The Yellow Wall Paper

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. (Continue Reading…)

Jerry Got Bit

By Richard Dansky

Linda’s words hung there in the air, a bad omen that had arrived uninvited. Before I could say anything, she looked at her watch, then back at me. “We don’t have long before Vic finishes up with those losers and comes looking for me, so we’ve got to be quick. The only other thing you need to know is that they’re not human. They look human, and they talk human, but they ain’t. They’re faster and stronger than us, they can smell you before you ever see them, and those teeth ain’t for show. They’re predators, we’re prey, and the only advantage we’ve got is that they haven’t figured out yet that serious firepower can even the odds. They’re arrogant, ‘cause they think they’re just better.”

I thought about that for a second. “Sounds like they kind of are, really.”

She threw a wadded-up tissue at me. “Whose side are you on, anyway? Now get ready.” (Continue Reading…)

Graves Basin

by Daniel Roop

Mr. Hoskins, across the dinner table, had seemed confused when I tried to introduce the topic of the democracy of the dead. Ever the businessman, he politely shifted the conversation to areas he could more comfortably navigate. Trying to ingratiate himself as we chewed mouthfuls of pork loin, he asked Ches, “And young man, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Ches swallowed far too large a bite far too quickly in his excitement to blurt out, “Lotsa folks say my great-great-great-great aunts was witches, but that ain’t so. Daddy says they was more like scientists, and that’s what I wanna be. A scientist.”

Mr. Hoskins nodded and sipped his sweet tea, trying to decide which part of that answer to further interrogate in order to seem interested without giving offense. Witches? A farmer’s son growing up to be a scientist? Where to begin? (Continue Reading…)

The Song of the Living

by Tonja K. Johnson

When the trees start to smell sharp and crisp, I know The Dead Things are coming. That warning scent perfumes the air now. The fading summer gale bellows over a field of rolling wheat. Golden stalks bow to the force like cracked swan necks. They waltz to the tune of pine breath. Pirouette to the riotous rhythm of rot carried from The Dead Things shambling in a mass through the mountains. Below the craggy pass, craters blister up from the earth’s surface, oozing brackish slime. We are mostly alone out here. The land, too wild. The wind, too full of teeth. The river’s rush, brutal as tempest waves. Only micro pockets of Living rough the backwood to form small fortified settlements. It’s safer in the cities, with their high electric walls. Because when the trees tear up their roots and run, The Dead Things are close and only the ancestors can save you. (Continue Reading…)