"What the hell kind of superhero costume is that?!" My dad was yelling so loud I could hear him from my room. When the blue cow suit had appeared, I'd been so excited. My brother Eddie hadn't gotten his disguise until he was twelve. Mom's quiet reply made me feel a little less anxious but it didn't seem to have much effect on Dad.
"Kendall, I'm sure it's something he'll grow into. Eight is awfully young for his powers so there's plenty of time-"
"Grow into? Who's going to take a blue cow with fangs seriously? I can see the...
She didn't look at him, just opened the back door at the (deeper than usual) scratching, but it wasn't the cat to which she'd turned her back.
It was the most hideous thing he'd ever seen. A tiny horror. And scaly monster. But it was his. It was theirs.
He's wondered why his wife never really showed during her pregnancy. The doctor said it wasn't unheard of, and that there were instances of women who gave birth suddenly and unexpectedly, never knowing they'd been pregnant.
Still, the thought of a pregnant, skinny woman unnerved him. He worried about his wife. She was nearly 40 and had always been as skinny as you please. In fact, the same doctor had once told her she was a "bad candidate"...
My mind was moving faster than my body. I wanted to play in the swing so bad but my feet weren't moving fast enough. I put my bum down on the small strip of plastic. Ran back and I started to swing. 1 swing, I was excited. 2 swings, I was getting higher. 3 swings, I was starting to get a little to high. 4 swings, I was on the ground. For a second everything was fine until I felt a sering pain in my back. I couldn't move. Pain was all through my body. I wonder what mum would...
The spies met at the corner of Drake Street just past the stained glass windows I always liked as a child. It seemed a shame this location would soon be linked with something so unpleasant, but killing is no game.
Unlucky passers bye, parked cars and the old masonry from the toy shop all crumbled under the impact of the explosion.
The morning newspapers were under orders not to disclose any details of the actual targets.
By that time I was on my next assignment, busy with details and transport routes.
Catching sight of a tv show in the hotel,...
I held it at arm's length. The talking cat. No, I'm not insane. It's voice was higher and softer than human of course, but it talked just like the rest of us in English. I did ask if any other languages were known to it, but I was told it had been brought up by a family originally from Wales that had not been allowed to speak their mother tongue in their small village in Somerset.
Bob was it's name. Jet black. Educated, knew far more than me about current affairs, history, geography and was a whizz with the internet,...
Shit.
Her hat just blew off in the wind. Well, it wasn't so much wind as the fact that she stuck her head out the car window to get a better look at the flashing lights.
The cops probably wouldn't be too happy if they stopped to retrieve it. Another one lost.
It was her Mariner's baseball hat, the one that shielded her from the torrential rain in Singapore; the one that bleached to a dull slate gray from the sun in New Mexico; the one that she wore whenever the Mariners ended up losing. It wasn't so much a...
"This is it?" Leila said with a wrinkled nose, her hands were clasped behind her back as she slowly approached the animal.
Myron stared at the blue ribbon sitting in a bow on the back of her head, eclipsing her dark brown tresses like an enormous butterfly. His eyes traveled down to her feet and the way her calves flexed as she walked on her toes around the creature.
"I wasn't lying, was I?"
"Dunno," Leila replied, and she hopped on a crate, her lanky, boyish form backlit by golden rays. It shone through her hair, making it more like...
The young man, a plough boy judging from the callouses on his hands and the traces of leather straps on his wrist from leading the horse, was startled by the question, but before he could confirm the wise woman's wager she turned away.
Her right big toe - the one she had given to the King of the Fey as payment for 'services rendered' decades ago - had begun to ache. Something (someone?) not quite evil, not quite wicked, and not quite powerful was coming. Not yet. But soon. Her throbbing toe a warning that an 'undecided' power was abroad....
The Potentate surveyed his creamsicle tower cooly.
"Were my instructions not clear," he asked in the calm manner so many of his associates found so frightening. "Was the language I was speaking truly so difficult to decipher?"
Nobody spoke up at first, though everyone knew two things: the longer he went without an answer, the angrily the Potentate would get. The second fact, whoever spoke first stood a good chance of receiving the brunt of his displeasure. As was often the case, everyone opted for an intense anger spread over the whole group, then face being a direct target of...