Close To The Bone

18/02/2025

At ninety-one, Pat Morrissey was the oldest resident of Cape Advantage by four or five years but twice a day, he shuffled his walker down to the cul de sac at my end of the street, around the circular park with the oak tree in the middle, and home again. +++++He’d been a welder in the Portland Shipyard during World War II and lived in a squat green house at the other end of Waterford Street for seventy-some years....

At ninety-one, Pat Morrissey was the oldest resident of Cape Advantage by four or five years but twice a day, he shuffled his walker down to the cul de sac at my end of the street, around the circu…

31/12/2024

Malky was still thinking it over when they left the pub. Towser’s pal was, in common parlance, a gangster. In some ways the possibility of a gangster attending his stag evening was flattering. It had the makings of a great tale, one he could tell in decades ahead to his children and grandchildren. Though not to Connie. He’d never breathe a word about it to Connie.

'Malkied', by Steve Cashel is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-qfZ

Towser, who’d downed two pints while Malky had drunk two-thirds of one, leaned across in the first pub on Rose Street and told him, “That’s us. Everyone who said they’d be here is here. Time tae ma…

25/10/2024

Gabriel was coming home... and in a gray coat. Slowly, he hobbled on his crutches, now only several feet away from me. I saw a shock of red hair peeking out from the gray cap, his face worn and dirty. This was not the confident, devil-may-care Gabriel who left for war, but a soul who had been beaten up, spat upon and then inserted back into Gabriel’s body. What would his reaction be, after he watches his only brother shoot a bullet into the air at his approach?

'And Some Will be Gray', by Chere Taylor is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-7dw

22/10/2024

Merle wiped the blood off his phone and stuffed it into his jeans. He saw his reflection in the window of his car. He needed to wash his face before he went to Lu’s. It was hard to tell which bits were Hayley's bone, which bits were skin, and which bits were, well, brain.

'An Unfortunate Incident', by Steve Boseley is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-7dt

“Lucia, it’s me,” Merle said. “I’ve done something.” His voice cracked as he spoke. +++++“Merle?” Lucia looked back at her parents. “It’s late. My dad says I need to be going to bed.” +++++“I’ve do…

18/10/2024

Brody’s hand shoots up, signalling for me. He’s set up for the day, sitting on a milk crate underneath a well-worn canopy. With the wife-beater and ripped jeans over his crack-skinny figure, he’s enough white trash for the whole neighbourhood. There’s a tarp laid out in front of him for the kicks and comics he’s hoping to sell before the day’s out. I walk over and sit on the crate next to him.

'A World Within a Block', by Ryan Nachnani, is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2Vs

Ol’ man Sid don’t belong here. +++++He’s stirring up a scene down below, shooting so much spittle from between his rotting teeth I’m dodging droplets from a sixth-floor balcony. Surrounded by high-…

15/10/2024

I jammed my eyes open. The room spun a little, and I pulled on the chain attaching me to the ceiling, felt the hot pain of the cuffs biting into my wrists. I wanted to say something, anything, but then the plastic sheeting rustled and he was back, wearing a blood-stained apron that was so painfully cliche I had to physically bite my tongue from telling him that.

'Tool for the Job', by Emma McCoy, is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2Ua

I entered consciousness somewhere on the staircase, and immediately wished it could’ve waited until I had at least reached the bottom. My tailbone thudded painfully with each concrete step and my s…

11/10/2024

He unlatches her seat belt, shoves her against the passenger door, and propells her out of the car. Erica tumbles out the open door and falls on the grassy shoulder. The door slams shut. The car pulls away.
She expects it to stop any minute and turn around, but the tail lights disappear. She is alone on a gravel road bordered by trees and swamps. The moon disappears behind clouds. The dark is so deep there’s no road, only the sound of her breathing. The sound of wind in the leaves. How can Leo just leave her there?

'How Far Is The Gas Station', by Bonnie Stanard is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-7dC

“You think you were cool? Flirting with that guy?” Leo’s voice hit a new pitch. +++++“I tasted his martini, that’s all.” Erica turns up the music. The lyrics dovetail with the scene in the car: Wel…

08/10/2024

His least favorite question in the world was, “Working on anything new?” As his pen dried up, he felt like too much of a drunken fraud to maintain the bohemian artist façade, preferring drinking companions who knew nothing of his literary pretensions.

'Those Who Can't Teach Creative Writing', by John Scheck is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2U6

It was his eighth year at the state university extension campus as lecturer. He had no complaints about money, but he wasn’t popular with students, even by the lesser standards of this educational …

04/10/2024

I wormed my way through the crush of bodies to get close to her. Leesa turned her head to look at me. Up close, the butter-blonde a bad dye job. She smiled, though. I couldn’t believe my luck. The anger from my wrecked career and marriage, my lost reputation and months in prison I could never get back, everything but the Shelby, fell away to nothing when Leesa looked back at me in that moment.

'True Hunters Don't Bark', by Robb White is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2U4

01/10/2024

So there I was, wandering into that freakin’ tarot joint, half expecting a mystical light show or something. But nope, just this psychic lady who looked at me like she had my life story printed on her psychic palm. She motioned me over to this table covered in these funky ancient cards.

'Death's Labyrinth', by Mathieu Parsy is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2U2

If you really want to know, life was throwing me some serious freakin’ curveballs, and honestly, I was a complete wreck. The rejection emails for the jobs I applied for were stacking up in my mailb…

27/09/2024

Somewhere nearby in the empty desert, in a deserted valley among the dusty cactus scrubs, a guy in a convertible turned on the best quality high-powered metal detector money could buy on the black market. Military grade. He had hocked most of their assets to afford it but if his baby had timed things right and their assumption about the airline’s waste dumping protocols was accurate then he shouldn’t be that far away from a chunk of frozen blue worth a king’s ransom.

'Blue Ice', by Scott Macleod is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2TB

“Can I put in on just one more time,” she cooed batting her cobalt blue eyelids in the way that got her the stone in the first place. +++++The marshal knew better but agreed. The little marshal was…

24/09/2024

One of our men was wounded, so we went in, and all we found were these old men all fussing over a pineapple with their machetes. Now, normally I would have ‘em shot on principle–once you see a bastard with a machete, you can’t trust he won’t treat you like a pineapple when your back’s turned.

'Route 9/Lt. Tomb', by Sofie Matonis is the latest short story, available to read here at Close To The Bone.

https://wp.me/p1Zyqm-2Tz