All Stories
Every story published in Close To The Bone Magazine
The complete Close To The Bone Magazine archive from 2011. Search by date or explore the latest published fiction below.
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Welcome to Greenville
I had the choice between a booty call or a literary salon. Carnal desire being a much more urgent calling than lively debate with university intelligesia, I walked to the NJ Transit light rail station, crossed the tracks, and took the lift up to a small neighborhood...
Convergence
There was something odd about the Toranian sitting at the end of the bar. No, it wasn’t the eye tattooed on his forehead. That only signified he was authorized to stop and frisk any Toranian he suspected of smuggling Sortium-3 to Earth. No matter how weird it seemed...
Girdles, Garters and Overtime
She wore girdles and garter belts in a pantyhose world and drove the better cars. +++++Had a husband once, but he cramped her style. He liked her stockinged legs around him but resented her for keeping them in a penthouse far beyond his banker’s salary, and it cost...
The Ungrateful Dead
Malcolm Pryce had been dying in instalments for years. +++++Not the dramatic kind with hospital corridors and sobbing relatives, but the slower, crueller version: nicotine-stained fingertips, tinnitus that never slept, cheap coffee and the steady erosion of anything...
Siege on Harding Street
The streets stunk of panic. It filled the air like the sickening stench of a guilty corpse. All it took was one remark, one simple phrasing of a bad thought, and the entire city collapsed into pandemonium. Verrico was a wretch of a town, and its mayor was a conniving...
Late Departure
The kitchen at the Skylark Bar & Grill in Terminal 3 closed at eleven, so Howard had to grab a bag of peanuts from a kiosk to have with his single malt, staring through the big picture window at the dark expanse of tarmac speckled with ghostly lights. Great...
I Am Not a Bad Person
August 21st, 2023 +++++I am not a bad person. +++++At least, I wouldn’t consider myself to be. +++++When mom asks me about what happened, I brush her off. I tell her I don’t remember. I say I blacked out from the trauma. She tells me that I should talk to my friends...
Click Bait
The preview on the email reads, “Florida Man Devoured by His Own Flesh,” so, of course, I click on it. Who wouldn’t? But to read the article, I have to get past a paywall. I feel like a virtual Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. They don’t take PayPal and ask for my...
One Step Ahead
You don’t look me in the eye. It’s been too long for you not to. +++++“Your acne looks good,” I say. +++++“Thanks. I have a cream.” +++++You are desperate to be anywhere else, and so it’s left to me to drag this stupid conversation out. That’s what you do with old...
Survival Tactics
Sparsely studded by cactus and tufts of milkweed, the desert sprouts an army of skinny turbines whose blades spin madly in the ferocious crosscurrents. The wind is tamer on the other side of the mountain pass, allowing the ramshackle cabin to remain upright instead of...
Rabid
I’ve got two bucket lists. One list I used to show my wife when we were still together. I’ve checked off most things on that list. Finish a marathon, skydive, visit all seven continents, run with the bulls. Yes, I ran with the bulls. Almost got gored. I even have...
Silver Statues
The man Danny worked for—big guy named Buck—thought they needed four to do the job right. Could they have done it with three? Probably, but he liked the idea of four, the symmetry of it, two guys inside and two guys outside. Danny thought four was overkill, but Buck...
Third Time’s The Charm
The first time Larry set out to kill his girlfriend, he planned on poison. +++++He’d read about the sweetness of antifreeze, and that it worked pretty quickly. Considering the fact that Jolene was a party girl with a taste for high-octane fruity cocktails, it should...
An Algorithm of Justice
The air was suffocating with smoke and the roar of desperate crowds. Cape Town, once a vibrant mosaic of culture and possibility, now teetered on the brink of collapse. Nicole Pope adjusted her oversized tortoiseshell glasses as the glare of flames on shattered glass...
Death Notice
I pointed sequentially to three murder scene photos on my desk. “Rope fiber, shell casing with fingerprint, dog hair. Preserve everything, observe everything.” +++++“Preserve and observe,” parroted rookie patrolwoman Terry Rangel, my mentee for the week. “Are those...
The Quiet Part Loud
Georgy Porgy was deeply ashamed of his hometown, Crestfalls. The Recession-lite had taken many a neighbor’s home and then many neighbors. The latest suicide had seen the Rhand fellow going messily in front of his kids. A tragedy even if they were awful online. Someone...
Free Will
Bill Sands walked into the teacher’s lounge as the morning bell rang out across the campus. He allowed himself a brief smile since he was right on time. As usual. +++++He crossed the room to the coffee pot in need of a quick pick-me-up to start his day. He found...
