Front Row Seats

by Scott William Carter

Daniel lingered in his cramped office at the University of Minnesota long after the other professors in the Math department called it a day. He was still there when all the lights under all the doors winked out and the parking lot outside his window was a bleak, snow-draped emptiness. He was at his desk when old Cal Thomas from Geography shuffled past, taking his incessant coughing with him. He stayed until the equations on shifted lattices turned to squirrelly nonsense, lines and squiggles on ruled pages, until finally he felt the thing creep into his thoughts, that black starfish wrapping its prickly limbs around whatever memories he chose to dwell upon, making his ears ring and his eyes water.

Jihad over Innsmouth

by Edward Morris

A cold, black, liquescent fear laps at the edges of my heart as I approach the first gate in the long Caliph’s Maze of Airport Security. Some darker force is trying to sway me unobtrusively away, to make me renege my retainer’s oath, cut my losses and run headlong to South America with the dwindling remains of my bank account.

Should I die on my quest, a first-class seat in Paradise awaits me.

In my time, I have lived through every hell Shaitan could possibly devise right here on Earth, moving behind newspaper headlines which even Al-Jazeera fears to run. Enquiring minds want to know, but some truths are better left to the darkness at the center of the universe, to be drowned out by the skirlings of the blind piper and his retinue of idiot flute-players.

Pattern Masters

by Jeff Carlson

Sauber wasn’t crazy. He’d planned on never hitting the same place twice. He even kept a check-list — near the toilet, in case it needed to be destroyed in a hurry. But two hundred and nine days crawled past before he’d bagged every store in Berkeley and Oakland, so it seemed impossible that anyone would remember him at Greenwald’s, his favorite. His first.

Sauber was at the register before the girl stopped him. “Those are mine,” she said, reaching out.

He held the packet against his chest. “What?”

“Look at the label.”

Of course he’d already studied it carefully. Thirty-six exposures, regular 35mm film. Jennifer Crisp. The address, written in delicate cursive, was just two blocks from here.

The Book in the Earth

by Lavie Tidhar

“Excuse me,” said the old man by the door. He was hidden from view behind the bookshelves, and though Gerald had seen him come in, he couldn’t see who he was talking to. “Does the presence of this chapter make it the true first edition or the second state? I can never remember, you see, whether ‘Fathers’ is the missing chapter or the correct one.”

“The pulped version, of course,” said a gruff voice behind the books.

“Ah, of course. Thank you.”

Gerald sat behind the counter, wrapped up in a coat, wondering what on earth they were talking about. He applied for the job at the small bookshop just off Charing Cross the week before, and to his surprise the owner — a short, stocky man who looked more like a bare-knuckle boxer than a bookseller — hired him.

“You start on Monday,” he said. “And don’t let the bastards steal anything or spend too long in the basement. If they start tapping on walls, or doing any other strange shit, kick them out.”

Mr. Mendoza seemed to have a low opinion of his customers. After a week of being left in charge of the shop, however — Mr. Mendoza having left for an unspecified length of time on what he called, in his strangely accented English, a “trade trip” — Gerald began to wonder.

Geist

by Chandler Kaiden

At first, there was only numb horror.

He couldn’t move his arms, couldn’t catch his breath. Everything was black. The thick stench of mildew, of rust and minerals, coagulated in his nose and throat. Steaming water spilled over his forehead, rained into his eyes, seeped between his lips. Brackish, foul water, full of chemicals.

It seemed to go on forever.

He tried to move. But he was confined, his limbs pressed tightly against his body.

When the water stopped, he heard dull, heavy thumping, like the machinations of an enormous water-logged engine.

The air was thick with steam. The foul water collected around his eyes, spilled into his nostrils, packed his sinuses.

There, in the wet darkness, he tried to drown himself. He inhaled the water. Tried to hold his breath — that breath he’d been instinctively fighting to catch when he came to — and found that he could hold it and hold it and hold it, and nothing happened.

_I want to die._

Dear Killer

by Vinnie Hansen

When had the idea first possessed her? Victoria peered about the dim one-car garage and squatted to look under the counter along the wall. Pushed behind the containers of old paint, the new bag of concrete stared ominously back at her. Ben had hidden it like one would an Easter egg from a child. Did he think she was such a dolt she wouldn’t notice? She came out here regularly to do laundry.

Ben had not said anything about a project requiring concrete. Neither had his hunting buddy Jack. They always worked together. But there had been nary a word about fixing a fence post or repairing the walk. She dragged the bag from its hiding spot, proud of her strong, lithe body, even if Ben’s eyes constantly swiveled toward cleavage.

She forced herself to read the directions. She glanced around the garage for a water container and decided she would have to use something from the house—the thermos, maybe, or the plastic pitcher, but she didn’t want to return to the kitchen any sooner than necessary.

Homecoming

by B.J. West

“How long’s it been?”

“Almost a year.” She dabbed her eyes on her sleeve. “Seems longer though. Gavin joined the Army just after we got married. They transferred him to Fort Hannah when things started heating up with the Indians.”

Missy continued plucking clothespins. “My daddy was in the Army. I think I saw him two weeks out of every year, usually at Christmas time. My momma said that sometimes she felt like a widow.” Selena nodded again without looking up. “You must really be looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.”

Selena only shrugged. Missy stopped and put her fists on her ample hips. “You don’t look too excited about it. What’s the matter?”

“I’m scared.”

“What for? He’s still your husband.”

“I’m scared he won’t come.”