Fifteen Minutes Later

Gabe Gomez pleaded with his parents that summer camp was a bad idea.Now instead of another week of playing video games with his friends, he's stuck putting on goofy skits. And then in the middle of the night, all the boys wake up, cursed to beat the crap out of each other. Neither of those were on the brochure!It doesn't take long for cabin fever to set in. The boys' bathhouse used to be sacred- taking a leak was the only moment of peace you could get at a place like this, but not anymore.Matthew Atkinson will leave you wanting s'more kids bashing each other senseless- emphasis on senseless- with this SHORT STORY from his collection, Final First. "Fifteen Minutes Later" is the sort of endurance test that stokes a boy's wildness and builds his character. FINAL FIRST, the debut short story collection from Matthew Atkinson, will take you across several different genres where you'll laugh, shudder, get shot, play some super high-stakes children's games, and get beaten senseless! FINAL FIRST offers slow-burning dramas either horror-adjacent (where cosmic mystery meets family drama in "Shard") or not (lighthearted adulting non-epic "Eggs in Stainless Steel") or WTF (the spiritual whiplash of "Glue for the Goose"). FINAL FIRST will stab you over and over with the emotional pain of growing up (the bitter epistolary grief of "Spread"; the game in "Actuarial Life Table" that gets too real) or the physical pain (the senseless and patently adolescent mayhem of "Fifteen Minutes Later"). FINAL FIRST will unnerve you with realism (the sleazy hotel hostage situation of "Occupied / Vacant"), definite un-realism (the bad dream and beyond of "Hypnopomp"), an uncertain amount of realism (the world-changing kickball game of "Atrous Orb", the aftermath of a horrible event that might come up in a later collection (the Bechdel test-acing "The Q-Word") Although a number of these stories prominently feature children... warning: not for kids! Arguably not for adults! Just like life itself. There's no kiss or kill like the first... let this collection be your FINAL FIRST.