admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3, Author at X-R-A-Y

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…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

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]:…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

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…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE PROJECTING ACROSS THE UNIVERSE IN BILLOWS OF GLITTER, CONFETTI, AND FLUSTERED GIGGLES by Sophie Kearing

October 22, 2025 · Fiction

At the intersection between the Many-Worlds Interpretation and the Law of Assumption, you can bow out of the shitty life you’ve created for yourself and slip into an existence that’s basically your own personal heaven. People call this place your “desired reality.” Let me give you some reference points here. In my old reality, moving house was always an exercise in abject misery. But. Let me tell you how things unfolded after one night I used the “state akin to sleep” to visualize stepping through a doorway into a magical world of miracles and ease. On Monday morning I received…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

CONTROL AND THE FUCKTOPUS: A CONVERSATION WITH CHRIS KELSO ABOUT ŻUŁAWSKI’S ‘POSSESSION’ by Alice

October 21, 2025 · Interviews & Reviews

Chris Kelso is a Scottish writer of dark, weird fiction. I came to his work through Voidheads (Schism), and he’s since published Metampsychosis with Feral Dove, and most recently, a monograph on the film Possession with PS Publishing’s Midnight Movie Monographs. Possession, as it happens, is a long-time mutual obsession of ours, so when I freaked out in Chris’ Instagram comments about this monograph he very kindly sent me a copy. So I decided to interview him about it. He’s a great sport. Didn’t even get annoyed at my stupidly long ‘questions’, which are at times more monologuing than questions,…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

THE BACKYARD GRAVE by Marina Manoukian

October 20, 2025 · Fiction

My father dug his own grave. But he didn’t use it right away. For years, the grave lay unfilled and inviting. All he would do was visit it once in a while, stand by its empty feet, and sigh. I don’t know if it was a sigh of relief or impatience. He made us promise to leave the grave unmarked once everything was in its place. Everything has its place. I slept in the grave once. But not on purpose. It’s ill-advised to read meaning into sleepwalking so I won’t try. All I know is that I woke up surrounded…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

A PRAYER FOR THE FISH IN THE TUB by Zoë Rose

October 16, 2025 · Fiction

With just enough water in the tub to sluice through its gills as it thumps its caudal fin and arches its spine the carp could stay there for far longer than it will take to prepare the vegetables for the stock which the carp’s head and bones and skin and any parts not reserved will be joining the next morning. Its jelly eye fixes on the water stained ceiling which it doesn’t see as anything but part of what is above because the carp has never seen water stain or been even wet before the tub. When its head seizes…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

‘DOOM IS THE HOUSE WITHOUT A DOOR’ BY LOGAN BERRY: AN INTRODUCTION by Kathleen Rooney

October 14, 2025 · Interviews & Reviews

Introduction for Logan for his Reading from ‘Doom Is the House Without a Door’ at Comfort Station on Saturday, August 16, 2025 –Kathleen Rooney Book launch playlist: DOOM UNLEASHED Logan Berry’s latest book gets its title from the Emily Dickinson poem “Doom is the House without the Door—” whose first stanza says: Doom is the House without the Door— ‘Tis entered from the Sun— And then the Ladder’s thrown away, Because Escape—is done— Logan Berry’s literary house also has no door, but not in the sense that one is trapped inside by walls lacking egress. Rather, nothing blocks this…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

ONLY THE SCAMMERS LOVE SAM by Jon Steinhagen

October 13, 2025 · Fiction

“That’s wonderful, Sam,” the voice says, cooing. “May I call you Sam?” The voice is low, mellow, musical. The English it speaks is careful, cultured, unhurried, seductive (or so Sam thinks; he’s become a connoisseur over the years). Its tone is polite and comforting with just an edge of anticipation. Normally, this voice has rarely been given the freedom to speak so much, to reel off so many carefully-edited chunks of information. It senses an ultimate victory. “Sam, or Sammy,” Sam says. “That’s wonderful, Sam,” the voice repeats. “Now, all you have to do—” “My mother used to call me…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

FOLLOWING THE HEARSE by Carleton Whaley

October 10, 2025 · Fiction

Driving through the Detroit suburbs, cutting through traffic, honking and cursing at other drivers, the brothers make their way to the crematorium. It is difficult to keep up with the long hearse. Traffic seems to move automatically for it just as it blocks the brothers’ car. “I know,” the older says to the younger. “Yeah?” the younger asks. They are still navigating the void which now defines their relationship—the change from middle-and-youngest to older-and-younger. “I was just agreeing that I probably shouldn’t have told Nana to shut the fuck up.” “Coulda been handled better,” the younger says. They pass a…

admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3

« Previous 1…3 456 7…37 Next »