After the Breeding Season by Héctor Hernández, Gatorade

For decades, the City of River View had no river, just miles of parched soil that a few weeks out of the year would carry a meandering rivulet of water, but only if the rains kept their promise and showed up in winter. More often than not, they would break that promise, like my wife breaking her promise to love me until death do us part.

But River View has undergone a transformation. With climate change, ferocious storms are now coming with pounding frequency, and last year, in the span of a few short months, the once-dry and barren landscape sprouted lush vegetation, and the river has run the whole year round. In fact, it hasn't stopped running, and now the name ‘River View’ no longer seems like a lie, unlike the last year of my marriage.

I started jogging again after my divorce, and the trail I'm running on is next to the river. This new scenery is a welcome change. It makes me think better days are right around the corner for me. But I'm still not ready to jump into a new relationship.

My friend Deborah, a Social Worker who fancies herself a psychologist, tells me I have to shake off my post-divorce depression—which is fairly common, she says. I have to stop being so pathetic and jump back in and start dating. She likes giving me advice like that—harsh but honest.

Two miles into my twelve-mile run, I crest a rise and almost come to a dead stop. Up ahead, perched on one of the weathered posts of the wooden fence separating me from the river below, is a large bird I've never seen before. The thing is enormous. Its feathers are a bright white, as white as the lie I tell my young son when I say that mommy loves him very much even though she doesn't live with us anymore. I normally see crows—black as my ex-wife's heart—perched atop the fence.

As I get closer, that stunning creature remains aloof, pretending to ignore me but eyeing me sideways with suspicion. And when I get too close, it springs up on its spindly legs and launches smoothly and effortlessly into flight. Its neck folds into a distinctive ‘s’ shape, and its wings extend fully. Its long, orange beak points forward, and its even longer, thin, black legs trail behind, straight as arrows.

It's a heron, and it floats gracefully on those huge sail-like wings to land at the river's edge. It sets its large, splayed feet into the muddy bank below and—as if for my sole benefit—strikes a majestic pose. I'm moved by the moment, but I also feel a twinge of sadness that I can't explain.

I told Deborah I was fine being alone, that I wasn't depressed. Sure, those first few months when I gorged on pizza and beer and binge-watched Suits, Mad Men, Mr. Robot, and Game of Thrones late at night—alone in bed—I was depressed. But I've moved past that. ‘Really I have,’ I told her. ‘I like being a single, unattached dad.’ She rolled her eyes and shook her head sadly. I was in classic denial, she sighed.

As I crest another rise, I see a runner up ahead. Her ponytail is a metronome of movement, whipping side to side underneath a bright blue running cap. She's wearing a white sports bra and blue running shorts, which draw my attention. They're tight and short—very short—a 2-inch inseam, if that. Her cheeks are an upside-down bright blue heart.

I can tell she's an experienced runner because her arms move smoothly from front to back, like she's working ski poles. She has good form.

I can't help but smile when she tugs down at the back of her shorts.

She's a regular on this trail, running almost as often as I do. When I catch up to her, I swing wide to her left and pick up my pace. I always do that when I pass a runner—swing wide and speed up. It would be too awkward—creepy even—to pass someone slowly.

As I pull ahead, she says something about ‘Karen,’ so I slow down and turn my head to look at her. She has a pleasant, friendly face—in sharp contrast to my ex's.

‘I'm sorry. What?’

‘I said, “Did you see the heron?”’

‘Oh! The heron. Yes. I did.’

‘I've lived here all my life, and I've never seen a heron before. It was such a thrill. The bird was just so . . . .’ She struggles to find the right word.

‘Majestic?’ I offer.

‘Yes. That's the word—majestic. My name's Sandra, by the way.’

‘Nice to meet you Sandra. Dris.’

‘Dris?’

‘It's short for Driscoll.’

‘Dris . . . .’ She considers a moment, then smiles and nods. ‘I like it.’

We continue running at the same pace, but I'm unsure if there will be more words exchanged between us, so before the silence turns heavy and smothers the moment, I say, ‘Well it was nice meeting you,’ but I'm only able to get out the word ‘well’ before she breathes new life back into the conversation.

