Nightmare Magazine, Issue 136 (January 2024): Nightmare Magazine, #136

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 R.A. Busby ("Ten Thousand Crawling Children") and Andrew Snover ("The Forgetter"). Our Horror Lab originals include a creative essay ("Chase Scene") from Megan Kiekel Anderson and a poem ("In Our Bodies, There Is Heat") from Somto Ihezue. We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, "The H Word," plus author spotlights with our authors, and a feature interview with author V. Castro.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223675624

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 136 (January 2023)

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: January 2024

FICTION

Ten Thousand Crawling Children

R.A. Busby

The Forgetter

Andrew Snover

POETRY

In Our Bodies, There Is Heat

Somto Ihezue

CREATIVE NONFICTION

Chase Scene

Megan Kiekel Anderson

NONFICTION

The H Word: All the Missing Mothers

Kelsea Yu

Interview: V. Castro

Gordon B. White

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

R.A. Busby

Andrew Snover

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

© 2024 Nightmare Magazine

Cover by Fran_Kie / Shutterstock Stock Image

www.nightmare-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press

From the Editor

Editorial: January 2024

Wendy N. Wagner | 304 words

Welcome to Issue #136 of Nightmare Magazine, and welcome to another year celebrating horror and dark fantasy fiction. We’re excited to scare, unsettle, nauseate, amuse, and depress you—because we believe in the power of horror to do all of those things. It’s truly a genre for everyone and every palate, the perfect realm to explore all the complicated, dark facets of the human condition.

January is a month for celebrating new beginnings and fresh starts. It’s also the month we’re most likely to take a serious look at our health, relationships, and work-life balance. Every magazine at the grocery store shouts cliches like New Year, New You! and gyms across America offer incredible sign-up deals. In January, you’ll be hard-pressed to have a conversation with anyone without someone bringing up exercise. Needless to say, it seemed like a great month to center our issue around, you guessed it: bodies in motion. Or at least, bodies and verbs.

The month starts off with R.A. Busby’s story Ten Thousand Crawling Children, a tale of exquisite body horror. Verb? Crawling, of course! Andrew Snover joins us with his short The Forgetter, about a man with a very unusual job. Verb? Shoveling. Megan Kiekel Anderson brings us our first creative nonfiction piece in several months, discussing the way we remember terrifying experiences in her essay Chase Scene. (Verb: running.) And Somto Ihezue explores the verb smoldering in his poem In Our Bodies There Is Heat.

Kelsea Yu writes about the roles of dead mothers in fairy tales in her essay for The H Word, and Gordon B. White interviews author V. Castro. Plus, our spotlight interview team brings you insights into our authors’ eerie minds.

It’s another terrific issue for you to enjoy—even when you’re on the treadmill.

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

Ten Thousand Crawling Children

R.A. Busby | 7757 words

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CW: arachnophobia, pregnancy and childbirth/tokophobia, miscarriages/abortion/sterilization, graphic gynecological exam, body hatred, self-harm and suicide, brief mention of child sexual assault and pregnancy, death, blood/bodily fluids, bodily harm, mental illness, sexism and misogyny, medical gaslighting.

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Pregnancy is an infestation. A hidden invasion.

An invisible operative sneaks inside you, planting a package of foreign genetic material and forcing you to replicate it trillions of times. Soon, your hostage cell floats down your fallopian tube to the womb to feed on the blood-bed of your uterine lining like a vicious little tick. If it plants itself in the tube, the cell will kill you as surely as it killed my mother.

Like my mother, if I get pregnant, I might be among the 23.8 people in 100,000 who die. If I were Black, my risk would be twice that; if I were over forty, almost eight. There is an 85% chance my vagina will split; a 6% chance I’ll suffer a fourth-degree perineal tear. That’s when your vadge rips open to your asshole.

The more you know.

You could be invaded right now. You can’t see it.

Trust me. I’ve tried.

I never wanted to be pregnant. Now I can’t escape it, not even in my dreams. Especially there.

You see, the things are inside me.

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Ever since my divorce, I’ve worked for WriteStuff, a content creation company. I pick an article topic, examine the SEO-friendly terms the client wants, and string them together in a blog post that sounds as if