Dared

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by S. Jade Path

 

Her friends had dared her to enter the ward. She was young, brash, invincible—foolish. Her breath chuffed out. Teenage pride.

The wind wended through the shattered halls; a remnant of laughter, and a memory of screams.

A shriek of tortured metal and the scent of old blood rise into the air where her hands settled on one of the bed frames rusting in the gloaming.

Her eyes skimmed the scarred floors, littered with detritus.

In the corner, empty liquor bottles surround a wilted mattress. Mostly hidden by a shred of faded blue denim, her skull stares back at her.

S. Jade Path

S. Jade Path is a fledgling author of small fiction and a prolific creator of dark poetry. She has had a life-long obsession with crawling into the depths of the psyche and forging shadows into words. Her work parallels this penchant for delving into the fantastical and strolling amongst demons. https://www.facebook.com/SJadePath

A Great & Shifting Sea by John Leahy

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Lord Volgan Borinth is summoned to the court of Alwil Treggessun, the king of Monsiel. It is a delicate time, with the continent of Monsiel being politically fragile after a very destructive war.

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Damned Dwelling by Chris Hewitt

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Trapped in an antique shop for all eternity, three ghosts yearn for freedom.
But they’re tied to the living world by their soul vessels and need someone to buy them. Shoppers come and go, dashing hopes of release.

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A Nice Long Soak

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by Mike Rader

 

I heard them climbing the stairs. Tourists. Mayday Hills Asylum attracted the morbid to Beechworth.

I waited on the second floor of that Victorian pile. In the bathroom. Where each tub has a sturdy wooden cover. Back in the day, only an inmate’s head was visible when the attendants poured scalding hot or freezing cold water over the poor unfortunate locked inside. Shock treatment, they called it.

Two kids entered. Gawking.

“Bet they screamed,” the boy said.

“Gross,” the girl said.

I smashed their heads together, bundled them into a bath, locked the lid.

Boiling hot water did the rest.

Mike Rader

James Aitchison is an Australian author and poet.  He writes horror and noir fiction under the pseudonyms Mike Rader and JJ Munro.  As James Lee, his horror and mystery stories for middle readers are bestsellers in Asia. His work is featured at www.flameoftheforest.com

Where the Dead Things Are

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by L.J. McLeod

 

Wendy hated the morgue. As the hospital’s night cleaner, it fell to her to keep it spotless. But that didn’t make it any less creepy. The silence felt heavy and the smell of cold corpse hung in the air as she mopped. Tonight’s storm only made it feel more oppressive. Lights flickered periodically and she could hear the thunder rumble through the walls. Her heart began to race at the thought of being trapped down here in a power outage. Sudden darkness filled the room, making nightmare reality. A cold hand seized her shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You’re never alone here.”

L.J. McLeod

L.J. McLeod lives in Queensland, Australia. She works in Pathology and writes in her spare time. She has been published in several anthologies and has been nominated twice for the Aurealis Award.  In her spare time she enjoys diving, reading and travelling.

Colloquy

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Dialogue Competition Runners-up

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Southpaw by Kyle Toucher

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An exploration of extreme dedication, homicidal mental illness, and the hunt for the Sinistra―the Witches of the Left Hand―who serve the Medusa Cult.

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Fleeting Fame

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by Colleen Anderson

 

Daiyu gasped. This rare discovery—a complete warrior’s burial chamber—ensured her career trajectory.

She pulled a carved jade amulet off the leathery mummy’s chest. The lantern flickered, the chamber echoing with more than falling water. Howling whooshed up the tunnel. Misty apparitions sliced her like freezing knives as she tried to block their access to the sarcophagus.

Slashing with archaeological picks did nothing as they dived into the shrivelled warrior’s form. Clawlike fingers twitched.

Taking the lantern oil, she doused the rousing body. Daiyu dropped a match, and flames cleansed everything, consuming the zombie.

There would be other finds.

Colleen Anderson

Colleen Anderson writes fiction and poetry, and her works have appeared in such publications as Polu Texni, Pulp Horror Book of Phobias, On Spec, and Cemetery Dance. A Body of Work was published by Black Shuck Books. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she watches for mermaids and mould monsters.

What Blood is For by Nyx Kain

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A letter from Abigail’s grandmother shatters her world, forcing her to confront a painful truth about her past.

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Three Tokens for Mammon by John Ward

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A lonely young man longs to escape the boredom of living in a small seaside town, but finds himself sucked into a bizarre ritual sacrifice that reveals the true nature of his imprisonment.

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