Genres: Modern Fantasy
Owl hadn’t been real to her since she stopped reading WINNIE-THE-POOH on her thirteenth birthday. That day, she realized she had become Eeyore, losing her metaphorical tail in real life.
Later, her husband hadn’t been real to her since the divorce.
Even later, the rest of Clementine Dresden’s family had faded from her life one by one.
Genres: Science Fiction
The new kid was skinny with big round eyes and a head like a melon. Worse, thought Sam, the kid has a goofy smile like he doesn’t even care he looks like a walking lollipop.
“Class,” said Mrs. Vogt, “This is Zack.”
“Zaxx,” corrected the boy. “I’m not an alien,” he added.
The class laughed and Mrs. Vogt smiled. “Class, this is Zaxx’s first day. I would like for someone to show him around the school.”
No way, thought Sam, just before a shove forced him out of the line he’d been standing in.
Behind him, Kelli gave him that, I didn’t do it, because I’m such an angel look.
“Thank you, Sam,” said Mrs. Vogt.
“Happy to help,” he said. Sam scowled at Kelli who stuck out her tongue.
Genres: Fantasy
Hello everyone. Here in England the seasons have completed yet another quarter turn. The leaves are falling, the wind is gusting, and the pumpkin spice lattes have been packed away faster than you can say Christmas sales.
To accompany the longer nights and contemplation of the cycles of life, this week we’re proud to present The Mothgate, by J. R. Troughton, originally published in Shimmer.
19th September
“This is your most important lesson.”
It was a rifle she handed me. Long and cold, ornately decorated. It was heavier than I’d expected, heavier than the one I had practiced with. She laid the barrel on the low wall before us and that helped.
“Watch and wait. No mistakes, Elsa. I know what is coming,” she had said, staring off into the trees. “Look for the butterflies. See them, and you’d best be ready to shoot what’s coming behind.”
We knelt behind the crumbling wall, rifles balanced over its brow, peeking over the moss-stained stone and into the dense trees that lay beyond. I tried as best I could to stop my teeth from chattering, but the winter night was bitterly cold. Mama Rattakin didn’t seem to notice. She was staring toward the tree line, pointing with her black and withered hand.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Horror, Horror Sci-Fi
Hungry for more horror flash fiction? Then head to the Pseudopod forums where this very moment yours could be the deciding vote in the “two stories enter, one story leaves” ritual that is the flash fiction contest. The three winners will be purchased and run in a special Flash on the Borderlands. For those who comment on the stories, Pseudopod will randomly select a few lucky winners to receive copies of the excellent Women Destroy Horror by Nightmare Magazine. Horror stories and the chance of even MORE horror stories and commentary by participating in a thriving horror fiction community? The only thing more sure is that somehow, some way, your trick or treat candy will contain at least one of those strange honey nougat things…
They tell him he’ll be happy when he gets there. It was wrong, what was done to you, they say. We’re making it right. You’re going home.
The kind ones, who call him Mark, are pleased. They have a party, with foods from his planet. He chews the edge of a gray leaf so bitter it closes his throat. He’s used to coke and animal crackers. You’re going home, they say. No more soda, no more sweets. No more rooms with white walls and bright toys. No more needles, treadmills, tests. Home.
They won’t tell him what home is, only what it isn’t. He pictures a toyless, colorless, cokeless expanse. He pictures fields of bitter gray leaves growing beside silver pools. He tries to picture others like himself, but he is the only one he knows. He populates his imaginings with mirror-reversed copies of his own face. Pale blue fur and liquid black eyes.
At night, he wraps his arms around his chest and makes low choking noises as he tries to cry. He’s never quite gotten the trick of it.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Science Fiction
Hello everyone, sorry we’ve been away for a while. Make sure you listen to the story for that important announcement we mentioned.
Bill Holt rushed into the star ship’s meeting room thirty minutes late and set his banjo down on the metal conference table. “Sorry to keep y’all waiting, “ he panted to the half dozen people. “Earl didn’t show up today.”
Skaggs, the top official from Galactic Mining, took a long slow sip of coffee. “Who’s Earl?”
Bill adjusted a couple of strings. Banjos were temperamental and had to be tuned constantly especially in the constant heat and humidity of this alien world. “Earl Scruggs. Greatest banjo player of all time. Bluegrass legend. Flatt and Scruggs.”
Skaggs responded with a blank stare.
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
You can find the Uncanny Magazine Kickstarter here.
Makeisha has always been able to bend the fourth dimension, though no one believes her. She has been a soldier, a sheriff, a pilot, a prophet, a poet, a ninja, a nun, a conductor (of trains and symphonies), a cordwainer, a comedian, a carpetbagger, a troubadour, a queen, and a receptionist. She has shot arrows, guns, and cannons. She speaks an extinct Ethiopian dialect with a perfect accent. She knows a recipe for mead that is measured in aurochs horns, and with a katana, she is deadly.
Her jumps happen intermittently. She will be yanked from the present without warning, and live a whole lifetime in the past. When she dies, she returns right back to where she left, restored to a younger age. It usually happens when she is deep in conversation with her boss, or arguing with her mother-in-law, or during a book club meeting just when it is her turn to speak. One moment, Makeisha is firmly grounded in the timeline of her birth, and the next, she is elsewhere. Elsewhen.