‘I see you running this trail quite a bit. How far are you running today? I'm only doing four miles myself.’

I'm about to say, ‘twelve,’ but then hesitate when I think of the heron. I now know why it had struck me as sad. That creature looked so lonely standing out there in the open. Herons, like the vast majority of birds, don't mate for life. They move from one partner to another every breeding season, and when that season is over, their brief union ends, and each parent goes its separate way. For most of its life, that majestic creature will live a solitary existence.

I steal a sideways glance at Sandra as I consider my own solitary existence, which will be a lonely one if I continue straight on my current path. But if I round the corner . . . . Could there be better days ahead? My heart pounds a little faster as the word ‘four’ begins to form on my lips.

About the author 

 

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared in various publications, including Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation and Literally Stories. 

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Monsters by Héctor Hernández, el diablo cocktail

It was my back that needed a good stretch more so than my legs. A stiffness had settled into these old bones of mine, but I didn't dare move, not yet anyway. I don't know how long I had been sitting in the forest—a half hour? a full hour?—but I would have to wait just a little bit longer.

I was hiding behind thick brush, spying on the monster in the distance, and as I waited, I thought of the alien invaders. They had arrived by the millions—or so it had seemed—ships packed so tightly you strained to see the familiar flickering of stars at night.

If I said those ships covered the sky like a thick blanket, I would be far off the mark. It was more like a giant pillow, one that God had gripped with determined hands and slowly pressed down upon His six-day creation.

When NASA's NEO Surveyor spotted that near-Earth object hurtling at an incredible speed toward our Solar System, mainstream scientists around the world assured us with scholarly confidence that there was no reason for concern. The object—6I/NEOS, the sixth interstellar comet to enter our Solar System—was just another comet, they said.

The sun was now dipping below the horizon, its last few rays of light just grazing the Earth. In another minute, it would be time for me to move. I wasn't too worried about the low light. Although my eyes weren't as sharp as they had once been, I was counting on the monster's eyes being even worse or, if not worse, at least not any better than my own. I could still see pretty well at a distance—even in dim lighting. It was the up-close stuff, like reading, that I had a problem with. Of course, I hadn't done much of that these last two years—too busy just trying to survive.

6I/NEOS didn't pass by our planet as expected. Instead, it slipped into an orbit around us, invading our personal, celestial space, cozying up to us like we were intimately acquainted. And then, like a spawning fish, the comet that wasn't a comet spewed forth from its belly thousands upon thousands of ships.

A diffused light moved like a mist through the trees. Shadows, once distinct, blended into a heavy grey wash across the landscape. Twilight had begun. I rose with deliberate care, my sixty-two-year-old knees stiff like rusty hinges. It was time to move into my final position. I had been waiting patiently for this exact moment, the one of transition between day and night. Experience had taught me it would work to my advantage.

Somehow the aliens coaxed our own Sun to turn traitor against us. It spit out billions of tons of plasma right at Earth, a coronal mass ejection of biblical proportions that destroyed electrical systems around the world. Electricity was so deeply threaded through every aspect of our daily lives that the fabric of our modern world fell apart when that thread was pulled. It unravelled quickly, like a loosely knit sweater, and in the blink of an eye, we were all thrown into the past, back into a hunter-gatherer way of life.

My strategy was always the same: find an opening through the brush just wide enough to let two of my arrows fly—one after the other—and then run like hell. I flexed my stiff knees to get the circulation flowing. Hopefully, they would be up to the task.

I started to make my way through the dense brush, and though I proceeded with caution—careful to avoid the dry, brittle leaves and twigs scattered about the ground—a careless step triggered a distinct “snap,” which boomed through the silent forest like a rifle shot. I instinctively dropped on bended knees and held my breath. The monster ceased its activity.

My ears were sharp, and a moment later, I heard the approach of plodding footsteps. The monster was moving in my direction.

I needed to make a decision quickly. I had lost the element of surprise—that was a given—so I had two choices: run away to fight another day or stay and fight. It was an easy choice: in for a penny, in for a pound. I chose to fight.

