Category: Fiction

Fiction from the Future: “The Passenger” by Michael Sheehan

Caleb came at his appointed time but was surprised there was a line, there was a crowd, a disentangling order of people pressing toward the barrier. Stupidly he’d thought the offworld opportunity, now that it had finally come, would be something cleaner: he’d show at his time, be screened, show his repopulation report and pass,…
Haunted Passages Flash Fiction: “The Magic of Certainty” by Kim Farleigh

Orville, prostate on a Jeep’s hood under a blaze of stars, aimed his gun at imaginary targets. A print of his wife’s last email dropped from the hood onto the desert’s sand. Orville’s typical scowl became a mean grimace after reading: “Don’t be angry now, but I’m in love with Denzel and we’re going to…
New Haunted Passages Short Story: “Abattoir” by Sofia Mosqueda

I imagine my husband as a shrike. This bird eats what he impales, wood splintering, his tree decorated with flesh. They immortalize death when they hang their prey on spines or barbed wire, feverishly pecking at their bodies for days, but their meat is never enough. At night, my husband wakes me by resting his…
“The Kingdom Come Queer Gun Club and Wilderness Survival School”: A Short Story for Bad Survivalist by J. D. Schraffenberger

Early in the first summer of the president’s third term, right before Franny won the lottery, my dad died. The book club had just chosen The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Gus grumbled into his Cabernet that it wasn’t a queer book proper. Franny sighed. This was an old argument. The Queer Book Club…
Haunted Passages Short Fiction: “Grocery List” by Oliver Cubillos

You forgot to lock the front door. How could you be so careless? There’s an intruder in your home and it’s all your fault. Who would break into your home? Perhaps it’s the mailman or the crone next door. There’s a crash downstairs and you slide on your slippers. Maybe it’s that pesky rat. You…
Haunted Passages Short Story: “Storn Williams Goes West” by Perry Genovesi

1. Tuesday Seeing what he thinks is a basketball rolling across the road at night, and then a boy in a pair of nylon gym shorts following it, Storn swerves. The Taurus veers off the asphalt and plunges into a bog. The headlights submerge into murky ink. The engine floods and the intake and transmission…
New Fiction for Flavor Town USA: “Between Now and Forever” by D. Harlan Wilson

I had never stolen anything in my life, not even as a child. I received no guidance from good parents, and to this day, my moral compass remains an elemental lump of shit. Taking things that weren’t mine simply never occurred to me. When I saw the booth, I had to have it. The color,…
Side A Flash Fiction by Keith Woodruff: “Thunderstorms 101”

Thunderstorms 101 That red alert dot on your weather app? That’s us. As a couple, we’re textbook toxic. Our bitter resentment and anger churning up the atmosphere. Expect torrents, damaging winds. Lightning, striking thrice times in some cases. We’ll pick our teeth with the wire bones of your Walmart umbrellas. We have a chemistry, but…
New Flash Fiction for Side A: “dangerous humans” by John Sara

dangerous humans The newspapers will remark on how he was born just before Christmas; December 24, the time doesn’t really matter. His mother, a Catholic, will visit a psychic for reassurance. The old woman will tell her only great men are born so close to Christ. She will take this as a sign of his…