Copal, Copal
On the desolate plains of Montecito, my brother lay suffering from a gruesome disease. The oozing abscesses on his swollen flesh had long since turned purple. His body writhed upon soiled, crumpled sheets in the disorder of his own making. After weeks—perhaps months,...
Ghost Behind the Wheel
Crunching the cigarette out under his boots, Tommy easily imagined the look of disapproval on Julia’s face. He’d seen it so many times that he could still draw it in his sleep. She’d wrinkle her nose at the smell of smoke, just like always. He’d seen his fill of that...
A Kind Invitation
There’s no way out, thought Jacob. +++++Jacob’s mother’s words - “It’s very kind of her” - echoed as he stepped aboard the train on his way to visit his Aunt Barbara. Jacob’s Uncle Michael had walked out on Aunt Barbara a few years earlier. Apparently, Uncle Michael...
Case Of The Missing Seaman
Bilbao, Spain. 1908. End of May. +++++Sorry, that’s not right; I have a song stuck in my head. +++++City of Angels, USA. 1958. Beginning of October. +++++The transom over my outer office door was broken. I was immediately suspicious because that door is always open...
An Unforeseen Wrinkle
I found my victim through social media where he was a very active participant. Once I had convinced myself he was the right person, I made my preparations. I dyed my shaggy blonde beard dark brown, purchased a New York Yankees baseball cap and a pair of horn-rimmed...
French Turquoise Echoes
Trigger Warning: This psychological thriller may be distressing for individuals with schizoid disorders, paranoia, or auditory hallucinations. It may also trigger those with OCD personality disorders or parenting traumas. If you are sensitive to these themes, it is...
Solitaire
Seven hours straight. That’s today. That’s how long I deadbrained on computer Solitaire while Becca sat there watching. My book? Not getting written. And what about yesterday when I put in a straight six hours. On the game. So, same thing. No pages. But the cards...
The Free State of Arcadia
They saw it in the distance, sitting like a great crater in the middle of the river valley, a buzzard’s nest of wooden palisades, surrounded by a network of trenches. Black smoke rose from it, carving canyons across the sky as they closed in in a tight column of...
A Measure of Guilt
"Some people can take an amazing amount of guilt before they crack," Gurpreet said. “Be sure and try the curry. It’s almost hot enough for me.” +++++"And others don’t feel any guilt at all," Geordie said. “Your garden variety psychopath, the best they can muster is...
The Wing
Briar Ridge Sanatorium in Louisiana was a rambling old stone fort-type edifice dominating the surrounding countryside from the crown of a hill and silhouetted against the sky like Castle Dracula. In the old days, before political correctness took its stranglehold on...
Gold in California
Josephine took a deep breath, adjusting her long, ragged poncho, her fingers stiff and cold around the metal beneath its fabric, approaching the two men in front of the solitary hut. +++++“I’m sorry, sir, are you Deputy Browns?” Her voice trembled, her arms hidden...
The Promise
As I walked into the dimly lit café, a mysterious envelope with my name on it was waiting on the table. +++++I was startled to see my name on the envelope. It was my first time visiting this café—no one here could possibly know me. But there it was, sitting on my...
The Hit That Wouldn’t Quit
Mo took his time as Charise struggled. Her legs kicked out furiously, sending plates, glasses and silverware crashing to the floor. Her arms thrashed, alternating between trying to claw out Mo’s eyes and removing the garrot. Then, impossibly, she had a knife and was...
Potential
Toad was walking back from Fern Dale’s. They’d grabbed almost three grand from the secret poker game. He’d left the money with her. He had no way to explain that kind of cash. He made $3.75 an hour. If the cops stopped him for any reason, and they often stopped him...
The Railway Crossing
“This is where she was found,” Alice said as her husband stopped at the railway crossing. +++++In the mist, the traffic light above the lowered bar seemed to stare at them with a bloodshot eye. It was a winter’s day like any other. The train out of sight, the deserted...
The Devil and the California Girl
I sat alone on a boardwalk bench, hunched over as I bled. It was all I could do to keep my rolled up jacket pressed against my stomach so that my guts would not slip out of the gash along my lower abdomen that ran from hip to hip. +++++I pressed my left arm against my...
The Old Mule’s Pulled His Last Wagon
Obituaries Teddy Earl Wilcox 1967—2025 Teddy Earl Wilcox, 58, of State Line, Mississippi, departed this world for the bosom of heaven after falling to his death on the offshore oil drilling rig Viking 9, high above the Gulf of Mexico. +++++Teddy Earl was born in...
An Exposed Location
It had taken Amanda a long time to get to this point. To go for a run on her own, on a route she loved in the Dark Peak. She hadn’t told anyone she was going because she knew her friends would have responded with doubt, not support. They would have told her to be...
