Short Fiction

Bonnie E. Carlson is a retired professor of social work who lives in Scottsdale, AZ with her husband, dog and too many cats. She has published several short stories in magazines such as Down in the Dirt, Foliate Oak, Praxis and Fewer Than 500. She is completing a novel.

More predators than one are without remorse...

Well, he said she'd never have to work...maybe he was really honest?

Ever have a dream that you didn't want to leave...but then you awaken fully, and can't remember what the dream was?

Call it prescience, call it foreknowledge -- sometimes you just know it's a sure thing...

You only wish it was far-fetched...

"Change is good," they say, and "Time marches on." And there we are, listening to them...

Would a suit of armor help?

"It was humid like it was going out of style, the way it had always been when I was growing up..."

Even a vampire has to watch what she eats. A careless snack lands Vickie in one of Kenyon's less inviting playrooms, where she learns a lesson that possibly even Kenyon doesn't know.

Oh, Summer. Sometimes it's not so much the heat as the proximity...

Not that Cassandra liked her cousin much anyway, but Greg's van has been found -- without Greg. Bad news for at least one vampire.

An old world, a different world, a new world, the same world...

Are you ever ready for something like this?

Cassandra's New Year Resolution may have been to stir things up by thinning the human herd a little bit, but before she can get on to the real business, there is the small matter of Greg. A vampire can wait a long time to exact revenge.

No, really, there is this thing ... in Virginia City, Sparks, and Reno, Nevada, the first week in August...

Well, you have to have a sense of humor about it...

The problem with an unnatural life span is that after a while, there's nothing new under the sun -- or in the darkness. And there no better recipe for trouble than a jaded vampire.

You think it could never happen -- but ask yourself, did you foresee children forcibly separated from their parents? Oh, wait, that's happened in the Sixties Scoop, and at Auschwitz, long ago. How many ways can humans leave true humanity behind?

The holidays have a way of bringing out the most aggravating part of family togetherness. But a spur of the moment decision to stop by the Dark Whispers nightclub is just the thing Lilac needs to brave through Christmas dinner with her family and to admit that, in the end, her mother really does have impeccable taste. Part two of two.

We all wear masks. It's not always painful to wear one, but what happens when you forget what you look like without one?

There's a reason the demographics of the F-book are changing...

It really did happen just this way...

Joe Albanese is a writer from New Jersey. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry can be found in publications across the U.S. and in eight other countries. Joe's novella Smash and Grab (Books to Go Now) was recently published and his novel Caina (Mockingbird Lane Press) will be published in 2018.

Looking down -- suddenly, staying put seems like the safest thing to do...

Conclusion. Susan has had her wish: she's been reunited with her former step-daughter after so many years. But can people damaged by abuse accept a hand outstretched in friendship?

Part Two of Three. After her ex-husband's death, Susan takes an obsessive interest in her former step-daughter, Erin. Does Erin return the interest?

Spots or stripes, fur or hide -- we all have one common need...

A turning point, coming late. A message, is it welcome? Part One of Three.

Such a treacherous road, and so many still -- still -- take its evil trail...