A Bear at the Fridge
Reading Time: 4 minutesSometimes a spirit guide isn’t quite what you expect.
Flash Fiction
Slip
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe plan failed, or I wouldn’t be here assisting a paramedic as he straps my corpse onto a gurney. Confusing? Yeah. Try being me.
All In The Game
Reading Time: 4 minutesIn a battle-ridden world, lives are spent like currency, and one soldier tries to understand what happened to his comrade.
The Rarest of Contraband
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe best thing about running the ship’s laundry was the many nooks and crannies to hide contraband. I had powder, of course, and weapons, the bread and butter of any smuggling outfit. But a month ago things changed when the hyperdrive malfunctioned.
From an Ixil, To a Gringo
Reading Time: 4 minutes“Juana has stopped ageing,” the village elder tells Theo as they step towards the distant shack. “She ceased about five years ago. Said she couldn’t grow any older without dying. And if Juana dies, there’s no telling what Edna might do.”
Let the Salt Decide
Reading Time: 4 minutesZeke looked out a kitchen window, into his backyard. Waves crested and lapped the shore, leaving salt-soaked artifacts in their wake. The sea always has a say.
Arachnophobia
Reading Time: 7 minutes“First contact” is an underexplored sub-genre with many opportunities for miscommunication. Sometimes deadly, sometimes not so much.
The Race
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young man starts a new job at a seemingly disused rocket ship yard.
The Healing Breath of Alpacas
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen aliens descend on Earth, they request an audience with Karen, the United States’ most statistically average individual to sit judgement.
Retirement
Reading Time: 3 minutesCost-effective retirement for those who work in the human harvesting industry can have unexpected consequences.
If We Can Just Get to the Cabin Before…
Reading Time: 4 minutesMarsha and Frank are driving along a country road on a rainy night, with Frank regaling Marsha about his knowledge of Japanese Samurai films,
when they encounter a ghostly specter in the middle of the road.
Hope of Green
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn the face of a devastated climate, humanity’s last hope is to relocate to another planet, but not everyone sees it that way.
A Perfect Day
Reading Time: 4 minutesA day at the beach turns into something unexpected for a young couple.
The Snow Hath No Queen
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn a future where the continents are gone, the oceans are dead, and humanity survives atop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a man goes on a dreamquest to rediscover cold and snow.
Body Donor
Reading Time: 4 minutesDavid volunteers for NASA’s Body Donor program, where human corpses are exchanged for advanced knowledge of an alien species.
Taking Care of Our Own
Reading Time: 3 minutesThere’s an aswang on the loose and it’s up to us to deal with it. Don’t forget to bring trash bags…
Forest in Apartment Number Ten
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen Gretel grew up, she left the Sugar-Candy House and the forest behind her, but some stories won’t allow you to walk away.
Your Entire Universe in One Bite
Reading Time: 4 minutesFirst dates are always scary, but sometimes fear can be delicious.
I Regret Any Future Impact of My Words and Actions
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis piece imagines a future world where apologies are necessary for every step of personal interactions with others.
I Regret Any Future Impact of My Words and Actions Read More »
Invocation
Reading Time: 4 minutesA desperate young Wiccan encounters an archetypal presence in a shopping mall Santa.
Coffee Robot
Reading Time: 4 minutesOne million, two hundred-thousand seconds later, the reporter from the Tribune sips his coffee and raises his hand. “I just don’t see how people can be expected to trust you after an incident like this.”
On the Edge of Destruction
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young slaver unknowingly captures her childhood friend, and must consider the extent to which they are each beyond salvation.
Real Women
Reading Time: 4 minutesA group of mannequins from a fashion department store dream of becoming real women.
She Said Yes and a City Died
Reading Time: 3 minutesDon’t blame her. She knew that if she avoided the knife, she could grant her city centuries to grow and thrive. She also believed if she made that choice, she would die by year’s end.
The Private Man
Reading Time: 4 minutesThey knew each other very well, as much as the Law would allow. Their children were beautiful, curious, and kind. To know where they were now, or what their mother looked like, could lose him everything.
Hands Down
Reading Time: 2 minutesHow will a child react to his father’s unsettling business decisions?
