Judy flashed her most provocative smile at the teller, placed the note on the counter and pulled out the sawed-off shotgun from beneath her raincoat.

He scanned the horizon, unaware that his ship was in danger from an iceberg he could not see.

As a retired English teacher Lucille could not abide seeing misspelled Facebook posts or texts with incomplete sentences, truncated words missing their vowels and those irritating acronyms.

The music was already in Eustice's head, but getting it on paper was another matter.

He was a killer for hire, it's true, but what he really wanted to do with his life was to paint landscapes in the south of France like his hero Matisse.

Tia always smelled vaguely of mackerel and we always knew where she was by the mewing of the town's hungry cats who followed her everywhere she went.

When it began raining blood the theologians argued, the politicians made promises and we began hoarding food and weapons in anticipation of the end.