Category: Guest

Fiction from guest authors.

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by Sean Mulroy

One night, when seas were high, a bright red crab was washed upon the shoreline of a giant city.

Untitled
Ken-ichi Ueda via Creative Commons

At first the crab was angry at being swept from his home and friends, but then, whilst scuttling back into the surf, he looked above the tide and saw the moon. Awestruck the crab stayed onshore till morning when the pale orb was replaced by a garish sun. He wept.

The night after seas were high and again the crab was swept ashore. This time, however, he was not angry. On the morrow seas were calm but the crab found himself on the beach anyway.

Friends noticed his absence and pondered where he kept going every night. But the crab was a jealous fellow and kept his midnight wanderings secret.

Many tides and moons later, the crab being old and weak-sighted now, he snuck ashore. Having lost his once excellent sense of direction, for the first time, he accidentally faced east—not west—at the ocean. Startled he beheld many moons, countless bright lights, and what’s more they were low, within reach.

Immediately he scuttled sidewise towards them, uncertain whether he’d reach one, but thinking the risk worth it for a closer look at the unattainable.

Sean Mulroy lives in Newcastle, Australia. His short fiction has previously been published in Oblong, Every Day Fiction, and WitchWorks, among other venues.

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by Charles Hayes

Plying the warm waters of a shadowed Sea, speckled with spits of froth and reflected starlight, we ride the ferry for the lost and found. Our crowded cots, tiered across an open deck, pitch and roll, lifting our smell as one, from stem to stern. Legs akimbo with slippered feet, grow across the tiny aisles, bodies hidden by the sacks that haul our life.

Edmonds Ferry at Sunset
Michael Matti via Creative Commons

On the move, going from crumb to crumb, visions of better fare, or to only home somewhere, our nods of passage show, as the knocking screw calls the tune. Sometimes we wander to the rail and stare beyond. If a light of life be seen, suspicions of how its table fairs, or what its bed beholds, float among our spray. Looking along the rail, another’s eye to see, table or bed is quick to know.

With dawn and a port that calls, we rise like Jack’s stalk, among the humps of baggage, mount our loads, as if super ants we be, and string along the plank, to melt into the life we know. Crumb by crumb, visions of a knocking lullaby safely tucked away.

Charles Hayes, a Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and others.

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by Ahimaz Rajessh

{Fast Forward}

The great ephemeral skin lies splayed out inside the Psi Morgue. Black on the outside and likewise on the inside, not red or white. It must be burning degree six. I consider the minutes before burning degree zero: supple skin pressed against supple skin—warmth given and taken, adrenaline rushing, the moments spent caressing, kissing, suckling of pores, and the kindling of passion, rising and rising upward—the triggering of that unheard of sparkle from the base of spine.

{Fast Forward}

“Tox screen confirms hypercarbic vessels and high alcohol level in the system of the male victim. GI report confirms overly gaseous intestine.”

Guy Mayer via Creative Commons

{Fast Forward}

“Aided by ethyl alcohol and gasses of the male, passion lit up kundalini. Female victim, having sustained burns degree four, could’ve escaped from her lover’s embrace but for male’s upper limb burn contractures. A singular twin case of spontaneous combustion—male source of flame himself, female source of flame male.”

{Rewind}

“Ephemeral skin lies…”

{Long Rewind}

“William Zahida. Paranormal Sleuthing, Inc. Case one.

“My olfaction traces no fuels of any kind, only the whiff of burnt fat. Suspect Kamadeva hypoxyphilia. No visual trace of cigarette butts or electric dildo. Suspect Libido-blocking Agents. I see lovers lying smoked up, Gods charred and embraced.”

{Stop}

Ahimaz RajesshAhimaz Rajessh has been published in Apocrypha and Abstractions, Flapperhouse, The Fractured Nuance, 7×20, unFold, Pidgeonholes, and 200 CCs. His writing is forthcoming in Cuento, Milkfist, theEEEL, and Strange Horizons.

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by Jena Krumrine

Pulling out my cell phone I checked the time to see how much longer I had. My mother required me to spend an hour a day with Grandma Thomas while she was visiting and I still had twenty-five minutes left. Once again she was talking to me about life and all I could think of was being old enough to do what I wanted.

“I can’t wait to grow up,” I sighed, feeling her leathery skin touch my hand.

“Don’t be in such a rush to grow up little Lizzy,” Grandma coughed. “Enjoy your childhood. Be free and wild, make mistakes, and have your heart broken a few times.”

