Welcome to issue #168 of Nightmare Magazine. It’s back-to-school season around here, which means new notebooks, cooler evenings, and a sudden overwhelming craving for apples. If you’re like me, September also makes you more excited about reading great new fiction! After a summer of beach reads and revisits of old favorites, my brain starts to wake up and crave fresh new voices.

We’ve certainly got some creepy new work for you in this issues. Daniel Roop joins us with a story of a family who fights all things weird and the evil in “The Red Veil,” a story that blends The X-Files with bizarre taxidermy. Phoenix Alexander brings us “Not Even a Fly,” the tale of a pacifist with the heart of a serial killer . . . and a mysterious superpower. Our flash fiction this month is Artemis Chen’s icy story of a girl with an unfeeling heart: “Useless Heart/Stopped Cold.” And Deborah L. Davitt writes about violence and regret in her poem “Sweet Certainty.”

If you, like me, believe the 24-hour-diner is America’s most beautiful creation, then do no miss our newest H-Word essay, which is about diners in horror fiction. Adam-Troy Castro also joins us with a media review, and of course our spotlight interview team has sat down with our short fiction writers to explore all their inspirations.

It’s a very fun issue that ought to help you shift into spooky season!