From "Memories for Sale" a novella by Karen Fowler

Nell thought back to that day as she rolled on to her side and hugged-up to her pillow. The memories didn't sting as much as they had just a few days before. Coming home seemed to have started the healing process. No longer vivid and garish, the memories seemed to be covered in gossemer, fading behind a curtain of time and forgiveness.

From "The Book of Awful" by Romi Moondi

"The Book of Awful" (a parody of "The Book of Awesome") is a guide to being grateful for your mediocre life, by realizing how much worse it could really be. Here's the beginning of the entry on ear/nose hair:


If Ear and Nostril Hair Grew Wild


Do I even need to explain it or are you already feeling grateful?


We should indeed be feeling grateful, but if you’re anything like me, we complain just a little too much.


Like that time I was on a subway and a beard grazed my naked arm.


I was halfway through “Eat Pray Love” and seriously rediscovering myself as a woman when I felt the first scratch. Memories of scrubbing pots and pans with a dried up brillo pad entered my mind, as the ends of the brown/grey beard began to scrape at my forearm. I followed the trail of the beard up the length of his chest and all the way up to the roots. On this harrowing journey my eyes spotted rogue beard pieces sticking out at wild angles, as well as many foreign scraps that had found their way into the beard, but sure as hell wouldn’t find their way out (twigs, the powdered fake cheese from a Cheeto, ketchup, a baby sparrow, etc.).

From "Storm World: Speaker Of The Gods" by Jonathan DeCoteau

John David, leader of the Knights Of The End Times, exposes the true nature of his apocalyptic order:


“I didn’t want to have to show you this yet, Samuel,” John said.

My hands shook and the light shook with them, falling down from carvings in the wall to catch the far corner of the room behind fallen piles of rock. The shaking rays of light caught rows of bodies, all wrapped in linen, except for the eyes, all mummified, some in kneeling positions, praying, some looking with empty eye sockets towards the ceiling as if it was the sun.

“What the—” I stuttered, backing up farther.

“Calm down, Samuel,” John urged, grabbing my wrist. “You don’t understand. Your family’s not who you think they are.”

I tugged my wrist loose, bruising it in the process. “I think I could’ve figured that out without seeing a hundred dead bodies,” I yelled.

“These bodies were here long before I came along, Samuel. Some are from the last flood and some from the old fire,” John insisted. “And some are older, much older. They are your ancestors and what became of them is exactly what will happen to you and your neighbors if your town doesn’t listen to what I have to say.”

From "Shattered Wings" by Bryan Healey

It should have been enough...
    I don't know why I didn't let him be there for me when I needed him most, when he was able to help me, when there was something from me worth saving. I don't know why I failed them so completely. I don't know why I let myself become what I now am.
    ...what have I done...
    The rain is coming down harder now, each drop larger than the one before it. I look up, but the water keeps me from seeing the menacing sky, illuminated only briefly but a silent crash of light. My hair is fallen and becoming matted to my forehead. I can feel the stain spread across my chest, and the water streaking down my cheeks in rivers, as though the world were crying in my stead. I must look an awful mess; and yet I will look so much worse in so short a time, as I squeeze the rubber grip in my hand, resting the steel comfortably against my thigh. The barrel is still warm from being so recently in use.
    ...I can still see his eyes...
    Odd, I think, to end here, alone in the rain...

From "Ratticus: A True Tale from Critter Corner" by Raymond Birdsell

We live in a very nice neighborhood of multi-acre lots and pretty expensive homes.  However – being fairly rural in nature and off the beaten path – so to speak – we are no strangers to the occasional critter.  My wife is much more sympathetic than I when it comes to the critters that have chosen our home for their temporary lodging needs – imploring me to capture that cute little mouse alive and let him go outside.  I’d like you to picture for the moment the sheer absurdity of me running around the family room with a large pasta strainer and a kitchen towel – trying to trap a mouse alive so I can make my wife happy by letting him go unharmed outside.  Moving furniture out of my way as I go one way and the mouse goes another.  Losing sight of it and giving up – only to see it running down the hall a few minutes later.  Finally evicting the mouse even though he is most likely simply running around the other side of the house and inviting all his friends to come in to watch the idiot with the pasta strainer.  I have no doubt that I’ve caught the same damn mouse multiple times at this point.

From "Zombies Eat Lawyers" by Kevin Michael & Lacy Maran

"Someone's getting sued for this." A harried lawyer kept repeating it to himself while curled under his desk in the fetal position. The Zombie Plague had come to the Law Offices Of My Foot In Your Ass, and litigators were turning into lunch. Justice may well be blind, but the undead overran the Attorneys offices with unadultered gore. The conference room turned into a blood-splattered tomb. Cubicles walled the workers in like prison. And the break room became the last refuge of the wounded survivors. It wasn't supposed to be like that. Especially not on Bagel Thursday.

From "Voice Mail Murder" by Patricia Rockwell

She felt waves lapping at her feet, pulling gently at her sides, but still allowing her to sleep, to rest.  She could see—well, maybe not see—creatures floating by.  Fish?  Maybe.  Large creatures, coming closer.  One looked very much like—Shoop!   Yes, there he was standing up on some sort of surf-board, his long, grey trench coat flapping in the tropical breeze.  And the man was barefoot!  What! she thought.  Shoop would never walk around barefoot.  Oh, it was a dream, she remembered.  It was Shoop, all right.  He was motioning to her, his face frozen in that infuriating smirk of his.  She couldn’t help but laugh as she glanced down at his shoeless feet.  He had his pant legs rolled up, supposedly, she presumed, to keep them dry, but that wasn’t going to happen.  He was drenched.  Still, he beckoned to her—wherever she was.  She wasn’t sure.  But he was looking right at her.  She could hear music—like that tinkling island marimba band music playing in the distance.  Shoop did a leap in the air, and he and his surf-board flipped around and headed out into open waters, overcoat flying in the breeze.