Fiction
by C.S. Fuqua
The needle of light winks. Machinery rumbles, and he cowers against the dirt wall. Something brushes against his leg as a shadow scuttles into a corner. He kicks, and bone and flesh give way under his boot. He takes the rat into his hands and lifts the carcass to his lips, but then his shoulders sink. He drops his hands to his lap, weary of the struggle. The light winks again. The door rattles. This time he will make them shoot. |
Issue 20 (Apr 2012) |
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by Angel Propps
Lou Williams stood in front of the huge window that dominated most of his living room. One hand twitched at the curtains he had moved aside just enough to peek through. The other rested on the butt of the old revolver he had taken down from its box in the back of the closet. A dreamlike expression rode his wrinkled old face as he stood there, caught between wondering if that window could indeed act like a magnifying glass and burn right through him, and the vivid memory of bringing his wife Sally home to that house for the first time. |
Issue 20 (Apr 2012) |
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by Nick Scorza
It is all because of the book, that accursed book I came across in my employ as a dealer in antiquities. I did not choose the profession, but rather awoke to find myself immersed in it – being something of an antiquity myself, even as a young man. I loved all old things, whether from the past century or the past millennium. I was mad for them, but books I prized above all else. Is there anything more wonderful than a book? It is a treasure trove – the wealth and wisdom of the dead preserved for the living as no hoary pharaoh could have hoped for. In books I sought the same commune with things greater than myself that others sought from the church. To me, any book was a bible. |
Issue 19 (Mar 2012) |
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by Peter Damien
If there was pain from the small equator of raw flesh and blood, she did not feel it. She went mad, that first day, a madness the pain could not penetrate. Her mind filled with rage and despair, the animalistic panic at being trapped like this, being snatched away. What was left of her mind was filled with those last few moments: the sound of scuffling, the sound of Eric shouting at her to run, goddammit, get the hell outta here, get the – and then the sound of his voice being cut off by a thunderclap explosion which left her ears ringing. |
Issue 19 (Mar 2012) |
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by Chris Stevens
The stench of sulfur wafted through the air as Colin lit the black candles positioned at each corner of the pentagram. He stared intensely at the large pentagram he had drawn on the bare concrete floor. It had taken a while to remove the carpeting and padding from the room. Harder still was the remnant of glue that was swirled on the floor to keep the padding in place. Colin had even gone so far as to remove the tack strips and their anchors, in order to get a nice smooth surface for the task at hand. |
Issue 19 (Mar 2012) |
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by R.W.W. Greene
A lot of people cheered when our space plane docked with the Sam Walton but I wasn’t in the mood. The ride up was terrible. First I felt squashed, then I felt like I was falling, then I just wanted to puke. The flight attendant had handed out anti-nausea gum before we took off, but people were throwing up all around me. A couple of rows back, someone missed the barf bag and vomit bubbles floated by my head. The attendant captured it with a net. Gross. |
Issue 19 (Mar 2012) |
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by David McCool
A couple of months ago - I'm talking mid-June, right smack in that heat wave - I took a walk into the town centre to kill some time on what was likely the hottest day of the year. Had I stayed at home I'd have risked dozing off in front of the TV, and, at my age, my sleep pattern doesn't need much more than a five-second, head-jerking snooze for it to be thrown right out of sync. Working in the garden wasn't an option, either. I'd have been sizzled good, even with factor 50 and a straw hat on my side. |
Issue 18 (Feb 2012) |
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by Nick Wood
We are amongst the last of the last, the ‘do-not-dies’ as the dead now call us. They follow us, the dead do, whispering and pulling at our ears and hair. The other two don’t notice, although they do see and comment on the occasional cock of my head, as I listen without comprehension to dry and meaningless whispers from shadowy lips, the occasional repetition of that one phrase, all I can make out - ‘do-not-dies…’ |
Issue 18 (Feb 2012) |
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by Thomas Carl Sweterlitsch
Ashen drizzle. Black sky. Christ, thought McKinley - nothing like the fucking rain. It collected in muddy drifts. It pooled at the curbs. Already the streets were slicked with wet soot. McKinley lifted his boot from the accelerator and hit the emergency flashers. The bald tires of his Ford Focus fishtailed. It was bad enough on clear days when the ash was like fucking snow, but when it rained everything just turned greasy. |
Issue 18 (Feb 2012) |
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by Summer Hanford
One unremarkable, breezy September morning, a graduate student was cleaning rat cages. Now, most of her rats were housed individually in fine 9 x 12 x 9 inch highly durable plastic bins, but four of them lived together in a colony cage. These four rats were naive Long Evans males, recognizable as 19, 20, 21 and 22 by their earmarks, and were currently on water deprivation in preparation for a study. |
Issue 18 (Feb 2012) |
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