Author Archives: susan

Word Count:  467 It was your birthday present to yourself. You’d saved up in a special account just in case you were still single when you turned thirty. It isn’t right, you know this; it isn’t the way it should … Continue reading →

Word Count:  507 His preferred method was strangulation. His favorite means was a pair of their own silk panties. He liked lacy, black or petal peach, and he really didn’t care for thongs. He liked to take them first to … Continue reading →

Word Count:  358 Somewhere in the darker rooms of the mind are stored bad memories fed by years of fear. With time they grow up and scratch at their gray-mattered walls. The psychiatrist was helping me, bit by bit, to … Continue reading →

Word Count: 459 “Not now, Timmy, I’m making dinner. Go ask your father.” “Let me just sit and relax a minute, will you, son? I’ve had a hard day.” “Come on…please? Pleasepleaseplease? You guys are always too busy to play … Continue reading →

Word Count:  385 He was hot and cranky in his Mr. Peanut costume and he still had one more gig to go. St. Lawrence’s school up in Rochester. It was already 2:30 p.m. when he got there a half hour … Continue reading →

Word Count:  344 “Did you kill it?” she asked him. “Yes,” he replied. She meant the spider; he meant the fly. He knew that, of course, but said nothing. “I swear,” she said, climbing down off the chair in the … Continue reading →

Word Count: 313 It was at the cabin she’d taken over after her father had died where they had their worst argument yet. “Why are they called Endless Mountains,” he said, “when there’s obviously a beginning and end. Don’t even … Continue reading →

Word Count:  310 They told her he was bad but of course, she didn’t believe them. Young girls believe in the power of love, nothing more. It’s new to them, you see, to have someone who tells you that you … Continue reading →

Word Count:  372 The worst horror of all is not in that instant when you recognize the possibility, nor in the aftermath of the event. It is rather in the slow motion happening, the thousand and one frames that make … Continue reading →