Category: Fiction
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Madeline Vosch: “The Place Between Tongue and Teeth,” a Haunted Passages short story
At night it fills my mouth, this unnamable, unmournable ghost. I don’t know who it is, but on calm nights it tastes like smoke and cedar. On days when the wind sweeps in, hard and angry from the north, it tastes like ocean salt. It pushes against the corners of my gums, pressing down on…
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Honor Vincent: “Boots,” a Haunted Passages short story
It was, as it always is, the cat who first noticed that the number of ghosts squeezing themselves into the apartment was increasing. The cat shared the apartment with a man, two young cats named Mimi and Sisi, and the usual variety of things that made their crawling lives in the walls and dark corners…
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Andrew Bertaina: “A Good Day’s Work,” a Haunted Passages short story
The man threaded his way down the long rows of bodies with an old wheelbarrow, careful as he rolled, to avoid an outstretched hand, a folded leg, the acrobatics of the dead. The light bore down on his back, harsh and unrelenting as he worked in the tree-less, thankless cemetery. Velvety beaked crows lined the…
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“Becoming Gods,” a flash fiction for Haunted Passages by Steve Gergley
Oh, Jesus. Just try to relax. You’re okay. God. You’re okay, I’m right here with you, just like always. Just take it easy. Oh man. Okay. Yeah, that’s good. Don’t worry about getting up just yet. Just lay back and relax for a while. Okay. How are you feeling? I’m sorry, but I don’t really understand…
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Haunted Passages: “Thank You for Shopping with CouchCart,” a short story by Tara Campbell
Tara Campbell (taracampbell.com) is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. She received her MFA from American University in 2019. Previous and upcoming publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and CRAFT Literary. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and two collections, Circe’s Bicycle and…
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“Inked,” a Haunted Passages short story by Kara Oakleaf
My first tattoo appears the morning after Ian’s funeral. I wake up and press my hands into my eyes to keep out the reality of another day, and immediately, I recognize his work, his clean lines tracing a mountain range in the center of my palm. The skin surrounding the image is raised and red,…
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“THE PRISON FORECAST”: Excerpted from Agitprop for Bedtime: Polemic, Story Problems, Kulturporn and Humdingers by Charles Holdefer (Sagging Meniscus Press)
A portable collection of polemical bedtime stories for adults, addressing such timely topics as: erectile dysfunction during the national anthem, what happens when Nancy Pelosi comes calling, and what Model A Fords say under certain conditions. THE PRISON FORECAST “Welcome, Tim!” “Great to be on the show, Jill!” “So—what’s your outlook on today’s prison market?”…
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“We Followed the Goldfinches”: A Bad Survivalist Short Story by George L. Hickman
The year that Jack and I rejected everything man-made, we drove into the mountains. Our 2010 Corolla was man-made, but we didn’t mind that. Its low hum encased us, carrying us through rolling hills. How strange to plunge into our new life in the outdoors from behind the walls of a sturdy metal tube. How…
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Ben Segal: “Hungry Ghosts,” a Haunted Passages flash fiction
Ghosts eat ghost hamburgers from ghost cows. You can’t kill a ghost though, so the ghost cows are eaten piece by piece, fog slabs sliced off their lowing bodies. Such practices of piecemeal slaughter flourished in the time before refrigeration and were banned as cruel by Kosher law. Ghosts are in this way heretical, or…
