Warmth

Kathy’s headstone was weather beaten. I hadn’t been to the grave site in years and the memory of her death hit me all over again.

“Keith, he’s heading straight toward us!” Kathy screamed and then all went dark.

A drunk driver hit us head on. I was hospitalized for eight months in a coma and my wife died on impact. I was left to take care of our young son by myself.

I leaned close and placed the red roses next to her name on the stone. “I miss you, Kathy.”

A sudden warmth ran up and down my spine.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Trap

Rachel pulled her hat covering her face and walked. Curfew was about to begin, and the gestapo would be patrolling. She had an important piece of information tucked inside her left shoe and she had to get back to the safe house.

Rachel heard footsteps and a chill ran down her spine. They became quicker and then it went dark. A hand touched her shoulder, and she was about to run, when a man’s voice said her code name, Vivian.

“It’s too dangerous to go back to the safe house. Quickly, come.”

Soon Rachel would realize it was a trap.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Fire And Ice

“He took me for ten grand. Hustled me when I wasn’t in my right mind,” Demar mentioned. The waitress turned back, having forgotten a glass of water.

“So what’s happening to him now?” Jim asked.

“He’s losing everything. Never got a job. Had a streak of bad luck. Getting divorced.”

Looking at the water, Jim noticed it was mostly ice. “Well, that’s great. He deserved those things.”

“I knew this day would come. I didn’t know I’d feel sorry for him.” The water arrived. Demar took a sip, and the coldness of the ice sent a shiver down his spine.

From Guest Contributor Steve Colori

You

Run.Feet crush the leaves; waves of terror crawl your spine.Slide.A tree – a savior! Red drops drip down from your ears to the ground.Crack!Terror returns like an old friend. It seems now is your end.Look.A challenge beckons you. Leaning around the bark, you peak into the clearing.Empty?Before you can contemplate, a hand wraps around your throat.“Missed me?”The version of yourself you keep locked away smirks at you.“I’m afraid of the dark.”The clearing dissipates as you are released.Clink!Chains now hold you down.“I don’t want to disappear.”

From Guest Contributor Sydney Clark

The Cave

Today is his wife’s birthday. Five years later, a ghastly memory lingers over him. He cringes recalling the cave tour he planned for his adventurous wife. Now, he desperately yearns for her.

A cold breeze sends shivers down his spine while he silently fights back tears. His grief-stricken heart is infuriated by Mother Nature’s cruelty.

He still hears echoes of his wife’s pleas to rescue their child from nature’s wrath. Ruthless in stealing her, now this cold cave is blessed with his wife’s beautiful soul.

A flurry of air passes through him as her immortal love warms the hollow cave.From Guest Contributor Hetal Shah

Hetal Shah graduated with her Bachelor of Commerce from SIES. She lives in Mumbai with her husband, son, and daughter. She rekindled her hobby of writing over the past year. She is the winner of Mumbai Poetry League 2020, and her poem was published in an anthology by Poets of Mumbai called Guldastaa A Bouquet of Poems. She also writes flash fiction, and has been published twice on 101words.org. She loves to read, and especially enjoys reading and writing stories of romance and everyday life. Besides writing, she enjoys cooking new cuisines, traveling, and singing.

The Pencil

Spine broken. Pages deliver a scrambled story. I have the power to pick up the fragments. Rewrite. Write what others have tried to mute. Seventeen centimeters of lead might not be much, but I’m her voice. I’m sharp. I’m ready, but she turns away from me and picks up her glass of whisky instead.

We’re both small. Lead or crystal? One can save her. One can break her. Who will she choose?

Neither. She adds another plate to her dish-pile. It looks like the Tower of Babel, minus the words.

She turns. She’s getting closer. Closer. Picks me up and—writes.

From Guest Contributor Isabelle B.L

Isabelle is a teacher and translator currently living in New Caledonia. She has published a novel inspired by the life of a New Caledonian politician. Her work can be found in the Birth Lifespan Vol. 1 anthology for Pure Slush Books and Flash Fiction Magazine. Her work is also forthcoming in Growing Up Lifespan Vol. 2 for Pure Slush Books and Drunk Monkeys.

The Last Bath

I bathe the cat in the bathroom sink, so light, his little feline spine sharp with the thinning of time—twenty years. Hold him by the belly in the right hand, baby shampoo with the left. More soap for the diaper area. Careful of his eyes, looking so far away these days. Squeeze the water down his tail, his legs, all bones. Towel off, gentle, gentle. Murmur assurances that it’s almost over. Sit down on the couch, hold him in the towel. Is he ok? Movement—a gasp, he’s fine. Then my tear fell in his eye. He didn’t blink.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, Little India, Rat’s Ass Review, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, is an assistant professor of English at a community college, and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press. See more at brook-bhagat.com or reach her on Twitter at @brookbhagat.

Haunted

More than spirits, ghosts are the chill of a finger tracing your spine, a whisper only loud enough for you to hear, a memory of something long gone. What happens when the ghosts I’m afraid of are the ones that are alive? Will they continue to feed on me until there is nothing left? Will I join the other ghosts then? Piece by piece, they keep picking away until I am nothing. Will they pity me? The girl they once knew was full of life; and now, she is no better than the rest of them. A bag of bones.

From Guest Contributor Kelsey Swancott

Kelsey is a senior majoring in English with a minor in Visual Arts and Spanish while also being involved in the campus literary magazine Angles. She plans on furthering her education by getting her masters degree in English as well.

Hungry Hannah

"HUNGRY HANNAH EATS REAL FOOD!" I thought all robotic dolls were creepy, but my twin daughters loved that commercial.

And they loved Hannah.

At least until tonight. Tonight I find the babysitter's back gnawed down to her spine. Karen lays legless, dead mid-scream, a broken doll herself. Samantha's face is chewed to tattered strips of scarlet skin -- wet ribbons staining hectic red hieroglyphs across the carpet. Her eyes and scalp are gone.

I find Hannah looking up at me. Her painted eyes are flat black coins. Her plastic teeth, still moving, are soaked in violent crimson.

"Feed me," she bleats.

From Guest Contributor Eric Robert Nolan

Discovery

The light was dim and in the blue to purple spectrum, but he could barely keep his hands from shaking. There between trembling fingers, was the first synthetic bioluminescent bulb.

He thought he heard a creak in the darkness. The deeper shadows of conspiracy theories crossed his field of vision like eye-floaters: fears that some capitalist cadre would send black ops to assassinate him and ‘disappear’ his research. Beads of sweat chilled along his spine.

Then he noticed a reddish glow from one of the beakers on the bench: one containing a slightly different formula. The scientist chased the child.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid