Run Run Run

Last one home is a rotten egg.

Run.

Coach says if I make top two in the state I'll get a scholarship offer from every school in the country.

Run.

We saw red and blue lights flashing from the front yard at Kristi Fields' graduation party.

Run.

Becca asked if we were boyfriend and girlfriend now that we'd done it.

Run.

Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?

Run.

A knock on the door. Blood all over the floor, all over my hands, all over the knife. No one will believe the truth.

Run. Run. Run.

Man Out There

There was a knock on the cabin door.

Deborah looked at her phone. There was no service out here but it could still tell the time. 2:30 a.m.

The knock repeated, louder, more urgent. Perhaps someone was hurt. Or lost in the woods. But in the middle of the night, it wasn't her problem. She prayed for whoever was outside to just go away.

Deborah came to the cabin for peace and quiet. Now she was crawling on the floor as quietly as possible, peaking out the window.

Her worst fears were realized. There was a man out there.

Thank You Lady Erzulie

In her dormitory room, Evangeline examined the ‘Special Romance Candle”, which she bought today from Madame Laveau’s House of Voodoo on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

The candle was a plea to the Haitian spirit, Lady Erzulie, for assistance with awakening the attention of her classmate and unrequited love, Gabriel.

The clerk in the shop promised “An Evening of Unforgettable Passion.”

Evangeline placed the lighted candle on the table next to her bed and prepared for the spell to work.

She slipped out of all her clothes, climbed under the covers, and eagerly waited for a knock on her door.

From Guest Contributor Don Kirksey

'Tis My Life

A knock at the door jolts me off the sofa. I peek through the blinds then rush to the bedroom to throw on my favorite dress, hoping he’ll wait.

“I’m coming!”

I brush my hair and give myself a once-over in front of the mirror as I don my mask, careful to not snag my earrings. My phone dings. A text from him.

I dash to the door, but it’s too late. As he drives away, I feel sadness overtake me for a minute. Then I remember his purpose. Smiling, I look to the ground. My Amazon order has arrived.

From Guest Contributor Jennifer Lai

The Knock

There’s a knocking on the spaceship door when there shouldn’t have been. For Chris-sake, I’m umpteen millions of miles from anywhere and here’s this knocking. It’s deliberate, and it’s the all too common knock of: knock, tiddly-knock-knock, knock knock. Is this a space hallucination? I’ve heard of them, but hell’s bells, I’ve only been up here for 50 days, surely it couldn’t happen as soon as this. Oh, mother, it’s peering in the port-hole now and looks just like me. I do feel a bit lonely now, maybe we could get along. I’ve just got to get this hatch open...

From Guest Contributor Len Mooring

Happy Halloween

I’m driving home from Lori’s Halloween party when the car engine dies. It’s after midnight, the road is desolate, and I’m tired. I reach into my purse for the cell phone, but it’s not there.

Leaning back in my seat, taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. A knock on the window startles me.

“Miss, are you okay?”

It’s a man dressed as Count Dracula, his fangs scarily realistic.

“My engine died.”

“Let me look at it for you.”

As soon as I exit my car, Count Dracula grabs my purse and drives off in his truck.

Happy Halloween.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Blocked

“C'mon, Helen, add me back! I know you're still active.”

She knocked a few more times on the portion of the wall where the door had been, hopelessly. Livid, she cursed the day she granted Helen authority to set permissions in her house.

It was progress, they said, that rooms and buildings could be subject to malleable privacy permissions. But now, locked outside, she missed the days when connections were not so easily lost.

No message came from inside, but, crouched with ears against the wall, she thought she could hear the distant buzz of postings addressed to someone else.

From Guest Contributor Leonardo A. Castro