Author: David Close "Messages, Ivi," Rafe said sullenly, still wet from the rain. "It never rains in California," rang the lyrics in his head. He hung the umbrella on the leftmost coathook by the door. His overcoat, a thing he wore to make him look as out of place as ...

Author: David Barber Christine Chiu was sniffing round the Ada Swann, wondering if Perry wanted to sell. "You and I," Chiu declared. "We are too old for this kind of life." The old woman assumed a calculating familiarity, as if their age made them members of a ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer I am pulled. They grab at my dread-locked skull and I buckle and my bare breasts faze into the camera. I am plucked and fucked into the light. Adrenalin moans into the gorging veins of the hand that cuffs the ends of my spasm arms and a ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer February, again. I remember, it was today I first heard it. You left your window a little way open so I could hear you playing our songs as I walked to work. Those grey mornings, snow blowing by. They always seemed a little less bleak ...

Author: David C. Nutt No matter where you go in the universe, the rules stay the same. Not just the rocket stuff. The old, old, rules. I’m working construction on a standard habitat cylinder around the latest chain of habitats orbiting Venus. Dull as dull can be, but ...

Author: Majoki Life is strange. Living in the mouth of a SHARK is stranger. Many would dispute my use of the term life. Technically, I don’t get to claim that I’m alive. No remora gets to have a life in the classic sense. When you are of a class of scavenger bot with low ...

Author: Byrd Stryke There is a rural Luxembourgish hamlet called Schwebach where I am hated by all residents. That is not what makes it unique among human settlements. I’m subject to near universal disdain on Earth. No, this township stakes its dubious claim to fame as ...

Author: Robert Beech Susan looks at the man lying naked in the bed next to her and wonders how they got to this place so quickly. He looks at her with an odd expression on his face, then rolls out of bed and begins dressing. “You’re leaving?” she asks. “Do you want me to ...

Author: David Tam McDonald “A young fringling, Madame,” the waiter said with surprise and unconcealed offence, “is a delicacy like no other, I assure you. The taste is close to a sweet potato but with a satisfying umami undertone. The texture is sublime. Creamy and soft, ...

Author: E Rathke Have you heard? Have you heard! There's a new one in town, a new body to play, a new song to flay, and, for only today, all is for free, all given away! Oh, yes, the fate phantastique! We run, now, much work to be done, much singing to be sung, much ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I bounce twice before landing in the sucking pit, the mire like leaden glue about my legs. In the dim flashes of light from the battle above, I see this place is littered with bodies in outlandish armour impaled on barbed spikes. Looking ...

Author: Bryan Pastor Jack jerked awake, his yelp a cross between night terrors and that recurring dream where you are anticipating that best part coming but, well you know the dream. “What?” his wife asked ripped from her own slumber. “Was it that dream again? Was she in?” ...

Author: Philip G Hostetler Unit 117 found himself in the interrogation room of the Transplanetary Review Board. It was a place that few wanted to be, but that Unit 117 had been many times before. The reviewer walked into the room and sat at the table, he looked down at his ...

Author: Andrew Dunn The bus was silver and pink to match the fancy shoes the pompadoured star strumming a guitar on board wore. His song was on the radio, a rollicking rockabilly number kids were dancing to in school gymnasiums and plunking coins into juke boxes to hear. He ...

Author: Phil Temples I open my wallet and examine one of my last remaining uncanceled credit cards. My First National Bank, Metro Savings and Shawnee Bank cards were canceled last month for non-payment but I’m pretty sure that my trusty Premium Silver card has a small ...

Author: Hunter Liguore The day the president came to Corinth, my Pa bet Mr. Henley our last good laying hen that he wouldn’t show. “Oh, he’ll come alright,” said Henley, shaking Pa’s hand to seal the bet. “We’re a disgrace to the whole country, seeing it’s 1934—the Age of ...

Author: Mark Renney They told us we would be hailed as PIONEERS, TRAILBLAZERS, the ones who began it, CREATORS OF A BETTER WORLD, A SAFER PLACE FOR OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN. We were upright and law abiding citizens. Why wouldn’t we - what did we have to ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The wood spits and its sputum climbs the back of the heath. Fragments of flame igniting as massing armies upon spent char. “Is this the end, Frances?”, I ask as the orange caress weeps upon her skin and she tightens the muscles at the ...