First Story: “They Would Only Be Roads” by Darin Bradley Prester fingered the chain–he’d pulled it from the tank behind one of the commodes downtown, in Idio, the old feed-mill turned nightclub near the depot. The chain had absorbed such faith in the dank water, pulling endlessly as expected–as the clubbers believed it would. Prester imagined each flushing synapse exhausting its neural blast all the way through the chain and into the water, where it rippled gently into the lime-scarred porcelain...
Aug 11, 2015•1 hr 11 min
This month’s cover art is “The Mechanic Magmin” by Kyle Anderson Flash Fiction: “This is the Story That Devours Itself” by Michelle Muenzler This is not a regular story. This is a hungry story, built of words with tongues of glass and cracked marbles for eyes. You think you know this story, you think you’ve heard it before… but you haven’t. Michelle Muenzler also known at local conventions as “The Cookie Lady,” writes fiction both dark and strange to counterbalance the sweetness of her baking. H...
Aug 04, 2015•55 min
Flash Fiction: “One Hundred Years” by Gerri Leen She wanders the castle late at night like a haunt. She startles the servants when she finds them flesh to flesh in the darker corners of the place. She doesn’t mean to interrupt their trysts; she just can’t sleep. She slept for a hundred years. Most thought that was the curse of the evil fairy, but it wasn’t. Not for her, at any rate. The years passed in a heartbeat, dreams keeping her company as she lay unchanging behind the forest of thorns whil...
Jul 28, 2015•1 hr 8 min
Main Story: “The One That Got Away” by Mark Teppo A haven for raconteurs and fabulists, the Alibi Room was a velvet-lined sanctuary where suggestion and persuasion were the watchwords and truth was such a devalued coin that it couldn’t purchase a condom from the dispenser in the men’s room. Once through the unassuming door and the voluminous coat check where racks of costumes, disguise and false uniforms waited, the patrons redrafted their pasts and invented possible futures. The promise of narr...
Jul 21, 2015•47 min
Flash Fiction: “Adventuring” by Jennifer Donohue Sometimes, you can stop to breathe. Sometimes, you repack that worn leather pack, which has been with you longer than any companion, and find the detritus from when you started, from before you bled so much. From when you were just goofing off in an inn, or at a trail marker. A whetstone, from before you had a magical sword which never needs honing. That last bottle of lamp oil. A forgotten healing potion, always a fortuitous find. A cheap trail r...
Jul 14, 2015•1 hr
Flash Fiction: “Frankenstein’s Monster” by Malcolm Chandler I want Mandy out of my head. They say the Dream Doctor is the man for the job. He is a small, hunched man of vaguely Central European origins. He wears small rectangular glasses perched on the end of his nose. He is the timeless kind of withered man who could be 70 years old or 7,000. “Her name, again?” he asks, adjusting his glasses on the end of his nose. “Mandy.” “Mandy,” he repeats, pecking at a tablet with his crooked index fingers...
Jul 07, 2015•57 min
Story: “The Bees” by Dan Chaon Gene’s son Frankie wakes up screaming. It has become frequent, two or three times a week, at random times: midnight — 3 AM — five in the morning. Here is a high, empty wail that severs Gene from his unconsciousness like sharp teeth. It is the worst sound that Gene can imagine, the sound of a young child dying violently — falling from a building, or caught in some machinery that is tearing an arm off, or being mauled by a predatory animal. No matter how many times h...
Jun 30, 2015•54 min
Story: “Calliope: A Steam Romance” by Andrew J. McKiernan Her voice is of a host angelic, but fallen. Her every breath breeds melodious paeans that tear at my soul — in ways both tender and cruel — and I weep with pain and joy to hear them. For, as surely as Eros struck Apollo and Daphne, am I so sorely wounded by her song. But be that barb of gold or lead? Ah, now therein lies the tale. I first saw her down at the Quay or, more rightly should I say, I heard her… Andrew J. McKiernan is an author...
Jun 23, 2015•59 min
First Story: “The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga” by Peter M. Ball She enters my name as Tobias Truman. I watch her ink the delicate curve of the capitals, the ostrich feather quill dancing as she writes. My name is entered below Mr. Drummond’s, his below the Captain; two of the three marked with the swooping X that denotes status as paying guest, a true patron of the house rather than tagalong visitor. The Madam ends with a final flourish that leaves the quill poised above a well of ink. Her ...
Jun 16, 2015•57 min
Story: “The Key to Your Heart is Made of Brass” by John R. Fultz Wake up. Something is wrong. Greasy orange light smears the dark. Only one of your optical lenses is functional. The walls are slabs of corroded metal with rust patterns like dumb staring phantoms. You lie awkwardly across the oily flagstones of an alley where curtains of black chains obscure the night. Bronze lanterns hang from those chains, but most of them are dead. Lightless. Like your left optical. Struggling to hands and knee...
