dreamszilla

High school student Michael Wimmer owes money to a dangerous acquaintance, and must undertake some detective work to make things right; by James Blakey. 7:38am I'm about to step off the bus and I make like a statue. Frank Samson is standing on the curb, between me and the school, dressed like an undertaker's apprentice: white shirt, dark tie, black slacks. "Wimmer, you're blocking traffic," a voice says from behind. Samson flashes a rat-faced smile and punches a fist into his open hand. "Move!" Someone shoves me. I tumble to the pavement. Frank takes two steps toward me, then I'm up and running for my life. I head left toward the staff parking lot. Two hundred yards and twenty-five seconds later, I look over my shoulder. No Samson. I'm sucking wind as I duck between a gray SUV and a fire engine red Mustang. If I can slip inside the school, maybe use the west entrance, I can avoid him till at least lunch. By then I'll come up wi

An ageing actor-artist is interviewed for a talk show after an old video goes unpleasantly viral; by DC Diamondopolous. Kit Covington sat on the sofa in her Pacific Palisades mansion with a cigarette lodged in the side of her mouth. A cloud of smoke floated around her head. She adjusted the oxygen tube in her nose, then brushed ash from her dog Muffin's champagne-colored curls. The miniature poodle dozing in Kit's lap startled when the camera crew from The Great Morning Talk Show banged equipment into Kit's antique furniture. "Watch it! You scratch anything, you'll pay for the restoration." Since her left lung had been removed, Kit's husky voice had a rattle that lingered between words chaining them together like loose ball bearings. "Sorry," the stocky, tattooed sound woman said. Kit wondered if the all-female crew was a set-up - some kind of knife-twisting in the gut. She'd been anxious about the interview and now regretted it.

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Four survivors of a cruise liner disaster compete for survival; by John M Floyd. Ross and McLane stood together on the grassy ridge, looking down at the coastline. "If he left this morning," McLane said, "he should be back by now." "He'll be back," Ross said. "I don't know. He told Susan there might be pirates about." McLane was leaning on a crutch he had made from a tree limb, and gazing at the spot where the beach disappeared around a peninsula a mile to the west. They knew which way was west, at least, from the sun. That was about all they knew. "Let's just hope he finds the boat." McLane nodded. "Or more survivors. Right?" "Wrong. We don't need more survivors. There's barely enough food for the four of us. What we need is the boat." All of them had seen it, just before dark last night - an empty rubber lifeboat, drifting in somewhere beyond the peninsula. "What if he find

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CJ Heckman educates us on how not to deal with new space mining recruits. The following transcript is provided as a training reference for prospective Corporate Family Liaisons. Let's take a look at what E[339033] did right with her orientation group and reflect on what she could have done better. E[339033]: "Hello, Everyone! Welcome aboard Interstellar Extractions Mining Installation Maverick-34! My name is Interstellar Extractions Corporate Family Liaison Employee Number 339033, but my friends just call me Employee Number 339033. I am so excited to get to know all my new Corporate Siblings! Who here is excited to start their new life as a member of the Interstellar Extractions Corporate Family?" The new hires cheer with an unacceptably low level of enthusiasm. E[339033]: "Woah, sounds like some of my new corp-sibs are still waking up from cold sleep! Let's try that again. Who here is excited to become a member of the Corporate Family?" The new

A woman attends her cousin's funeral and sees the kind of person he really was; by Bruce Costello. Surrounded by daffodils and stillness, my cousin Billy lies in an eco-friendly willow coffin, serene as a wax doll. I run a hand across his once flaxen hair. How strange. It's not him. Just a shell. Where's he gone? I bend down and kiss the shell's forehead. We were playmates as kids. We didn't like each other much but played well together. Our families stayed the summer holidays in Long-Drop Cottage at Kai River Mouth. Billy was nearly a year older, and he was a boy, but that didn't matter to me. Neither of us had brothers or sisters. It was just the two of us, running around the sand hills, playing on the beach, looking for lizards, searching for pretty shells, mucking about, as kids do. It came to an end when his mother and father caught us playing doctors and nurses. "My own son... a sexual abuser!" Billy's mother shrieked. "Hol

The phone rang at 8 AM. My son, Jay, said, “Hi mom, I wanted to let you know I will be praying for you and dad today, and I’d like to have coffee with you.” I said, “Thank you, son. We’ll have coffee together soon.” He said, “Well, if you will open your front door, we can have coffee now.” On the first day of my radiation treatment for breast cancer, he decided to surprise me and drove two hours to be at my house in time to have coffee with me. While we were having coffee, I told him that the morning before he came, I felt anxious and unsure of the choice I had made after finding out I had breast cancer. If I had chosen to have a mastectomy, I would not have to have any upcoming treatments. I chose a lumpectomy to remove the tumor and receive treatments to reduce the cancer’s chance of coming back. I prayed God would give me a peace that I knew could only come from Him, and I felt like God would place someone in my path that would encourage me. When I finished praying, I had a mes