The brush was too dense for my arrows to get through from where I was, but ten yards ahead I saw a clearing. Quietly, I nocked an arrow onto my string. I took a deep breath and then bolted towards that open ground.

My first arrow struck the monster in the gut, stopping it in its tracks. A puzzled expression splashed across its broad face. It stared at the wooden shaft sticking out of its ample belly, not comprehending how such a thing could so magically appear. That brief moment of confusion was all I needed to launch my second arrow, this one directed at its throat.

The monster dropped to the ground and let loose an ugly, garbled wail that would have sent any forest creature within earshot to run for cover. But there were no forest creatures. The aliens had seen to that.

After our Sun's unforgivable betrayal, the aliens had moved on to the next step of their plan. We watched with curious eyes as their fleet of ships followed a grid pattern of icy cold precision day and night around the globe, hovering a few seconds over a section of land before moving on. It didn't take us long to figure out what they were doing. Any animal entering one of the visited zones immediately dropped dead. Earth was being reshaped.

I caught glimpses of red pulsing out in thin streams from the monster's exposed neck as it thrashed in the dirt and leaves. Its wail had now turned into a pitiful whimpering which sent a shiver up my spine. A flicker of compassion sparked in me, but I quickly extinguished it. The beast had no right to my sympathy. I steeled myself and waited.

A minute later, the sounds stopped, but it was too soon to approach. I would wait a little longer. No sense taking any chances.

It was anyone's guess as to what the aliens ultimate goal was, but one thing was certain, we humans wouldn't be a part of it. Personally, I think the aliens just happened to stumble upon Earth, saw a beautiful vacation home, and—like any new homeowner when confronted with an infestation problem—decided to fumigate the place before moving in. It was as simple as that. We animals, humans included, were nothing more than an annoyance, cockroaches to be exterminated.

Five minutes later I made my way over to the monster. I walked with cautious steps, circling it wide for signs of movement. There were none. I circled a second time just to make sure. You could never be too careful when dealing with these creatures. Satisfied that the monster had been, literally, drained of life, I stepped in close. I saw the angry, desperate gouges that crisscrossed the spot on its sun scorched neck where my second arrow had entered. The monster had clawed at it in vain. It was buried deep.

I planted one foot against the side of the monster's thick neck and gripped my arrow with both hands and yanked. The arrow came out undamaged. I braced my foot against the beast's rotund belly and yanked out the other arrow. It too was undamaged. I returned both wooden shafts to my quiver.

I left the monster where it lay and walked over to its campsite. There was a sleeping bag, a rucksack, cooking pots, eating utensils, and an impressive set of cutting tools: knives, cleavers, and poultry shears.

I had watched with suppressed horror as the monster disemboweled its human kill, watched as it sliced the torso and let the entrails slip out of the cavity and splash onto the ground, watched as it expertly separated limbs from trunk. Most survivors would have continued on their way after stumbling upon such a disturbing scene—one that was becoming more and more common—but not me. It never seemed right to turn a blind eye and just walk away. Even though my days on this earth were numbered, I always felt compelled to take action.

I could now see that the monster's butchered victim was a woman. Had she been a stranger? Or a companion? Perhaps a family member? Cannibalism was becoming more common now, and it made it harder for us survivors to continue to survive when these accursed creatures, these humans turned monsters, preyed upon their own kind.

About the author 

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, Bright Flash Literary Review, Five Minutes, and Literally Stories. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Make It Rain by Héctor Hernández, a glass of water

‘You'll have to do it,’ my wife said.

I hesitated. My brother had said the same thing almost fifty years earlier. I shook off that almost-forgotten memory and focused on the present.

I had removed my wife's fentanyl patches the day before because she needed to be lucid for this moment. The pain had been too much for her, though, and I had to practically drown her in morphine every couple of hours throughout the night.

She was now in the bathtub. Water as warm as a summer day.

That day nearly fifty years ago had been a summer day.

‘We'll have to kill them,’ my brother had said.

He had been fifteen—two years older than me.

The morning had been cool. Later it would give way to a hot summer sun.

‘They'll probably die before nightfall, but it'd be wrong to let them suffer any longer.’

There had been the rhythmic sound of a rubber ball striking concrete.

