by Michael Kingswood The sun was still shining when Brom emerged from his lair, wherever that was. The brightness of it flared across his vision, whiting the world out and rendering him able to perceive only the faintest of shadows as he took halting steps forward. Vague shapes—the trunks of trees, he thought—loomed all around,…
Tag: Story Time
Terra Infirma
by Michael Kingswood It was Sunday afternoon, and I was sitting under a peach tree atop a hill overlooking the bay. The sun bathed the land in a warm radiance, unblocked by all but a few tiny puffs of clouds that hung in the sky, moving lazily if at all. A gentle breeze carried in…
Wolves On Cornell Street
by Michael Kingswood The wolves were howling on Cornell Street, again. But this time it wasn’t a false alarm. That fact was not immediately apparent to Humbert, though. When the ululating howl that started with a single voice but quickly got picked up by, apparently, an entire pack roused him from sleep, his first thought…
On The Road To Hopefell
by Michael Kingswood The sun rose slowly, gradually sending the night’s shadows scampering away like hoodlums fleeing the sound of the constable’s approach. As the hours passed, the few lingering shadows shrank, pushed back against the burned-out or simply decayed frames that cast them as though to make way for the the clouds of dust…
Warden’s Trial
by Michael Kingswood The humid air seemed to drag and flail, resisting being inhaled, as Patros made his way from his little cell in the trainees barracks and across the carefully-trimmed field of grass toward the testing ring. Five years he’d been here, at the martial academy. Five years of running and jumping and study…
Finding Bobby Jenkins
by Michael Kingswood Pan blew away steam that was rising from his coffee mug, then lowered his nose over it to catch the fragrance without getting his nostrils scalded. Deep, dark, and thick said his scent neurons to the rest of him, and he smiled slightly in approval. What was it his first captain said? …
Santa Fe Station
by Michael Kingswood Though she’d been living in San Diego for ten years and had lived less than two miles away from it for most of that time, Kim hardly ever came out to Balboa Park. But every time she did, she left asking herself why she didn’t come more often. The entire city was…
Terran New Year
by Michael Kingsworth Why on God’s green Earth did the New Year always have to fall on the exact date and time that Terra had set for it, centuries ago? It would have been one thing if Persephone’s orbital revolution and rotation had matched Terra’s. But it didn’t. One day on Persephone was 1.0498576 Earth…
Playing for Scraps
by Michael Kingswood I was just tallying up the invoice for my latest case, an easy job for a little old lady down on the station’s third level, when Jason commed for entrance to my office. I’d known Jason for a couple years, and when he commed the image of his face popped up into…
Love In The Apocalypse
by Michael Kingswood Light flashed into Silva’s eyes, rousing her from what had been a deep and dreamless sleep. She squirmed and stretched, raising her arms above her head and letting out a long, low sigh that was almost a groan as she forced herself to full wakefulness. Then she remembered where she was, and…