Nightmare Magazine, Issue 108 (September 2021): Nightmare Magazine, #108

By Wendy N. Wagner

NIGHTMARE is a digital 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.

 

Welcome to issue one hundred and eight of NIGHTMARE! This month, we have original short fiction from Orrin Grey ("Chanson D'Amour") and Gillian Daniels ("Frost Bloom"). Our Horror Lab originals include a poem ("Ode to My Brother's Sadness") from Franklin Ard and a flash story ("Still Life With Vial of Blood") from Nelly Geraldine Garcia-Rosas. We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, "The H Word," plus author spotlights with our authors, and a book review from Adam-Troy Castro. It's another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And while you're at it, tell a friend about NIGHTMARE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201857752

Book preview

Nightmare Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 108 (September 2021)

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: September 2021

FICTION

Chanson D’Amour

Orrin Grey

Frost Bloom

Gillian Daniels

Still Life with Vial of Blood

Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas

POETRY

Ode to My Brother’s Sadness

Franklin Ard

BOOK EXCERPTS

EXCERPT: The All-Consuming World (Erewhon Books)

Cassandra Khaw

NONFICTION

The H Word: The Missing and the Murdered---True Crime as Content

Cynthia Pelayo

Book Reviews: September 2021

Adam-Troy Castro

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Orrin Grey

Gillian Daniels

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions

Stay Connected

Subscriptions and Ebooks

Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

About the Nightmare Team

© 2021 Nightmare Magazine

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http://www.nightmare-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From the Editor

Editorial: September 2021

Wendy N. Wagner | 356 words

Welcome to Nightmare’s 108th issue!

I spend a good chunk of time every day outside alone or with only my dog, and I like it a lot. When I’m in the garden or taking a run, I feel completely absorbed in the world, connected to the creatures I see and the plants I’m near. I never feel lonely when I’m out in nature.

The same cannot be said for the time I spend with other people. There are times when a person can be surrounded by friends and still feel deeply, deeply lonely. Part of that’s me and part of that is the simple fact that being with other humans is a challenge. Understanding each other takes real work. Connections require care and feeding. Relationships are sometimes just hard.

That’s what this issue is all about: the challenge of relating to others, and the thousand different ways people can hurt each other. But more importantly, it’s about finding beauty in those moments, no matter how painful, bloody, or terrifying they become.

Our first unhappily ever after is the short story Chanson D’Amour, a meditation on film, love, and violence from Orrin Grey. Our other full-length short is a vampire tale by Gillian Daniels: Frost Bloom. Both tales feature love stories with unexpected twists and turns, so we hope you enjoy following along. In the Horror Lab, poet Franklin Ard gives us a heart-breaking account of depression and addiction in Ode to My Brother’s Sadness. Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas examines the fraught relationship between art and viewer in her flash story Still Life with Vial of Blood.

On the nonfiction side of the issue, we have spotlight interviews with our story writers and a book review from Adam-Troy Castro. The H Word column was penned by Cynthia Pelayo, who discusses the appeal of true crime fiction. For our ebook readers, we also have an excerpt from Cassandra Khaw’s new novel, The All-Consuming World.

It’s another unsettling and horrific issue—but would you want it any other way? Have fun reading, and enjoy the nightmares!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the horror novel The Deer Kings and the forthcoming gothic novella The Secret Skin (coming fall 2021). Previous work includes the SF thriller An Oath of Dogs and two novels for the Pathfinder Tales series. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have appeared in more than fifty venues. She also serves as the managing/senior editor of Lightspeed Magazine, and previously served as the guest editor of Nightmare‘s Queers Destroy Horror! She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two large cats, and a Muppet disguised as a dog.

FictionDiscover John Joseph Adams Books

Chanson D’Amour

Orrin Grey | 3502 words

You wake with a start, your dream cutting off like a break in the film. If you could just remember it, you’d be getting somewhere, but it’s gone, the screen in front of you blinding white, the film spinning on its reel, the trailing end going flip flip flip as it turns.

With a sigh, you shut off the machine, take that trailing bit of film, feed it back through, start rolling the whole thing again, from the bottom. The images on the screen move backward and too fast. Mouths silently chattering like monkeys. Figures doing a backward pantomime walk down hallways—or would that be up them?

You suppose you should be grateful that Victor thinks he’s Tarantino. That he insists on filming on 35mm; on editing the old-fashioned way. Shot, chopped, and scored, as he’s fond of saying. It’s how you got the job. Most of the other film school kids don’t know how to cut real film anymore.

Right now, it’s hard to appreciate, though. Your head aches. Your eyes are sandpaper; you can feel them grating in their sockets as they move. You could be hungover, but you’re pretty sure you haven’t had a drink in six months, and there’s an AA chip in your dresser drawer to vouch.

My dad drank, is that your voice, telling Sara on the night you finally decided to go to the church basement with its creaky folding chairs and all its sad, rumpled people? It wasn’t an occasional thing, or is it when you finally stood up in front of those same people and let the story pour out, the parts of it you could tell, even then?

"I’m not sure I ever knew him sober. But sometimes he drank more, and when he did, it was like a black cloud, you know? There wasn’t any love left in him. Just hunger that never filled up. And sometimes he’d take my mother into the bedroom, where they thought I couldn’t hear . . ."

You slam the film to a stop. On the screen in front of you is a knife, its blade diamond-bright so that it catches the light and throws it back refracted, making a rainbow. The blood on its tip jelly-thick and ruby red.

It’s day number you’ve-completely-lost-track