dreamszilla

Sally is troubled by an unusual lodger, and fears her slothful husband will not protect her, in Joseph S. Bocchi's unsettling gothic tale. Sally was cooking dinner in the kitchen. Outside, little Janie was crying. She was screaming something about that midget. Kyle was in the living room watching television: a woman being chased down a San Francisco street. "Go out there and see where the problem is," Kyle shouted in to his wife. He was not angry, just distracted. A man shot the woman. Then a beagle came on and sang about pure beef. Kyle laughed. His thick lips shook. "She's scared of him, Kyle," Sally was yelling back at him. "Why don't you kick him out? Tell him you don't need any more handiwork done around this old house. Tell him your Aunt Bet is coming to live and we need his room. Bury him in the garden. Something. Anything. Use your imagination for once!" Kyle was patient. "Imagination don't pay the power bill, no...

Fiona confides to her ghost-friend that her aunt has been brought to their lake house to die; by T. D. Storm. Fiona scuffled over the sand at the resort playground, eyes closed and hands extended so she wouldn't run into the play structure. "Cherry bomb!" she shouted. Violet didn't answer. There was only the sound of gulls crying, tourists at the marina hollering to one another, and cars passing on Highway 42 - the typical sounds of summer. Fiona's hand met a pillar of the structure, and she felt along the bars. Nothing. She froze and stopped her breathing. She thought she heard Violet snort a little, like she was trying not to laugh. "Are you cheating?" Fiona said. She heard a thump in the dry leaves behind her, and quickly turned and opened her eyes. The sound was real. She hadn't imagined it. "Holy crud!" Violet said from atop the structure. "Is that a squirrel?" She said it just as Fiona noticed the subtle movement on...

Dr. Evans has been a doctor in a rough part of Hampton County, Missouri, for decades - but after the death of his wife, his gambling habit finally catches up with him; by Alexander J. Richardson. Dr. Evans leaned back in his chair as he pressed an ice pack against his black eye and wondered how in the devil he would ever make it out of this mess. Seventy-eight thousand dollars in the hole. Seventy-eight thousand! And there was nothing he could even hope to leverage it with. Any assets worth having, had been lost ages ago. He thought he had a sure-fire ticket on those college basketball games, but no. What a mess. What an awful mess. Fat Stevie's bruiser would be back by the end of the week. If Dr. Evans didn't have something by then, it would be worse. So much worse. "I can't pay if I can't work!" he'd said as the hired thug advanced on him. "This is madness, you brute! A physician requires cognizance!" "Real swell you got two e...

Abi Marie Palmer shows us an internet chat forum discussion about a desperate mother whose daughter suffers from spontaneous combustion. CuddleMama79 posted (3 months ago): Calling all parents! I'm posting on this forum because I'm at my wit's end. My 12 y/o daughter, Maddie, will NOT stop spontaneously bursting into a swirling pillar of flames. I have asked her to stop several times, grounded her, taken away her TV privileges etc., but she just keeps doing it. It's having a really negative effect on family life and has already caused lots of expensive damage to our property. Life has been tough enough, with my recent divorce and our move to a new city, and now this! Does anyone else have a child who catches on fire? What can I do to get her to stop? G1asgowGal commented (3 months ago): CuddleMama79, you're not alone! This is a much more common issue than you might think. The official term for this behaviour is "Adolescent Combustion Syndrome", or...

Lawyer Zachary has the soul of an artist, and struggles with the morality of helping his clients pay off debt with high-tech indentured servitude; by Gabriel S. de Anda. "I've been doing something wrong all my life," said the lady in the chair, more to herself than to the small clique of people gathered behind the glass partition. She lifted her head, eyes hot and moist, looking like the martyred Saint Sebastian, questioning Heaven's harsh justice. Just then they downloaded the PIT into her. The lights in the building dimmed momentarily. Her eyelashes fluttered as neural pathways were rerouted and sections of her brain were shut down. She ceased to be herself. The station attendant with the black armband removed the restraining straps and the wire leads plugged into the standard implant sockets behind the lady's ears and in her wrists. "By the power invested in me," said a uniformed bailiff who stood to the side, speaking more to the group of wi...