by David Luntz Church bells blot memory.  A typhoon glazes the sky.  At the wake—incense,  and walk-through saints. I brush the dead man’s hand.  “Don’t go,” he whispers.  “Knit your dreams to mine— m...

ergot. innovative horror

ergot. innovative horror

Arsonist When the fire started, I was sleeping. I escaped just before the house collapsed. I split the night open with grief— I’d forgotten the cat. The next day I found him in a neighbor’s tree, feat...

Arsonist When the fire started, I was sleeping. I escaped just before the house collapsed. I split the night open with grief— I’d forgotten the cat. The next day I found him in a neighbor’s tree, feat...

This a preorder. This book is expected to ship on or before July 14th, 2026. Twenty-three creators converge to deliver the Bravest, Newest, and Weirdest fiction of 2025! You are the nexus of evolution...

I Am The Walrus Hardboiled egg eats moon. Spiderwebs rake dry shell’s innards. Core cold. Another dead planet. John doesn’t know how he knows this. John’s fifteen. Thi

I exist in a spatial and temporal mode you can’t conceive.

Richard Brautigan visits DeKalb, Illinois, a year before his suicide. It’s 1983, fifteen or sixteen years before I move there, so I miss the chance to see him; besides, I’m born in 1987. From William ...

The Weird Fiction scene is as healthy now as it's ever been, and I think this collection—our fourth!—might have the broadest appeal yet. Much as Tenebrous continues to evolve, so has our selections pr...

During his first year at the Courtauld, John wrote an article on Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Zahir. It was published in one of those scholarly journals that boasts about twenty subscribers and ...

During his first year at the Courtauld, John wrote an article on Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Zahir. It was published in one of those scholarly journals that boasts about twenty subscribers and ...

innovative + experimental horror

An amnesiac reads his old poem aloud He stops to cry, not knowing why. His parrot finishes it, and laughs. Life Lessons Elementary-school ants on a field trip circle an orange rind beneath my rusty si...

curated by steve gergley , editor of scaffold

innovative + experimental horror

Years before. A man had come to the castle for work, carrying wood and coal up to the kitchen. He was a strong woodsman — rough hands, thick beard,

She should have walked out.

Dr. Lysergus I have started working with Dr. Lysergus. Was it today or yesterday? I came to his office in the morning.  He was seated in a Model 45, hunched over a notepad. He is tall, thin, s…

Music as a Brass Bell falling into the Sea Before she left, you thought you’d understood music. But really you hadn’t. You learned this in Greece when you watched a giant brass bell plunge into the…

minor beef[s] is a new feature where you can express your literary gripes, complaints and pet hates … Is there a writer you despise who is getting too much praise? a lauded critic whose opinio…

by David Luntz “…insane, sure, but don’t forget the moment you bumped into Poe’s ape in a gas-lit Parisian alleyway, wearing a negligée of weeping butterflies and a stovepipe hat…”

innovative + experimental horror

Work is forthcoming in or has appeared in Post Road, Hobart Pulp, Farewell Transmission, Bruiser, ergot., X-R-A-Y Lit, Maudlin House . . .

I kept having these dreams about you whose remains were everywhere

I kept having these dreams about you whose remains were everywhere

The Tree Hugger:  Don’t worry. Be happy. Adobe PDFs saved the Spotted Owl. Cool, right? ☺ The Virtue Signaler:  It’s all good. You’ll get through this (I know), besides, lab-grown beef will spare the ...

Photo by freepix.com by David Luntz A homeless man sees office workers move in a tranced circle, sometimes clockwise, sometimes the other way. He watches them from his cardboard home across the street...