"Little Terrorists"

My short story "Little Terrorists" is now in The Louisville Review.

Me and Walt were killing these terrorists because we had to rescue our buddy, who the terrorists had taken prisoner and were no doubt torturing to within an inch of his life. They might even cut his head off. But the terrorists had us pinned down on the other side of Mr. Buck's creek, about a quarter mile away from my house. We were huddled behind a tree along the edge of Mr. Buck's recently harvested cornfield, where rows of severed stocks stuck out of the ground like spikes. We used the discarded corncobs that littered the ground as grenades and I pulled one out of my jacket pocket. I flung it across the creek and made an exploding sound when the grenade went off. But the terrorists kept firing at us from all sides. It was no use. There was only one thing we could do. We had to charge and kill as many as we could. But just as we whipped around the tree, firing our pellet guns, a plane flew overhead continue....

"Riding the Storm"

"Riding the Storm" is in an anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Short Fiction

Clearing the Snow, Redivider
After he tried to slip his hand beneath her nightshirt, she rolled over away from him and curled up beneath the comforter. Darren rose up on his elbows, looked as if he was going to say something, and then started to reach over to touch his wife again, but stopped, and got out of bed instead. He left the bedroom, walked down the hall, and turned the light on in an empty room. continue...

Swimming After Midnight, Small Spiral Notebook
Nathan was late for work that night. He'd gotten interested in a TV show about the mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific in 1937 and lost track of time. Now that he was all alone in the house, he had the television on a lot, often without the sound. He liked silence, but not emptiness. The glow of the other faces, other lives, made him feel less alone.

Scratches, The MacGuffin
The girlfriend I had before I met my wife told me this story. I’ve invented some parts, filled in gaps, embellished, the usual stuff, but all the central events are true. . . . Both Anne and Seth looked through the grass again and saw their parents all naked, slipping into the creek like otters.

"Riding the Storm"
"Riding the Storm" is in an anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.
Standing in the hayloft of the old gray barn, I looked out the open hay shoot and watched the bruised blue storm coming toward us over the jagged mountains. Lightening from deep inside the storm sent white light bursting like flash bulbs against the dark clouds. For a moment I wondered what my wife and Julia’s husband were doing at the camp site up in the mountains. No doubt they were huddled in the tent, prepared for the storm, and wondering what happened to us down here in the valley.