DRONEZ
you know, i would be grateful to have been in the first world war, even the second. back then it was life in the trenches, simple maneuvering, just guns and a bayonet. i would have felt safer and more secure than out here in this dead field. the leaders cared about...
Linked in Death
The dead man messaged Beth Shaw while she flew over Nevada’s Great Basin. She read the message an hour later after landing in San Jose. Roland Osborne Meadows, the late California venture capitalist billionaire, had pinged her on LinkedIn with three words: “I was...
Man
I died over breakfast. +++++She stabbed me in the back with a kitchen knife. Straight through the heart, a lightning in spring skies. +++++Most of my body shut down before my head hit the plate. A thud and clattering of plates. +++++It took me a moment to realise what...
We Don’t Like Trouble
‘Beer,’ Scott Dawson called out, mounting the bar stool. In his late thirties, he had round features and fair hair cropped short. His paunch, a flaccid drum of flesh, strained at his cream shirt. +++++Brittany drew a beer and set the wet schooner in front of Scott on...
Conspicuous Consumption
I arrived for my appointment to interview Chance Thurston at his upper Eastside penthouse. Thurston was tall and gracious. He showed me his elegant art collection before we sat in the living room. However, his mood changed when I showed him the six pictures. +++++In a...
What Goofy Knew
For a lawyer, my dad knows a lot about cars. He learned during the Korean War. After he lost his big toe and second toe to frostbite, the Army said he could go home, but he asked to stay with his unit. They gave him a job fixing jeeps. He still fixes his own cars,...
Futureworld Presents!
They put Del in charge of Humphrey Bogart. That remit encompassed access to Bogie’s whole film catalogue, supervision of his image rights and any spin-offs and merchandising deals related to him, as well as complete control over all his future film projects. The...
Mode of Pursuit
While I wait for Freddy Four-fingers to exit the fish warehouse, I play the Connections game on the New York Times puzzle app. Sixteen words, and I must find four groups of four with something in common. Example: cheese, hamster, prayer, steering. That was a hard one....
The Burglars
Vinney Jackson was sat in front of an expansive wooden desk in a sectioned off part of a commercial garage on the Halton Moor estate in East Leeds. It was a popular area of the city with the national media when they needed stories on crime, lawlessness and anti-social...
The Buggers
I was at Chem-Zall to update the computer software. Alicia, the woman whose place Angela had taken had opted for an early retirement package. She’d ignored my question that I’d asked twice about the origin of the company name. I never bothered to ask Angela. +++++In...
Wasp Nest
She floated into my matchbox office. Hair as dark as three-day-old coffee. Caramel eyes that would make any man on earth readily give up his account and routing numbers at first asking. Curves in all the right places. My first thought was Dear Lord. My second thought...
Empty Pew
I’m in a new city…well, new to me. There’s a conference down the road I’m meant to attend tomorrow, where I will give a presentation whose preparation I have been putting off for weeks. I had it all planned, I thought. I would get here a day early, check into a...
Workload
Something was burning. Whatever that smell was, it wasn’t bothering Alan. “It’s not an easy job,” he told me. +++++The smell was bad enough that I was having a hard time focusing. “I’m not afraid of hard work,” I said. “And I need the money.” +++++“You need the...
The Train
CONTENT WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT; SEXUAL HARASSMENT; MENTION OF ASSAULT OF A MINOR Suzanne was really bad at being a good person. She knew what it meant to be kind and did what she could, but it didn't come naturally to her. *** For example, she knew it was nice to...
Refractions Thirdly
Refractions Thirdly is a tri-annual magazine and online platform dedicated to elevating the voices of its authors. We love the odd and the uncanny, the literary and the speculative, the horrifying and the tragic, the cozy and the romantic. +++++We want work that sings...
ABE
It was dark and raining and clichéd all over when I knocked on Abe’s door. When he answered, I expected a gaunt, ravaged face, having not seen a fresh picture since I heard his bad news. Inwardly, I braced for a flood of grief. +++++Upon seeing a healthy, handsome...
Nearly the Perfect Murder
Inspector Robin Templeton walked in, and the group sat up to attention. He was the boss, and no-one grudged him the role. Robin had been decorated by his superiors, had solved the most difficult cases and, best of all, he was modest and always insisted that detection...
The Stem and The Glory
The door opened that ticked the bell that told the girl that someone was entering the shop, but the bell’s clapper was stuck and all it could manage was a dull thud. It was that guy; that glider guy, the one who looked like he was gliding, not walking - the guy who...
The Case of the Long-Forgotten Scribbler
He banged the keys on that battered old Smith Corona with such ferocity that it seemed to shake our 18th-century farmhouse to its very foundation. I remember the dining room chandelier swinging perilously, like a daredevil high-wire trapeze artist. We knew he was done...
