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Jim Moore

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2021

Stories (12)

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12 Stories

208 karma pts

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Welcome home, Bob.

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #329

I knew the night was going wrong the second the jukebox started playing the same damn song it had been stuck on the last three Tuesdays. That, and the fact the demon was already on his third pitcher. The bar was one of those places that only exists after midnight—sticky floor, bad neon, a bartender who looked like he’d died in ’92 and never got the memo. We liked it because the lights were dim and the regulars minded their own business. Easy hunting. Drunks, drifters, lonely idiots who wouldn’t be missed. Perfect for monsters like us. The va...

6 likes

When the Hunter Let Go

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #328

The city smelled of burnt ozone and feathers. Streetlights flickered like nerves, afraid to stay on. John Merlin stood in the middle of it, coat torn, eyes quiet—the look of a man who had finally run out of arguments with the universe. Matilda limped to his side. For now she was a dog—black-and-brown mutt, one crooked ear, dragon’s gold eyes—but scales shimmered under her fur like a storm trying to remember itself. She pressed her head against his thigh and huffed. Mr. Whiskers hopped onto a mailbox and wrapped his tail around his paws. Just...

8 likes

Matilda’s Keeper

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #327

Matilda’s Keeper by Jim Moore (as told by Lucifer Morningstar) Hello. My name is Lucifer Morningstar, and before you roll your eyes—no, I did not choose that name. If I’d had any say, I would’ve gone with something sensible like Mr. Whiskers, Fluffy, or even Midnight. But no, the witches decided I needed something dramatic and infernal. Figures. Anyway, since you’re reading this and can’t see the illustrations, I should tell you I’m a cat—a sleek black tom with a white star-shaped patch over my right eye. It’s not paint, and it’s not irony. ...

7 likes

The Hunt Always Begins with Laughter

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #326

The 1977 Impala slid off the two-lane like a shark easing into shallow water—windows down, radio up, four monsters inside laughing as if the night were a joke they’d already told. Lucien, the vampire, practiced his smirk in the mirror that he absolutely did not need. “You know what I miss about the Renaissance?” he said. “Murder had style.” Rex, the werewolf, cracked his knuckles and a beer with the same motion. “Style’s a condiment. I prefer flavor.” Dax, the demon, shouldered a scarred camcorder and framed them as if he were directing a co...

10 likes

The Breeze That Spoke His Name

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #325

I feel the breeze brush against my skin, soft and cold, and for the briefest second, I swear I can feel him beside me again. It slips through the torn screen, smelling faintly of river mud and cut grass. The curtains lift and fall. The porch glider creaks. Out in the yard, the maple leaves flip their pale bellies to the sky as if they’re ready to tell a secret. I stand there, hand on the doorframe, and let the wind climb the inside of my wrist like it used to when I was small—when I had a hand to hold that made everything ordinary and safe. ...

16 likes

Barnabas sinclair: a fish out of water

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #324

Once upon a more dignified time, I wore velvet waistcoats, wrote with a raven-feather quill, and was addressed as “Master Sinclair.” I dined with queens, lectured on alchemy, and owned more hair than modesty. Now I have fins. Not elegant fins, mind you. I am a goldfish—orange as a poorly baked tart and round as a teacup. My world is six inches wide: a glass bowl, a pink plastic castle, a gumdrop-blue pebble, and a filter that hums lullabies of captivity. My keeper is a teenage sorceress who smells of strawberry lip gloss and chaos. Her name ...

3 likes

The Old Buck

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #323

Most mornings start the same for me. I wake before the sun — sometime between 5:30 and 6 — and go through the small, automatic motions that make the day manageable. Coffee used to be the anchor; now it’s a cold can of C4. Pop the tab, take that first bite of fizz and caffeine, and the day lines up behind it like obedient ducks. It’s little, stupid, perfect. A ritual. This morning the fridge betrayed me. A bare patch stared back where a silver can should have been. I stood there for a second, feeling the ritual slip like a missed step. Then I...

8 likes

The wrong circle

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #321

The Wrong Circle Act I – The Drifter The Dodge Omni wheezed like a lifelong smoker, coughing up the last of its strength as it rattled down the two-lane highway. The hatchback was two-tone blue, though most of the paint had dulled into the color of wet cement. He’d patched the driver’s seat with duct tape three times over, but the stuffing still pressed through like weeds through a sidewalk crack. He rubbed his thumb across the cracked plastic of the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the fading white line. He had no destination, not really...

15 likes

Through the Woods

Jim Moore

Through the Woods They call me by many names. Angel. Demon. Harbinger. Spirit. I never asked for any of them. The first time I stumbled into this world, the air felt heavy with sap and stitched by birdsong. I stepped through a seam strung between two cedars, trembling like a drawn bowstring. On the far side, trees bent toward me, animals fled, and shadows thickened as though I were a moon pulling tide. A woman saw me and ran, dragging terror after her like smoke. By dawn, the seam had vanished, leaving only bark where the threshold had been....

0 likes

The Hairy Truth

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #319

You’re breathing too loud. Not an insult—just an observation. After a few decades listening to you swarm my woods like wheezing bagpipes in boots, I’ve learned your rhythms. You call it “stealth hiking.” I call it dragging civilization uphill and begging it to go feral. Hi. I’m the problem. Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Skookum. The Fuzzy Convincing Blur. Pick a name that makes the hashtags bloom. I live here. And no, I don’t smell like onions and wet dog—that’s your jerky fighting your bug spray. Tonight’s troupe of cryptid theater majors: three regu...

6 likes

The girl in the tavern

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #318

The Girl in the Cavern She was no one. At least, that’s how the story always went. Her name was buried under dust and echoes in the cavern halls. She carried water in chipped buckets, swept coal dust from the stone floors, and stacked crates for men who never looked her in the eye. When travelers passed through on their way to some shining quest — knights in armor, sorcerers with staffs, even wide-eyed farm boys destined for glory — they never saw her. She was the background blur, the faceless figure scurrying out of frame so the “real” hero...

11 likes

“The Immortal at My Door”

Jim Moore

Submitted to Contest #317

Journal Entry – October 12th, 2023 I am an old woman now. My hands shake as I write this, though I tell myself it is the chill of autumn and not the chill of memory. I swore I would never record what happened that night, but time has a way of gnawing at silence. My children are grown, my grandchildren scattered, and the story—our story—sits inside me like a stone. Tonight, in the diner on Fifth Street, I saw him again. And that stone cracked. He sat in the far corner, exactly as I remembered him, as though forty years had been nothing more t...

6 likes