Fiction
Colleen walked through the door of Grandma’s Own Donut at six and was assaulted by a wave of cold air tinged with cinnamon and raspberry. As usual, Vinnie had the air conditioning on way too high. Colleen wished she had brought a sweatshirt.
Fiction
“Damn, Neill, I don’t think that there’s the sheriff.” I had known for quite a while that it wasn’t. The sheriff was a tough old codger, hard as nails if you tried to keep him from getting his cut, but he was no driver. It had to be Bert doing the driving, and that was [...]
Fiction
In my dream I am naked and fleeing from Laura, my girl friend. She swings a cleaver and wants to chop off my penis because she caught me in bed with her friend Marge. I told her it didn't mean anything that Marge and I were both drunk.
Flash
A New Day by William Gray Tait
Sarah sits in her bathroom clenching a razor blade, her head down between her knees, talking herself back off the ledge of despair.
Flash
Imitation Moon, Imitation Night by Brian T. Hodges
Previously published in "The Strange Edge" in February, 2014. The sun was a pregnant orb that never left its nest in the sky. In its thirst, it unfurled a long tongue to lap every drop from the fractured soils below. So, too, did it drink greedily from our flesh, leaving behind a worn landscape. I [...]
Flash
The Devil’s Temptation Leslie Lee
They are praying for my soul. I do not know how I came to be lying here in this box. I am too young to die. Someone must be responsible for my death. It is my funeral, and the reverent all are gathered here like on the Sabbath. Surely, not Goodwife Bishop though. She can’t [...]
Flash
For the Good of Us All By Matthew J. Barbour
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." ~ Edmund Burke Father Xavier Grajeda was tired. It was late. He had been summoned to a small adobe shed on the edge of the village. It smelled of offal and excrement. Tools of all shapes and sizes [...]
Poetry
tick tick tick by John Reinhart
Narrated by John Reinhart I got drunk last night and screamed until my hands bled I chewed my fingernails my hair and tore attempting to get through again to emptiness instead pillaged me leaving me an unmanned husk broken upon an unknown reef I called for help but the only reply was an echo the [...]
Poetry
Observing Ragnarok by Chelsea Eckert
What an event to witness the flicker of divinity flaming behind the sky
Poetry
A Kneaded Life by Deborah Guzzi
I’ve watched him whither. He came to me a decade ago, stooped in pain. The fine boned features of his face and the clarity of his Irish skin still holding on to a genetic predisposition to beauty.
Poetry
When Gods Fall by Dan Hettmannsperger III
For millennia we mortals feared them with their capricious motives their endless terrible wrath carried by plague and twisted tempests
Fiction
Introduction to Issue 22 Fiction by Perry Mc Daid
Stories are born from human virtues and frailties, and the skill to weave these concepts into a tapestry which entertains and inspires: themes which freeze the blood and warm the heart.
Fiction
The woods were far too quiet for the time of day. Not a single bird sang from a single tree; not a paw moved on the dead-leaf floor. It was out there, somewhere.
Fiction
A Shot of Martian Whiskey by D.L. Young and Stephen Young
Feels strange writing like this: the old-fashioned way; pen on paper. Kind of funny, when I think about it. Here I am, surrounded by the most advanced tech imaginable on a research base at the foot on Mons Olympus, and I’m writing down my thoughts in a leather-bound journal with an ink pen.
Fiction
Chips and Old Blocks By Maureen Bowden
Jed was lost. He was scouring the Anglesey countryside around the village of Llanddaniel, in search of the Neolithic burial chamber, Bryn Celli Ddu.