As Claude prepares his surgical instruments for Plain Jane, a petite prostitute he brought back to his motel room, she unnerves him with her cravings for alcohol, inexplicable incidents that belies her plain appearance, and knowledge of the Las Vegas serial killer. Naked underneath a ceiling mirror that exposes all, the wild and passionate sex of a one-night stand begins. One will walk out alive, the other in small pieces.A shorter version of this 3,730-word short story was first p...

A trio of short stories about spiritual faith in uncertain times."A Leap of Faith" - A young man contemplates suicide by leaping in front of a speeding train when an old bus driver shows him the miraculous wonders of everyday living that makes life more meaningful."The Devil Came A-Collecting" - A middle-aged man wakes up at midnight to find the devil from an old amusement park ride waiting to collect his little boy soul for a sin he committed in kindergarten."Saved...

An experienced contractor runs the gauntlet for a late night tech job at a financial institution in the heart of Silicon Valley, getting past the trigger-happy security guard, dealing with younger co-workers who expect to get paid fabulous money for doing nothing, and saving a desperate project manager when everything goes wrong.This 4,190-word short story was first published in Fictionaut (02 January 2014).

After confronting a prominent attorney with three young sweet things for not leaving a generous tip, Charles Goodwin, the cannibalistic owner of The Giggling Mongoose, fumes at not being able to teach the old goat a lesson in restaurant manners until the scorned wife makes him an offer he can't refuse.This 5,530-word short story was first published in "Behind Locked Doors" anthology (Wicked East Press, March 2012).

If you're ever invited to attend the Apple Store Job Fair at the Cupertino headquarters, don't drink the water. The employees pushing the cold bottles of water are store managers. If you find yourself with an urgent need to urinate during the two-hour presentation and activity session, don't use the restroom. You will piss away your job interview if you do.An original 8,300-word essay being published for the first time.

Have you ever wondered how far a grandmother would go to get the hottest Christmas toy for her baby granddaughter? I never did until I witnessed how desperate my mother was to get a Cabbage Patch doll in the early 1980's. A fist-punching brawl between mothers and grandmothers at Toy "R" Us that forever changed my childhood.A shorter version of this 950-word essay was first published in Soft Whispers Magazine (November 2009).

After a retired U.S. Marine sergeant evicts a group of pot-smoking, beer-drinking and promiscuous teenagers from the back stairs of his apartment building, they return that night for cold revenge and dump his dying body inside a shopping cart into the dumpster. His fighting spirit refuses to rest and takes possession of the shopping cart to hunt them down. Their worse nightmare is an enemy that hides in plain sight.An original 9,000-word short story ebook.

After his uncle disappears into the forest with a bucket of lard in hand, Little Billy and his grandfather tracks him down to an isolated area of the family ranch. Along the way he learns about the birds and the bees, what being a girl-crazy teenager meant to his father and uncle, and the dangers of putting his stick into the larded knothole of a tree possessed by something more angrier than a disturbed beehive.An original 2,515-word short story ebook.

A trio of short stories about traveling to strange worlds."Silent Observers" - After a deaf person leaves behind a pen and card requesting a donation, money wasn't the only thing being collected. A team of xenobiologist students from another planet are monitoring the eating habits of humans in their most natural environment: the shopping mall food court."The Kitterun Five Tourist Trap" - Although Humans and Kitteruns (a feline-humanoid species) are the most physically compa...

After Alejandro the waiter performs a new magic trick that humiliates him in front of the whole kitchen, Johnny the pot washer comes up with a new magic trick of his own to serve up a cold dish of revenge.An original 2,190-word short story ebook.

Claudia and her three guy friends get more than they bargain for when they pick up the mysterious girl in white hitchhiking on the I-5 in Southern California. Their late night road trip to Mexico takes an unexpected detour when their new friend taunts them about vampires being evolutionary dead enders. With fangs bared in the glare of the headlights, a deadly secret is revealed in a battle royal of the sexes.This 4,975-word short story was first published in Fem-Fangs anthology (Pi...

John Wormwood, a veteran news reporter for The Silicon Valley Gazette, witnesses a satanic human sacrifice that opens the bronze doors of the Rodin's The Gates of Hell statue at Stanford University, unleashing the Horseman of Death into the world, and runs for his life with the biggest Pulitzer Prize winning news story of his career.This 5,340-word short story was first published in Strange Tales of Horror anthology (NorGus Press / February 2011).