The mansion is a study in architecture at war with itself. It’s not just the windows that don’t match and the turrets that don’t overlook anything and the roof that sits flat here while looming at impossible angles there. Nor is it just the exterior walls that, seen from one angle, seem rotted and decrepit and about to collapse, and seen from another, gleam like jewels. Nor is it the gnarled skin of the columns that support the overhang at the front entrance, or the glistening scarlet door that seems poised to open until you see that it’s not a real door at all. | Copyright 2018 by Adam-Troy Castro. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.
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Adam-Troy Castro | Pitcher Plant

Edited by Wendy N. Wagner, NIGHTMARE is a critically-acclaimed digital magazine of horror and dark fantasy. In its pages, you will find all kinds of horror and dark fantasy, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror. Every month NIGHTMARE will bring you a mix of original short stories and flash fiction, and featuring a variety of authors: from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard of yet. When you read NIGHTMARE, it is our hope that you'll see where horror comes from, where it is now, and where it's going. The NIGHTMARE podcast, produced by Grammy Award-winning narrator and producer Stefan Rudnicki of Skyboat Media, features original audio short stories and poems 3-4 times a month.

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It didn’t come as a surprise when AJ told me she wanted to open our relationship. We’d been an item for four years, but by the middle of the third year the two of us had long since checked out. | © 2024 by James Tatum. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.
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James Tatam | Backseat Kiss

When a nice man with a smart phone camera approaches them. It is also the phone he uses to record his real real reviews of the tacos from the authentic food trucks in Brooklyn and the scenes of the noble and earnest people at the bodegas in Queens. Places where honest people hang out and where he doesn’t make friends with anyone. | © 2024 by Mark Galarrita. Narrated by Annette Oliveira.
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Mark Galarrita | There are three children jumping over a can outside a bodega

When the American saw me sitting on a stone in the river, his mouth opened and closed, a brown trout caught on a fishing line. He kept his eyes on me as he hurried to pull off his socks and shoes, as if I would vanish otherwise. | © 2024 by Shannon Scott. Narrated by Annette Oliveira.
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Shannon Scott | My Containment

This poem began as flash fiction, and was then whittled even smaller—perhaps ironic, given its subject. I wrote this to explore how we change in a relationship, how it isn’t always healthy or best for us—or necessarily consensual. | © 2024 by E. Catherine Tobler. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki
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E. Catherine Tobler | The Let Go

I like car journeys in the passenger’s seat. They give me time to think and rethink things beyond the shape of my life. I’m not allowed to play music, but I can in my head. Places blur. Memories tangle. Pitying voices from long ago garble in my ear on the thickened tongue of regret. “Muniza,” my husband says, eyes on the road. “Your skin is slipping.” | © 2024 by Fatima Taqvi. Narrated by Janina Edwards.
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Adam-Troy Castro | Pitcher Plant

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