Native in Arbors
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe emigrants to Planar6 have survived the voyage from Earth via conversion to semi-sentient fungal forms, a process that is reversed upon arrival. The trouble is, one of the crew prefers to stay the way they are…
Rod Serling School of Writing
Reading Time: 4 minutesA budding student sci-fi writer applies to the Rod Serling School because of the celebrity’s name attached to the school. When a salesman comes by the house to pitch the school, her father joins the conversation, with unexpected results.
Playing Human
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat does it mean to be human? Other species may never understand, but they can have fun pretending.
Growth
Reading Time: 3 minutesHe is deeply fascinated by growth. And he’s ready to sacrifice a lot for its sake…
The Skies Our Home
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe funeral was hard. But the thing that helped me smile through the tears was counting the times Tom had sat on top of hotter pyres and lived.
Snoogle Hunt
Reading Time: 4 minutes“Path!” Glinda paused so abruptly the six foot necromancer slammed into her, tangling himself in the wild frizz of her white hair. Glinda waved a white diamante-studded glove at the waist-high grass. “This is hardly a path, Snark. This is a swamp!”
Once in a Blue Moon
Reading Time: 2 minutesA hungry ghost, pockets full of whatever money he could collect, visits his favorite diner on Halloween
Mr. Butterfield
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen a robot does something right, Dr. R says, “Look, Mr. Butterfield. A breakthrough, Mr. Butterfield. What do you think of that, Mr. Butterfield?” It goes in a box with the other good robots, then trucks come to get them. When you’re good, you go outside.
Hell in a Handbag
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe earliest account is from our foremother, Rhoda. You know her better as Red Riding Hood. That’s right, she was a real person. Back then, the handbag was still a handbasket, but more on that later.
The Last Day
Reading Time: 3 minutesA story about a society in which a mechanism was invented to increase pleasant dreams. Old men prefer to sleep unawakened rather than live. One man tries to resist.
Her Own Bones
Reading Time: 3 minutesGwen examined the table so she didn’t have to meet the impatient eyes of the family members. Had one of these cups of tea held the poison responsible for the corpse lying beside an overturned chair at the head of the table?
Seed Hunters
Reading Time: 4 minutes“I’ve heard it’s still contaminated,” Ollie says, a hint of a question in her voice. Her eyes shimmer, opalescent with reflected fog as she looks at me. A definite challenge. “I heard people were getting sick, some kind of virus.” I grit my teeth, realizing that Ollie is definitely more than she seems. But then, so am I.
The Shipping Forecast
Reading Time: 4 minutesAs the world untethers from reality, moderate to severe distortion in time, leading to invasions from Normans, Saxons, and Romans in Dover; possible Vikings in Thames. High likelihood of property damage and loss of prevailing cultural norms. Squally showers.
It Shambles Closer in the Dark
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn the dark, something shambles toward you, its squelch squelch squelch sound getting louder, and louder. Is it here for you?
Nightraven, Highway 9
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen I get the call for a Code 43, I have to pull my truck over and consult my Codex of Supernatural Beasts and Cryptids to make sure I’m not mistaken. “Forty-three?” I ask over the walkie. Maybe Dispatch meant 42 (Mothman) or 44 (Batsquatch). “A Nightraven? You sure?”
Not Alone in the Universe
Reading Time: 3 minutesSome expected the aliens to solve the problems of humanity, while others were afraid of genocide or enslavement. But it all turned out differently.
Demonology
Reading Time: 3 minutesWith his life spiraling out of control, and a desire for revenge taking over his mind, a man takes drastic actions.
A Witch By Any Other Name
Reading Time: 4 minutesThey whisper it like rumors between old wives: in confidence, in shock, in need. They complain over it, bawdy and slurred, between men and their beers—the secret that everyone knows. All of it doing my work for me, letting everyone from cottage to castle-side know I’m here, and what I can do.
Death and the Doctor
Reading Time: 5 minutesI cut into the girl on the table before me, exposing her living viscera to air as biology never intended. I am committing a trespass of integument in order to heal, a perversion of the natural order in order to preserve what is natural. An apparition stands in the corner, watching with interest. Death says: “Your work continues to fascinate, Doctor.”
The Imaginary Librarian
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn a sparse, orderly imaginary office, a librarian awaits unseen directives, tending to imaginary tomes with quiet diligence. As dawn approaches, she fulfills a final task, providing closure for a life departing.