To be told you have been made redundant is devastating and that’s how we find Ben, who realises that he will have to face up to unwelcome changes in his life.

A Turn for the Better

‘Not at work today?’  came the call from the front garden next door.

‘Taken some time off,’ I replied with a forced smile on my face as I scurried past.

‘I’m glad I’ve caught you,’ continued the woman in the woolly hat and matching fleece jacket, straightening up from her weeding and removing one of her gardening gloves.

‘Actually I’m in rather a hurry,’ I told her pretending to consult my watch while walking away.

‘Won’t keep you then.  I’ll call by later, should I?  It’s Flat 2 isn’t it?’ she persevered.

Download to read more

Many will understand the physical and emotional trauma of needing an organ transplant. In this story, of personal experience, I try to give an insight from the aspect of the recipient and close family.

From the insiduious beginning of pain and fatigue, the hopes and the fears. All tinged with the sorrow of knowing you could live only because another human being has lost their
life and another family is suffering loss. They are the heroes in this story.

“They’ve Got a Kidney for Me, Mum”

‘They’ve got a kidney for me, Mum!’ My Son Steve was almost shouting into the phone, he was so excited. My heart missed a beat, as I realised the enormity of his statement.  This was the phone call we have all been waiting for. It had finally arrived.  What now?

“I’m on my way Steve.” I said replacing the receiver and grabbing the car keys in one movement. Then it happened!

Download to read more

Brogan is beginning a six year sentence for the manslaughter of a prison officer.  He is unrepentant and is temporarily lodged in the derelict former execution wing of the prison where he is held. A battle of wills and wits ensues. He suspects that he is being subjected to an elaborate treatment programme designed to shock him into remorse and rehabilitation. But all is not as it seems.

‘E’ Wing

‘Killing Senior Officer Stewart was murder, plain and simple. And we both know, Brogan, that you should have been given Life.’

Brogan glared his defiance at the Governor and sensed the unease of the younger of the two prison officers who had brought him from his cell. He almost spat his reply. ‘The point is that they chose to call it Manslaughter and six years is what I got.’

Download to read more

Lake Forest has a reputation for being home to the very wealthy. The beauty of the town and its homes, some of which are quite grand, never fails to impress visitors. However, all may not be quite as lovely as it seems on the surface.

‘Home’ by Sheffield

My grand adventure, a time that taught me a great deal, began on a warm autumn afternoon. There were some workmen at my house, making a terrible racket with machines. (I hate machines. The vacuum cleaner sends me to the basement lickety-split.) When they started up with the saws or drills or whatever the nasty things were, I just had to get out of the house. Mum was distracted with her kitchen work, so when I whined and scratched at the back door, she let me out.

Download to read more

Margaret is a sixty four year old widow. She’s usually very sensible and calm, but she feels like an excited teenager as she sits in her living room and waits for her phone to ring.

It’s Duncan

Margaret had been expecting a phone call all evening, but she still jumped when the phone started ringing at twenty past nine. Her heart started hammering in her chest as well, but she managed to say hello in a reasonably normal voice.

“So has he phoned?” her friend Pam asked.

“No, not yet,” she replied.

“How strange,” Pam said. “What time did he phone last night?”

“The machine said it was ten past eight.” Margaret slumped back on the sofa and sighed. “Maybe he’s forgotten he said he’d phone.”

“Yes, so maybe you should phone him!”

Download to read more

A long empty, seemingly benign house wants to again enjoy days of caring, warmth and happiness.

13 Superstition Drive

I’d had enough.  My life was crumbling around me. At my peak, I was worth something in excess of a million dollars.  That was before ‘the incident’; the incident that ruined my existence.

The murders took place in 1946.  Sam Clarkson came home from the war and found his wife living with Simon Christie, a man who had evaded war service and made a fortune dealing in rubber and petrol.  Sam strangled Christie, caught his fleeing wife, strangled her and then committed suicide.  I was an orphan from that moment.

No one has cared for me since that day.

