Jerry by Garon Whited Jerry woke with a headache, a nosebleed, and a terrible whistling in his ears. Against his better judgment, he opened his eyes. The turret was a mess. Red light pulsed everywhere from the emergency circuit. Several pieces of hypervelocity...
Lights by Garon Whited “He’s been here.” “How can you tell?” “I can feel it.” “Feel it. Hmph. At least I smell things. You just feel them.” A cold wind blew past the travelers, rippling their garments. Dust swirled around high, black boots—black under the...
No Angel by Garon Whited “This is Adam-Charlie-Three requesting backup at—” “Don’t do it, kid. This sort—” “—Sixteen-Eighteen Willow Street, Longbranch Apartments. Suspect—” “—of thing isn’t—” “—armed, with hostages!” “—going to end well for him.” “Sarge!” declared...
The woman fell when pushed, her hands outthrust to take the brunt of the impact with the flagstones. She raised her head and tossed black hair back from her face to glare at the man atop the dais. “You’re making a terrible mistake.” The man smiled, mirthlessly. One...
He was a young man, I thought. I didn’t even shave, at the time, but I still thought he was young. Rich, too, with fancy armor and a fancy sword and fancy cloak and the biggest horse I’d ever seen. I didn’t think much of him the first time I saw him. Maybe because...
I ignored the loudmouth. I’ve suffered worse than some schmo yelling at a movie theater screen. I felt sure he would quiet down once the picture actually started. Down front, however, someone else wasn’t quite so tolerant. The theater didn’t have handicapped...
Halloween is my favorite time of the year. The nights are cooler and longer, for one thing. Bugs have mostly packed it in for the winter. Leaves are changing color if they haven’t gone all autumnal already. Best of all, I get to leave off the theater makeup, cut...
Eric spent Halloween eyeballing some would-be wizards at a Halloween party on one of the mundane Earth-worlds. Whatever happened to that? Well… I, on the other hand, simply stood by, watching and waiting as they worked themselves to exhaustion. I was more than a...
I remember when I was in the late October of 1956. One of them, anyway. I was staying in a quiet little neighborhood reminiscent of my old place, when I lived in the Ardent farmhouse. I was looking to sit quietly and think, maybe recapture a little of the...
The Debriefing Three figures stood in darkness, the points of a triangle, above the circle of light. The subject of their scrutiny looked up and spun slowly, regarding each in turn. She paused when one of the figures spoke, voice reverberating slightly in the...
