Deep Marks by Ali Jones

The first time it had happened, and he’d really seen her, he’d been trawling the pools, tracing his knuckles over crusted rocks, trailing his fingers in the water.

Sundown Town by Richard Wayne Horton

+++++Those are big horses out front. Never seen horses like that. Course we’re your average tourists passing through. You get a bunch of us I bet.

Playground by Scáth Beorh

+++‘I know where a weird playground is, Scooter.’

Ambushed by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

The last few miles are always the hardest. I hate coming here but once the decision’s made I try to be positive. She’s old, after all. And, she is my mother.

Rue of Maiorum by Annie Blake

for Ehrlich

i wanted my life to live i noticed her green cat eyes her arms had been scratched by the sun thin like sucked meat of slither of bone swathes lifted onto the loft my life in no particular succession for i’m in atonement for my rendition

Ambleside by Tim Fellows

The old man leaned on the wall and looked at the house. It was, he had to admit, not the prettiest house.

Eddie by Danielle Matthews

The jar of pennies made a disconsolate rattle as it disgorged its contents onto the threadbare carpet. He counted them quickly, and thick black eyebrows knitted together in a frown. Not enough.

Refusing Oblivion by Richard Manly Heiman

A blown-up tintype covers one library wall. This is what the school looked like in 1885, I say, that year in history when—

One Night By The River by p.a. morbid

The moonlight spread on the river like spilled milk, while the moon itself had a buttery coolness. They came along the river path, their hunger sated on a lonely drunk they’d found among the ghosts of St. Hilda’s, the old, dead centre of Middlesbrough.

Taps by DC Diamondopolous

Peter crouched in front of the attic window and gazed down on old man Mueller’s cornfield. The plow, unhitched beyond the stalks, turned north like he meant to continue but got interrupted.

Jimmy’s Going Places by James H Duncan

The basement office is where Jimmy spent the last hour of his day, not because he was busy filling out all his work orders or safety checklists, but because he knew his boss almost always left after lunch and didn’t come back till morning.

Shared Bodily Warmth by Thomas Tyrrell

Few things are bleaker than Dartmoor when the winter nights draw in like wolves around a campfire.