Big Boy

by Ron McGillvray

Peter finally came across a channel which had a video of the smoke he’d seen, rising in the air. He looked at the TV screen in wonder as flames shot out from within the smoke. Must be a doozy, he thought as he stood mesmerized in front of the TV.

A young woman appeared on the screen with the smoke as her backdrop. She held a microphone and seemed about to speak but instead looked back at the fire as if it might be sneaking up on her. Peter thought to himself what a cool job that must be. He thought that maybe it might be something he’d like to do when he got older. He looked over his shoulder to see if any of the kids had decided to follow him in but the coast was clear.

“From where I’m standing, I can easily feel the heat of the fire,” a woman’s voice said.

The Disciple

by David Barr Kirtley

Professor Carlton Brose was evil, and I adored him as only a freshman can. I spent the first miserable semester at college watching him, studying the way he would flick away a cigarette butt, or how he would arch his eyebrow when he made a point. I mimicked these small things compulsively. I don’t know why, because it wasn’t the small things that drew me to him at all. It was the big things, the stories people told as far away as dear old Carolina.

You heard the name Brose if you ran with any cults, and I ran with a few. Society rejected us, so we rejected them. The more things you give up, the less there is to bind your will. There’s power there. We were sure of it. But that power was damned elusive.

The Hanging at Christmas Bridge

by David E. Hilton

A mosquito bit him promptly on the neck behind his left ear and upon giving it a good smack, George Steckholm realized with utter terror that he simply was not dreaming. He was in his car, in the heart of the night, and he was idling motionless in the middle of the dew-streaked road, idling, idling, in front of Christmas Bridge.

In the cream-colored passenger seat laid an object. One that made him turn away immediately, still half hoping that he’d see Catherine, lying beside him in their bed. The confusion was the worst part, the grogginess, the spinning motion in his head and in his stomach that made him want to both pass out and be sick at the same time.

“No. No . . . I never purchased that. Never bought such a thing. Not at all. Did I?” He whispered everything to himself in a manner that suggested sharp denial. Yet the large bundle of rope remained, sitting there so innocently, but something deep inside George knew better than to believe there was anything innocent about it.

Goon Job

by G.W. Thomas

“I’m just here for the book,” I said, impatient to get my hands on it again.

“Of course, you are. Mr. Telford told me you knew quite a bit about this book yourself. Please, sit.”

That should have been my first clue. Book renters don’t share the eldritch secrets they pull from their reading. To ask is the height of rudeness.