Original Archives - Nightmare Magazine

The last copy of Senhora (1972–1973) lies, with no identification tag, on the shelves of Cinemateca Brasileira, the largest audiovisual archive in Latin America. If anyone ever opened the tin cans, they would see that its quadruplex tapes are flaky, almost falling apart.

In Dec. 2025 (Issue 159)

Poetry

Futakuchi onna speaks of the Kamaitachi

by Betsy Aoki

I.
Simple, tiny blood-cuts on a calf.
She cut herself shaving. The wind whipped
weasel-clawed, in circles around her legs.

Fiction

Bleed for Me, Bro

by Sharang Biswas

Watching Jules claw his way back to life was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. This was the kind of scene artists immortalized with gold and lapis lazuli illumination, the kind of scene that soared, heaven-seeking, up cathedral vaults, buoyed by choirs of castrati. One moment, Jules was twitching in a pool of his own blood, and the next, he shuddered back into himself, lips opening like a crescent moon.

Fiction

Primordium

by Erica Ruppert

I have a longstanding fascination with fungi—their interconnectedness, their otherness, their ability to emerge from seemingly nothing. I also have a longstanding fascination with serial killers and the dehumanization they inflict. When I began writing “Primordium” it was only a vignette about mushrooms and their drifting spores, but it grew unexpectedly to incorporate both interests.

Fiction

Make of Your Chest a Place for Birds

by James L. Sutter

The surgery is an aortic something-or-other—you don’t really bother to listen. You don’t need some surgeon barely out of pull-ups to tell you your heart hasn’t worked right since Sam died. They put you under for it, and isn’t that a wonder: to sleep without dreaming. Or if you do, the propofol makes you forget, and that’s almost as good.

Fiction

The Versions of Yourself That You’re Better Off Without

by Aimee Ogden

Story background: I’m probably not the only person dealing with intrusive thoughts about everything I’ve ever said or done, or not said or not done, that I wish I could change. Sometimes I’ve wished I could shout at the past versions of myself.

Fiction

Body? Glass

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

My head. Let’s start with my hair, more specifically, follicle by follicle. Brown in color to match my eyes; curly like traps—I’m Black—see it now. My hair lies fluffy on my head, like a good wig for the wrong owner. Like something too precious for me to have.

Poetry

Stillborn

by Shantell Powell

This poem was written in response to the LandBack movement and as part of the brainstorming process for my unpublished cli-fi novel The Everwhen.

Fiction

Courtney Lovecraft’s Book of the Dead

by Sam J. Miller

Honey, the spirits are here with us tonight and they are deeply disappointed. [audience laughter] Momma, do you not own a mirror? Did you think you looked cute when you walked out of your house tonight? My brother, I’m so sorry for your loss. Losses.