The shirtless boys on Snow Street have sharp sticks. They jut ‘em up as we walk by. “Wannan’ apple?” What they’re offering: Rot. Overripe, bad juice dribbling down dirty wood into dirty fists curled tight around the only things they know. Red as a beating heart, brown as earth, stuck on the tip of a…
Once the sirens stopped, Max picked himself up from the pavement, donned a bear suit, and trudged across the 10th St. Bridge in search of food. Never in his life could he recall feeling such a hunger. It gripped his cavernous insides like moss to a stone wall. Beneath an overpass he nosed at a…
Stew’s father had always said disaster was inevitable and, staring at his pickup wrapped round a tree, Stew could see that he was right. Of course, it might have been more useful had he told him “Never let a chicken drive your pickup.” Then, it might not have wound up where it was. The chicken…
The notice was pinned to the cafeteria bulletin board next to the company luau flyer. NO MORE BOBS! Bob ate his croissant on his coffee break and stared at the bulletin. When he asked Carlos what it meant, whether it was some kind of joke, Carlos shrugged and went back to reheating his curry in…
Chapter 1. One hell of a turn out You order your coffee from the ghost that looks almost exactly like the barista rather than the barista herself. Originally an honest mistake, this has become the running gag between you three. You and the ghost snicker while the barista acts left out, then you all laugh…
When Sally McReedy broke up with me, she used a slingshot. It took a team of surgeons three hours to exhume the ring. “Does it hurt?” Sally wants to know. She’s sitting in a plastic chair opposite my mechanical bed, grinding molars, twirling a #2 pencil around her thumb. I try to nod, but the…
She told me she came from Doggerland. I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted out to sea. All I could see were cockle pickers, dogs running on the beach, and an old trawler slowly shunting its way out towards Scandinavia. Land masses are few and far between in that direction; at least, they…
Any novel with a Pez dispenser on the cover is worth checking out—even more so when the dispenser sports a skull as its top. Jordan Rothacker’s debut novel, And Wind Will Wash Away, is an ambitious blend of religion, history, and the classic detective novel. Rothacker shared his thoughts about the novel, and more, in…