Tag fiction

The Shark in Her Bellyby Patrick Barb When Mom returned from her girls’ weekend at the beach, she had a shark growing in her belly. I didn’t know this at first. After all, her skin hadn’t stretched. Her belly hadn’t…

BORN OF NIGHT, WITHOUT WARNING by Christopher O’Halloran The blade of her knife was sharp, but there was little weight to it; she had to really push to slide it in between radius and ulna. Removing her hand wasn’t easy.…

A CONJUNCTION OF ELEMENTS by Rohini Mori Noon was a beast. Sunlight slithered through the open window, setting the room ablaze. Khor shifted, the hard wooden seat gripping his buttocks like an unfamiliar lover. Outside, the sounds of Singapore carried…

LIGHT THE WAY by Elena Laskowski In the bogland, everything is as it was ten years ago. The trees provide coverage for the swampy grounds; a forested wetland with connecting pools of algae-water and paths of dampened grass grown wild…

TIME OF DEATH by Trey Stone I met him in the back of an ambulance at 3 a.m., with four stab wounds in my chest and a punctured lung. He had a hooked nose, three days’ worth of stubble, and…

THE CURE FOR ANYTHING by Nik Sylvan You’d think a butterfly that could drain your sorrows would be big and flashy, but the insect Sam showed me in her greenhouse was small and brown. I’d have thought it was a…

COSMIC HORROR CLEANERS, LLC by Jason P. Burnham To hide the residual scent of eldritch creatures in the homes she cleaned, Ashley always lit a few candles. The struck matches gave plausibility to acrid sulfur, and the vanilla candles covered…

ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE by Adam Newnham At the end of the first year, we despaired. Legion seethed over us, beyond counting, no two alike. They belched into being with their burned sugar stench, some shimmering ephemerally, some squatting…

WHEN THE NIGHTMARE ENDS by Robert Stahl Heather wakes in the morning and stretches out into the cool, soft sheets, feeling amazing — until she sees the tarantula on the bed. It’s a big one. Furry. Black. She can see…

THE MAGICby Karl El-Koura Where’s Sophie? Face-down in the pool, her golden hair floating around her. Where’s dada? (She still called him that, even at three, the same word she’d used for him since she’d first learned to speak.) Dada’s…

LITTLE BONES by Jessica Sarlin Catherine moves aside the wooden planter. She hates the dark. She will go quickly, though. She just wants to check. He is asleep, but he might be angry if he finds her. Even though she…

LITTLE SILVER INSTRUMENTSby Matt Bliss Jessica pressed her ear to the door, listening to her father’s rhythmic whistling between the wasp-like buzzing on the other side. It was good to hear him happy like this—he sounded a completely different man…