For the Month of November 2026, These Are the Stories That Entertain Us Most.
* Gifted Sociopath by Oghenerukevwe Ogbakpa
* Dansa Macabra by Aza Smith
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* Belphegor by Koren Cowgill
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* Mrs. Tuttle's Garden by Robin S. Bloom
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* The Baby and the Dogs by Alzo David-West
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​* The Name Collector by Gant Laborde
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* Childhood Revelation by Sushma R. Doshi
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* Time Will Tell by Laura Rybka
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* The Mist by Peter Waddell
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* A Song of Skin by Sara Baughn
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* Time Will Tell by Laura Rybka
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* You Got Kids? by Kenneth Komnick
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* Ladder to Terror by Tim Tobin
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* Don't Do It, Red by Chester Vonn
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* Sibling Rivalry by Niles Reddick
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* Hare-Raising Experience by Garry Engkent
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* Lucy by Stuart Farthing-Mays
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* The Cheapest House on the Block by Christian De Matteo
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* Baja Bozo by Austin Fowler
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* Geometry of the Flesh by Eduardo Torres
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* Fearcrow by Rodney Hatfield Jr.
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* Misery (Commission) by Tony John
Gifted Sociopath by Oghenerukevwe Ogbakpa
They tested Daniel's IQ at 163 when he was six. His mother framed the certificate and told everyone at church her son would change the world. What they didn't test was what happened behind his eyes when he looked at living things. He didn't see people. He saw levers.
At four, he put the hamster in a glass of water to time how long it struggled. 2 minutes and 47 seconds. He wrote it in a notebook with a dinosaur on the cover. When his mother found it dead, he hugged her and cried perfectly. He had learned that tears stopped questions. That was his first real discovery.
By ten, he no longer needed to touch things to hurt them. People were easier to open than animals. He found his father drunk in the garage after midnight. He didn't tell me. He started moving the bottles one inch every night. His father thought he was losing his mind and drank more to cope. Daniel wrote in his ledger: FEAR AMPLIFIES THIRST.
The ledger was everything. Every person had a page. Mom: Fear - abandonment. Button - guilt. Dad: Fear - failure. Button - shame. Lisa from school: Fear being ugly. Button - comparison. He didn't want money or toys. He wanted to see if he could make someone do what they swore they would never do.
He started with Lisa. Lisa loved Jesus and self-harm forums in equal measure. He became her best friend. He cried with her at the youth group. For three months he whispered that her parents only loved obedient Lisa. He left a razor on her desk with a note: THIS IS HOW YOU PROVE YOU ARE REAL.
When she cut, he was there. He held her bleeding wrist, called her brave, and took a photo while she sobbed into his chest. He kept the photo. That night he felt a warm buzzing deep in his chest, like a furnace turning on for the first time. He finally felt full. Not happy. Full.
At fourteen he broke his parents' marriage without raising his voice once. He told his mother his father said she was a cold woman. He told his father his mother said he was a weak man. He listened from the stairs as they screamed in the kitchen, throwing plates. Then he walked down and hugged them both, perfectly empathetic. They thanked him for being mature.
His mother found the ledger when he was sixteen. She wasn't supposed to clean his room. He let her. He had left it open on purpose. She read pages of how to make her cry in under twenty seconds, how to make Dad think about driving into a pole, how to make the neighbor's boy wet himself at school. All in neat, gifted handwriting.
She went to his room at midnight. He was awake, sitting in the dark, smiling. "Daniel," she whispered, shaking, "are you a sociopath?" He stood and touched her cheek. His hand was ice cold. "Don't use ugly words, Mom. I'm gifted. I just don't feel what you feel. I feel what you will do next."
He leaned to her ear and whispered her secrets. The blue bag was packed in her closet. The pills in her drawer. I plan to leave on Thursday. Things she had told no one. "If you leave, I will tell Dad. I will tell the church. I will tell everyone why you really go to counselling. No one will ever believe you again. You will come back."
She understood then. He would never kill her. The killing was too small. Killing was an ending and he hated endings. He liked keeping his toys alive, woundable, repeatable. A dead mother couldn't be scared again. A living one could be scared every night forever.
She went back to bed because he told her to. She locked the door. From the hallway, she heard him flipping pages, writing. She heard a soft pen scratch and his quiet, gifted laugh in the dark house that was already entirely his.
Tonight Mom learned. Fear level: 9/10. Obedience: perfect.
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​Ogbakpa Oghenerukevwe is an emerging horror writer from Bayelsa State, Nigeria with a love for edgy flash fiction that ends with a bang. This would be her first publication.
Dansa Macabra by Aza Smith
Maria Salvidor opened the front door where her brother, Rudolpho, and brother-in-law, Jonathan, waited.
“Hey, bitch,” said Rudolpho with affection.
“Hey dickwad,” said Maria back. She hugs them both, made awkward by her pregnant belly, and they let themselves in.
Jonathan made for the kitchen to offload their tamales, leaving Rudolpho alone with his sister.
It was Día de los Muertos, and their ofrenda was a modest one; marigolds, Cactus Cat tequila, plates, candles, a matchbook from their father’s old bar, and a photograph of Rudy and Maria’s parents–Valentina and Santiago–in the center.
“You okay?” asked Maria.
“Yeah,” Rudolpho lied. He felt haunted by his mother looking at him.
“You don't have to be,” said Maria.
“I know,” said Rudolpho. “How are you feeling?”
“Like roadkill. She won’t settle down,” said Maria, rubbing her belly affectionately. “I wish she could have met them,” gesturing to the ofrenda. “At least once.”
“Mhm,” grunted Rudolpho.
Rudolpho placed store-bought pan de muerto from his grocery bag onto the empty plates at the ofrenda, struck a match from the matchbook, and lit candles.
“Smells good,” said Rudolpho.
“If you say so,” said Maria.
“I thought you liked mole,” said Rudolpho.
“No, you liked mole.”
A pop, then a sizzle. Sparks fled from the candles’ wicks, the whole ofrenda going off like firecrackers. Rudolpho put himself between the candles and his sister.
“Qué carajo?” said Rudolpho.
“What happened?!” said Jonathan and Guzman in unison as they came from the kitchen in matching aprons.
The shower of light coalesced and crystallized into a pair of skeletons; one dressed in trousers and a button-up shirt, the other in a frilly, sequined dress.
"Mija!” said the skeleton in a dress. Her shoes clacked on the tile floor, brushing off Rudolpho to give Maria a bear hug. The skeleton reeked of marigold perfume and Maria gagged. A hand was on Maria’s cheek before the skeleton chattered a Spanish cornucopia of excitement at the sight of Maria’s belly.
“What the fuck is going on?” asked Jonathan.
The other skeleton grabbed the tequila bottle, broke the top of the bottle against the table, and chugged it. Lacking organs, it stained his shirt and pants before leaking out into a puddle under his shoes. Rudy recognized that it was dressed identically to his father in the photograph on the ofrenda.
“Wait… Papa?” said Rudolpho.
“Oh, you're here, too,” said the feminine skeleton, unimpressed, before turning back to Maria.
“Hold on, Mama?! But you’re both dead! Three years dead,” said Maria incredulously.
“I know mija, but we’re here now,” said Valentina. “It’s Dia de los Muertos, when the spirits of the dead revisit the living.”
Santiago dropped the now-empty bottle, smashing to the floor, and started stuffing pan de muerto into his jaws. If he had a throat, he’d be choking.
“What’s with him?” asked a concerned Jonathan.
“You know the old saying, ‘and people in Hell want ice water’?” asked Valentina rhetorically. “You’re not the father, are you? Te lo juro, Mija, if you married a white boy–”
“No, I’m the father. Guzman, good to meet you,” said Guzman.
“Valentina, but you can call me Mama,” said Valentina, who was already hugging the larger man.
"And I’m Jonathan. Or ‘Johnny’ if you prefer. Johnny Salvidor-Cozgro.”
“He’s my husband,” said Rudolpho, putting his hands over Jonathan’s shoulders protectively.
“Qué?” Valentina let go of Guzman and started pointing at Rudolpho. “You think you can bring your perversions into your sister’s home like this?”
“Mama, don’t talk to Rudy and Johnny like that,” said Maria.
“Stay out of this, Mija, the adults are talking,” said Valentina.
“Excuse me?” asked Maria.
“Hambriento,” said Santiago, who was now on the floor, unable to lick the crumbs and puddle on the floor without a tongue.
“Oh, and I suppose you’ll just let these perverts around the baby when it arrives?” asked Valentino.
“You mean will I let my daughter have a relationship with her uncles? I was planning on it, yeah!”
“I won’t allow it!” declared Valentina.
“You’re dead, Mama! You have no right to push us around like that,” said Rudolpho.
“Not anymore,” said Jonathan. “We never met when you were alive, but Rudy told me stories, and I’m not going to let you beat him down like that.”
“This is family business! Mantente al margen!” said Valentina, who grabbed the cap from the broken bottle and stuck the sharp end into his neck, pouring blood from the top like wine from a barrel.
“Johnny!” shouted Rudolpho, Maria, and Guzman. Rudolpho moved to him, only to get tackled to the ground by Santiago. He tore open his shirt barehanded, grabbed the largest glass shard on the floor, sliced his stomach open, and started pulling out guts.
“Dios Mio!” Maria covered her mouth in horror, throwing up a little in her palm.
“This family would be nothing without me. Foolish that you thought you could live without us,” said Valentina. “But we’re here now.”
Rudolpho, pale and sluggish, reached out to the closest thing to him, grabbing the decorative linens of the ofrenda. The altar collapsed, dishes and flowers flying everywhere. Candles tipped over and the cloth caught fire.
Guzman wrapped his arms around Maria’s shoulders, and the two made it past the front door, coughing as smoke filled the room. She fought him, not wanting to leave her brother behind, but Guzman wouldn’t let her. Santiago, on all fours, reaching for Maria’s skirt, only for his bones to crumble and turn to powder when his image on the photograph burned in the fire.
“Get back here, Maria! I am your mother!” called out Valentina, enraged by the defiance of her daughter. Her shoulder caught aflame as her portrait’s arm vanished in the smoldering picture. Her lower jaw fell, teeth clattering on the floorboards, the flowers of her dress flaking off before her ashes melded with the burning wreckage of her daughter’s home.
​Rudolpho and Jonathan reached out to one another as they lay dying together.
​
Aza Smith was originally just another zombie lumbering around the inhospitable wasteland of modern-day Garland, TX. That is until he was bitten by a werewolf on a full moon, and since no one has ever heard of a “zombie werewolf”, he regained his non-rotting state and his conscious mind. And as a werewolf, it was his duty to needlessly antagonize the local vampire coven out of primitive tribalism, and he does that by publishing stories that make vampires look trite and cliche. Such stories can be read on Flash Fiction Magazine, Flash Phantoms, The Molotov Cocktail, Jokes Literary Review, Last Girls Club: The Witch's Cosmo, Curious Curls Publishing, Nat 1 Publishing, Wicked Shadow Press, WATG Press, and SM Sykes Books. (https://azawsmith.wixsite.com/mysite)
Belphegor by Koren Cowgill
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“Dieter,” I whisper.
From his post outside Margot’s cell, Dieter snores himself awake. “What?” He scratches his chin then wipes the drool from the corner of his mouth.
This time I drag it out, more like a hiss. “Die-ter.”
“Who’s that?” Dieter stands, knocking his chair over. Frantic and shaky, he looks over his shoulder. He recovers and pounds at her door. “Go back to sleep, you. It’s three in the morning.”
(3 AM. My favorite time of all, the inverse of the three-in-the-afternoon holy hour on Good Friday, when Christ died on the cross. How I love mocking Them.)
I unleash my most sinister, terror-inducing laugh, then add a blaring loop of circular reverb that bounces grating growly noises in Dieter’s mind.
