The Road to Vitebsk
Reading Time: 4 minutesA dedicated officer refuses to leave until others are safe. Death sometimes does not defer duty.
Short Stories
Magic Makes Fools of Us All
Reading Time: 4 minutesAn unusual family plots a summer camping trip that will satiate their blood-lust. It doesn’t go entirely as planned.
The Ways We Played the Game
Reading Time: 6 minutesA LitRPG jam in Singapore, with a code that really works for those that want to try it.
Fingal’s Cave
Reading Time: 17 minutesA rogue scientist’s intrepid search for life becomes a metaphoric and existential journey of the heart that explores how we connect and communicate—with one another and the universe—a journey intimately connected with water.
Behind the Standing Stones
Reading Time: 4 minutesCraig and Hailey had very different ideas about how to celebrate their anniversary. One wanted sunshine and drinks on an island beach. The other was more interested in the enchantments that might be found beyond the standing stones.
Follow Me
Reading Time: 21 minutesWhen Influencer Jan Pham downloads an app from the dark web that promises fame, fortune, and – most importantly – more followers, she gets more than she bargained for.
Ashes
Reading Time: 17 minutesThirty years after the Burn, Jackson, an aging ex-soldier, is just trying to survive. A moral person in a world where morality isn’t a particularly good survival trait, Jackson has to choose between his self-interest and doing what’s right.
The Update
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen an almost heavenly woman, Sister Mary, dies she expects she’ll go straight to heaven. But the stranger who shows up for her soul has a trick up his cell phone.
It’s Not in Your Head
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhen The Soul© chip is implanted in the cerebral cortex at birth, it’s imagined it will create an immortal soul. But there are problems.
RNA
Reading Time: 9 minutesWhen an aging baseball player suffers a career threatening injury, his HMO takes over. He is entitled to the lowest level of care which includes an attractive home health aid. He is crushed when she informs him that she’s not really a person.
Inuksuk
Reading Time: 17 minutesErecting a cell tower in the middle of an arctic waste–next to one of those ancient stone Inuksuks to fix location, to show scale, and to provide a little local color–would be perfect for the “We’ve got you covered” ad campaign. What could go wrong?
Small, Precious Things
Reading Time: 4 minutesWilliam is a dutiful son and a caring doctor who keeps a special collection to honor his dead mother and estranged father.
I Like To Be Hit
Reading Time: 5 minutes A sentient golf ball that likes to be hit is willing to do what it must to ensure it is on the receiving end of long drives.
Reflection
Reading Time: 3 minutesI find your heart on Europa, and for a moment it is mine. I follow the signature of your thoughts, and it leads me far above the galactic plane.
Nocturne in Black and Gold
Reading Time: 9 minutes“Nocturne in Black and Gold” exists in some poetic world outside of reality and yet—feels easily relatable. This story bypasses your flesh and bone and gets right into your soul. What happens when your doctor is a tiger?
Living Ship
Reading Time: 13 minutesStranded when their ship was torn apart unexpectedly, the Crew of the Scorpion were lucky enough to find refuge on a nearby planet. Or were they? It turns out, the planet has a mind of it’s own.
A Clairvoyant’s Misfortune
Reading Time: 4 minutesSomeone might say: pal, since you know what’s going to happen, why don’t you do something to change your future! I can only say one thing: I did try it, many times, but there is no way to change your fate. If your life has got something in store for you, you will surely get it.
The Leviathan
Reading Time: 26 minutesA seemingly simple solution to a backyard problem quickly gets out of hand.
Glass Slipper Magic
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat happened to Cinderella after the Prince found her? Maybe this…
Pantsed
Reading Time: 10 minutesKatia hopes to have a pleasant time with Ben, but when it turns out he hasn’t heard a thing she’s told him about herself, she decides to put her programming skills to good use.
A Free Man
Reading Time: 7 minutesIn a world where you can purchase a synthetic replica of a person from a vending machine, the best person to frame for a crime you committed may be … yourself.
Revelations
Reading Time: 5 minutes“Everyone looks to the sky with mixed feelings, some welcoming of the arrival of Others, some dreading it. How we behave in that moment of revelation will speak volumes to those who need merely wait and watch, to know all they need to—about us.”