“Grandma what are you talking about?” I rolled my eyes.

Old Working Hands
Carmen Zuniga via Creative Commons

“Life is short, you don’t usually realize it till you are older though,” she sighed, “when more years are behind you then ahead.”

“Grandma,” I began as concern over took me, “are you okay?”

“Oh little Lizzy,” she patted my hand, “I love you my dear child.”

“I love you too Grandma,” I threw my arms around her, “I really do.”

“I know you do, dear child. Now, go play I’ll tell your mother you put in your time.”

“Actually Grandma,” I took her hand in mine, “I’d like to hang with you a little longer.”

Jena KrumrineJena was born in Pennsylvania is now a resident of Oklahoma. A mother of two and Aunt to many, she holds an Associate Degree in Child Development as well as a Bachelor in English, emphases on writing. She is the founder and co-owner of Madd Dog Creations, a company that houses Crosshairs Photography, Mutts and Mics, among others. She is currently back in college to obtain another Bachelor in Art and hopes to open an animal shelter. She is the author of maddvillage.com, where readers can get to know more about her.

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by William Squirrell

It took three beers to smell the sweet grass burning in the pool room of the Pembina Motor Hotel, five to hear the murmur of Cree. One night in December a trucker from Trois-Rivières kept buying rounds. I got so shitfaced I finally saw the ghosts.

gaspesie
clod via Creative Commons

I looked up from my shot and a woman stood over the far pocket. She stared at me through the torn curtain of her wet hair; muddy water bubbled out of her mouth and trickled down her chin. At the table behind her, beneath the flickering Molson Canadian sign, an old man sat smoking Players Menthol. The pack lay in front of him, the foil quivering in the furnace breeze. There were no eyes in his gaping orbits. Sallow skin hung from his cheeks, stained as boarding house sheets.

“Come along with me, boy,” the trucker shouted. “You can see the world. We’ll stop in Thunder Bay. I know a whore there who can make her pussy talk: not whole sentences but words.”

Outside the traffic swept down the highway and through the dreaming suburbs. The dead woman began to sob.

“Are you man or maman? Come on!”

“I think I’ll stay,” I said.

William Squirrell is a Canadian writer living in western Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in Monkeybicycle, Blue Monday Review, AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review and other venues. More information can be found at blindsquirrell.blogspot.com

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by Nicholas Antoniak

The night decided it had grown tired of the moon and wandered over to the outer edge of the atmosphere dejectedly. The moon didn’t mind. It was used to the turbulent nature of the night. Characterised by random sparks of dying light. Beautiful in its transience.

Night
Jonas Grimsgaard via Creative Commons

Sometimes the moon would try to cheer it up. Beaming right at it. So bright and loud it would be impossible not to hear. But other times, it would slip behind a darkened shroud. Hiding from dejection. So the night may not see its starstruck tears, flying through the dark with a burning, raging passion, before fading into black.

They always, however, seemed beautiful, to the funny people down below. They visited once or twice, but never stayed long. Those of them far enough away from their vitriolic light could bare witness to the moon and the night’s tragic waltz. Sometimes the moon would notice, and point this out to the night, and they would smile, if only for a moment in time. If only for just a moment.

Nicholas Antoniak is an 18 year old emerging Australian writer. He writes both creative fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. In July he will commence a bachelor of arts majoring in philosophy and sociology and hopes one day to become an author/poet/philosopher.

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by Jessica Walker

It's A New Day | Red Meets Blue
Ashley Adcox via Creative Commons

“Don’t leave.”

“Sweetie, I have to.” My daughter’s fingernails left crescent moons tattooed into my skin.

“Please.”

“We’ve talked about this. Why does Mommy have to go?”

“To protect me.”

“And all the other little children.”

“Like Maggie from kindergarten?” Ice tinkled inside her sippy cup. “But not Ellen. She hogs the crayons.”

“Even Ellen, honey.”

She seemed to weigh whether my departure was worth protecting her nemesis. “Will you bring me back a teddy bear?”

“I don’t think they have teddy bears there, but I’ll find something.”

“Christmas present!”

“Let’s make it a surprise. We don’t need a holiday to give a gift sometimes.”

A horn beeped outside. Cinderella’s carriage waited. If only a prince was the prize, and not another tour overseas in a desert far, far away. I slid my feet into my boots, and swung my bag over my shoulder. How long until my hands—which had softened from washing dishes and playing teatime—hugged a rifle’s trigger with ease?

