Author
Michael Haynes
Blackwater Sound
The sun was below the horizon and dusk quickly fading as Lee Cortez pulled his truck off the road into the gravel parking strip separating Highway 1 from the quiet depths of Blackwater Sound. He yanked a ratty camp chair from the truck bed then went back to the front. He…
Three Things Cameron Couldn't Tell You
When the two of you met that day, seemingly by chance, near the grocery checkout, there were three things Cameron couldn't tell you. The first was love. That since those days when you'd been much younger, when you'd both been grad students working in the labs, Cameron had been…
Who Wants to Live Forever?
Leon shut down his computer, left his office, and walked to the bus stop as quickly as his aching knees and the icy sidewalks would let him. "Come home. Please?" His wife Carol had said when they had spoken on the phone moments before. "Our letters came." On the bus, he wondered…
Messages and Messengers
I met the old man a week after his 100th birthday. His nurse let me into his apartment and left without speaking. "You're late," were his first words to me. "I'm sorry, sir. The checkpoints--" "Of course the checkpoints." His country had dismantled little of the security…
Miranda, Joe, and the Little Green Man
Miranda waddled into our cabin, something green and many-limbed squirming in her arms. "Dammit, Randy!" I grabbed my sidearm. "What have I told you about bringing critters into the house?" She dropped the thing on the floor and closed the door behind her. "But, Pa! This one…
Miranda, Joe, and the Little Green Man
Miranda waddled into our cabin, something green and many-limbed squirming in her arms. "Dammit, Randy!" I grabbed my sidearm. "What have I told you about bringing critters into the house?" She dropped the thing on the floor and closed the door behind her. "But, Pa! This one…
Four Movie Reviews from after the Zombie Apocalypse
Star Wars XIII: Jar Jar's Redemption The latest entry in this shambling hulk of a franchise has the stench of decay around it. (Too soon?) Contrary to popular belief, the zombies which have appeared in our population in the past year do not have reduced intelligence. Whether the…
Playing the Percentages
Gerard sat in the awkward waiting-room chair, bouncing his right leg up and down. The door from the scanning room opened and Emily walked out. She gave him a smile, but he saw it didn't reach her eyes. She hurried across the room and sat in the chair beside him. A moment later,…
Book of Love
I came in from the snow, curses rolling around in my head. A day didn't go by without me wondering how I'd come to this. A once-upon-a-time god reduced to trolling for humans desperate enough to believe in something that surely sounded crazy. There was a man sitting at the bar…
Private Memories
I watch you commit suicide for the fourth time. This time I almost have you talked out of it. But something happens, I don't know what. And the gun's in your mouth and you've pulled the trigger before I can even react. I scream out your name, but it's too late. You're falling to…
Scraps
Kelly signs for possession of the fireproof box and wonders what her mother had felt the need to protect. No jewelry, that all would have been hocked years ago--cigarette money. Back when they still talked, Kelly always told her mom the cigarettes would kill her. She hadn't…