the house. Moonlight. Hand signals. Whispers. Cops. Three slipped to the front door. Two sneaked to the back. “Ready.” Ready just in time, Sheriff’s Detective Benton Hammel thought. They die at midnight the man had promised. Not […]
Dayton could hear the coyotes circling; growling and yipping under the setting sun. They must have caught his scent just after Maggie died. The horse thieves had opened fire on him and his mare when he came upon their den on the western edge of the prairie. Maggie had taken the lion’s share of the […]
“Where the Hell is everybody!” screamed Primal Center. “Please be quiet,” said Senses. “I’m trying to collect data.” “I think we need to take stock of what’s left and to make a plan,” said Intellect. “Do either of you know what happened?” “I heard gunshots, felt heat and pain as the bullets hit the chest, […]
“You know, everyday it seems like a new one just ups and vanishes,” Barry said as he clicked through the missing and exploited children lists. “Like sweet, little ghosts. Poof and gone.” Barry leaned back, the chair creaking on the hardwood floor. His computer’s glow haunted the room; the watery yellow from the street lamps […]
One Eye Press is happy to announce the public opening for novella queries for our newly launched Singles imprint. We are looking for up 8 novellas to fill our 2014 and 2015 line ups. Notably a crime publisher, the Singles imprint is open to horror and western fiction as well. Please jump over to our […]
