She wasn’t my grandma, but grandpa junior’s eighteenth or nineteenth wife, and I couldn’t help her. “Your computer belongs to the Internet now, Grandma,” I said, as I removed my hands from the seething slit of rotting sweetmeats and quivering nerves she kept on what used to be a nice oak side table.
Read MoreFOUR IS ME! WITH SQUEEEEEE! (AND LOLER)When Rudolf Arnheim heard what his father had done, he kicked the leg of a table that his mother had brought to Malo as part of her dowry. It had been in her family for two hundred years, and had once stood in the palace of King Radomir IV of Sylvania.
Read MoreFair Ladies“I’ve told you already, I have no idea!” Thad let himself sag back against the wall. Even with the support, he could feel himself trembling with fatigue and fear.
Read MoreEnd of the Line: A PuzzleSay you’re lost in the hustle-bustle of the local farmer’s market in search of some shiny bibelot for your girlfriend, and you find your mother mouth-to-mouth with a man who isn’t your father. In fact, he’s nothing like your father.
Read MoreThose BelowMiker drove our fire engine through the dark neighborhood, the red emergency lights flash-synching to the deep bass of the rumbler siren. Parked cars and flower gardens and mailboxes flashed by, illuminated for seconds before sliding back to night.
Read MoreHere We Are, Falling Through ShadowsI am you, and you are me. We haven’t met, but we will, in some months. Then again in a year. More frequently after that for a stretch, though it doesn’t last. Or perhaps we never meet.
Read MoreShrödinger’s PussyHe cut power to the fans and looked out the back window of the cabin. The towlines had gone slack and the skimmer tilted, half sunk in the viscous orange lake. “Shit,” he said.
Read MoreArtifactI suppose I should be teary-eyed. After all, this is my last edited edition of Apex Magazine for the foreseeable future.
Read MoreEditorial Dispositions: Saying Good-bye, Waving HelloHalf a blink after the smoke from the cigarette smoldering in the ashtray had curled into a hoary question mark and froze in perpetual query as if to ask, “What next, Dick?” Dick turned his head ever so slowly toward the kitchen.
Read MoreThe Thing in the Refrigerator That Could Stop Time