That fall we spent our Saturdays deep in Amish country. We didn’t live there, but Becca’s boyfriend did, forty minutes from our McBurb near Reading. The farmhouse supposedly belonged to the boyfriend’s uncle, but I never saw an adult in all the times we were there –...
flash fiction
A Pig Called Stripe
My uncle had a spotted pig, called Stripe. Which tells you a lot about my uncle. It started small but it got big, as pigs do. It was still small when my aunt left, sick of the smell of pig shit and the endless speculations on the weather. She packed her suitcases into...
Anthology II Contest Winners
Caterpillar Killer by Shastri AkellaDirty Shirley by Shannon BowringGiving Up by Catherine CadePicking Up Stones by Brad ClompusIn the Closet by Grace ElliottWays of Karst by Jamie EtheridgeSea Bugs by Amanda HadlockEndless Spoonful by Susie HaraCharlotte Sometimes by...
Skeleton Crew
There are places where everyone wants to buy a house, but that’s not here. We have empty subdivisions. We have coyote in broad daylight. Our hospital is flying at half-mast. This used to be a steel town. Slag pits line the highway. The sun sets behind mountains of...
Can I Tell You a Secret?
If word gets around, I’ll say you made it all up. I’ll tell them you’re lying, that you’re just looking for attention. But, if you promise to take it to your grave, then I’ll tell you this: The professor He tells the class to put the subject first. Who is doing the...
The Hollowing of Her Bones
Faye says she doesn’t believe in coincidence, but the day she burns the last of the cows, two women hurl themselves from dizzying heights like deadweight dropped into the sea. In the autumnal air, clotted yellow with ash, Faye claims a sudden lightness—a tug of going...
I Like My Men
I like my men close, their arms like shelter. Yours pull me into your sternum as we roll around a twin-size bed. The headboard creaks against curtain-darkened windows. Noon out, but in this sticky heat, warm air sandwiched between marijuana and days-old wasabi, we...
Monsters, Mystery, & Mayhem Contest Winners & Shortlisted writers
1st: Place: At the Bottom of the Well is a Home by Laur Freymiller 2nd Place: My Brother, Named and Unnamed by Steven Sherrill 3rd Place: Hair, Teeth by Josiah Nelson Shortlisted Titles and Writers A Modern Fairytale by Amy Wang Double the Fun by Ryder Collins...
Replica
I once held two men at gunpoint. This was on a Sunday, after my wife had returned from mass while I repaired our radio. If I held the copper coils just so, a signal would form out of the static, sometimes a speech by the new president, sometimes an opera. I’d managed...
The Nomenclature of Flight
At dusk, we snuck into the backyard and planted birdseed by the drive. This was so robins would sprout out of crabgrass and dirt, talons curled around rock, wings opened like palms. Our mother glared from the door, said flight cannot be born from earth. Nothing grows...
Monsters, Mystery, & Mayhem Contest Shortlist
These 20 stories thrilled us with their specific and creepy details, their attention to character, and their surprises in plot and language! This shortlist has been sent anonymously to Amber Sparks! A Modern Fairytale Double the Fun Monster Diary The Bottom of a Well...
Monsters, Mystery, & Mayhem Contest Longlist
These 39 stories thrilled us with their specific and creepy details, their attention to character, and their surprises in plot and language! We're narrowing it down to our shortlist and this will be sent to judge Amber Sparks very soon! Flesh and Blood Regarding the...