short fiction

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ByM.J. Starling

a white mask with the words apex magazine on it.

When a Crossroads Is a Corner

One bark from the black dog on the corner will bring the rest of the litter running. A howl will summon its masters, the men in red.

ByJessica Walsh

Whispering Waters

It took a whole week to convince yourself, a week to drown out the whispers from the dripping sink and the coffee machine. Your steaming mug isn’t talking to you, honest.

ByRobin Wyatt Dunn

When you cut into a stone, do you know what it does to me? I’m part stone, you see, and part emotional memory, I am a banshee, a woman who was hung from a tree, because my husband was fucking another woman and I tried to kill him—

ByGinger Weil

The Stagman’s Song

Susan poured tea and focused on kitchen sounds: the splash of water in her mug, the clack of spoon against ceramic. They didn’t mute her mother’s restless pacing, or the rattle of her uncle sorting jars in the basement. Too many of the jars were empty.

ByMarissa Lingen

The New Girl

Badger had followed her dreams to the water’s edge, one day at a time spooling out in front of her as though it was meant to be when in fact it was only dreamed of. Then she was stuck, stymied, as her dreams only showed the water’s edge, nothing more, for days, and her food began to run out.

ByChikodili Emelumadu

a drawing of a skeleton with a bowl of sprinkles on its head.

Candy Girl

The trouble starts when I pick up my umbrella, and it pricks my finger.

ByRich Larson

Brute

The apartment’s DNA scanner can pick Anton out of the crowd almost a block away, so the sliding doors were unlocked and the lobby lighting was welcoming when me and him arrived with the crate. Automated apartments are cushy like that, but I would get lonely without human voices.

ByTom Piccirilli

What I Am

I am Big Apple. I bear witness to struggle, to tragedy small and enormous, to daily happiness, madness, and vengeance. I am gas leak, rent hike, and sewer blockage. I am five–alarm fire.

ByJessica Sirkin

an old house with snow falling from the roof.

The House in Winter

There is a presence in completely dark rooms — even rooms in ordinary houses — a sense of certainty that someone else is there. It fills all the space where you are not. It wraps long arms around you and whispers in your ear. It lets you know without a doubt that this house in the dark is not yours. I know this house is not mine. This story is not mine.