‘We should put them out of their misery.’

Next door, nine-year-old Katie had been playing Two Square with her little brother, Connor.

‘How should we do it?’ I asked.

My brother and I were crouched in our backyard, staring at what we had teased out of the thick weeds.

‘We'll have to come up with a humane way,’ he said. ‘I'll get the shovel. After we dig a hole, we can figure something out.’

The abrupt roar of a lawn mower spooked us. A neighbor, hoping to finish yard work before the air turned heavy with a sticky heat, was getting an early start.

‘I know how we can do it,’ I told my brother when he came back.

‘How?’

‘Let's dig the hole first.’

The dry, clay soil had been stubborn, but taking turns, we eventually carved out a little grave.

‘The best way to kill them,’ I said, ‘is with a guillotine.’

My brother knitted his brows.

‘It would be quick and painless,’ I said.

‘You're right. A guillotine would be a good way to do it. But where would we get one, Einstein?’

‘You're holding it,’ I said.

He looked puzzled, staring blankly at the shovel in his hand. But then his eyes lit up. He understood. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said, bringing the blade up to his face and running his finger along its flat, sharp edge—the perfect instrument for cutting off small heads. ‘This could work.’

‘Since there are two of them,’ I said, ‘you do one; I'll do the other.’

He nodded. ‘Okay.’

We had found a litter of abandoned kittens. Three were dead, but two still gripped life with needle-sharp claws. Their silent mouths opened and closed in a grotesque imitation of mewing. They couldn't have been more than a week or two old, but they looked so much older—centuries older.

Their patchy fur was stretched taut over sharp bones, their limp bodies practically flat, like they'd been run over and left out to bake in the hot summer sun. They could have been roadkill. And just like roadkill, they had ants and maggots swarming their flesh. Nature had gotten an early start.

Cancer had gotten an early start on my wife. It was everywhere. Her skin stretched just as taut over bones just as sharp. Her body just as limp and flat. No ants or maggots swarming her body, though. She'd at least been spared that insult.

Using the shovel, my brother scooped up one of the kittens and moved it over a few feet, away from its sibling. Could one sense what was about to happen to the other?

My brother was now ready. With the blade facing down, he tightened his double grip on the shovel's smooth wooden handle. My own fingers clenched in response. He pulled in a deep breath, and I did the same. He raised his arms high, and I felt the arch of his back in my own.

But before he could thrust that hard, sharp blade into soft, dull flesh, our neighbor finished cutting his lawn. The abrupt silence rattled my brother, as if a voice had shouted out, ‘What the hell do you think you're doing?’

My brother held that shovel a long time. I could tell he was having second thoughts. He finally lowered it. ‘I can't do it,’ he said, shaking his head.

I couldn't believe it. My brother had chickened out. It wasn't like him.

He held out the shovel. ‘You'll have to do it.’

My wife held out the razor blade. ‘You'll have to do it.’

That blade had become Plan B when we realized Plan A (end-of-life medication) would be an impossible task for her. She wouldn't be able to swallow the three-ounce cocktail of Diazepam, Digoxin, Morphine Sulfate, and Amitriptyline in two minutes, not without gagging anyway. Surgeons had aggressively manipulated her throat during her two surgeries to remove cancerous vertebrae from her neck. Swallowing was painful. If she swallowed only a portion, she  might simply end up in a coma—worse than dead.

I took the shovel from my brother, intending to show him how it was done, but I couldn't do it either.

I had shot house sparrows, prairie dogs, and field mice with my .22 for no other reason than sport. Why couldn't I now kill for a legitimate reason, a humane reason?

My brother and I took the cowardly way out. We put those two miserable creatures back into the thick weeds where we had found them and left it to nature to finish what it had started.

I accepted the blade from my wife, held it between my fingers. I thought of those kittens. Mercy had been on the horizon for them, a gentle rain falling in the distance. But that rain never reached them.

My wife extended her arm, a pleading pouring out from her eyes. It tore at my heart. Had fifty years been enough to give me the courage to make it rain?

