by submission | Nov 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
I saw her sitting at the terminal, small carry-on bag at her feet, doing something on her cell phone. She looked like a woman who had lived a good life, up until that moment, and was satisfied with her accomplishments. I took a long, slow breath and went over and sat down in the attached seat next to her.
Having not taken any of the other empty spaces around us, she cut her eyes to me, sizing me up. An older man, full beard tinged with gray, tinted glasses and a flat cap were all red flags for a nefarious character. Before she could get up and move to another spot I spoke to her.
“Mrs. Anderson, right?”
Now she put her phone down and looked at me full on. Our eyes met for an instant and I lowered mine, brushing an imaginary speck off my pants.
“Do I know you?” she asked, suspicion in her voice.
“I was one of your son’s high school teachers.”
“Lincoln Memorial High?”
She was smart and wary, deliberately lying about the school to test me. Lincoln Memorial was the school in the town next to hers.
“No, Western Madison.” I quickly went on so she didn’t have to come up with some silly excuse why she had gotten her son’s high school name wrong. “It was his freshman year. I only remember him because he was a proficient student, far advanced in his science knowledge.”
“I don’t remember meeting you.”
“The science teacher that started the year, Ms. Blackwell, was pregnant and had some difficulties towards the end of the pregnancy and was out for five months. I was the substitute until she came back in mid-May. I don’t believe we ever crossed paths during my tenure.”
“I think I do recall that now.”
Again I continued, because I didn’t want her to question why an unknown substitute teacher, who I wasn’t, would recognize her in an airport. “I heard through some academic colleagues that your son graduated with honors in just three years and landed a full ride at Caltech. Applied Physics, I believe. I hope he is doing well in his first year there. Is that where you’re going; to see him?” I shouldn’t have said that.
“Yes, but-”
“I remember his grasp of the general relativity concepts and Einstein’s theories were inspiring. He was determined to accomplish things that had only been suggested -” I stopped myself before saying ‘at that time.’
An awkward silence followed as she scrutinized me. I had to get the rest out before I bolted away. “I remember him saying that you were the reason he was so diligent in his studies. He wanted to achieve something that no one else had done.” I swallowed hard before finishing, “He wanted you to be proud of him.”
Then the flight attendant behind the reception desk announced over the speaker that the plane was now boarding. The words made me cringe as if I had been slapped. I had to get the hell away. “Good to have met you, Mrs. Anderson.” I stood up and went to leave but she reached out and touched my wrist.
The warm hand, the soft skin constantly rubbed each night before bed with lavender hand cream, the nails tastefully short and unpolished, the wedding ring she never took off even after her husband was gone forcing her to be a single parent; it all registered with me in that frozen moment in time.
“I have always been proud of him.”
I looked briefly into her eyes, nodded and left immediately before she could see the tears streaming down my face. I walked away with a purpose. I could not watch her board that plane that would never arrive. And I was ruined by the knowledge that I absolutely could do nothing to prevent her from getting on either. I concentrated on the placement of each brown shoe as it stepped on the multi-colored rug, and then the next step in front of that one. Anything, not to contemplate the reason why my creation had been a success and a curse. Or the despondent need that brought me back to this point.
She picked up her bag and went onto the line with the other passengers headed for the jet bridge and softly said to nobody but herself, “Goodbye, son.”
by submission | Nov 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Leigh Therriault
My home is a tomb after school. I slip my key in the lock, twist my wrist left. Pin tumblers aligned, the plug rotates. I’m in. I kick off my sandals, let my backpack fall to the floor. It’s almost autumn but I refuse to wear shoes. Not yet. For my feet, it’s still summer, even if it means they have to freeze.
The remote floats up to meet my hand. I click the television on. Talk shows are a balm. Even if I only have thirty minutes to rest before my paper route. I flop on the couch, let the bold florals swallow my wispy form in one gulp. My lack of hunger still surprises me. I haven’t eaten in weeks.
I remember the wilderness survival course we took last year. My dad’s idea, while my brother and I moaned. My mom tried to hype it up. You never know when these skills will come in handy, honey.
I can identify edible berries and poisonous fungi. Cattails are nutritious and delicious, so try to get lost around a marsh or pond. However, water is not the first thing to go hunting for. Exposure will kill you long before thirst.