Bob and Big Dave
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe sudden appearance of the ghost of Bob, Dave’s best friend, leaves the latter feeling unhinged. Dave has just lost his wife, and Bob has returned to prevent Dave from following after her.
Interlude In Gehenna
Reading Time: 18 minutesHe should have killed the man when he had the chance. Now there was nothing to do but wait for retribution in a town just a shade removed from hell.
Under the Mistletoe
Reading Time: 3 minutesA creepy little trip down memory lane, suitable for inclusion in a Christmas nightmare gallery of speculative horrors and sensations.
A Voice From the Past
Reading Time: 18 minutesThe young archaeologist Edward Campbell, is obsessed with the idea of knowing what happened to his father, who died years earlier while exploring an unknown tomb he discovered in an isolated area of Egypt.
Auschwitz Dancer
Reading Time: 16 minutesThe spirit of famous Jewish ballet dancer, Franceska Mann, is stuck in time in a parallel dimension in 1943 at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland.
A Feast for Saints
Reading Time: 4 minutesAn 18th century New England Christian tells of the terrible truth behind Thanksgiving.
Giselle and Mr. Goebbels
Reading Time: 3 minutesRoger’s virtual digital assistant becomes possessed by the spirit of a vengeful ex-girlfriend who died of a broken heart. She wants to force him to dance himself to death to sixties rock music. The only one who can save Roger is the spirit of his deceased wife, Diane.
Portrait
Reading Time: 8 minutesIn 1921, a London painter’s encounter with a beautiful Romanian woman leads to a portrait sitting with hellish consequences.
I Know Who Killed Natalie Roane
Reading Time: 6 minutesHorror meets the near-term sci fi of additive manufacturing in a ghost story unlike most that came before it.
Chlorophylliation
Reading Time: 5 minutesColonists struggle with a strange, addictive plant that is strangling their settlement.
Deracination
Reading Time: 4 minutesLovesick Serena is prepared to risk everything and uproot herself completely to be with the one she loves. But are her feelings returned?
Clean Slate
Reading Time: 21 minutesOn a Saturday morning, Grace Merritt vomits up a pocket watch that she’s never seen before.
Occupational Hazards or The Quite Curious Tale of Astridr Grimsdottir
Reading Time: 5 minutesWorking to a deadline can sometimes lead to astonishing conversations, even revelations. Does the artist dictate the art? Or the art the artist?
Occupational Hazards or The Quite Curious Tale of Astridr Grimsdottir Read More »
Enough
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis is the tale of a young photographer looking to catch her big break by capturing the perfect shot in the woods supposedly haunted by the ‘Snow Witch’.
Mired
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn this short historical horror, a soldier on WWI’s Western Front struggles with the enormity and guilt of having volunteered to enlist.
A Voice for the Scavengers
Reading Time: 23 minutesA government Hunter in a post apocalyptic world is challenged with either changing his allegiance or living a lie.
Night Eyes
Reading Time: 4 minutesTurner finds himself stranded in the middle of the highway late at night. As he waits for help to arrive, a strange girl appears at his car. Is she real or a ghost of his dark past?
A Substitute for Salvation
Reading Time: 23 minutesA post-apocalyptic love triangle inspired by “Casablanca” that revolves around a misanthropic bar owner, a Mars-bound clone fighting for his freedom, and a repurposed sex droid.
Those Halcyon Days
Reading Time: 4 minutesWe had spent the winter together, sleeping on ice caps, pointing out constellations far above us in the sky.
The Belly of The Beast
Reading Time: 23 minutesWhen nothing is as it seems, how much are you willing to sacrifice to save mankind…
In the Bowels of the Theater
Reading Time: 20 minutesThere is magic in the theatre, ancient and powerful – not just of the stage, but of an elder and mighty god…one which Sucunde would see freed and restored.
Fidget
Reading Time: 3 minutesDubious captains, drones, economies built around recycled rocket boosters, and love.
Club Fiends
Reading Time: 20 minutesThe wild hunt calls, and it’s time for Ondine to depart this world, alongside her club-obsessed brothers and sisters. Yet she’s in love with a mortal – or is she? Her decision to stay or go must be made fast, for a terrible monster hunts her