The Talisman

by Heather McDougal

They were moving toward her quite quickly, and she stopped, watching. Something was wrong; there were too many of them.

They were no longer yelling, or even talking, but moved down the hill with a curiously desperate stride, their arms flung up as they slipped and slid in the leaves, their anoraks glaring harshly in the monochrome of the forest. There were people behind them, large shapes in odd colors, moving more carefully but just as swiftly.

Eugenia felt a strange contraction in her stomach, and moved behind a small stand of trees to watch. The group of tourists slithered to the bottom of the ravine and began scrabbling to climb up the other side. Behind them, curiously threatening, came a group of other people: very large, broadly-built people with blurry faces, dressed in what looked like golf clothes. The Germans seemed to be terrified of them, and as they approached, neither slipping nor slithering, one of the young men began squealing a little as he clawed his way up the bank.

Lights

by Jack Westlake

The city’s shadows deepen, darken. The sky turns a thicker shade of grey, and then to black. The moon glows behind a cloud. I rest my head on the windowsill. Far away, two cats fight. A distant gunshot like a clapping of hands makes me snap my head up. I’m still not used to this.

And that’s when I notice the light on the other tower block.

My eyes widen. I stare. A red light blinks on, blinks off. Blinks on, blinks off. I wonder what it is. This new thing – this variation in my evening – hypnotizes me.

I watch it for hours. Blinking on, blinking off, over and over.

Dearest Daughter

by Kate Marshall

When you call me to your room, we both know you’re going to die. Your bones are so frail I think they’ll crack under the weight of the thin cotton sheet; I think your skin will burn under the harsh lights of the hospital room. You push a shoebox toward me with a hand so withered the bones shine through. A letter for every year of my life, you say. You try to smile and your lips crack, bloodless, more like torn paper than broken skin.

“Don’t open them early,” you say, voice weak like it’s forced through cheesecloth. “Don’t read them too soon.”

After the funeral I almost tear them open all at once. I have the first one in my hand, my finger working its way under the flap, but I force myself to put it back, close the box. I wait.

I.C.U.

by Tim Burke

Sometimes Keith would wander into the visitors’ waiting room, just so he could see time passing. The window faced south and the room was filled with autumn dusk the color of dried egg yolk.

The monitors beeped and the machine fixed to his father’s throat rasped. The one tube that ran to a plastic jug of amber urine, its tube disappearing under the sheets. Keith imagined the tube sliding up his penis, the pain of the urethra being forced open.

His father did not want to end up an old man tied down in a bed. When he threw a bowling ball down a lane and had to spend five minutes catching his breath, he glared if you even looked at him struggling.

Association

by Eddie Borey

Below the makeshift tourniquet, his arm was purple and rotten, especially around the bite. He untied the belt—-no point anymore in pretending that it could help him. He could see his purple forearm throb at the new rush of blood. The liquid pressure flowing into his arm was enough to break the scabs on the bitemark. Through the ruptured scab-dam, three colors of filth (black, red, egg custard) dripped a Jackson Pollock on the white tile floor. When he felt neither relief nor pain at this, he knew that he was dying.

As if the maggot hadn’t been clue enough.

The Song Of Prague

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

It was the most beautiful song he had ever heard. Haunting, melancholy, but with a magical quality — a soul — infused into each note. The song drew Len to the park, from the very moment he stepped from Vltavska station.