I’M SCARED OF THE HALLWAY by Tamika Thompson My two-year-old runs barefoot through the hall, his soles like thunder as they pound the oak planks. “Mommy, I’m scared of the hallway.” He exits the dim space, closes his eyes and…
INVASIVE SPECIESby Stephen Howard It was the green glow creeping in through the curtains that had Cassie restless. Something the size of a dog scuttled around their pond. Bright green and frog-like, but a giant frog, a frog you could…
COLD INSIDEby D.A. Cairns “They call this reality TV?” said Eddy, as he lifted a can of Victoria Bitter to his mouth. He dipped his head so he could reach. “They wouldn’t know reality if it slapped them in the…
POPS’ GIRL by Rebecca Rowland Pops sits in his truck in the snow-covered parking lot, waiting for me to emerge each afternoon at 2:45, sharp. There’s a bus that stops in front of our apartment—a yellow school bus, not public transportation—but…
THE SUSURRATION OF LEG AND MANDIBLE by Ben Serna-Grey He was watching, silent observer of the rabbit in the road. Its nose twitched in small waves, each wave sending out a rivulet of dread as the inevitable creeped upon the…
THE CEMETERY’S REFLECTIONby Rory Say On a wet mid-November morning in his ninth year, an immensely traumatic event occurred in the young life of Aidan Ross. It happened in the cemetery through which he walked each weekday to and from…
TINY DANCERby Suann Amero “What is your one wish?” he asked me. I looked up into the darkest eyes I’d ever seen and I knew that all was lost. “My wish?” I asked, growing shy under his piercing gaze. …
FATHER, ARE YOU SLEEPING? by Ray Daley I couldn’t just go in there and perform the standard checks. I had to check from across the road first. I parked the car, taking my binoculars from the glove box. Initial recce.…
THE NOVEMBER KINGby Nicklas Berild Lundblad The lawyer asked me to stay after the reading of Uncle Erik’s will. He had left the small cottage on Vårholma island to me – a cottage he had built himself, and where we…
END OF THE LINEby Louise Zedda-Sampson They’re handin’ out the rations and today my baby’s there instead of me. All four-teen years of him. Six-foot-one, skin ’n bone, lanky as an unfed stray, but Davie stands in that line like…
A RIFT IN REFLECTIONby Hal Bodner (“A Rift in Reflection” originally appeared in CHIRAL MAD 3 Written Backwards, 2016) Death was not nearly the frightening experience that Phillip feared it would be. No devils awakened him into the hereafter with…
THE PAINTED WOMANby Rickey Rivers Jr He was alone but not. His hand struck canvas like lightning. He was entranced, a man bent to the will of the brush, capturing the vision as best he could. “You will be my…
