Category: Long Short Fiction
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Rave in a Coma Ward by Harley Carnell
I heard about the raves on my first day in the coma ward. Stephanie, the ward manager, gave me the tour. She was a tough-as-nails veteran whose tenure at the ward varied depending on who you asked. I didn’t know this at the time, but Stephanie was not a joking person. I thought that she…
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The Bathroom Game by J.S. Spencer
He could see it in their eyes, the way they all looked at each other, the way they all blended in together, the way they all turned back to him and grinned almost on cue. John-John didn’t like those grins.
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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…
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It’s Not Just the Dark by J. Stanton
If she squinted and imagined nightmares, the house would have looked haunted. With eyes wide open and her darker dreams tucked away, it was just a big gray building adrift in a sea of trees. Charity Barnes opened the rental car door in a cloud of dust she’d trailed in from the gravel road and…
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Midnight Ferry With Vending Machines by Kieran McCaffrey
The ticket blepped out the machine like a tongue. Laughing to himself, giddy with jetlag, Rory used both hands to take hold of it. One hand would be impolite in Japan. Written in English: Midnight Ferry with Vending Machines and onboard Entertainments. The waiting room was empty, and too bright, with pale gray walls and wan…
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Southeast by Nathan Poole Shannon
It’s gone, I think. I can no longer hear the clicking sound it makes. Others like it chitter and call to others of their horrid kind. I have been hiding in the collapsed marquee of a theatre (Waiting for Godot was showing here in the before times, the lettering reads) waiting for the thing to…
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Coyote Storm by Z. L. Buck
It made no sense that we should be haunted by the coyote, and a whole town no less. If it had been the ghost of the child, or if it had haunted the Weaver family, or Joe Maclean, the man who’d tracked the creature, shot it and brought back the tattered dress of Lily Weaver…
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If It’s Black, Fight Back by J.F. Sebastian
It’s easy to love horror movies when you haven’t experienced one yourself. That’s it. That’s my opinion. These days, I find nothing more relaxing than dumb reality shows where the only danger facing contestants is being sent to an “exile island”. As a teenager who had to grapple with the struggles of a dead mother,…
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The Gold Seal by Kathy Sherwood
Andre de Corcy cursed under his breath as the charcoal split in his hands, smudging the rubbing of the sarcophagus seal. It was his fourth copy, so the mishap was hardly surprising if still inconvenient. He needed a half a dozen in all, some to be sent back to Paris and other learning centers for…