A game of Scrabble has serious consequences.

A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger.

‘Bloody hell!’ said Detective Constable Bright. ‘It’s a minefield!’ ‘There’s more …’ replied Detective Sergeant Dawes with a grimace.

“I heard there’s a Laok in town! Where is he?” Velmar had just raised a frothing mug to his lips when the Dwarf entered. To a novice Laok, such words might’ve caused concern.

Looking round he saw an old woman dragging a bucket across the floor and holding a mop. When she realised that his eyes were upon her, she said in a throaty voice, ‘Oh, don’t mind me, dear. You carry on.’

The forest looked ethereal in the light from the moon overhead. Ghostly, eldritch, like Dave had stepped into another world. The branches swayed with a slight breeze, and the leaves rustled out a mellifluous harmony.

Mrs. Henshaw, grey-haired and ancient before her time, resting her rheumatic twig fingers in her pinny lap, sat facing a large wall mirror and rocked the gloom away.

Corporal Earnest Goodheart is crouched in a ditch on the edge of an orchard between Dunkirk and De Panne. It’s 28th May 1940, just a day into the evacuations.

You won't find me on any map either. I, too, have been buried, not by Tarmac and sand, but by time and indifference.

Knowing the day, you will die is strange. It filled me with a sort of anxious expectance until today. Now I just want it to be over with.

I hate Interstates. They’re boring, dangerous, and packed with people who pay little attention to what they’re doing. I love two-lane roads: the ones that meander through the countryside.

He wondered if he died there, would he grow into the poplar and live forever towering over the valley? It appealed to him, but dying could wait. At sixteen, life offered too much.

Most of our problems involve Grandma Grace, or rather her ashes. “It’s a public health violation,” Mom loves to snap at Dad. “We can’t have your dead mother on a shelf next to the food.

Deacon Park is where they bury the bodies. For a cold-blooded killer, a huge tract of wild land in the middle of the city can be an indispensable resource.

Through clouds of smoke, his blue eyes examined the ladies and gentlemen in front of him. They all looked hard at work, and he smiled at their naiveness, then chuckled, which turned into a coughing fit.

There was a long conversation then, and many qualifications and a great deal of sympathy; but the long and short of it was that I had aggressive macular degeneration, which is a fancy way of saying: I was going blind.

The ground shuttered. The earth split. And foul gases, detritus, and splintered rock erupted into the jungle like spew from a volcano. And the worm inched closer to the world above, the open air and the scorching humidity of the Brazilian rainforest.

One stormy night, as I tried to sleep, The scary monsters began to creep.

“I got a call this morning. My dad…” And Martin had explained the situation, as best he could. He wanted to see his father one last time. He wanted Joel to see his grandfather.

My daughter’s chihuahua, André, looks more like a rat than a dog. Last Saturday she asked me to babysit him when she went out of town, and I only agreed because I’m a doting father and like to think chivalry isn’t dead.