‘Til Death
This is a continuation of a series of responses to Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers by Sady Doyle. You can find part one in our Fall 2023 issue, or by clicking here. 💀💀💀 Western culture typically posits marriage as a blissful event—the reward at the end of Shakepearean comedies and Disney movies and every deserving […]
Pleasure In Pain
“I’d like you to meet Ezra.” Kara stared at this man standing beside her mother. He appeared friendly and interested in them, but she knew better. This was the latest guy to come into her mom’s life—how long before he was gone, too? But it wasn’t just her mother’s lovers going through a revolving door […]
Lycanthrope
“611, 612, 613 . . .” the portly man muttered. Finally, the correct number was in front of him. Frank reached out a hand and knocked on the apartment labeled 616. After a moment, the door opened, and the woman that stood behind it smiled at him with playful glee. “You Frank?” she asked in […]
The Woman
Walking alone was the only time she was able to think, even if it meant breaking curfew, which meant breaking the rules. Khloe Lincoln walked along the sidewalk, her steps the sole sound, interrupting the silence of the quickly approaching morning. The streetlights were off, but they always were now. Most had shattered after the […]
Clip Dirty Wings
“. . . Girls want to be her / Boys want to be her / I want to be her,” a singer wails from the stage of a grungy metal club. A hole-in-the-wall that even the Sex Pistols in their heyday would’ve said was too filthy. The perfect club for a wild child of the […]
Extreme Horror May Not Be for Everyone, But Some of Us Still Read It
One of the reasons why a lot of people avoid books and movies that are “horror” is because there’s a misconception that there is only one type of horror: extreme. These are the kinds of horror that seem to go overboard with the gore and grossness, such as cannibalism and graphic descriptions of dead bodies. […]
Mental Health and the Changing Face of Horror
Ariella, please use your real email account for your user account on your www site logins. That will help you keep your sites secure and prevent strangers from accessing your accounts. Chewed-up nails, dizzy spells, why-haven’t-I-thrown-up-yet musings, bullets of sweat, racing hearts and aching heads—anxiety can be arduous to experience. The last thing you’d expect […]
Wearing Our Mark: When Mary Ann Plays in The Devil’s Advocate
In the 1997 movie The Devil’s Advocate (directed by Taylor Hackford and based on Andrew Neiderman’s 1990 novel of the same title), Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) plays submissive, but the boundaries depend on what’s at stake and how we sacrifice women’s bodies to feed our house of horrors. As a defense attorney, Kevin Lomax (Keanu […]
Encounter
He had been pacing the floor before the fire for the better part of an hour, muttering and fortifying himself with brandy. At last, he threw himself into the chair at his writing desk, and with an unsteady hand, took up his pen. I have wrestled with what I am about to recount these past […]
Fertile Ground
Darkness and the smell of sour earth was all Rose could discern as her hands flailed, slapping against the splintered edges of the makeshift coffin. She bent her knees and they thudded against the lid. It was too shallow to turn from side to side, too heavy to break free. Rose began to hyperventilate as […]
Viridescence
Ariella, please use your real email account for your user account on your www site logins. That will help you keep your sites secure and prevent strangers from accessing your accounts. “Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay To change your day of youth to sullied night; And all in war with Time for […]
Tuesday’s Gone
Four weeks ago, on a Monday, I shut the TV off in my living room and went to bed around 11 like any other Monday night. And when I woke up the next day, it was Wednesday. I didn’t even realize it was Wednesday until I’d been on the clock for over an hour. I […]
Tamsen
Tamsen knew, in her heart, that she had died days ago, but the locomotion of her body would not stop. The electric signals from her brain to her muscles kept going until her husband finally perished. When George drew his last breath, clicking and shuddering in his chest like so many broken gears, she thought […]
Silent Night, Deadly Night: The Most Sex-Negative Horror Franchise Ever Made
Silent Night, Deadly Night is one of the most controversial horror films ever made. Released in 1984, the film wasn’t the first to feature a killer Santa. It was preceded by both 1980’s To All a Goodnight (the very first 80s slasher) and Christmas Evil (one of John Waters’ favorite films AND starring Fiona Apple’s […]
Be Kind
She laughed, like a memory. I could tell the hair dye stung as badly as it smelled, but she would accept no help from me. She crumpled the plastic bag, its job done, dropping it out the window. It stank of chemicals, but also of her—her warm scent, somewhere between lavender and pungent raspberries. I […]
Martyr
It didn’t happen like I always assumed it would. Walking home on a rainy night, noticing first that I’m being followed, looking behind me to glimpse a cadre of jacked all-American boys, their scruffy mouths snickering hey tranny faggot freak or something to that effect. I would walk faster. They would catch up. One would […]
Kuchisake-Onna
Minato Tanaka was sick and tired of all the health regulations that had been set by the government, but no other annoyed him as much as having to wear a surgical mask everywhere. It itches. I cannot breathe. He objected with these excuses, although the mask did not, in fact, suppress his ability to breathe […]
The Ghost of You
Once upon a time—that’s how most fairytales begin. However, this narrative deserves an introduction that suits a perfect love story turned tragic opening scene from a horror movie. I stood in front of what I previously regarded as my home. But it wasn’t a big, luxurious castle: now looking barely habitable enough to be classified […]
One Chicago Night
Fall 2022 Viv walked home each night, always down the same pothole-laden road. The streetlights were either dim and yellowed with age, flickering on and off, or simply inoperable, and something was always rustling in the trash cans in front of Mr. McArthur’s picture-perfect home. The fall temps had set in and the nights were […]
Pareidolia
She first started seeing faces in her mother’s Italian walnut wardrobe. Just your imagination, her mother said. But they smile at me, she said. An overactive imagination, her mother said. Don’t tell anyone. Then she saw faces in the cracks in the walls. Then in the bark of trees. Then in the pavements. Then in […]
Witching In a Winter Wonderland
The winter season is all good and fun, but putting the “Christ in Christmas” as the “reason for the season” doesn’t necessarily resonate with me. When people think of witches, default mental images go to Halloween (known as Samhain, or the pagan new year), with warty green hags wearing long, pointed hats. However, the witches […]
Interview with Eric LaRocca
If you’re on the internet in any horror-bookish capacity, you’ve probably heard of Eric LaRocca. I wish I could pinpoint when I first came across his work. I just remember knowing I had to pick up a short story collection. And then I remember being unable to put down Things Have Gotten Worse Since We […]
Ghost Town
There are rumors that Boston is haunted. People pay to tour famous cemeteries in the hopes of encountering some lost spirit trapped here on its way to the afterlife. I sometimes watch—rolling my eyes and sipping my iced coffee—as the restless tourists seek out the ghosts of people they never knew. I’m not sure what […]
The Ouroboros of Christmas Past
You thought that moving an additional five hundred miles from your hometown would increase the distance between the past and the present, but these harsh Hudson Valley winters are so reminiscent of the bitter Chicagoland winters of your childhood, you may as well have looped around and wound back up in the Region again. It’s […]