STAY UNTIL by J. Marcus Weekley

It’s amazing how you can’t get away from love. Even in a zombie movie, the heroine has to fall in love with a doomed hero who sacrifices himself so she can live. I’m craving beef. You can’t get a steak without blood, even well done, you know the blood has cooked around the meat, seared into it. I need someone. You feel it, inside, like something turning at the back of your throat, not quite a taste, because it’s before you’ve bitten into anything, but there, where your tongue meets your throat, there you know love. I want to taste you.

Currently serving time at Chili's in D'Iberville, Mississippi, J. Marcus Weekley also knows how to quilt, draw, and photograph, and is teaching his sister about sashing strips and binding. His work is in from four years, Look Out Below and Other Tales, and Texas Dance Halls, among others, which may be found at www.flickr.com/photos/whynottryitagain2 or www.lulu.com/whynottryitagain.

THE WEIRD GODS by Spencer Troxell

The weird gods climbed down from the moon, past low-hanging clouds and upon leafless treetops. Their unusual boots first touched ground in a parking lot in the city. The snow crunched.
“Probably we should eat.” Said The First. His beard long, his eyes
like strange reflectors.
“Probably indeed.” Croaked The Other. They stepped into the
shadows, and it wasn’t long before they found a meal particular to their peculiar sensibilities.
“To do down here, not much.” Said The First again. It was usually The First that broke the silence, and usually The Other that replied. This is how it had been for countless ages. The Other grunted in affirmation.
They stalked down the sides of the interstate. Vehicles hissed by on the wet concrete, illuminating the odd figures in flashes with their headlights. The gods stepped over fading soda cans and discarded plastic bags. A deer--blown open and decomposing--laid awkwardly in their path.
The Weird gods exchanged glances as they stepped over the corpse.
There was a small, silver diner up ahead. The First said, “I see
it.“ The other grunted. The bell on the door rang as they opened it.
There weren’t many patrons in the diner. The Weird gods took a seat in a corner booth. They looked at one another.


Eventually the waitress arrived, and, somewhat startled at their
askew appearances, asked them what they wanted.
“Just coffee.” Said the first.
“Coming, they should keep.” croaked the other. The waitress nodded in understanding and scurried off.
“Does you have the item?” Asked the other, breaking regular
formula.
“I does.” Said the first, withdrawing from his person a strange
little leather bag with a tight drawstring around the top. He carefully undid the drawstring, and plunged a cruddy finger inside. He withdrew a quarter. The Other smiled, and nodded in approval.
There was a little jukebox at the end of the table, next to the wall, as there is in so many roadside diners. The First pressed the arrow buttons on the bottom of it, and examined the lit up selections carefully before coming to one that seemed to satisfy him.
“Ah.” said the first.
The other grunted in response. The first dropped in the quarter, and pressed a button. The Weird gods folded their hands in front of them, and waited for their coffee. Just as they had done once a decade, for the last three.
The song playing ended, and a new song began. Their coffee arrived, with a pitcher so they could refill their cups as they wished. As the first notes of the new song began, thin, crooked lines began to spread across their faces, as the weird ones gave themselves to smile; a once a decade practice.
Patsy Cline sang, “I used to have big money, that was many moons ago…” And the weird gods drank their coffee. When the song was over, they got up quietly and went. They drank no more than two cups of coffee per, and left no tip.

Spencer Troxell lives in Cincinnati with his wife and two kids. He is pursuing a degree in Psychology at the University of Cincinnati, and works at a bank part-time to supplement the income brought in by his long-suffering, beautiful wife. His work has appeared at Why Vandalism, Thieves Jargon, Zygote In My Coffee, Word Riot, Eyeshot, Mannequin Envy, and a few other places. He keeps a blog at spencertroxell.blogspot.com

TROUBLE by Andy Henion

The new boss calls me into his office, in this case an extended cab pickup. He’s a small, energetic man with manicured fingernails and an associate’s degree in construction management. His father is the one who hired me, fourteen years prior, but is now semi-retired and fishing for marlin off a tropical coast. Like mine, the father’s fingernails are lumpy and discolored from years of meeting the business end of a hammer.

Is it cold out there or what? says the new boss. He puts significant emphasis on certain words and makes exaggerated expressions. In his hands is a gourmet coffee drink with a green sippy lid.

Your dad and I shingled in ten-below, I say. The old man took three bundles up the ladder at a time.

Yeah, yeah, he’s a legend. And he’s got the arthritis to prove it. The new boss takes a sip of his coffee drink and thumbs a drop of spittle off the steering wheel. It’s a brand new truck, special edition, glossy black with cream seating.

So, the new boss says. I understand you’ve been having some trouble.

You understand wrong.

Putting a drill bit through someone’s hand? Punching out a man at a playground? That’s not trouble?

Depends on your perspective.

Well my perspective is this. That man at the playground happens to be a friend of mine.

Then teach him some manners, I say, and stare at the new boss and his wide eyes until he looks away.

To the windshield he says, An employee who runs around maiming people would be considered a liability. A shrewd employer would not be wise to retain such an employee.

Out the window I see Hank standing near the truck, unable to look into the cab, and understand that he is the muscle in case things get out of hand. I shake my head. As the foreman, I hired Hank when he was still a teenager and taught him to hammer a nail straight.

