Dave Housley

Dave Housley’s first novel, “This Darkness Got to Give,” was released in 2018. He is the author of four story collections, most recently “Massive Cleansing Fire” and “If I Knew the Way, I Would Take You Home.” He is one of the founding editors and do-stuff people at Barrelhouse, and he makes his actual living as a web strategist and manager at Penn State. He tweets at @housleydave.

ROADRUNNER by Dave Housley

June 19, 2019 · Fiction

Roadrunner can see the arches in the distance. Behind them, the mountains. He is running, moving as always, minding the blur of the desert on either side, the potential for danger in the road ahead. Is that a rock mound or an anvil, the shimmer sun a hundred wicks of dynamite simmering. He moves up a hill and smells the creature, a whiff and then a beak full of rot, a flash of mottled fur and the coyote is lumbering behind. The beast clutches something in his paw. A detonator or a hand crossbow or the complete Acme Mail Order…

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