Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Stories

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.

I was headin’ out to feed the cows when I heard a zinnia ask, “You got a minute?” I shoulda known. When a flower asks you if you got a minute, it’s gonna take more’n a minute.

"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?"

No one in Bridge could remember exactly when the legend of the Pusherman began. As folk began to go missing, the stories just appeared, fully formed, as if they had fallen from the sky. Some in Bridge whispered that the Pusherman was an old graybeard who hunted children playing along the Edge because he was envious of their youth. Others said he was a jealous husband who pushed his cheating wife over the Edge and came to enjoy the taste of murder.

To: Grove Lake HOA From: Katie Kennedy, Secretary Re: Holiday Preparations

"Help me get convicted." "No." "You don't feel I need to go to jail?" Ruby groaned. "Being a defense attorney shouldn't be this complex." "I will die if they put me back on that ship. How would that make you feel?" Ishmael's plump face projected patience and interest, rather than fear and hope. "I know you are innocent, and if I prove you are in court I'll never forgive myself." "I agree. You can't tell them what I've told you. You have to get me convicted." She threw her pile of legal documents across the room, spreading papers and breaking tablets. "I hate you! I'll be disbarred for this! I hate you!" She glanced up to see the prison guard looking through the observation window inquisitively. Ruby discreetly wiped her eye, careful not to smear any makeup. Satisfied that he did not need to intervene, the guard disappeared from the small window. Ishmael leaned back in his aluminum chair, crossing his arms with a broad smile. "Thank you."

“Mommy?” “Yes, my child?” Her back bristled with chitinous spines, gathering microscopic dew in the rapidly cooling eventide. “I can’t sleep.” “But you must sleep. A child grows faster when they rest. Besides, breakfast is being made.” The mother was bundling a parcel, spinning it into the loom of her abdomen as the toxins turned the victim to stone. “But I can’t sleep,” the cotton orb stirred, a fluttering inside the pliable strands, woven tight. “Are you hungry, child?”

One morning a dark-haired woman in her mid-twenties walked into my office. A flowing blue dress dangled off her small frame, while her gaunt face hid under a wide hat containing enough feathers for flight. A fraying at her elbows suggested her blouse had been in the family a while. Her pale lips fluttered. In respect, I rose to my full seven-foot height, and then she spoke. “My husband is a zombie.”

"You never sing for me. Why is that?" Rob's voice was casual, but I froze. It was a breezy evening in March and a tired sun handed out the last lights for the day. "I have an awful voice. I fear you'll stop loving me once you hear me sing." I tried to keep my voice playful, but fear in me didn't make it easy. He sighed and put a finger under my chin, turning my face so that my eyes met his. Chocolate brown and inviting—that was what his eyes were. "Don't lie, Nupur." His casual tone had gone, and hurt framed his voice. "You sing for the young, the old, the sick and I always hear that you have a lovely voice. Some say your voice has magic." With a great effort, I kept my face expressionless. The last word hit too close to home. "So why not for me, love? What have I done wrong?"

Artatra stormed down the five hundred black marble steps to his laboratories and warrens. It was utterly intolerable, the restrictions under which he worked. That a mind such as his should be yoked to an unimaginative, plodding, stupid . . . well, not stupid, exactly. That was the problem! If the Presence in the Throne was stupid, it could be worked around. The mind behind that mask was sly, it was well-ordered, and it knew far more than it rightly ought. It was unimaginably worse than stupid—it was a functioning mind that lacked vision.