Short Fiction

A beautiful girl catches his eye. She seems familiar, and when she calls out to him like he knows her, he asks where it is that they met before. Why does that seem to cause her so much pain?

Just one trip and he'll be able to retire planetside forever, never to set foot in a ship or be forced to endure his crewmates again. But, as one young traveler learns, spacer is a state of mind. First appeared 2005-01-23

The man with the wooden leg gained fame, fortune and all the whiskey you could drink before he lost it all - to the devil chicken. First appeared 2002-12-02

Matter and energy are the same thing. It's the basis for the greatest story ever told. But if you knew ahead of time that you were going to write a novel that would change the world... would you? First appeared 2004-10-02

An evening of headgames and petty power struggles has turned deadly. Shara must face the predators at home to seek help, where a sexual assault forces her to make a stand. The strange goings-on around her are a harbinger of the end of an entire way of life, but Shara is blind to everything but her own little world crashing down around her. Part two of two. <a href="http://www.pikerpress.com/advisory.cfm">Parental Advisory.</a>

Unaware of a beaker of mold spores knocked over a hundred miles away, the drama of the world ending is lost on one girl watching her own little world crumble to pieces. Part one of two. <a href="http://www.pikerpress.com/advisory.cfm">Parental Advisory.</a>

Amada's stories of her father made the winter's cold more painful. But Spring is coming, and with it, a new bloom.

Making friends is never so insiduous as when you're looking to travel light.

The past is viewed through the lens of the act of remembering itself, as a quiet child in a large and noisy family learns to take mental snap shots and hide them away.

A stranger in a foreign land looks for a gift to leave his hosts. Is the strange statue of the serpent a stolen antiquity, or is it a message from forgotten gods that the time has come again to steal back the secret of everlasting life and forestall the final fires that will destroy mankind?

All his girlfriend ever does is nag. Her annoying quirks, habits and fits are growing by the day. She used to do tequila shots at the bar with him, now she's not interested in anything fun. Not like Darielle, whose electric blue eyes have been haunting his dreams...

Ah, the terrible twos. A headstrong boy doodles on the walls of the house, while his concerned father tries to discipline him. Is he being too harsh? A neighbor thinks so, causing Dad to say, "If you can't beat em, join em" in this Edgar Allen Poe-esque tale of child rearing.

The death of an unknown jazz legend passes as unnoticed as the man's tremendous talent, mourned only by a musician and the muse of modern sound.

A tale to inspire a New Year's Resolution or two: He's got a full-time job and a few simple pleasures, but his wife constantly nags him. "You watch too much TV. You drink too much beer. You need to clean out that garage." You know, when you're right, you're right.

A brief journey into one man's relationship with literature.

From the day she was offered a full time secretary to the director of the residency training program in psychiatry, this temp understood that a lot of the strangest cases to come through the office weren't necessarily patients.

Rosalyn suffers from bad dreams. "Night terrors" is the clinic term. But that's okay; Spike, her new puppy, will protect her from the ghosts that torment her every night as she tries to sleep.

What was supposed to be a simple discussion about her performance in class has become an issue of far less ethical "performances" of another kind entirely. But this isn't a case of trying to earn an easy A; there's something almost supernatural about the way Naomi can't resist her professor's advances... Part 2 of 2.

Naomi Langer is running into problems in her classes, but her professor is very understanding. Very friendly. Very passionate. But a spur-of-the-moment tryst that should have provided Naomi with a quick answer gives her nothing but questions. Runner up in the Piker Press Ghost Story Contest. Part 1 of 2.

She so rarely gives what is wanted or expected, yet what she gives is always needed and intriguing. She's his other side, the wicked to his good. And tonight, as they stand together looking over the railing of the bridge, she's about to make him one very special last gift.

Professional dare devil Ax Roberts finds himself bound to his bed, but this isn't just another stunt. It's a wake up call. Of sorts.

A large, vacant, vintage manor decked out for Halloween makes the perfect "Haunted House", but maybe this one was decorated a little too well.

When it comes to paranormal experiences, sometimes it's the things we <i>hear</i> that frighten us the most. This tale of Electrical Voice Phenomena brings a whole new meaning to "the ghost in the machine". Runner-up for the Piker Press Ghost Story contest.

The winner of the 2004 Piker Press Ghost Story contest. Let the secretary welcome you to the Institute for the Sexual Study of Metaphysical Beings. Ghost busting will never be the same.

What was supposed to be fun evening at the club has turned into an involuntary adventure at what it's like to be dead. After a run-in with vampires, spirit mediums and vengeful dead, this ghost is about to learn that the underbelly of the city just gets seamier when you cross over to the other side.

It's the story of a murder story, gruesome, sordid and inexplicably based in Des Moines. Again. An entry in the "Write Fiction Like Cheryl" contest, wherein the goal was to write a tale like assistant editor Cheryl Haimann would if Cheryl ever wrote fiction. Which she doesn't. And after reading this selection, we may just know why.

Cover story.

A "Write Fiction Like Cheryl" runner-up. Gangs, drugs, slipping grades, arguments -- being a single mother has enough worries without your teen-aged son disappearing.

A "Write Fiction Like Cheryl" runner up. Mislabeled barrels of cooking sherry filled with chalk. Scraps of poetry. And someone willing to kill to keep a secret. Margo and NAFTA Agent Hertz are close to solving something big. Part 2 of 2.

Private investigator Margo Embargo is called down to the Des Moine airport to investigate a strange... well, it's not a crime to ship barrels of cooking sherry. ...or is it? A "Write Fiction Like Cheryl" entry. Part 1 of 2.