The Soviet artillery is a steady heartbeat above our heads now. Reminds me of a child stomping about the house inside his daddy’s oversized boots, moving from room to room. Footsteps instead of detonations. I rather like the image. So do a few others in here with me. It lessens the fear. And down in our hole, there’s a lot to fear these days…
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Poor Charlie Marks
“Piss off, Gillespie. I mean it.” Captain MacManus clutched the banister of the third floor landing, kicking the apartment door closed behind him. He swallowed hard as the faded, grime-crusted walls of the ancient tenement swayed before him. He took a deep breath, grimacing as…
Thorndyke’s Folly
Shooting this press conference is the first worthwhile thing Francis Thorndyke will do in twenty-three years of life, and if he buggers it up he’ll forfeit his right ever to shoot anything more worthwhile than country bumpkins chasing cheeses down hills. His editor has vouchsafed this to him with the aid of an evocative metaphor involving bollocks, barbecues, and bamboo skewers. From my cubbyhole in the back of his mind…
Walking Point
Three months after I stepped on the land mine, I saw my dead son. He was slim and dark-haired, serious-faced as only a twenty-year-old can be. Without a word, he stepped into my Rambam hospital room, lifted my truncated body into a wheelchair, and pushed me down to the sea…
The Urban Parasite
My father, a compulsive liar, once told me that a person dies every time a leaf falls from a tree. If you catch a leaf before it touches the ground, you save a person’s soul. It’s early September in Chicago, and I’ve already let thousands of souls perish. I walk to work, from one graffiti-stained side of Wrigleyville to the other. The sidewalks, congested with foot traffic an hour before, are now clear. The only people I encounter are…
Dandelions and Blue Doors
“Witches are born with only half a heart,” our mother used to tell us. “That is why you will never love anyone completely, and why your heart will break so easily.” She was right. My sisters and I were unable to commit whole-heartedly to anything we did. This included our long-standing estrangement from each other—those of us who remain still met once a year, without fail…
Sheep Women and Dog Boys
She grew aware of something nestled in her hand. It was thin, crisp, somewhat square. Its strange presence was accompanied by a sound she knew, even with her eyes shut. [...]
The Grief Toucan
When they died, a toucan landed on his shoulder. He shook it off.
It was the type of bird that appeared in ads for ale, assuring you that the dark stuff [...]
What Would Luminael Do
Vampires like lofts. It’s a bat thing.
Roland de Courtenay lives on the third floor of the Wilcott Building, a crumbling faux-Tudor edifice shouldered on both sides by twin semi-detacheds. Vines [...]
The Werewolf of Narashtovik
The memory of the day he’d killed Larrimore came to Dante, as it always did, with a dizzy jolt – jarred, this time, by the dead guard sprawled in the [...]
Lullaby of the Ages
The time has come to move. The beasts swim through the deep together. They are always together, glutting themselves on the spray of food swirling throughout the eddied waters. [...]
Blue Cherry Sky
Aki followed her sister onto the stage. In contrast to the sense of dread Aki felt, Harumi looked happy. Harumi was only nine years old, but she seemed unfazed by [...]
The Last Song
Haze rises like swamp gas in the capital, and Lupe can smell the exhaust swarming up around him from the traffic stalled on the Avenida La Reforma. The tourists are [...]
Crossing the Blood-Brain Barrier
It was the first time I’d seen Buzz since they’d put the worms into Michaela’s ear. He looked even more like a junkyard, with rusty wires stitched into his face [...]
Wintertide Surprise
There wasn’t much to be done with it. It was supposed to arrive by five p.m. so Gary said, but here it be half past eight and every post office [...]