He covers his ears and thuds on the floor.
“Take that, you hulking, limp-dicked wonder,” I snarl.
(According to Wiki I’m the archdemon Belphegor, associated with sloth, and sometimes gluttony. Respighi wrote an opera about me. It’s even said I am the demon ambassador to France, and there’s a punk band named after me, along with numerous Twentieth Century pop culture references. I’m famous. Victor Hugo even gave me a nod.
Not sure what has me into this particular waif of a patient, Margot. Except she makes me think of Les Mis. They found her homeless, caring for hordes of stray dogs and cats in an abandoned factory. The authorities euthanized all the animals after they hauled Margot away. Anyone passing by the factory at night reports hearing the ghostly canine whimpers and cat yowls from Margot’s murdered friends.
A typical innocent—young, unsullied, sweet, sensitive. Margot will die when I abandon her body. While I’ve a soft spot for the institutionalized, I won’t lament her demise.)
I hover over Margot as she sleeps. She tries to ignore my honey-toned, pleading voice.
“Let me in,” I say.
Margot shivers, and murmurs, “No.”
“Sweet Margot. Open up,” I coo.
“The power of Christ compels you—” The clank of the door unlocking silences her, then she continues—“to depart.”
“Open your heart to me, Margot, then get him. Margot. Lure him.” I stifle Margot’s soul and enter her, animating her neck so it lolls her head atop her quivering body. I let her stop moving, then raise her chin, slightly, enough to gaze at Dieter between strands of unkempt hair straggling over her face.
He stares at Margot, transfixed.
I watch him through her milky blue eyes, and scuttle her to the corner of the cell, where she huddles; her hospital gown slips off one shoulder.
Dieter licks his lips and leers at her bare skin while I feign Margot’s fright. Rolls of lard-belly bulge over the belt of his white orderly’s uniform. His hand lingers in his pants when he tucks in his shirt. (At the moment I’m tempted to rotate Margot’s head and make it three-sixty with grinding sounds of bone on bone. Dieter would soil his shorts. But I practice restraint.) Dieter turns away from Margot for a moment, pokes his head out of the cell, and looks both ways down the hall before he closes and locks the door behind him.
I maneuver her and also enjoy the drama from above.
Margot turns toward Dieter, and he approaches. Her flimsy gown gapes in the front, revealing her breasts. She pushes strands of hair behind her ears, revealing a lascivious gaze with a toothy smile and lips painted blood-red.
“What the fu—” Dieter backs away.
Rounds of howling cackles erupt from Margot’s mouth. “Did you think you could hide, pervert?”
“Huh?” Dieter says. He covers his crotch, wet from pissing himself.
“We all know what you like,” Margot says. She stands on the cot, levitates, and glides slowly at him.
He fumbles for his keys, then drops them.
(Oh, this is too easy. But wait. This’ll be more fun.)
Margot stretches her arms toward Dieter, her fingernails growing longer and sharper. Just when she’s about to claw his eyes out I leave her and enter Dieter.
Dieter’s eyes glow, putrid and orangey, and he sprouts fangs.
Margot transitions back to herself, and lands in a crouch on the floor. Her eyes lock on mine, then she stands with her head high and her shoulders squared to me. “Mother Mary, pray for us,” she says. “Michael the Archangel. Pray for us.”
An unfamiliar sensation courses through me. Dieter’s pores expel a green mist. I gather myself, then Dieter lurches toward Margot. Borborygmus bubbling sounds emit from Dieter’s gullet.
Margot’s pointer fingers form the shape of a cross.
Dieter takes a step back, and his blubbery stomach quakes. Vomit projectiles from his gaping gob, and splatters on the cell wall behind Margot, missing her altogether.
Distant barks and yowls fill my head, growing more present with each moment.
A shimmering figure appears beside Margot, and leans into her ear. Margot basks in the pristine white light of the shimmer, and she smiles, stern and radiant. “Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.”
Despite my best efforts to maintain control, Dieter’s eyes widen, and he starts to cry.
With her arsenal of Mary Magdalene and an army of cavorting cats and dogs alongside her, Margot declaims, “Say the demon’s name and it loses its power. Belphegor.”
I whinge my discomfort. Dieter lands on the cement floor in a heap. His body corpse-twitches.
Saint Mary and Margot smile their joy. “Belphegor,” they say. The cats and dogs bark and meow their joy. “Belphegor, begone.” Saint Mary and Margot sing their joy. Their voices soar beyond the institution, and throughout the Universe.
I flee. Must...find...a...vessel. I careen up out from the building and over barren fields and desiccated forests. Then I spot it. Not much, but it’s a host. A tick. One, disgusting, measly tick.
Yelps and yowls of sheer joy haunt me as I enter the body of the grotesque, arachnidan specimen.
Angels intoning, “Belphegor,” continue to resonate in my now-addled being. My tick-form inflates, then explodes.
Belphegor. Nevermore.
​
Koren Cowgill received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Music Composition from the Eastman School of Music and her Master of Music from Yale. As a writer, Koren completed her first novel, The Final Months of Hoo-hah, in 2019. Her high fantasy novel, Teurith of Loring, is available on Amazon in eBook and paperback formats. In the fall of 2024, her short story, The Shuffler, was published in Hedge Apple Magazine’s Labyrinth issue. Koren lives in Cape May County with her husband, Richard, and their dogs, Saffron and Talea.
Mrs. Tuttle's Garden by Robin S. Bloom
Mr. McMurty’s boney jaws moved, but Mrs. Tuttle wasn’t listening. She was fascinated by his hair. The silver strands in his luxurious locks caught the October sun and sparkled like tinsel.
Besides, she knew his speech by heart: Her table scraps attracted stray cats, and they were using his freshly mulched flower beds as a toilet.
From behind his red flannel shirt, Mr. McMurty took the plastic bag full of evidence and flung it in the grass at Mrs. Tuttle’s feet.
Mrs. Tuttle put on a pleasant face, played the simpleton, and nodded. She had no intention to stop throwing out moldy cheese and stale bread crusts, for these were vital to her collection.
Mr. McMurty left out an exasperated huff and went back to raking leaves.
Unruffled, Mrs. Tuttle trudged to an unkempt corner of her yard, where she let golden rod and rag weed choke out Granny Clara’s once tidy rows of turnips and peas.
She unfolded a pillowcase. Into it, she gathered silky wisps of fur that had snagged on dried weed stems. She spied more fuzz caught on the rough wood of her tumbled down fence. Feral cat hair made the best yarn, which she spun on Granny’s old spinning wheel.
She added this fur to her collection, but she would need twice as much for a pair of mittens or maybe a hat. She’d put something extra enticing out tonight, in hopes of luring a whole family of Persians.
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At Dusk, Mrs. Tuttle took a chicken from her oven, roasted to a golden brown. She pulled off the legs and carved the breast for herself but left plenty of meat and skin clinging to the carcass.
The back porch light and full-cresting moon provided enough visibility for Mrs. Tuttle’s journey to the garden. She tossed the meaty bones, hurried back into her warm house, and locked the door. She read the newspaper through a pair of sleepy eyes.
Black velvet crept over her.
Crinkled pages slid to the floor.
A loud clamor penetrated her slumber. Her eyes snapped open and her heart raced as she implored her mind; What had she heard? A Beastly Yowl? An Aborted Scream?
Intuition told her, don’t peep out the curtain. Don’t even go by the window.
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Daylight mocked Mrs. Tuttle’s fears from the night before as she went to collect her hairy harvest. Bits of tattered red flannel, strewn among the fallen leaves and trampled mushrooms, littered the garden.
Amid the flattened teasel stalks laid a flashlight with a dying beam, and an open can of tuna laced with lethal green pellets.
Mrs. Tuttle stepped over clumps of coarse brown fur, shed from an unknown hide, entangled with mats of steely gray hair.
She lifted a tuft of the gray, still rooted in a chunk of bloody scalp. Sunlight caught its silver strands and made it sparkle like tinsel.
She decided it would make a good hat.
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Robin S. Bloom, a native Pennsylvanian, lives in a small town between the Poconos and the Anthracite Coal Region.She is a watercolor artist who also likes to dip her pen into ink, and says writing is like painting with words.Inspired by her rural roots, her down-home stories have an underlying darkness she calls “Cozy-Creepy.” Her flash fiction work has been featured in “Slash Magazine," and "Sci-Fi Shorts Canada."
The Baby and the Dogs by Alzo David-West
The night forest around the house was awake with the sounds of insects. Five dogs sat around a cradle. Their ears stood up. Then the dogs started growling, and the hair on their backs bristled.
There was an explosion. The house rattled. A shockwave came, causing the windows to shatter and scatter over the dogs and the cradle netting. The glass stung the dogs, but they ignored the pain. The baby was crying.
Suddenly, three intruders crawled in through the windows: off-white, with no eyes, thin and broad like enormous flatworms. The dogs were barking. One charged. Instantly, a worm wrapped itself around and constricted the dog. It howled.
The other dogs darted back and forth, biting the worms. They let out a piercing sound. It didn’t stop the dogs, who began distracting the worms, drawing them to opposite sides of the room.
One of the dogs climbed onto the back of a worm and buried its jaws in the pale flesh. The pack tore open the creature. It collapsed onto the wooden floor, spilling thick, translucent clots.
The two other worms crept toward the cradle, but the snapping, ripping, clawing dogs would not let them pass. One of the worms smothered a dog after grabbing its hind leg. Then, the two remaining worms wriggled up onto the ceiling, moving upside down toward the baby. The three dogs looked up, down at the cradle, and back up at the worms.
One worm hovering directly over the cradle, dropped from the ceiling. One of the dogs leaped and caught the worm midair. The two tumbled to the ground, and the three dogs mangled the worm until it stopped moving.
The last worm fell back onto the floor and began slithering forward. The dogs looked at the cradle and then at the worm again, furiously barking for it to get away. It kept edging closer, opening its wide, hollow, cavernous maw. One of the dogs lunged, and the worm caught its head. The sound the dog made was like the scream of a man.
That didn’t sway the last two dogs. They went after the worm, its body full of their friend, attacking relentlessly.
As the three creatures lay dead, the two surviving dogs stood exhausted, breathing heavily, their tongues hanging out of their open mouths. The dogs limped toward the cradle, where the baby still cried. Their paws slowly tapped across the wooden floor.
The dogs looked over the infant. When she saw their short-haired faces covered in wounds, saliva, and sweat, the baby smiled, giggled, and kicked her little feet.
A small truck pulled into the driveway of the house. A woman and a man shouted frantically as they rushed to the door, opened it, and ran upstairs, where they saw the baby and the dogs.
​
Alzo David-West studied art, literature, and philosophy in the United States and Switzerland. His fiction and poetry appear in Abstract Magazine, Antimatter, Antonym, Balloons Literary Journal, Barzakh, Cha, Cultural Logic, EastLit, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Grief Diaries, Haikuniverse, In Parentheses, K'in, Missing Slate, Offcourse, Star*Line, StepAway Magazine, Tower Journal, Transnational Literature, Utopia Science Fiction, and 365 Tomorrows.
The Name Collector by Gant Laborde
I haven’t fed in months.
There was a time when I feasted on memories daily. I’ve taken poets, leaders, and philosophers – swallowing their brilliance. I’ve taken lovers, warriors, and the innocent – basking in their essence. I gained lifetimes of experiences in blood-soaked seconds.
Each feeding empowered me. But I’ve stopped at perfection.
Now, I starve myself. Refinement is restraint. My hunger gnaws at me, a whisper that grows each night. It’s time to hunt again.
I no longer take from visionaries. Their thoughts are too loud. Instead, I rebalance with addicts. Their memories are thin and fragmented. They wash through me like a stiff drink, burning my throat and silencing in my gut, nourishing me.