Makeisha has seen the sun rise over prehistoric shores, where the ocean writhed with soft, slimy things that bore the promise of dung beetles, Archeopteryx, and Edgar Allan Poe. She has seen the sun set upon long-forgotten empires. When Makeisha skims a map of the continents, she sees a fractured Pangaea. She never knows where she will jump next, or how long she will stay, but she is never afraid. Makeisha has been doing this all her life.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Steampunk
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
It felt like I had been here forever. A punishment for a crime I didn’t commit. Still, it was necessary just to save a few coins to buy a measly meal. Every day was grueling and today was worse. The muscles in my arms felt like they were going to snap. My shovel dropped to the floor with a clang. Sweat dripped into my eyes as I dared a quick break. The other boys kept shovelling. The huge furnace bulged as it was fed. Hot red steam billowed out of its pipes and clouded the air. Pulling off my shoes, I sat in a lump of coal and rubbed my aching feet.
“What are you doing?” whispered the boy next to me. “You’ll get us-“ The door burst open with a violent bang that sent a shiver up my spine. A large figure filled the doorway, blurred by the steamy air. It was the Coal Master. He was a black silhouette against the light pouring in from the deck. The dirty wooden floorboards shook as he stomped in. My heart beat so fast it nearly flew out of my chest.
Genres: Science Fiction
Megan watched with dull eyes as Alan’s tendrils undulated above his head, making odd silhouettes on the garage wall. He grew more excited, his beige skin turned mauve as he finished his breakfast beer.
She rocked her lawn chair slowly back and forth in the early morning sun. She barely heard Alan as he went on and on about his most recent trip, to see the giant Easter egg statue in eastern Alberta, and the other attractions he’d visited since she’d left town last year.
“I took an, erh, hologram of the egg,” he told her gleefully, his voice thick with phlegm. “For my, erh, scrapbook.” His English was good but some things apparently didn’t translate well.
“It’s Dad,” she blurted out. “He’s dying.”
Genres: Science Fiction
This story marks our fifth appearance of Cy De Gerch. You can find all her previous adventures here.
As Utopia Plain accelerated away, Captain Brown switched from aft view to forward where the star field was beginning to blue-shift. On the weapons repeater beside him the Terran ship was sliding into the sights. The repeater’s identification lights were on, blinking insistently.
At fire control Lieutenant Cy De Gerch stared at her weapons screen and said, “Range to targets now four point five million and closing.”
Across from her, Lieutenant Peters flipped back the plastic cover on the I.F.F. override and jabbed his finger down on the sensor panel. It lit with the words Genetic Code confirmed.
“Identification Friend or Foe override operating, sir,” he said.
“Range four million and closing,” said Cy.
Genres: Horror
Do you love flash fiction? The Escape Artists podcasts are hosting their fourth annual flash fiction contest, starting with Pseudopod this year. The submission window runs from August 15th through September 15th. All the details can be found on their forum.
Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. “At our school,” said A., “we had a ghost’s footmark on the staircase. What was it like? Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with a square toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never heard any story about the thing. That seems odd, when you come to think of it. Why didn’t somebody invent one, I wonder?”
“You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own. There’s a subject for you, by the way–‘The Folklore of Private Schools.'”
“Yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine, if you were to investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be highly-compressed versions of stories out of books.”
“Nowadays the Strand and Pearson’s, and so on, would be extensively drawn upon.”
Genres: Science Fiction
On Pluto, there were pterodactyls that flew in V-flock formations. Sarah had never seen pterodactyls that flew in V-flock formations.
This was not demoted-to-dwarf-planet Pluto. This was a lush and fantastic Pluto, which Sarah and her companions discovered while returning from their discouraging voyage to the system of Poseidon. (Perks and promotions had been promised on their finding the fabled god’s trident. Alas, all they’d found were dusty moon rocks, and there were plenty of those next door to home.)
On Pluto, fresh fruit dangled from the trees. They camped by the beach, where the sand was pink and pale. It was a welcome respite, and no one was eager to hurry back home. Here, the weather was lovely. Curious creatures populated the land. Silver otters and sapphire hummingbirds. Tiny compsognathus that scampered in the beach grass.
It was Tony, their systems engineer, who discovered them. “I’m good with animals. Look, I’ve got this guy eating out of the palm of my hand!” he said.
“Maybe it’s him that’s good with you,” Sarah said. The compsognathus crushed Tony’s walnut like a marshmallow.
(Continue Reading…)
Genres: Fantasy
When Princess Draciona was born, it was obvious something wasn’t quite right. She had emerald eyes and viridian hair. Most unusual of all was her scaly, moss-tinted skin.
“This baby looks a little like a . . . ahem . . . dragon,” said Prince Rupunzelson (named after his great-grandmother).
“No, no,” insisted his wife, Princess Penelope. “That’s just green eczema. She’ll outgrow it.”
Prince Rupunzelson nodded and decided to let his wife worry about it. He would rather think about battle.
But Princess Draciona did not outgrow her eczema. To make matters worse, when she started to teethe, she grew sharp, dagger-like fangs. When she didn’t get her way, she sometimes breathed fire.
“Princesses do not breathe fire just because they don’t get their way,” said Rupunzelson, who was king by now.