Fiction

The boy grew up in the tangle of the bayou, in a township known as Rue Moret. His mother had married a farmhand, but his father wasn’t the same man. The boy told himself that these things happen when life loses its luster and we create complications to bear it. He wore a small woven hat wherever he went, and he went many places for a boy of his age. He walked to school most days, alone because his half-sister had been lost in childbirth. The boy still spoke to her.

In Aug. 2017 (Issue 59)

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  Stefan Rudnicki
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Fiction

The Midwife

by Cynthia Ward

Though his estate had fallen upon difficult times, my husband Geoffrey retained the midwife to nurse me through my delirium, for Marguerite Willette had knowledge of the illnesses which come upon a woman who has borne and lost a child. Marguerite little resembled the crude, dull-witted folk who lived in the town, but her humble breeding was evident in the cast of her face, which revealed her French ancestry, and in the swarthy hue of her complexion and raven darkness of her tresses.

Fiction

And With Her Went the Spring

by Caroline Ratajski

They searched for weeks, but never found her. It was decided without words that “weeks” was the appropriate unit of time. Some girls are “weeks” and some girls are “days.” And some girls are missing posters that get seen by too few and ignored by too many. But she had done so well. Tried so hard. She followed all the rules that girls were meant to follow. She deserved weeks.

Fiction

Brushdogs

by Stephen Graham Jones

Junior wasn’t even forty-five minutes into the trees when his son Denny called him on the walkie, to meet back at the truck. Denny was twelve, and Junior could tell he’d got spooked again. He wasn’t going to get any less spooked if Junior called him on it, though. So, instead of staking out a north-facing meadow like he’d been intending, waiting for the sun to glint off some elk horn, Junior tracked himself back, stepping in his own boot prints when he could.

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  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  25:41
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Fiction

Promises of Spring

by Caspian Gray

It was a freezing day in January, so Cody was surprised when Tay answered the door to his apartment without a shirt. His wet hair was still slicked down from the shower. “Um, hey,” said Cody. “It’s good to see you.” “Huh,” said Tay. “Come in, I guess.” Cody expected the scar in the middle of Tay’s chest. It was raised and shining, a ragged knoll that Tay crossed his arms over as soon as he noticed Cody looking. What Cody hadn’t expected was the other one.

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  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  37:24
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Fiction

Hollow Choices

by Robert Jackson Bennett and David Liss

What struck me was that I didn’t feel happy in any way at all when they walked me down the hall. I’d seen other prisoners whoop and cheer they were paraded through the doors and gates and checkpoints, nodding to friends or even foes as they made their final exit. I’d seen smirks and shit-eating grins and knowing smiles. But I didn’t feel like celebrating. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even imagine how. Maybe it was who was walking me out. The guard on my right I knew well, or at least I knew his baton, which I’d felt on my shoulder or cheek occasionally when I didn’t look at him the right way.

Fiction

The Narrow Escape of Zipper-Girl

by Adam-Troy Castro

It was her zipper that drew me to her. She was beautiful enough, according to what most people seemed to consider beauty. She had a black buzz cut, the kind of body that gives the impression of lankiness even on someone petite, a complexion pale as milk, and an overbite that made sure that a sliver of teeth was always visible even when her bee-sting lips were mostly shut. Everything about her face seemed tentative, as if placed there by a designer who knew just how much any given feature needed before it gained enough prominence to overpower the others.

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  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  26:10
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Fiction

Wendigo

by Micaela Morrissette

Dinner was special. The candles were miraculous, emanating a light that went oozing into pores, piercing into strands of hair, that found its way inside the thin glass of the champagne flutes, the rough, quartzy crystal of the punch bowl. Nothing glittered, nothing sparkled, nothing shone. Everything glowed, everything throbbed. The other guests did not smile, but they radiated pulses of tender heat in her direction, until her cheeks were mottled red. Each course in the banquet had an aura that hung heavily over the platter, like steam weighed down with rich globules of grease, thick particles of oily light.

Fiction

Secret Keeper

by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

You know how this story goes: the girl was kissed in the womb by the devil. When she emerged into the too-bright world, she was missing half her face where his teeth tore it off. The doctors did their best; they grafted skin over the left side, added collagen in her cheeks. “Smile,” they said, tickling her feet. But she could not smile, and so no one smiled at her. A girl is supposed to be beautiful. A girl is supposed to have rosy red cheeks and a laugh that makes men wilt to think of her bright future. A beautiful girl will have a beautiful life.