by William Meikle and Graeme Hurry
Lucy had decided to tell me how Dad died. The train was full, so full that although we were travelling first class, we were sharing the compartment with a horde of others - students, squaddies and oilmen, all of them drunk, half drunk or intending to get that way. “Nobody knows how it happened,” she said. She leaned over the table towards me. “There was a board meeting - dad was submitting proposals for a wholesale modernisation of the farm.” I was surprised to see tears in my sister’s eyes. |
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Posted in Fiction | 
Tags: Fiction, Graeme Hurry, Horror, Joe Doe, SW Issue 10, William Meikle | 
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By Peter Simon
The boys looked up. To eight-year-old Jamie, the two black bins looked like an exciting spaceship. Papered with blue crescent moons and glittery stars, the bin-rocket stood garishly in the corner of a field. Fiery-red tinsel underneath represented the rocket exhaust. Dan, at eleven, saw it as a pathetically childish contraption. But he just sighed and went along with the whole charade. “I’m getting in the top bin!” demanded Jamie. With a roll of the eyes, Dan acquiesced and clambered in the lower bin, using the makeshift “door” to shut himself in.. |
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By A. Roberts
He heard the shells coming, could almost feel them rumbling through the sky, like air-borne express trains, and he knew that when they landed, ton upon ton of earth, men and weaponry would again be flung as much as fifty paces into the air. “Shells incoming,” someone screamed, as though three years of war had left the few old soldiers in any doubt as to just what was incoming. Men began diving into prepared holes in the ground, while others sought refuge in the remains of buildings standing like rotten, broken teeth on the remains of the only paved road the town had once enjoyed. On the outskirts of the town, someone began hitting the horn of a heavy-duty vehicle, its blast ending only with the explosions of the first shells. |
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By Sean & Craig Davis
Billy tried to lick the stinging ache from his fingers. His mind struggled to remember why they hurt. His thoughts wandered with the woody breeze running through his hair and damp earth cooling his feet. He understood one thing: he was free. He was searching for something, but just what kept sinking back into the murky depths of his mind. He sniffed the air and then gouged his fingers into the ridged bark of a tree in frustration. Something rumbled ahead. He pushed through leafy branches to a clearing where a red, metal box rolled to a stop at the edge of a cliff. Two figures got out and he hid behind a tree to listen. |
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Posted in Fiction | Tags: Craig Davis, Fiction, Horror, Phadder's Sins, Sean Davis, SW Issue 10, Vincent Sammy | Comments Closed
By Abigail Godsell
Jarred tapped the steering wheel in time to the drumbeat, as his black Ford Mustang cruised down the desert road, blaring heavy metal. Dust trailed him, clouding the view in his mirror. The song’s rhythm wasn’t doing much to cut his boredom. It wasn’t a particularly good one. It was however, the only track on the CD, given to him by a friend who’d told him he needed some decent road music. Sometimes he really hated Tristan’s sense of humour. His eyes scanned the horizon, running over the border between desert and sky blankly until they alit on something curious. It grew as he drove nearer, slowly morphing from a curious, small, black speck into an even more curious, tall, black girl. |
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Posted in Fiction | Tags: Abi Godsell, Fiction, Horror, SW Issue 10, Vincent Sammy | Comments Closed
by Paula R Stiles
Jarred tapped the steering wheel in time to the drumbeat, as his black Ford Mustang cruised down the desert road, blaring heavy metal. Dust trailed him, clouding the view in his mirror. The song’s rhythm wasn’t doing much to cut his boredom. It wasn’t a particularly good one. It was however, the only track on the CD, given to him by a friend who’d told him he needed some decent road music. Sometimes he really hated Tristan’s sense of humour. His eyes scanned the horizon, running over the border between desert and sky blankly until they alit on something curious. It grew as he drove nearer, slowly morphing from a curious, small, black speck into an even more curious, tall, black girl. |
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Posted in Fiction | Tags: Fiction, Horror, Paula R Stiles, Pierre Smit, SF, SW Issue 10 | Comments Closed
By Brett Venter
She lay dreaming, drifting on an ever-shifting ocean of information. Everything that ever was and ever would be was hers to examine and elevate or deride as she saw fit. Nothing could escape her grasp, even in slumber. Microseconds were as eternity in the formless world wherein she ruled without permission. Existing as she did in a mental realm, she watched, always watched. She learned. &arial was the Virgin Mary, Jezebel, the whore riding to Armageddon on the back of the nine-headed beast. She was limited only by the minds of those who worshipped, believed. She was the Alpha and Omega of the wire, the goddess whose favour was all. |
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Posted in Fiction | Tags: Brett Venter, Fiction, Horror, Pierre Smit, SF, SW Issue 10 | Comments Closed
by Liam Kruger
1st place
You know, in Jewish homes, there used to be a tradition of emptying out every dish, pot and basin out of the windows when somebody died.
Calm down. Try and take some deep breaths.
This was done to tell the neighbours that Uncle Abe had kicked the bucket. The spiritual explanation was that souls could be trapped by water, and keeping water under the roof prevented them from rising to heaven.
I know it feels like you can’t breathe, don’t worry about it. Push through.
You’re not going to be able to talk for a couple of minutes, but you seem to be able to hear well enough. Why, look at that, your eyes are moving?high tolerance, I see. Don’t worry about it. You’re not dying.
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reviewed by Joe Vaz
Published by Corvus
HC 312pages
RRP £14.99 (Kindle £4.99)
buy from Kalahari.net
Dan is an angsty emo-kid who works in a deadly-dull shopping mall. He hates his job.
Rhoda is a junkie whose babysitting charge ran off while she was scoring cocaine. She hates her life.
Rhoda bullies Dan into helping her search for the lost kid, but as they explore neon-lit corridors behind the mall they find themselves in the bowels of the building, where old mannequins are stored in grave-like piles and raw sewage drips off the ceiling. The only escape is down.
by Rachel Green
tied 2nd place
My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the classified ad in the New Medical Practice. Third share in General Practitioner’s surgery for sale, including client list and all fittings, Laverstone, Wiltshire. Price on application. I’d grown up in Laverstone, still had ties there. An aunt, a cousin…probably most of my childhood friends. It would be odd to go back after ten years away; people there would still remember the child I used to be.
I answered the advertisement and, a week later, had a reply from Dr Glover and went to meet him. I remembered him well. He’d seen me through childhood inoculations, scraped knees and chicken pox. He was the only doctor in the practice in those days, though the surgery had grown with the town. He always smelled of soap and disinfectant, and kept a jar of barley sugar on his desk for his younger patients. We couldn’t do that now since there are too many regulations about offering sweets to children. We could be sued if they developed diabetes, for example, or be blamed if they got cavities in their teeth.
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Posted in Fiction | Tags: Bloody Parchment, Fiction, Rachel Green, Shadow Realm Inc | Comments Closed