Each time I take an addict, I reset. And tonight, I need to reset.
I crash the church’s N.A. meeting to peruse the menu. I sit, blending into the circle of chairs and hunched shoulders. Each person shares their struggle. The trick is to find the ones devoid of hope. Hope clings and disrupts balance.
I find a truly broken one. An elderly man with thin hair and a graying, wiry beard who looks ready to pluck – his chair is misaligned, his knee bouncing.
“I’m Jared,” he says, weathered. “I’ve been clean six months.” A lie.
He sweats and fumbles through the meeting. He’s vulnerable. He’s hollow. He’s perfect.
The meeting ends, and he leaves without a word. I follow as he stumbles to his nearby apartment. He hasn’t noticed me. Not yet.
He swings the door closed, and I stop it short. I press it open, and my steps follow.
Inside, I slam the door. I enjoy a hint of anxiety in my food. But Jared doesn’t jump. His shaking stops.
Something is off. The air is wrong. There’s no clutter, no signs of abandonment. The apartment is in order. Prepared.
Jared turns to me and smiles.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
He glares through bushes of unkept eyebrows. His hollow stare is transformed, steady, and clear.
The instant I lunge, so does he.
My fasting makes me slow, and iron clamps my wrists. I pull, but the metal ignites a pain like a raging fire. I stagger, hissing in the center of the room, where I see sigils carved into the floor.
The air sparks with old magic: a trap and a carefully laid one.
My prey – no, my hunter – is already moving. He pulls a silver-tipped stake of what smells like ash wood from his sleeve.
I retreat, but he’s fast. The stake stabs deep into my ribs. Pain erupts, blinding hot. It would have pierced my heart if he had aimed a fraction higher.
I lash out, flinging him. My fingers wrap around the stake. Agony rips through my body as it emerges and clatters to the floor. I stumble.
He dashes for it. But starved, stabbed, and subdued, I am still a monster.
I grab him by the throat, and for the first time, his heart skips.
“You were supposed to be weaker than this,” he grunts.
I bare my teeth. I should kill him now. But now it’s my turn. I press my face close as his pulse thrums beneath my fingers.
“I wasn’t fasting for someone so witty,” I seethed. “But you’ll do.”
There it is. The smell of fear escapes his pores. And yet, it’s tinged with defiance.
“I don’t know how you knew so much about me,” I confess. “But I will understand it all soon.” I sneer.
He laughs –
He fucking laughs.
“Go on, then,” he chokes.
My hand squeezes his throat shut.
“Your resolve will make me strong.”
I bare my fangs – and feed.
His blood spurts, fevered and rich. It flows sweetly over my tongue, and I swallow.
Something is wrong. The panic is missing.
The memory rush begins.
He’s strong. A tidal wave of memories, thoughts, and feelings crash into me. I stagger but drink. I can feel the hunger wane as his life flows into mine.
The thoughts come fast. His real name is Daniel. I watch him watching me. I see the years of patience. I see his life dedicated to tracking me.
And then – she appears.
A little girl. His daughter. My victim.
The images flow faster now, deep and vivid. I see her face. I see him replaying her laugh as he carves the stake. I feel his tortured dreams.
The grief swells, raw, from a wound that never heals. The nights searching, reading, hunting.
The scream that tore from him when they found her.
The night he paced when she was gone. The hope he clung to.
I stagger back, tearing away and gasping. But the deluge continues.
I’ve taken his life, and its grief. I’ve made it mine.
I clutch my head.
Daniel’s vacant body stares at me, the smile still fixed on his corpse.
He has hurt me. Not with chains. Not with weapons.
With his memory.
With her.
I feel full but cannot purge. I kneel, fighting a mind that is not my own. Something worse has taken the hunger’s place.
I claw at my chest, ripping at his thoughts, but it has already seeped into my marrow.
Her face resurfaces. I can’t recall taking her, but I remember losing her.
Another raw scream pierces the silence, this time – from me.
Something is emerging. A hunger deeper than blood and more consuming than thirst.
The desire to kill the monster.
My legs move without command. I’m not running – I’m following.
Her name flickers at the edge of thought, and I shake it away.
I step into the street as the sky softens and the horizon glows.
Daniel’s will engulfs and guides me forward.
I lift my head as morning splits the horizon. I do not run – heat licks at my skin. Then, all at once, the hunger is gone. The monster is gone. There is only fire.
In my final moment.
I whisper her name.
​
Gant Laborde is a storyteller based in New Orleans, Louisiana. After 25 years of writing code, he now writes dark and satirical fiction. His satirical story "The Accidental Score" placed in an NYC Midnight short story competition.
Childhood Revelation by Sushma R. Doshi
The four of us on the bed in my room. First cousins. All of us. Raj and I rested against the headboard, munching chips. Tania curled with a pillow. Sam lying on his stomach, scrolling through his phone. We had nicknamed ourselves the Fantastic Four when we were children. Now we were in college, and it was summer break and we had just got back from a hiking trip.
“It’s been a great weekend.” I smiled.
Yeah…” Raj agreed with his mouth full. “But the weekends we spent at the farmhouse when we were children were better, especially in the winter.”
Tania and Sam nodded. “True.”
“We used to play so much hide-and-seek, catch, cricket, badminton, cycling and exploring the open spaces…endless games....pity everyone just stopped going there…don't know why,” I said regretfully.
“I think our parents just got scared of the folklore…witches, ghosts haunting kids,” remarked Sam, his head still bent over his phone.
“Tell you a secret? I've never told anybody.” Raj leaned over with a confidential tone.
“What?” Tania and I chorused.
“It’s silly…I was too scared to tell anyone…I had promised…but don't make an ass out of me.”
“You’re an ass in any case….but for god’s sake….what is it?” Sam glanced up at Raj from his phone.
Raj hesitated.
“Come on…out with it…can't bear the suspense,” Tania sat up cross legged.
“When we used to visit the farmhouse, I used to sneak in the dark into the shed nearby…the one that was supposed to be haunted by a witch…the legendary witch who killed her husband and committed suicide,” Raj confessed.
“What's the big deal? So did I,” I shrugged.
“Me too,” said Tania.
Sam chortled and raised his hand. “Me too…when everyone was asleep.”
“Well…there is something else,” Raj said.
The three of us were suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of unease.
“Don't tell us if you don't want to,” Tania tried to stop Raj.
I felt queasy. “Yeah…forget it.”
“I never told anyone…I was always frightened I supposed. I promised never to tell…but I want to tell you all,” continued Raj ignoring us.
Sam waved his hand. “If you’ve promised not to tell anyone, then don't tell anyone.”
Raj gazed at us quizzically. “What's up with all of you? One moment you want to know the secret…the other you are stopping me from speaking.”
“It's just that we all have our secrets. No rule says we should confide everything in each other. I'm more interested in your crush in college.” I tried to divert Raj’s attention.
But Raj was insistent. “Oh, it's funny…I really want to tell you all…I imagined I used to meet the witch in the shed. She used to call me alone. Said she was alone and she wanted to talk to me because I'm special.”
There was a sudden silence. I felt I couldn't breathe.
“What happened? I thought you would make fun of me.” Raj queries, cocking his eyebrow.
“What did the witch look like?’ Sam asked softly.
“Well…,” Raj said. “She was dark with--”
“Long black hair, big kohl laced eyes and ears adorned with--” I said quietly.
“Dangling gold earrings and the nose sparkling--’ Sam continued.
“With a gold nose to ear chain,” Tania concluded.
All of us stared at each other. I felt my stomach twisting.
“You’re all kidding me…right?” Raj asked. ‘I must've imagined her. Are you telling me we all met a real witch…the same witch when we were children? The witch I saw…okay so you described what she looked like…let's see whether you know what she was wearing…”
“A red saree,” muttered Tania.
“With black flowers printed on it,” I continued.
“And four gold bangles on each wrist,” stated Sam.
There was a chill in the air.
“The witch told me she killed her husband because he liked--” said Raj in a low tone.
“Fair women,” I finished the sentence.
“She threatened to kill me if I revealed her secret,” rasped Raj.
“By scratching your eyes with her long and strangling you with her bare hands.” Tania’s voice shook.
“I was not to tell anyone she had buried her husband in the…” Raj paused and looked at us.
“Northeast corner of the shed where the banyan tree stood,” we collectively whispered. Fear gripped us.
​
Sushma R Doshi holds a PhD in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her work has appeared in Contemporary Literary Review India, Literally Stories, Muse India, Everyday Fiction, Panoplyzine, Kitaab International, Flash Phantoms and Fear of Monkeys amongst others. Her flash fiction "Magic" in Syncopation Literary Journal has been nominated for the Pushcart prize. She currently resides in India.
The Mist by Peter Waddell
A small island in the middle of the pacific somewhere. Nobody knows for sure because the compass gets into a spin. The waters are, well, the waters are steamy. Not hot steamy, more clammy, creepy steamy. Boats seemed to be drawn to the island as if a magical force is pulling them in.
Not known to Steve and Sandy, this is what was happening to them right now. The compass was not true, the wind was not kind, and the water was getting creepy steamy.
“There seems to be some boats out there,” Steve tells Sandy.
“Oh great, I could do with a rest and some down time,” Sandy answers.
They sail to the boats all the while looking for a mooring spot, not noticing the condition of the boats. Forlorn and weatherbeaten…neglected.
They find a spot next to a once-beautiful, triple-hulled catamaran. Their smaller boat getting dwarfed by its size. It looks tired. They don’t notice. They only notice the quiet, as if they should whisper. Hence, they start speaking in subdued tones without realising. They see but don’t register the state of other boats. They are accustomed to the state of their boat, which is not new, but well maintained and starting to unravel on the edges. Everything working but just starting to fray a little.
They tie the sails down, stow all the loose ropes, get the deck in order, haul the small tender out and into the water--still of that blow-up type due to lack of deck space. But it has served them well. No motor, but with two sets of the old reliable oars. The boat sitting in a puddle of mist that subdues the waters. The feeling that something is amiss starting to creep in.
Neither of them speaking aloud of their misgivings. Trying to shake the eerie…but still. Once they start rowing between the boats they see for the first time, the tattered rope, the rusty hull, the hanging shrouds unflapping. The feeling of dread. They look to each other, and with small grim smiles they buoy each other’s spirits and go forth. After a while, they make out the dock and notice the desertion. They slow automatically, the oars hardly making a ripple, the boat giving a gentle nudge as it comes alongside the pier. They tie the dingy with a slip knot, to loosen easily, stow the oars so as not to get lost, they get onto the pier.
Only then they really notice for the first time the eerie quiet, the mist a little thicker now. Mist that should not be for the time of day. They head towards what should be the harbour offices and hopefully the town. In each of their minds they have already decided to get victuals, and back out as soon as possible. The pressing mist surrounding them, swirling around their legs.
They find the harbour office, door ajar, they enter and get the smell. Sandy wrinkles her nose and remarks softly, “Well something has died here.”
In the dim light of the office, they proceed to the desk with the rusty attention bell. Steve taps the bell, the ping awfully loud in the silence. They hear the scurry sound from the office, and the smell is stronger. After a while, they hear a low growling. They turn and freeze.
A huge black dog, teeth bared, drool strings hanging, big dark eyes watching them. Steve holds Sandy’s arm and half pull her protectively behind him. The dog squats lower, ready to pounce, when suddenly, the tap bell from the counter hits the dog square between the eyes. The noise shattering the silence. The dog, surprised, turns and runs from the room. Steve quickly closes the door to find a shaking Sandy, “Sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did fine,” he tells her.
