Fiction

The house itself was razed, its lot now surrounded by a high fence bearing a sign that announces the construction presumably in progress behind it as the future offices of Drs. Laura Gonzales and Didi Mueller, D.D.S. The principal witnesses in this case did not respond to repeated enquiries, and in one case, obtained a restraining order against this author. And the young woman in question is said by all to have disappeared, if indeed she ever existed in the first place.

2013 Original Fiction

In June 2013 (Issue 9)

Fiction

Feminine Endings

by Neil Gaiman

Author spotlight

Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me, placed coins in the palm of my hand). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough?). So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again: I love you.

In May 2013 (Issue 8)

Fiction

Doll Re Mi

by Tanith Lee

Author spotlight

Folscyvio saw the Thing in a small cramped shop off the Via Silvia. In fact, he almost passed it by. He had just come from the Laguna, climbed the forty mildewy, green-velveted steps to the Ponte Louro, and crossed over to the elevated arcades of the Nuova. Then he glanced down, and spotted Giavetti, who owed him money, creeping by below through the ancient alleys.

2013 Original Fiction

In May 2013 (Issue 8)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Gabrielle De Cuir
- Duration:
  
  01:05:56
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Fiction

Houses Under The Sea

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Author spotlight

When I close my eyes, I see Jacova Angevine. I close my eyes, and there she is, standing alone at the end of the breakwater, standing with the foghorn as the choppy sea shatters itself to foam against a jumble of gray boulders. The October wind is making something wild of her hair, and her back’s turned to me. The boats are coming in.

In May 2013 (Issue 8)

Fiction

Centipede Heartbeat

by Caspian Gray

Author spotlight

Each time Lisa rested her head against Joette’s breasts, she heard the centipedes. In between heartbeats there was the tiny sound of hundreds of chitinous footsteps against bone, of miniature mandibles tearing at organs. Joette refused to admit to it, or maybe she didn’t know.

2013 Original Fiction

In May 2013 (Issue 8)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Claire Bloom
- Duration:
  
  35:33
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Fiction

Gravitas

by Weston Ochse

Author spotlight

He stared bleary-eyed at the broken glass studding the land. This was his crop, seeded over the span of four weeks, irrigated from the residue of Napa Valley grapes, sun-kissed until it glistened like dew. It was the bounty of his desperation, and now was the time to harvest.

2013 Original Fiction

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 7)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Paul Boehmer
- Duration:
  
  47:57
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Fiction

The Bacchae

by Elizabeth Hand

Author spotlight

She got into the elevator with him, the young woman from down the hall, the one he’d last seen at the annual Coop Meeting a week before. Around her shoulders hung something soft that brushed his cheek as Gordon moved aside to let her in: a fur cape, or pelt, or no, something else. The flayed skin of an animal, an animal that when she shouldered past him to the corner of the elevator proved to be her Rottweiler, Leopold.

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 7)

Fiction

Bonfires

by Marc Laidlaw

Author spotlight

The shore was dark when we showed up, but it would soon be blazing, and that thought was all I needed to warm me while we built the bonfires. The waves slopped in and sucked out again like black tar, and I went along the waterline with the others, pulling broken boards and snags of swollen wood out of the bubbling froth and foam, hauling it across the sand and up to the gravel where the road edge ran.

2013 Original Fiction

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 7)

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- Narrated by:
  
  Stefan Rudnicki
- Duration:
  
  13:40
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Fiction

The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter

by Angela Slatter

Author spotlight

The door is a rich red wood, heavily carved with improving scenes from the trials of Job. An angel’s head, cast in brass, serves as the knocker and when I let it go to rest back in its groove, the eyes fly open, indignant, and watch me with suspicion. Behind me is the tangle of garden—cataracts of flowering vines, lovers’ nooks, secluded reading benches—that gives this house its affluent privacy.

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 7)

Fiction

No Breather in the World But Thee

by Jeff VanderMeer

Author spotlight

The cook didn’t like that the eyes of the dead fish shifted to stare at him as he cut their heads off. The cook’s assistant, who was also his lover, didn’t like that he woke to find just a sack of bloody bones on the bed beside him. “It’s starting again,” he gasped, just moments before a huge, black, birdlike creature carried him off, screaming.

2013 Original Fiction

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 6)