fiction
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
“Damm it, Kitty, stop sniffing.” Chuck pulled on the leash, turned to Hank who was patiently waiting two steps ahead, “Dumb dog wants to smell everything. No wonder we’re both getting fat. Can’t call our start/stop battle exercise.”
Hank came back and extended his arm. “Want me to take her? You can power walk ahead and back and meet us at the corner. It’ll give you and the dog a break.”
“Thanks, it’s not necessary. You’re the go-ahead-guy. You’ll end up choking the mutt. Me, I understand her. Guess I’m impatient with myself too, always looking back, thinking what if…
“Damm it, Kitty, you’ve already marked that tree; we’re not going back!”
He tugged on the leash, appealing to his friend, “What did I just say. Now she thinks she’s missed something and wants to go back!”
Hank smiled and reached out once again for the leash. “Chuck, why don’t you let me try. At least to the corner. At this rate, we'll miss Happy Hour—even tomorrow's.”
“Yeh, OK. Good luck. Still, it’s funny, me and my pooch always looking back. Why do you think that is?”
“Can’t answer for you, Chuck. But for Kitty I’d guess she’s just looking for where she took her last dump.”
“Yeh, maybe life’s like that too!”
Kenneth M. Kapp lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing late at night in his man-cave. www.kmkbooks.com
“Who the Hell are you to judge me? Bunch of judgmental judges, that’s what you are!” Josiah snapped.
“Come now, Josiah. I’m sure we all can come to a reasonable agreement,” said Nicholas.
“Here’s an agreement: You can all kiss my ass!”
“There’s no need to be crude.”
“Whatever. My outfit was basically regulation. It was only SLIGHTLY modified. I really don’t see why everyone’s so bent out of shape about it.”
Robert cleared his throat. Maggie audibly sighed. Sarah covered her mouth in an attempt to hide her smile. This whole thing was just so patently absurd.
Nicholas resented that he was the only one—besides Josiah—who was speaking. He rubbed his temples.
“Josiah, while it’s true that the Batman cape you were wearing blended in relatively well with your robes, the Batman mask was highly inappropriate.”
“Ugh. Fine, you win. If I’d known being a judge was gonna be so boring, I never would have joined your ranks. You guys are lame.” Josiah jumped on his skateboard and exited in disgust.
Claudine articulated what the rest of them were thinking. “I’m beginning to think he never should have been appointed to the Supreme Court.”
—Alaina Hammond
I walk toward the place where we first stepped when we had no homes, no reason to stop for relics. The air was swollen with laughter then, loud with its own wealth before cameras swallowed me whole and you kept the moon on a leash.
Today it is different. She runs into you now, frantic with her need to be everything to you. She holds herself out like an offering, and you take her in. I move slowly. I will not rearrange my body for you. I will not fracture into your shape. Time chisels us into acceptance. There is no winning. Only waiting. She believes you two can be one. I believe it too. Belief is nothing but surrender.
The wind is humid. It brushes past like the breath of something already buried in these backyard echoes of childhood. Play collapses into schedule. Love collapses into habit and I walk toward the place where we first stepped when we had no homes, no reason to stop. I carry the silence that comes after.
—Betty Stanton
Radiation Imminent, T minus eight minutes.
Liz shoved another water jug into the shelter, hands shaking. There was room left for one adult, but it would be weeks before rescue.
She scraped everything from the pantry into a box.
Six minutes.
Sirens blared, briefly stunning her.
Deep breaths.
She secured oxygen canisters to masks and ran back.
Four minutes.
She wedged the box into the shelter, rapidly checking:
Water. Food. Waste container. Oxygen. Favorite Blanket.
Two minutes.
“Mommy?”
She grabbed Toby. Kissed his sweet hair. Shoved him in.
“Drink. Eat. Potty there. Breathers here. Like we practiced… I love you.”
Monica is a speculative fiction author, poet, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever.”
“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.
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.
“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.