Category: Haunted Passages

Haunted Passages: “eraser,” new poetry by Tariq Shah

They erased me yesterday.After they took up the gavel, hammered the sound block, the wheels setinto motion.They assembled their people into teams.Notary publics, solicitors general, coders, flame throwers, telephoneand wrecking ball operators.It was quite early the morning they commenced.A sky still the blue pink of gloveless winter hands.Quite quiet.I don’t know what to do.The new…
Em Mingus: “Confession,” new poetry for Haunted Passages

I don’t know where to startOr where you want me to startBut I’m hereAnd I’m tryingAnd I’m sorryI don’t remember much of last nightMaybe I had too much to drinkWe all make mistakes, right?I remember there was a lump in my throatAnd I remember being scared to speakAll the windows were shut and the air…
Susan Nordmark: “Last Ghosts,” two flash fictions for Haunted Passages

Last It’s not even a rag. It would be a good idea to visit. What the doctor cooked up is not at all sustainable, I’m wanting to say. The hip replacement seemed to go well. I relied on it for a long time. We had a dull finish and dents from inappropriate handling, and some significant splitting. Eventually I…
“The Manufacture of Biomechanical Slime-Horrors Sets a Bad Example for the High School Science Club,” a Haunted Passages story excerpt from the conspiracy horror anthology Freaky Tales from the Force: Season One

Elected as county sheriff on a paranormal defense and anti-goblinry platform, Sheriff Cecil Kotto has defended the citizens of his Rust Belt community from secret societies, malignant aliens, blood-stealing nonprofit organizations, and more. To document his war against the paranormal, Kotto stars in Freaky Tales from the Force, a local documentary-style public access television show…
Mike Corrao: “MANCER,” a new short story for Haunted Passages

The subject denotes themself as a collection of individual objects. Each organ and limb and vein its own sentient mass. And as such, the body becomes insufficient. Its whole not whole enough. More matter must be accumulated. The subject enters new yet under-materialized spaces. They observe the geomantic qualities of this environment and then, when…
New Fiction for Haunted Passages: “The Rose Salesman” by Daniel Beauregard

A man makes a living any way he can, sometimes even by selling roses by the side of the road; who are we to judge what merit such work has or make statements for or against it? Is it not work, and work, no matter what one does, is a thing to be cherished by…
“Encampeth,” a novel excerpt for Haunted Passages by Pam Jones

Once, when ET was a kid, a stranger came into the house. It was not a break-in; how could it be, if the fellow had come up the walk and through the door as though by invitation? Her mother was at home, but in the backyard. ET had been the one to greet him, as…
“A Night, Like Any Other, or Ooh, That Smell,” an excerpt from Gristle, weird tales by Jordan A. Rothacker

Gristle is alchemical theatre, a collection of weird tales, twelve fingers on the steering wheel, with D.H. Lawrence and Sylvia Plath asleep across the back seat, Chekov shivering on the hard shoulder… Gristle is a post-beat riddle, a comedy, a nightmare … Gristle is Salinger descending from his eyrie with a bottle of Thunderbird. Jordan…
“Mud Witch,” an incantation for Haunted Passages by Michael Sikkema

this pit’s everything a mouth of sky Mud Witch dreams me in her teeth it all vibrates wrong when the pain stops this pit’s everything gathers worms moles beetles so I don’t starve I cup mud it all started with the sinkholes we lost the whole golf course Mud Witch grabs the rope over my…