“Carly Vs. The Horde” by Jeff Burkholder
Darting around a huge boulder, Carly saw a hole in the roots of an ancient, gnarled tree. Knowing that was her best bet, she squeezed in, burying herself in the detritus of dead leaves, mud, and rocks.
It wasn’t long – maybe seconds – before she heard them coming. Shambling, shuffling footsteps on the forest floor. Entombed in her root sanctuary, she couldn’t see anything, but she heard them. Just one at first, unsteady, but inexorably moving onward, onward down the forest path. The one was joined by another, and another, yet another. All stumbling together over fallen logs and roots; struggling through the mud and slippery leaves. The sound of their feet almost had a rhythm to it. It could have put Carly to sleep, had she not been so terrified.
But then, all at once, they stopped.
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“Cold Feet” by Kirsten Deeds
Rachel peered out the window to gaze upon the orange and green balloons marking the entrance to the Gloaming Gap Fire Department parking lot. In neon orange letters, “Rachel and Frank’s wedding” were scrawled across the plywood sign in spray paint.
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“Fairy Tales” by Andrea Cumbo
“I’m so done,” Flora said. “I just can’t handle it anymore.”
“I know,” Cassie said, flipping a blonde lock out of her eyes.
“What are you saying, guys? What do you think we should do?” Caroline asked.
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“Of Wolves and Men” by Melissa Milazzo
Stephanie Linder led her boys through the woods that bordered Cottonwood Lane. A fat full moon hung low in the sky, barely visible through the dense foliage. The woods were dark and unfamiliar in the moonlight, nothing like the friendly greenery that Stephanie and her four sons passed on the way to school each morning. Normally Owen, Jake, Josh and Gavin would scamper around their mother, full of little boy enthusiasm for another day of learning and play. That was the daytime. This was the night and on this night Stephanie was not a human mother. She and her boys had just finished their transformations from human to wolf and Stephanie was eager to begin their lessons.
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“Attack of the Meatloaf” by Jason Deeds
Billy poked at what the waitress, dressed in blue and white, had called meatloaf. He eyed the brown mass warily, as if expecting it to grow arms, steal his fork, and poke back at him. His black-rimmed glasses slipped down his freckled, pre-teen face to the tip of his nose. They never seemed to stay in place since his little soap-box race incident last fall.
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