Fire In The Sky

As Henry steered the plane toward the bombing area, he said a silent prayer and kissed his wife’s picture. Bullets filled the air and planes dropped to the ground crashing into enemy lines.

Henry grasped the control and took a deep breath. He ascended and dropped the torpedo onto enemy territory, and then his comrade yelled in hysterics.

“The engine was hit. We need to jump!”

Henry grabbed the picture of his wife Maggie, attached the parachute and together he and Stan jumped into the air just in time before the plane exploded into pieces, creating fire in the sky.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Alive

Guns roared and bullets skyrocketed past my head. I ducked and took deep breaths. The man next to me bled out. There wasn’t anything I could do.

“Retreat,” the lieutenant yelled.

Retreat where, I wondered? I reloaded my weapon and aimed at anything coming toward me.

It was chaotic. Men screaming, bodies strewn everywhere. If I got out alive it would be a miracle.

Something hit me from behind. I looked and my stomach bled deep red. I crumpled to the ground, then everything went black.

When I awakened, I was on a stretcher in a helicopter.

I made it.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

'13-Shot’ Frank

The Old West had its deadly gunslingers like 'Wild Bill' Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday. Then, there were poorer slingers like '13-Shot' Frank. Yes, Frank had lost 13 consecutive fights and had the bullets in him to prove it. Still, he limped on to his 31st birthday.

Doc Jenkins had pulled him through each time, unable to extract a single slug. He was called by Frank's landlord to the bedside.

"Can you keep him alive for a couple more rent payments?"

Was this the end? Doc Jenkins could handle wounds and fractures. But chronic lead poisoning was another matter.

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Battlefield

The bombs come at us in droves, the sound deafening. I run across the field dodging bullets and falling bodies, the few men alive still in agonizing pain. Our trench is ahead, and I just need to get there.

Another round of gunfire and screams echoing across the battlefield. My heart pounds heavily and I find it difficult to breathe.

A bullet knocks my helmet off and I’m unprotected.

Someone yells cease fire, grabs my arm, and throws me to the ground. The gunfire has stopped but we’re crawling.

A few feet and we make it safely across.

For now.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Survival

The bombs are exploding, but I don’t look back. My son is screaming, so I grab hold of his hand tightly and run.

Bullets riddle around us and people collapse to the ground. 'Keep going' my mind tells me and I do just that. The boat isn’t far, we just need to make it to the border.

“Hurry,” I say to George as he looks at me wide-eyed in fear. “There’s the boat he promised us. Quickly, get in.”

The rower says nothing as he helps us. His expression is of despair and loss.

We are the fortunate who survived.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Great War

The gunfire in the near distance didn’t faze me after ten months of war. I had a job to do and with few hours of sleep and lack of food, the lieutenant couldn’t believe my energy. The truth was, I hid my exhaustion because the men needed my surgical skills.

I operated on an eighteen-year-old boy who took two bullets to the leg. By the time he came to me, it was too late. I had to remove it, or he’d die.

The captain said ‘The Great War' would end soon.

I wished I believed him as another casualty arrived.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The (Mis)Fortune Of Having Been There

The shadows that lurk in the background carry the suggestion of prison stripes. Cary Grant picks a flake of cigarette tobacco off his tongue. This whole time the Ferris wheel has been spinning in the traveling carnival of his mind. He doesn’t try to reason with the gods but mocks their Greek robes. Then, as night burns to the ground, he discovers the perfect partner in Rosalind Russell, who spits words the way a machine gun spits bullets. She knows without having to be told that movies are just life enlarged. There’s no one to feed, nothing to feed anyone. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of more than two dozen poetry collections, including most recently The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press), The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro Press), and Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing).

Sniper

As if part of the land Masha merges into the rubble. A file of battle-weary Wehrmacht fighters passes.

The last is in her sights.

She had hunted deer in Siberia. They never detected her, so camouflage in Stalingrad’s snow-clad ruins is easy.

Deer, she respects, sharers of the Motherland, killing only for meat.

These Nazi scum are vermin. She would exterminate them all if she could.

She aims for the chest to mortally wound. He falls.

Two comrades rush back to help.

Her next two bullets pass through their foreheads.

She scurries off undetected, three more notches to her name.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Bad Escape

Alcatraz, 1938.

Prisoners Nick and Daryl were aboard a boat to Alcatraz. The boat collided with a rock and turned over. Nick and Daryl swam to shore followed by a guard. He knocked them out. Outside of the prison Daryl grabbed the guard's gun and shot him.

With Nick, Daryl ran from the loosened dogs and guards. They found a boat. The warden followed as the men stole the boat.

'This is the life' cried Nick.

'Hungry for bullets?' called the warden as he shot Daryl. Nick, an identity thief, shot back.

Nick lived another fifty years as a warden.

From Guest Contributor Bayley Kelly