But the Fighter Still Remains
I saw my brother on TV more than I talked to him. There was nothing malicious or begrudging about the arrangement, just the unfortunate untangling of two grown siblings on separate self-destructive paths. I called him when I could, usually around the main holidays,...
Pas de deux
The sun pried its way into my eyes like a thief using a crowbar to open a locked window. I realised I was lying on the couch, and the three-quarter-empty bottle of scotch explained why. I hadn’t meant to drink last night, but something had gotten the better of me and...
The Old Emir
The old Emir kicks off his loafers, then places his wallet, phone and keys on the Formica-covered table. He unbuttons his dishdasha, drapes it over a hanger and hooks the hanger onto the metal bar in the locker, before reaching for the coarse yellowish kaftan. From...
A Very Earnest Void
They had only just started dating, but now there was this rift between them. In this case, it was a real, actual rift, likely in the space-time continuum. Nor stood on one side of the exhibit room and Kivv on the other, separated by a gigantic chasm that had just...
Setting the record straight
Artie looked like holy hell when I visited him at St. Joes. He had tubes coming out of him in every direction. You could see the veins in his arms, throbbing, pushing his blood in a tired battle to keep him alive until the priest came to give him his last rites....
Gerry and the Jury
Gerry De Jong was born in the late 1980s to Dutch migrants living in Sydney’s growing western suburbs. He enjoyed a fun, but wild teenage youth but that changed when, at 25, he met Italian-born Lucia, fell in love and married. Within a year little Lottie was born and...
Billy Girl
So much for my modeling career, Billy-girl thought as she looked through the photos Jason had taken of her. Well, she just wasn't photogenic. She looked much better in person. Why did her hair have that bluish cast in the photos? Her hair, which was definitely red,...
Kenguru
Watching a parade is easy, like waking slow. But like building a church—digging for the foundation, centering the aisle, determining how to delineate between the vestibule and narthex—it may offer only a modicum of joy. Only after the priest blesses the altar does one...
What Went Down
One minute, they’re dancing side by side—the pixie-cut girl in her vintage threads and the greasy-looking auld fella. Next thing, his hand’s up her skirt. She yells, “Woah!” and jerks back like she’s touched a live wire. Spinning around, she looks ready to tear strips...
Another Day
He wakes. A slim slither of morning sunlight reaches searchingly through a crevice in the blind. He grimaces and touches his iPhone 13, silencing the alarm that pulled him from the opiate void of sleep. With remarkable litheness, he springs from his comfortable nest...
I Killed My Mother on Mother’s Day
Red is a pretty color. +++++It’s versatile for sure - love is red, but so is rage. Rubies are red, but so is blood. +++++It’s a matter of interpretation, my friend. +++++For starters, I killed my mother on Mother’s Day. But it’s never just that, is it? You want more....
A Penny for Your Psyche
Penny squinted against the glare on her windshield. Every headlight smeared in the rain that washed across the glass. The wipers whipped back and forth, distractingly fast. She already had a headache behind her right eye which she now massaged. She pulled into the...
The Return of Lucas
Part 1: The Manipulator The coastal town of Seacliff gleamed under a soft, golden haze, the kind of place that could charm you into forgetting your troubles. Tourists flocked to its pristine beaches and quaint streets, but the locals knew better. Beneath the...
Crimson Tide
Part 1: Silver Spoon "I don't know if I can pull off something I've never seen before," he said, his arrogance floating in the air. The way he spoke almost made me regret asking, absurd as that was. He wasn’t the kind I expected. Most who stop are the weathered...
Harrington Cleans House
“Mebbe,” Carson said, “Could be I am totally nuts.” He waggled the end of the sawed-off shotgun in the direction of our lower parts. “So, humour me and squeeze together nice and tight. Like best buddies,” he added. +++++Rolf and I welded. If he touched off both...
End of Story
By the time Henry Walsh got from his car to the door, he was out of breath. His knees hurt. A hip hurt. The neighborhood he was in – drooping roofs, sagging porches, boarded-up windows – was worn out, just like him. Left hand on the doorframe, he lifted his cane and...
Poetic Justice
Jimmy Ray Collins had a long history of anger issues. +++++In second grade, he had a tantrum and threw a chair at his teacher. In middle school and high school he was suspended numerous times for fighting with his classmates. After he graduated high school, he landed...
The Old Man
It’s 1961. Jack Kennedy’s just been elected president, and I’m Coca Cola’s newly minted VP for European Operations. +++++I check into the Hilton at seven in the evening, and I’m looking for something to do. I slept on the flight over and I’m full of energy and it’s...