by Kit Zimmerman

“This…lingering—it’s harming others, too. Those you love. You can endure it. They cannot. Try to remember that.“

by Luanne Castle

“Where she expected to find smooth keyboard geometry, she discovered a grotesque smile of cadaver ivory inset between the ebony keys…teeny bits of gold, silver, and porcelain sparkled…under the fluorescent light overhead.”

by Katie Goto-Švić

“ …they thought you’d go far. They didn’t think it ever needed to be said. You’re gonna go far, kid.. But now…with gentle pity, they tell you how well you’ve done just getting out of bed this morning.”

by Rachel Racette

“…she watches the swirling vortex of darkness and death. A massive blackhole that’s slowly sucking in the other darkened ships filled with soon-to-be-dead passengers…She still hears them --those agonized screams over the screeching sirens…”

by Courtney Burton

“I was a tall buxom blonde with a Sagittarius tattoo on my hip and you were a lean, tan silver fox with a cigarette perched between your fingers.”

by Dodge Zelko

“Not since Hellraiser had he seen so much flaying, whipping, and gouging, though to be perfectly honest, Hellraiser hadn’t made him half as queasy. Maybe it would’ve if he’d watched it with a twelve-year-old.”

by Roger D'Agostin

“The last two weeks of August were good.  Her grasp on my bicep was gentle.  But on the first night of autumn, Mary covered her ears and complained about the crickets.  Her nails left marks in my arm. “

by Nolan Knight

“The detective flashes his penlight over a slick of blood. Eyes the busted back door, scans the yard. Body was moved. That’s three this week. Or was it last week?”

by Walter Weinschenk

“The sea is a tumult, a terrifying process, and I’m too scared to venture out, too afraid to move, but too afraid to be alone…”

by Sumitra Singam

“Seema and I sit with our backs to opposite walls. As far apart as we can be in this tiny, circular space. She gets the benefit of the breeze from the open doorway – they fan her ankles that have become thick with her swollen sense of status.”

by Steve Gerson

“Something is truly amiss, Johann.  I sense an apparition, a spectral augury, a dark wraith . . . eavesdropping.”

by Amir Szuster

“It all began mango-yellow. The way he peeled me, chewed me, satisfied himself with me. All night together, an intense and vibrant flavor. We could spend hours without growing tired, like a child climbing a mango tree before lunch.”

by Faith Murri

“I am grateful for my doppelgänger, who sits in my chair and stares out of my eyes, because she keeps the secret of me so well.”

by Seth Parker

“His fingerprints, already stained in ink when his body was found, identified him as one Matthias Krüger, while dental records list him as Juma Mwinyi. His neighbors knew him as Tahonetsakon Deerfoot.”

by Christie Chapman

“Every morning you go to the potions…They work if you believe in them. And you do. You have to..”

by Clare Martin

“I serve the soup and together we eat the pain, the wasted years, the anger, and the loss.”

by Vivian Littlefield

“Can you separate her from herself and does it part for you like the sea for Moses? Is it exciting?”

by Megan Chunn

“…the plump, fig-like lower lip, partially bitten by her incisors, then parts. Ready to be plucked and consumed.”

by Brooks Egerton

“Once the interment is complete, she presses her forehead to the wet ground, inhales the sweet dark churning work of earthworms, squeezes her eyes shut, pictures her mother’s gap-toothed boyfriend and the drawer where the spoon belongs and the butcher knife that also lives there.”

by Nolan Knight

“And you emerged? Someplace else. Not L.A.? No. Where? Dunno—magnolias sprouting gumdrops, a sherbet sky—pterodactyls overhead.”