Trick or Treat? by Anthony Sarnelle

Brittany Muller shook in fright as she waited in the parking lot for the police to arrive. Behind her, the church where it all happened; ancient stained-glass windows, a fa?ade of dark brick, and a large tower that rose into the sky topped with an eroded crucifix that cast a black contour against the pink stratus clouds. Thirteen religion school children stood beside her crying, some sitting in the grass holding each other?s hands, one girl standing with her arms wrapped around Brittany?s leg because the thing . . . with its horrific eyes . . . and deadly horns . . . was still inside the church.

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Philadelphia Roll by Kiley Reid

The night before my 17th birthday, my mother and father spent the day in the kitchen rolling sushi, my very favorite. If I had closed my eyes walking down the stairs, I could have duped myself into believing I had entered a wharf off the coast of Cape Cod. My mother?s hands were glowing with fish oils and lingering rice. My father kept clasping the bottom of his palms to the sides of his head whenever he tried to eat more than his personal best of wasabi. I only looked on, but every time he swallowed, I could swear my sinuses cleared just from watching him. Sheryl Crow was complaining about some guy who had a secret lover from my mother?s phone in her back pocket turned up loud. I stood and watched, tapping my hips to the countertops lightly.

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Where Angels Fly Away by Valery V. Petrovskiy

An angel was flying over a town with its wings snow-white and fluffy. It fluttered above red tiled roofs and variegated chimneys. It hovered over some young folks with their eyes lifted up to the sky, and it was just a girl?s drawing. With her aureate hair and timid smile from above, Gala appeared like an angel herself: she was very tall, quite young and extremely shy.

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English as a Home Language by Christopher Niemeyer

His last name was Krasowicz. His family was from Chicago though he had grown up in Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Chile. Because of his dad?s various jobs. An interesting family background for someone who was now a chubby, mostly bald nobody, sitting alone in a seedy bar in the outskirts of Nowheresville, USA. Strangely, he remembered that disturbing incident from his college days. Alcohol was the key to bad memories.

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