“Be nice to Daddy, okay?” I kissed her, breathing in the aroma of baby powder and freshly cut grass.

She stood with her thumb in her mouth. No smile, no hug.

The taxi drove halfway down the street before the ice inside me cracked, and the tears poured.

Jessica WalkerJessica Walker is a writer who uses fiction to make sense of the world. She has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine, Eye Contact, and Corvus Review. Her best work happens with a cup of coffee in hand.

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by Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber

Green Shades
Evelyn Berg via Creative Commons

When I saw you I saw you with laser-beam sight as I left Empenadas by Stella still singing; I sang my girl’s name and I knew all my light was projected in open-faced stance; as one sinning, her car coat swung in; I pushed open her door; my right hand slipped smoothly along her warm waist, unspooling her laughter, my hand finding more, I could sense my wife passing, my tongue knew her taste and I thought about standing and stammering saying but she is so warm and so firm and so willing – a true son of Belleville, a Belleville worth slaying, whose gold in the palm runs unmelted and chilling –  a moment a minute I feign an excuse, my tongue all a-tumble, unthreaded as Theseus now tired of treading a labyrinth life that reduced me to eyes seeing only the clew… in New York in your bed over more royal tread do I hear the train hear the train hear the train take you but trailing behind were those shining steel threads that were caught in the caught in the stairs’ endless climb; I will pin down your pines, then, Oh Minna: I’ll break you.

Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber has fiction in SmokeLong Quarterly, New South, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Shotgun Honey, and she is a Best Small Fictions 2016 Finalist. She reads for Pithead Chapel, reviews for Change Seven Magazine, and is writing her first novel. Follow her @AEWeisgerber, or visit anneweisgerber.com

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by m.nicole.r.wildhood

Balloons
Matthew Peoples via Creative Commons

The first week, my classmates brought their parents in to tell us about their jobs themselves. One girl’s mom is a cop who catches moms like mine wandering the streets in teetering heels and jewelry around their wrists and necks that clatters like teeth in cold. Ms. Shaeffer decorated with balloons and streamer paper that tasted like stale salt.

The second week was for the kids whose parents couldn’t come. Like me. We had to tell our peers about what are parents did to keep us fed. The red and blue and green streamers are still up, though they’re drooping like frowns, and the balloons are heavy looking. Ms. Shaeffer doesn’t understand why I don’t want to share and moves a bouquet of tired green and purple balloons next to me at the front of the room, smiling like my grandma before she forces a spoon of cod liver oil into my mouth every morning at breakfast.

In front of the class, I gag just like that, but as silently as I can. We have to talk for seven minutes. The only thing I can think to say is how my dad splits stones and digs ditches by the roads and how my mom loves any man who needs it.

m.nicole.r.wildhoodm.nicole.r.wildhood is a Colorado native who has been living in Seattle—and missing the sun—since 2006. She has been a saxophone player and registered scuba diver for over half her life.  In addition to blogging at http://megan.thewildhoods.com, she writes poetry, fiction and short nonfiction, which have appeared in The Atlantic, xoJane, The Atticus Review, Five and elsewhere. She currently writes for Seattle’s street newspaper Real Change and is at work on a novel, two chapbooks (one in Spanish) and two full-length poetry volumes.

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by Howard Rachen

It perched in the weeping willow like a vulture.

Moon Over Pamlico
Jim Liestman via Creative Commons

When the moon arched its highest, the house lay dark. An hour later clouds drifted across the bone-white crescent in the sky, plunging the yard into the deepest of shadows. Only then did it climbed free and prowl across the side yard.

In the back, just over the air conditioning unit, the creature sank claws into the outer wall. It scuttled like a lizard, the only sound the tiny crinkling squeaks of the aluminum siding rending beneath its nails. Small, agile digits scratched and worried at the window until with a shudder the unlocked glass slid up. The screen peeled away like a stubborn cobweb.

With a spider’s artful silence it slid through the window, avoiding toys on the floor as it settled into a crouch. The creature unfolded and crept to the bed.

It peeled back the covers and slinked inside.

Until the sky began to lighten in the east the creature lay curled around its teddy bear, surrounded by the toys it had once knew and the memories growing harder to hold each night.

Howard loves horror. When not writing spine-tingling tales, he sits as an Associate Editor for EMP Publishing. Aside from wringing words of wicked wrath, he writes fantasy under another name.