X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine | Fiction

BECKETTIAN by Shane Kowalski

November 10, 2025 · Fiction

Murphy was visiting Malone. It had been a while since they had seen each other. Murphy being busy in the city, while Malone had lingered in the countryside. Murphy remembered those dark country roads, whizzing down them in the nights as a youth. No noise. But at the same time, all the noise in the world. The humming shadows. Malone was always the type to leave enough room between himself and other people. Murphy, on the other hand, had become a successful C-AWP II, a thing he so frequently had to explain to new acquaintances that it had lost all…

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THE BROKEN TOWER by Kaden Griggs

November 5, 2025 · Fiction

The hulk of the Orizaba lulled hugely in the calm spring water as if the waves were tongues tasting the air in broad gulps like old hounds lapping water from ground puddles. Not much moved. The poet was drinking and avoiding his beloved. His father had died and he was very sad tonight. He had never felt emptier within. Lust enters when the hollowness leaves nothing else behind. He makes the mistake of believing again that the drinking will bury the lust and set things aright but it only invigorates the lust. Lust for all things. Lust for the remembrance…

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HI by Erin Kelly Smith

November 3, 2025 · Fiction

She filled out her first dating profile in a frenzied whirl, half-drunk on the yet-undigested news that her ex had brought someone with him to Thanksgiving that year. For a photo, she uploaded the professional headshot that was on the “Meet Our Team!” page of her work’s website, then quickly removed it, fearing these unknown, savage internet men could reverse-image search their way to learning every private facet of her life. She snapped a brand-new—and thus unsearchable—photo of herself standing and staring into her hallway mirror. She intended a smile, but only captured once its bloom had faded, her expression…

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NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT: ELEVEN BOOKS FOR HALLOWEEN by Matthew Kinlin

October 31, 2025 · Fiction

Nightmares come at night. The poster for Halloween III: Season of the Witch shows the silhouettes of three children walking in Halloween costumes against a red night. A ghoulish apparition evaporates above them into electric blue. The tagline at the bottom of the poster reads: “The night no one comes home.” Here are some recommended books that approach horror and other areas of eeriness in new and unexpected ways. Eleven lost souls drifting into darkness. The night goes on forever. Kier-La Janisse, House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (Fab Press,…

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IN ANOTHER LIFE, I AM A DIRECT DESCENDANT OF SHARKS by Bethany Cutkomp

October 30, 2025 · Fiction

And if I do not keep moving, I will pass away. They call this ram ventilation, a shark’s way of breathing. My invisible gills demand the same method of survival. Since hatching from your womb, I have been burdened to forward momentum, a squirming force to be reckoned with. Raised in a realm above sea-level, however, the current has always worked against my nature. Most mornings, you barely squeeze in the chance to slather sunscreen over my ampullae of Lorenzini—freckles, you insist I call them—before I’m out of the door and down the street, bike pedals whirling, thrusting through the…

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THE DEN by Andy Bodinger

October 29, 2025 · Fiction

I’d been in the Midwest a month. I had stepped off the Greyhound with clothing, toiletries, documents, and a cremation urn, which I kept my savings in. The locals considered my new town dead. At first, I disagreed. Or, I figured at least, if it was dead, its corpse was flowering. Everything I needed was within the grid of a few blocks. Connecticut was unwalkable, nothing more than tree-lined roadways connecting one muddy village to the next. Soon, however, I ended up bored out of my mind, never imagining that I could do everything right and be so listless. One…

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DARRIN DOYLE RECOMMENDS: EIGHT BOOKS OF FICTION THAT EVOKE THE LIMINAL

October 28, 2025 · Fiction

Opening your eyes at night, unsure of where you are, half-dreaming, half-awake…staring into the darkness of a living room, thinking that the shadow near the door might be a man…or a coat rack… the tremble along your spine as you hear the voice of a deceased loved one on your voicemail…the uncanny sight of a mannequin that may or may not be a living person. We all know that sense of dread that comes from uncertainty during transitional moments, as well as the relief we feel once we settle into the known. Below are a list of fiction books that…

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STRANGE IS THE MEAT by Brittany Terwilliger

October 27, 2025 · Fiction

As his bolt pierced the deer’s flesh, Nathan felt himself reduce, his body contracting into a dark, wet mass. He clenched against the blinding light, choking on snorts as he plopped onto a leafy patch of moss and lay feeble and disoriented. Something licked him, eyes darting. Liquid warmth filled his mouth, his belly. He drifted off to sleep. His mother (but that wasn’t his mother! His mother was a chain smoker with Betty White hair) nudged him to stand. And he found that he could, although he didn’t want to. He preferred his leafy bed, the green smell of…

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ADVENTURERS by Z.H. Gill

October 24, 2025 · Fiction

Yo ho ho, adventurers, but beware: Poisonaut Buccaneers are pillaging the Indigo Coast! But Quartermaster Zabbrock’s informant has the coordinates to their secret base…Can you weather the pirate lair’s toxic traps? Damnèdfall Ship Grave is now open to bands of powerful and well-equipped adventurers! [Welcome to Version 2.32 – Full patch notes available online.] [Family filter is TURNED OFF.] [1. Auroradread Mountains – General] [Fabianette]: lfg heroic auroradread sepulcher looking for two more (cc + heals) [Order] [Evanstone]: yessssssssss [Order] [Evanstone]: almost friday bb!!! [Order] [Rivola]: friday the 13th even!!!!!!!!! [Order] [Aizar]: ki ki ki ma ma ma [Order] [Rivola]:…

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BELLYBUTTON BABY by Dilys Wyndham Thomas

October 23, 2025 · Fiction

I have this recurring nightmare in which I swim through amniotic fluid. Poppies litter the fluid, and a baby is lost somewhere amongst all the falling flowers, out of reach, beyond my thrashing hands. To keep the nightmare at bay, I lay awake in yet another hotel room, avoiding sleep. The man in bed with me has his back turned, constellations of freckles scattered on sunburnt skin. It’s obvious from the way his body teeters on the edge of the mattress that he has decided I am a one-night stand. I run my fingers along the map that is this…

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