Daikaijuzine

The breathless heat grows no cooler as I climb, but at least on the mountain I have not the bones of the lost to look upon. Only gray rock around me, endless sky above. There is some fragment of a memory taunting me from the edges of my mind, but it keeps itself well out [...]

Yldri’s sister never did anything without careful consideration. Runa walked as if every movement was planned and each sentence that left her lips seemed to have been composed in advance. She was always sensible, ever wise. The last thing she would ever do was to walk into the arms of a stream devil. So, as [...]

Back from the hunt with two rabbits hanging limp in hand, Rhona the Wild Axe looked south over the curvature of green hills and smiled. Strands of tangled dark hair blew across her face, propelled by the wind at her back. Her tunic bore proudly mended rents where she had once been run through, and [...]

The first time the Chinese tallow spoke to Quinlin it said nothing of the shadows; that subject would be explored later, after they become better acquainted. Initially, the tree—speaking through the convoluted knot of bark created by the loss of a bough by lightning years before—simply inquired about his health, which was recently compromised by [...]

Jim didn’t pay any attention when the first pig flew past the window. It had been that kind of a day. When he saw the third one, he figured maybe he should check it out. He flipped the “open” sign to read “back at,” then set the clock hands to half an hour. It shouldn’t [...]

The first time I saw Nick Page, he was pointing a shotgun at my head and telling me not to move.  He wore a pith helmet and the khaki uniform of an old British explorer that day.  A bandoleer stuffed with sharpened wooden stakes hung over one of his skinny shoulders.  I placed him at [...]

His name was Alfie and he’d sworn to slay the dragon. His full name was Alphimenoös Stoneacre Athelwight of Lesser Blossommere, but most people called him Alfie. He was short and proud and petty in the way of small-but-pretentious shopkeepers. Not a bad man, as such men go, yet he cared far less for the [...]

Even over the endless thunder of the pouring rain, Salir could hear the girl crying. She stood in the shadows, as still as the statues that surrounded her, oblivious to the rain that had soaked her white hair and dress, weeping, and it made Salir’s heart ache to hear it. He took a step towards [...]

“Take out their knees, and they’re on the ground,” Mark heard someone say. “Once they’re on the ground, they’re meat.” Mark wandered across the gym through knots of tuxedo-clad boys. The girls were all on the opposite side, the polished court separating the sexes. They were beautiful and distant, a sea of sequins, silk, and [...]

Perish Sutton started building a bridge in the middle of the high plains, in the middle of the prairie, the middle of nowhere, a nowhere somewhat north of Broken Bow and somewhat south of Ainsworth, Nebraska. It was not a tall bridge, more like a boardwalk such as run through seaside dunes or across marshes, [...]

Elliot Benders reached back his hand, intending to swat the eight pound ball of fur from his lap, but he caught Aunt Millicent’s disapproving glance and moved to scratch the creature’s ears instead. “Cats can sense it when you don’t like them,” Aunt Millicent said, tying off her last stitch. She shook out the completed [...]

I never quite understood what Charming saw in dead chicks. One would think that a heartbeat would be a key factor that most men would choose to have in a potential lover, but not Charming. No, he liked his women how he liked his booze: cold, stiff, and smelling riper with age. It was exactly [...]

When the old man came out of the bathroom wearing the faded costume, Honey placed her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. The black and yellow fabric over his round stomach stretched skin-tight, revealing several inches of white, hairy flesh between his belly button and his metallic gold underwear. The sleeves and leggings [...]

“Have I mentioned lately how much I hate you?” Dorry peered through her Coke-bottle-thick, horn-rimmed granny glasses at the freshly-nuked bowl of lentil and sausage soup Cloris has placed in front of her. Which wasn’t easy to do. The placing that is. With her gout-gnarled hands, opening a can was the best Cloris could manage [...]

The vision was stronger this time. Fedya Babin had tossed the runes three times a day, three days in a row, and read the prophecy the Gods gave him. This was the last of the nine readings, and as the old, worn stones came to a stop he could already see that the promised fate [...]