Story Excerpts

Imprint
by Zach Poulter

The left rear failed somewhere in Alaska. Or maybe it was British Columbia. Jacob hadn’t really been keeping track. He’d disabled the sensors and all outgoing communications, so his first indication anything was wrong was the little blue car listing to one side, and the slow moan of the tire’s final warning layer grinding against the road. 

“Slow to stop.” Jacob sat up. Blinked himself awake. Took in the surrounding scrub brush and pines, the ridiculously scenic mountains, and the endless, empty road, undulating up and down into the distance.

The car eased onto the gravel shoulder, near a marshy clearing. It put itself into park. 

As far as Jacob could tell, he was alone on the two-lane highway. No one to help him, but also no one who might know who he was, or what he’d done. “Time and location?”

A soft light pulsed on the main display. READ MORE

Schismogenesis
by E.G. Condé

Little Bao winced. It was not the rain that bothered him, for it was gentle and almost molten with warmth as it dripped through the wispy leaves of the Angsanas sprouting up from the mud. The boy grimaced at the figure before him, carved as it was from some cheap synthetic simulacrum of stone. The pigments, a smattering of cerise, magenta, turquoise, and a once-electric hue of green, were fading. Cracks interrupted the intricate curlicues and radial spokes that terminated in feathers, claws, and an expressive visage set beneath a bejeweled crown. Suparna sensed that the source of her younger brother’s fear was the lidless eyes that bulged out from the ornithic statue’s head. 

“We walked through the Ten Courts of Hell,” Suparna said, gripping his trembling shoulder, “and you’re scared of a bird?”

Little Bao continued to peer, as if entranced, “It’s much worse than that.”

Suparna appraised the statue; its dense wings unfurled as if caught in a wind; a rosy beak opened to reveal hominid teeth; lissome arms gripping the whorled edges of its pinion throne. “Garuda.”

Bao inclined his head toward his sister with awe. READ MORE