Zip Bombs

Six nuclear bombs head for Russia. A short time later the world’s arsenal is launched. Life on the planet changed overnight.

Jon is hiding in a barn with other civilians. As soldiers break in Jon transforms into a pile of hay bales. Soldiers gather the civilians and escort them to camps. Julie, still in the barn, escapes detection because she‘s covered in hay bales. Jon saved her life. Jon changes back to human form.

Afterwards Jon and Julie become best friends. Months later, Jon tells her his secret. “Those six nuclear warheads, they weren’t bombs, that was me,” says Jon.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall

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Bobby carted the bin out by the hose and sighed.

This would take a while.

He started loading water guns, blasters, soakers, super soakers, water cannons, squirt guns, water pistols, pump-action blasters, pressurized water guns, and dual water blasters. Then he filled water balloons. What good soldier would go into battle without grenades?

He plugged every aperture, dumped his arsenal in the boat, surveyed the other canoes. Bobby hopped in, skimmed his hand across a super soaker. He imagined the jetting stream–-its range, accuracy. He envisioned drenched shirts and squealing.

No one would find this enjoyable, he cackled, no one.From Guest Contributor Joseph S. Pete

Joseph is an Iraq War veteran, an award-winning journalist, an Indiana University graduate, a book reviewer, and a frequent guest on his local NPR affiliate. He was named the poet laureate of Chicago BaconFest 2016, a feat that Geoffrey Chaucer chump never accomplished. His work has appeared in Chicago Literati, Dogzplot, shufPoetry, The Roaring Muse, Fictitious, The Blue Collar Review, The Five-Two, Lumpen, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Pour Vida, Pulp Modern, Zero Dark Thirty and elsewhere. He once Googled the Iowa Writers' Workshop. True story, believe it or not.