(145) The Tao of Diplomats

At a First Contact dinner on an alien world, a soldier catches the eye of the alien ambassador and is goaded into a fist fight. First Contact was never like this and what the soldier doesn't know is that the fist fight is an alien marriage proposal.

Accepted in Idle Hands an anthology from Horrified Press

Call for papers: https://horrifiedpress.wordpress.com

website:  http://www.horrifiedpress.com

Monster Trucks and Racing Tires (138)

A retired wizard with a new identity and a nice job falls victim to a plot involving truck racing, rubber tires, and spiders. Horror has a frolic and troubles ensue before magical Justice prevails on the race track of weird and strange. 

revised heavily from "stock cars with aliens" 

The Cave Dwellers (139)

Twelve years before, the Mayan Year Zero brought a second moon that endowed magic on the adept. The old moon never gave the stony earth true life. It only gave mankind fire to stay warm and death to make them cold again. Some of the adept prospered, others withdrew into the dark recesses of the earth.

Accepted in PARTY TIME, an anthology 

Skydiving into Oblivion (136)

Bad Boys, bad boys, whatcha going to do when you land on an island that's a sovereign country? 

Accepted in POWERS, an anthology about those with superpowers.
Open for Submission. Call for Stories at this link.

Sinopia (127)

Three men on a first contact mission to an Earth-like world crash on a barren limestone landscape. They find refuge in a cave that seems to be a monastery. It is filled with sinopia-colored statues made from limestone and illuminated by a perpetual fire.

Accepted in COLORS, an anthology of flash fiction and poetry edited by Jake Johnson
CALL FOR PAPERS

The First Vampire's Curse (WT 119)

During a drug raid on a steamship, a young policeman discovers vampires and embraces the First Vampire's Curse by becoming one of the undead to take control of organized crime in a steampunk-like city.

Published in FANTASTIC HORROR #2 -- THE DEAD AND THE UNDEAD.

Available in MOBI, EPUB and PDF formats through FANTASTIC HORROR via PAY PAL.
ALSO available in electronic form at AMAZON 

Now Available in PRINT from AMAZON 

And With a Sigh Winter Says Goodbye (WT 110)

The cold night of winter overstayed. It was thus in Jules Anson's heart, if not Central city as a whole until a theft could be discovered, wrongs brought to justice and curses lifted. Anson knew that once magic was invoked in the name of Fire, Earth, Air or Water, that magic must run its course.

Published in COBWEBS AND ANTIQUITIES, an anthology of cursed and/or magic objects

Available on AMAZON 

Dragons and Sprites and Other Delights (WT 116)

Aye Mateys. There be pirate treasure out there on a tiny island west of the Florida Keys. More doubloons than a dozen men can carry and all but one of them guard the secret of that treasure with their bones. Beware, the twelfth man is name Robin and he definitely isn't a good fellow. He wants revenge.

Accepted in BENEATH THE WAVES an Anthology
CALL FOR PAPERS

Skirmish at the Devereux Hot Springs (WT101)

In a Victorian world of city-states where steam carriages drive through cities lit by gas lamps and enchanted mechanicals guard the estates of the rich, how do diplomats and politicians settle disputes? They devise Rules of Engagement, hire small armies and stage skirmishes between brigades of clockworks, steam power war machines, helium airships. They invoke ghosts, raise the dead and listen to consultants.
A Steampunk story of the dead rising and making war with clockwork gargoyles.

Published in "What New is Old Again - a Steampunk Anthology dedicated to C.D. Turner

Young Sherlock Holmes' Big Crime Spree (WT 105)

Is it possible that the great detective was once a common wrongdoer? Is it possible that there is someone more brilliant than Sherlock?

Published in DAILY FLASH 2012 LEAP YEAR

The Toads Croaked at Midnight (WT 66)

A movie stuntman who is a touch too greedy and too clueless for his own good and makes a deal with a pair of demons for a big movie contract that has implications for the rest of his life.

Published 26 June 2011 here on The WiFiles.
Or after 3 July 2011 at this link: The WiFiles.