A creature made from a witch’s flesh and bodily fluids is rejected by its creator and roams the city learning and consuming and growing in terrible and grotesque ways. This story is…
Tag: short story
“Video Nasty” by Philip Pullman
Three friends rent a notorious video tape and are joined by a strange fourth boy, who proves far scarier than anything they can see on the television. This is a short, sharp,…
“Heart of a Bear” by Benjamin Percy
After observing a human family, a bear takes up a life of crime (and angst) upon adopting the baby after eating its parents. This starts off as a bit of a lighthearted…
“Suspect Zero” by Benjamin Percy
A body turns up atop a train car; it’s not the body you’re expecting. This is a brutal story with some interesting twists.
“Dragon Song” by Maria Haskins
A Viking who fought Grendel’s mother beside Beowulf searches for her own kidnapped son. Haskins weaves together Viking and related stories with a few interesting twists; an elegiac mood hangs over this…
“Down to Niflhel Deep” by Maria Haskins
A dog takes a perilous journey into the underworld in search of a lost girl. This is the second of Haskins’ stories I’ve read from this collection that have a dog as…
“Long As I Can See the Light” by Maria Haskins
Forty years after an apparent alien invasion has converted the Earth into a factory for space ships and humans into drones for building them, a man who avoided the initial invasion meets…
“The Impossible Man” by J.G. Ballard
A young man loses his leg in a car accident, and is pressed into a campaign to encourage “regenerative surgery” for an increasingly elderly population despite his misgivings. This has some interesting…
“The Dummy” by Benjamin Percy
The only girl – who doesn’t feel much like a girl to herself – on a high school wrestling team gets some unexpected help against her bully. This is another disturbing little…
“Dial Tone” by Benjamin Percy
A call center, a cell tower, a brutal murder, and birds falling from the sky coalesce in this unnerving little story. This one has some disturbing and haunting images, and a strange…