Nightmare Magazine, Issue 113 (February 2022): Nightmare Magazine, #113

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 113 of NIGHTMARE! We have original short fiction from Ray Nayler ("The Summer Castle") and Jonathan L. Howard ("The Walls"). Our Horror Lab originals include a flash story ("Fenworth City Municipal Watersheds Field Survey") from A.L. Goldfuss and a poem ("Nineveh") from Belicia Rhea. 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 Terence Taylor. 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: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201126957

Book preview

Nightmare Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 113 (February 2022)

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: February 2022

FICTION

The Summer Castle

Ray Nayler

Fenworth City Municipal Watersheds Field Survey

A.L. Goldfuss

In the Walls and Beneath the Fridge

Jonathan L. Howard

POETRY

Nineveh

Belicia Rhea

BOOK EXCERPTS

EXCERPT: Clean Air (Workman Books)

Sarah Blake

NONFICTION

The H Word: Resuscitating the Heart of Horror

Neil McRobert

Book Reviews, February 2022

Terence Taylor

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Ray Nayler

Jonathan L. Howard

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

© 2022 Nightmare Magazine

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http://www.nightmare-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From the Editor

Editorial: February 2022

Wendy N. Wagner | 461 words

Welcome to Nightmare’s 113th issue! I can’t believe I’ve been writing these editorials for an entire year now. Looking back over the past twelve issues, I’m so proud of our staff and our amazing writers. What a terrific bunch! I can’t wait to see what we’ll put together for you in our next orbit around the sun.

When celebrating an important anniversary, it’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed by your memories, and this issue celebrates the power and pain that memory can invoke in our lives. In The Summer Castle, Ray Nayler has spun an original short story about war, family, and our inability to ever recall the past with objectivity. It’s one of those quietly creepy stories that gets more unsettling every time you read it. In our second short story of the month, In the Walls and Beneath the Fridge, Jonathan L. Howard gives us a tale of a man who’s been playing he-said-she-said with his abuser for far too long. The threads of his memories connect his unpleasant past to the family drama that plays out in his new apartment.

Our Horror Lab originals include an apocalyptic flash story (Fenworth City Municipal Watersheds Field Survey) from A.L. Goldfuss and a darkly emotional poem (Nineveh) from Belicia Rhea—and don’t worry, memory plays an uncomfortable role in both of these little gems.

Our ebook readers have a bit of a treat this month. We luckily have an excerpt from the novel Clean Air, by Sarah Blake. It’s bit more science fictional than what we usually feature, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

For nonfiction, we’ve got author spotlights with our authors, and a book review from Terence Taylor. In The H Word this month, podcaster and horror scholar Neil McRobert writes about a subject that really resonates with me: the emergence of a trend toward horror with heart. I’ll let Neil explain how he’s watched this trend develop over the past decade or so, but I know it’s my goal here at Nightmare to share work that touches not just the intellect, but the gut and heart. I like to think our work here is to move and inspire our readers. That we aren’t just in the business of scaring people—although that’s always fun—but in giving them work that navigates the human condition toward a more authentic, more connected place. Work that stays with you.

Because at the end of the day, all that you have of the previous twenty-four hours are the memories you created . . . and hopefully the only terrifying memories are the ones we’ve planted there with our words.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the horror novel The Deer Kings and the gothic novella The Secret Skin. Previous work includes the SF thriller An Oath of Dogs and two novels for the Pathfinder Tales series, and 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! special issue. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two large cats, and a Muppet disguised as a dog.

FictionDiscover John Joseph Adams Books

The Summer Castle

Ray Nayler | 4694 words

I have spent my life trying to understand what the thing called memory is. I know some of what it is not. It is not the opposite of forgetting. And it is not a record of what happened.

How many summers did we spend at the castle? Five? Seven? We did not go there every summer, though now it seems impossible childhood summers could have existed without the castle.

We always arrived by train. The city was fumes of beer and cigar smoke, the constant din of silverware scraping out from the restaurants, the sweating faces of overdressed citizens mashed inside the trams.

Our motorcar drove past the city morgue. There, important people who died were taken and set up in a great chair, where for days they sat in state. Generals in their uniforms choked with medals, the burgomaster’s wife in jewels and silk. A string, we were told, was tied to a finger. The slightest twitch would ring a bell. When we passed, I would picture my grandfather in there, in that great chair, in his morning coat, his gray hair brilliantined, his striped trousers neatly creased. Trying to move. Trying to be alive, though he was dead.

But our grandfather was not dead. He waited for us at the castle, his silk hat in his hands. As if we were not children, but the most distinguished guests.

Summer began in the rafters of the hay barn, in that first leap down into the hay, when we left our insides in the air and what remained of us plunged into heat and fragrance. We passed, in that moment, through the final membrane—out of the elsewhere spring, into the world of the castle.

No one scolded us at the summer castle. There was no place we could not go, nothing forbidden. Our own fears were the only borders. And so, in that last summer, when we could hear artillery like distant thunder, and sometimes see flashes that were not lightning on the horizon,