About the author  

 

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, Bright Flash Literary Review, Five Minutes and Literally Stories. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Suerte by Héctor Hernández, shot of Tequila

 My tires protest with a disturbing nails-on-chalkboard screech. I come to a stop but not before tapping the bumper of the car in front. Shit. A stench of burnt rubber fowls the night air. An arm pokes out of the driver's window and motions forcefully for me to turn right. I follow the car around the corner, and we park along the curb, ignoring the ‘No Stopping Any Time’ sign.

As I rummage through the glove compartment in search of my registration and proof of insurance, I try to control my breathing and my racing heart. It's a minor accident, I tell myself, nothing to get flustered about. I find the two slips of paper and prepare to exit the car, but before I do I see all four doors of the car I just hit swing open.

The driver and his four passengers step out. All five are young, Hispanic males in their late teens, early twenties. They're short with slight builds and shaved heads. They're heavily tattooed. They lean casually against their car and wait for me.

I have second thoughts about stepping out. I could restart my car and speed off, but what good would that do? They would just follow me until I stopped at a light, and then I'd be in a worse situation. I can picture the headline: “Seventy-Two-Year-Old Man Beaten to Death by Unknown Assailants.” Better to push through the alarm bells clanging in my head. Maybe I can impress them with my Spanish. I'm fluent in the language even though I'm not Hispanic. I learned it during my nearly forty years as a front-line county worker for the Department of Public Social Services.

I step out of my car and into the crisp night air—late autumn in Los Angeles.

‘Disculpame. Fue mi error. Es que iba de prisa por que llevaron a mi esposa de emergencia al hospital, y con la preocupación que tengo, no me fijé en el alto. Yo tuve la culpa, obviamente. Perdón.’

The driver stares. ‘What the fuck? Speak English, man.’

I'm taken aback and become a bit flustered. ‘Oh . . . I'm sorry. Don't you . . . I mean . . . I assumed you . . . that is . . . uh . . . I was just saying it was my fault. I was in a hurry because I just got word my wife was rushed to emergency—emergency hospital. I was preoccupied and didn't pay attention to the traffic light when it turned red . . . well, actually, yellow. Not that it matters,’ I add quickly, ‘red or yellow—it was still my fault.’

I had been at LAX waiting to board a flight for Philly when my daughter called. She had taken her mother to the hospital. The emergency physician initially suspected a heart attack, but an EKG quickly ruled that out. A cursory examination and a check of her vitals revealed nothing obvious, so an X-ray was ordered. That's when they spotted an unknown mass on her left lung.

Her breast cancer had already metastasized and destroyed two of her cervical vertebrae. Those corrupted bony structures were removed only last month and replaced with a titanium apparatus. Has the cancer now spread to her lungs?

The young driver mad dogs me—as my grandson would say—a cold, dispassionate stare. I grow uneasy but hold his gaze. He finally breaks away and cuts his eyes over to the rear of his car. It's a Chevy Impala that has seen better days but likely won't see them in the future. To call it ‘vintage’ would be generous but a lie. It's just old.

Mad Dog walks over to the rear bumper. Under different circumstances, his languid swagger would be comical, but in the present situation, his walk is just grotesque. He crouches and runs his hand carefully—almost a caressing gesture, which does not bode well for me—over an obviously scratched and dented area of the bumper.

‘You fucked up my bumper,’ he says without looking up. His calmness is chilling, and his words are like the appearance of dark clouds on the horizon. They portend an ominous change to this encounter.

I become aware of just how exposed and vulnerable I am. Of all the places to have stopped, it had to be here, in an industrial area with no pedestrian traffic. The weak light from the overhead streetlamp gives me little comfort.

I'm hesitant to move, but I can't stand here forever. I have no choice but to check the damage for myself. Mad Dog stands as I approach the bumper. My unease amuses him. He casually steps back a few paces.

I set my glasses on top of my head and bend over, bracing my hands on unsteady legs. I look at the damage. It doesn't match up with my bumper. Clearly I didn't cause this.

I straighten up and say with an even and calm voice—though my heart is pounding with such force I'm sure they can all hear it—‘There's definitely damage here, but honestly, I don't think that slight tap I gave you could have caused this.’

