Sox Knocker contest winner!

As usual you torment me with your talent.


Not quite a story in and of itself, but holy hell, these entries enticed me:

JaredZ 12:18pm
Patty Blount 12:57pm
JustWriteCat 2:59pm

GregKShipman 4:51am
Sass 10:43am
Michael G-G 11:12am



My favorite new word: excogitating
M.R. Jordan 1:16pm




clever, clever, clever
Dave 10:40am



Great line:
my fevered eyes darting between the two men in front of me: the whole and the severed.

Maja 5:44pm


One minute she was spreading jelly on my sandwich, the next she was looking at me like I was a t-bone.
Adrienne 8:11pm




He'd seen so many dreams roll down the alley and into the gutter that he'd lost all hope of a break.
Celdaran 11:52pm



You’re not even my type—a t-bone tossed at a vegan—and yet I’m stark, cravin’ mad.
Catcaller 2:27am





Karl pinned his foot, drunk with Autobahn fever.
Steve Forti 8:46am



Great opening lines:

Centerville's annual Food Fling Fever Festival always attracts its most reclusive citizens. Every year at the appointed hour, hermits, misanthropes, and agoraphobes swarm the main square, bleary-eyed and unkempt, dragging their precious launchers behind them.

Shaunna 12:05am











These four made the first cut, good stories all

Patrick DiOrio 2:00pm
Curtis 5:06pm

Terri Coop 9:26pm
Kate Outhwaite 5:40pm





These next three made the second cut a VERY hard choice
Kregger 12:17pm
jesse 3:16pm
steven 3:37pm





These are the three finalists:


K 9:22pm

The echocardiogram took forever. Hard to believe that heart was worth anything, yet a 23 year old grad student with a congenital defect had fingers crossed.

Organ donors were bleeding-heart socialists in Mike’s world.

But his brain had been jelly since he rolled his damned mid-life Camaro over the bank to be t-boned by the oncoming truck. Brain dead, on life support and burning with fever—what was left of his life lay in my hands.

The dead blonde riding shotgun made it too easy.

“I’ll sign,” I said. Mike’s heart was still mine to give away.



Germaine Dulac 3:48am

When he asked me what I wanted, I said broiled t-bone, two fried eggs, side of hashbrowns, hot roll with butter--fresh churned, if they had it.

He brought the food himself. Even kept me company while I ate.

Afterwards, he offered me a Jolly Rancher. I thanked him, popped one in my mouth and waited. We talked sports. A man came to see me, said a few fevered words and left. I checked the clock. Footsteps echoed. Finally he took out his keys.

The walk was short.

When he strapped me down, I didn’t say much. Just thanked him again.



Becke Davis 4:38pm

Life was a jelly roll, T-Bone decided.

He drooled a little just looking at it—the damn thing was a fever in his blood. He knew the rule about no table scraps. His master’s voice said it so often the words were a constant echo, giving him a headache.

But was it technically a “scrap” if it was still on the table? Perched on his master’s plate, in fact, while he went for a refill of coffee? He thought not.

Sluuuurp!

“T-Bone! Where’s my jelly roll?”

Jelly roll? he burped. What jelly roll?




I'll have you know it was no easy task to decide the winner this time. Each is wonderful in its own way. I thought about taking the easy way out and saying "they ALL win" but didn't. I changed my mind at least twice about who the final winner is too. So really, you all did win, at least once.  The one who wins last though is K 9:22pm 



The prize is terrific too: an ARC of A CORPSE'S NIGHTMARE by Phillip DePoy. I read this last week and it knocked my sox off. No surprise there: the editor is Keith Kahla and Keith is largely responssible for this backlog of work I have cause whenever he sends me a book I can't seem to stop reading.

I printed the warning on a mug to remind myself to NOT OPEN THOSE PACKAGES:

the back of the mug is the first line of the book:

so yea, you want to read it.  Unless you are K 9:22pm you can Pre-order here! If you are K, drop me an email and I'll send you the book and the mug!

And thanks to everyone who entered!