Nightmare Magazine, Issue 134 (November 2023): Nightmare Magazine, #134

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 #134 of NIGHTMARE! We have original short fiction from Sharang Biswas ("Waiting for Jonah") and Woody Dismukes ("The Curse of the Boto Boy"). Our Horror Lab originals include a poem ("Awakening") from Tiffany Morris and a flash story ("Whatever Takes Us") from Aigner Loren Wilson. We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, "The H Word," plus author spotlights with our authors, and an entry in our de_crypt_ed review column.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223521938

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 134 (November 2023)

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: November 2023

FICTION

Waiting for Jonah

Sharang Biswas

The Curse of the Boto Boy

Woody Dismukes

Whatever Takes Us

Aigner Loren Wilson

POETRY

Awakening

Tiffany Morris

NONFICTION

The H Word: Bartleby and the Weird

Zachary Gillan

de•crypt•ed: Hawk on Jones

Shane Hawk

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Sharang Biswas

Woody Dismukes

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

© 2023 Nightmare Magazine

Cover by Dark Illusion / Adobe Stock Images

www.nightmare-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From the Editor

Editorial: November 2023

Wendy N. Wagner | 312 words

Welcome to Issue #134 of Nightmare Magazine! I don’t know about you, but after all the excitement of October, when November arrives, I crave a good nap. November inspires me to bring out the fuzzy blankets and all my favorite comfort reads, like the fantasy novels that inspired me to get into writing in the first place (Pamela Dean and Charles L. Grant, I am looking at you).

Which is why I’m extremely glad that way, way back in the spring, I decided to make November our first-ever all dark fantasy issue. Better yet, it’s themed around fairies and fairy tales! But don’t worry. This is still Nightmare, so our authors are bringing only the darkest of takes on all this magic and mayhem.

We’re starting the month with a new story from Sharang Biswas: Waiting for Jonah. If you were ever a miserable, lovesick high schooler, you will empathize with the narrator, even as he copes with a frenemy obsessed with powers no one should mess with. Woody Dismukes explores a damper realm in his story of magical beings, The Curse of the Boto Boy. Our flash story is Whatever Takes Us, a tiny, nasty fairy story from Aigner Loren Wilson. And Tiffany Morris returns with an unsettling poem: Awakening.

Our nonfiction includes the latest installment of our de•crypt•ed column, where Shane Hawk discusses the way Stephen Graham Jones’s audiobook The Babysitter Lives has influenced his own work. Our The H Word essay is by critic Zachary Gillan, examining the role of Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener in the history of Weird Fiction. We also have two terrific spotlight interviews with our writers.

It’s our most fantastical month ever! So grab your fuzziest blankets and your hot beverages, and get cozy with another dark issue.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of The Creek Girl, forthcoming 2025 from Tor Nightfire, as well as 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. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Shirley Jackson award, and her short stories, poetry, and essays have appeared in more than sixty venues. A Locus award nominee for her editorial work here, she also serves as the managing/senior editor of Lightspeed Magazine, and previously served as the guest editor of our Queers Destroy Horror! special issue. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two large cats, and a Muppet disguised as a dog.

FictionOut There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele

Waiting for Jonah

Sharang Biswas | 5802 words

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CW: Implied sexual violence, homophobia, misogyny, offscreen animal violence.

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Once upon a time, there was you and there was Jonah.

Jonah! you would call out. Jonah, it’s me! Let me in!

But he’d never let you in. Before you turned ten, the inside of Jonah’s room remained as opaque as the inside of his thoughts.

And he would always, always make you wait. You’d stand there, bouncing on your toes, hands stuffed into your pockets, wondering how long it would take this time. You never dreamed of going back down to his parents. You never dreamed of doing anything except waiting for Jonah.

He always emerged with a weird excuse:

I was trying to catch the sun in my mirror.

I was teaching the cat how to sneeze.

I was staring at a bird that looked kinda like a fairy.

The last time you asked him why he made you wait so long, he gave you a strange look and said, because I knew you would. You never asked again after that.

Jonah was the most magnetic person around, even back then. When he turned on his personality—when his head tilted just so, when the corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly, those large, brown eyes somehow wider—he had you. No one was safe—not other kids, not parents, not even teachers. His hands could be bloodied with guilty red paint and everyone would still believe that no, despite Farhan’s sobs, Jonah would never leave red handprints on his bag, how could anyone ever accuse him of that?

Jonah liked to hold court. There was a big date palm in the middle of the playground, ringed with an octagonal wooden bench. He would stand on the bench, leaning against the