Download to read more

‘3am and Wide Awake’ is a collection of 25 thrillers and chillers by prolific short story writer, Sarah England. From the demonically inspired title story, to the madness of ‘Girl in the Rain’, or the shocking sadness of ‘Rough Love’ – there is one common factor – each story will take you to the edge of the precipice, and then bring you safely back again. Usually…

Dip into revenge with ‘Retribution’, or medieval terror with ‘The Witchfinders’…Dare to invite a stranger into your house with ‘Moving In’. Can you bear the aching loneliness of ‘Burned’? Or the frightening consequences of dabbling with a Ouija board in ‘Out of the Woods’? Why is a top surgeon being haunted by a vengeful woman in, ‘A Second Opinion’? And what happened to the girl who took ‘The Last Bus Home’?

Whatever you choose – we hope you will still be reading at 3am. And wide awake…

Paula decides to go on an estate agent’s website during her lunch break. She’s been desperate to look at the details of a property in Sycamore Close ever since the For Sale board went up, and she thinks the house looks great, but her supervisor isn’t so impressed.

8 Sycamore Close

As soon as all the other girls had clattered off to the canteen, Paula went on the Internet and started searching for the website of a local estate agent. She was desperate to take a look at 8 Sycamore Close. The For Sale board had gone up in the garden the day before, but she hadn’t been able to look at the details at her mother’s house.

Download to read more

Cyril has an obsession with birds; the feathered kind you understand. The problem is that he neglects his wife and though he has created a  seed mixture that his birds absolutely adore, will his wife want to remain with a man who prefers twitching to kissing?

A Bird in the Hand

Cyril taught History at the local community school but he knew far more about birds. The feathered kind, you understand. It couldn’t possibly be the other.

If you saw Cyril, you’d understand why. He was an unassuming, humble man. You could pass him in the street and not really notice him as he seemed to blend in with the scenery. Nothing at all remarkable to look at; grey hair, grey eyes and even a grey complexion, sallow and lacking in any healthy colour. Very slim and tall; he wore suits all the time and rarely smiled. He also scratched his head quite a lot. His pupils were constantly sniggering that he had dandruff or nits, but they didn’t realise that it was actually a nervous complaint he’d had since his youthful days.

Download to read more

A man is haunted by the 35-year institutionalization of his older brother.

A Brother’s Love

In the hodgepodge that passes for my life, there has been one constant: my love for my older brother, Barton. Through my marriage and divorce, through the death of my father and my mother’s hasty remarriage, through my numerous “career” changes, through the dissatisfaction and restlessness and loneliness that paint my life, there has been Barton. There’s no doubt in my boozed-up mind that I would have let go a long time ago, and not minded my drowning one bit, if it wasn’t for Barton. I stay in this city, live alone in a small apartment, because I couldn’t bear to be far from my brother.

Download to read more

Barbara had fallen out with her daughter, because she was forever trying to find a man for her. She loved her daughter very much, but she didn’t want a man in her life, she was happy as she was, that is, until she had a knock to her car and the cause of that knock changed her mind.

A Bumpy Ride to Romance

“You’re getting too choosy in your old age, that’s your trouble.”

Barbara gazed out of the window; she had taken umbrage at her daughter’s remark.

Right, so choosy she could be, and why not, but old? Never!  After all, she was only seventy, in her head coming on forty. She had her own teeth; or most of them; trendy in her appearance, and thanks to the bottle in her bathroom cabinet, no grey hair.

Download to read more

This is the tale of how young Wally Wallcott’s career choice originated from a bout of mass murder, blood and tears on England’s green and pleasant downland. But in the end was it the correct choice!

A Career Choice

It is hard to say precisely when one actually decides to pursue a certain career in life, but I am absolutely certain that I knew when my friend Wally Walcott did.  It all began with bugs at the bottom of the garden. Well, to be more precise, the bottom of the garden is at the top of the garden on account of the fact that the garden runs uphill.

Download to read more

Mavis and Tom were a childless couple, who spent all their married life, keeping to a routine, and never changing. Tom was old fashioned and would not agree to Mavis going out to work. One day, however, Tom began to change his routine, and the result was a big surprise for Mavis.

