The Wait

I woke up early and went for a jog. As I followed the path through the park, I listened to nature. The sounds of the birds singing, and the squirrels running up trees were a sign of early spring. It was an unusually hot day in March, so the park benches were filled with people. I had water in my pouch and took a sip. It felt good going down into the pit of my stomach.

After, I sat I checked my phone. There it was, the message I had been waiting for.

My first novel was accepted for publication.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Pit

There is an island floating above a shattered and charred plane of earth. It's a little black island, untouched by the sun, hovering above with an unsettling presence. It is awaiting something.

An eerie cosmic wind sweeps into a bottomless chasm beneath the island, the deepest pit ever known to exist.

It stretches from the center of the planet to the edge of reality's outer realms, a limitless abyss that devours anything thrown into it.

Nature's laws do not apply here.

This pit is the only law. It will not be content until it has devoured everything in the world.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Consequences

My fate had been decided and I’m not sorry. The hunger in the pit of my stomach was more important than the consequences. When I barreled my fist into the man’s face and he fell to the ground motionless, I took the bread with my sore, bloody knuckles and ran. Within a day, the sheriff apprehended me.

I’m trapped in a cold, dank, cage, with crawling rats as my friends. I’ve heard other prisoners declaring innocence and then silence.

The sheriff led me outside to a chanting crowd, hands tied tightly behind me, to the noose that awaits my neck.

From Guest Contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher

Survivors

They live presently. Now they tear the soft meat from the bone, now they hear the twang of resistant tendons. The vibration of it. A chorus of crows. Scudding wings of moths that search for the darkness just beyond. In the pit is hunger. We exist, hands pasted to rifle stocks, glimmering gunmetal eyes, rattle-boned. They know family born of teeth, defined by the low moans of their communes. Their tongues hang together. Our hands hang separately, our nails scratching our own stomachs, our thighs, our faces. But we are all hungry. We will all ooze the same black ichor.From Guest Contributor Carrie Cook

Carrie received her MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and is currently living in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Review, Midwestern Gothic, Menacing Hedge, and Bartleby Snopes.

A Termination At Jaguar Tree Conditioning

“You ordered the wrong humidifiers, Eckersley. We’re letting you go.”

Eckersley blinked disbelievingly. Nineteen years in data entry and supply procurement.

As security was escorting him to the exit with his belongings, Eckersley abruptly broke free and fled to the (HEC) Harsh Elements Chamber.

Their company was based out of a biodome in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania where they simulated extreme jungle, desert, and arctic conditions to test the constitution of military grade radar equipment and software.

Sealing the doors behind him, his elusive promotion finally at hand, he sprinted confidently into the dunes and vanished—smiling—into a quicksand pit.From Guest Contributor Thomas Fitzgerald McCarthy

The Pit And The Stone

A mere glimmer of light reflected off the patches of clammy wall not occupied by greasy lichen and water-laden moss as he hung awkwardly upside-down, blood rushing to his head.

The darkness was dank and oppressive, and he began to wonder exactly what bacteria or even viruses he might pick up fulfilling this bucket list item. Well, he could blame no-one but himself.

He twisted a little and stretched, bracing himself against the other wall, slipping a little on the slimy algae.

A furious voice drifted down from above “If he doesn't kiss the damn Blarney soon, I'm letting go!”

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Plague

First little Amy was stricken, taking three days to die.

After collecting the body, the wardens painted the black cross on the door.

Then her husband and son Mark sickened. She could do nothing for their agonies.

A cart collected them to be buried in the pit.

Now the street is sealed off. No food arrives, and the water is almost gone.

She sneezes twice. She knows this is the end. But what is there to live for?

Thus the pauper Mary Wells died alone in London in 1665, with no priest to console her, no caring God above her.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, Ian has an MA in English from Oxford University. He has had poems and short stories published in The Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, 1947 A Literary Journal, Dead Snakes, Schlock! Webzine, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, Poems and Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, and in various anthologies.

Modern Exploration

For today's modern explorer, there are two questions that remain unanswered. The first is what lies on the other side of a black hole. The other is what is at the bottom of a pit of quicksand.

Francis LeMond knew that visiting a black hole was way beyond his budget so he determined that he would be the first to return from the bottom of a pit of quicksand.

Unfortunately for Francis LeMond, it turns out there is a simple answer to the question of what lies at the bottom of a pit of quicksand: death by suffocation.