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    All Fall Down
    All Fall Down
    All Fall Down
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    All Fall Down

    By Annie Reed

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    About this ebook

    Childhood's not easy, at least not for the kids in this new five-story collection from award-winning writer Annie Reed.

    In "Uncle Charlie's Toy Store," a trip to a local toy store turns deadly serious for a boy out to buy his very first G.I. Joe. A time-traveler stuck in the wrong time tries to protect his granddaughter from a future war in "Harley and the Alien." The kids in "Firebug" have too much time on their hands and a brand new game they're dying to try. A lonely boy tries to make a new friend in a world overrun by the undead in "Jessie." And in "Missy and the Man," a little girl gets more than she bargained for when all she wants is to see her neighbor's new kittens.

    "I've been a fan of Annie Reed's short stories for a long time." –Marcelle Dube, author of THE SHOELESS KID

    "The appearance of a new Annie Reed story is a treat. Try one and you'll be hooked." -- Dave Hendrickson, author of CRACKING THE ICE

    "A friend recommended the works of Annie Reed. I was not disappointed. In fact, if her other shorts are as good as this one, I plan to read many more." -- Carol Davis Luce, author of NIGHT GAME

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThunder Valley Press
    Release dateJun 9, 2012
    ISBN9781476044453
    All Fall Down
    Author

    Annie Reed

    Award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch calls Annie Reed “one of the best writers I’ve come across in years.”Annie’s won recognition for her stellar writing across multiple genres. Her story “The Color of Guilt” originally published in Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, was selected as one of The Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. Her story “One Sun, No Waiting” was one of the first science fiction stories honored with a literary fellowship award by the Nevada Arts Foundation, and her novel PRETTY LITTLE HORSES was among the finalists in the Best First Private Eye Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America.A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie’s recent work includes the superhero origin novel FASTER, the near-future science fiction short novel IN DREAMS, and UNBROKEN FAMILIAR, a gritty urban fantasy mystery short novel. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly series of themed urban fantasy stories written by some of the best writers working today.Annie’s mystery novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels PRETTY LITTLE HORSES and PAPER BULLETS, the Jill Jordan mystery A DEATH IN CUMBERLAND, and the suspense novel SHADOW LIFE, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to. For more information about Annie, including news about upcoming bundles and publications, go to www.annie-reed.com.

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      Book preview

      All Fall Down - Annie Reed

      ALL FALL DOWN

      Five stories of childhood gone wrong

      Annie Reed

      ALL FALL DOWN

      Copyright © 2012 Annie Reed

      Published by Thunder Valley Press at Smashwords

      Cover art Copyright © Rejnkarlgren|Dreamstime.com

      Cover and layout Copyright © 2012 Thunder Valley Press

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      These stories are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

      For more information on the author, go to www.annie-reed.com.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Uncle Charlie's Toy Store

      Harley and the Alien

      Firebug

      Jessie

      Missy and the Man

      Copyright Information

      About the Author

      (If you would like to jump directly to the story, just click on the title)

      ~ ~ ~

      Introduction

      I had a great childhood. I just want to put that out there up front. I had a mom and dad who loved me, we always had pets—usually dogs, but I also had a few parakeets and the occasional tropical fish—and I was encouraged to read from a young age. We never had a whole lot of money, but I never really went without anything I wanted. Except for a horse, but for a while we lived next to pastures where other people kept their horses, so I sort of had a horse by proxy. I was never frightened by my neighbors, although War of the Worlds scared me pretty well one night when I was probably too young to watch it. (That's the original movie version of War of the Worlds, in case you were wondering, not the radio broadcast or the Tom Cruise remake.) I rode a bus to and from school for years without having to worry about drugs or gang violence, and I didn't have to walk through metal detectors to get to class.

      Looking back at it now, I was pretty lucky.

      This collection features five stories about kids who aren't quite so lucky. While you won't find any abusive parents here, you will find kids facing situations that are definitely beyond the norm.

      In Uncle Charlie's Toy Store, a trip to a local toy store turns deadly serious for a boy out to buy his very own G.I. Joe. I pulled an all-nighter when I wrote this story, the first time I've ever done that. I've come close with other projects, but Uncle Charlie's was the first story that wouldn't let me go until I finished.

      I had the title for Harley and the Alien long before I wrote the story. Some stories turn out that way, and I'll admit to being a tad bit influenced by Sons of Anarchy when I finally found the story that went with the title. Not that Harley comes close to being a typical biker club story, considering that time travel's involved.

      The next story in this collection is Firebug, which was my very first sale to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine back in 2005. Firebug features an oddity for me—a child who's not a very nice kid.

      Unlike the lead character in Firebug, Jessie is about a kid who's just trying to survive in a world overrun by the walking dead. This story also happens to be set along my favorite stretch of the Oregon coast.

      The last story in this collection is Missy and the Man, a story that's pretty close to my heart. Even though we always had dogs when I was a kid, I'm really a cat person. So is Missy. Only Missy's love of cats gets her in a pretty serious situation for a girl just out of kindergarten.

      This is my fifth short-story collection put together by the fine folks at Thunder Valley Press, and we're not done yet. Each collection focuses on a topic or genre, like this one. Some stories may appear in more than one collection, such as Jessie, which also appears in THE PATIENT Z FILES, my five-story zombie apocalypse collection. If you like Jessie, you might want to pick up THE PATIENT Z FILES as well. Just sayin'.

      I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

      —Annie Reed

      Reno, Nevada

      June 6, 2012

      ~ ~ ~

      Uncle Charlie's Toy Store

      Uncle Charlie's Toy Store was Daniel Preston's favorite place in the whole wide world. Once a month, if he had been a good boy, Daniel's mom took him on the bus downtown to Uncle Charlie's and let him pick out one new toy. He had been a very good boy this month, and Daniel knew exactly what he wanted: a G.I. Joe.

      Daniel's best friend Ned had his own G.I. Joe. Daniel tried not to be jealous every time Ned played soldier with Joe, but it was hard when he really, really wanted one of his own.

      From the outside Uncle Charlie's looked like any other store. It had a red brick store front with big display windows, and a door with a sign hung in the glass that could be turned to read either Open or Sorry, We're Closed. When his mom opened the door to Uncle Charlie's, a little brass bell that hung over the door jangled to welcome Daniel inside. Daniel loved the sound of that bell because every time he heard it, he knew he'd be walking into a store made just for kids.

      Uncle Charlie's had just about every toy a kid could hope to have. Rows and rows of wooden shelves with model ships and planes; model railroad cars and little trees and fences and plastic people for when you played railroad; plastic horses of every shape and size; stuffed bears and a stuffed monkey that played cymbals when you wound him up; packages of little green army men; marbles and jacks and jump ropes and kites and roller skates.

      And most important, Uncle Charlie's had G.I. Joe.

      G.I. Joe not only came with a gun, he had a canteen and real army clothes. If only he had his own G.I.Joe, Daniel and Ned could dig trenches in the dirt in the

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