Report On The Flanking Action

by Larry Blamire

From the action report of Captain William Meecher:

“…the engagement ended with the capture of most of the hostiles and seven killed. Among our casualties, one killed and eight wounded. Still unknown as of this date is the fate of Hollis, lieutenant, B Company, and a detachment of the 4th Infantry, along with B Company’s scout, who, as part of a flanking action, were dispatched to the adjoining foothills in support of the cavalry, in hopes of setting up a line of fire above the enemy. All attempts to locate the missing patrol thus far have met with failure. At this late date it does not bode well for their return…”

Captain William Davis Meecher,

Company B, 8th Cavalry

Sept. 13th, 1873 (Continue Reading…)

Ba’alat Ov

by Brenda Tolian

In the night, the spirits spoke with hisses and gurgles like serpents wrapped around my head. I awoke covered in sweat, barely able to breathe, so afraid of what they would ask me to do. They whispered things over and over, crying out for understanding. There was never a choice in my action, only the act itself or madness.

The gift of the Eshet Ba’alat Ov was taboo but if not sent by Elohim, then who? What other power could overtake a child in such a way? My grandmother said it was the power from Asherah, the Lady of the Serpent. She told me this, forbidding me from saying the name out loud. Women were killed for less, and for us, death came slow behind brick or below the soil. (Continue Reading…)

See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

by Josh Rountree

Dig a hole, climb in, cover yourself in grave dirt. Not your face. You aren’t ready to join the dead, not yet. (Continue Reading…)

How to Win a Dance Contest During an Apocalypse (In Nine Easy Steps!)

by Gwendolyn Kiste

Step One: Find the perfect location. After all, you can’t win a dance contest if you don’t know where to go.

You see the dance floor for the first time when your parents are checking in at the hotel.

“They said on the radio that there were rooms left,” your father is arguing with the concierge who is staring back at you blank-faced from behind the desk.

“There are rooms,” the man says slowly, “for all the good it will do.” (Continue Reading…)

The King in Yella

Kaaron Warren

I’m always returning to Rapptown in my thoughts. Unbidden, unwanted, I’m taken back there. A hint of yellow. The smell of smoke. These things blind me to the present. I haven’t lived there for sixteen years, since I was seven, and mostly what I remember is dreamlike and unreal. That’s what kid memories are like, right? Blurry and odd, not making much sense.

Sometimes I’m transported by these subtle things and other times the method is more concrete. The arrival of the brooch was as concrete as they come. Accompanied by a note from my mother (sorry, was supposed to be for your 21st but forgot! I am a dopey drawers. love mum.), such note stained with what I hoped was red wine and perhaps suntan lotion, envelope postmarked Brisbane.

I remembered this brooch, although no one I knew ever wore it. It sat on my father’s dressing table in a purple velvet box, and every now and then I would sneak in to spy on it, touch it. I thought then it must be worth a million dollars or more, because it was made of a dull, yellow metal that must be gold. My father said the King in Yella gave it to him and I remember the look on his face; of reverence and of fear at the same time. When my father died and we left Rapptown, it must have been packed away; only my mother could answer to that. (Continue Reading…)

Resilience

by Christi Nogle

Jason gets home while I’m at the sink. He comes up behind me, holds me around the waist, and tickles the side of my face with his soft new beard. We watch the young squirrels shake a tree branch, listen to them chatter through the open window. They zoom across the front yard and across the street.

“How was it with Dr. Emory?” asks Jason. He already realizes his slip. “Watson, sorry.”

“Watson-Newcamp, actually. She’s wonderful, just as promised,” I say.

As soon as I say it, I wonder if I mean it. The new doctor, just thirty or thirty-five, struck me as someone I might do yoga or lunch with, but she spoke just as slowly and gently as Dr. Emory. Her round eyes were so dark you almost couldn’t make out the pupils.

“I’m glad he left you in good hands,” says Jason. I think he might stay and talk, but he has chores too. He takes the garbage and recycling bins out the back door, then our son Simon comes rumbling down the stairs. That’s all I see of either of them until dinner.

Simon’s ten now, but he still doesn’t know about my past, so we don’t speak about the new doctor over dinner or while we wind down in the living room. I’m thinking of her, though. When she asked what I’d like to talk about, I assumed that she wanted to hear my story, though doubtless she already knew a lot. When I was six, I was the sole survivor of an attack that left my entire immediate family dead. Watson-Newcamp didn’t let on that she knew anything in particular. She just let me speak. (Continue Reading…)

The Son

by Horacio Quiroga, translated by Shawn M. Garrett

It was a powerful summer day in Misiones, with all the sunlight, heat and calm that the season brings. Nature, fully resplendent, feels satisfied with itself.

Like the sun, the heat and the calm environment, the father also opened his heart to nature.

“Be careful, little one,” he said to his son, abbreviating in that sentence all he knew of the day’s plan, which his son understood perfectly.

“Yes, dad” replied the boy, while he took the shotgun and loaded cartridges into the pockets of his shirt, which he carefully buttoned.

“Come back at lunchtime,” the father observed.

“Yes, Dad,” the boy repeated.

He balanced the shotgun in his hand, smiled at his father, kissed him on the head and walked away. (Continue Reading…)

“Billy’s Garage”

by Richard Dansky

Billy was a weird kid.

I don’t mean he was weird in the sense that he liked roleplaying games or heavy metal or anything like that. He wasn’t really into that anyway, and the kids who were, well, they were only nerds of one stripe or another.

Instead, he was just kind of creepy. When you talked to him, you got the feeling he was focusing on a point about an inch inside your skull instead of making eye contact. He talked about weird stuff, too, if you could get him to talk, which wasn’t often. Mostly he kept to himself, and mostly the rest of us liked it that way.

But I drew Billy as a lab partner in biology, which meant that he and I had to talk on a regular basis, and I guess that got him thinking we were friends. We weren’t, but I at least tolerated his conversation, which made me closer to him than anyone else.

One day we were supposed to dissect frogs. A bunch of kids in the class begged off, claiming it was against their religion or something when really they were just afraid it was going to be gross. But not Billy. He was totally into it, at least until the dried-out frog carcass we were supposed to take apart landed in front of us.

“Shit,” he said.

“Watch the language in front of Mrs. Stamper,” I said. “She’ll send you to detention.”

“Oops,” he said, and then “Thanks.” He prodded the frog with the scalpel we had been provided with. The frog, being long dead, did not react.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “All these frogs have been dead for ages. They’re dried out. Their ghosts are gone.” (Continue Reading…)