Okay, call it an act of desperation but to get the ball rolling here, I've decided to put up one of my short stories that was first workshopped on a short story forum and then Matt from Skive Magazine did a great reading of it and posted it on Youtube. It's a fun piece and it might encourage all you out there to send in a short story.

 I hope you enjoy it.

‘Goodbye now,’ I said to what I hoped was going to be the last customer of the day. As she left and the door closed behind her, I placed the money into the brimming till and pressed it shut, happy that the takings for the day looked like they were going to be the best they had been for the last three weeks or so. The bad weather and localised flooding in the area had hit small businesses such as my own hard. Maybe things were on the upside again.

I reached into my pocket and brought out the store keys and walked to the door to lock it up. At that moment a heavyset man with a scarf over the lwer part of his face shoved the door open and pushed me back into the shop. I tripped over my feet and landed hard on the floor. As I looked up at him I saw the double barrel shotgun aimed at my face.

‘Money in the till. Get it. Now,’ his muffled voice barked.

I got up carefully, expecting the back of my head to be splattered all over the Hula Hoops promotional stand at any second. My knees popped when I righted myself. The gun followed me as I walked slowly back around the counter.

‘What the fuck are you waiting for? I’ll shoot you dead you old bastard. Money! Now!’ The barrel of the gun started to wobble a bit.

With a shaky hand I managed to stick the till key in and turned it to the override position. I pressed no sale and the till dinged as it flew out. All that cash soon to be gone.

The attacker reached into his pocket and brought out a white plastic bag and threw it on the counter. It had the words ‘Sanford’s Toy Centre’ stamped on it. I picked the bag up and started putting those hard earned ten and twenty pound notes inside it. My heart whammered inside my chest. I thought about my wife, mercifully at home, making my dinner. I hoped I would see her again. After the till was empty, I handed the plastic bag over to him.

As he reached out for it, he stopped, his brow scrunching tightly. He let out a gasp, the scarf around his face puffing out as he did so. He dropped the gun he was holding in his right hand and he clutched his left arm. His petrified grey eyes met mines and he gargled, ‘phone me an ambulance!’

He collapsed to the floor groaning loudly with pain and then after what seemed like an eternity but what in reality was only half a minute, he was silent. I took the credit card chip and pin machine, unplugged it from its tangle of wires and threw it at the him. It bounced off his head. He didn’t move. I was looking at someone who only moments before would have gladly blasted me into Kingdom Come.

Then, drowning in the grave dirt in which it lived spoke with a terrible and ancient voice.

Stressful thing trying to rob a shop. His heart just went pop!

I looked up and what I saw nearly stopped my heart. A thing at nearly seven foot tall, a thing that was composed of a mass of seething maggots and rotting flesh. In its hand (?) it held a gleaming and wickedly sharp sickle. My trousers were instantly wet.

Don’t worry, it said to me. Your time isn’t for a while yet.

With that, the foul presence that was Death vanished. I took a deep breath and phoned the police and then phoned my wife and asked her to bring me down a fresh pair of trousers.

END