Original fiction written by S. G. Baker
When you found me at the flea market, you had on one of those ridiculous shoulder-mounted cameras. You probably uploaded your little cheap-market excursions online. Showing off your savviness. Your cleverness.
From my package, you read aloud, “Comes with knives.” Then you flipped me over, looking for the disclosed knives. “Hey, this one’s missing pieces,” you continued to the proprietor. “Can I get a discount?”
In the guise of your front door, I awaited your return home.
For weeks, I’d lurked there. You’d turned my limb shaped like your doorknob, not noticing the slight give to the bronze. You’d hung your Christmas wreath on the red door of my tongue, missing my fetid breath.
You’d missed my eye watching you from within the peephole.
Scorch marks and the shattered shells of holy water grenades littered the floor around us where you’d finally fallen. You lay cradled in my arms, your pulse…questionable. You’d lost your crusade.
I’d won. But I wished I hadn’t. Not yet.
Dusk comes earlier and earlier these days. Used to, the kids could play outside until almost 1 PM, but now they start trooping indoors at around 12:30. Another sixteen hours until daylight returns.
The cemetery hasn’t had a volunteer headstone cleaner in a long time, so I’m surprised to see you.
An obsessive amateur ghost hunter seeks a ghost caught on security footage in the company basement. But the ghost in question wants more fun than a mere budget hunt.
An abusive husband hunts down his hard-of-hearing wife and corners her in her mother’s barn. With the help of her hearing guide dog, she must face off against him when he opens fire on them both, threatening to drag her back to the home she escaped.
An exclusive, never-posted tale about our intrepid Hopeful Wanderer graces the pages of Texas High Plains Writers' most recent anthology — With Words We Weave 2022: Hope. A spiritual sequel to one of the web series flash fictions, "Occlusion" pits the Wanderer against an old, vengeful foe as their blood and everyone else's starts draining … Continue reading Book Release — With Words We Weave 2022: Hope
Rhythmic, echoing creaking drew me across flat empty plains to a flat, empty house. An untidy row of windows stared out from the house's weathered flanks at the setting suns blazing orange and purple across the sky. My favorite kind. Next to the house stood a tall, tall tree, beneath the branches of which creaked … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Call to Launch
No path ahead, no path behind. Just four flights of concrete stairs embedded into a hillside invisible beneath a blank blanket of snow. These, for some reason, just damp, not buried along with everything else. Upward, the pale hill sloped into the pale sky. Downward, more snowy hills rolled away into infinity. It felt like … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Open Me
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