Short Fiction

APEX MAGAZINE

Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful.

APEX MAGAZINE

Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful.

Genre short fiction from Apex Magazine

BySilvia Moreno-Garcia

a white mask with the words apex magazine on it.

Cemetery Man

She lay bleeding upon her cartridge belts. She could not stand up. The piercing pain in her stomach would not allow it.

ByKatharine EK Duckett

The Edge of Things

The problem, of course, is that the world ended.

ByDaniela Tomova

a dark blue background with a circular design.

Behind Her, Trailing Like Butterfly Wings

I say yes, my newspaper is running an entire series on the road people, as we call them in the oases. We are interviewing a crosscut of the entire road society—merchants, arbiters, enforcers, gatherers, hunters, new parents, even children. Why they choose to walk. What they think of the Wandering Woman. Do they believe she is real?

ByNick Mamatas

The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft

The hand-drawn map Fremgen had mailed me was crude, and obviously not to scale, so it was a little like following a treasure map made by a pirate with a spatial perception disorder.

ByKA Teryna

Untilted

Marcus knows: underpasses lie in wait, stalking lonely pedestrians whose disappearance would not be noticed by the passers-by. And once an underpass captures its victim, it never lets go. At first one wouldn’t even notice that anything is wrong. They’d walk on and on, barely registering that the underpass seems longer than usual. Then they’d realize that there is no exit ahead. They’d turn around and see only darkness.

ByS.B. Divya

a blurry photo of a pink and yellow background.

An Unexpected Boon

Her whole body emitted a soft yellow light. Wherever cracks of skin showed through the mud, she blazed. She looked as if the sun itself burned within her; like goddess Usha at dawn.

ByKate Ingram

The Case of the Mysterious Meat

It was hot. The kind of hot that would make the devil himself pull out a fan. Everywhere Mauve looked was blurry, either from heat rising off the pavement, sweat dripping in his eyes, or an uncomfortable combination of both. It was hot and Salisbury Steakhouse and Petting ZooTM was lying.

BySheree Renée Thomas

Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight

Thistle stood with her back to him, all curve and joy, a plum-skinned promise of delight. He tried to follow her, but his feet wouldn’t move. With each step forward he kept stumbling backward, as if his body wanted, needed to withdraw every footstep, to retrace their path under that lone glimmering star.

ByAnnie Neugebauer

So Sings the Siren

The man wobbled his jaw. “Her face is contorted in beautiful agony. Her pain is what draws the beauty of her voice in contrast. The better the musician, the more beautiful her song.”