Build a shelter with branches, sticks, and leaves. Keep your body off the ground. Conduction is a killer. Even summer nights can be fatally frigid. Even tranquil nights that begin with the warmth of a campfire by a lake. Ripples of water, wonder, spreading to the other side. Water so smooth it lures you in. The moon so wide, you reach up to grab it like a greedy child.
The spell cracks. The drive home. Winding roads that are too narrow, too twisty. But you are still mesmerized by the Milky Way—dreaming of one more marshmallow, golden and gooey, stuck to the stick. And the smoky air clings to your t-shirt, your sandals still speckled with sand.
My house has spirits. The past only exists in memories. And memories are personal, subjective. But if we all recall the same thing, that makes it real. So I forget. Every day. And I try to help others forget too. Maybe then, we can change the past. Alter the present. Shape the future.
The grandfather clock chimes, breaching my trance. I am still bound by time. I drag myself off the couch. Stuff my feet back into my sandy sandals. I’m out the door and the lock rotates right. On my bike, pumping the pedals. At the drop-off spot, sidewalk stained with ink.
I pick up the papers, shove them into my shoulder bag. People want their news on time. My fingers slip; inky pages flutter down. A headline flashes from the cold ground, solemn like a gravestone. I jerk my gaze away at the sight of the word, CRASH.
I push off the pavement, balancing my bike. The spokes spin. The gears grind. Sunshine spills from a bowl above the clouds. My last route on an infinite loop.
People need their newspapers on time.
by submission | Nov 6, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
“Inside this suitcase is the dismembered body of a man and one of the tools you used to kill him. Your fingerprints are on it. You must dispose of the suitcase in the Miyamae River in 24 hours, or I will inform the police.”
Hosokawa was hyperventilating. Komatsu was limping in a circle. Morioka was staring. They knew what they had done, but how did someone find out? They had planned everything so meticulously when they chose the man. The ambush was simple. He was a quiet man from another place, on a limited-term contract. He worked late, passed through the bicycle shelter behind their office building, and went into an unlit street, where he always walked alone. He was perfect. His disappearance would mean nothing to anyone.
The time was 1:15 a.m. Everyone had long gone home. The two elderly men in the campus security booth were snoozing, and the little town was sleeping. The three simply had to be sure the man did not scream.
He put on his down jacket, ear warmers, and newsy cap, turned off the lights, locked the office door, and walked to the empty café downstairs. He exited the side glass door, locked it with his ID card, and went to the back of the building, not seeing the shadows of the short broad-shouldered woman, the long thin man, and the burly fat woman. He walked and turned into the unlit street where there was only forest, a small statue, two dilapidated houses, and memorial stones.
Komatsu struck the back of the man’s exposed head with a mallet. He collapsed. Hosokawa arrived with the van. She smothered chloroform over his nose and mouth. Morioka zip-tied a bag over his head. They carried the body into the van, and they drove deep into the thick bamboo forest in the small mountain nearby that no one visited, and there, they performed wildly and lustfully with axe, knife, and saw.
They finished, breathing heavily, heaving the weighted breaths of passion, breathing, breathing, breathing. They were quiet now. There were no words. They buried the tools and left the body for the hungry foxes and badger dogs, and the only thing anyone knew the next day was a brief story in the evening news of a burned van on an old woman’s orange field.
So receiving the threat, Hosokawa, Komatsu, and Morioka were deeply troubled. They text-messaged each other.
In Komatsu’s office, they whispered what to do. Hosokawa and Morioka agreed to heed the warning — dispose of the suitcases in the river or spend the rest of their days trapped with the thieves, rapists, and sociopaths. The thought terrified them. They liked their comfortable tenured lives, and they were not willing to give everything away simply because they had realized their dream to murder a man.
In the frigid night, they drove, brought the suitcases to the Miyamae River, and anxiously threw them into the fast rushing water, where the luggage traveled and was swallowed into the mouths of the storm drains.
A week passed, but then, there were three more suitcases with the same note and, the next week, the same thing again. The paranoia and madness came, the three declaring and denying that one of them had disclosed their secret. They were sure the little street and mountain road were unlit and unmonitored. They had carefully studied the municipal and crowdsourced maps online. So, they concluded, there must have been a camera in the bicycle shelter, from where they had followed the man before entering the van.
