Category: Haunted Passages

“Static Pressure,” a flash fiction for Haunted Passages by Cooper Shrivastava

I am 612 feet below the surface, and I am furious. Eric is connected to my dive belt by an 8-foot rope. When I look in that direction, I feel myself getting angry again and I purposefully let it go. At these depths, an increase in heart rate and breathing means increasing my risk of…
“Leap of Faith,” an ekphrastic short fiction for Haunted Passages by Mark Blickley

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Leap of Faith I’m a dead frog and I don’t say this with any pity or understanding or shame, it’s just an observation that people seem to like us, like us a bit too much because they like to push hooks through our jaws and cast us…
“Cobweb Lake”: A Short Story for Haunted Passages by Hernán Ortiz

My friend and I were skipping stones near the bodies that floated on the surface. We imagined that if the ripples touched them a hundred times, the bodies would wake up. But if the stones touched them instead, they would stay asleep forever. Most were thin stones we collected among the undergrowth that surrounded the…
John-Michael Bloomquist: Four Father Nescio Poems for Haunted Passages

Father Nescio and the God Pill—after Carl Sagan When the machines grew all our foodand drink, there was no need to workor study. We lived like passengersin a self-driving car traveling without adestination. When Christ, grieved over ourrestlessness, came back into our lives,she gave us Theophorin, a gel capsule of slicknanotech-spiders that wove us into…
Su Nadeau: “Juniper,” a short story for Haunted Passages

The twelve-thirteen train derailed on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It was the only one that passed through this way. This meant Lupon and Wren devoted their time to clearing the wreckage so each train had the opportunity to wreck on its own. A quarter after noon on Saturday the train was heard before it was…
Amanda Chiado: “A Pretty Girl’s Hair,” a short story for Haunted Passages

“Where’s mama?” Bobby asks. “She went to the moon,” Dad says. He sucks hard on a Marlboro. Most of the smoke escapes out the window. I think of Mom drifting in a silvery spacesuit toward the strange botched face of the white orb. We three stare out the windows. Journey is Believing on a half-static…
Aaron Teel: “The Quality of Mercy,” a short story for Haunted Passages

When I was boy no older than you, but taller of course, and squarer of jaw, I came by moonlight on a fortune teller’s wagon parked alongside a smallish river or creek, stopped short of ascending the three wooden steps that led to the wagon’s candlelit window, and eyed its proprietor where she sat weaving…
“Our Mutual Friend”: A Short Story for Haunted Passages by Stephen Langlois

My daughter Arabelle, she was the first to hear them. They woke her Thursday night before last, tapping on her window. Maybe not tapping so much as clinking. I heard the same sound since. Right here in the kitchen and elsewhere, too. A quick, sharp, hollow sorta sound. The sound of digits what ain’t designed…
Haunted Passages: “Business Travelers,” a short story by Bernard Reed

Foster was in town again. We took a cab together and had a late lunch in an empty little restaurant, after meeting in the lobby of the La— Hotel when my shift there was over. It was his second visit that month. He was staying in a hotel called the Gw—, a swanky new one…