Blaise Marcoux

Years ago, Mayan demons invaded Earth, first with zombie foot soldiers, then in person, forcing humanity into submission. Without warning, the demons retreated to their realm, with most of humankind bewildered as to why. Little does the average person know that the government bartered a treaty with the demons. Every year, five teams of fourteen-year olds, each from a different continent, must play basketball with the demons in a game that will decide whether humanity stays safe... or another hellish invasion begins. This story follows one such team's game. - Jacob, the team's captain, has a violent fit alone in the team's practice gym's locker room. His skin grays, he has seizures, and his organs rot before he manages to stave off the symptoms with a self-administered injection of an unspecified solution. - He joins his impatiently waiting team and gets on the bus headed toward the annual game. The other players are introduced: Emma, Carlos, Daequan, Deandre and Dewayne, and Eric. - The team meets Colonel Rodriguez. He explains the treaty with the demons and the team's role in defending Earth along with a quick brush up on the demon's history with the Mayans. During his presentation, he lets slip that humanity has reclaimed some of the zombies from the demons using antidotes. Jacob uncomfortably stays silent. - The team is escorted to the court where they will play the demons. In the locker room, Jacob reencounters evidence of his earlier episode and starts changing into a zombie again. He antidotes himself just in time, but the team knows his secret now and decides not to let him play the game with them. They leave him alone in the locker room. - At halftime, the team returns battered and bruised from the first half. Humanity is losing by ten. Eric is dead, killed by a demonic flagrant foul. Jacob's teammates beg him to play, a request he quickly accepts. Jacob fights alongside his teammates to even the score. The clock ticks down, almost at zero. Humanity cannot tie without consequences. A demon eyes Jacob malevolently as the boy stares down the basket. Jacob's skin goes pale. Will he score the winning basket, saving humanity? Will the demon rip him to shreds like it did Eric? Worse yet, will Jacob succumb to the monster inside him and let down his team for good? What happens next when all the world has is a Dead Shot Clock?Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.

He is a famous author, a man who has penned best sellers. A man with a wife and a safe, sedate life. What drives his inner sorrow, then? What fuels his hidden frustration? Perhaps the answers start with the strange one-worded statements other people keep making at him. Maybe the truth lies in the reason why he is so extraordinarily afraid of answering back to those statements the wrong way.In this modern world, he is beyond the modern man, understanding far more than the average person, able of communicating far more than the best orator, the most talented blogger, or the greatest novelist. Yet all his thoughts are imprisoned within him because of the fear they can cause, that is, until the man meets two strange twin girls. What is the twin girls' secret? How does the writer find out about it? How will these girls prove to be either his salvation... or his greatest doom? In a world that cannot understand him, does he finally have a chance to be understood? Witness the perils of a life where evolution and linguistics combine, where hopes can be forged and disappointed simply by using a sentence, where nothing may be Better than Syntax, not even a kiss from someone you are supposed to love.Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.

Scandal forces Maria Posaltakis out of her job as a celebrity reporter. The paparazzi blacklists her, but media mogul Mark Bannerman takes her under his wing, intent on making Maria the newest addition to his politically-charged network AmeriPress News. He brings her to Isla Loci, his private resort, to personally train her on sticking to the channel's message. Then Chester, Mark's youngest son from a failed marriage, comes to the island. He's a moody, overweight bookish type who's just graduated from college and hates his father with an intense passion. - What mistake could be so heinous as to get Maria ostracized from an industry that makes questionable journalism calls every day? - What are Mark's intentions towards Maria? Did he really hire her purely for her skill or does he want something more intimate? - How will Chester respond to his father's interest in Maria? Is Chester interested in Maria? What else is Chester interested in... and how could it spell trouble for Mark's empire? Against the backdrop of a tropical paradise, a family conflict is brewing. Maria has to choose a side - the man who gave her a chance but with questionable motive, or his idealistic young son whose na vet may be his doom. What of Maria's own motives?What will she do to get back into the news world's good graces? How far will she go to keep from being Trapped in Margins, unable to be herself in a world all about finding out other people's secrets?Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.

Crusher Bruskiewicz doesn't believe he can be stopped. The fifteen-year old takes every challenge thrown his way, bolstering his fearsome reputation and encouraging his bullying ways. Some of his adventures are hazy in his mind, though, and hard to remember specifically. What the teenager doesn't know is that he keeps dying from his misadventures, only to be teleported into the future and repaired before being sent back to his own time. - Who is Crusher's real father, and how does that play into why the boy keeps being patched up by medics from a completely different century? - What strange future keeps its watchful eye on a young hooligan as he risks life and limb far in the past? - What plans are being made concerning Crusher's fate by his father? How could it spell a very bleak destiny indeed for the misbehaving kid? Welcome to a future where corporations own people completely and time travel is a study option at the university. A time full of hovercars and holograms, space aliens and a totally privatized military industrial complex.Crusher had better prepare himself for another Fix, Reset, and Reload, because next time, he could very well meet his doom.Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.

Fourteen-year old Eador has never remembered a time he wasn't a slave to the goblins. In their dark kingdom underground, he works blindly at their tasks while suffering their belittlement. Finally, though, two warriors named Thorsen and Coreon rescue Eador from the creatures' grasp. The three humans journey to the village On The Rocks of Tyvar River, but not everything is as it seems.- Who is the mysterious goblin girl who spied on Eador all the time while he was imprisoned? What does she want from him? How could it change his life forever? - What secret lies in Eador's lineage, one hidden from him by both the goblin girl and Thorsen and Coreon? What secret does the girl hold from Eador as well? - Why does Coreon keep eying the boy with suspicion? Could he have ill-willed plans plotted out for one of his own kind?Two societies are at war - the goblins and the humans. In the end, how could Eador ever reject his own race in favor of one that has tortured him for so many years? What tips the balance for him... or is the balance even tipped? When Romance and Goblins becomes involved, the results will always be unpredictable.Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.