Welcome to Issue #141 of Nightmare Magazine!
One of my most enduring childhood memories is of waking in the night, certain a shadowy figure was standing in my bedroom doorway. I remember sliding out of my bed and burying myself in my toybox to hide from whomever—or whatever—stood watching me sleep.
How many of us have similar terrifying stories? In bad lighting, who hasn’t mistaken an innocent item like a coat thrown over the back of a chair for a prowler? Who hasn’t startled themselves when catching movement in a dark room only to realize they were startled by their own reflection? And who hasn’t awakened in the grip of sleep paralysis and seen a hideous figure crouched at the foot of the bed? In fact, the night hag or “sleep paralysis demon” is such a common experience it gave birth to the term “nightmare.”
Every society generates its own terrors, but the shadowy figure is universal.
This issue is about shadowy figures—metaphorical or otherwise. In “MAMMOTH,” a new short by Manish Melwani, the shadowy figure emerges from the internet, where a series of terrifying videos sets off a maelstrom of terror. Ally Wilkes’s “Billy Blue” features a shadowy figure in the stairwell of a brand-new luxury apartment who begs us to ask which is more terrifying: gentrification or ghosts? Our flash story (“The Dark Devices” by Bruce McAllister) features a monk searching for answers from the shadows of his monastery. We also have a fresh poem from Sonya Taaffe: “Penis Secrets of the Anunnaki.”
Our nonfiction includes an H Word essay about the nautical Weird by Emmett Nahil (not technically about the shadows, but even Nahil notes the long shadow cast by H.P. Lovecraft across this field!) and a book review by Adam-Troy Castro. Our spotlight crew sat down with our short fiction writers to get a few more insights about their work, as well.
Shadowy or not, it’s a delicious issue. I hope you’ll lower the lights and allow yourself to enjoy all these unsettling figures.
And when you turn off the lights, don’t forget to say hello to your sleep paralysis demon for me!
