The heat has taken its toll on my men and the tents smell of sweat and rotting flesh. The battle raged taking many of my soldiers, still left in the trenches, their corpses exposed.

A loud explosion startles me. I inadvertently drop the letter and run for cover.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Off in the distance, hundreds of lifeless began to shuffle toward town. Vernon turned and saw the cowboy he’d killed staring at him with bloodshot eyes.

Hell-bent for leather on horseback, they left the living and the un-dead behind.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Whenever I fly into a foreign country, I’m afraid I’ll be dragged into a room and forced to answer questions I’ll fail to understand. “You can do better,” the examiner will say, just before firing an electric current through the alligator clips attached to my ears. By the time I’m released from custody, I’ll be bent, shriveled, gnome-like, and afflicted with tremors. These events repeat themselves in my mind on a loop, every recurrence worse than the last, now involving sleep deprivation, now an inmate orchestra playing a German requiem, now corpses sprawled half in, half out of broken caskets.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s latest poetry collections are I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submissions Press. 

The diner, Elmer’s Pitstop, recalled a simpler time, when coffee refills were always free and quarters were collected for eventual use in the jukebox. The server, Gina was her name, enjoyed the work and could actually raise a family on the income.

He sighed as he surveyed the chaos. The outlines on the floor, dark red shadows marking where six people had died, were more gruesome than bodies would have been.

Pale reaching hands slipped below powdered ash and blood-soaked mud, pressing tighter to the earth, seeking salvation in the grave-like ditch. War thundered overhead as gunpowder sparked and chorused above. The soldier turned his silver eyes over the mud—to the cemetery of barbed wire and bruised corpses.

A high-pitched scream wailed distantly from two warring steeds tethered together. He watched the blood-stained Roan shriek and kick as it fell into the sea of barbed wire; the moon-kissed Arabian jolted from the tearing spikes, her gas mask hanging from bloodied leather, not knowing whether to die quietly or while struggling.

From Guest Contributor Mikayla E. Gruber

Mikayla is currently writing a fantasy/sci-fi novel and studying English and German at Pikes Peak Comunity College. She is also working towards a CPDT-KA Certification.

Mouth agape, eyes widened with fear, I looked on to what my world had been. Everything I lived for was swept up in a distant array of mud, debris and…corpses. Even through my grief, I knew the landslide had chosen me, to avenge everyone’s lives that came to an end in this short, devastating moment. This was my calling, which I would live through for the rest of my life, bearing their dreams.

Standing strong, even until this day, I recall this distant memory. With tears beginning to well in my eyes I see hope glimmering from the future.

From Guest Contributor Danielle Simpfendorfer

Dave peered from his bunker across the smoldering horizon. He refused to cry.

Dave remained certain. This outcome was still better than if she had been elected.

Caspar would hear the whispers as soon as he closed his eyes. At first they seemed related to his dreams, but gradually they became detached, having nothing to do with his REM cycles.

You see, God was whispering to the jurors as well.