A Change in Routine

Mavis heard the stairs creak; he must be on the fifth stair. Almost every morning for the last thirty years, Tom had brought her a cup of tea, placing it carefully on the bedside cabinet.

“I’m off now dear. Another day another dollar.”

It was the same routine every day.

This morning, however, his mind seemed elsewhere.

Suddenly, Tom was sprawled across the bed, tea dripping over the beautiful cream silk bedcovers.

Download to read more

Laura is a writer who likes to sit writing in a coffee shop to stimulate her creativity. One stormy day she meets her guardian angel who has come to help her.

A Change of Heart

In the end it didn’t matter if she didn’t write today. Laura held the delete key down on her computer, wiping the words on her screen away—a clear page, until all that remained was the flashing cursor waiting again, like an anxious scribe waiting to fill a new sheet. The action represented her life, she thought, a clean slate—back to a default position.

The torrential rain streamed down the windows. Laura was sitting in the warmth of a deserted coffee shop at a table by the steamy window, looking out towards the sea wall. Every so often the angry, stormy sea sent a big wave splashing over it, as a reminder of its mood. ‘That should reflect my state,’ she thought, ‘but I feel nothing.’

Download to read more

Being bad’s easy when no one seems to care about you. But when someone shows you a little kindness and reminds you of your own momma, then pulling the trigger isn’t quite so easy. However, when you’re part of a gang and they’re all relying on you – then what are you gonna do?

A Change of Heart

There were only a few people in the bank which Frank decided was a good thing. He hated the thought of innocent bystanders being hurt or killed and he’d learned from experience that Russell didn’t care. Russell was a mean S.O.B. and would as soon shoot a man as look at him. Whenever Russell pulled that gun of his it was inevitable – someone died. Not for the first time, Frank wished he’d never hooked up with the crew he now rode with.

Download to read more

Father Christmas’s special thick red coat was now a peculiar pink colour, and only half its original size. It was much too cold for him to be out on his sleigh on Christmas Eve without his thick coat, but children everywhere were waiting excitedly for him to deliver their Christmas presents…

A Christmas Coat-Astrophe

It would soon be Christmas, so Mother Christmas was busy getting ready for that most wonderful time of year.

“I must make sure Father Christmas’s special red coat is spotlessly clean,” she murmured to herself.  So she quickly put it into the washing machine.  Then off she went to put up even more Christmas decorations.

Download to read more

A family dispute before Christmas is not much fun, can Mike find a way round it?

A Christmas Story

The gale force wind sent ice-cold rain sweeping across the garage forecourt. It rattled the signs, pulled at the bunting and threatened the brightly coloured lights on the huge Christmas tree outside the door. Mike Drew ran a hand through his thick brown curls and sighed. If the tree came down, he would have to go out and rescue it.  It would mean getting soaked, but that wouldn’t make him any unhappier than he already was. What a Christmas Eve, raining, hardly any customers and the prospect of spending Christmas alone.

Download to read more

A lad from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ falls for a girl his mother warned him he can never have.

A Class Act

My mother was preserving the class system again.  “Them folks as live up th’ill, live in a different world frum us.  We’ll never be able to aspire tuh same ‘eights as them, you’ll see.  Just wait ‘til ya get older and you’ll see the way of the world!”

Unfortunately, one of the folks that lived on the hill was Penelope Armstrong-Sydeley and I took a shine to her from the day I saw her in the schoolyard.  A gaggle of girls was doing handstands against a wall that ran the length of the girls’ play area.

Download to read more

A young school cadet goes to a fairground looking for the kind of girl about whom he has heard other cadets talk.  Camellia doesn’t exactly fit the description but she does provide him with a sought after opportunity.

A Company of Boys

I was the youngest of the school cadet force at the summer camp and socially unacceptable to my peers, so, on Saturday, I took a bus alone into town, intending, like the others, to meet one of the anticipated hordes of vacationing mill girls.

As I strode into the pulsating fairground, Frankie Vaughan sang of secrets ‘Behind the Green Door’.

Rides went round and round, up and down and in and out, allowing girls to scream out for attention, pretending excitement and manufacturing fear.  Assorted music blared from a multitude of speakers.

