Overdue

Dave looked at the dead body and expected a measure of remorse that never materialized. He realized the man's death had been completely warranted.

Murder, in both the legal and moral sense, can at certain times be justified. Self-defense is the most obvious example, but there are also cases of extreme mental and emotional abuse which absolve a murderer of guilt. Warfare allows for the killing of enemy soldiers even when on the losing side.

In this case, the pile of overdue library books stacked high in the corner gave Dave all the reason he needed to kill Mr. O'Leary.

The Field

They wanted to build condominiums there, but when the construction crew arrived, Rufus scared them away.

A cluster of songbirds burst from the long grass every time Rufus barked. The neighborhood knew that he commanded the abandoned field, not the city council, not the eager developers. The pitbull had fought off Animal Control and the Humane Society enough times to have earned his dominion in perpetuity.

Rufus wasn't a stray. He belonged to the field, ever since his former owner passed and left him to fend for himself.

Rufus would die before he allowed anyone to take away his field.

Lane Number Forty-Two

The Lucky 100 Bowling Plaza of Wahoo, Nebraska, always kept lane number forty-two cordoned off with a fancy red rope. On summer nights, the waiting room filled with families waiting to bowl, but lane number forty-two would always remain closed.

One particularly busy evening, Mickey Landsman was especially irked that he had to wait while there was a perfectly good lane not being used. But when he complained to the manager, he was informed that the lane was reserved for God.

As it turns out, when he has the free time, God visits the Lucky 100 to get in a few frames.

The Black Dots, Part Five

In my visit to the pharmaceuticals factory, I discovered that there was no black dot serial killer. The black dots themselves were the murderer. It was a virus that was being manufactured as a biological weapon and it had somehow leaked out of one of the containment units.

My attempt to see Mr. Dowling served two functions. I was hoping that he had access to an antidote, though I knew that to be unlikely. Failing a cure, I intended to infect him the same way he had infected me. Then we could die together.

In the end, I died alone.

The Black Dots, Part Four

By the time I got to Pine Hill, someone had warned Mr. Dowling of my impending arrival. An army of his goons were waiting for me outside. There was no way I was getting an audience.

I thought maybe they'd been warned about how I shot up the pharmaceuticals factory and they weren't going to let me do the same thing to Mr. Dowling's precious estate. Turns out I'd misread the situation.

I now had my own Black Dot on my forehead. It meant I had only a few hours to find a solution or I'd be the next victim.

The Black Dots, Part Three

No one could remember what the pharmaceuticals factory was built for, other than to pollute the entire city with noxious fumes and wastewater. It was owned by Rufus T. Dowling, the reclusive textiles baron who at one time controlled more than a third of the city's real estate.

Ever since his wife's death, he had rarely been seen in public and his empire was in decline.

Once I had learned the truth about the black dot killings, the first question I wanted answered was whether Dowling knew about the plot. That's why I drove to his mansion on Pine Hill.

The Black Dots, Part Two

The pharmaceuticals factory was something of a dinosaur, antiquated and larger-than-life at the same time. It loomed so ominously over the lake district that only the most desperate dared to visit. If there was a serial killer operating in its shadow, some of the more authoritarian city elders might have deemed it good for social welfare.

My sinking ship of a career cried out for me to catch the black dot killer, so I conducted the investigation alone.

Turns out I was right about the pharmaceuticals factory but wrong about the killer. The reality was even worse than I'd imagined.

The Black Dots, Part One

Every victim of the past month had been found with the same black dot tattooed to his or her forehead. We reported it to all the usual departments, thinking we must have a serial killer or cult on our hands. But each of the deaths appeared random, with a variety of causes and nothing linking them together.

The captain was mad at me so I was assigned the desk, going through all the case files. I was the one who discovered the connection, that all the victims had visited a certain pharmaceuticals factory on the east side before their deaths.

100 Words

They've given me 100 words to either make my confession or damn my soul for eternity. It makes me want to stop all together, not give them the satisfaction. I'd like to take Hell over their smug superiority.

But that's the kind of attitude that got me in here to begin with. You'd think all the time alone would have given me a chance to mature, but it's always the same. I can never yield, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

So it's time to make a decision, but it seems that 100 words wasn't enough and now I've run out.

Jane And Pedro

Jane and Pedro met at the local dance hall. He was too shy to ask her to dance, so they chatted by the bar. Pedro was handsome and impeccably dressed, with his silk shirt and leather dance shoes and his hair slicked back in the latest fashion. Jane wore a long skirt and talked incessantly about her work with learning disabled orphans. They found they shared a passion for artistic endeavors and smoking cigarettes.

They were both married to other people, which was a shame because they fell in love with each other about five minutes into that first conversation.