Company Man
Reading Time: 3 minutesSam was a company man. He was exactly what the company needed and what the company wanted. That is what made him so disturbing.
Reading Time: 3 minutesSam was a company man. He was exactly what the company needed and what the company wanted. That is what made him so disturbing.
Reading Time: 11 minutesA mother who is frustrated with her teenage daughter comes across a magical object that can repair items. She wonders what effect the object might have if she used it on her daughter.
Reading Time: 4 minutesZeke looked out a kitchen window, into his backyard. Waves crested and lapped the shore, leaving salt-soaked artifacts in their wake. The sea always has a say.
Reading Time: 8 minutesRiver enters Bert’s. In spite of himself, his heart leaps at the sight of Pam. He wants his heart to be stone. He wants never to have met her. But wishes are overrun by desire. Love triumphs over fear.
Gods and Monsters Installment 43: Predator and Prey Read More »
Reading Time: 12 minutesAmong war’s victims are the soldiers and those who care for them. Nothing in our shared future will change that, though some of the details will be new. What will be the reality for cloned soldiers?
Reading Time: 7 minutes“First contact” is an underexplored sub-genre with many opportunities for miscommunication. Sometimes deadly, sometimes not so much.
Reading Time: 4 minutesA young man starts a new job at a seemingly disused rocket ship yard.
Reading Time: 7 minutesRiver wants to forget her, yet he knows that if he does, a part of him will die. Though he feels betrayed, he cannot keep away. He hangs the chain around his neck. He will go to Bert’s and fasten it about hers. Then he will leave, never to return, the prism remaining, a crystal kiss, a tangible memory, a concrete regret.
Gods and Monsters Installment 42: Death and Memory Read More »
Reading Time: 10 minutesIt’s a little boy’s last chance to leave the planet. Can he talk his mom into letting him go?
Reading Time: 7 minutesBeethoven does not merely drain his victims, he eviscerates them. When there are no more cats, he moves on to dogs and babies, climbing the food chain with grisly effect.
Gods and Monsters Installment 41: The Color of Empathy Read More »
Reading Time: 26 minutesSuki finds herself prematurely awoken from an induced suspension between life and death. With her retinas deactivated and her government persona suspended, it’s up to friend and P.I. Gabe, to recover her identity, before she dies for good.
Reading Time: 15 minutesAlexander, an extraterrestrial botanist whose mission to collect plant samples, is tasked with the emergency abduction of Roger Smith. Alexander has never come into contact with a human being, and when he meets Roger, he wishes wish he never had.
Reading Time: 26 minutesA veteran soldier in a postwar city, Jackson agrees to search for a friend’s wayward daughter and bring her back to her father. The task will be harder than he expected.
Reading Time: 7 minutesIt’s twilight. Jeremy has finished his eight hours of practice and is out walking through golden fields. Smoke weaves the smell of burning wood and sugar through the air. At the end of the field is a tall man.
Gods and Monsters Installment 40: The Fabric of the Universe Read More »
Reading Time: 17 minutesOverworked and underpaid, a candle wench finds strange comfort in the warmth of the wax
Reading Time: 5 minutesWhen a man’s vision changes, he suddenly sees much more about the people around him than he would care to.
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen aliens descend on Earth, they request an audience with Karen, the United States’ most statistically average individual to sit judgement.
Reading Time: 9 minutesAs River’s eyes grow accustomed to the night, he sees a cat emerge from around a corner and disappear down a narrow alleyway. Another follows, and another. Surely, River thinks, there must be some meaning in all of these cats drifting toward a single destiny, their eyes glowing like secrets?
Gods and Monsters Installment 39: Beethoven’s Salt Sonatas Read More »
Reading Time: 14 minutesA bellhop on one of Jupiter’s moons discovers a body, and murder may be involved.
Reading Time: 3 minutesCost-effective retirement for those who work in the human harvesting industry can have unexpected consequences.
Reading Time: 8 minutes“If you follow a life,” says Ryo, “one strand leads to another. You take me to Pamela, and Pamela guides me to Jeremy. It is impossible to understand her without him. Jeremy was both her lover and her creator.”
Gods and Monsters Installment 38: A Little Night Music Read More »
Reading Time: 4 minutesAfter a thief is mortally wounded, strange visions of past crimes begin to haunt him. As he tries to make his way out of a dark forest to see the sun once more, he cannot shake the feeling he is being followed.
Reading Time: 19 minutesA group of people in a rural town face the outcome of a devastating asteroid impact.
