Nightmare Magazine 57: June 2017

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've got original fiction from Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam ("Secret Keeper") and Adam-Troy Castro ("The Narrow Escape of Zipper-Girl"), along with reprints by Micaela Morrissette ("Wendigo") and writing duo Robert Jackson Bennett and David Liss ("Hollow Choices"). Over at "The H Word," we've brought in Lee Thomas to discuss the unique role of Peter Straub's novel KOKO in horror literature. We're also pleased to offer the first installment of a new quarterly media and book review column from long-time fiction contributor Adam-Troy Castro. Of course we'll have author spotlights with some of our authors, too!
"You know how this story goes: the girl was kissed in the womb by the devil. When she emerged into the too-bright world, she was missing half her face where his teeth tore it off. The doctors did their best; they grafted skin over the left side, added collagen in her cheeks. “Smile,” they said, tickling her feet. But she could not smile, and so no one smiled at her. A girl is supposed to be beautiful. A girl is supposed to have rosy red cheeks and a laugh that makes men wilt to think of her bright future. A beautiful girl will have a beautiful life. An ugly girl slips unseen through secret doors. The girl was always good at finding secrets. She was better at keeping them."