QB
Staff of QB
There’s always tomorrow
NICOLE M. BABB
I want to look perfect when I see her. I disguise my now-thinning hair with curls and hairspray; check my reflection. She won’t notice a difference.
The receptionist at TimeLab smiles sadly. She’s seen me near-daily for twelve years. My request never changes.
She reminds me: Attempted Past Modification will result in a permanent ban.
I’d never risk it.
I step into the TimeBounder. Stale, icy air transforms into sunshine and chlorine.
“Mommy, watch!” Scarlett splashes in the pool. Irresistible, contagious joy.
Later, I’ll find her. Face-down and clammy. The TimeHop will end. It always does.
But, I’ll return. Tomorrow.
Last one to leave the party
JAINA CIPRIANO
Crumbs Vol.001 Winner
a drabble writing contest
It is time to announce the winner of our first semi-monthly drabble writing contest!
We will be announcing April's theme on April 1st and stories will be due by April 30th. We are also making it free to enter for April, so get ready to get drabblin'.
As a reminder, the theme for February was...
And here are the winners:
The shortlist
- Nicole Babb,
- Ian Stewart
- Rachel M. Hollis
Editor's pick
- Mike Range
Winner:
- Marissa Mengdi Zhu
We will be publishing their stories over the first five days of April!
The Selling of a House
NATALIA PLOS
“So, did you sell my house?” Craig asked.
“It’s not that easy to sell a haunted house,” Allen grumbled.
“Why can’t you grow some pretty flowers in the windowsill or sweep the floor? There’d be lines for a house with an automatic cleaning function.”
“Evil haunts don’t do that,” Craig shrugged. “I’m a very respectable and dangerous evil haunt.”
“Can’t you move into another house?”
“I can’t.”
“Well...” Allen said wistfully. “There’s still a chance you’ll find someone who likes you. And who will understand that talking to an evil haunt can be more pleasant than talking to most people.”
Natalia Plos is a horror writer. Her stories appeared in Stygian Lepus and Dark Myth Publications.
Regrets
LINDAANN LOSCHIAVO
Native New Yorker. Poet. Writer. Dramatist.
LindaAnn LoSchiavo’s poetry books have won multiple awards.
Run Cold
PAMELA LOVE
My feet pound across the permafrost, enraged mammoths thundering behind me. Just ahead shimmers the portal. In a swarm of snowflakes, I leap through this doorway back into my time, stumbling as I land.
The scientist throws a switch, cutting off the Ice Age from his lab. He’s saved me from the herd’s vengeance, but I am no safer with him.
“Did you get it?”
Gasping for breath, I try to warm the frosty air in my lungs. Somehow, I find the energy to nod.
He snaps his fingers, a sound I’ve learned to dread. “Well?”
“Sir, I beg you, don’t do this.” With a shudder, I clutch to my chest the package I brought back. Inside is a blood sample I risked my life to take from a woolly mammoth, one containing a disease endemic to that species. It’s a potential bioweapon, one that could kill millions of people.
“Are you defying me?” His voice is more frigid than the era I just fled.
Tears well up in my eyes. I set the package by a row of test tubes. So many people will die, all coughing up blood, which will be on my hands. My own blood runs cold at the thought.
Nevertheless, I obey the scientist. Only the heart he built that pumps within me enables my blood to run at all. He holds its remote control.
Pamela Love worked as a teacher and in marketing before turning to writing.
The Old Gods
MIKE A. RHODES
And something shifted in my perceptions then, like a clearing of mist, and I saw the lake glittering in the valley below us not as a lake but rather the awakening eye of a long sleeping giant, blinking, looking back at us.
“You people are insane!” I yelled over the keening wind.
“Please,” the man said calmly. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We’re trying something quite new."
There was a flash of silver in the orange-dusk and I felt something hot and then very cold. I felt weak. I looked down and saw blood pouring into pre-dug troughs in the dirt. The pattern was an intricate design that made little sense to me.
The group encircling us began a rhythmic hum. The ground rumbled as if the whole Earth joined in. As I fell to the ground, too weak to stand, vision beginning to swim, a giant tentacle seemed to reach up from beyond a hill across the valley.
“Civilisation has failed,” the man said. “We must look to the Old Gods.”
Mike A. Rhodes enjoys reading, writing, ice hockey and food.
Apotropaic PPE
GABRIELLE BLEU
“Kid,” Camelia barked at the intern. “Helmet on!"
“But it smells,” the intern grumbled, donning the metal hounskull helmet and closing the pointed visor.
“No rookie mistakes today,” Camelia chided. They entered the cave to begin the bat inoculations.
The rookie gawked at the thousands of sleeping bats above. One dropped from a stalactite, small furry body shifting into the pale, bloated corpse of a man swooping towards the intern.
Thankfully, the garlic stuffed in his visor deterred the vampire.
"What’d I tell you, kid?” Camelia called. "It’s the vampire vaccinator’s motto: ‘In a bascinet, then the bats can’t get.’”
Gabrielle Bleu writes luminous science fiction and fantasy. Find more of Bleu's work at gabriellebleu.com.