fiction
Come hell or high water
ROBIN BLASBERG
“There goes the neighborhood,” grumbled Wesley.
“A gigantic yard sale,” said Mabel.
"They're moving boxes,” said Doc.
“They’re ruining the grass,” muttered Wesley.
“There won’t be anything left when this all washes over," retorted Doc. “Ocean’s rising, you know.”
"It has been mighty wet," agreed Mabel. “I’m sure my boy will be coming soon.”
“Our boy, you mean,” said Wesley.
“He’s a good boy,” added Mabel. “Always thinking of us.”
“There's my family.” said Doc. “Guess I’ll be going now. You both take care.”
“We will,” said Mabel.
“So long, Doc,” said Wesley.
When Doc had faded into the mist, Wesley turned to Mabel and noted somberly, "We're the only souls remaining.”
Hours passed as a silence shrouded the pair only to be broken every now and then when Mabel would wonder out loud, “Where’s our boy?" to which Wesley would seethe in response. Then a gurgling sound pierced the darkness and Mabel exclaimed, "Come hell or high water, he said he'd be here for us!'” A roar followed, stabbing the air, and Wesley snapped back, “Well, Mabel, the high water’s here and he ain’t,” as a torrent crashed through the cemetery gate and raced toward their headstones.
In Memoriam
JIM COURTER
She dips a finger into the ashy gray on her palette, and with a few deft strokes adds the finishing touches to his portrait. Standing back, she examines her work, then, satisfied, hangs it on the fireplace chimney, over the urn on the mantle containing what’s left of his remains.
Crude Mechanicals
J.R. VERNHAM
Remi swerved hard starboard away from a solar yacht speeding out of Hildas Interchange. And swerved again, when the sleek vessel adjusted its course, right back into her path.
“Uh, Remi?” Karlo asked, pointing at the overhead panel. “I think I see the problem.”
“Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!”
“Ayep.”
The view outside the forward hatch spun. Remi yelped, stabbing at the controls... until, abruptly, they stilled, and the solar yacht cruised past (correctly) on their port side.
“Guess we shoulda checked that Australian gravity generator before we installed it,” said Karlo. “It was, uh, set to Southern Hemisphere.”
She
DAVID BLITCH
When I’m down in the kitchen on a bright Saturday morning, sipping my coffee and frying up my bacon and eggs, it’s just good to know she’s around.
You know what I mean?
She’s not a constant companion. No way! There are days when we don’t even see each other.
It’s just a comfort to know that she is there. That I’m not alone. That there’s someone to talk to. Now I don’t understand a word she is saying. If you can even call it words.
But I need to talk to someone. I need someone to listen to me!
You get it?
So having a Grey Alien chained up in my bedroom closet is so comforting.
I only need to feed and water her once a day. But anytime I want, I can open the closet door and talk to her for hours.
And she’ll listen. LISTEN TO ME!!!
I’m such a lucky guy. Don’t ya think?
Grate Escape—Part III
JESI TAYLOR
July 12, 2026
My great-great-grandpa John I was an incredible artist who wrote and illustrated notebooks for decades. Most of them contained hand-drawn maps and diagrams of underground structures, equipment, and geological features he encountered and worked closely with as a Sandhog.
I still read them religiously. They’re cherished treasures in my family and partly the reason why I made it out of that (manufactured) disaster alive.
Even though I’m not a Sandhog myself, my entire life revolves around infrastructure. Not only because of my scientific research areas of focus and family history, but also because most of the special interests that consume my brain are in some way related to infrastructure. Which is, I’m sure, the result of some sort of neurobiological-social-ancestral feedback loop.
My mom’s side of the family were all farmers until my mom moved from North Carolina to Harlem in the late 80s. She was an artist, a painter. She died when I was in high school. Heroin overdose.
She loved John I’s notebooks and we’d recreate images from them together on canvas. The notebooks inspired a lot of her later paintings.
They also made my escape from the tunnels possible.
I wish there was.
The Hex
LAUREN M. CONNOLLY
The first time I saw Stephen, he painted a hex on my right arm, and I couldn't move my fingers for hours.
I thought it would be cool to have a hex as a tattoo.