Jun 09, 2015•1 hr 24 min
Story: “From the Clay of His Heart” by John D. Brown The golem was a thief. Nothing in the village, nothing in the whole vale for that matter, was safe. It was forever stealing and bringing its thefts to Braslava’s door, laying them on her step like a cat lays down dead birds and mice. One day it was the Butcher’s blue and white Turkish stockings, the next it was cranky Petar’s new pitchfork. And then the golem would stand there, looking down upon her, and all she could say was, “You think you’r...
Jun 02, 2015•1 hr 18 min
First Story: “Lazy Taekos” by Geoffrey A. Landis Once there was a boy named Taekos who lived on a heart farm. His parents were hardworking people: they grew new hearts for old men, and tiny hearts for babies; they grew strong hearts to plant into young men who had crashed their air-scooters and needed replacements; and they grew rugged working hearts for androids who were grown in a vat. But Taekos didn’t want to live on the farm. He was lazy, and wanted to do something that was more fun and les...
May 26, 2015•1 hr 1 min
Flash Fiction: “Caul” by Vajra Chandrasekera I only love girls who love to swim, but I don’t like to see them in the water. Like the sea just fine with nobody swimming in it and me with dry sand under me and a cold beer in my hand. They tell me I’m missing something, but I won’t budge. Maybe that’s why they don’t come back. Vajra Chandrasekera lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld , Lightspeed and Black Static , among others. You can follow him on Twitter vi...
May 19, 2015•1 hr
First Story: “The Frog King, or Iron Henry” by Daniel Quinn What is to be remembered, I suppose I remember; everything else dissolves and vanishes: breath on an icy mirror. I am alone now. There is no one. A rectangle of moonlight blazes on the floor like a shield—this is all that’s left of my visitor. Nevertheless, without any real feeling of hope, I call out into the darkness: “Iron Henry?” His departure is something I feel in my blood, now dry as dust in my veins. Beside the window, a shadow ...
May 12, 2015•1 hr 1 min
Main Story: “Where There’s Smoke” by Michael H. Payne Sudden crackling twitched Cluny’s ears, memories sparking through her of harvesting termites from the fallen trees back home on her parents’ nut farm. The sound kept growing louder, though, its vibrations taking on a supernatural edge that prickled her fur and pulled her out of her notes. Looking up from the floor in front of the bookcase where she lay sprawled across Magistrix Gosstelain’s treatise on the numenistic forces inherent within th...
May 05, 2015•55 min
First Story: “Too Delicate for Human Form” by Cate Gardner A trail of dead goldfish wound towards the pool where Jenny’s aunt drifted face down. Her aunt’s silver chain, its pendant an iron key, dangled from the prongs of a leaf rake. Jenny put the chain around her neck and wondered if the fish had tried to save her aunt or themselves. The iron key dangled between her breasts, irritating her skin. Following the trail back into the house, she phoned for an ambulance. To the coroner, the fish were...
Apr 28, 2015•1 hr 8 min
Story: “The Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E. Howard “You are no soldier,” hissed the stranger at last. “You are a thief like myself.” “And who are you?” asked the Cimmerian in a suspicious whisper. “Taurus of Nemedia.” The Cimmerian lowered his sword. “I’ve heard of you. Men call you a prince of thieves.” A low laugh answered him. Taurus was tall as the Cimmerian, and heavier; he was big-bellied and fat, but his every movement betokened a subtle dynamic magnetism, which was reflected in the k...
Apr 21, 2015•1 hr 13 min
Flash Fiction: “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Monsters” by Alex Shvartsman It isn’t easy being green, scaly, or abominable these days. Humanity turned the tables on the apex predators of the food chain, and has been exterminating us with extreme prejudice. We’re still faster and stronger than they are, but we’re prone to defeat by bad judgment. Heed the lessons of our vanquished brethren; learn from their mistakes and remain successful, extant, and satiated. Don’t Rely on Henchmen Alex Sh...
Apr 14, 2015•1 hr 4 min
First Story: “Space Operetta” by Adam Browne It’s the tenthday of March in the year of our lord 1453 and Cardinal Bessarion is lofting on rotors of gold and spun silver like some godlet in his Romanesque conch shellicopter, dazzling his way over the Alps, from upper airs to lower, purposed to drop in on Vienna, where he visits with Frederick III, Holy Emperor of Germany, Prussia and Austria. And although Frederick’s happy to see the Cardinal, receiving him with splendours of many types and fruit...
Apr 07, 2015•1 hr 9 min
Story: “The Guardian of the Egg” by Christopher Barzak My sister was the girl with the tree growing out of her head. You’ve probably heard of her. You might have seen her on TV. Her picture was plastered all over the place for a while. That shock of wheat ruffling around her face like a great golden mane, the weeping willow tree growing out of the top of her head, her skin white as chalk and smooth as porcelain, those tiny tiger lilies that grew between her eyelashes. And all of those geese she ...
