Nightmare Magazine

ADVERT: The Time Traveler's Passport, curated by John Joseph Adams, published by Amazon Original Stories. Six short stories. Infinite possibilities. Stories by John Scalzi, R.F. Kuang, Olivie Blake, Kaliane Bradley, P. Djèlí Clark, and Peng Shepherd. Illustration of A multicolored mobius strip with folds and angles to it, with the silhouette of a person walking on one side of it.

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Fiction

Where the Heather Grows

by Shaoni C. White

Author spotlight

Clara drinks from water bottles so she doesn’t have to hear the tap running. She puts all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and leaves the building until it’s done running, just so she doesn’t have to hear it. She does everything she can to avoid the sound. Showers, though—those are trickier. She can’t avoid washing herself forever. So she starts the tap, plugs the bathtub, and waits several rooms away until it’s full enough that she can shut off the tap.

In Apr. 2022 (Issue 115)

Nonfiction

Homeless Ghosts

by Victor T. Cypert

Growing up in Alabama, our teachers presented a version of the state’s history that resembled Disney’s The Song of the South. It was easy enough to realize that we were being lied to, but without the facts of history we were left to fill in the gaps. We colored in the local haunted house with our own fables and the fables passed down from older siblings. In so doing, we reproduced in symbol if not in word the truths of hoped-for horrors, poisonous wealth, and unimaginable agony.

In Apr. 2022 (Issue 115)

Fiction

Synchronous Online

by Shannon Scott

Author spotlight

It could have been ketchup. Or sriracha sauce. V8 or cranberry juice or pinot noir. It could have been Karo syrup with food coloring as it had been in Carrie or Bosco Chocolate Syrup as in Psycho. It didn’t matter. My dissertation had been on suspension of disbelief in scripted violence, and I knew that as long as the audience agreed that the red scarf pulled from Juliet’s breast was her blood dripping from Romeo’s dagger, it didn’t matter that it was a scarf.

In Apr. 2022 (Issue 115)

Poetry

Said the Carrion to the Corvus

by Woody Dismukes

Recently, it’s been hard not to feel consumed by outside forces. There’s always someone coming to take something from you. The taxman, the debt collector, familial relations, whomever. This poem is for those who have given everything.

In Mar. 2022 (Issue 114)

Fiction

The First Year

by R.L. Meza

Author spotlight

When you were inside me, I knew you were mine. Now, I’m not so sure. Cradled in my arms, you are an assemblage of parts I recognize: Noah’s cleft chin and narrow ears, my heart-shaped lips and upturned nose. But your eyes are something else. I angle you this way and that, your milk-drunk mouth smearing saliva across my hospital gown while I search your slumbering face for the pull of attachment, waiting for the surge of affection.

In Mar. 2022 (Issue 114)

Fiction

Skins

by Pedro Iniguez

I’ve always thought that the illicit hunting of baby seals was a cruel and horrifying thing. Putting myself in their position, being out on the ice, vulnerable to humans, their weapons, and their ill intents made me think of this scenario. The story: What would happen if humans were to experience a similar fate?

In Mar. 2022 (Issue 114)

Fiction

The Golden Hour

by Erica Ruppert

Author spotlight

Thomas woke alone, and opened his sticky eyes to the dusty golden light filling the bedroom. He expected to see Benjamin in the other bed, beside him, as if they were still children together. The bed was filled with familiar shadows, but Benjamin wasn’t there. Instead, among their discarded toys, he found another boy’s body, again. His memory stuttered, caught on faces and places and angles of light, aromas and flavors that had long since faded to dust.

In Mar. 2022 (Issue 114)

Poetry

Nineveh

by Belicia Rhea

I wrote this poem in response to a distant loss, but as with all complex loss, the aftershocks linger. I wanted to explore the imagery and symbols of memory, how reminders live inside fleeting moments, small objects, or arrive with a snarl as bigger beasts—and even after years, there are these reverberations, quiet hauntings, a sort of ebb and flow of recollection.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

Fiction

In the Walls and Beneath the Fridge

by Jonathan L. Howard

Author spotlight

It was the unexpectedness of the scream that pulled him to his feet from a sofa slouch before the television, that sent him in a run the short way to the kitchen. Jess’s soft padding steps the same path a few seconds before, unconcerned, slippered, still sounded in his memory. Get me a packet of crisps whilst you’re in there, love, will you? The snap of the light switch. The clicking of the old school fluorescent tube coming to life.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

Fiction

Fenworth City Municipal Watersheds Field Survey

by A.L. Goldfuss

During the lonely summer of 2020, I went on a long bike ride and saw a pair of egrets in a marsh; at the time, it was a beautiful and comforting sight. That evening, I watched trail cam footage of California wildfires blazing through a forest. This story knitted itself together quickly.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

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