Love is a powerful human emotion. The apex of its ideal uplifts the human condition and is called 'inspiration'. Its nadir degrades the soul and is called 'fanaticism'. When the devil walks the Earth in patent leather pumps, a short skirt and all the lacy things a simple man craves, countless lives go awry and evil prospers. One man will do anything for her. Ever for her. The devil is a femme fatale. What is the price of a soul? What is the currency of its purchase? An insightful short story.

The worst of the worst, he is notorious even within a notorious system. When the worst prison riot in the history of human corrections threatens to bring down the walls, he will trade his knowledge of it for removal of his tattoos, one by one. When he's finished, he'll seem another man entirely, and this is the key to his freedom. Literally. He grew up hard and fast in the rough places of the city. Before he realizes the folly of gang life, his flesh scrawls with its lurid tales.

She takes her job seriously. Whether it be unruly school children or an armed madman, she tolerates no mischief aboard her school bus. When confronted by her worst nightmare, this bus driver will put out all the stops to make certain her young passengers all get home safely. She'll pay a heavy price for playing the hero. When a crazed gunman boards a bus full of small children, it makes for a bad day at school. This bus driver will make certain its most deserving passenger boarded with a one-way ticket.

They are the perfect couple, if perfection is a measure of lies and deception. They travel from town to town, conning their way across country, working large confidence games and small. When their past turns up to haunt them, they both quickly realize they are but hours away from certain death. Life then becomes a contest of ruthless cunning, but this is a game they play well. Tell the victims what they want to hear. Gain their confidence. Gain their trust. Then rob them blind We are never more alive than we are when facing death.

A young, newlywed couple. A new custom home. A good life. Yet nothing can ever be perfect. When the man of the house begins to experience bizarre nightmares involving a disturbing, pantomime face appearing in his wife's voluminous closet night after night, his sanity becomes an issue. At the same time, the lady of the house complains about mysterious disappearances, though she sleeps soundly at night. Though their evenings at home are filled with playful lovemaking in the first months spent in their lavish new dwelling, a chill begins to settle over them with the passage of time. Are his...

One morning on a vacation with this extended family, all bound to watch the patriarch run his first marathon, Mortimer witnesses a terrible crime. In the intervening minutes, a small child's fate hangs on his capacity to sprint. He will risk everything in his old age to set things straight. It's the race of a lifetime He's no hero. He's retired and has nothing better to do. Run, daddy, run

Jo-Jo's father died young, and his mother, while present, could not pick up the slack. It's not easy to raise an unguided young man of high school age, especially a young man as misunderstood as Jo-Jo. The last day of school will be the boy's -Big Day-, and it will forever change everyone who experiences it. Life is too short to mourn the dead forever. In a smile, a frown. In laughter, sorrow.

It's the perfect assassination. Every man who murders his wife and every wife who murders her husband does so with the firm belief they will never be caught, although this belief belies the inevitably obvious suspect. From time to time, however, chance mates with fortune to present the perfect crime. She's worth a life and the price of a bullet. He will risk all for one selfish act of violence. Will the hunter become the hunted?

He is ruthlessly ambitious. He believes in selling people what they want to find a shortcut to the good life. He's not a thief, but he'll take anything he can get. He's not a killer, but he's responsible for countless deaths. The first day he shows up at your door, it's a party. The last day he shows up at your door, it's a funeral. A working man. Keeping the appointments of a lifetime. It's a living.

If you had known him as a young man, you would not be surprised to learn he ended up on the coroner's slab with a bullet hole in his forehead. Yet, if you knew him as a man, it is the last fate you would imagine for him. This is one man's tale of the grave, of how he avoided it for so long, and of how he came to it in the end. We all got it coming. The start doesn't always dictate the end, but the end is certain, nonetheless.