Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Stories

My mother taught me how to walk the moon road. We find it with the tips of our toes, sliding them along the slick bottom of the river. If I close my eyes, I can feel the slightest edge. I ease the ball joint, the sole, the heel up out of the water. The foot that emerges is not human with its short dark nails and tufts of fur. My nose elongates, protrudes. Whiskers tickle my cheeks. My ears swivel, seeking the sounds of night. It is a gentle transformation. Mother and I walk the moon road, swishing our tails. We bound over the water, chase meteors, pounce on constellations. We grin at each other the way dogs do—it’s said they learned that from people. Maybe they learned it from people like us.

"The layover was only two years." Hazel let out a breath and crinkled her already wrinkled forehead. "He told me about it." Keira bounced her newborn child, more to calm herself than to calm the baby. "We're newlyweds. How could he die? Was there a malfunction in stasis?"

"Nothing says good morning, Monday, like a cup of boiling hot cocoa with crunchy marshmallows." Joshua spoke between gentle slurps. He sat on an ice-cold concrete bench wrapped in layers of coats and sweaters, accessorized by a scarf and tie. Lucy examined Joshua's perpetual scowl for any hint of humor. Steam drifted off the cup warming his hands. She rewrapped her scarf for the hundredth time and resumed pacing in an attempt to keep warm. "Joshua, I never know when you're being serious." He sipped his cocoa audibly crunching down on a marshmallow and almost managed a smile, but reverted back to pure scowl as his gaze fell on the concrete chess tables across the park. The tables started filling this time of the morning, and stayed somewhat full most daylight hours. "Our murderer is here."

“Stop it, TJ, you’re doin’ it wrong!” “Shut up, Alex, I am not.” Chalk staining his fingers, TJ drew a double inverted arrow, piercing the center of the circle. “Are, too!” Alex crouched beside his brother, careful not to smudge the lines. “That’s not the way Mom showed us—”

Thomas sat in his truck, glad to be out of the cold rain blowing in sheets against his windshield. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, and as he glanced over to the right at the trees and brush, thought he saw a flash of movement. Sitting up now on full alert, he watched carefully through the rivulets of rain pouring down the window. A woman burst out into the clearing and started lurching forward, her arms extended towards him, her expression one of terror. He threw his truck door open, and as he got out, just for an instant, looked down to where he was stepping. By the time he raised his eyes again to the approaching figure, she was gone. He thought she must have collapsed into the long grass, until he reached the empty spot where he last saw her.

Sarah languidly woke up to what she thought was the smell of chocolate. Bill rolled over in bed and looked at her. "Could we have hot chocolate for breakfast?" he asked. She took a moment to scrutinize the situation. No one was making hot chocolate. Why did they wake up wanting chocolate? "They're doing it again!" said Sarah. "What?" said Bill. "They've changed the ether," exclaimed Sarah.

Several cycles ago my wife Carpathia went to the market to gather supplies for the long, incumbent winter, but by nightfall she had not returned. By daybreak her side of the bed was still cold, and I feared the worst. For many moons thereafter I searched the plains until my feet bled, and called her name until my throat hurt, but I neither saw her nor heard from her again. The villagers were quick to blame the Beast for my misfortune as they did for every other disappearance in the land, but I did not share their conviction. My wife was gone, but I could not seriously lay her fate at the door of a ghost. I would rather admit she had abandoned me than accept I had lost her to a myth. Even so, sometimes, despite my better judgement, I too cursed the Creature. The worst had come to pass—

One knock sounded on his door at 12:01 AM on the first of November, as it had for 250 years. Anthony hesitated, even though the request was familiar. He glanced out the kitchen window at the moonwashed cliff of Beachy Head and the Channel beyond. Then a million knocks, a billion, pounding away in unison, a coruscating knot of sound that quaked his small home. The knocking made dishes rattle in their cabinets and his glass of whisky to dance and crash to the floor.

“Druy, where did you find that pitiful looking piece of space junk?” Capitan Saga asked as he slid off the ramp onto the lower deck of his ship. “In the emptiness,” Druy said and continued circling the disk shaped object. “And why wasn’t I informed?” he asked.

Olivia looked up from grinding corn. A telltale puff of dust huffed up over the ridge, where Route 65 still ran. A traveler. No matter how hard the times, a traveler was always welcome. He'd be here in a couple of hours. She could finish the corn and heat up the soup, toast last week's bread in time for his arrival. "Corngirl, come here and set the table!" she yelled. The girl gave her a death stare but slouched over after a proper amount of letting her mother know it was an imposition. Every now and then Olivia looked up to watch for the traveler. It couldn't be the merchant who walked back and forth between Kansas City and Springfield, he'd already been by a couple of weeks ago. Who else could this be?