Fiction

Dear Susie: There are customary ways to begin a letter and end it, to address the envelope and set it to post. We have delivered to you (while you slept so prettily, your pale face a serene oval in the moonlight) this polite and improving manual of letters for the Fair Sex. We know you will be grateful. Do be aware that some correspondences may involve vows of fealty, freshly spilled blood, supernatural appeals to divine beings, and sacrifices of unusual scope. A modern lady avoids squeamishness about such matters.

2016 Original Fiction

In Mar. 2016 (Issue 42)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Gabrielle de Cuir
- Duration:
  
  23:26
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Fiction

Lady Madonna

by Nancy Holder

Author spotlight

It’s starting. It’s starting, and it doesn’t even hurt that much. It hurts much less than I thought it would. Not that I mind. I don’t care how much pain I endure for the sake of my baby. I can’t cry out. I can’t make a noise. If they hear, they’ll come. And they’ll destroy us. I haven’t forgotten what happened the first time. I will never forget. Here it comes. The contraction. Oh, oh, shit, it does hurt. How could I have forgotten what it’s like? What did Margaret say? It’s like crapping a watermelon.

In Mar. 2016 (Issue 42)

Fiction

Bringing Out the Demons

by John Skipp

Author spotlight

I pull up in front of Stanley’s four-story Los Feliz apartment building at 2:57 ayem Angie and Jack are already out front: Angie pacing, a furious smoke in her hand. Jack smiles thinly, salutes as I block the grade school playground driveway next door (the only available parking left), leaving enough room for the back doors of Jack’s van to load in if need be. “Motherfucker,” I mutter, hitting my blinkers and climbing out.

2016 Original Fiction

In Mar. 2016 (Issue 42)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  23:38
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Fiction

Where Angels Come In

by Adam L.G. Nevill

Author spotlight

One side of my body is full of toothache. Right in the middle of the bones. While the skin and muscles have a chilly pins-and-needles tingle that won’t ever turn back into the warmth of a healthy arm and leg. Which is why Nanna Alice is here; sitting on the chair at the foot of my bed, her crumpled face in shadow. But the milky light that comes through the net curtains finds a sparkle in her quick eyes and gleams on the yellowish grin that hasn’t changed since my Mother let her into the house.

In Feb. 2016 (Issue 41)

Fiction

Princess

by Dennis Etchison

Author spotlight

When the woman flips the visor down, a weak glow flickers on around the mirror. She reaches above her head for the dome light. “Turn it off,” the driver tells her. “I have to check my makeup.” “Off.” He squints at the road and the taillights smearing past like wet blood cells in the fog. “Can’t see where I’m going with that thing on.” “Walter, please . . .” The driver lifts one fist from the steering wheel and finds the switch in the headliner. Behind him, tiny electronic voices chirp in the dark.

2016 Original Fiction

In Feb. 2016 (Issue 41)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  18:25
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Fiction

Inspirations

by Seanan McGuire

Author spotlight

She counts the days by the cuts on her arms. Her captors tell her the year when she asks them—one of the few questions they ever answer for her—but the numbers mean nothing. She remembers the birth of the Industrial Age, remembers men flying like Icarus flew (and falling, falling, so many of them falling, so many melting waxen wings) . . . but oh, even then, the numbers meant nothing. Who measures years by thousands? No empire stands two thousand years; no man measures such a span. Not even scars endure that long.

In Feb. 2016 (Issue 41)

Fiction

No Other Men in Mitchell

by Rose Hartley

Author spotlight

If I’m gonna tell this story, I’m gonna have to start with the men. In Queensland—right in the middle of it, bum-fuck-nowhere is the word—there’s a town called Mitchell. It has two pubs and a mechanic who services the road trains that pass through, and its only claim to fame is birthing Australia’s shortest-serving Prime Minister ever. I got to know Mitchell’s mechanic while I was driving road trains over the Warrego Highway between South Australia and Queensland.

2016 Original Fiction

In Feb. 2016 (Issue 41)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  30:53
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Fiction

There’s a Hole in the City

by Richard Bowes

Author spotlight

On the evening of the day after the towers fell, I was waiting by the barricades on Houston Street and LaGuardia Place for my friend Mags to come up from SoHo and have dinner with me. On the skyline, not two miles to the south, the pillars of smoke wavered slightly. But the creepily beautiful weather of September 11 still held and the wind blew in from the northeast. In Greenwich Village the air was crisp and clean with just a touch of fall about it.

In Jan. 2016 (Issue 40)

Fiction

Vulcanization

by Nisi Shawl

Author spotlight

Another black. A mere illusion, Leopold knew, but he flinched out of the half-naked nigger’s path anyway. Of course Marie Henriette noticed when he did so. The quick little taps of the queen’s high-heeled slippers echoed faster off the polished floor as she hastened to draw even with him. “My dearest—Sire—” Leopold stopped, forcing his entire retinue to stop with him. “What do you wish, my wife?”

2015 Original Fiction 2016 Original Fiction

In Jan. 2016 (Issue 40)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  37:00
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Fiction

Down Here in the Garden

by Tia V. Travis

Author spotlight

Daren Powell sits in The Forlorn Hope outside Truckee, California and warms his bare hands on the backs of his gloves. Despite the glowing embers in the granite fireplace, despite the crackling logs and spicy smoke, the chill has penetrated even the deepest layers of his thermal t-shirts, sweater, heavy jacket, and he finds himself wrapped in the icy embrace of the Sierra Nevadas. His drinking partner waits at the bar for another bottle of Jim Beam.

In Jan. 2016 (Issue 40)