Fiction

"Likeness"

Hearing one’s own voice is always just a little strange. No doubt about it. Hearing another’s words spoken in your own voice is another thing all together. Surreal. Unsettling. I don’t know. I don’t believe the proper word even exists for such a feeling. It’s the bizarre, unpalatable substance of bad dreams…

"Killer Company"

Eric Raglin

My client failed to mention the broken elevator, so I’m lugging this corpse in a cardboard box up five flights of stairs. If I had someone to come home to, I’d complain to them about it over dinner. Maybe they’d joke about the good workout I got, and my bad mood would dissolve into laughter…

"The Gathering"

Lyndsey Croal

The ghosts gather on the burnt trees like a murder of crows, hungry-eyed and conspiratorial. Black feathery wisps dance around them, while talon-like hands grip to charred branches. They can see me, but they don’t yet know I can see them…

"Season of Change"

Adam Godfrey

My wife left me last year. I’ve spent my life floundering between chronic skepticism and cautious optimism, the latter complements of my Cathy these last 22 years. My unyielding light. The missing element that guided me through a lifetime of fearful irrationalities…

"Given"

Joe Koch

You forfeit your name, the price of entry. Mere months ago, you were attached to its suggestion of ephemeral beauty, your name like a delicate flower, too precious to be plucked. You let them, though. Those who seemed worthy…

"The Baby Monitor"

David Worn

The stomping came first. Michelle knew it well. The sound of her daughter getting out of bed, probably coming to ask for a glass of water or another tuck-in. But then the wailing started, long and plaintive, growing louder and louder as her daughter fled from her bedroom…

"Seas of Static Between Stations"

Mathew Gostelow

Dementia is a radio detuning, a slow slide of mourning as, piece by piece, a personality is drowned in hissing white noise emptiness…

"The Last Phone Call"

Maria Berejan

She smelled oil. She smelled blood. She forced her eyes open, squinting against the bright beams of light in the darkness. Broken branches littered a path of wreckage leading to the road…

"Viral"

Chelsea Pumpkins

Mariah was busy flipping between her account and the trending page, searching for the magic formula for fame. Her mind flooded with analytics, calculating if she was growing or shrinking in popularity…

"Cornfield"

Christopher Hawkins

Alice wasn’t asleep, but she was starting to dose with her phone glowing balanced on her chest, when she heard the scraping at her window. She’d left it half open, as much an invitation as a way to let in the autumn air…

"A Girl and Her Dog"

Bev Vincent

Madison came home from school one afternoon to discover Lucky lying on the street in front of the house, bleeding and mangled. At first, she was sure her dog was dead, but Lucky opened his eyes and tried to lick Maddy’s hand…

"Only Bodies Wanted"

Jacob Steven Mohr

The room’s perfect whiteness is infinity. Without variation, without shadow, the illusion of perpetuity is near-flawless. She waits on the tissue paper, legs dangling. From somewhere comes the soft ticking of a clock, though there’s no clock in the room…

"Indigo Night"

Alex Woodroe

“The last one.” The ship’s console lit up emerald green and the deepest of blue, colors that used to trigger an odd sort of nostalgia in Son, but lately only made him feel resentful. In the middle of the screen, a minuscule dot was steadily growing. Father’s voice soon followed from the speakers…

"Portrait of an Artist"

Casey Masterson

Artists thought they’d be the last ones laughed out of their professions by technology, yet they were amongst the first. What started as an amusing revolution of AI capabilities for content creators and web perusers was optimized to gain the attention of art critics and galleries…

"Midnight Frequencies"

Pedro Iniguez

The streetlight buzzed above the taco truck like a nest of angry hornets as it flickered in its death throes. Not unlike most neglected corners in Los Angeles, this particular stretch of downtown had been left to the bottom-feeders. At least down here, Enrique thought, the cops didn’t harass street vendors all that much…