“Don’t you mean a pentagram?” Stephen asked.
“No, I mean a hex.”
Stephen shrugged, “Okay, I’ll paint one to see if you like it.”
We were both drunk and I laughed as he pulled out a brush from his backpack.
“What the...”
“I am an art major,” he told me, “I am always ready to paint hexes on people.”
It all seemed very funny. He swirled his paintbrush in my beer glass to moisten the bristles. Before I could protest, he proceeded to paint shapes on my arm.
With paint dripping down my arm, “How long until it dries?”
“Oh, just a few minutes—don’t move.”
The next morning, I lie in bed and can’t move my arm. Strange hangover feeling, I thought, forgetting what happened. For the first hour, my arm was tingly. I looked down and remembered the night before.
I couldn’t brush my teeth or hold a cup of coffee. I took a shower to scrub the paint off my arm. Slowly, the feeling started to come back into my fingertips.
I dumped my beer glass, watching the paint swirl down the drain. Looking for Stephen’s number on my phone, it disappeared, just like my hex. I never did see Stephen again.
Eldritch Lure
NICHOLAS DE MARINO
“CAREFUL,” my Great Old Man howls as I hook piscine lip and mouth profane incantation, not-my-hand, not —
“My hand!” I squeal. Dad erupts in miasmal laughter below ophidian whiskers.
“I SAID 'CAREFUL,'” he bays and thunderclaps me on the back.
Dad's baited hook tears like a comet through the void. Mine floats until my heart sinks, then drags unfathomable depths.
We slumber for aeons. Such is fishing.
My line jolts, then ululates. I strain against the unseen force.
“EASY DOES IT,” Dad bellows.
“I can't!” I screech.
The conflagrations below his cordilleran brow freeze my blood. I flail with impenitent fury!?
At last—Victory!—my prize spools down to the ocean floor. Nothing titanic, but no mere rowboat. The gnarled vessel shimmers, impossibly glabrous.
“AHA HA-HA-HA!” Dad roars as I unknot the netting. He pries open the steely sepulcher and we swallow sallow meatthings.
Dad's line yanks taut. With a single flick and torrent of current, an amalgam of maculate tubing sinks nearby.
Dad's features contort in a horrifying labyrinth of mirth. He lifts the crumpled oil rig and wolfs down effluent. Viscous brown-black blobs speckle his bloated tentacles.
He proffers a swig.
“THIS'LL PUT SUCKERS ON YOUR CHEST,” he booms.
“But Mom said...,” I squeak.
Another abysmal look.
I choke down my first sip of fossil fluid and cough, wheeze, clutch, can't–can't—
“AHA HA-HA-HA!” Dad roars, thunderclapping me again, ungumming my gills.
I look up at this hulking, unimaginable form and contemplate my own impending Great Old One-hood.
“Last one to the monkey bars is a rotten tomato!” shouts Pete, flinging his bag to the ground.
The fateful words have been spoken, and 4th graders splinter like shards from a broken tamagotchi screen.
They probably think that they’re safe. That I, Sandra Sodwall, last pick for every sport, will be the rotten tomato.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
While my unsuspecting classmates were picking their noses in geography, I was in the playground setting a devilish series of boobytraps, pitfalls and snares. They’ll be like flies, tangled in my dastardly web.
I stroll towards the swings. Calm. Collected. Carefree. Bobby F dashes by, towards the rake I’ve buried beneath a pile of leaves. He leaps clear of it. Drat.
Felix is at the foot of the slide. I jump onto the seesaw, sending a barrage of pebbles catapulting his way. That’ll teach you for pouring pencil sharpenings down my back in biology. The pebbles snag on a kink in the chute and fall harmlessly to the ground. Double drat.
Meanwhile, Amy and Lisa have evaded the super glue puddle on the hopscotch squares, and have reached the sacred safety of the monkey bars. Drat times infinity.
I pick up my pace, but the last stragglers are already home and dry. My race is run. I’ve been foiled. Outsmarted. Defeated.
My skin softens and bloats. A vine-green stem sprouts from my head. A putrid odor erupts from my seed-ridden innards.
The prophecy has claimed me as its victim.