Nightmare Magazine, Issue 169 (October 2026)

We have original short fiction from Kurt Fawver (“An Unavoidable Consequence of . . .”) and Ferdison Cayetano (“Shambling Groaning Endocannibal of Exeter Street”). Our Horror Lab originals include a poem (“There Is Blood Coming Through the Ceiling of My House”) from Natalie Wang and a flash (“The Taker”) from Mari Ness. For nonfiction, we’ve got the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors. We’ve also interviewed author Michael Wehunt.

Cover art by Joe Therasakdhi / Adobe Stock

Nightmare Magazine, Issue 169 (October 2026)

Editorial

Editorial: October 2026

by Wendy N. Wagner

Welcome to issue #169 of Nightmare Magazine, and welcome to October! In our household, we’ve been preparing for this moment for months, planning, daydreaming, and crafting as we get ready for our annual Halloween party. Here at Nightmare, we have also been preparing a kind of Halloween party—a literary one. We always try to pull out the stops to make our October issue extra fun.

Publishes Online on 10/7

Fiction

An Unavoidable Consequence of . . .

by Kurt Fawver

The first child exploded in the parking lot of a nondescript fast food joint in one of the safest, most unassuming parts of our city on a clear summer evening. Beatrix Middleston (five years old, never stopped moving, loved butterflies and Spiderman and her cat, who she named “Dippers”), was skipping to her family’s car, one hand held in her father’s warm grip.

Publishes Online on 10/7

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Kurt Fawver

by Devin Marcus

The concept came from an incident of violence that occurred in my city, just a block away from my house. A young boy and his mother were randomly stabbed in the parking lot of a grocery store and the boy did not survive the attack. That same day, my young son and I had been out on a peaceful walk in our neighborhood, not more than a few hundred yards from where the murder occurred.

Publishes Online on 10/7

Fiction

The Taker

by Mari Ness

Most people give her a single eye. This is within the rules, so she accepts, with a quiet warning. They nod, not understanding. Others try to be clever, and give her an appendix, or a spleen, or even hair. These she does not bother to warn. They will return soon enough, she knows, offering a hand, or a foot, or even a leg.

Publishes Online on 10/14

Nonfiction

The H Word–The Final Girl Fifty Years Later

by Tanya Pell

For decades, horror fans were trained to spot her. She wasn’t always the prettiest, but she was responsible, loyal, and polite. She carried her books against her chest, worried about her grades, and was always home by curfew. The “good girl” by the moral arithmetic governing slashers in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, while masked psychos and possessed killers stalked the streets.

Publishes Online on 10/14

Fiction

Shambling Groaning Brain-Dead Endocannibal on Exeter Street

by Ferdison Cayetano

Damn Shackleton and damn Amundsen and damn Hillary. All that attention, just for tramping around in the snow? I will show you how a real surveyor finds his glory. I will show you the stink and the viscera of glory. It is bone dust in the air, from a freshly sawed-open skull. Glory’s what I heap out of the brainpan with forceps and scissors and surgical knife.

Publishes Online on 10/21

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Ferdison Cayetano

by Alex Puncekar

The idea of “explorer-scientists” who are held up as bastions of white Western civilization due to their feats and character—but whose careers are actually built on exploiting indigenous traditions and people—was a jarring contradiction that I wanted to explore, and overturn, here.

Publishes Online on 10/21

Poetry

There Is Blood Coming Through the Ceiling of My House

by Natalie Wang

not a metaphor for social decay,
or the collapse of the modern family,
or the domestic transformed to dread

Publishes Online on 10/28

Nonfiction

Feature Interview: Michael Wehunt

by Erik Grove

Michael Wehunt has been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, multiple Shirley Jackson Awards, and the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts’s Crawford Award. In Spain, his stories have garnered nominations for the Premio Ignotus and Premio Amaltea, winning the latter. He haunts the woods outside Atlanta with his partner and their dog. Together, they hold the horrors at bay.

Publishes Online on 10/28