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

2,275 Words Listen to the audio edition of “When the Fall is All That’s Left” # # # For Gabriele, gravity had ended. She spun unmoored, drifting in the outgassing light that spill…

By Nir Yaniv Translated from Hebrew by Lavie Tidhar This story is part of a special issue of Apex Magazine guest edited by Lavie Tidhar featuring international writers in support of his anthology T…

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 …

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…

9,400 Words Having seen the reggaezzi perform, the righteous of Sea-john shake their heads in wonder. They will then murmur severally or as one, «Légendaire.» [Tonight] The cavalcade forms u…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

14,000 Words 2017 Hugo Award Winner — Best Novelette WSFA Small Press Award-winner Grandma Harken lived on the edge of town, in a house with its back to the desert. Some people said that she lived …

7,300 Words “Señora?” The man standing at my screen door is travel stained. Migrant, up from Mexico. The dogs haven’t heard him come up, but now they erupt in a frenzy of barking to make up for the…

2018 Darrell Awards Finalist 10,100 Words Each invitation, written on thick paper, hand-sweet, heavy stock. Deckled edges. Shadows grow long. The cicadas whir in the heat. She descends the great st…

4,800 Words I was born with a tongue, but the others were not. This is how it is: We who live on the edge of the Heap are different. Harper’s arms are no more than nimble flippers that sprout expos…

4,600 Words The Second Coming was something of a washout, if you remember. It lit up early-warning radar like a Christmas tree, of course, and the Israeli Air Force gave the heavenly host a respect…

750 Words The ghost in my attic is Margaret, but she lets me call her Margie. She was seventy–six years old when she died, and now that she’s a ghost she sits in her rocking chair day and night, ho…

4900 Words By the time Lila and Bridger arrived, the sitting room floor was already part savannah. Yellow grass grew on dirt where hardwood had once been. The border between grass and floor hissed …

Tory writes, draws, and codes in Los Angeles. Her fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Drabblecast, and PseudoPod, and her art has appeared in Strange Horizons, Apex, and Spellbound. I can&#82…

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 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…

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.…

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…

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 …

4,600 Words The Second Coming was something of a washout, if you remember. It lit up early-warning radar like a Christmas tree, of course, and the Israeli Air Force gave the heavenly host a respect…

Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released the first Tue…

For Jerry, there was a before — sitting on the train home from Connecticut, where he had been visiting his father, suspended in that agonizing twilight of life in which he was unable to distinguish…

6,200 Words 1. “There’s a marked difference between brain functions, knowledge, and mental potentials,” Martin Hull said to Marilee Frith-DeGeorgio at Mike’s Steaks on 47th Street just east of Gran…

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 …

3,100 Words In the beginning, the story goes like this: a fisherman brings home a selkie wife. He spies the maidens bathing in the salt-cove by the sea, their great, glistening seal skins heaped on…