They start coming to terms with their predicament. They look in the office and nearly lose their uneaten lunch. The harbour master is all but a skeleton. Rats crawling over him, gnawing at the parts still clinging to the bone. They back out and head further towards the town, looking for answers and some sort of supply shop. The deserted town totally devoid of life, other than rats and mangy dogs. Steve keeping them at bay with the gaff he found on the pier. Sandy telling him,” I think we should leave.”
“Let’s just see if we can get a few supplies. I don’t want to stay here any longer than we need to, either.”
They keep going till they find a smelly market street with rotten produce and wild-eyed cats amongst the hungry rats. One look at the state of the market and Steve says, “ let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”
They turn to go, and hurry back to find the dingy. They jump in and pull the quick release, grab the paddles and start rowing back. After some frantic rowing they pause and look at each other, shudder and carry on. They find their boat and scramble on board, stow they dingy and make haste to depart.
​
###
Off the west coast of America, the coast guards are lazily sipping coffee and relaxing. Looking out at sea, when they notice the boat. Drifting without purpose, the sails tattered, the side of the boat stained with what looks like excrement. They turn slightly to head off the boat. Coming up alongside they send a line over and quickly fasten the small sailing boat. After some warnings, they go aboard to find a state of disarray. They find a body with sightless eyes, decomposing in the sun. Sandy at the helm, face pockmarked with oozing sores.
She points a bony hand, skin rubbed off from pulling ropes and trying to sail the boat. “Stay out of the mist,” she mutters, falls sideways and dies.
Nobody sees the small flea jump onto the leg of the coast guardsman.
​
Peter Waddell is a South African currently living in China.
A Song of Skin by Sara Baughn
The walls of my room were faded and furred with mold. Outside, a metallic clang echoed, a faraway door closing. My gaze flitted to the small window—too narrow to climb out and too high to reach, even if I stood on my cot. A sliver of moonlight illuminated the dark stains on the concrete floor.
In the middle, a drain.
My breath hitched and I clapped a hand over my mouth.
He would hear.
Measured steps approached, like a steady death knell. Whistling, the same merry tune every time, as if he were on holiday. I stared at the closed door, pressing myself into the corner and gathering my knees to my chin. The knob turned and the door swung open on silent hinges.
His radiant smile lit the room, his teeth obscenely white. Before, he had garnered admiring looks whenever we were together, and I’d basked in his singular attention. Now, I wished he’d forget about me.
“Hello, my darling.” He spoke with the same pleasing cadence which had first drawn me into his orbit.
With his words, my trembling started, but I knew better than to cry. I’d lost a strip of skin on my little finger that way, a throbbing reminder of disappointing him. I stood on unsteady legs, my thin cotton gown reaching just past my knees.
“Shall we?” he purred, stretching his hand out—an invitation. A test.
My muscles threatened to lock. Making my feet move toward him was the hardest part. I placed my hand in his, wincing as he squeezed the raw wound where he’d taken skin.
“That’s my girl.” He slipped my hand through the crook of his arm.
I fought the urge to recoil. It would only disappoint him and cost more skin.
He led me into the hallway, lined with doors similar to my own. Not a sound was heard other than a faint susurrus of cloth against skin or creak of cots. No whimpers. No moans. He’d trained us well.
We arrived—the place where I learned the cost of my mistakes. I started breathing through my mouth as the stench of rotting flesh assaulted my nose.
She hung in the corner by her wrists, alongside her painting. I didn’t even know her name, but her shrieks still echoed in my mind.
He led me to one of the chairs set in a circle. I sat gingerly on the cold metal, my back raw in places. Several others sat with me, but four chairs were empty tonight.
Across from me, the young woman with an eyepatch held a violin. The mousy one next to her, a flute. Then a cello. His tastes ran toward skill rather than appearance. Their fingers would be spared since they needed them to play. But not mine—my talent was my voice. He handed me a glass of water, and I drank greedily before he pulled it away.
The violin began to play, followed by the flute and cello. His favorites were haunting melodies. Standing in the center, he kept his eyes closed and hands in his pockets. A picture of casual elegance with not a stitch or hair out of place. I hated him.
On his cue, I opened my mouth, singing softly until it came time for the notes to soar. Each time hope fluttered in my chest. A desperate anticipation that someone outside this abandoned building might hear and investigate.
My traitorous eyes strayed to the corner. He’d made us watch as he demonstrated what would happen if we outlived our usefulness. Beside her was the table where he kept his instruments, pristine as always. And the other chair.
I was going to be sick. No! Please, not now!
Unable to stop it, I heaved up the meager contents of my stomach, while the others kept playing, intent on pleasing him. I felt his hand, heavy on my shoulder.
He sighed. “You’ve disappointed me tonight.”
None of us wanted to hear those words. I kept my eyes on his polished shoes, standing just clear of the mess I’d made. My stomach clenched and I started shaking.
“Please,” I whispered through the music, my eyes stinging. I blinked rapidly to keep the tears at bay and gripped the edge of my chair, knuckles white.
“The rest of you may go back to your rooms.” A hurried shuffle of bare feet followed, obedience keeping them whole and safe for now. They left their instruments behind.
His slender fingers lifted my chin until I raised my eyes to his. I’d once thought his eyes were lovely, dark. Eyes I could get lost in and had…before. Now they were tight with rage.
“Go to the chair, Cassandra.” He only used my name when we were alone.
I rose slowly, avoiding my own vomit, and walked to the other chair. Each of his steps echoed in my skull and skittered along my skin. Skin I would soon lose. I wondered where he would take it this time. I bit my lip, tasting blood, to keep from making any noise of distress. It would only cost me more.
As I approached the table, my eye landed on the boning knife.
“Sit, my darling.”
I stared at the knife. Could I reach it before him? Adrenaline flooded my system. I readied myself, sucking in a breath.
But the smell overwhelmed me.
There in my periphery—a reminder. A single tear escaped, but I wiped it quickly, hiding the motion as I turned and sat. I was a coward.
“I don’t wish to do this, Cassandra,” he said, tightening the creaking leather against the skin of my arms, my legs. “But you must learn.”
I retreated inside myself for what was coming. My talents were limited, and so was my flesh. Would there be anything left when he was through stripping pieces of me away?
I sang my sweetest song yet.
​
Sara is an emerging writer of long and short fiction. Currently, she’s working on a fantasy novel, but also enjoys experimenting with short stories and flash fiction. She loves spending time with family, cooking, playing board games, and walking her retired racing greyhound on local trails. Her short story Demons & Dander was published with Calliope on the Web (Summer 2026). Demons & Dander also won Honorable Mention from the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest (4th quarter 2025). Her short story Gastronomic Gaslighting was published by Mouthful of Salt (April 2026). Her short story An Inventory of Quiet Things was published by Et Sequitur Magazine (May 2026).
Time Will Tell by Laura Rybka
Bryce McGuire loosens his tie and slumps into the chair. He glances at the clock across from Darlene’s hospital bed, 9:14 PM. Damn, he should have gotten here earlier, but he had to finish those briefs.
A gurney whisks past the doorway, an unshaven face at one end and feet covered in bright purple socks at the other. A young nurse pops her head into the room.
“Glad you could finally make it, Mr. McGuire.”
That tone. Bryce’s face flushes red. What the hell; this is the third day in a row he’s gotten a call that Darlene’s time was near.
He looks at his wife sleeping amid a tangle of tubes and wires, his eyes following the shallow rise and fall of her chest. He can’t help but hope each breath is her last. Nothing but skin stretched over bird-like bones, mercifully covered by blankets, a pink knit cap hiding a head once covered with silky blond hair.
Bryce closes his eyes. Darlene was sixteen when they met, ponytail swinging, skirt rolled up so that it barely covered her ass. He’d been 24, fresh out of law school. When she begged him to take her to that damned high school dance, he didn’t know how to say no. He can still smell that cotton candy perfume, feel her pressed up against him as they danced, her thin, clingy dress just begging to be lifted. He should’ve known better. When Darlene got pregnant, he decided marriage was better than prison. Six months later a miscarriage took the baby and Darlene’s uterus.
She cried and cried. “It’s your fault, Bryce McGuire. You ripped out my womb.”
He handed her an old-fashioned, extra simple syrup, double cherries. She drank it down. Asked for another. That became her evening routine.
Day after day Bryce would work well into the night, partly to claw his way up to partner, but mainly to avoid Darlene. He’d come home to a sink full of dirty dishes and his wife curled up on the couch, old-fashioned in hand, glued to a Hallmark movie. “We’re out of cherries,” she’d say.
He should have left her - kept putting it off. Then again, a divorce wouldn’t sit well with his prestigious but stodgy law firm. Darlene might have left him, but she had nowhere to go. “You made your bed,” her mother had said.
Ten years into their marriage, cancer hit Darlene hard, the kind that meant a double mastectomy.
Darlene blamed him for that, too. Something about a link between alcohol and breast cancer.
“I never had a drink before I met you, Bryce McGuire. You sliced off my breasts.”
When he argued that wasn’t quite fair, she grabbed him by the tie and pulled him close, her warm breath on his neck. “You ripped out my womb and sliced off my breasts. When I die, Bryce McGuire, I’m taking you with me.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Darlene.” But his words sounded hollow. She could tell he was lying. A year later the cancer came roaring back.
Bryce opens his eyes. Why had he stayed with her all these years? He runs a hand across his head, taking a fistful of hair with it.
“Damn, I’m only 36,” he says to himself. “Is my hair really thinning that fast?”
He looks up at the clock. 9:14. “What the hell. Feels like I’ve been sitting for an hour.”
He catches a gurney fly past. Same unshaven face, same purple socks.
A nurse is at the door. “Glad you could finally make it, Mr. Mc Guire.”
Isn’t that the same nurse? “Hey, what’s your point?” he yells, but she’s already gone.
Bryce rubs his eyes. He’s tired, that’s all. These twelve-hour days are getting to him.
He stares at the clock. The second hand keeps circling, but the minute hand doesn’t budge. 9:14.
A gurney goes by, unshaven face, purple socks.
Bryce counts: one, two, three, four…
“Glad you could finally make it, Mr. Mc Guire.”
The numbers 9, 1, and 4 swim across his watery eyes.
Bryce’s hands start to shake. He stares at them, curled fingers, ropy blue veins snaking beneath translucent skin. “These aren’t my hands.” He touches his face, feels coarse whiskers, much more than a 5 o’clock shadow.
The gurney zooms by.
The nurse pops in.
The clock says 9:14.
​
“Wait,” Bryce cries, his voice quivering, weak. A spasm hits his back as he turns towards the door. He grits his teeth and feels a sharp crack. His tongue runs against something sharp. He spits out half a tooth, brown and foul smelling.
Suddenly a blaring beep. Bryce looks at the clock. 9:15.
Above all the noise, he hears a whisper, “Bryce McGuire, I’m taking you with me.”
Nurses come running into the room, flocking over Darlene.
“Excuse me sir. Are you her grandfather?” one of them asks. She touches his arm. “My condolences.”
Bryce rises from the chair, turns away from the nurses, the tubes and the wires, the bed where his wife lies, sunken and still. He must reach the sink with the mirror above it. He can barely see it at the end of the room; his eyes are so clouded and filmy. He wobbles on bowed legs, his back hunched. Every step is an effort.
The mirror, the mirror; I must reach the mirror.
​
Finally, Bryce grabs the edge of the cold, porcelain sink, and looks up at his reflection: sparce white hair, gray beard over sagging cheeks, fat bags under each milky eye. Pain knifes through his sunken chest. His hands slip off the sink; he drops to his knees and yells, “I’m coming, Darlene.”
​
Laura recently had a short story published by Spillwords Press. She writes speculative fiction focusing on the flaws and resilience of human nature. Her love for historical fiction has led her to write a novel, yet to be published, inspired by her mother's childhood in World War 2 Florence, Italy. She lives in the Chicago area.
