Theme 05: “Ghosts”
Ghosts of Summer
Fiction by Abby Kozal
“You wonder how long he’d been stuck in this house by himself, how many years he’d spent pacing up and down the hallways, how many steps it took to imprint his waterlogged bootprints into the floor…”
Shades
Fiction by Chris Negri
“Ah, there it is, the world is turning black at last. I can feel my eyes becoming jelly-like and pouring out, spilling down over my lips. Mmm. The sound is going now, a little at a time, a sort of soft ring settling. The space that was my mouth is full and dry and vacant.”
Offering
Fiction by B.F. Vega
“The offerings sat on cracked stone…The tiny cemetery was deserted, other than the Virgin statue and me.
Windswept
Fiction by David Obuchowski
“He let out another long, exasperated sigh and the sound of it blended seamlessly with that of another gust of wind, which swept across this vast and vacant landscape and that she wished would carry her off to some other life she could no longer even imagine.”
The Secret Closet
Fiction by Zary Fekete
“Eventually, the Schubert music led me to a door I’d never noticed before, half-hidden behind a rolling cart and a faded map of the world. The knob turned easily in my hand. Inside: dust, the faint scent of chalk and old paper, a single bulb flickering overhead.”
At the Speed of Sound
Fiction by Sheldon Lee Compton
“Not everyone counts having died as having escaped.”