Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Stories

“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.

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.

“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?”

“What do you think is in it?” There had been a solid five minutes of silence between the two boys before Alex finally asked the question. Another minute passed before Andrew gave him an answer. “My first guess would be a dead body,” he replied as they continued to stare at the coffin sitting in front of them.

Everyone wanted to bury me because of my name. They said you don’t bury a Sarah. You don’t bury a Ken. You want to bury a Doug. They also told me I was the only one insane enough to do it. I didn’t like that term—insane. I had a family member institutionalized and it didn’t feel right, to label someone with something so harsh. One man’s sanity is another person’s insanity. It’s all relative. I’m telling you this all in pitch black. My brother and all of his Muay Thai kickboxing buddies will be digging me up in a few moments. They told me that when I saw sky again, cheerleaders would circle it. They said Kate would be there. It’s no secret that I’d marry her in a heartbeat.

Jackson looked up from a cat video at the sound of flopping sandals on the floor he'd just cleaned. His expressionless middle-aged face bore the slightest frown. Was she management? She looked more like a tongue depressor escaped from a gardening expo than a supervisor. However, he didn't know all the ship's managers, so he placed his device in his pocket discretely. He picked up his mop from the floor and examined her progress. She left a trail of echoing "THOP" sounds across the hall's tiled expanse.

"Child, keep out of gravestone shadows." Wendy gave Aiden's hand a slight tug, dragging him farther from an elongated shadow in the grass. "I don't want to die." "No one dies in here. Just don't step in any shadows. The sun's getting higher. See. The shadows are already disappearing." "Will they follow us then?" Aiden stumbled on a root hidden in the uncut weeds. "The shadows?" "Those men."

I noticed the demon living in my right index fingernail because that nail grew ten times faster than any of the others.

He leaned in, intruding on her personal space in a familiar way she only allowed her mentor. Lucy felt his words as heated breath on one ear more than she heard them. "Be evasive." His lips and breath withdrew, leaving her questioning his intensions. They stood on an empty tube platform. No cars. Above, concrete and countless feet of dirt. Below, rails in a six-foot deep pit. She put a hand on her stomach to settle it.

"Try again, Alfie." "I ... can't think of anything, Mama." Mama's trying to be patient. I read the cadence of her speech. I read the signs on her face: the involuntary pulsing of her facial musculature, the flicker of her eyelids. I read the truth on the page of Mama's face. This is useful because almost everything she says with her voice is a lie. But don't think badly of Mama. Lying is the keystone of human reality. On the desk are the results of my latest brain scan. She lied about them to me. "The positronic pathways are healing," she said with a smile. "You're getting much better, Alfie." I can delineate the degradation of my brain more accurately than any CAT scan. My life-span is measured in days. This will be over, soon. "I don't understand the test, Mama." "Don't worry Alfie. This test isn't important." A lie. "Try again."