Nightmare Magazine 69: June 2018

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 Nibedita Sen ("Leviathan Sings to Me in the Deep") and Adam-Troy Castro ("Red Rain"), along with reprints by Seth Fried ("Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre") and Priya Sharma ("The Anatomist's Mnemonic"). Lucy Taylor discusses body horror in the latest installment of our column on horror, "The H Word." Plus we have author spotlights with our authors, and a review of box office monster THE QUIET PLACE.
"3 Harvest: Arcon Glass came to dinner in my cabin tonight. A rarity; he has declined all previous invitations on pretext of work. Over dessert, First Mate Law asked him if the Guild of Natural Philosophers’ purpose in sponsoring this voyage is to research a solution to the overfishing of the whale-routes. Law has been my First Mate for a decade now and I bear the man a great affection, but he has a dockhand’s lack of tact for all that he wears an officer’s badge. Glass did not seem offended by the directness of the question, and answered that it was exactly as we had surmised. He proclaimed that his work will not only make overfishing a thing of the past, but change the very shape of the industry. I regret to say the officers concealed smiles at this; a ludicrous statement coming from a man so small with his unkempt hair and the constant smell of camphor on his hands. Glass was undeterred and raised his glass at me next. Master Bodkin, he said, is it not traditional for the ship’s captain to keep a journal? The Guild would have a certain interest in such a narrative, which your distinguished career and long years of experience would imbue with flavour that numbers and charts wholly lack. He intimated that if I should seek to publish my memoirs after retirement, he would certainly recommend it to the Guild’s attention. In truth, the keeping of the captain’s journal has grown wearisome in my old age, and where in my youth I set pen to paper with relish, I must now struggle to summon enthusiasm for the task. This is my first entry, and we are a month into the voyage already. I cannot deny that the thought of publishing some form of memoir has occurred to me before. I have ample material from my thirty years at sea such things I have seen! and on this, my last voyage before retirement, it weighs heavy on me to think of my posterity, for I have never married nor sired children. A man must have a mind not only to what he does in life but what he will leave behind. I will consider Glass’ words."