NoRueWrites

The smell of cigarettes dragged me out from a morass of fitful dreams and back into reality. I blinked groggily and squinted at Richard who had just come back inside the car and shut the door.  “Sleep good?” he asked gruffly. “Mm,” was my noncommittal response. After taking a few more moments to fully wake […]

I slowly let the bones recede back underneath my skin, feeling like my innards were wrapped around a drill, slowly twisting tighter and tighter. Mom whimpered, shielding her face with her hands. My dad’s expression was a block of stone. I waited a long time for them to calm down. Then I spoke softly, tasting

Richard and I stopped at an abandoned gas station at the edge of town to hash out a plan. I squinted against the sun that was peaking through the trees, low in the sky but not yet touching the horizon. He parked close to the tree line and got out to survey the damage on

Richard staggered back a step as he caught me. “Hey!” he bellowed loudly in my ear. “What happened in there? The door was locked, I couldn’t get in when I heard the gunshots.” “No time,” I panted. “We need to move.” I pushed off of Richard and managed to take two steps before the pain

“Kill Nick.” Spike’s grip on me stiffened as he heard those words. Sullivan laid his hands on his lap. He frowned as his eyes flicked over to me. “The Wolf? Why? What do you stand to gain?” Helen flashed her perfectly white teeth at him. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Sully. There

My upper arm throbbed where I’d been hit. The bone spike, half-buried, was the size of a finger. Blood trickled from the wound, the spike stemming most of the flow. I remained kneeling, trying to come up with a plan. Everyone looked hostile. Sullivan eyed me distastefully. The three old men that were playing cards

The subway train screeched to a stop behind me. A fresh crowd of people exited it and hurried towards their destinations, jostling me where I stood. A few turned to stare at my bloodied arms, before turning and hurrying away, not wanting to be pulled from their own worries and schedule by a stranger with

The cable car gondola rocked slightly as we entered and sat. The interior was painted green with matching seats that had a retro feel, like an old cafeteria. Plastic panelling lined the windows, scratched up by likely decades of use.  The forest was a national park. Conservation efforts had made it so that Sillwood wouldn’t

I leaned against the back wall of the barber shop, staring over the top of Nell’s head at my own reflection. Nell turned around in the chair, looking worried. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I roused myself and uncrossed my arms. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” Henry took Nell’s shoulders and turned her back around in

I was getting desperate. A quick sweeping search of the dance floor had turned up nothing. No new corpses, no half a person with something else filling in the other side. I was in the process of asking all the bouncers if they’d seen anything weird leave the nightclub. The latest of which was a