Nightmare Magazine 31: April 2015

NIGHTMARE is an online horror and dark fantasy magazine. In NIGHTMARE's pages, you will find all kinds of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror.
This month, we have original fiction from Desirina Boskovich ("The Island") and Charles Payseur ("Spring Thaw"), along with reprints by Usman Malik ("Ishq") and Nancy Kilpatrick ("The Age of Sorrow"). We also have Seanan McGuire penning the latest installment of our column on horror, "The H Word," plus author spotlights with our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview with author and founder of Cemetery Dance Publications, Richard Chizmar.
"I was five when we moved to the island. Mommy and Daddy knew that the end was near. There were harbingers, omens, and dire events: poisoned apples, collapsing buildings, broken sidewalks, and the ever-present idiot boxes, a parade of heathens that prayed in tongues. A riot over papayas and saddle shoes broke out in the fifth quarter, and half the city burned. In a far-off desert, our soldiers fought the sand worms; we sent them care packages, stuffed with candy and thick socks. A wicked witch built a palace made from shoes; when they dug her out with the business end of a stiletto heel, they found she’d been orchestrating the fate of the world from behind an emerald curtain. When the curtain fell, it all fell apart; there was nothing left but darkness and ennui. Then a hole tore itself in the ozone, and crazy dust fell through whomever it touched lost the power of speech. The earth rent her garments, and a jagged satellite of land mass broke off the coast and floated away. I was five when we moved to the island. My sister Thea was three. "