You Got Kids? by Kenneth Komnick
Consumerism, in its voracious, single-minded avarice, screamed its condemnation at her.
Standing motionless in the middle of an aisle in Wal-Mart, ignoring the occasional customer that shot their irritated looks as they trundled their carts around her, Jackie regarded the shelves before her with a tad of wistfulness and a surplus of guilt.
Mother’s Day gifts—plush teddy bears, assorted coffee mugs and contrived greeting cards with their cloying sentiments—stared back at her.
Her eyes unblinking, their focus locking onto one of the bears that had the word “MAMA” stitched into its belly, the LED light perched in the ceiling above her flickered once…twice…thrice…
And at each instance, she swore she saw the sterile doctor’s office, felt the numbing in her nether region, heard the morbid suction in her ears and exhaled the quiet sobs in the parking lot.
A high-pitched, feedback wail stabbed her in the ears. Wincing and squeezing her eyes shut, she heard the PA system above her then bellow, “Jackie!”
Opening her eyes, she discovered that the store was barren. Nothing but thousands of square feet of empty space, waxed tiles and countless LED light fixtures dangling above, the Wal-Mart was now just an eerie, vacant property.
Except for the single aisle of Mother’s Day products that remained before her.
She started to hear a haphazard series of wet, slapping sounds.
Footfalls?
In her peripheral, coming around the end cap, she saw it.
A mangled six-year-old girl.
With her clothes torn, drenched in blood and smeared with automotive grease, the little girl tried to lope towards Jackie on fractured, shattered limbs.
Jackie’s self-preservation must have been on the fritz; she didn’t recoil. She just stood there. Gaze never wavering.
Collapsing to the floor at Jackie’s feet, the girl’s broken, misshapen arms were extended in an awkward wanton embrace.
With half the little girl’s face sheared off and the other peppered with bits of broken safety glass, the litany of names with the letter L rifled through Jackie’s skull.
Lin—Linda? Li—Lisa? Lind—Lindsay?
Looking down at the girl, Jackie croaked, “I was young.” Her wrinkled, weathered face contorting in melancholy, she uttered, “I was terrified.”
The bloodied young girl flailed her dislocated, splintered fingers at Jackie as her unhinged jaw tried to spit out, “Mammmmama.”
Jackie felt a breath, foul of alcohol, on her ear behind her. Without even turning to look, she muttered, “I was selfish.”
“Thank you,” a gravel, male voice said behind her.
Turning around, she looked to see a forty-year-old man standing before her. Jaundiced, emaciated and his yellowing eyes regarding her with kindness, boy names starting with K reverberated in her mind.
Kev—Kevin? Ken—Kent? K—Kyle?
“Thank you for sparing me,” the sickly man said.
She could sense, nearly smell, the depression, the insecurity and the self-hatred (let alone the booze) waft off him.
“And for not letting me have to go through any of this,” he added, a wan grin growing across his cracked lips.
He glanced behind Jackie and at the mutilated little girl that was at her feet, begging the old woman for a hug.
Shaking his head in slight, compassionate exasperation, an adult having to deal with a child ignorant of the world, he walked around Jackie. Her countenance following him, she watched him bend down and prop up his obliterated little sister by the arm. Her untenable feet dangling an inch off the floor. It was as close as the girl was going to get to a standing position.
Jackie watched the six-year-old continue to wave a free broken hand at her in an attempt for desperate affection when the man holding her soothed, “Stop it.”
Looking back up at Jackie, the cirrhosis-riddled fortysomething assured, “she doesn’t know any better, Mom.”
Standing there and staring at his mother, yellowed eyes filling with water and a single tear rolling down his sallow cheek, he whispered, “but I do.”
Focusing his attention down on his maimed sibling, he readjusted his diseased hand around her smashed wrist and began to walk away.
“She just doesn’t know how much trouble you saved her,” he said as he dragged her sister’s twisted, limp feet along the floor, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. A weak chuckle escaping him, he added, “never having to deal with any of this.”
Watching them lumber away, loud cries escaping her, she pleaded, “I’m sorry!”
And with that, the Wal-Mart’s PA system squealed with hyperbole.
The pain in her ears clenching her jaw and slamming her eyes shut, she then heard the speaker system say something softly in that normal indecipherable way. Another employee requesting assistance from another, maybe?
The store having returned to its big box self, Jackie discovered herself standing in the middle of the aisle. Those same fucking teddy bears gawking at her with their dark, empty eyes.
“Ma’am? MA’AM!” a male voice yapped.
Shaken out of her reverie, she turned to look at a young male shopper who regarded her with unease.
“You okay?”
“W-what?”
The kid’s blue eyes darting to the floor and back to her, he sniffed audibly a few times. “Are you hurt?”
Looking to her feet, she glanced to see shattered bits of glass strewn across the tile and a long morbid ribbon of crimson stretching itself from one side of the floor and across to the other. It continued, disappearing under the opposite aisle fixture.
She could smell the heavy scent of booze.
She glanced back at the wall of manufactured holiday merchandise.
Their Mother’s Day wishes nothing but deafening.
​
Kenneth is a fifty-five-year-old passionate, unpublished writer that has also been afflicted with a skydiving addiction (684 jumps and counting)! But as a writer, he is still in my twenties; He is lustful. A lecherous youth that is only interested in one-night literary stands. One day he might grow up and act his age. Engage in a novel marriage, maybe?
Ladder to Terror by Tim Tobin
Shane, driving a rental truck and Casey the SUV, pulled up to their new home, a house rented from a retired fellow who could no longer maintain the big old place. Not far from the fishing boat docks, the imposing structure of three stories and an attic, presented itself as a haunted house in a B-horror movie, in other words, odd before the young couple moved anything in.
A faint glow radiated from the small triangular window in the attic, an eerie invitation, it seemed, to visit. Still, they thought, it was big enough for a good-sized family and Casey wanted to start theirs soon.
The owner greeted them cordially, handed over the keys, and offered to hang around to help and answer any questions. The new residents chuckled to themselves, knowing how hard it must be to leave your home of fifty years, and accepted his offer. Unloading the van didn’t take long since the house came furnished. All they brought was kitchen equipment and personal items.
After watching them explore every room in the large house, their host suggested they look at the storage space in the attic. So, they climbed a rickety folding ladder into a room full of old crates and boxes that smelled mildly of the ocean. One of the crates moved, startling the newlyweds. When the box flipped open, Shane moved in front of his wife to shield her from whatever was in the box. The box quieted for a few moments, so the couple began to edge towards the folding stairs and escape. Their predicament turned to fear when the stairs collapsed into the floor boards. Casey squealed and grabbed her husband’s hand. The single sixty-watt bulb gave off just enough light to throw weird shadows of goblins across the attic floor. Terror clutched the souls of the couple when the light bulb glowed white hot and then blinked out.
Fear paralyzed Casey and rooted her to the floorboards while, in total darkness, Shane valiantly tried to locate the folding ladder. He was crawling on his hands and knees when the box opened again and he heard something hit the floor, plop. Then a scurrying sound, not unlike a crab on a kitchen floor, loosened his bowels. His wife was now screaming for help. None came.
They both heard more plops and more things scurrying around on the floor. The man sat back on his haunches trying desperately to see in the blackness, but his eyes were useless. His sense of sound improved, and he heard the things crawling toward him. Then one of them bumped into him, stopped and then scurried away making that telltale clicking noise with its claws.
Perhaps, Shane wasn’t really sure, but perhaps they were attracted to noise--Casey‘s screams. He called out to his wife for quiet, but it was too late. The crab-things climbed up her legs, at first only one or two but then dozens of them swarmed onto her body. Initially, her shrieks came from fright but turned to panic and then pain as the creatures ate her cheeks, her mouth, her eyes. She pounded her fists on the floor and smacked a few of them off of her head but the numbers were against her.
In the dark, her husband crept towards the shrieks of his stricken wife. Just as he reached her, the light came on and dozens, hundreds, of the things scooted back towards the box. Turning to his wife, Shane vomited at the sight of his mutilated partner. He found a faint pulse and decided to try the step ladder but, as he turned, the light flicked off again. This time he wet himself in dread when he heard the plop, plop, plop of the little monsters coming for him.
When the small brutes reached his feet, he furiously kicked them away and ran for his life in the 20 by 20 space. He ran into unseen boxes and momentarily stunned himself on a beam. With him lying on his back, the things seemed to sense their chance and they surged onto him. In agony, Shane called to Casey who no longer had ears to hear. He stretched out his arm to her, an arm that had fifty of the things feasting on it.
Downstairs, the older man, a professional crab fisherman, heard the commotion and understood that as long as he fed the crabs, they would leave him alone.
​
Mr. Tobin has a degree in mathematics from LaSalle College and is retired from L-3 Communications. He lives with his wife MaryAnn in Voorhees, NJ. His two grandchildren, Maggie (15) and Shawn (19) are the joys of his life. Mr. Tobin continues his education by attending classes at the local Jewish Community Center. Many of his stories/poems appear in print and online. He writes in a variety of genres including westerns, science fiction, horror and speculative. Most recently, his works were published by CafeLit Magazine, CultureCult, and Wicked Shadow Press.
Don't Do It, Red by Chester Vonn
“Just go…” I pleaded under my breath.
“Just turn around and get the fuck out of here.”
But the redheaded woman remained planted in the middle of her plush white rug, obliviously looking at her phone with a smitten smile on her face. Had she been paying more attention to her surroundings, she might have spotted my footprints in the rug's faux fur.
She bit her lip excitedly and her fingers danced around the screen as she sent another message. I couldn't see what was on her screen from where I was standing. Most of my view was filled by the inside of the door, with only a few tiny horizontal spaces between slats, serving as windows into her bedroom. The little bit that I could see told me two very important things:
-
Hiding in the closet was a mistake (I should have made a break for the window).
2. The gun I was so reluctant to bring? I may have to use that after all.
Fuck. My mind was racing. Had I known that such a young woman, barely older than my own kid, lived here, I would have picked a different target. Had I known she was coming back so soon, I would have spent less time looking for shit in the living room. Had I known there was nothing of fucking value in this whole goddamn apartment to swipe, I would have called the whole thing off! Had I known, had I known, had I known…
Red giggled at her phone and my whole body jumped. To say I was on edge was a major fuckin’ understatement. I felt like I was about to black out. I couldn't breathe.
I'm gonna get caught, I thought. I'm gonna go back to Rikers and lose my job and fuck everything up again. I'm gonna lose Kelly. Janine is gonna take her away and I won't see my daughter ever again. She's already warned me I'm on thin ice with her. Why didn't I just go legit? I'm such a fuck-up! She's right about me.
Red sighed dreamily and tossed her phone on to her bed, which was neatly made only a few feet from where she was standing. Her pillows were lemon yellow and her fluffy comforter had sunflowers printed all over it. The smile remained on her face, and she hummed as she walked over to her desk. Closer to me…
The gun vibrated in my quivering hand.
She pulled out her chair and sat down. I blinked a bead of sweat out of my left eye. She opened a notebook and grabbed one of the pens poking out of a yellow coffee mug. I swallowed hard to push down the bile in my throat. She started to doodle and I forced myself to breathe. Too loud.
Her pen dropped to the lined paper and her head shot up straight. She turned around towards the bed, scanning the room. Her smile was gone. She definitely heard something.
“Patches?” she asked the room. “That you, Patch?”
As she scooted out of her chair, it squeaked against the floor. A similar noise escaped my body, only much quieter. She stood, facing me but not seeing me. My skin exploded in heat, every hair on my body standing straight up.
She twisted down to her knees and lowered her head to the floor, searching under the bed. Seeing nothing, she turned toward the room's door. She sang, “Heeeere kitty, kitty,” as she walked into the hall. I was going to piss my pants. She disappeared around the corner into her living room, apparently thinking the noise she heard came from another room.
