The bank robber left behind a fortune cookie. The fortune said: “Having money like eating Chinese food: always hungry for more.”
Tag: greed
Fiction: The Barthston Horde
Vyckers couldn’t help himself. He crept quietly through the halls of the ruined mansion, one step carefully placed after another. He was quite certain he was alone, and he suffered no fears about ghosts that might find his presence objectionable. But something about visiting the ancient Barthston home in the middle of the night called to his inner self to do so with a minimum of noise.
Still, he stopped occasionally to sneeze; dust had taken over the manse, and Vyckers’ nose was sensitive to it. He swung his large, intensely bright flashlight up and down the walls and across the floor in front of him. The mosaic pattern of the marble hallways had not held up well over the decades; many of the tesserae were chipped or missing. Likewise, although he knew what the mural in the grand gallery depicted, it had been defaced beyond recognition.
Stories had naturally grown up around the Barthston manse after the last of that line succumbed to the rigors of a dissipated life. The locals told of pitiful screams that could be heard on occasion if one were near enough – screams that would have rendered a human throat raw. Continue reading “Fiction: The Barthston Horde”
Fiction: The Ice-Cream Parlor
The funeral had ended. The casket was buried. The dinner at the church had been eaten. The guests had expressed their sympathies and gone.
They were back at the house now, and it was just family. Helen was straightening things up, whether they needed to be straightened or not. Her Uncle Curtis was in the room with her, picking things up, studying them fondly, and setting them down again. Two people were missing.
“Where’d they go?” Helen asked her uncle.
“To Father’s study. The moment the last guest left, they both made a beeline back there to start going over his papers again. They’re going to work out to the penny what he was worth, and no matter what they learn they’ll be angry.”