Apr. 2023 (Issue 127)

We have original short fiction from Natasha King (“Root Canticle”) and James Tatam (“Jumper”). Our Horror Lab originals include a flash story (“Delicate Webbing”) from Beatrice Winifred Iker and a creative essay (“A Piece of Paper, Burned”) from Maria Haskins. Artist and writer Neil Auch joins us with the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, and Meg Elison writes the newest critical review in our “de•crypt•ed” review series.

Cover art by Solomandra / Adobe Stock Image

Apr. 2023 (Issue 127)

Editorial

Editorial, April 2023

by Wendy N. Wagner

Welcome to Issue #127 of Nightmare Magazine, and welcome to April, that month of fools and taxes. It’s a time of year when bad choices can really come back to bite you in tender places, a time when it’s all too easy to find yourself shaking your head and saying “Why the heck did I do that?” And that’s why this issue is all about self-sabotage and bad ideas.

Fiction

Root Canticle

by Natasha King

Author spotlight

Be honest, now. What did you think you would find? You have ventured all the way to this cellar, meaning you must have first braved the porch balustrade of milk teeth, skirting the welcome mat that parts down the center like a grin. Perhaps you chanced up to the second floor where the beds are heavy beneath the weight of fungal networks spun as fine as silk thread, or into the dining room set for two: plates flexing concave and convex like the thudding of ventricles.

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- Narrated by:
  
  Justine Eyre
- Duration:
  
  17:10
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Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Natasha King

by Xander Odell

The conversational narrative was there from the start! I wrote the first line knowing almost nothing about the piece other than that it was going to be a conversation taking place between the entity in the cellar and an unfortunate intruder on their way to being digested, and I slowly built up the rest of the plot from there.

Fiction

Delicate Webbing

by Beatrice Winifred Iker

My writing explores the darkness within myself and my past. In this case, I wanted to write about a frighteningly unhealthy relationship. I hope readers experience the uncomfortableness the narrator feels for participating in something profane and yet falling head-first into it.

Nonfiction

The H Word: Dirty Mouths Stinking of Plague

by Neal Auch

On the evening of January 14, 2021, Corey Johnson was placed on a cross-shaped gurney in the death chamber of the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was strapped down, fitted with an IV, and asked if he had any last words. “No, I’m okay,” Johnson said, before adding, a moment later, “Love you.” As the drugs started to flow, Johnson lifted his wrist slightly to wave at someone in the observation chamber.

Fiction

Jumper

by James Tatam

Author spotlight

The Rampart Hotel towered into the sky. It was hard to believe the building was once considered the flagship symbol for a new boom in southeast tourism—a boom that lasted as long as these things usually do. Now it was a distastefully modern thing with a square, flat roof somewhere in the grey clouds and a car park that was mostly empty. As Penrick made his way into the lobby and ordered an old fashioned, he wondered if the flagging status of the hotel was the reason it had begun hosting the jumping competition in the first place.

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- Narrated by:
  
  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  37:17
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Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: James Tatam

by Xander Odell

Despite not actually caring about sports outside of weightlifting, I’m a big fan of sports novels. Walter Tevis has a couple of amazing ones such as The Queen’s Gambit and The Hustler. Dostoevsky’s The Gambler is also a great novel about gambling. I think the common thread between these stories is a uniquely accessible window that fiction provides into the mind of the gamer or the sportsperson—we get to see what really makes them tick. I wanted to apply this to horror.

Nonfiction

A Piece of Paper, Burned

by Maria Haskins

My maternal grandfather, Klas, wrote a lot about his childhood when he got older, and in recent years, I’ve gone back and read his notes many times. There is a wealth of interesting, nitty-gritty details about everyday life in inland, northern, rural Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century in those notes, but the stories about my great-grandfather Roland are special. One thing that has always fascinated me about those stories is the sense of an older, veiled, mostly forgotten knowledge (that is now completely lost to us) lurking just out of sight.

Nonfiction

de•crypt•ed—Elison on Matheson

by Meg Elison

But why bother pointing out the myriad failures of a half-century old novel? Matheson is dead, but like Hell House’s moldering emasculated patriarch Emeric Belasco, he haunts us still. With a lingering nostalgia unmoved by decades of new and exciting work, many horror publications and fans insist that the genre’s golden age rests squarely in the lap of about four white men who wrote most of their best work between 1970 and 1985.

Apr. 2023 (Issue 127)

Editorial

Fiction

Narrated by:

Duration:

Author Spotlight

Fiction

Nonfiction

Fiction

Narrated by:

Duration:

Author Spotlight

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

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