The short fiction of j hardy carroll
The storm blew for three days, took the remaining mast and two of the older children as they bailed with their little hands in a desperate attempt to keep the boat from swamping. Suong had helped as much as she could, but fifty days on the sea had left her so weak she could hardly sit up.…
The priest walks around the cluttered work table, drags a finger down its surface and holds it up for inspection. He scowls and wipes it on his cassock, walks slowly up the stairs to the kitchen. He stands before her, hands clasped behind him. “Listen, daughter. I came to speak to your husband about his reputation. I do…
She agrees to meet me at the museum. I know the second I see her. It’s on her face. Doom. I smile anyway. “You remember this place?” I say, as though nothing is wrong. As though last night had never happened. “Our first date?” “It wasn’t a date,” she says. “We need to talk.” “We…
She could see the pottery shop owner was Mexican, but she did not tell him how she had gotten to Arizona. There had been sixty of them who met in Reforma to begin the journey through the desert night. They each carried two gallons of water. Their coyote set an impossible pace to cover maximum distance while it was still dark and…
Any regular reader of the tabloid press will tell you that it’s not a matter of money. It’s not a matter of success. Last year I was paid three million an episode, plus residuals. I had a loft in Tribeca, a stilt-house on Maui and a recently-acquired chateau in the Basque Pyrenees. I had a stack of scripts…
The healer stood over the bed, enshrouded in smoke from the bronze brazier he dangled over the prostrate king. Erwald lay on his royal bed of heather, wracked with fever and calling out in a strange tongue none could understand. Garth leaned in the doorway, his face a placid mask that betrayed none of the dismay he felt.…
Sunday morning all us survivors meet at The Grand Canyon Cafe. Ah Su takes good care of us. It was her uncle opened the place back in 1942. Route 66 was just a two-lane road, though it did reach all the way to Chicago even then. At first it was strict Chinese, but Flagstaff used to be a working…
The Night Manager exuded quiet confidence, taste. His Gieves & Hawkes suit was impeccably tailored, yet not at all ostentatious. The subtle pattern of his Brioni necktie quietly matched the hotel wallpaper. In five languages he would give guests comfort, guidance, bits of colorful lore about the city or the hotel itself. He solved problems efficiently,…
“Not like her to oversleep,” said Sue. “Especially on a Sunday.” “Well, I suppose we’d better go in,” said Nancy. “It looks like they all might be sleeping.” Sue had a strange feeling as she knocked on the kitchen door. Mr. Clutter and Kenyon were always up early on a Sunday, though Mrs. Clutter usually stayed in her…
The horsemen ride into the square with blood-curdling yells. They look like something from a history book, Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan’s time. Oriental faces, fur leggings and hats. Many of the Germans go to pieces, drop their guns and run. The riders cut them down. They are wonderful horsemen, slashing and stabbing as they…