Reading Time: 25 minutesA little boy discovers a mysterious seashell that contains more than just “ocean sounds” – a lot more…
Reading Time: 10 minutesWhen Margareta is not working, and if Pamela has been very, very good, Sarah lets her model the lacey cap. When Pam puts on the cap, she becomes an enchanted princess. The dirty pigeons that clutter the ledges of the city are snow white doves that come at her call and do her bidding. She leans out her window, arms spread wide, embracing her kingdom… until Sarah catches her and pulls her inside.
Reading Time: 4 minutesMarsha and Frank are driving along a country road on a rainy night, with Frank regaling Marsha about his knowledge of Japanese Samurai films,
when they encounter a ghostly specter in the middle of the road.
Reading Time: 19 minutes After an epically shitty day, Jewell Jamieson unknowingly eats a magic-spiked meal and makes a certain wish – and that’s why she awakes the next morning to discover a beautiful naked man in her bed.
Reading Time: 5 minutesPsychic magicians must fight off a enemy who is trying to break the spells protecting their academy. Family and romantic relationships complicate things.
Reading Time: 9 minutesMike grabs Ashley from her quilted comfort. Her head droops back like a wilted flower. Her neck shows white in the night. Mike’s canines grow long with desire and need.
Gods and Monsters Installment 36: Stained Glass Soul Read More »
Reading Time: 9 minutesWhen their mother dies, a pair of precocious twins are placed in the care of their father, a conservative and stern man with whom their Wiccan practices immediately clash.
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn the face of a devastated climate, humanity’s last hope is to relocate to another planet, but not everyone sees it that way.
Reading Time: 7 minutesWhen Hephaestus emerged clubfooted and malformed, Hera tossed him off Mount Olympus. He fell for nine days and nine nights, landing in the sea with a splash so big it caused a tsunami. No wonder then, that he prefers Earth to Olympus and children to gods.
Gods and Monsters Installment 35: Gods and Circuses Read More »
Reading Time: 7 minutesIn a near future of fast-paced social media likes and internet lurking, anonymity has a price…
Reading Time: 11 minutesRuth is an android robot nanny, designed to protect the two young children in her care. She has come to realize that she loves protecting the children so much, she feels compelled to put the children into danger so as to enjoy saving them.
Reading Time: 7 minutesNow, after the advent of dreams and the appearance of color, when Gabriel reads of a killing, something inside him screams. When he looks upon a charcoal figure that so recently possessed unearthly beauty, he mourns. He wants to create, not destroy. He doesn’t like the role in which he has been cast.
Gods and Monsters Installment 34: The Fault Line Within Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutesA derelict spaceship turns out to be a trap for a space pirate and his very unusual copilot.
Reading Time: 8 minutesVampires followed the deluge of fluid and fear, tracking the lonely, homeless, and lost to the city, drawn by the need for belief, as well as blood.
Reading Time: 4 minutesA day at the beach turns into something unexpected for a young couple.
Reading Time: 7 minutesThanatos never kills. He’s just the messenger.
Gods and Monsters Installment 32: Time Before Time Read More »
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn a future where the continents are gone, the oceans are dead, and humanity survives atop the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a man goes on a dreamquest to rediscover cold and snow.
Reading Time: 7 minutesEver since he found Gabriel in the field, River has been cut off and alone. Separated from humanity by a knowledge that he didn’t even realize he possessed, a perception deep within his bones. An understanding that though fairy tales may come true, they are written in blood and lies.
Gods and Monsters Installment 31: Small Time Gods Read More »
Reading Time: 8 minutesThe door is heavy, about four inches thick. A long narrow staircase leads down into darkness. He is in total darkness. Feeling his way slowly along the wall, carefully tapping his feet to see where the stairs begin, he finds a light switch. Harsh fluorescence floods the stairwell. This light would make anyone look dead, River thinks.
Reading Time: 4 minutesMagic circles, incantations—could this be enough to bring back Amelia Earhart?
Reading Time: 4 minutesDavid volunteers for NASA’s Body Donor program, where human corpses are exchanged for advanced knowledge of an alien species.
Reading Time: 7 minutesPamela stands in the doorway. River stops stirring and opens his arms. Pamela doesn’t even need to cross the room. She melts into him, soft as butter into flour. She is cold, damp as night fog.
Gods and Monsters Installment 29: Beautiful and Strange Read More »
Reading Time: 3 minutesThere’s an aswang on the loose and it’s up to us to deal with it. Don’t forget to bring trash bags…
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen Gretel grew up, she left the Sugar-Candy House and the forest behind her, but some stories won’t allow you to walk away.