Sept. 2024 (Issue 144)

We have a very ghostly issue featuring original short fiction from Russell Nichols (“What Happened to the Crooners”) and Sam W. Pisciotta (“House of the Hidden Moon”). Our Horror Lab originals include a creative essay (“I Am One of Bluebeard’s Dead Wives”) from Bella D. Bonne and a poem (“A Long Time Afterward”) from Sonya Taaffe. We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, and a film review by Adam-Troy Castro.

Cover art by Obsidian Fantasy Studio / Shutterstock Image

Sept. 2024 (Issue 144)

Editorial

Editorial: September 2024

by Wendy N. Wagner

I have no doubt that if you’re reading this editorial, you are one of us Halloween People. Well, congratulations. You’ve made it through summer and now October shines ahead of you with only the sweet-smelling barrier of school supply sales separating you from all things dark and pumpkin-y.

Fiction

What Happened to the Crooners

by Russell Nichols

Author spotlight

On an unmarked road somewhere in the Appalachians, a midnight blue Cadillac rolled to a stop, gravel popping under tires, headlights peering out into the discord of dusk. Outside the car, in the shadowy thicket, cicadas and crickets hollered.

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- Narrated by:
  
  Mirron Willis
- Duration:
  
  0:37:44
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Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Russell Nichols

by Devin Marcus

This story put me deep in the doo-wop and R&B sounds of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. The Ink Spots. The Penguins. The Dells. I had The Platters on loop. Revisiting classics like “Only You” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” In 2006, I wrote a feature story for Boston Globe Magazine about Herb Reed.

Nonfiction

I Am One of Bluebeard’s Dead Wives

by Bella D. Bonne

The hardest person to be honest with is yourself, and acknowledging the gap between fictions you’ve convinced yourself are true and actual reality is a heartbreak holocaust. But honesty is always the best path to walk, even if it cuts like broken glass beneath your feet.

Nonfiction

The H Word: The Scares That Bind Us

by Emily C. Hughes

For my tenth birthday, I had a slumber party. Half a dozen or so of my friends jigsawed their sleeping bags into place on the floor of our living room. Earlier, at Blockbuster, I’d picked out a movie, disregarding my mom’s gentle concern: Are you sure? It’s pretty scary.

Fiction

House of the Hidden Moon

by Sam W. Pisciotta

Author spotlight

My mother sits at the kitchen table in the moonlight, gazing at her folded hands. “Has your father returned with Lilah?” “You know he hasn’t.” The tremor she had before she died is gone. A tube runs from the oxygen unit, through her laced fingers, and up into her nostrils.

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- Narrated by:
  
  John Rubinstein
- Duration:
  
  0:27:47
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Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Sam W. Pisciotta

by David Rees-Thomas

My training as a visual artist has deeply influenced my development as a writer. I see my stories in layers, beginning with large forms and then adding light and shadow. The details come last. Imagery is so important to me. My characters move through space before they find words.

Poetry

A Long Time Afterward

by Sonya Taaffe

This one is a ghost poem whose subject was only ever alive on film: Johnny Ryan, played stone cold and queer to the bone by Wendell Corey in the deliriously Technicolor noir Desert Fury (1947). He haunts the end of the film and kept on haunting me past it.