Say the words, you fucking android.

You’re fired, says the new boss

There, I say, pulling the utility knife from my pocket. Wasn’t so hard.

I twist the blade into my palm. His face opens. Blood drips and splatters about the cab as I genuflect.

For the blood I have given this company, I say.

You crazy bastard! says the new boss. My truck!

And for the blood of my laboring brethren. Who must continue bearing your gross ineptitude.

Blood is covering wide swaths of the cab at this point, and I realize I’ve cut a bit deep. The new boss is pawing blood from an eyelid and motioning frantically for Hank. The coffee drink has spilled on the dashboard, smelling like a goddamn Christmas tree.

I step out to meet Hank, blood dripping from my fingertips. He’s a big kid, with a neck like a stump. I place my wounded hand in his, the other on his shoulder, and tell him it has been a pleasure.

Pleasure my ass, says Hank, smirking. You stay out of trouble now, you hear?


"Trouble" is the fifth installment in Henion's "Angry Suburban Guy" series. The first four ("Animals," "The Boss," "Sick Fuck," and "A Night in Vegas") appeared in Thieves Jargon.

JOY by James Pierce

“And the signs along the highway all said
Caution: Kids at Play.”
--Meatloaf

Joy parked her VW bug up near Cowles Mountain and, before long, we were both in the passenger seat, going at it while Springsteen’s “Thunder Road" played on some quiet FM station and a perfectly round, full moon watched over us in a sky devoid of clouds. She did this thing where she bit my earlobe and whispered that she loved me. It drove me crazy. Curved slightly on the right side of her mouth, her lips gave her a look as if she were always slightly amused. I wanted to touch her every time she smiled, put my hands on her body just to feel connected.

Months before, I saw her at an all ages club, and worshipped her while a band called DeadEnd covered Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face.” We’d been seeing each other ever since. She was smarter than I was, more experienced, and I still benefit, all these years later, from the things she taught me. Often while we were driving together, Joy would stop at a red light, and then—with a look of raw lust in her eyes--reach over and squeeze me on the knee. I realized over time that Joy’s every movement was intended so that I would learn.

During a pause, Joy turned her body to avoid the gearshift, her lips grazed my flesh (they felt like fire on my cheek), and she moaned a little in the back of her throat in a way that stopped my breath. I placed my fingers at the back of her neck, felt the soft intersection where her hair met her skin, and grew drunk on how her throat smelled like the cinnamon she’d had in a hot apple cider from Starbucks. I inhaled her scent, and then I pulled toward her me.

Gently, she rolled beside me and looked in my eyes. She seemed sleepy but content, as if I’d satisfied her in some profound and necessary way. “You’re so open to me, she said, almost sadly, “so innocent,” and then she touched my face with her outstretched fingers—her skin on my skin like a medicine, healing me.

This one night in her car, while we were parked on the mountainside, staring up at a moon that was bright, but offered no answers or insight, was long before the sky above us fell, long before I knew what was down the road, long before Joy pulled her car over to the side of the street not far from where we first made love just to tell me that there would be no more parking, that his name was Michael, and that, eventually, I would get over it.


James Pierce's work has appeared in various print and on-line journals including Flashstory, lingo, and The Dirigible. He calls Dubuque, Iowa his home, and wants you to know that the important parts of this story are true.

SNOW JOB by David Carver

When Fat Tony Corona pulled the gun, the cocaine was still on the table.

“Well, Chico,” he said, grabbing the blow and shoving it in the dufflebag. “It’s coming home with me.” He coughed one of his patented throat-full-of-mucus coughs. “And so is the money.”

“And if I try to stop you?” I said, not really scared as much as pissed off. I sat down in a chair at the dining room table. I watched him grab the cash and pitch it in the bag on top of the drugs.

“I’ll send flowers to your funeral.”

“Compassionate,” I said, oily with sarcasm.

“I’m thoughtful that way.” Finished with his packing, he took a seat opposite me at the table.

Fat Tony and I had been doing business for years, but lately he’d been using more of his own product, which had only made him nervous and sketchy. For example, I knew on good authority that he’d shot up an arcade, thinking that the bleeps and blips of the games were the oncoming sirens of law enforcement. He had also gone into debt, and was in big time to the usurers downtown. Rumor had it that if he didn’t pay, they’d soon be greasing the chassis of their Lincolns with his innards. And now here he was, taking my money to get himself out of his own scrapes.

But what was I going to do, tell the cops that I was robbed by the guy who sells me my blow?

Not hardly.

I’ve never looked good in prison orange.

“Can’t we work it out?” I said, as I dropped my hand beneath the table and worked it around the .45 I kept strapped to the bottom of the table.

“Not this time, Chico.”

My palm was sweaty, but eyes never left him.

I had a choice to make here, the kind you can’t take back.

Fat Tony laughed. “And what’s so funny is how life has been treating you lately. First I screw Sheila, then I screw you.”

My wife Sheila and I had only been separated a week.

Her idea.

“I didn’t know about Sheila,” I told Fat Tony.

“Sounds like there are a lotta things you don’t—“

Suddenly, the air exploded and my ears rang.

Tony’s eyes shut immediately, too soon to realize I’d made my decision.


David Carver enjoys flash/micro fiction almost as much as reruns of Happy Days. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is his first published story.