The storm brought the sea into the village. Waves rolled between the huts and rattled doors, gurgling, sucking, and slapping like some clumsy creature that wanted to come inside. Gilli could not stay huddled with her family. It sounded so alive she had to look. She crept to the door and opened it a crack, … Continue reading Sea Change by Robin Husen
Before time began. An island of exiled gods at the edge of the world. Here, earth is stars unwound. The god Basari has been here forever and a little more. His crime? Unable to bear the idea of death, he tricked the Queen of the Underworld into a boat that sailed for the end of … Continue reading A Wide Sky Multiplied by Suzanne J. Willis
In the years after your retirement, you’ll continue to make regular visits to the cafe where your wife once worked. This will be one of the two indulgences you still allow yourself. One such occasion will fall on a snowy afternoon in early December—you’ll push the door open with a jingle, stomp off your boots, … Continue reading A Shared History by Seth Marlin
I live down in the pockets of the deep woods, where the crickets sing at dusk. This is where I’ve lived for a long time. A long, long time. Time in these mountains is a capricious master, sometimes shredding days like wheat fields under a scythe, sometimes keeping single hours captive like a gnat in … Continue reading Skin by Gretchen Tessmer
One mistake is what separated Nellie from the others—the “fakies” as she called them. Nellie was no Miss Francine, and she certainly wasn’t a part of the, even worse, Psychic Sisters Network. She told her eight-year-old grandson, Sam, to mute the television every time one of the Psychic Sisters’ cheap ads came blaring from the … Continue reading Those Fantastic Lives by Bradley Sides
Programming online. Log 3251CE.432CD Hello, world. Today I was told that the log debug message that my programmers use to ensure my record-keeping functions are online and working is part of a joke that the ancient computer builders would tell each other. I asked to know more about this joke, but Philemon and Bao-Shin got … Continue reading Objective: Understanding by Alyssa N. Vaughn
Some Stuff This story is probably about you. It’s not the one where I’m the girlfriend. It’s the one where I wish I were the girlfriend. I lived beneath street level, windows with prison bars. I was like a stale sandwich wrapped in a bandana. I was carrying a too-heavy load of Biblical knowledge. I … Continue reading He Thinks He Knows Me by Rich Ives
Ani King is the Editor in Chief and founder of Syntax & Salt Magazine. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Strange Horizons, Penny Magazine, and Every Day Fiction. You can find her at thebittenlip.com and on Twitter. I Give it Six Months originally appeared in Jersey Devil Press, May 2016. Thing is, you … Continue reading I Give it Six Months by Ani King
Georgene Smith Goodin’s work has appeared in numerous publications, and has won the Mash Stories flash fiction competition. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the cartoonist Robert Goodin, their four foster children and two dogs. When not writing, she is restoring a 1909 Craftsman bungalow with obsessive attention to historic detail. You can find Georgene … Continue reading Ghost Hunting by Georgene Smith Goodin
R. Daniel Lester’s writing has appeared in print and online in multiple publications, including Adbusters, Geist, Broken Pencil, Pulp Literature, Switchblade and, most recently, Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon. His novella, Dead Clown Blues, from Shotgun Honey and Down & Out Books, was shortlisted for a 2018 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novella by the Crime … Continue reading Some Say the World Will End in Fire by R. Daniel Lester