A woman who needs to find a book to write a report on for her adult literacy program stumbles on a room in the library that is “temporally out of order,” and…
Tag: short story
“This Narrow Escape” by Betty Rocksteady
A woman finds her home, and her husband, inexplicably shrinking. A nice little weird tale, with a nice closing image of expansiveness overcoming the ratcheting reduction that characterizes the story.
“Root Rot” by Betty Rocksteady
A hook-up goes terribly wrong. A nicely squelchy horror story – terrors are presented with no explanation or back story, sort of like an intense short film, with haunting and disturbing images.
“Fishfly Season” by Halli Villegas
A woman moves to a posh suburb with her husband and senses danger and terror beneath the serene surfaces. This is a good story that builds subtle dread; it’s never clear whether…
“By Night He Could Not See” by Joel Lane
Mysterious murders, with the victims found with hands and heads covered in paint, lead a man to believe that someone is seeking revenge for a terrible crime he participated in long ago….
“Dead End” by Nicholas Royle
A man on vacation with his mistress is haunted by guilt and frightening premonitions. This is an elusive little story; I wasn’t sure at first if the images of a car crash…
“The Burning Circus” by Angela Slatter
A trapeze artist who has been unjustly imprisoned seeks out her former circus to deliver vengeance. This story holds its cards close to the chest and plays them out slowly, delivering a…
“Stemming the Tide” by Simon Strantzas
A misanthropic man and his partner go to the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy to watch the tide, and other horrors, rush in. This story has echoes of “Ringing the…
“A Night’s Work” by Clive Barker
A man wakes from a dream and tries to write it down, but discovers that he’s still dreaming. A nice little story of recursion and existential uncertainty.
“The Next Glade” by Robert Aickman
A woman meets a strange man at a friend’s party who invites himself for a hike in the woods near her home; later on a family outing in the same woods she…