dreamszilla

During World War II, four Norwegians undertake a treacherous mission to pick up a British agent, and a gift for the Norwegian king; by Lee Conrad. Icy winds and grey waves from the North Sea pounded the Lunna shore on Shetland Island off the east coast of Scotland. Fishing boats tied up at the dock bounced like corks. A small cutter called Blenda, contained extra gear, the kind not found on a fishing boat: weapons, ammunition, and a radio transmitter. The Blenda was Norwegian and the four men on board, including Captain Dag Haugen, were Norwegian members of the resistance against the German invaders of their country. They were to take a 200-mile trip from the Shetlands to Norway. The voyage was dangerous for many reasons - weather, rough seas, and patrols by German aircraft and patrol boats. Added to the danger was the insertion of agents and supplies to a Norwegian coastline bristling with German troops. The Blenda was to rendezvous with members of the major resistance force in Nor...

A group of petty crooks are just hanging out when their buddy Chad announces that he's pulled off a daring stunt that will change everything for them; by Alexander J. Richardson. Angel and Warren were playing cards next to a roaring fireplace. Over the fireplace was a modified rifle with an extended magazine. Chad came downstairs in his undershirt and briefs Chad. He rubbed his eyes, and when he pulled his hands away there was a mischievous grin on his face. "You gonna look at me like that with flag at full mast," Warren said, wagging a thick finger at Chad's underwear, "might be I'll pop you in the kisser." "I did something last night," Chad said, and despite the cold room he didn't shiver. "Something that'll take us next level." Warren nodded to himself a few times, his chins bobbing. "Yep, yep," he said, "now I definitely want to lay you out." Warren was bundled up in a thick parka that made...

Jared Cappel's comedy about a book club full of colourful characters, meeting to discuss Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs. The elevator wasn't working. Of course it wasn't. Someone would have to pay to get it fixed. A faded sign thanked the tenants for their patience. A twisted ribbon of caution tape sagged to the floor. Wallace couldn't help but laugh. Much had changed over the past decade, but Tiger's apartment was immutable. Wallace found the stairwell and started upwards, sidestepping the vomit on the second-floor landing. By the fourth floor, he was out of breath, blaming his cigarettes while craving another. Through heavy breaths, he heard a clamoring overhead, like a man trying to force a couch into a hatchback. Right away he knew it was Tiger. Tiger had a rusted bike over one shoulder and a precarious hold of the stairwell door with the other. He smelled of stale pot and cigarettes. Electronic music blared from an unseen speaker. In any other buildi...

Have you ever traveled down a road one way and noticed that things looked very different when you come back from another direction? Sometimes, when we change our routine, our world opens up a little more, and we see from a different perspective. This time of the year, I have a morning routine that seldom changes. I leave the window by my bed open just a little to hear the dawn chorus that starts in late April to early June. Our backyard fills up with all kinds of birds. Their beautiful chorus sometimes begins as early as 4:30 AM. I listen until just before daylight and then get up, make coffee, wrap up in something warm and sit in my back yard to watch as they all come together to meet and greet each other around our bird feeders. Sometimes, a couple of deer sit at the top of the hill and watch the birds with me. However, recently I’ve noticed they’ve been focusing on our blueberry bushes. While tackling spring cleaning chores this week, I decided it was time to take the drapes do...

Gayle, a single woman living in Boston, befriends a twelve-year-old boy who unwittingly introduces her to a new experience; by Richard Seltzer. In a rare moment of silence, Gayle heard a bed squeak rhythmically. The Greeks had finished their argument. It was twilight. Across the alley, lights were going on one by one. Through an open window, she could see the old woman, still mopping. Occasionally, she heard the water sloshing and the clank of the pail. Sounds carried strangely in the narrow heat-charged alley - like disembodied spirits, they roamed and reverberated. One moment what happened close at hand was almost inaudible. The next moment a slap behind a remote window resounded clearly. Her phone rang. Gayle picked it up. No one was there. She could swear the call was for her; but no, it was someone else's phone ringing in some empty apartment. She returned to the barrage of noises at the open window: the Greeks, the trucks, the record players, radios, and television...

Jeweller Waseem suggests his wife Nada helps him with the finances, and makes a propitious sale; by Anna Halabi. The silence was deafening. Nada sighed and tapped her fingers on the dining room table. She examined her fingernails and frowned at the new coat of bright orange polish her neighbor had painted on them this morning. It was definitely not her color, she decided. She glanced at her husband across from her and sighed again. He was fumbling with a gold necklace. His loupe was clamped to his old-fashioned aviator glasses. Nada cleared her throat. "Who's that for?" she asked. "What's for whom, Habibti?" mumbled Waseem under his breath. He turned the necklace in his fingers and examined it closely. "Who's that necklace for?" said Nada, impatiently. "What necklace, Habibti?" he asked. He squeezed the pliers in his hand and stuck his tongue out in concentration. "The one you're holding in your hands!" ye...

via American Short Fiction https://ift.tt/3agRvM5

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via American Short Fiction https://ift.tt/3d8GT3u

An old space soldier wakes up in the future, and seeks out the descendants of the troops that died under his command; by Enoch Daniels. Sam fingered the patterns in the little square of fabric. Stars and Stripes. The Old Red, White, and Blue. He wondered that it could mean so much to him and nothing to the woman across the living room. He tried his best to return her hostile gaze with a look of amiable patience. "You look like an InterGuv man, Mr. Stalliard." The woman, Leta, looked stern. She was a gatekeeper, and he was storming her gates. "I assure you, I am not," said Sam. "First time I even heard that word was two months ago." She did not reply, merely sniffed, looking suspicious. They sat in the living room of her farmhouse that could have been a set piece from a hundred years before Sam left Earth. He hadn't seen another living soul for twenty miles around this place. Still couldn't believe he'd found it. The place was old and l...

Richard Seltzer channels Catch-22 in this story of a group of bitter reservists on basic training in an army barracks that's seen it all before. Building 3926, Fort Polk, Louisiana, was a "temporary" structure - a white clapboard oblong rectangle, hurriedly thrown together, like hundreds of other army barracks. Its first tenants were recruits and draftees bound for the Pacific in World War II. Cycle after cycle were trained and shipped. Then the war ended, and the barracks fell silent, except for the bats that nested under the eaves, like ghosts returning to curse drill sergeants who had not pushed them hard enough, and not taught them what could have kept them alive. Later, when a "temporary" war broke out in Viet Nam, the "temporary" barracks was reopened. Exterminators were called in to eliminate the bats, but while individuals could be killed, their kind was indestructible. At dawn and at sunset, their eerie forms hovered high above the eaves,...