Man's Best Friend

My wife said I treated Tobasco better than I treated the kids. I walked him three times a day.

I took him water skiing and skydiving. I fed him rib tips and chili for dinner. He's ridden shotgun

in my Ferrari more than my wife. She has a conniption because I gave Tobasco a 24-karat gold

funeral with a sterling silver tombstone and cremated her mother. The heifer didn't like me anyway.

Tobasco didn't complain about dinner, clothes, and require $1000 cell phones. He didn't fail in

school and talk back. Excuse me while I cry and blow snot everywhere.

From Guest Contributor Gary L. Dozier

1970s Justice

HISTORICAL FICTION SUBMISSION:

Nevada shivered from the rush of adrenaline. Life was not fair, so why should she be? She cried for justice for her daughter. He laughed. She had never fired a gun. So uninformed she didn't know if she held a rifle or shotgun, nor the proper distance from her target. She took the gun, the one he used camping and to bag deer, from his end of the closet. She did not know the blast radius or the kick that would knock her on her ass. She did not know how to hunt a moving target, but she could learn.

From Guest Contributor Leah Holbrook Sackett

Rabid

Sally sits at the dining table, scooping a spoonful of cheerios.

Her dog, Willow, begins to growl viciously. “Willow, what’s wrong?”

Willow snarls, revealing his sharp teeth. Drool dripping onto the floor. His eyes fixated on her. Ready to kill.

“Mommy! Daddy! Something is wrong with Willow!”

Minutes pass.

Sally’s parents run into the kitchen to find Willow is on top of Sally. His jaw locked on Sally’s leg. Ripping the flesh off. Blood gushing. Sally screams in agonizing pain.

Her father grabs the shotgun from the bedroom.

He takes a shot. Willow falls.

Sally is free, but bleeding heavily.

From Guest Contributor Alexa Findlay

Alexa spends most of her time writing fiction and poetry. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of three online literary magazines. She is obsessed with Disney and Jurassic Park. Her work has been featured in Pomona Valley Review, Better than Starbucks Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Halcyon Days, Grotesque Magazine amongst others.

Lunch With Maurice

I was doing time at another warehouse.Another W2 in a factotum year.Maurice, pudding formed with a handlebar mustache, sat across from me.He liked security. “I keep a weapon in every room. I don’t even lock my door. I have got a shotgun on the wall, a handgun in each room unregistered. I got a bat in the bathroom and a sword under my bed with a knife between my pillows.”“Expecting trouble?”“My dad was in the navy. Antiwar activists target the relatives of veterans.”Maurice was found dead in his apartment.Stabbed in the eye.From Guest Contributor Michael Zone

Michael is the author of Fellow Passengers: Pubic Transit Poetry, Meditations & Musings and Better than the Movies: 4 Screenplays. His work has been featured in Because Eileen, Dead Snakes, Horror Trash Sleaze, In Between Hangovers, Three Line Poetry, Triadae, and The Voices Project. He scrapes by in Grand Rapids, MI

Glanton's Visit

The Winchester Model ‘87 tore the first moon man in half at close quarters. The ancient shotgun had been a family heirloom and, legend had it, was successfully utilized in a bank robbery fifty some odd years ago down Tucson way. The relic still packed a powerful punch, as the bloody remains of the unwelcome visitor attested to.

Old man Glanton took another space critter down before what survived of their small party escaped in a silvery flying disc. Glanton spat tobacco into the dust and reckoned he’d better put on some fresh coffee before Bobby returned with the horses.

From Guest Contributor, Horrorshow

Cat And Mouse

"If I ever see you here again, I'll kill you."

So began their game of cat and mouse. Every night, Owen skirted past the Clover Patch, careful never to show his face where O'Riley might see him. O'Riley kept his shotgun under the bar, hoping for the day Owen crossed the bar's threshold.

Owen lamented he'd never again be able to sip of the island's best stout. It seemed especially unfair, with him being the bar's owner and its chief brewer, while O'Riley was just a bartender. Hiring a belligerent alcoholic to tend bar was in hindsight a poor decision.