20,000 words prologue: the pattern You never imagined you’d be in a place like this again. Mothers. Fathers. Schoolteachers. Children. All about you, children. To a tiny part of you, this setting i…

3,000 words It’s been a whole month since anyone’s seen Vera, and the circumstances of us finally seeing her this weekend are going to be ultra grody-odd, so I deliberate forever doing my Face. In …

2017 Locus Recommended Short Story 2,600 Words “Say I’m a nigger bitch.” “I am. A nigger. Bitch.” “Say it right: I am a nigger bitch!” “I am … a nigger bitch.” “Yes. You are.” The man stared. He lo…

5,000 Words We ate all the spiders we could find. It was the easiest way. Once they decided they wanted to be inside you, it was better to choke the damn things down than have them crawl into your …

7,400 Words In the flickering amber torchlight, the mummy’s skin was burnished sienna where Jackson peeled the rotting bandages off. When Jackson pressed fore and middle fingers to the slender coll…

By Nick Wolven Weeds rise from the roof. We live beneath an accidental garden. It got worse with the summer rains. The shingles grew moldy, and yellow stalks rooted and sucked at the tar, turnin…

5,700 Words “The Button Bin” was originally published by Helix: Speculative Fiction Quarterly in 2007 You know he’s the one who made your beloved niece disappear. He’s come out of his shop now, fus…

By Forrest Aguirre “A beautiful day,” Langknech giraffe said to friend Tzi-Tzi. And, indeed, it was a beautiful day. The smiling face of the sun shone down from sky blue, and where ther…

By Saladin Ahmed If I die on this piece-of-shit road, Lubna’s chances die with me. Ali leveled his shotgun at the growling tiger. In the name of God, who needs no credit rating, let me live! Even w…

8,700 words It was too early in the season for a plague, but plague never waited on the turn of the seasons. Sarnai knew that as well as anyone. From inside the tram, Sarnai saw wan winter light tr…

7,700 Words “Want some candy?” Aunt Dissy asked when I was seven. Delighted, I thrust open my hand. “Let me see it,” she said. She grabbed my hand before I could hide it in my pocket, forced me to …

There weren’t many three-bedroom houses that a single woman could afford. 1532 Lachmont Drive was an exception. Built in the 1930s from masonry block, it sat in the middle of a line of houses that had once been very similar to it. via Pocket

1957 | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ypuKBE

Cottage Country | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2pGDQ9u

The sign outside Hello Design Coffin Works read, FOR SALE: FANTASY COFFINS. But the little girl imagined more ominous words floating just below the other letters, “Ababuo Need Not Apply.” via Pocket

4,000 Words “I fell,” said the cyborg, and for a moment his audience stood astounded, waiting for the larger speech, the longer explanation. None came. “I fell,” he said once, and spoke no further.…

Michael A. Burstein is a ten-time finalist for the Hugo Award and the winner of the 1996 John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. His fiction frequently appears in Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine, and much of his short work was recently collected in I Remember the Future, from Apex Publications. “Lifeblood” takes …

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io At sunfall, the sellward, the spellcaster, and the wyrmrider paused at the foot of a dune and peered at the sun wester across the Sahael, the sea of sand. They had walked thirty days and were yet to come upon an oasis, caravan, or waykeep. At this r…

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via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io “Shit,” Charlotte Berry whispered as the fog of sleep began to clear. She heard Arthur fumbling in the bathroom cabinet and saw his reflection in the mirror, salt-and-pepper hair and a small bald spot as he hunched over, a medicine bottle close to h… Fugue State | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2JWuf85

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ul7GB6 In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts. You maintain a menu of a half dozen Experiences on your digital blackboard, but Vision Quest is the one th…

In memory of Bob Yano Sr. As the house A.I., she always projected her voice as if just around a corner or down a hall, and it gave the illusion that a real person waited barely out of sight. via Pocket Master Brahms | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2S6FOvZ via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

Alec Chu traveled the high road, swinging his bot through the trees. The wet branches shook with the storm’s convulsions but penetrating the kidnapper’s camp perimeter was easy from up here, and the rain and wind didn’t touch him. Not in the Hole. v… Riding the Signal | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2BBnxRS via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

You’d think it would make us happy when a kid checks out the same book a zillion times in a row, but actually it just keeps us up at night. The Runaway Prince is one of those low-budget young adult fantasies from the mid-nineties, before J.K. via Po… A Witch’s Guide to Escape A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2C1ax4Y

When the dog dies, she doesn’t know she is dying. You shouldn’t feel sorry for her. To her, life lasts forever.  Infants and dogs recognize the flow of time, but not their presence in it. via Pocket

Each morning is a decision. Should I put on the brown mask or the blue? Should I be a tradesman or an assassin today? Whatever the queen demands, of course, I am. But so often she ignores me, and I am left to figure out for myself who to be. via Poc… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Hzt7aG

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io This one was made of glass. He wasn’t all that similar to my son, but he was sweet with a high, gentle voice like wind blowing across branches. via Pocket

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Black stone lying on a white stone. César Vallejo, the author of the poem “Black stone lying on a white stone,” was a Peruvian writer living in Spain in the 1930s when he succumbed to an infection turned totalitarian. via Pocket Toward a New Lexicon of Augury | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2zuMo7L via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io