Mad Dog says nothing, but he doesn't have to. His long silence speaks of his displeasure. As I consider my options—none of which are good—one of the passengers shouts to him, ‘Hey, Sicario!’

My heart pounds ferociously as I brace for an attack. A sudden cold sweat bathes me.

The young passenger walks over and says to Mad Dog, ‘That chingadazo was already there! You backed into the post outside my apartment like three days ago, man!’ He points to the bumper. ‘Look you can still see yellow paint.’ He bends down and flicks off dried specks of the paint. ‘This viejo's car is blue, ese, not yellow!’

Mad Dog glares at the young man and says, ‘But he made it worse.’

‘Naw! How could he make it worse?’ The young man waves his hands theatrically toward the car. ‘Come on! Look at this chingadera! This car is no fucking beauty! It has more dents and scratches than Spider's pockmarked face.’

One of the other young passengers—presumably Spider—takes offense and shouts back, ‘Hey! Shut up, Payaso!’ The other two passengers laugh.

Mad Dog is adamant. ‘He made it worse.’

Ignoring Mad Dog and turning to me, Payaso says affably, ‘Ah, don't listen to him. He's just fucking with you, man.’

And to my surprise, I reply, ‘Yeah. I thought he was fucking with me, but I wasn't sure. I've never been fucked before.’

Payaso laughs a machine-gun staccato. ‘Hahahahahahahah.’

The other two passengers also laugh, but not Spider—and definitely not Mad Dog.

‘That's funny! You're funny, man. Hey, Flaco,’ Payaso calls to one of the other young men. ‘He says he's never been fucked before, so why don't you tell him what it's like since you have the experience.’

More laughter, accompanied by hoots and hollers, but this time from Spider and the fourth passenger.

‘Shut up, pendejo,’ replies Flaco. ‘Or I'll fuck you!’

With feigned sincerity, Payaso replies, ‘Hey, don't be mad. It's okay if you like it homeboy on homeboy.’

Even more hoots and hollers.

‘Shut up!’

‘Like they say, you know, “live and let die,” ese.’

Live and let live, I think to myself, but I don't correct the young man.

‘Everybody, shut up!’ yells Mad Dog.

The laughter dies quickly, and the sudden silence puts us right back to that ominous mood of before. Mad Dog once again fixes me with his eyes. I sense the situation is in a fine balance and fear the weight of my breath could tip the scales against me. I stop breathing. After a brief, tense moment, Mad Dog says, ‘Everybody get the fuck back in the car.’ I slowly exhale.

Payaso turns to me, offers a wide smile, and says, ‘Take it easy, man.’

‘You too,’ I say with a feigned ease.

Then he drops his smile and says in a low, conspiratorial whisper, ‘Tuviste suerte. Me acuerdo de ti.’ You were lucky. I remember you.

I look at this young man—as if seeing him for the first time. Do I know him? I scrutinize his features carefully, but his face is not at all familiar. Is it possible our paths crossed when I was a Social Worker? And if so, what kindness did I give him that now prompts him to give me one in return? Or did our paths cross under different circumstances? I search my cloudy memory but come up empty. I offer him a subtle nod of ‘thank you.’

 I turn to Mad Dog and say, ‘Again, I'm sorry.’

He shoots me a piercing look before getting in his car. All the other young men—Payaso, Spider, Flaco, and that nameless fourth passenger—pile back in, laughing and joking. I watch as they pull away from the curb and drive off.

Tuviste suerte. You were lucky. The words echo in my head. I certainly don't feel lucky. Instead, I feel exhausted, lightheaded, and nauseous.

As I walk back to my car, a sudden pain starts in my left shoulder and spreads down my arm. There's also a vice-like tightness in my chest, and I'm short of breath. I suppress an urge to vomit, but a little bile comes up anyway, and I reluctantly swallow it back. It burns my throat.

***

She stands just outside the hospital's emergency entrance, her left hand pressing the phone to her ear, her right arm hugging her chest against the cool, crisp night air. Still no answer. She decides to text him: Dad, are you almost here? Less than four miles away, the phone in her father's pocket emits a double chirp, but the sound, muffled into the pavement, never reaches his ears.

About the author 

 

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Literally Stories. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)