In “The Poor Girl Taken By Surprise”

by Gemma Files

‘Yet here we sit snug and warm and dry nonetheless, traders and settlers and immigrants bound for even more distant places alike, before this open, welcoming fire; here we may eat and drink our fill and go ‘round the circle in turn, each of we travellers swapping a story for our place beneath this roof ‘till morning. And I will be more than glad to add my own contribution to that roster, if only it should please you to bend your ear and listen.

Repler

by Jonathan Lowe

Then, as he was about to ascend, he noticed the closed pantry door. Not wanting to, but feeling compelled, he paused to twist the knob and nudge the door open with his foot.

The shelves inside were lined with skulls. Canine and feline. Beneath a row of glasses were several stacks of torn magazines. Glossy photos of nude women. He kneeled almost involuntarily, reaching for a small skull among others. Practically indistinguishable, except by shape.

The skull of a baby.

The Blood Garden

by Jesse Livingston

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

She was alone when she died. (Continue Reading…)

The Cord

by Chris Lewis Carter

It’s just after midnight when her screams wake me. Loud, panicked shrieks that slice through my sleep-fogged brain like shards of glass.

“Carl! Get down here right now! Oh my God, Carl!”

I roll out of bed and stumble over to the window. Across the cul-de-sac, I see my neighbour, Mrs. Richardson, bathed in the dull glow of a street light. She’s wearing a flower-print nightgown and has a head full of curling rollers.

“What is wrong with you? Get down!”

Nearly half-way up the light pole she’s standing beside is her husband, Carl, his arms and legs locked tightly around the wood. He’s naked, except for a bright red bathrobe, which is untied and flapping in the breeze like a terrycloth flag.

“Help! Carl! Please, someone, help!”

Yardwork

by Bruce Blake

Tim made a special trip to buy the shovel he used to bury the nameless man. It was easy: a lady in a blue vest helped him without a second thought. A fifteen-year-old buying a spade doesn’t raise concern; it’s not like purchasing a gun or machete, though a shovel could be as deadly. The shovel didn’t kill the man, Tim used it to bury the bits and pieces.

In the end, his father’s garden shears killed the nameless man.

The Voice in the Night

by William Hope Hodgson

It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the Northern Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for the sun had been hidden during the course of a weary, breathless week, by a thin haze which had seemed to float above us, about the height of our mastheads, at whiles descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.

With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck. The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forward in their den, while Will—my friend, and the master of our little craft—was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin.

Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there came a hail:

“Schooner, ahoy!” (Continue Reading…)