The cat was gone. I had forgotten to shut the window behind me after I came in, and it bolted as soon as it saw me. By the time I shut it, it was too late. Patches was bounding down the fire escape to the street below.
I was alone. I could leave the closet and get the fuck out that window. Now or never. I had been handed the opportunity to escape not just this room, but the entire shitty life I'd been living up to this point. I was given a chance at a fresh start.
Open the door. Walk to the window. Raise the glass pane enough to fit through. Get yourself onto the platform outside, run down those stairs, and never look back. 30 seconds and this is over. 10 feet and I am free.
My clumsy, stupid boots only made it about four inches before kicking the door. Loudly.
I’m a fuckin’ idiot.
Red heard the kick.
I fucked it up.
She was back in the hall. She walked with purpose towards where I was hiding. “Patch?”
Don't open the door. Don't make me do this.
She closed the gap between us.
You won't take my Kelly. You won't take my life away from me.
She reached towards her closet.
Sorry, Red.
She pulled the handle. I pulled the trigger.
​
Chester Vonn lives in Northern California with his wife and baby. He has a caffeine addiction and a habit of chewing on his pens.
Sibling Rivalry by Niles Reddick
I took Jonathan’s hand, and we walked into our mother’s bathroom. I motioned for him to sit on the tile in the open shower. I told him he’d feel better soon that he’d only feel a quick prick on his skin for a moment, and Nana would come for him. He believed me because I was the oldest, smartest, and right. He’d just learned about George Washington in school, and I shared when Washington had a cold, they’d bled him to heal him, and he got to see his Nana again, too.
I’d given him my old toys, taught him to tie his shoes, and listened to his whimpers from fear of monsters under his bed or in our shared closet. I never wanted him, didn’t like sharing my space, and didn’t like the attention he stole from me, Nana pinching his cheeks, her lips smearing red lipstick on him. I looked at the blue lines in his arms, blue that when leaked would turn red, and remembered finding our Nana in the tub, her skin blue and pale, blood dried and the white porcelain tub stained. After that, I craved drinking the red juice the priest served at communion that represented blood. The more I got, the better I felt.
When Jonathan’s blood squirted from his wrists and he lost consciousness, I licked what I could, like our dog lapping water from his bowl, and knew like Jesus and Nana, he was now a part of me and need not be scared of monsters anymore. I imagined we played together on our jungle gym in the backyard, and I waived at mom when she pulled into the driveway. It took several minutes before I heard her scream like she did when I called her to Nana’s bathroom. I ran to her and comforted her as best I could and watched the EMT’s cover Jonathan with a white sheet as they rolled him to the back of the ambulance on a stretcher.
I told Mom that he was playing with our Halloween characters on the floor when I went outside and that she shouldn’t worry since he’s with Nana now and doesn’t have to be afraid of the dark, monsters under his bed, or anything else. Mom held me tight, called me her special boy, and said she dreaded calling my dad who lived in another state with his new wife and son.
​
Niles Reddick writes from his home at Cherokee Lake in the Appalachian Mountains and is author of a novel, four short fiction collections, and three novellas. His work has appeared in over forty anthologies and in more than five hundred pubs including The Los Angeles Review, The Saturday Evening Post, Hobart, Boudin, Bending Genres, Citron Review, Midway Journal, and Vestal Review. https://www.instagram.com/nilesreddickmemphisedu/ https://www.facebook.com/niles.reddick.9 https://www.linkedin.com/in/niles-reddick-0759b09b/ https://nilesreddick.substack.com/
Hare-Raising Experience by Garry Engkent
“They’re so cute, Daddy! Look!”
“I just killed them. Less than an hour ago,” the father reflected aloud, and then suddenly shrieked: “Oh, Migod! Run, Renee, run!”
But the little girl just couldn’t. These four bunnies, furry and little, caught her young heart. Renee wanted to touch them, to hold them close to her chest, and keep them forever. And a day. She opened both her arms in welcome. She broke into a bigger smile when one little furry, white rabbit began to approach her.
“Come here, little one,” the blonde daughter encouraged. In a bunch, they all did.
The concerned father ran towards his little, darling baby. And tripped on a hare hole. He got up and fell again. He saw the four small bunnies almost reaching the outstretched hands of Renee. He saw the lead bunny with mouth open and sharp incisors showing.
“No!” His outstretched arm and hands were far too distant to rescue his little girl. She was not mature enough to endure, even survive the voracious bits of these bestial bunnies.
The lead bunny drew blood and flesh from her middle-left finger. Hearing his daughter scream out in terror and pain turned his stomach, and his heartbeat raced. His whole being was wracked with utter agony.
“Daddy, Daddy!”
The father regretted his decision earlier to permit the mother rabbit to give birth to those little monsters. The doe herself had exhibited certain abnormalities and unnatural movements, not very rabbit-like. She had attacked a stray mouse scurrying in her domain and devoured it with relish. In short order. This hare was an omnivore, a new species. She was quite practiced in this kind of killing. This mother was dangerous, lethal, evil.
The very pregnant doe needed to be destroyed.
He had known the right action instinctively.
But this little girl’s daddy was a lagomorph dilettante, a layman observer of rabbits and hare. Curiosity got better of him. A weakness in his being. He just could not shake off his need to see the births and possible growth of the little ones.
Furthermore, the litter was to be a surprise birthday present for his daughter. He had kept these young ones away from her young curious eyes. In his heart and mind, the father was full of joy. He had a video camera recording the birth of the set of four. One day, when his daughter least expects it, he would produce these growing cuties.
He felt so pleased, so warm and so affectionate.
Then he observed the mother rabbit, in the yard, chasing a rodent. That action was peculiar: rabbits are supposedly timid, easily scared, quick to run away. Not this mother. She caught up to the big rat and opened her mouth wide. Her rabbit’s teeth were long, enormous, sharp, pointed. She bit into the rat’s body with one chomp. Blood squirted from the rodent and covered the mother rabbit’s nose, face and floppy ears. She held the dead rat in her mouth and brought it to her babies. Immediately, these four younglings devoured it and expected more.
The father was shocked. He trembled. These were supposed to be gentle creatures. Adorable and amicable as pets.
Cuddley. Friendly. Lovable.
Perfect for young children to have and hold.
Until now. Until this unwanted knowledge.
The father knew he had to protect his little Renee. He brought out the sharp machete. He slashed the mother rabbit’s throat and blood gushed forth. The four babies promptly circled around the draining blood of the mother rabbit. And began lapping the warm red liquid. One even licked the blood from the cut that the father made. They were hungry.
The father completed his task quickly. He tossed all five carcasses in a compost bin. He would burn the bodies a bit later in the day. He would have to tell his young daughter that the rabbits all escaped from the pen and that he could not find them anywhere.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink. Slaughtering was a savage business.
He finished his drink and went out. He heard his daughter’s laughter in the yard. That brought a smile on the father’s face.
Then he saw.
The once-slaughtered bunnies raced towards his darling daughter. He shouted—to no avail.
Renee was smiling, her face glowing.
It was at that moment that the father’s foot fell into the hole.
The little girl screamed for her daddy when the first bunny bit in between her thumb and index finger. Then the other siblings attacked. One biting her left calf, another at her arm, and the fourth on the girl’s back. The zombie rabbits were hungry.
The father heard another shriek: “Daddy, help!”
He got up. Blood was everywhere: on her face, on her summer dress, on the grass around her. There were also tiny pieces of young flesh. He wanted to vomit.
Little Renee stopped crying out, stopped fighting off the mutant bunnies, stopped moving entirely.
Then the four babies ran off together. They had had their fill. Of flesh and blood.
For a split second, the father debated whether to hunt down these blood-and-flesh-eating animals and take revenge, or to administer to his wounded daughter. Concern and love won over.
“Renee!”
His mutilated daughter stared at nothing. He held her close. For a long, long time. Until the stars appeared in the sky.
The father felt a faint flutter of breath. Then a movement, stronger. His daughter stirred. He didn’t dare to hope.
“Renee! Renee!”
In the twilight, the father saw his daughter’s eyelids open. At first, Renee did not recognize her father. Then a smile broke open. She said weakly, “daddy.”
The father’s heart leaped. He would see to his daughter’s recovery. Afterwards, he would go after those zombie rabbits.
With extreme prejudice.
Renee recognized the determination in her father’s face. She had seen this before. Renee approved.
The determined little girl said. “Daddy, we’ll get them. We’re ghouls, aren’t we?”
​
Garry Engkent, Chinese-Canadian, has a Ph.D. and taught at various Canadian universities and colleges. He has co-authored three texts: Groundwork: Writing Skills to Build On, Fiction/Non-Fiction: A Reader and Rhetoric, and Essay: Do's and Don'ts. His stories have appeared in Belief, Exile, Alberta Magazine, Asiandian, Many-Mouthed Birds, SELS Review etc. Many stories have a Chinese immigrant slant, circa 1950-70s: "Why My Mother Can't Speak English," "Chickens for Christmas," "Visiting," "Ten Questions and a Slice of Boston Cream Pie," and "Mother Came to Visit and Stayed." His forays into horror and fantasy include “I, Zombie: A Different Point of View,””We Aren’t Bad Guys,” “Vampiress” and “Merci.” [107]
Lucy by Stuart Farthing-Mays
A constant drip of water in the darkness was my only company. I glanced around the cell walls, stone, moss, damp. The bars at the front gave me a view only of the opposite cell.
Empty.
Behind me, high on the wall, a small grate leaked in air that carried a stench I didn’t like to think about. Sometimes, another prisoner would play a soft harmonica, sometimes I heard him cry. I think tonight it was a small whimper.
I’d never seen him.
I was thirsty, and in this place, there was only one way to ask for water: rattle the tin cup along the bars. Side to side. Back and forth. A clanging metal rhythm that would crack your skull before it cracked theirs. It was a challenge, a battle of wills – they hadn’t killed me for it so far. But tonight, a thought slipped out before I could hold it down; a rare, wild crack in the dark.
“Get me outta here. Come on, man.” I called in the dark. “You know I ain’t supposed to be in here. You know this is shit.”
Nothing.
“Fuck you!” I shouted back at myself.
A sharp bang echoed down the hall from the guard station, a nightstick smacking the counter.
“Shut up, asshole.”
Silence followed, and in it I heard them talking.
“Game was shit last night.”
“Mm, hmm, bad defence coach.”
Silence, then a loud, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!
“King me!”
“What?... Ah, fuck you.”
“You doin’ the medical round again tonight, Burt?”
“Yea, they asked me to. Crazy bastard in 6J. It took three of them, plus me, to hold him down last night.”
“How long you reckon you’ll be?”
“Huh?”
“How long, idiot?”
“Well, meds take about an hour. This other crazy, easily add another fifteen minutes for him.” There was a pause between them. “Why you ask anyway, Clarence?”
“Ah, so over an hour?”
“Well, yea, why?”
Clarence hesitated for a moment. “I miss you!” he replied.
A chuckle, “Dickhead! Oh, that reminds me. You see that Lucy of yours last night? Was it last night?”
“Yup!” Clarence replied, his tone lifting, “Last night was somethin’ else!”
“That good huh? What happened?”
“Well, shit,” Clarence drawled, “I dunno if I oughta.”
“Don’t be an asshole, you know I always tell you.”
After a pause, Clarence spoke: “Well, alright. Lucy’s somethin’ else, Burt. Don’t talk too much though, shy maybe, I dunno. But hey…” he whispered now, I struggled to hear him. “When dinner was done, my God, the gloves were off.”
Burt giggled, a wet little laugh like he was rubbing his hands on his thighs.
“Quiet little thing like that though,” Clarence continued, “Lucy puts out, lemme tell you. We may have had steak, but damn, Lucy… Well… Always hungry.”
