The shipwreck was catastrophic -- the kind where the powder magazines fireballed into the sky. Wood and masts and sails and all that turned into a bunch of toothpicks even Dennis Hoffman couldn't count.
Only Dark James Jameson survived, catapulted as he was from the plank he'd been stumping down as he crossed himself and wished the darling world goodbye. He landed in the evian blue water with a sploosh, swam about in a silent camera shot and bobbed to the surface for a breath -- upside down. His leg was the only bouyant bit about him.
He hung upside...
Sal knew it was too late the minute the whistle blew. That train had been keeping time in Millersville for twenty years and when its screech filled the air, everyone knew it was one in the afternoon. An eclipse could turn the day to night and no one would doubt it was in the PM if the train sounded. Heart racing and pulse pounding, Sal made a desperate dash down the road, passing the stable and skidding to a halt. "Now there's an idea." If some idiot wanted to leave a saddled horse loosely tied to this hitching post just...
The results were in, and the guy she voted for came second. She wasn't one bit surprised. Kate was never the lucky one.
At school, her younger sister was the academic one, and of course this was the attention grabbing trait where their father was concerned. Acheivements, medals, gold stars, good grades. These were the things that made a child great.
Kate was bestowed with other virtues. Naturally blonde hair, a pert, rosebud mouth and breasts at fourteen. Her male attention had come from another place altogether, usually behind the science block under the watchful gaze of Gary Spivey and...
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...
We made a little church of our own when we promised to marry. You asked me when I barely understood how to love you, and I'd been innocent so long that I think the moment you told me you loved me you became ever more desperate to snap me up. Three days after the initial declaration came the proposal. I ran away from you and hid.
You're a terrible boy. Everyone says so. I'd heard the talk since the beginning of time and I'd seen the queue of sobbing girls you left behind you. And yet.... you told me loved...
"But I like green."
"You would. Green is a very you colour." She waved her hand, apparently indicating his shirt. "You look good in green."
He raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Do I?"
She ignored it, ignored her cheeks going pink - there was no point to this line of conversation, she was not going to think about it.
Except that he did look good in green, very good. Something about dark hair and dark green and those eyes -
"I just don't think green is a good colour for a rug. I don't think it'll go in the living room....
In hindsight, the solution was obvious.
Anyway, that's what I thought when I awoke, face and hands already sweaty, the dark and humid air beginning already to claw at my face.
There was no light. I didn't have one on me. Didn't think I'd need a phone, with no reception. No, that wasn't part of the plan. And I don't smoke.
So, unlike the movies where there is in-scene lighting when the hero is trying to claw his way out of the coffin, it was nothing. It was dark and moist and stiflingly, oppressively silent.
The plan had been easy:...
There was a man who rode on a white horse. He wore a golden cloak. He was handsome and upright in posture. When he passed by, people stopped to stare and to whisper among themselves.
"Who is he?"
"Where does he come from?"
And, although they did not know the answer to these questions, they knew he was good and bold and wonderful. A hero.
There was a man who rode a black stallion. He had a large hat, flopping over his brow. Below the brim, a bright red scar was visible - a slash across his cheek. He slumped...
Nightmare. The officers had never seen anything like it. Rushing from the house they vomited not caring who could see. Ryan, only a week on the job, knew this career choice was over.
Nightmare. Samantha Walters did not know where to begin. As a psychic employed secretly by the force, she volunteered her services for his job even though the circumstances were the most horrific she had ever heard about. She did not last the day.
Nightmare. The neighbours all decided to sell up.
Nightmare. The police chief discussing the case had a nervous breakdown.
Nightmare. The photo journalists first...
When he said he'd take me far away, to a world I'd never seen, I had expected more than this.
"You're just seeing the scaffolding."
"What is there that isn't scaffolding? It's...there's nothing else there. It's hollow. It's broken."
He covered my eyes with his hands, pointed me in a direction and hissed "walk" in my ear.
I had presumed this was going to be a date. Clearly I was incorrect.
I could feel the ground beneath my feet alter, and suddenly everything felt different - I was enclosed, and yet not enclosed at all (there was light spilling in,...