The Sockdolager

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Stories appearing in Summer 2016

Sugar and Spice

There was a brisk knock at the door, and deaf or no, Lucky was on her feet in an instant with a sharp bark. Helena sighed and set aside her knitting, the knock coming again before she could reach the door.

River Styx Leads to Athens

Two days before the van accident that killed him and his three bandmates, Russ Tasic realized they were going into debt on the tour.

Demon Clown Diary

Worked a sewer tonight. Played to lost children, luring each kid with balloon animals made from the entrails of the previous one. Killer set.

The Spark Will Travel

The nearest cops were in Ambeth, more than eight miles down the Lattigen line. Not that it mattered.

The Journey and the Jewel

Rachel and Alex Glidden were a painter and a writer who collaborated on those picture-book treasure-hunts that were popular in the early 80s, full of fantastic realism and cryptograms.

Passage

Rowan stared up at the thickened, slate grey sky and compared it against the memory of her own. She sniffed the air cautiously: grease from a nearby street vendor, the tinny whiff of metal particulates, the lake in the distance.

Gull

There’s a gull on Davra’s back porch. Its feet slap against the wood as it walks at a skulk and then a strut, peering into the gaps between each board and darting its head forward to probe for crumbs.