Chris Doty-Dunn
The pair of dice clatter to the table. When they come up snake eyes, Tony aims his revolver at me and cocks the hammer. My fingers dig pits into Lilith’s soot-black arm.
“You said these couldn’t lose!” I hiss.
She nods, hellfire crackling in her eyes. “If they’re carved from the bones of someone who loved you, they can’t.”
“But I brought you—”
The demon yanks her arm free. “No family’s perfect, sweetie.”
I gape at the dice.
The pips on mom’s arthritic finger bones look away before Tony’s bullet settles my debt.
Chris Doty-Dunn writes weird, speculative fiction, often with a queer bent.
Dear Malcolm,
Please find enclosed your antique pocket watch—your grandfather's, as I recall?—returned in working order and no longer silent.
As I suspected, moon dust had caked the inside, gumming up the mechanism like plaque around a heart. An interminable problem when using a watch like this up here, where dust is so ubiquitous.
As a watchmaker, I suggest keeping your heirloom sealed in the hermetic case provided. But as a grandfather...
Perhaps with both clocks and hearts, there's no reason to have them if you don't intend to use them.
Yours in ticks and beats,
Jonathan Montgomery
Armstrong Horology
—Chris Doty-Dunn
I know you love me, even though you can't say it.
The signs were always there: the way you looked at me, the tension in your voice when we spoke.
And I love you. Have since the first moment I saw you, when I knew we had to be together.
Maybe I tried too hard.
Maybe you shouldn't have played hard to get.
Your face is serene as I crawl into bed next to you, savoring what's left of your warmth.
I put the gun in my mouth. It's still warm, too.
At least now we'll be together.
Forever.
—Chris Doty-Dunn