We sat on the porch till it started to get dark. My father headed home to his house and my mother. And I looked over at the middle cabin, to the place where Bob had been sober for a little while. To where my fishing buddy had lived for a summer.
What if it wasn’t him that died in that parking lot? What if somebody got the drop on him but he shot them and put his identification on them, to throw the cops off? Or what if he were finally dreamlessly asleep and peaceful, delivered by violence into someplace else. Off this earth, with the beautiful blue sky coloring him forever.
About the Authors
Patricia Abbott writes literary and crime fiction from Detroit. Stories have appeared recently in Pulp Pusher, The Thrilling Detective, Demolition, Spinetingler, Hardluck Stories, Bayou Review, and Storyglossia. She has just completed a novel set in Detroit.
Jedidiah Ayres lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Matthew Baldwin spent the late ’90s as a customer service rep for an online store, right at the height of the dot-com bubble. He is now a programmer by day, freelance writer by evening, and sound sleeper at night. He maintains the Web log Defective Yeti and lives in Seattle with his wife, son, and a handful of good-for-nothing cats.
Greg Bardsley is a former newspaper reporter who covered everything from politics to deranged, homicidal psychos. Since then he has worked as an editor, ghostwriter, speechwriter, and video producer. In addition to Thuglit, his pulp fiction has appeared in Demolition and Pulp Pusher.
Gary Carson is a former feature writer for the Kansas City Times and the Westport Trucker. His fiction and essays have appeared in Hardluck Stories, Thuglit, and Noir Originals. A California refugee, he currently lives in Rolla, Missouri.
Lyman Feero graduated in 2006 from the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast MFA program in creative writing. He is also a published alternative fiction author with works in several genres including crime, horror, and science fiction. Most recently he participated in the Blog Project #3 and L.A. Noir’s Mugshot Challenge. He is currently working on his first novel.
Allan Guthrie is an award-winning Scottish crime novelist.
Jordan Harper, born and raised in Missouri, is a frequent contributor to Thuglit. He has been nominated for the Derringer Award and has had two stories selected by the Million Writers Award as notable short stories of the year, including “Like Riding a Moped.” He is currently working on a novel and is turning “Like Riding a Moped” into a screenplay. He currently lives in Los Angeles. Contact him at author@jordanharper.com.
Daniel Hatadi wasted lots of valuable time as a musician, a petrol station attendant, and a programmer in the shady world of gambling before turning his attention to crime fiction. The Sydney-based writer has published several short stories and articles and is currently working on a novel. He is also the founder of the Internet crime fiction community, Crimespace. Visit Daniel online at crimespace.ning.com or at his Web site, www.danielhatadi.com.
D. T. Kelly grew up on the mean streets of Chicago. After years of dodging firebombs, two-bit hoodlums, and drive-by shootings, he now resides in upstate New York, having traded in his bulletproof vest for hiking boots. He can be found online at www.dtkelly.net.
Jónas Knútsson committed arson at five. When Jónas was ten someone not unlike Viddi Golbranson tried to throw Jónas into a duck pond. Jónas enjoys the distinction of being the only person to be expelled from a prestigious German film school before commencing his studies.
Patrick J. Lambe lives in New Jersey, the cradle of civilization. He’s had short stories in various Web sites and magazines, as well as short stories in the Plots with Guns anthology, Dublin Noir, with more coming out soon. His short story “Union Card” was listed as a distinguished mystery story in The Best American Mystery Stories of 2005. He’s currently working on several novels while working as a telephone technician. Please visit his Web site at http://patlambe.com
Joe. R. Lansdale is the author of thirty novels and many short works. One of his novellas, Bubba Hotep, was filmed to considerable acclaim, and his short story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was part of the Masters of Horror series on Showtime. His works have received The Grinzani Prize for Literature, the Edgar, seven Bram Stokers, the Herodotus, and numerous other awards. A Fine Dark Line is scheduled to be filmed next year.
Hugh Lessig is a career newspaperman who has worked in his native Pennsylvania and Virginia. He now lives in Richmond, Virginia, where he reports on state politics, a beat that provides occasional inspiration for things nefarious and noir. Besides Thuglit, his short stories have appeared in Plots with Guns and Thrilling Detective.
Richard J. Martin Jr. was born in 1956 in Bossier City, Louisiana, and came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 at age six. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University’s Creative Writing Program and works as a grant writer for nonprofit human service agencies. His stories, poems, and articles have appeared in the San Francisco Herald, Seattle Weekly, Thuglit, Working Magazine, Bay Area Reporter, In the Fray, the Noe Valley Voice, Tea Party, the Red Hills Review, and Frisko Magazine, as well as trade publications like the Walden House Journal and Successful Fundraising. He’s a member of San Francisco Musicians Union Local 6, and currently divides his time between San Francisco and Lakeport, California.
Steven M. Messner lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he is employed as a legal assistant and personal trainer. He received his bachelor’s degree in English from West Virginia University in 1994. In 2002 he graduated from Johns Hopkins University, where he received his master’s degree in fiction writing. He has recently finished his first book, The Barbecue Wire Boy, and is currently working on a book based on his Burma Ludlow character.
Justin Porter was born and raised in New York. He’s crass, uneducated, obnoxious, and has lain down with dogs so many times that he’s on a first-name basis with three generations of fleas. He’s been published a few places online for his fiction and for journalism in the New York Times. He’s been a teacher, a skateboarder, an amateur fighter, a Rollerblade salesman, and a number of other ridiculous things. He’s eagerly awaiting the next round of absurdity. And he thanks everybody who does, for reading.
Marcus Sakey spent ten years in advertising, which gave him the perfect background to write about criminals and killers. His debut novel, The Blade Itself, was a New York Times Editor’s Pick, featured on CBS Sunday Morning, and named one of Esquire magazine’s 5 Best Reads of 2007. It has been translated into numerous languages, and the film rights have been purchased by Ben Affleck for Miramax. His second novel, At the City’s Edge, was released to similar acclaim, and he is currently working on a four-book contract for Dutton. Marcus has shadowed homicide detectives, toured the morgue, interviewed Special Forces officers, ridden with L.A. gang cops, and learned to pick a deadbolt in sixty seconds. He swears it was all for research.