by Pauline Yates Aya, the transfer student, acts nonchalant, but beneath her straight fringe, her enormous eyes glisten with new-school nerves, and she clutches a diary to her flat chest like a life support. Fool. That diary begs to be read. Especially by me. I snatch the diary from her matchstick fingers. Flipping it open, […]
by Mike Rader You’re killing me girl, you’re thrilling me girl, with your pert nose and lips like roses love yo’ eyes but then I spies the dagger in your hand! It looks awesome and you wanna nab me you wanna stab me you mean to harm me girl embalm me girl I won’t let […]
by Jasiah Witkofsky What the hell are these kids watching?! I flip on the tube after my sons scurry off to finish their homework. A blinding series of flashes and I nearly spill my brewski on my crotch. Damn kids! The voices of some bratty teens squeals over the worst music I have ever heard. […]
by Don Money The task force had found the monster’s lair after months on the trail of the kuchisake-onna, The Slit-Mouth Killer, as the papers dubbed her. The investigation had consumed Captain Suto, the bloody images were a web of scars in his mind. Suto’s department issued .38 Special revolver looked out of place amongst […]
by JB Corso Thomas floats away in bloody chunks towards their subterranean nest. Bits of his ear, sections of his tail, and several whiskers are carried away after their workers methodically snip each bloody piece away. Memories of his guttural whining hang within my tortured mind like mangrove tree seeds. The locals warned me about […]
by Rowan West She called to me from the jungle, a voice more beautiful than the moon itself. I was compelled to follow. She was exquisite to behold, perched on the ridged edge of a wellspring, its shape the most feminine thing I’d ever seen: a green and wine-coloured teardrop with a gorgeous canopy rising […]
by Maggie D. Brace Blindly, my capitulum squirms, seeking the sweet spot as I splay my grasping palps upon this hairy creature. Sensing throbbing hot blood, I gnash my chelicerae, slicing a channel into moist flesh. Legs akimbo, I jut my torso at an angle, lower my hypostome, and begin to satiate myself. I eject […]
by Lisa H. Owens Mr Smith had one unticked item on his bucket list: to capture an elusive Drop Bear, one last hurrah with which to punctuate his life story. He dusted off his passport; forty-eight hours later, was deep in the rainforest of the Great Dividing Range with a tour guide called Jiemba. He […]
by Geoff Hart Welcome to Oz! Good on you for ignoring the slander that everything’s out to kill ya. Funnel-web spiders? Easily avoided. Keep feet and fingers out of dark, enclosed spaces, like bedsheets. (Kidding! They almost never infest bedsheets. Almost.) Don’t fret over copperheads either; taipan’s more likely to do for ya. Don’t step […]
by Tim Law “Mate, I call bullshit. We’ve got the deadliest spiders, snakes galore, even killer koalas and you’re telling us the thing you fear the most is a bird?” “Yep, the cassowary, seen it firsthand.” “So, what’s so scary?” “Beady little eyes that you just can’t trust, horn on its head that can run […]