The New World
Reading Time: 3 minutes A satirical look at a zombie “cure”.
Horror
Clowns In The Woods
Reading Time: 31 minutes An anxious young man gets more than he bargained for when he accompanies his fiance’s family on a hunting trip.
Betty And The Demon
Reading Time: 17 minutes Irish-born Father Donahey has been retired to Winterset, Iowa after many years of service as a Catholic Priest in South America. He finds something quite different from the life of books and long rural walks that he expects. The community is awash with supernatural creatures, some friendly, many decidedly not. From selkies and pookas of Irish mythology to pixies, demons, and shape-shifters, Father Donahey must deal with them all to protect his new parish, and the world at large from chaos and destruction.
In this story, a rich computer designer who recently moved from Silicon Valley demands his help in exorcising a demon from his sentient AI, before the evil creature uses the facilities of the supercomputer to rain destruction on the world. Computer geek, priest, and two disabled military veterans fight their way into the computer facility to either send the demon back to hell or to destroy the AI.
Control Alt Delete
Reading Time: 21 minutes Ben is reveling in his tragically achieved freedom. He thinks he has it made, except for an elusive partner. Then an unknown woman first DMs then stands him up. His troubles have only begun when he realizes how thoroughly someone has infiltrated his technological fortress.
From Below
Reading Time: 15 minutes In the aftermath of a climate apocalypse, Jeremy and Alex survive by supplying food to the wealthy people living above the water, in the penthouses of Old Manhattan. But the wealthy aren’t the only ones that are hungry.
My Brain Through Your Brain
Reading Time: 5 minutes When Katie’s brain seems to jump out of sync she discovers another, almost identical, mind living inside her own. This duplicate mind gradually is not what she seems but instead something far more dangerous.
SEALAB IV
Reading Time: 11 minutes 2,000 feet below the surface, are they the observers? Or the observed?
The Scrivener
Reading Time: 16 minutes Brother Silas is unhappy with his lot at the abbey. He sees no alternative until a unique manuscript comes his way.
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Reading Time: 2 minutes The holidays take on an ominous tone when a woman receives a phone call from the son she murdered.
Phantom
Reading Time: 9 minutes A little boy sees the ghost of an old man in the mirror. Or is it the old man who sees the ghost of a small boy?
Chef’s Special
Reading Time: 4 minutes Davis was the species’ third victim on the Pathfinder XII. I liked Davis, he called me a Culinary Magician.
Whispers Of Death
Reading Time: 8 minutes A teenager pushes another teenager into an abandoned well and leaves him there to die. But the victim has other ideas.
Deadbolt
Reading Time: 13 minutes Jess thought she’d left Derek behind, casting away his ring in the floods of a Seattle storm. But Derek was promised forever, and with another storm brewing, he’s going to remind her just how long forever is.
10207
Reading Time: 6 minutes Probably nothing bad happens after you donate your body to science, right?
Magic Makes Fools of Us All
Reading Time: 4 minutes An unusual family plots a summer camping trip that will satiate their blood-lust. It doesn’t go entirely as planned.
Ashes
Reading Time: 17 minutes Thirty years after the Burn, Jackson, an aging ex-soldier, is just trying to survive. A moral person in a world where morality isn’t a particularly good survival trait, Jackson has to choose between his self-interest and doing what’s right.
The Update
Reading Time: 3 minutes When an almost heavenly woman, Sister Mary, dies she expects she’ll go straight to heaven. But the stranger who shows up for her soul has a trick up his cell phone.
A Visit from the Tooth Fairy
Reading Time: 2 minutes An obsessed tooth fairy finds a new way to collect now that their favorite child is all grown up.
Small, Precious Things
Reading Time: 4 minutes William is a dutiful son and a caring doctor who keeps a special collection to honor his dead mother and estranged father.
Nocturne in Black and Gold
Reading Time: 9 minutes “Nocturne in Black and Gold” exists in some poetic world outside of reality and yet—feels easily relatable. This story bypasses your flesh and bone and gets right into your soul. What happens when your doctor is a tiger?
The Leviathan
Reading Time: 26 minutes A seemingly simple solution to a backyard problem quickly gets out of hand.
Interlude In Gehenna
Reading Time: 18 minutes He should have killed the man when he had the chance. Now there was nothing to do but wait for retribution in a town just a shade removed from hell.
A Voice From the Past
Reading Time: 18 minutes The young archaeologist Edward Campbell, is obsessed with the idea of knowing what happened to his father, who died years earlier while exploring an unknown tomb he discovered in an isolated area of Egypt.
Auschwitz Dancer
Reading Time: 16 minutes The spirit of famous Jewish ballet dancer, Franceska Mann, is stuck in time in a parallel dimension in 1943 at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland.
A Feast for Saints
Reading Time: 4 minutes An 18th century New England Christian tells of the terrible truth behind Thanksgiving.
Portrait
Reading Time: 8 minutes In 1921, a London painter’s encounter with a beautiful Romanian woman leads to a portrait sitting with hellish consequences.
Clean Slate
Reading Time: 21 minutes On a Saturday morning, Grace Merritt vomits up a pocket watch that she’s never seen before.
Enough
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is the tale of a young photographer looking to catch her big break by capturing the perfect shot in the woods supposedly haunted by the ‘Snow Witch’.
Mired
Reading Time: 5 minutes In this short historical horror, a soldier on WWI’s Western Front struggles with the enormity and guilt of having volunteered to enlist.
Those Halcyon Days
Reading Time: 4 minutes We had spent the winter together, sleeping on ice caps, pointing out constellations far above us in the sky.
The Belly of The Beast
Reading Time: 23 minutes When nothing is as it seems, how much are you willing to sacrifice to save mankind…
Speed of Shadow
Reading Time: 16 minutes When a mysterious, dark figure keeps up with a family’s car at highway speeds, one little girl must inform her dad of the danger before it’s too late.
Mortimer the Maus
Reading Time: 14 minutes In “Mortimer The Maus,” Picco conveys the childhood terror of becoming lost in a large crowd, and the perils of being found by something else.
Mother Worked Nights
Reading Time: 5 minutes A boy struggles to come to terms with his absentee mother. His father insists it’s due to her busy work schedule, but something doesn’t seem right.
Playing House
Reading Time: 5 minutes Three sisters play a dangerous game in a house which mysteriously appeared–and which could vanish again at any moment.
Arachno Thank You
Reading Time: 5 minutes Thomas makes progress with his shrink, but the process of opening up and sharing his dreams has an unintended effect.
Incandescent
Reading Time: 14 minutes Sarah moves back to her old stomping grounds and buried memories return to haunt her. The only way to exorcise them is to face them head on, but she’s not sure if she’s ready to shine a light on the horror that lies within.
Reflections on a Loaf of Rye
Reading Time: 4 minutes Hansel and Gretel’s love of sweets began long before they met the witch in the woods.
Nothing in the Dark
Reading Time: 26 minutes Cosmic horrors await an astronomer on a solo observing run.
Second Bite
Reading Time: 4 minutes A dentist with a dark family history receives a request to fit a patient with a very unique set of teeth.