Mar 31, 2015•1 hr
Flash Fiction: “Dark, Beautiful Force” by Jessica May Lin I met you the summer I was nineteen. You were a shadow on the wall, tall and intimidating in a way I could never be, and you were all that stood between my first supervillain and me. You grinned and leapt down in your black domino mask and high-top sneakers, before I even stepped past the mouth of the alley. I hated you, because you knocked the villain out before I could, and smirked at me over the popped collar of your leather jacket as ...
Mar 24, 2015•52 min
Main Story: “Clockwork Fairies” by Cat Rambo Mary the Irish girl let me in when I knocked at the door in my Sunday best, smelling of incense and evening fog. Gaslight flickered over the narrow hall. The mahogany banister’s curve gleamed with beeswax polish, and a rosewood hat rack and umbrella stand squatted to my left. I nodded to Mary, taking off my top hat. Snuff and baking butter mingled with my own pomade to battle the smell of steel and sulfur from below. “Don’t be startled, Mr. Claude, si...
Mar 17, 2015•48 min
Flash Fiction: “Dream Logic” by Barbara A. Barnett Keith touches a hand to his nose, and I’m not sure what surprises him more: the blood my left hook drew, or the fact that his boxing gloves have suddenly disappeared. “How did you–“ I slug Keith again. Keith doesn’t get dream logic, which is why he shouldn’t be narco-boxing. But it’s the latest fad so he just has to get on board with it, a badge of cool to add to his generically perfect looks and the girlfriend he cheats on and that big fat prom...
Mar 10, 2015•44 min
First Story: “Infinity Syrup” by Laurel Winter Fay was Zen shopping, something she had learned when she worked swing shift in card assembly at IBM. The effort of plugging six components into the right holes on four hundred cards had always left her too tired to think. Too tired to think, but too wired to sleep. So she usually stopped at a twenty-four-hour grocery on her way home and let her hands do the shopping for her. Hands reaching mindlessly, plucking items off the shelves. And she was alwa...
Mar 03, 2015•1 hr 16 min
Flash Fiction: “The Hum of Refuge” by Anna Ilona Mussmann On her couch in an apartment at the top of a building that used to be a lingerie factory, Skye Hindley tried to capture the soul of nature. She wrote, sketched in charcoal and once (in a black fit) crafted faerie dolls. She had not found her niche. A loser boyfriend told her that she didn’t have the artistic vision of a walrus, but that was during their break-up, after she said his novel must have been written by a drunken redneck. Anna I...
Feb 24, 2015•1 hr 7 min
Flash Fiction: “Older, Wiser, Time Traveler” by M. Bennardo First off, step one — commit a crime of passion. You shouldn’t plan this, obviously. In fact, you can’t plan this. The defining characteristic of a crime of passion is precisely that it’s unplanned. Oh sure, there are tendencies. There are indications. A crime of passion doesn’t have to be a surprise–it just has to be unplanned. In addition to Daily Science Fiction , M. Bennardo’s stories have also appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction ,...
Feb 17, 2015•56 min
Story: “Spirit Brother” by Pamela Sargent The flat land below him was white, the color of purity and luck. Jamukha flew in the form of an eagle, feeling the wind under his wings. The steppe and mountains had also been covered by snow on the day he had first met Temujin, the companion and comrade in arms who had later become his greatest enemy. But all of that had happened when he was a boy, years ago, in the world of the living. Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula and Locus Awards and was honored ...
Feb 10, 2015•1 hr 9 min
First Story: “Requiem for a Druid” by Alex Shvartsman My job that morning was to banish a demon, but I was determined to finish my cup of coffee first. I sipped my java in front of Demetrios’ warehouse in Sunset Park, enjoying the panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline and the New York harbor. Next to me, Demetrios was shaking like a leaf. “What in the world are you thinking, Conrad?” Demetrios spoke in his typical rapidfire fashion. “You’re just going to go in there, alone, to face this infer...
Feb 03, 2015•1 hr 11 min
First Story: “Castor on Troubled Waters” by Rhys Hughes He’s almost fifty years of age, Castor Jenkins is, which for a stereotypical Welshman must be reckoned venerable, if not ancient. Not that he takes kindly to being considered a stereotype. He likes to point out that real Welshmen don’t live exclusively on a diet of beer and chips, nor do they avoid exercise, work and responsibility every waking minute of the day; the fact he does those things is a mark of his uniqueness and it’s just a coin...
Jan 27, 2015•1 hr 23 min
This week’s story: “Forever” by Tim Lebbon On Dana’Man the cold bit hard, ice informed thought, frost froze dreams of freedom, and duty and supplication were the way. On Dana’Man there was preparation for a war long in coming, with no sign of its beginning yet in sight. On Dana’Man – island of the damned, natural home only to glaciers and snow demons and the ice people – life was hard, but death was harder. The mages needed every man and woman for their army; death was unpardonable. Tim Lebbon i...
Jan 20, 2015•1 hr 5 min