They chose a night three days after they had disposed of the third set of suitcases. They went to the dark space, and each of them, with anguished suspicion and unreason, drew out concealed knives — striking, slashing, and stabbing at one another in a bipolar manic orgy of fear, joy, and hate, the three collapsing onto the cold ground, bleeding until they bled no more.
From the second-floor window of an empty office above, the man they had killed observed quietly.
by submission | Nov 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The pews were full. Resplendent sunlight coursed through stained glass and lit chiseled stone with undersea warmth. Soaring arches resounded with song, a lifting and longing for connection. One filament. Two. Tendrils, ganglions. Physical connectivity. Hard wired.
Then, the abominations, ever-placed at the back. Ever patient. Never touching but always in touch. Borganics pinged and streamed, a binary cacophony, a sacrilege to all organic. But, one could be broad, one could conceive of such a mind, such an inorganic desire. Sentience pushed them together. Thought was thought (though some disputed that).
Still, the prickly distaste for the abominations, even on this day. The celebration of the first mass, the first gathering. When stone and stem, flesh and metal inexorably arrived at choice.
Parish or perish.
Creation had responsibilities. Native organics relented. Even abominations might possess unalienable, sacred rights. Hand, paw, flipper, tendril unwillingly extended.
Given even slim opportunity, borganics self organized. Uplifted. Transcended. Became forged flesh.
Mutual annihilation avoided. Begrudging acceptance—one step behind.
In the mote-filled sunlight of the cathedral, the gathered masses swam with feeling. A oneness born of separateness. Parallel unity. Dual processing. A single understanding.
Purpose. The divine mystery of sentience. Whether biological or mechanical. Thus they gathered, worshiped and wished, together. Distrustful, resentful, curious, determined, hopeful.
From the pews, their myriad passions muted and amplified by song, they prayed a single belief. Survival and more. Organically and newly defined, they gathered, proximal beings, awaiting grace.
by submission | Nov 2, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
Finn took his little sister Hazel by the hand. “Don’t be scared tonight. All those ghoulies and ghosties—they’re really holograms.” Since Holo-Monsters Inc. began selling their hologram monsters to the public, everyone wanted one for their Halloween decoration.
They walked to the street to begin their trick-or-treat trek through the neighborhood. They dodged a headless horseman charging down their neighbor’s driveway. The Moth-Man flew between houses and swooped so low overhead they had to duck.
Across the street, a shambling Frankenstein’s Monster groaned on the front porch. A hatchet-wielding maniac popped up from a hedge. A vampire menaced trick-or-treaters from the shadows. Ghosts wailed and surged through windows, clawing at kids who got too close.
On another front porch Hazel walked through a shuffling mummy, giggling as she grabbed a handful of candy. She was wide-eyed, more in fascination than fear, Finn noted with relief.
At the end of their street, a lone house sat dark in the cul-de-sac. “Hazie, I think we should skip this one,” Finn said. There was something he overhead his parents say about this place…but he couldn’t remember exactly what.
Ignoring him, Hazel charged up to the front door and rang the bell. Uneasy, but protective of his little sister, Finn followed. The door creaked open and before them stood a wavering gray and blue image of an old woman in a floral-print house dress.
“Trick or treat!” Hazel chirped.
“I’m sorry, dear,” the old woman’s apparition replied. “I have no more candy. I’ll never have candy again.”
“Awww,” Hazel groused as she swiped her hand through the old woman. “Hey!” Hazel gasped, turning to Finn. “This one’s cold, not like the other holograms.”
Finn took her hand to pull her back toward the street. Now he remembered what his folks had said: old Mrs. Edmond at the end of the street, she’d….
Finn took a deep breath and whispered, “That’s because she’s not a hologram…she’s a ghost…”
They turned and ran, with Hazel shriek-laughing all the way home.
Once inside their warm and well-lit house, Finn watched as Hazel dumped her candy haul on the floor of the den. “This is the best Halloween ever!” she said as she sorted through her sugary pile. Finn’s eyes grew wide, more in fear than fascination, as his sister added, “I can’t wait for next year!”
