Nightmare Magazine, Issue 135 (December 2023): Nightmare Magazine, #135

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 #135 of NIGHTMARE! We have original short fiction from Ashlee Lhamon ("For All Your Other Daughters") and Lynette Hoag ("Bete Noire"). Our Horror Lab originals include a flash story ("The Twelve Dying Princesses") from Marisca Pichette and a poem ("dread") from TJ Price. We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, "The H Word," plus author spotlights with our authors, and a review from Adam-Troy Castro.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223267140

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 135 (December 2023)

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: December 2023

FICTION

The Twelve Dying Princesses

Marisca Pichette

For All Your Other Daughters

Ashlee Lhamon

Bête Noire

Lynette S. Hoag

POETRY

dread

TJ Price

BOOK EXCERPTS

The Deading (Erewhon Books)

Nicholas Belardes

NONFICTION

The H Word: The Blizzard Song

Ed Grabianowski

Book and Media Review: December 2023

Adam-Troy Castro

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Ashlee Lhamon

Lynette S. Hoag

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 annamei / Adobe Stock Images

www.nightmare-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From the Editor

Editorial: December 2023

Wendy N. Wagner | 492 words

Welcome to Issue #135 of Nightmare Magazine. It’s hard to believe it’s already December and time to wrap up another year of publishing terrific dark fantasy and horror. 2023 has been a tough year for short fiction, with magazines like ours weathering the storms of AI-generated submissions and the end of the Kindle Periodicals program, where many magazines sourced the majority of their subscribers. It’s the kind of year that makes all of us working in this field exceptionally grateful for every single reader. Thank you so much for letting us be a part of your nightmares for yet another year!

Speaking of nightmares: we’re looking for a few more of them. That’s right—next month we’ll be opening to submissions for the first time in over a year. For more details, check out our submissions guidelines.

The horror genre is often defined by its use of terror, suspense, gruesomeness, and mounting dread. These are important tools in a horror writer’s toolbox, and none is more important or useful than any of the others. I didn’t set out to celebrate dread in this issue, but once I’d chosen TJ Price’s dread as this month’s poetry selection, I saw that the other works this month were also built around that wonderful tool. Each of our fiction pieces this month is organized around a principle of slowly mounting awfulness building to an unpleasant climax. You can’t help but suspect where the piece is going, but you also can’t stand to look away from the trainwreck.

Don’t get me wrong: each of these stories is doing wildly different things. Ashlee Lhamon kicks off our month with her body horror short story For All Your Other Daughters. It’s a fiercely feminist tale that will set your teeth on edge. On the other hand, Lynette S. Hoag’s account of a smart home with a very bad attitude (short story Bête Noire) is a sly critique of our relationship with technology and pop culture. Marisca Pichette’s flash story The Twelve Dying Princesses would have been a great fit for November’s fairy tale-themed issue, but its structure of ever unhappier endings suggested it belonged here.

And, honestly, December seems like the right place for an issue about situations that grow steadily darker. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, as I do, every day gets a little bit darker—and a little bit colder. If the cold bothers you, then perhaps the most frightening piece in this issue will be Ed Grabianowski’s H Word essay about the terrifying experience of surviving a severe blizzard. Other nonfiction this month includes a media review from Adam-Troy Castro and spotlight interviews with our writers.

It’s another terrific issue, perfect for reading on a cold, stormy night, while snuggling up with a warm cup of something delicious. Enjoy!

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

The Twelve Dying Princesses

Marisca Pichette | 941 words

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CW: Death, abuse, suicide, rape, homophobia, misogyny, and bodily harm.

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This is one of those stories that just about wrote itself. Each princess had something to say, grief and rage straining through the veneer painted over their original tales. The end result is part obituary, part manifesto—a desperate cry for all the ugly to be seen alongside imperfectly beautiful decay.

—MP

1.

Apple in the throat, cyanide seeds on blood-flecked lips, core pinched in locked-up teeth.

The coroner said Snow tried to save herself, alone in her apartment in March. Her autopsy revealed three cracked ribs from where she tried to Heimlich herself against the kitchen sink. Her teeth were bleached white, rotten at the roots.¹

¹ She is buried in the bottom left corner of an orchard.

2.

Tetanus came first, from a rusted needle in her sewing machine. Rose slipped into a coma and died three months later in her hospital bed, surrounded by sleeping patients. Her body then lay in the morgue, unclaimed for a week before she was finally removed and laid on a brush pile behind the hospital.²

² They burned her with clippings from the garden, her bones mixing with thorns in the ash.

3.

The press refused to print the names of the wolves who followed Ruby home and tore