Alix was never sure what kept the groaning rickety-spider of a dock up, unless it was the mussels that swarmed over the piles, turning them to hazards that could slice a swimmer open. The divers were all over scars from waves and mussels, always being pushed into shell sharp as knives and leaving their blood …

We buried the first ones, nice and proper. It sounds foolish now, but what could we do? After all, they were still our children. via Pocket

There he is in the tub. Note the pores on his nose. Note the scarred cheek, the breakout here and there, angry ripe things red with a dot of white all ready to burst. Note the long hair, which I tried to wash last night; I’d put his head under the f…

Delayna snapped the first crow’s neck without thinking about it. She had learned this from her parents. Before they robbed and prostituted their way out of her life and into prison, they had taught her to ignore the weight of sin and instead focus o…

June 26th 18–– A.D. Today, on a teetering skiff, I reached Whalebone Island. Mister Franklin crosses the inlet twice a month to deliver mail and supplies. In three years, he has never seen Loretta’s face. She hides behind a veil. via Pocket

Welch fucks the ghosts in the orchard. Before, it was the alleys, but the bricks of the five and dime were rough and the alley ground too wet and cold. In the orchard, it’s all long grasses gone to gold, the softness of rotting trees and fruit under…

Fade in. The street is ermined in thick fog. The corner of a building solidifies through the mist, all filigree balconies and tall, winking windows. Hibiscus and hydrangea droop over the ledges like spent revellers. via Pocket

The jinn came to Madiha just before dawn. She sat frozen, covers pulled up to her chin with trembling hands. via Pocket

Tentzin urged his yak up the mountain before dawn, high above the prayer flags and incense cauldrons of the staging grounds. It was spring, but too early for funerals to be conducted. Those who died over the winter would need to be brought up the mo…

Wolf Street Orphanage was a house exploding with girls. The skinny tall brownstone stood crooked on a street of other brownstones, its striped curtains concealing rooms full of long hair and exuberant voices. via Pocket

Stab here with index before you tuck into foul feast. Hour at which the blind see, when night unfurls her wing and goes out, silent as shaft of moonlight. Hour of the witches’ feeding; on primal pain, on corrupt love, on toothless cherub child. via …

The Hurrah (aka Corpse Scene) - The Dark Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OtE3qV

There wasn’t much for us boys of that little fishing village to do but fish. Wake, fish, eat, fish, sleep, fish, rinse and repeat. It was one endless cycle of sea-worn canoes and heavy nets and stinking fish. via Pocket

Bearskin - The Dark Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2IIw0o9

by Tara Campbell It was another damn cottage, another damn grandmother, frail and helpless, waiting for a handout sent via grandchild. The wolf knocked, ate the grandmother, choking down her string…

by Paul Beckman I wear hearing aids even though my hearing is perfect. I wear them to keep from hearing all the sounds, voices, animal noises and whispers that fight each other for my attention. Fo…

by Andrew Stancek The hospice in Lamac, a Bratislava suburb, has seen better times. The carnations on Vlasta’s side table drooped and the hall reeked of cheap institutional disinfectant which in sp…

by Charmaine Wilkerson His mistake, he thought, later. He’d sent a lengthy text message to the other homeowners, asking them not to flick cigarette ash off their balconies, where, down below, the b…

by Michelle Ross Bea presented to her classmates a drawing of an ancient Egyptian priest inserting a long bronze hook through a corpse’s nose. The task of the hook was to smash and dislodge brain m…

by Matthew Licht There are worse jobs than booze delivery. Many Beverly Hills Liquors’ customers who ordered in were movie stars reluctant to venture out into the human world. Once, I delivered ten…

by Louise Mangos Amidst the acrid smell of chemical dyes and dusty elements of overheated hairdryers, I am looking forward to an hour of pampering. I lean back against the faux-leather headrest, an…

by David Swann I found him fumbling along the corridor in the last café before the Scar. He was an Asian guy in baggy shorts and clomping boots. Boisterous. Middle-aged. What you might call a chara…

by CR Smith Alfred leapt from the train and weaved his way through the cobbled streets until he reached the King’s Head. After purchasing a book of matches from the waif outside, he pushed his way …

by David Cook “Try some,” Dad says. “It’ll make you smart.” I shake my head and look disgusted. “My Dad,” he tells me, “ate his earwax, and his Dad before him, and they were very brainy men. Rememb…

by Nicholas Day Tom’s nipples had bled right through his shirt. Embarrassment is why he now insisted on running before dawn and why he placed Band-Aids over his areolas. Vanity brought him to the m…

by Sandra Arnold Serafina slipping out the gate at playtime. Running home to show her mother the star. Her first star. Bright and shiny on the page at the bottom of her story. Right next to THE END…

by Sebnem Sanders Ivy fascinated Ivan. English, with prominent white or yellow-green veins. Boston, with a reddish bronze colour in the spring, and bright, deep green during summer, turning to shad…

by Cornelia Fick Aunt Janet choked on her beer, and then wagged a finger at her husband, Ted. “I hope the worms eat you ragged, you swine. I hope they start on your soft parts.” “That was uncalled …

by David Cook “Jack, as you all know, was a man with a curious hobby. Some would call it an obsession. “His thing with jack-in-the-boxes started when he was six and I was three and Dad got him a ru…

by Beau Johnson “It breaks my heart is what it does. Because of this, I think it’s fair I keep this little sermon short.” Under overhead lights, upon stainless steel tables, my words bring tears, c…