Takeda by Christopher A. Walker

From the plane window, Tokyo yawns gray and endless. At this altitude, it all seems still, like a diorama. Despite the serenity of this quiet scene, I can’t shake this twinge of panic that haunts me every time I get on a plane.

It’s been some time since I was last in Japan. One day I’d like to visit without any interviews, no all-nighters spent hammering out a first draft, counting the difference between JST and PST on my fingers like a nervous tic. Among Tokyo’s millions, I hope to find one man. A man who doesn’t know I exist, but whose work and the questions it leaves unanswered have shaped the course of my life indelibly. I need to ask him how he made something that shouldn’t be possible.

The only problem is that Yusei Takeda disappeared twenty-three years ago.

Enough by Angela M Cowan

We’ve been mingling at this benefit for two hours now, and no one has noticed I’ve not said a single word.

No one ever does. They all watch Robert, with his movie-star smile and his bleached teeth and his calm, caring aura that can charm ten grand out of a man’s alligator-leather wallet without so much as a blink. All while I, the very picture of the devoted wife, smile and keep my lips pressed tightly together, doing my duty.

The Man Who Came to Dinner by Eva Silverfine

When he arrived, quite by chance, and assisted Suzy with a roadside emergency, he impressed her as the ultimate good Samaritan: a kindly man, considerate, good-humored, gentle in tone, so ready to be helpful. Yes, he was a bit remarkable in appearance—large in every dimension, every feature. He had untamed curly black hair, bushy eyebrows, and long hairs that escaped his nostrils.

Despite his size he deftly slipped through the cracks that had been left by the dissolution of her marriage, the virtual abandonment of her son and daughter by their father. He quickly became the constant friend—call me if you have any more car trouble; let me pick that up for you, I have to swing by the grocery anyway; allow me to try my hand at fixing that wobbly step.

Loser by Riley Passmore

Jeffrey Rhodes, the actual quarterback for the Detroit Lions, punches me in the face with everything he goddamn has, and I puke all over my Levi’s. I mean, he really lets me have it. By the time he pulls away his fist, I see stars and the face of God.

“How do you do it?” he snarls, his fist held high for another blow. He’s tied me to a folding chair, and has my collar wrenched up in his other hand. He’s angrier than Bigfoot.

Secrets by Lori D’Angelo

The blood drinking would not begin till after midnight, which was good because it gave Daphne time to prepare. 

They say that your first experience is unforgettable, a gateway to everything else. 

Daphne was 14, so she was old enough to participate if she wanted to. But she could also choose to wait. 

“You don’t want to rush it,” Serafina had told her. 

Serafina was older and a prefect and the only other girl from Daphne’s depressed farming town, so, by default, they were best friends.