The first person I killed didn't run. I never knew his name, just his crime, so I called him One. "I didn't know I should run because I couldn't hear the rotor blades chop-chop-chopping," he said, sitting beside me on the porch—not the way I left him; the way I met...
In the small hours of the morning, I forage, taking care to nibble leaves both fibrous and tender, for the stories of a world are woven not only from what is young, what is hopeful, or what is easy. When the sun is high, and the air is thick and hot with blossoms, I...
Congratulations to the writers of these 14 speculative stories! We'll be back shortly with our winners! Like Prey Marked All and Sundry Of Souls & Forests Crow Sweetie Come Brush Me A Lamb, Rising Fireworks at Dusk Or the Highway The Marvelous Daisy-Sue, Every...
Next to me at the intersection stands a young boy, hands in jacket pockets, hair the brown of thebrittle leaves in the street gutter. Autumn. The anniversary of my younger sister’s accidentaldeath, by drowning—a riptide, no flotation device. I was nearby. The boy at...
Mother Black Bear sits on her haunches under the heavy limbs of the crabapple tree in the backyard. She rubs her eyes, her long snout, and looks up at the stars and sighs as if she, too, has been awakened by the clock tick, tick, ticking. Through an open window we...
A man with rusty brown hair, a beard, and a plaid shirt has been struggling with something in his mind, so he gets in his truck and drives fast until he gets to the top of a hill and guns it. He’s going all out, and where the cliff juts out over the water, he keeps...
The priest still has a mouth full of cake, crumbs stuck to his lips, when the mom presents a doll with clumps of hair missing, a book with crayon scribbled across the cover, a blanket still warm from the girl’s grip and says, “Bless them?” The girl cries for her...
Congratulations to the writers of these 39 speculative stories! We'll be back shortly with our shortlist! We can't wait to see what Judge Tara Campbell chooses from the upcoming shortlist! Field with Dogs (in the Afterlife) Like Prey Naming the Cat A Thousand Dianes...
One day, there will be a podcast episode about your disappearance, and a woman driving to work will skip it because you’ve never been found, and the woman likes closure. One day, your body will dissolve, the dye in your clothes fading into a muted gray before...
Guest Judge Maurice Carlos Ruffin has chosen his grand prize winner and the 16 finalists! We're excited to publish all sixteen of these stories starting in January 2025! Grand Prize Winner: One Minute Thirty-Five Seconds by Caleb Ludwick Guest Judge Maurice Carlos...
Elena cried for the sparrow, for how it slipped a squeal before it hit the front window, a sound that awfully resembled fear. I knew even then that Elena saw something in that bird, a part of herself that wanted to be free and alive, free of everything that crippled...
Not in the mirror. Not in between his uncle’s years-ago fingers. Not running all over town like Gogol. Just something he could hold in his hands for once in his life. He tried last month to see his heart. After so many years, he wanted to see the actual scars on it,...