Another silence, I leaned closer, breath shallow.
“What did you do, Clarence? Did she let you do… Everything?”
Clarence’s tone changed, softer, colder, “Well,” Clarence said, “All of it. Whatever I wanted.”
“Oh my God,” Burt gasped, “This ain’t never the first time you met her?”
“Heck no! We been on loads of dates. Jus’ comes down to charisma,” Clarence said proudly, “I can get away with what I like.”
“Wish I could,” Burt muttered.
“You’ll find someone. Hell, we’re meeting again.”
“You and Lucy?”
“Damn right… Mighty fine piece of ass.” After a brief pause, “Come on, shit to do. Meds round, right?”
I heard the scraping of chairs now as they stood, footsteps drifting off as they started their rounds. I stared at the drip on the floor, thought about collecting it in my cup, but instead rattled the bars with it. I don’t know how long it was before footsteps returned.
“Well, ain’t you a noisy bastard,” Clarence said.
“Just want some water boss,” I replied.
Clarence looked at me, licking his lips. “I’ll go fill it for you,” he said, walking away. I listened carefully and after what felt like an age, his slow steps echoing louder as he made his way back.
“Here you go.”
About fucking time.
I drank greedily, the cold burning my throat. Then I heard it - a soft thump of fabric hitting stone. I looked down.
Red and white gingham.
A dress. Dark stains I dare not name. Rips I didn’t want explained.
A nametag pinned to it: LUCY
Clarence chuckled low in his throat. “Get dressed,” he said. “Tonight, you’re Lucy.”
​
​Stuart Farthing-Mays is an emerging fiction writer based in Somerset, England. A mind twisted by thirty years of the corporate rat race has begun to ooze, producing short stories that cross genres, wander into dark places and occasionally leave the reader wondering what they have just read.
The Cheapest House on the Block by Christian De Matteo
Nothing could convince the girl to come out of the basement. Nor would the girl let anyone come down. Feral, Abel called her. Damn near rabid. He wanted to call the police, but Annie’s childhood in eleven different foster homes made this a nonstarter. Still, keeping a child in the basement would probably constitute kidnapping after a few days.
Annie opened the door slowly and put a plate of chicken and rice on the top step. She didn’t offer a fork. The girl did not need a weapon. God knew what she’d already found in the basement. She closed the door.
“Social services?” Abel said from his chair at the kitchen table, obsessively shuffling a deck of playing cards.
“Same result,” she said, moving to the chair across from him.
A low growl came from beneath the door followed by a flurry of activity culminating in the sound of the dish shattering at the bottom of the wooden steps.
“Great. Now we’re short a dish, and she has porcelain shards to stab us with.” Abel fanned the cards out on the table.
“That one was glass,” Annie whispered.
“Even better.” He flipped the cards face up in a cascading flourish, scooped them back into a deck and resumed shuffling.
Annie watched him, this the last remnant of his crippling gambling addiction of years before when they’d lost everything overnight and she hadn’t even known until the bank came for the house. Only in these last few weeks had they been able to get a new one, perhaps their luck changing, the house priced ridiculously cheaper than any others in the neighborhood so long as they agreed to waive the inspection.
A bang at the door made Annie jump.
“Water,” the girl hissed under the door.
“Hell, has she spoken before?” Abel said.
“First time I’ve heard,” Annie said, heading for the cabinets.
“Heaven’s sake, Annie, don’t give her any more glass.” Abel stood. He went to the cabinet over the stove and took out his old Yonkers Raceway plastic beer cup. Cards or ponies, he’d taken it every time he gambled, his lucky cup.
“Give her this. She can’t break it and we could use some luck.”
Annie filled it and knelt by the basement door, her back to the kitchen.
“I’m going to open the door, sweetie,” she said in the calmest voice she could manage. “Are you ready?”
“Let me do it,” Abel said. “I’m bigger if she tries to grab.”
Annie opened the door slightly and sat the cup on the top step. She kept the door ajar, peeking through the opening.
“C’mon, Annie, close the door.”
She kept looking, waiting for the girl to crawl up the stairs, desperate to make sure she was okay, and hadn’t cut herself on the glass. She wanted to give her a bath, to wash however many weeks or months of filth from her. The girl looked about eight years old, too young to be on her own on the streets. Or alone in their unfinished, unkempt, storage-disaster of a basement.
“Close the door,” Abel said with a new tremble in his voice.
“Come here, honey. Get your water and we can talk.”
“Who the hell knows how she even got in there. The windows don’t even open. Maybe she’ll find her way out. Just close the door.”
Annie straightened her back to look at Abel.
“What do you mean the windows don’t open? There’s no door down there either.”
“This is what I’m saying. We’ve got to call the police. Something’s not right.”
Abel came to the door, standing over Annie and looking down the stairs. He took out his phone and shined the flashlight down.
Three pairs of eyes flashed in the light.
“Our house,” one of them whispered, hoarse and cold.
Abel threw Annie back from the door and slammed it shut.
“How many of them are down there?” Annie cried.
“I count three and one’s an adult.”
“You said there was no way in!”
“There isn’t! I checked around the house. None of the windows are broken.”
“What’d they say?”
“Our house.”
Annie stared at Abel. His mouth hadn’t moved. He looked past her into the kitchen. She turned.
Hunkered on the table, legs spread wide with only a slip of torn cloth covering herself, was a filthy, gray woman. No, not filthy. Rotting. Skin hung in strips from her arms, even chunks of muscle. One eye socket was empty, the dried optic nerve pasted to her cheek. Toes were missing on her feet, fingers missing on her hands, and an ear hung by the lobe like paint peeling from the ceiling of a long-abandoned house.
“Our house,” she repeated and the basement door slammed open into Abel.
A gray hand grabbed his ankle and pulled him down the stairs. Annie heard him cry out as his head bounced off the steps, then he shrieked before going suddenly silent.
“Abel!” She turned for the steps, but the little girl was there, blood dripping off her face, soaked into her hair, a shard of the broken dish bright red in one hand, the plastic cup in the other.
Behind her came a boy even younger and grayer than she, and a man, his face almost entirely exposed skull.
The woman on the table spoke again.
“Feed us.”
Annie ran for the back door. The woman pounced, knocking her to the cold linoleum floor, pinning her down.
The reek of decomposition singed Annie’s sinuses.
The woman put her hand on Annie’s cheek, pushing her to face left. Abel’s body crashed down beside her, throat slashed wide. The skull-faced man knelt beside the body, a kitchen knife and frying pan in his hands.
The little girl put her right hand on her father’s shoulder. She gestured excitedly with Abel’s lucky cup.
“Feed us,” she said.
​
Christian De Matteo is a writer, professional writing coach/editor, and college professor teaching writing and literature. His fiction has appeared in The Bleeding Margin Magazine, Grim Omen Magazine, and the Containment Breach and Folklore for the Uninsured anthology series. His noir story “The Hopper Job” was shortlisted for the Uncharted Magazine Noir Challenge Prize and published in WordCrafter Press's Midnight Madness anthology. He is the co-founder of Fugitive Poems and founder of Tellworthy Creative Writing Services.
Baja Bozo by Austin Fowler
Somewhere deep in the dry and remorseless Baja desert, in the part of Mexico where the heat surrounds you like a cocoon and the vultures circle you simply because you dare walk the earth, where the plants have spines as long as your fingers and the rain skips right over the land for years at a time, in a little bare patch of sand nestled among the sea foam and beige landscape of cacti and boojums, lives a sick and crazy man in a sun-bleached yellow tent. At night he is a ghost that haunts the desert, but in the early hours of dawn he returns to the tent, only just before the sun has risen over the horizon to broil the earth.
His face is covered in a messy base of white paint, with red circles drawn over each cheekbone and an orange smear slopped across his lips. A worn and faded red foam ball pinches his nose. Draping his body is a tattered cotton onesie of green, orange, and white stripes. His bare head, bald but for the night’s growth, jars the theme. Bright red blood covers his hands as well as his bulbous, oversized shoes. His suit is splattered with more of it, some fresh and some days and even weeks old.
The man climbs into the tent and zips it shut. The two hatchets he carried through the night are cast aside. He lays down on his back, arms resting at his side. Then he stares at the fabric ceiling as day arrives.
Though he never wipes the paint off, it melts from his angular face when the sun begins its assault, rapidly bringing the temperature inside to terrible heights. Inside that suit his body roasts in the unyielding heat. The atmosphere is that of a sauna gone haywire, the temperature soaring past any livable limit. The blood on his hands sloughs off with the sweat, while that on his shoes bakes into a crust. His chest rises and falls as he gasps hugely for breath, the heavy and scorching air difficult to inhale and seemingly devoid of oxygen.
Any sane person who somehow awoke in such a situation would find themselves in an immediate heat-induced panic. They’d scream aloud and scramble to unzip the door, sweat streaming from every pore and head feeling as though it were wrapped in a heating blanket on full blast. They’d stumble from the tent, body weak and brain muddy from dehydration. They’d strip that disgusting suit from their body. Their exposed skin would start to burn, and they’d set about finding shade and water in a frantic attempt to survive.
But this man doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he only lays there, himself an unmoving slab of meat, cooking alive, his brain boiling in a pot of psychosis.
And as this happens to him, he laughs. It comes out of him in waves, one after the other in a ceaseless tide. It’s a demonic, screeching noise. It’s a sound to make a passerby–were there to be any–lose their mind. It’s insidious and sickly. Profound and limiting. It's marked by a wet cough, and sometimes this brings blood from his lungs to his lips. But the taste of it only makes him laugh harder. The sound of it flows out of the tent and into the desert before it disappears into empty space. His lips curl into an open-mouthed and ecstatic grin. His eyes bulge hysterically.
He laughs because he anticipates the night.
For that is when he has his fun.
###
When the sun goes down and darkness finally settles upon the desert, and the vultures feast on the day’s dead and the sweet relief of coolness blesses the air, the man, somehow alive, sits upright. He repaints his face. He uses a razor to scrape the subtle growth of hair off his head. Cuts open for the lack of cream, but he doesn't wipe the red streams that fall. He grabs the hatchets. He unzips the flap, steps outside, and uncurls his large and bony body.
And then he walks. Toward the traveling hippies who've come to experience the desert for the shits and giggles. Toward the young couples, out for adventure and fucking like rabbits in their campers. Toward the buggy racers, pit-stopping and slugging back beers between long days of driving. It's almost never the locals who dare traverse this barren land–they simply know better. It is the white folk, overconfident in their indestructibility, who come to this place.
On this night, he points himself east and walks to the sea. The way is nearly two hours. What greets him upon arrival is a large flat circle of thick, crunchy sand more than a quarter mile across. At the far end, parked near the gently lapping shoreline, are two vans side-by-side. Lights are strung between the vehicles, and underneath those lights are four lawn chairs, each occupied by a young person, happy and unbothered, drinking and laughing and oblivious inside their little bubble of light.
Cloaked in darkness, the man crosses the sand circle and then stops, palpably close, only just beyond the glow of the lights. He stares at the unsuspecting group. He tightens his grip on the hatchets. That sick smile crawls back across his face, and then the laugh returns. Quiet at first, then loud and encompassing. The travelers startle. They stand, defenseless, eyes wide and hands empty, peering uselessly into the dark. One of them begins to cry as the laugh engulfs them.
And then out of the dark comes the clown.
​
Austin is from Seattle, WA, USA. His short stories have appeared in Dark Speculations, Rockvale Review, Written Tales, and The Chamber Magazine.
Geometry of the Flesh by Eduardo Torres
With the third coffee of the night running through my body, all we have left to do is lay out the geometric shapes; I want a good visual effect for the double-page spread. The cell phone vibrates on the desk: a WhatsApp from the boss. He’s probably tucked in up to his chin in bed, happy that the correspondent in Guatemala is sending him more material to ruin our night. We must change the cover; he wants an impact with a global connection between the Paleolithic Venuses, Ixchel, and the Ñuke Mapu.
