Category: Fiction

Though you grew up in the city, you always liked to look up at the stars. On those rare visits to Grandma in the country, you’d always take the time to sit on the porch at night once she fell asleep, open-mouthed in front of the TV. Lightning bugs would pop off like spark plugs…

“Promise,” she said. Usually her eyes reminded him of icicles. Gray-blue and bright in the light, but today they glared. Vince strummed his thumb across the top of Ava’s hand. The tendons were raised like guitar strings. “Promise,” she repeated. “Just us.” Vince’s mind was clouded with static and he struggled to organize his thoughts.…

My grandma lives in a double-wide trailer on an acre of land her husband left her. My family lives a few hours south, but I don’t get along so well with my dad, so I’m spending time up here. She bought the doublewide from a family whose father died of throat cancer. They had to…

All the girls in our town are assigned a corpse to carry once they’re old enough. It stays with you nearly forever, slung around your neck, or held in your arms, or somehow fastened to your body if you’re clever enough, or lucky enough to get help to do so. Boys don’t get corpses. They…

“The thing is,” Jacob said, “I just don’t want to be here.” “Well, it’s not really a choice, is it?” “Everything’s a choice.” There was honking, and the siblings looked up to see a dozen geese coming in for a landing, wings scooped back, pressing the air behind them, webbed feet stretched wide and peddling…

I wake up suspecting my horse is dead. I stand at my kitchen window and drink a glass of water looking out over the front yard.  Everything is bland in weak early morning light. Patches of snow still dominate. It’s April. It’s a consistent miserable. I know I need to put my boots on and…

IT WAS THE FOURTH OF JULY, and when he showed up it was still early enough that the heat hadn’t reached triple digits. The dry lightning–sparked fires that had burned for weeks across the border in California were still smoldering, sending russet clouds into a bloodshot sky. The mountains were nearly invisible in the haze.…

  NEVER USE THEIR FIRST NAMES, the trainer said, and don’t tell ‘em yours. You call’em Inmate Zamora, Inmate Kavanaugh, Inmate Benally. That keeps ‘em in their place. They hate that word “inmate,” so use it to your advantage. You’re the alpha dog here. You’re nobody’s friend.  You don’t get chummy with these scumbags —…

IT’S ALL A MATTER of public record—the grisly murder, the killer’s fetish for his hands, his mother’s red Kool Aid, the yellow clay of Belknap Creek, the yellow American Girl roses my sister-in-law keeps ordering. Even me, I’m part of those court records. But not every fact is in there. Some day next week or…