Horror & Dark Fantasy

THE ROBOTS OF GOTHAM

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Fiction

Fiction

Migration

by Tananarive Due

Author spotlight

Jazmine woke beside her fiancé, Cal, and nearly vomited from his smell. The nausea began with the scents she knew—garlic from the prawns he’d sautéed for dinner, salty-sour underarm musk, oil from his hair follicles. She tried turning away from him in her bed, but she couldn’t escape the newer smells, the ones she couldn’t name. Was she pregnant? That thought made her sit up and gasp aloud, but she talked down her panic. She’d been on the patch since college, and it would not have failed her.

Migration

In Nov. 2016 (Issue 50)

Fiction

The Show

by Priya Sharma

Author spotlight

The camera crew struggled with the twisting, narrow stairs. Their kit was portable, Steadicams being all the rage. They were lucky that the nature of their work did not require more light. Shadows added atmosphere. Dark corners added depth. It was cold down in the cellar. It turned their breath to mist, which gathered in the stark white pools shed by the bare bulbs overhead. Martha smiled. It was sublime. Television gold. Tonight there’d been a crowd. Word had got out.

The Show

In Oct. 2016 (Issue 49): People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror!

Fiction

Wish You Were Here

by Nadia Bulkin

Author spotlight

“Tell us a ghost story,” said one of the women, the pouty one, the one named Melissa. She was the nice, friendly one for now, the one asking questions, the one who wanted to stop at every little roadside fruit stall and pose next to every possibly rabid monkey, but Dimas knew this kind of tourist. Eventually, she was going to exhaust herself, and then—fueled by a high metabolism and the vengeance of unmet expectations—she was going to become his worst enemy.

Wish You Were Here

In Oct. 2016 (Issue 49): People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror!

Fiction

Cruel Sistah

by Nisi Shawl

Author spotlight

“You and Neville goin out again?” “I think so. He asked could he call me Thursday after class.” Calliope looked down at her sister’s long, straight, silky hair. It fanned out over Calliope’s knees and fell almost to the floor, a black river drying up just short of its destined end. “Why don’t you let me wash this for you?” “It takes too long to dry. Just braid it up like you said, okay?” “Your head all fulla dandruff,” Calliope lied. “And ain’t you ever heard of a hair dryer? Mary Lockett lent me her portable.”

Cruel Sistah

In Oct. 2016 (Issue 49): People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror!

Fiction

A Diet of Worms

by Valerie Valdes

Author spotlight

You’re not the kind of person who shows up late to work, but today was a piece of shit, so it’s seven thirty and your mom is finally dropping you off at the movie theater. It’s a weeknight, only one person in the box office selling tickets, so you shame-walk past a line of your fellow high school grads enjoying their last summer break before college. You hope you can sneak in without anyone noticing and grab some popcorn, because you missed dinner and you’re starving. Nope.

A Diet of Worms

In Oct. 2016 (Issue 49): People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror!

Fiction

Laal Andhi

by Usman T. Malik

Author spotlight

On the 7th of July, 2005, while threading through heat-drowsed traffic near Bhatta Chowk, I nearly ran over a pedestrian dashing across the road. The man was tall, lanky, bearded. He wore a white prayer cap, dusky shalwar kameez, and a navy blue sweater bulging around his chest. He didn’t flinch when the wheels screeched and the bumper lurched to a halt inches from his torso; just cocked his head, as if listening to something distant, leaped across the manhole by the sidewalk, and disappeared in the crowd.

Laal Andhi

In Sept. 2016 (Issue 48)

Fiction

Little Widow

by Maria Dahvana Headley

Author spotlight

I was fourteen and at a sleepover when the cult drank poison. The sleepover mom turned on the TV and said “Oh my lord, Mary, would you look at this? It’s the feds is what, and a bomb, right out there where you come from.” But it wasn’t the feds, and it wasn’t a bomb. It was us. We were destined to die. I watched it burn, and listened to the news call us a cult, which was not what we called ourselves. We called ourselves Heaven’s Avengers. I watched it for a while, and then I threw up hamburger casserole.

Little Widow

In Sept. 2016 (Issue 48)

Fiction

Who Binds and Looses the World with Her Hands

by Rachael K. Jones

Author spotlight

On days when Selene locked me in the lighthouse, an old familiar darkness would well up within me, itching my skin like it had shrunk too tight to contain my anger any longer. I had grown accustomed to the rage’s ebb and flow, sometimes bubbling near the surface, sometimes dormant as a seed awaiting the right time to break open. But it always rose to high tide on my days of confinement. I knew better than to complain to Selene.

Who Binds and Looses the World with Her Hands

In Sept. 2016 (Issue 48)

Fiction

Four Haunted Houses

by Adam-Troy Castro

Author spotlight

This is your haunted house. The realtor was very perceptive the day you first came by, looking for a home that would provide more than mere shelter, a haven that would instead be an expression of your love of eccentricity and strangeness for its own sake, a place special and unique. She saw in the two of you young professionals a pair of people with the right proportion of rationality and imagination, the kind of folks who would be delighted by spooky old legends without being frightened off by them.

Four Haunted Houses

In Sept. 2016 (Issue 48)

Fiction

The Dirty American

by Lara Elena Donnelly

Author spotlight

In a nation founded by Puritans, you’re hard-pressed to find someone who will talk about sex or mention their unmentionables. We can’t even handle squat toilets, afraid we might see our own shit falling between our knees. Perfumes made in this country inevitably come out smelling like candy, detergent, or Barkeeper’s Friend. If you’re lucky, you’ll get musty potpourri. Sweet, clean, and one-dimensional. Americans have an awful penchant for orange blossom.

The Dirty American

In Aug. 2016 (Issue 47)