Havok Publishing

Humor

Oh, Possum

I have nobody to blame but myself for bringing home that blasted opossum.
Last week, I gazed down at it, sprawled wounded and unmoving in a cratered building.
My conscience wouldn’t let me leave it.
So I brought it home.
Playing nursemen for the criminal cyborg started

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Nothing But Trouble

“Whoa, whoa, slow down!” Siobhan tried to calm the hysterical little girl who’d introduced herself as Kate before dissolving into tears. “What happened to your kitten?”
“A sock gremlin took her!” Kate wailed, covering her tear-streaked face with her hands. “I’ll never see her again!”

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My Emotionally Supportive Kaiju

When the doctor said I needed an emotional support animal, I expected to be assigned a typical house pet. A dog, maybe. A cat if I was feeling ambitious. I was okay with something that shed, but not something that could be detected by satellite.

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Wallace with Bagels

There was no point in thawing bagels when the twenty-foot-long alligator you were babysitting preferred them frozen.
“Make sure Wallace eats one before the moon is out,” Frank had said before leaving for work. “Whenever it’s a full moon, he gets very hungry.”

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Definitely Not a Chipmunk

You think you know all the weird creatures in the world—tiny dragons, cats with pine needles for fur—and then you try to enter your dorm room.
“Don’t go in there, Drew.” My roommate, Matt, blocks the door with his tall, lanky body.
“Um… why?”
“There’s a

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Burn Out

Brad clutched his rooster, Leopold, by the neck as he trudged up the steep mountain path.
As a farm boy, he was used to long days of hard work under the elements. But the trek up Flaimen Peak always winded him, and he wasn’t looking forward

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The Toad Prince

In her pink dress, with her golden hair, the girl looks like a rose—if the flower was human.
I stepped behind a pillar edging the palace portico as she approached. Dashed inconvenient, but I don’t want to shock her when I turn green and slimy.
She paused on the other side of the pillar.

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All the Comforts of Home

“It’s dangerous to stay here.” Lili gazed at me with red-brown eyes. “We should go.”
Leave the comfort of Steve and Talia’s house? I had to calm Lili’s fears before she ruined the good thing we had going.
“We’re house flies,” I protested. “If we weren’t meant to live in houses, why call us that?

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The King’s Birthday

The kingdom shimmered in anticipation of the king’s birthday, and Blackguard grimaced at the iced cupcakes, foil balloons, and dragon bobble-heads in shop windows. Beneath his stealthy feet, the cobblestones glistened from a recent scrubbing; around the castle’s main courtyard, the lampposts with

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Diabolus in Machina

“Padre,” says the outlaw next to me at the bar. “I need yer help.”
Gold glints at the corners of his mouth. He reeks of trail dust, manure, sweat, and tobacco. The bartender bot drifts toward the till and a silent alarm. The conversations

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The Cleaning Lady vs. the Handyman

Dee Dalsey was constantly surrounded by heroes. Big heroes. Little heroes. (One that could be either, depending on the need.) Heroes with super strength, super speed, or super senses. Not to mention the whole slew of heroes that could fly.
Yet none

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Etta Mae’s Lucky Day

Etta Mae grimaced at the curtain of cigar smoke at the entrance to the Golden Stars Space Casino. Her worn loafers crunched on the carpet.

My engine room floor is cleaner than these carpets. Where are the janitor droids? She clutched her slot machine tokens. Focus, girl. You have a mission.

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