Fiction

The Machine

Graveyards creak with too many bones, and the weight of headstones, and when the wind blows the air is dusty with the dead. Ah life, its hoary inevitability. What’s the point?

In July 2011 (Issue 52)

Fiction

Union Falls

by J. S. Breukelaar

But the girl was kicking off her other shoe and at the Casio before Deel had worked out but what. And what she pounded out with her feet was Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.”

In July 2011 (Issue 52)

Fiction

You Have Been Turned into a Zombie by a Friend

by Jeremiah Tolbert

You know all about bending and breaking their terms of service; it would take some serious hacking, magical or mundane, to pull this off. But you suspect magic.

In June 2011 (Issue 51)

Fiction

Graham came out of the desert leaving most of his men dead behind him. He debriefed, he bathed, he dressed in a borrowed uniform, and without food, without rest, though he needed both, he went to see the girl.

In June 2011 (Issue 51)

Fiction

The Immortality Game

by Cat Rambo

Decades later the music was what really tipped Glen off. He heard a song on the radio, a brand new release, and remembered the day he’d first heard it, twenty years earlier.

In June 2011 (Issue 51)

Fiction

A Prince of Thirteen Days

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

I clear my throat. “Mister Statue Man,” I say, because I haven’t grown up on the Border without learning to be polite around magic. “Do you think you might have sex with me?”

In June 2011 (Issue 51)

Fiction

Sandmagic

by Orson Scott Card

Where are the uncles? Cer thought. The uncles must come. But the uncles were not there, and Cer heard a terrible scream from inside the garden walls.

In May 2011 (Issue 50)

Fiction

The Devil in Gaylord’s Creek

by Sarah Monette

I got my sword out of the trunk. Its name was Stella Mortua. John Ray hadn’t had a clue, but Francis told me what it meant: The Dead Star.

In May 2011 (Issue 50)

Fiction

Creation

by Jeffrey Ford

I learned about creation from Mrs. Grimm, in the basement of her house down the street from ours. The room was dimly lit by a stained-glass lamp positioned above the pool table. There was also a bar in the corner.

In May 2011 (Issue 50)

Fiction

Study, for Solo Piano

by Genevieve Valentine

The windows go first, from enemy fire and bad frosts. Then the moss and ivy move in, and the birds, and the rain. At last, the brick begins to crumble. By the time the Circus comes, it will be a ruin.

In May 2011 (Issue 50)