Macabre Magazine

  • Pump #3 by Sarah Elena Smart Vargas

    You left your phone in the car when you got out to pump gas. The sleep-shorts you wore offered little protection against the cool autumn night. Gooseflesh broke out on your bare skin, and you wanted nothing more than to get back home quickly to snuggle up under your sheets.

  • Observance by Megan Denese Mealor

    The black velvet petunias eat away at your antipathy– sunless conduit flowers for unlit obituary candles, Drunk Tank Pink garnish of a burial shroud,

  • Grimoire by Jonathan O. Nilsen

    Leather-bound tatters Blood-ink maters to parchment Read atop an escarpment Fire-blue tines rape the sky On-high violations as Motivation for Necronomic Incantations, audible permutations Of flesh, veins, and hatred Eyes red with sound and fury Signifying there is no worry Of nine clouds of judgement  As Mephistical mystics Regurgitate cannibalistic  Fetid decay disguised as lyrics…

  • A Local’s Guide to Wood Wraiths by Nick Porisch

    Hi there! My name is Cathy Haan, and I have been a licensed realtor in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over fifteen years. One of the most common questions I get from potential homebuyers is about the prevalence of wood wraiths. So, I’ve written this article for my blog, Haan Talks Houses, in the hopes that I…

  • A Named Storm by Pete Ward

    We agreed: it had to be a drifter, an outsider. That much was clear. Our town wasn’t small, but it wasn’t big enough to hold, to hide, an appetite such as this. We knew this to be true. We knew this because we knew everyone. Of course, the first person we would have suspected—the only person—was her brother. But…

  • Smash by Olúwasèyífúnmi Adedayo

    Homecoming Dorothy absentmindedly bobbed her head to the beat of “Espresso” pounding from the car speakers. Her friends—Kianna, Zoe, and Gabby—hollered the lyrics, way off-key but not caring. Her forehead pressed against the window, Dorothy watched the towering redwoods blur by, pulling away each time the Lexus jounced over a pothole. Gabby never spotted them…

  • The Laundrette by Mark Brandon

    It was barely four o’clock, and already the thick, wet Scottish dark of winter had fallen around the loch like a shroud. The car mounted a rise and began the descent into the valley. Maggie didn’t like coming this way, but she didn’t trust the Big Road, what with all the lorries—not in this junkheap.…

  • A Little Terror by Ki Ki Hobbs

    It is crying again. A loud, incessant wail that rattles the eardrums and causes the cutlery to tremble in the cupboards. Give it another few minutes, and the hollering will turn into a full-blown tantrum, with spectral fists smashing against the floorboards and tiny…

  • Words by Paul Booth

    Reginald Cathcart squirms. His stomach’s disquiet. The past week’s stories have been weak, not up to his usual standards. He can feel the Words’ gurgitation roil. They push against the inside of him. He senses them weave through his intestines, circle his stomach like they’re on a Gravitron ride, snake upward through his esophagus. He…

  • The Hole in the Corner of the Dining Room Floor by Odin Meadows

    My piece-of-shit cousin Brice waved the card in front of my face for just a minute too long, each wag building the pressure bit by bit. I stared blankly ahead. My body became a bubble, holding back an unspeakable rage with the thinnest of films. “Finders keepers,” he sneered. The bubble popped. It was inevitable.…