Read Magazine – Download the .pdf

Riding the Hog, Stone Showers
“Now Hellraiser was just what his name implied: an 800-pound monster that Clancy had raised up from a little piglet. He was mean as pigs go, more wild than tame, really — as likely to charge a man as he was to pee on his boot.”

Because Sometimes Little Boys Do Not Listen to Their Mothers, Anna Lea Jancewicz
“Once, there was a boy who swallowed a bee. His mother told him not to do it. She wrung her hands like threadbare dishrags and keened, but he didn’t listen because sometimes little boys do not listen to their mothers. The bee didn’t sting his throat or his belly, but it didn’t die either. It buzzed around inside of him and made itself at home.”

Alchemy, Anton Rose
“elbows drawing the slice of a knife, / parting meat from sinew and bone, / butchered death becoming new life”

Old Bill and the Zombie Stripper, Gary Moshimer
“It was totally dark except for the stage, where Mercedes was doing her thing. She was named for the car she perished in. Now she was peeling her burnt skin from her bones. Zombie strippers can do that.”

Wall, Nikolaj Volgushev
“These days, whenever I pass a wall I imagine that Jerry built it. Especially those stone walls trailing off into the forest, moss-covered and derelict, dysfunctional at first glance. I wonder what the purpose of these walls is; I mean, look at them among the pines and shrubs and roots, what are these walls actually dividing? ‘All forgotten spaces,’ Jerry tells me from afar.”

Cover art: Dino Scraps, Jon Snoek