Shooting the Messenger: New short story

Just posted a new short story at They're Only Shadows. Here is an excerpt:

A banner scrolled along the bottom of the large flat screen TV: “Breaking News: Five dead, six wounded at Keller High School after shooting rampage.”

            “False flag operation.” Andrew Copper looked from the television screen to the man joining him at his table for lunch, Glenn Sumner. Close cropped haircut, neck tats, tight black pants an inch too short, Glenn would probably be picked out of a crowd as a conspiracy fan based on nothing more than his aura. He pulled a sandwich and bag of chips out of his bag and nodded toward the TV. “They pull this kind of shit all the time.”

            “Who’s they?” asked Andrew, a sinewy, handsome, introverted man in his late twenties. He ate a spoonful of chili as he waited for Glenn to stop chewing.

            “The government. Who else? Pushing through stricter gun control is on their agenda, so they stage these mass shootings to sway public opinion. Same type of thing with 9/11, except that was about oil.”

            “But they’re carrying out bodies and—“

            “Paid stooges are carrying out something in a body bag. Probably somebody’s dirty laundry.”

            “You’re saying the people I’m watching here with blood on them and the sobbing parents are all actors? Glenn, you’ve got to move out of your parent’s basement.”

            Wearing a confident smirk, Glenn picked up his iPhone, tapped it several times and then turned the screen triumphantly toward Andrew, who leaned in.

            “What am I looking at here?” asked Andrew.

            “Your government at work. See that woman there? This was taken a year ago at the Akron Elementary School shooting. Now, here’s the same woman at the Boston Marathon. Oh, and what do you know? Here she is at Sandy Hook.”

            “Looks similar, but—“

            “Same thing with this guy. Here he is, a grieving parent at the Iowa State Fair shooting and, viola, here he is dressed as a paramedic in Boston. These are only two of dozens of photos that have been taken of the same people showing up at multiple tragedies all across the country.”

            “That’s just a little too much for me to swallow.”

            “The truth can do that to a person. Take 9/11­—"
            Andrew stood up abruptly. “Almost forgot. I’ve got a conference call at 1:00 so I have to blast. Sorry.”

A Revolutionary Act - Short story

Here is a brief excerpt from my newest short story, A Revolutionary Act.

He’d never been thrown out of a bar before. Asked to leave more than once, escorted to the sidewalk a time or two, but never physically tossed out the door. He had been punched in the face many times in his life and was once again reminded of what an unpleasant experience it was as he sat on the damp cement and held his coat sleeve to his nose. Feeling sufficiently debased, he struggled to his feet under the icy glare of a bouncer wearing a shirt shrink-wrapped around his bulky, chaotically tattooed body, standing under the bar canopy making sure the little piece of the planet he was hired to protect was not violated again by the most toxic reporter, ex-reporter, in the Chicago area, Joel Happling. Staggering down the street through the cool evening mist and cacophony of car horns, Joel kept a swollen eye out for a cab.
          A bag of frozen peas with an expiration date in Roman numerals lay draped over his battered face. The bleeding had stopped, but his head throbbed and he was waiting impatiently for the five ibuprofen to finally kick in. He lifted the peas long enough to check for new calls, but saw they were all from the strange area codes where only debt collectors lived. He stopped for a moment, his gaze lingering on his background photo of the snow-tipped Elkhorn Mountains in Montana, and he sighed longingly before gently laying the bag back down. He’d been fired that day from the Chicago Tribune for insubordination, and was admittedly grumpy when he entered O’Grady’s Tavern at three in the afternoon. Who should come in a few hours later but Thomas Castle, the Commissioner of Transportation who was under indictment for taking kickbacks as a result of Joel’s three-part series? Words were exchanged, punches flew, and he now lay in his bed unemployed, bruised and bloodied and probably facing a civil suit for assault. Before dozing off, he called his sister and left a message.

Read the entire story at They're Only Shadows.