From "Lost Cargo" by Hollister Ann Grant

Wildlife photographer Jane Fogg witnesses the crash of a mysterious black triangle...

The triangle had to be over a hundred feet long. She reeled off more photos and then stuck her knee above the rim, hoisted herself up, and punched on the windows, but they turned out to be sealed. The sulphurous smell grew overwhelming. It was coming from the metal itself. Sickened, she wiped her face, crawled down the rim, and found an indentation that looked like a hatch, but it wouldn’t open, either. Then she discovered an ugly gash along the wood line.

"Hello, anybody in there?” she called into the dark hole.

Faint scratching came from deep inside the vessel.

“You okay? You need help?”

No answer. Maybe they were too injured to speak.

“You from the Air Force base?”

More scratching, then silence.

“You’re not a UFO, are you?” Some question. She flushed with embarrassment, and when nobody answered, she leaned further inside.

“I can’t get in there,” she explained to the crew she couldn’t see. “The opening’s too small. You’ve crashed in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., which I guess you know. I’m sure they saw you on the radar and they’ll send a helicopter.”

From "The Sixth Seed" by Lee Allen Howard

At the end of his rope, Tom Furst contemplates his family's spiraling circumstances and his wife's difficult pregnancy:

Melanie had been virtually comatose since lunch. Late that afternoon, he’d slipped into the bedroom to check on her and laid his hand on her warm belly. She didn’t stir. Faintly, almost imperceptibly, he felt the baby move. It made him smile.

His smile had died when he felt the child trace the outline of his outspread hand.

Stinging tears splashed over his cheeks and onto his bare chest. He let them come, swell, die.

“Why, God. Why? Why has all this happened?” He buried his face in his hands. “Are we going down the tubes? What have I done wrong?”

He cried harder, his shoulders racked with sobs he tried to keep silent. He prayed for forgiveness, for help. When the weeping subsided and a calm exhaustion settled over him, he rose and started upstairs.

From above, creaking. He froze.

Someone walking. Then a throaty retching, splattering, followed by something thudding on the floor.

He shook off his fear and ran up the stairs.

Gurgling with delirium, Melanie lay sprawled on the bathroom floor, clutching her swollen belly.