Nightmare Magazine, Issue 161 (February 2026)

Throughout its history, horror literature has frequently mediated its eponymous affect through an obsession with the act of writing. The field is replete with writer protagonists, with depictions of the writing act (through epistolary framing devices and metatextuality), and with written objects.

Cover art by Alex Malikov / Adobe Stock Image

Nightmare Magazine, Issue 161 (February 2026)

Editorial

Editorial: February 2026

by Wendy N. Wagner

Making a horror magazine is a real labor of love, and February is the season where we celebrate all things loving and relation-full. This issue really dives into the language of the heart.

Publishes Online on 2/4

Fiction

The Ghost in Apartment 5K

by Everdeen Mason

Nena came to consciousness little by little. She was ever present in the air of apartment 5K in the seventy-unit building in Brooklyn, like the wafting scent of sewer gas coming from old drain pipes: it’s easily ignored but still makes you a little sick. Sofia, the old woman who lived in apartment 5K, believed in Nena.

Publishes Online on 2/4

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Everdeen Mason

by Devin Marcus

I love a haunted house story. And I always think about how if I were in a haunted house I would be like “okay, we can cohabitate in this space, there’s no need to be hostile.” So, for example, say a door weirdly pops open in my apartment, I’m always “oh, hey,” just in case someone’s there.

Publishes Online on 2/4

Fiction

Rest Stop

by Pedro Iniguez

They were on their way to El Paso when Yolanda asked Bernard to pull over. He choked the steering wheel until his fingers turned white. “Are you fucking serious?” “It’s okay,” she said shrinking into her seat, her hands rubbing together nervously between her thighs. “I can hold it.”

Publishes Online on 2/11

Nonfiction

The H Word: Snakes Beneath the Kudzu

by Elizabeth Broadbent

Southern Gothic lingers impolitely in doorways. Forget theme; the genre itself is liminal, slouching somewhere between literary fiction and the h-word: lauded and discarded, high-brow and tawdry, praised and shamed. Tell about the South, right? But for all its liminality, Southern Gothic seems obsessed with physical location.

Publishes Online on 2/11

Fiction

Twelve Facts About the Dermestid Beetle

by Marisca Pichette

1. There is no better friend than the dermestid. I found them first in the woods, adorning the staring sockets of a coyote skull. So small I could have crushed them, they accomplished more than my child hands could—crawling, chewing, cleaning better than any household sponge or brush.

Publishes Online on 2/18

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Marisca Pichette

by Carrie Finch

The narrator is driven to pursue her passion, but often our passions and the mundane need to make a living refuse to align. The termite lab is a space for dreams just fallen short. It’s close to the mark but still misses the heart.

Publishes Online on 2/18