The Slow Music Of Drums

by A.C. Wise

It was easier than I imagined, tracking down the last original member of Exquisite Corpse. My uncle left surprisingly detailed notes for a man with a disordered mind—left them, and then disappeared.

Died. Disappeared. I don’t know.

Julian was the name on my uncle’s birth certificate, but everyone called him Rabbit. We weren’t close when I was growing up, only after my own father died and I discovered that I had a lot more in common with my father’s brother than I’d ever had with him. We’re both prone to obsession, insatiable curiosity. It’s gotten me fired from more than one job, following my own line of interest rather than writing the story as assigned. Rabbit wasn’t a journalist, but I bet he was difficult to work with too.

I’ve been telling myself that Rabbit died, for the sake of closure, but I’m pretty sure that’s a lie. He mailed me a key, wanted me to follow him. Left a mystery for me to unravel, knowing I’d be the one to help my not-quite-aunt Jessi sort through his stuff once he was gone.

Before he vanished, Rabbit and I had been talking a lot on the phone. Late night calls—or early morning ones, depending on your perspective. The calls were mostly him rambling, me listening. I didn’t follow everything he said, but a few things stood out.

He said our family is cursed. (Continue Reading…)

Less Exalted Tastes

by Gemma Amor

John Guthrie stood at the end of a long gravel driveway and stared in unadulterated joy at the largest mansion he’d ever seen. In the meagre light of an autumn day, the scrolled corbels, smooth limestone ashlar, and innumerable sash windows of the house shone with promise, a promise picked out in high relief by a fleeting sun that occasionally fought its way through heavy, rain-laden clouds. A storm was coming. The trees around him rustled with a quiet anticipation that he, in his excitable state, could not hear.

All John Guthrie could hear was the sound of money singing. (Continue Reading…)

Will They Disappear

By Cynthia Gómez

I’m only fourteen and I don’t look like much and I’ve lived in more foster homes than I can count on two hands but I’ve learned a lot of lessons anyway. Like: playing dumb is a real smart strategy, most of the time. So is playing weak, only showing my strengths when it’s the right time. I didn’t do too good a job with that one, but if the names “Jessica and Elizabeth Love” ring a bell, then I think you might just forgive me.

I was different from the other kids in every foster home for a couple of reasons, but here’s the biggest one: I can make things disappear. No living things, even though I admit it, I did try. Just on a potato bug. I was kind of relieved it didn’t work, honestly. I can’t do it with anything big, like whole buildings, probably because there might be living things in them. It’s only little stuff, like making a homework assignment disappear so I could say I never got it, and one foster father’s keys I kept taking away because I knew he was cheating and … okay, maybe I did mean that one to hurt? The family thought I was stealing, and that’s how I got kicked out. (Continue Reading…)

Arcanum Miskatonica

by Mike Adamson

Every university has its reputation—some for solid, middle-of-the- road studies in business, medicine, law, others for scientific research, and hopefully all for excellence. But some have shadows behind their ivy-grown cloisters, dusty corners where past mysteries linger, and some secrets are guarded, not merely jealously, but fanatically. I came to Miskatonic University, in the green hills above Arhkam, Massachusetts, as an eager research assistant for the School of Biology, specializing in molecular genetics. I qualified at Brown in my native Rhode Island, but an unfortunate road accident headed off a placement with a commercial research firm, and when I was once more fit to walk unaided, the most promising berth for my talents was with the laboratories of a competing college. A job was a job, and it was time for my career to blossom—a few years solid research in an academic setting was no bad thing, and should propel me into Big Pharma in due course. My parents, at home in Providence, were entirely supportive, though I recall my father speaking in what I felt a strange manner, the evening before I left. “It’s a fine institution, certainly,” he said, nodding into the gathering twilight off the porch, as the first leaves were turning, the drift of red and gold beginning their rain, though summer’s warmth was not yet a memory. “Do be careful, Rick… I know you are, but… They tell strange tales of that university.” He smiled and shrugged, as if dismissing his own disquiet. “It’s a 19th century classic—and has hosted every sort from the brilliant to the lunatic. It’s whispered their collections feature things science has never yet properly understood, and for the most part are buried away so as not to disturb modern thinking.” (Continue Reading…)

It Takes Slow Sips

by Michael Wehunt

Forty minutes to drive eleven miles, and the daylight was souring over the trees behind the apartments. He had left in the dark and just made it home before the dark. For a moment he sat in his car and watched a white dog being walked in the park across the street, its fur almost shining. People were wearing coats now, but it was only September. It had gotten cold two weeks before his favorite season, the one with her name. (Continue Reading…)

The Red Lady

by Mob

Twelfth bell’s chime,
fairest song, and poppy dew.

For the Red Lady,
‘ fore the Red Lady,
stand anew.

Light flowed through the shutters for many hours, its pale fingers raking the room, yet it was an unexpected delivery that finally roused me.

“Parcel for the young Masters.” A faint voice trickled up from the street.

Henri lolled his head towards me from the chaise-longue. His words tumbled out in a drawl. “I do not possess much by way of mastery this morning, might you get the door?”

“Henri, it is the afternoon already,” I said, but went anyway, trailed by his laughter.

Henri never changed, his languid temperament punctuated by spells of artistic frenzy. Skilled before the canvas, and at a multitude of musical instruments, he formed the beating heart of our little group. Indeed, this master’s house in Montmartre was his.

He promised us a retreat, and retreat we did. From the hustle and bustle of the Academy. From our usual haunts in fair Paris’ cafes and bars. Though we’d met through our music, the quiet decadence of the house let loose our greater pursuits. Henri’s painting, Alec and his never-realised path into sculpture, my own writings. What the Academy instilled in skill and rigour, it stole from us in time and breadth of spirit.

Here, we would steal it back. (Continue Reading…)

Douen

By Suzan Palumbo

I see Mama in de cemetery when dey put de white casket in de ground. She was crying so hard she was shaking like when grandma died and Tanty, Mama’s aunt, had to hug Mama up tight, tight, to keep Mama from falling down.

At grandma’s funeral, Tanty say, “Doux doux Shalini, yuh have to hold up yuhself. Yuh have yuh daughter Samantha to bring up. Yuh must be strong fuh she.” Mama wipe she own tears and stop crying den. But she smile was spoil. I try to come first in school and eat all de rice and provision I hate when she cook dem for dinner, but Mama say she heart was broken. Fuh true she eyes didn’t shine full happy like dey did before.

Dis time in de cemetery Tanty didn’t say anything because even she was bawlin’ like a cow with everybody else. Mama was de loudest. She voice was like a cutlass chopping straight through de noise. Daddy stand up stiff next to she and was silent, like a stone.

I know why nobody tell Mama to hold up sheself dis time. It was because it was me dead in de casket in de bottom of de hole. It was my funeral.

Except I wasn’t in de box.

I was standing behind one of de concrete headstone watching Mama and all meh aunties and uncles bawl. I cry too, because I didn’t remember how I get there and I didn’t want to be dead. (Continue Reading…)