Download to read more

Lucy is having lunch with her grandmother in a local pub. She thinks they have gone out to lunch instead of having their usual sandwiches because her grandmother has run out of bread, but it turns out that Joan has a cunning plan.

A Cunning Plan

Lucy had never been in The Red Lion before. She’d walked past it a few times in the past and concluded that it looked a bit of a dump, but it was actually quite nice inside, and there were loads of tempting dishes on the menu, but she was finding it very hard to decide what she should have to eat. She needed to concentrate, but her grandmother hadn’t stopped talking since they’d walked into the pub. First she’d gone on, in a very loud voice, about the landlord and his seedy past, then she’d moved on to her bunions and what the chiropodist had said, and for the last five minutes or so she’d been acting like a teenager and eyeing up all the single men!

Download to read more

Tells how Senior Aircraftsman John Newton, an engine mechanic by trade, came to be working in RAF Changi’s Technical Wing Disciplinary Office and how he schemed to make his unofficial position permanent.

A Cushy Number

I flew into RAF Changi, Singapore on a moonlit April evening in 1961. After twenty-one hours cooped up with a score of squabbling RAF families, I desperately needed fresh air. Stepping eagerly onto the aircraft’s gangway, I took a deep breath – and choked. You can cut Singapore’s atmosphere with a knife. Even at nine in the evening humidity tops ninety percent.

Having spent a restless night sharing a hut with a tribe of lively cockroaches, I reported to the Station Warrant Officer’s headquarters to collect my blue ticket. Still itching with revulsion, I bent the admin sergeant’s ear. “That vermin infested transit billet should be condemned, Sarge. It’s bloody disgusting.”

Download to read more

Emotions stir when a  policeman kills an offender who turns out to have been his wife’s pre-school friend.

A Day in the Life of a Policeman’s Wife

As usual after a night callout, Senior Constable Peter Smith did not go back to bed.  When Anna surfaced, he was on a stool, still wearing his coat, flicking through a newspaper, his big frame hunched over the kitchen table. An aroma of bacon and eggs lingered.

“Morning, Peter,” Anna said.

“Shhh,” he growled, pointing at the radio.

Download to read more

Digger is in the doghouse. He has eaten the sausages, chewed dad’s slippers and tiddled on the kitchen floor. Digger decides that being a dog isn’t much fun anymore – but what should he be instead?

A Dog Called Cat

Digger the dog sat in the garden. His ears drooped, his tail drooped, even his whiskers drooped.

“Outside!” Mum had shouted. “You are a very naughty dog!”

Digger hadn’t meant to eat the sausages that had been left out for tea. He hadn’t meant to chew Dad’s favourite slippers. And he really hadn’t meant to tiddle on Mum’s clean kitchen floor.

“I don’t want to be a dog anymore,” he said. He padded off, thinking about what he could be instead.

Download to read more

A man is left with a dog his wife brought into their lives.  The animal helps him readjust and eventually find happiness.

A Dog for all Reasons

“No more sex ‘til we get a dog!”

I laughed at her outrageous statement and made wagers with her to win my prize.  I got her inebriated.  I challenged her to nude wrestling matches and other transparent games and she laughed at me.  When I said it was time to stop the games, she said, “Not until we get a dog.”

The dog was a Welsh corgi and he was the right size for our garden flat.  He was farm-born, a few weeks old and nameless when he came into our lives.

Download to read more

Stuart isn’t enjoying his working life, not enjoying it at all. His boss treats him like rubbish, and Stuart doesn’t like it, not one bit. But Stuart has a plan . . . A Dog Story is a short piece of crime fiction, with sharp bite at the end.

A Dog Story

He looked at me with that smug sneer on his smarmy face.

‘If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong,’ he said, and shrugged his shoulders.

What could I do? Ralph was my manager, the man who I wanted to sign my leave form. If he didn’t sign the form, I’d be stuck in Adelaide while my family holidayed in Europe. I could agree with the idiot and suck up to him, anything to get what I wanted. ‘All right, Ralph, I guess you know more about dogs than I do.’

Download to read more