When I was fifteen, my younger sister died. It happened very suddenly. She was twelve then, in her first year of junior high. via Pocket

Ruth knew there was a burn ban. The ban was until 6 p.m. and it was almost dark. She thought she could burn the trash. The fire had gotten away from her. She and Sam were using blankets to try to beat down the flames. The small volunteer fire depart…

PodCastle 538: Itself at the Heart of Things

“Colonel, we can’t hold the line. Radars don’t work. The bastards have taken our coasts and Rockies. If Kansas falls…” “Drop it, Major.” The aged Colonel McDaniel leaned over battle maps while dripping sweat in his dirt bunker, studying alien strate…

Mom always told me my blackberry pie tasted like hers. We’d both be bent at the waist, shoulders hunched, sturdily pushing rolling pins through flour-coated dough in the tiny kitchen. Heat would pool at the back of my neck and under my arms as the o…

Hishi’s claws ticked on the polished floor as she ran. The sound was barely audible, yet the teeming corridors emptied ahead of her. News had spread through the great city, out and down from the bl…

Carla sat on the edge of the metal railing that lined the motel’s third-floor landing, gripping its paint-chipped bars with long, slender legs. Black lace stockings disappeared into a tattered bathrobe and a lipstick-stained cigarette rested between…

PodCastle 537: To the Moon

As soon as I saw this photo, I got an 80s vibe, and I also got a vampire vibe. It took me a bit of thinking to put together something I really liked, but scent was a big thing right from the get-go. Listen to the story on the podcast. via Pocket

When David got to work that morning, he discovered a large shell on his desk holding down errant pieces of paper. He smiled. His coworkers were always razzing him about how messy his desk was and n…

via Pocket

We could see straight down to the bottom of the Guadalupe river that day. There were turtles, minnows, and rocks covered in algae. We walked along the banks, scoping out the perfect spot to sit and pretend we were carefree. Jeromy sauntered with his…

Author : Morrow Brady When pigeons deviated in mid-air and windless leaves rustled, the hidden dreamers were about. A detector notified me it had seen something, so I went to my balcony and tuned m…

Author : Beck Dacus “Sorry,” Merida said, “but why did we let him come aboard with a gun?” She looked warily at Jonathan’s holstered pistol, his hand guarding it from her and preparing to dra…

Author : Bob Newbell Wachter ran out of the bank just as the alarm sounded. It was not an auspicious beginning to what Wachter had imagined would be a long and successful criminal career. The telle…

Author : Andy Tu Reach into me and fix the leak that’s dripping my youth away. The creams, the antioxidants, the buckets of ice baths—what good have they done but stall the crawl of age? My first w…

Author : Beck Dacus “Sorry,” Merida said, “but why did we let him come aboard with a gun?” She looked warily at Jonathan’s holstered pistol, his hand guarding it from her and preparing to draw it. “You do know why he’s here, right?” Vennix asked her…

They are not awake. They have been asleep for days, years. They lie sprawled across train platforms, clutching cellphones, notebooks, and mp3 players. Their hearts barely beat, drowsy with decreased metabolism. Their fingernails have grown long, cur…

I never thought I’d live to see The End. In fact, the way I figured it, no one should see The End, I mean, that’s why it’s called The End, there is nothing after that, and certainly no one to see it. And yet, here I was. Floating gently in the shutt…

We’re cutting it damn close. The three Gyth gliders are closing quickly as we jink in and out of the towering rock spires attempting to stay out of their line of fire. We’re gaining altitude quickly enough, but Kharla’s running low on water to conve…

Author : N. R. Crowningshield Vanessa let the shower water flow over her hand. The old pipes moaned and shrieked as the shower head spewed into the white pedestal tub. The temperature of the of liquid changed from cool to warm to hot. Steam pillowed…

Wachter ran out of the bank just as the alarm sounded. It was not an auspicious beginning to what Wachter had imagined would be a long and successful criminal career. The teller had initially thought he was kidding when he’d asked for $20,000 in cas…

Trevor waited in the Jump Box. Grey electrodes threaded from his scalp and bobbed like Medusa’s curls as he amped himself up on electronica. I really need this A, he thought. The Lander sat at the stage’s opposite end, in an identical translucent ch…

Reach into me and fix the leak that’s dripping my youth away. The creams, the antioxidants, the buckets of ice baths—what good have they done but stall the crawl of age? My first wrinkle, curving upwards from my left brow like an evaporating tear. A…

“Relax. Breathe through your nose and count backward from ten,” said the technician. She was wearing a white isolation suit, one gloved hand twisting the flow regulator of the anesthetic, the other on my arm in a sterile and entirely unsuccessful at…

The following story first appeared in architect and author Ralph Adams Cram’s 1895 collection Black Spirits and White: A Book of Ghost Stories. via Pocket

For weeks, Sprite had told herself that Ratchanee Malakul was helping her hero get better, but no. “You have to accept that Jaran is never going to have sex with you,” the lifeguide told Sprite, as she was leaving on that last day. “You’re wrong,” s…

At the nurses station, Qina and Auntie Han were the only two left on duty. Everyone else had already gone home, relief flooding their faces as they exited the ward. Qina wasn’t her usual carefree self—but who could blame her? She was in the middle o…

This is a story that ends as all stories do, eventually, in deaths. When Ada’s parents died in the winter of her sixth year, she was sent to the neighboring parish to live with her aunt, Margery. via Pocket

And then there was quite a long time with nothing to chase. No suggestive tracks in the ice, no hopeful stories told by misinformed strangers. The air didn’t hold any name glancingly resembling her name, and there weren’t even rumors about intriguin…