Fiction

The woman materialized one bitter winter morning under the graffitied awning of the vacant taqueria. The shop had sat boarded up since its last tenant clattered away in a pickup truck ahead of a raging Houston storm.

The new Air Jordans she’d been flexing at crew call on shooting day 41 of 59 are missing their treads, have been shoved into a plastic bag with her name on it hanging at the end of her hospital bed.

Four miles down the other side of the hill, Daniel heard a soft rushing further into the woods. After another mile, the sound had grown into a hum and then a rumble, at which point he found himself at the edge of a dark-colored, quick-moving stream