Short fiction. Infinite possibilities.
SHORT STORIES
“The Black Box” (2025)
A fire safe recovered from a blaze on a university campus gives expert arson investigator Dick Byrne the evidence he needs to solve a cold case, but his investigation into the killer’s motives prompts more questions than answers.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (Nov/Dec 2025)
“The retired fire marshal looked thrown together in his rumpled winter coat, creased corduroys, and rubber boots but, as he turned into the beam cast by Engine 23’s halogen search light, Dawson could see that beneath the tousled gray hair was a resolute face set in stone.”
“Cocktails with the Whales” (2024)
Attending a lavish fundraiser held in an aquarium, oil company executive Sandra Bates comes to a fresh understanding of the corporate food chain.
With Adam Chamberlain.
Honeyguide (Issue 9)
“Perhaps it was the aquatic surroundings—the circular viewing ports filled with colorful jellies and anemones—that inspired such tactile sensation, but she would have sworn that she could feel the man’s eager eyes trailing like damp feelers up the exposed expanse of her legs…”
“Enemy Unseen” (2015)
At Bromsgrove School for Boys, a troubled student's obsessive behavior leads a teacher to consider the role played by science in the battle against the real enemy of World War I’s trench warfare: infection.
The Beacon (Issue 4)
“There was an enemy among them, every bit the equal of the villains on the Western Front, an enemy that delivered misery and death without need of artillery shells or armoured tanks. There was an enemy unseen, and it was to be fought with all the brain and mettle of the Empire.”
“Phantom Fury” (2014)
The Second Battle of Fallujah has left its mark on Gunnery Sergeant Gutteridge, a truth he is forced to confront when he is delivered a terrifying diagnosis by an army surgeon.
The Beacon (Issue 3)
“He held up the ghostly negative image for the soldier to see. More than a dozen fragments—some mere slivers, some great shards—were scattered across the radiograph, like daggers stabbing through the soft tissue.”
“The Rejuvenated Lojeski” (2013)
The Illuminating Lojeski is a washed-up stage magician with a secret so shameful that he is now hunted by a gang of desperate children through the streets of a lakeside town.
Live Free or Sci-Fi (Plaidswede Publishing)
Ego Comics Presents: Sleight of Hand (Vol. 1, Iss. 1)
“I don’t know much about the ancient secrets of the Orient but I’ve seen my share of eggs cracked into men’s hats and Lojeski’s powers of illusion were anything but extraordinary…”
“The Last Day of the Old World” (2009)
June, 1994. British North America is poised to land the first Englishman on the moon, but a humiliated Ministry of Spaceflight official is determined to see that celebrations are undermined by the empire's history of cultural erasure.
Columbia & Britannia (Fourth Horseman Press)
“In London, the shining silver Moon has risen above Buckingham Palace... We are told that George VII is watching from the vast Bow Drawing Room windows on the garden front as the Ministry broadcasts his voice across 384,400 kilometres and the vast emptiness of space...”
“Intolerable Acts” (2009)
February, 1776. In the colonies of British North America, a love triangle entwining three political powers—and inflamed by the release of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense—threatens to disrupt the course of its history before it has even begun.
Columbia & Britannia (Fourth Horseman Press)
“When a bullet slices through the air towards a man, he sees those phantom paths flickering in gun smoke before him. There is hope, there is chance, and there is death.”
“Off the Record” (2008)
When police and reporters converge on the scene of an industrial accident, the stage is set for an unexpected confrontation with Oklahoma City's most beloved costumed superhero, the Cyclone!
A Thousand Faces (Issue 3)
“Car Two-Forty, callers now reporting a metahuman already on the scene…”
“This Petty Pace” (2005)
Scientific advances allow a brilliant physicist and his eager protégé to become the first men in human history to look into the future, where they glimpse unimaginable horror.
Zahir (No. 7)
Ego Comics Presents: Sci-Fi for the Mind’s Eye (Vol. 1, Iss. 2)
Revelation (Vol. 3, Iss. 4)
“Tachyons, those quasiparticles traveling through the chamber at unfathomable speeds on a natural course from the future toward the past, were generating the expected radiation before even the first activation code had been entered. Our accomplishment was assured by an effect measurable prior to its cause.”
“Ego of the Ubermensch” (2005)
A court-appointed psychologist's encounter with Gamma Man, a superhero on a trial for negligence, leads to the realization that there's more to the superpowered men and women of America than the media typically portrays.
Ego Comics Presents: Last Call (Vol. 1 Iss. 4)
“Everything these capes do is on an exaggerated scale, even the rare emotional outburst. Gamma Man’s passion was in his glowing eyes, and there was pain in his booming voice.”
“The Eighteenth Hole” (2004)
When a crooked police captain begins cheating during his regular golf games with an obsessive partner, he fails to realize that he has started playing a far more dangerous game—and that he may be gambling with his very life.
Ego Comics Presents: A Few Bad Apples (Vol. 1, Iss. 3)
“A man leaves his bag and clubs in a closet, socks or covers over the heads to keep them shiny, but he can’t leave his approach to the game in that same closet. A man carries the sport with him always. ”
“Firewall of Heaven” (2003)
Sparks and Tin Vic spend their days searching a dangerous post-apocalyptic landscape for the survivors of a technological cataclysm, but neither is prepared for the conflict they will face when they finally discover what they've been searching for: heaven on earth.
Revelation (Vol. 1, Iss. 2)
“In the days before the war, some people had said that cyberspace was heaven. Some people had believed it.”
“Feline Intuition” (2003)
A newspaper copywriter takes to the streets following an earthquake to pursue his dream of becoming a reporter, only to encounter an obsessive who proclaims that the city's cats have foretold a still greater cataclysm.
Revelation (Vol. 1, Iss. 1)
Quakes & Storms (Sprott)
“Missing: One large calico cat. From Clark Circle. Answers to Misty. Please call.”
“The McMillen Golf Penalty” (2002)
Virginia’s McMillen State Penitentiary is as harsh as any high security prison, but for one inmate, the facility's weekly miniature golf games offer an opportunity for escape.
Winner of the Shannon Searles Fiction Prize.
Connecticut Review (Vol. XXIV, No. 3)
Weston (Spring 2003)
