Welcome to Issue #131 of Nightmare Magazine, and welcome to August, a great time to get outside and visit scenic places. I’m hoping to spend it hiking, camping, and running in the forest as much as possible.
Is there anyplace better for telling scary stories than in the woods? There’s nothing like the sense of enormous darkness pressing in around your campsite to sharpen the edge of any ghost story or urban legend, no matter how many times you’ve heard it or its variations. While I spend most of my time reading the newest and edgiest horror fiction in the genre, I admit that when I’m camping, I can still get goosebumps when someone lowers their voice to pronounce: “The calls are coming from inside the house!”
In fact, of all the classic urban legends, the story of the babysitter sharing a building with a murderous caller has always been my favorite. That punchline at the end is the perfect descriptor for an endless array of horrors, because a house can stand in for so many other things—for our bodies, for our families, for our civilization. A house with a serial killer inside makes the perfect metaphor for any place that ought to be safe, but is in fact deeply dangerous.
This issue is all about safe places gone horribly awry. First off, we’re delighted to share “Oyili,” a short story by the talented Nuzo Onoh, who’s been called “the queen of African horror.” “Oyili” is the story of a young boy with remarkable powers who finds they can still be turned against him—with very nasty consequences. We also have a horror short from J. Choe, “The Girls That Follow,” a story of a romance twisted into pain. And blood. And gore.
For readers more inclined toward AirBnB than camping, Adam-Troy Castro has a new flash story about a trip to a cabin in the woods, and we think you’ll love the title: “Five Things That Go Through Your Mind After the Masked Killer Decapitates You with an Axe and Your Still-Living Head Has a Few Seconds of Consciousness Left to Gaze at Your Twitching Body.” And our poet this month, Mark Alpert, turns a peaceful-sounding topic quite creepy in his poem “Tropical Fish.”
Our spotlight team has sat down with our fiction writers for a couple of terrific mini-interviews, and we’re delighted to host the multiple-award-nominated author Suzan Palumbo with her essay for the H Word about “unmanored” gothic fiction. This month’s installment of our de•crypt•ed review column is penned by screenwriter and author Jamie Flanagan, discussing the works of Jeff VanderMeer. Plus, our ebook readers will enjoy an excerpt from Keith Rosson’s new novel Fever House.
We like to think of Nightmare as a safe space for everyone to come together and enjoy a few good scares. So cuddle up close to our campfire, roast a marshmallow, and let us regale you with these delightful works.
And if the phone rings?
Don’t answer it.
