ONE MORE BEFORE I GO
By John Thomas Tuft
Grace punched the code into the electronic lock keypad and entered the building for her shift as a CNA in the Fairfield Community House, an assisted living facility. The nights were getting longer and colder as winter approached. She clipped her…
TAKE ME TO CHURCH
By John Thomas Tuft
Dusty sat beside the campfire finishing his coffee from a tin mug. His sorrel horse, Devil’s Angel, grazed nearby, fidgeting a bit as fireflies rose off the mountain grass in the musky dusk. Dusty was helping move the herd from the summer…
THE BOB LEE WAY
BY John Thomas Tuft
Andre began volunteering at the Crisis Call Line because he wanted to give back. He was a retired high school history teacher, a widower, a Vietnam Vet, a reader of westerns and Bob Lee Swagger novels by Stephen Hunter. He quietly marveled…
THE WHITE WOLF
By John Thomas Tuft
The first time was when Jackson was five years old. Lying in the bottom bunk because the top one was too high up, he tried to hide his quivering lip, holding back the river of fear that washed through him at night. The…
THE GOD CULT
By John Thomas Tuft
(In my current work in progress, THE NIGHTCROSSER, our hero Josh Sparrow, after a SWAT sniper shooting gone tragically wrong, is on the run with Jodie, the pregnant wife of a mobster, and they find refuge in a small mountain town where Josh…
TIDE OF TEARS
By John Thomas Tuft
Her face always portrayed a smile to strangers, but if you looked into her eyes you knew it was raining on the inside. When you never feel at home in the world, or even in your own skin, life can become a tide…
THE TESTAMENT
By John Thomas Tuft
(This is from the last chapter of my latest novel, THE HEALING, sequel to THE HEALER, coming sometime in 2022. This is the story filed to the newspaper, The Testament, by the protagonist, Jason Tribe. This is fiction.)
THE HEALING
By Jason Tribe
On…
BEAUTIFUL WAR
By John Thomas Tuft
Nickleback was in his headphones singing “Far Away” when Johnny, manning the .50 caliber machine gun on top of the up-armored Humvee, looked up at the gloriously blue sky through his combat shades and smiled. It was good to be out in the countryside…
STARGHOSTS
By John Thomas Tuft
“Her only friend was named trouble, and he was back in town,” sang the singer at the piano. Helen sat in the hotel bar, lost in her thoughts. When her grandmother’s mantel clock broke when Helen was a little girl, she wondered if time would…
FINDING EBION
By John Thomas Tuft
The WIWAW Club (Wish It Was Always Weekends) romped through the hot, rainy forest, heading for their official clubhouse. Three boys and two girls, dedicated to the proposition that life is not defined by anxiety but rather by rising to challenges, ages 9 to…
