The Edge of Seventeen

Sixteen-year old Anna Sullivan is having terrible dreams of a massacre at her school. Anna’s father is a mentally unstable veteran, her mother vanished when Anna was five, and Anna might just chalk the dreams up to a reflection of her crazy waking life – except that Tyler Marsh, the most popular guy at the school and Anna’s secret crush, is having the exact same dream.

Despite the gulf between them in social status, Anna and Tyler connect, first in the dream and then in reality. As the dreams reveal more, Anna becomes convinced that they are being shown the future so they can prevent the shooting…

If they can survive the shooter – and the dream.

Short story: 6700 words. Winner of the ITW Thriller award for Best Short Fiction.