David holds the transparencies up against the light, turning the sheets over and swapping them across the illuminated surface. He doesn't say a word to me; we both just want to finish and go home. Meanwhile, I review the lines on the screen to calculate the space: “The tablets explain that the children were indoctrinated about the cosmos and drugged at the same time; the reward for the sacrifice was eternal life and wisdom.” I need to word this right and adjust it later, once we define the order of the shapes. I move on to the next point. The translation of the relief, “Womb of the sky. Flesh Seeks. Infinite Universe,” I layer over the photo of the hypertrophied stomach.
A few taps on the table make me look up from the monitor. David motions for me to come over. I notice right away what he discovered: a triangle looks perfect next to a rhombus; they have the same height and the same vertex. Caught up in the excitement, I slide another similar pair over and realize that everything has its place. The moment he superimposes the last transparencies, each acetate turns reddish. Small red roots start sprouting from the printed images, growing larger and intertwining into each other until they merge.
The desk glass explodes. Shards hit my face with the force of pellets. I shield my eyes with my arms and drop to my knees, but the hard impact never comes. The tiled floor is surprisingly soft. As I press my palms down, I feel a warm viscosity soaking my fingers. I look for David; he’s kneeling on the other side of the table, speechless, staring at his bloody hands.
The plaster on the walls begins to pulse as everything takes on the same red tint as the sheets. Veins, muscle, and blood envelop the room. The paintings, the cabinets, and the rest of the furniture are shut out, vanishing from my sight as the flesh engulfs them. A boiling sweat runs down my forehead; the heat overwhelms me. The crimson tide builds up beneath my body at an absurd speed. I try to pull myself up, but the floor beneath my shoes gives way completely. In a blink, my feet no longer touch the bottom.
Panic seals my throat as the crimson tide submerges me completely. I open my mouth to breathe, but only this dense fluid enters, flooding my insides. I swallow again and again in an involuntary loop. I feel it inflating my stomach. A whiplash twists my belly, contracting upward in a spasm. I want to throw up; my insides wrench trying to empty themselves, but my jaw keeps swallowing, unable to stop. My hands dig into my neck, tearing my skin in a useless attempt to force my throat open.
Through the plasma, I see a cloud of giant lumps looming: masses of a whitish, translucent gelatin floating weightlessly, deforming in the current. There are dozens of them. They are bearing down on us. Their soft bodies collide with mine. It is a thick substance that engulfs me, stretching like a membrane that molds to my shoulders, my torso, and my legs.
When it finishes closing, I am trapped in a milky capsule. Through its surface, I see David sharing my same fate, a reflection of my agony. I realize that I am not breathing and yet I am not dead.
My desperation for air stops. A deep burning rips through me. My skeleton dissolves and I am squeezed simultaneously from all sides, crushing my lungs and internal organs. I try to move, but my muscles contract without finding support.
Trapped, I see how what is left of David is crushed against the wall. The milky capsule covering him shrinks as his body is embedded there. A lattice of veins sprouts from the surface. These force their way in, burying themselves beneath his skin, stretching and tearing him in every direction.
My translucent coffin collides with the wall. It splits open and the pressure slams me against its tissue. The rupture is immediate: arteries pierce my skin, forcing their way through the muscles to entangle and merge with my own veins, making me one with the flesh.
An intense buzz floods my brain from within; it reminds me of an old television with no signal. I am a wet patch, a rivet of flesh insufficient to contain the infinite monster growing inside.
​
Héctor Eduardo Torres Manríquez is an author from Temuco, Chile, focused on speculative fiction, near-future anticipation, and cosmic themes. "The Geometry of the Flesh" marks his literary debut. Additionally, he is an independent researcher, with theoretical essays on astrobiology and information thermodynamics published in the Zenodo repository. Zenodo Link: https://zenodo.org/records/20899938
Fearcrow by Rodney Hatfield Jr.
Bob and Tom ran out of the Present General Store door, all excited. Tom carried a long box under his arm. He finally picked up his new BB gun. He did odd jobs and saved his money all summer, and he finally raised enough to buy it.
They stopped at the corner of the playground and opened the box. They filled the gun with BB’s and threw the box in the trash can. Tom couldn’t wait to show his father his new BB gun. So they decided to take a shortcut through the neighboring farmers’ corn field.
While walking and laughing at each other, the boys came across an old scarecrow. It looked pretty beat up: button eyes, hanging on by thread, mouth sewn closed with a coarse thread, straw hat barely attached. He wore an old weather-beaten flannel shirt with equally faded jeans and a coarse rope for a belt. He hung slumped on a pole driven into the ground. It had seen quite a few seasons come and go.
Bob and Tom looked at the scarecrow, looked at each other, and got big grins on their faces as they tried out the brand-new BB gun.
They took turns shooting at it. Tom was a much better shot than Bob was; he managed to shoot off one of its eyes from twenty paces.
The sound of the BB hitting the scarecrow's stuffed body was a little different than what they would've expected. It almost sounded like the scarecrow grunted when it was hit.
After a while, the boys got bored and decided to go home. The next day, Tom called Bob on the phone since it was raining outside. He told Bob he noticed the scarecrow had been moved up to the edge of the field. Now it was closer to the road, now facing directly at his house. They dismissed it as it must've been the farmer rearranging his fields before he harvested his corn.
The following morning Bob’s mother called him in to the living room where his father was sitting. They told him his friend Tom was found dead. Tears welled up in Bob’s eyes and he ran out of the room through the kitchen and out the back door. He ran and cried until he got tired. He stopped and sat down outside the small store in town. While he sat there, two men were talking about Tom. They said he was found dead, and his eyes gouged out and his mouth sewn shut. Fear overtook Bob when he heard this. He stood and started running again. He ran down the side of the road toward home. When he made it to the yard, he slowed to a fast walk to climb the steps. As he opened the screen door, he noticed the scarecrow in the neighboring field facing directly towards the house.
​
Rodney Hatfield Jr. is a horror and sci-fi author from the coal fields of southern West Virginia, where he still lives in the backroads. He's the author of The Bloodstain Quill, Quantum Immortality, Monster Accommodations, Bargain to Oblivion, and more. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies including It Came From the Trailer Park Vol. 5, Gaslamp Pulp Vol. 2, Weird Weird West, and Spirit of the Wolf, as well as Horror Tree, CultureCult, and Burial Books. He writes across horror, sci-fi, western horror, clean Appalachian humor, articles, editorials, and faith based fiction.
Misery (Commission) by Tony John
Over Passage Creek and through Furnace Woods stood Old Man Crisman’s cabin. He leased his field to his son-in-law, Christopher, who grew corn and soybeans—and one year, a field full of Johnsongrass. Christopher wasn’t particularly good to the land, and the Old Man looked the other way.
Most people called him Topher, well, except the Old Man, who preferred “Gopher.” He thought Christopher actually looked like the guy who played “Gopher” on The Love Boat and teased his daughter, Morgan, about it. She had her husband playing the gopher, though, sending him out on errands no matter the time, day, or weather.
Christopher and Morgan lived on the other side of town, on Boliver Road, not far from the Old Man’s place at Seven Fountains. Their brick rancher was sufficient, but Morgan dreamed of a bigger place, somewhere she could raise a family.
Like every year, Halloween items were marked down and replaced with dancing reindeer and candy canes, setting the stage for kids to pester their parents ad nauseam about what they wanted for Christmas. Do all stores skip Thanksgiving entirely?
Morgan had her father over for Thanksgiving dinner each year since her mother passed away from emphysema. The Old Man had given up his pipe.
The menu was corned beef instead of turkey, rice instead of stuffing, and sliced peaches instead of cranberry sauce. They dug in, overate, and flipped on the TV. The NFL faceoff game featured the Commanders versus the Cowboys, and after, they watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade encore.
Morgan cut strips of colored paper for each of them to write down things they were thankful for. She decorated a Mason jar with themed cloth and hemp twine she bought at Hobby Lobby. They put their papers in it to read later that evening. Before they read their notes of thanksgiving, the Old Man gave them the same history lesson for the umpteenth time about the familiar Christmas song that was actually a poem written for Thanksgiving.
###
Three weeks later, Christopher and Morgan sat in their living room, the woodstove blaring, keeping up the tradition of watching their favorite stop-motion specials: the one about the donkey with long ears and the other about Mother Nature’s sons fighting it out over the weather.
An abrupt alert tone interrupted the musical number as the white-haired character sang about being Mr. White Christmas and Mr. Snow:
…THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A BLIZZARD WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES: FREDERICK-WARREN-SHENANDOAH-PAGE-ROCKINGHAM…
…INCLUDING THE CITIES OF WINCHESTER AND HARRISONBURG…
…WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
The monotone voice also warned of widespread power outages and major travel impacts. The attention tone ended mid-song as the orange-haired character crooned about being Mr. Green Christmas and Mr. Sun.
Morgan called her dad to check on him. The Old Man had a home generator installed, which eased her mind about her father’s well-being during the storm, yet she still worried about him being alone. She sent Christopher out to get milk and bread—if the stores even had any left—check the generator’s fuel level, and the amount of wood in her dad’s carport.
Nine inches of snow had already buried the roads. A nagging voice reminded Christopher he should have put on new tires before the season, but money was always tight around the holidays. He knew he shouldn’t have gone out, but he always caved to his wife’s requests. At the sharp curve before the submarine bridge, his truck slid across the powdery blanket. The truck ripped through a young patch of healthy hemlocks and plunged onto its side in the creek, spilling oil and gas. Christopher tried to get out, but the doors would not budge. A warm runnel of blood trailed down his face as the frigid water seeped inside. His vision blurred, his eyes rolled back, and he faded from consciousness…
The Old Man, a crossword fiend, pulled out the newspaper page and began filling in the boxes. His last clue was “Christmas period in old poetry.” He penciled in the four-letter answer, down from the word “JOLLY.” He turned on the TV, switched to Wheel of Fortune, and yawned.
Too early for bed, he thought.
The woodstove was dying out—only glowing embers remained. His portable kerosene heater, though, was still running hot, so he stayed put and let it burn. Besides, he had a headache and was too tired to get up anyway, so he pulled an afghan over his legs that his wife had made him many Christmases before. As the program turned to commercial, Mr. Crisman yawned—and yawned again, deeper, drifting off at 7:21 p.m. No Jeopardy! tonight—or any other night…
Morgan stood on tiptoes and looked out the front-door window. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a glass and some Oreo cookies. A half-empty carton of milk sat on the top shelf at the back of the fridge. Morgan stepped onto the lower shelf to reach the milk, pulling on the open door for leverage. The fridge toppled onto her with its doors splayed out against the floor, enclosing her body like an upside-down casket. When the contents inside settled, she opened her eyes long enough to see the interior light go dark as the storm wiped out the grid. She took a deep breath and thought of her mom…
###
Some people dream of a white Christmas. Some have blue ones. I’ve had a jolly ole Yuletide!
My time here in Virginia is done—time to move on, new places to go, people to see—scratch that, reverse it. Forgive me, I must check back in with Mom for my next mission. I dream of a warmer place this time.
###
As I turned west toward the land of saguaros and painted deserts, I smiled and thought of my brothers battling it out with their catchy jingles and preferred Christmas colors.
I sang about being Mr. Black Christmas and being Mr. Death.
​
Tony began writing fiction in 2022, at age 50. His story “Portal” will appear in HeartWood on November 1, 2026, and “Season” has been accepted by The Ranger’s Almanac for April 2027. He is a retired Army Major and works for the National Park Service in the Shenandoah Valley.