Tuesdays for Julius meant nine hours on the truck, thirty minutes punching the heavy bag, six rounds of sparring, and no time for a shower. The best he could do for his sweaty body was a locker room towel. He dabbed his chest, his pits, and opened his locker for a fresh shirt; it stuck to his skin as he pulled it over his head. A gold necklace swung from a hook, and Julius clasped it around his neck. He scrubbed his bald head one last time and tossed the towel into a hamper.

Cliff had driven drunk hundreds of times but still, it helped that it was one in the afternoon. Driving drunk in the daylight was like doing so under the cover of disguise. A completely unnecessary disguise like putting on a fake nose to steal a library book or embalming yourself to sleep in a coffin because Cliff was a tremendous driver. He’d become a master of the weight of his prosthetic right foot on the gas pedal. All aluminum, no lead. Delicately pressed, maintaining ge

Quiet nights end up the strangest in Sundale County. I know because I work the interstate to the swamp. My last quiet night ended when a man with a mop on his head tried to burn down his ex-girlfriend’s house with vegetable oil. It’s true, check the headlines, another Sundale County man. Half-moons here breed things stranger than werewolves. And on a silent night like this one, I can’t be surprised when I pull over a man for speeding, knock on the glass, shine my light, and s

Billy Dart didn’t believe his one wish was real. The soup can had emptied like a burp, and from the hollow tin, the genie whispered. Softly through lumps of leftover clam chowder like blocky teeth. One wish. Not three. One wish is what you get, Billy Dart. To which Billy Dart believed that the can, like most people he interacted with throughout the day, was deceiving him. “I get a wish?” He read the revolving label, the normal value brand, with its regular nutritional scores.