Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine has a great monthly contest. They print a photo and your job, as contest entrant, is to create a short crime story around the photo. And by short, I mean 250 words or less. I submitted for a story for the Nov/Dec 2022 photo but wasn’t selected. I like the story though, so I’m going to post the photo and the story here.

“Was it just yesterday that we hiked to the summit?” said Ellen Mordew. “We were so foolhardy.”

“Perhaps,” said Ajay Singh. “Or perhaps we were celebrating life, as Stuart would have wanted.”

Wiping away a tear, Ellen said, “Nothing was too crazy for Stuart. You knew him longer than I did.”

“Best friends since high school.”

The pair sat in silence as the lava descended the slope, steam rising as it meandered towards the surrounding flatlands. 

By now the lava would have melted the gun that Ajay had buried under some rubble on their descent. The police hadn’t found the murder weapon, and now they never would.

Ajay smiled as he sat in companionable silence with the woman he’d loved in secret for years.