Something Spooky
ISSUE III — FALL 2021
— prose —
Cry Baby Bridge
BY BRENDA WILSON
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” Thomas asks from the passenger seat of my uncle’s new Tacoma.
“Of course, I’d rather you drive. But my uncle said I have to. Something about insurance not covering you,” I say. My uncle’s conditions for letting us borrow his truck were don’t scratch it, no drugs or alcohol, and I have to drive.
I bite my nails until my mouth tastes like iron and my fingers are sore. “Why are we doing this again?”
Coconut
BY ANDY NARANJO
“Ugh.. why do we even have to do this Mexico week thing?” one girl complained.
“I don’t know…” the other shrugged with an apathetic sigh.
“You have until tomorrow to start, refine, and finish your projects. I will NOT be grading any duplicates,” the teacher admonished.
Then, interrupting her lecture with a booming voice, “JOHNATHAN," reducing the students’ whispers to silence, “Grab your things. I will see you in my office.”
Black Widow
BY KAURA GRANDE
She didn’t know where she was or how she got there. All she knew was she fell asleep in a tent in the forest and woke up in a bed in an old house that didn’t seem to have any occupants. The house was covered in dust and old cobwebs, dead bugs littered the floors, and an aching feeling began to form in the pit of her stomach. She meandered through the house, afraid to call out, hoping her footsteps were as quiet as she thought they were.
Move Right Through
BY REBECCA CARLYLE
Aisha couldn’t remember how she got here. All she knew was the inky night sky, clouds blotting out light from the stars, and the all too present silence. She patted the ground around her with outstretched palms, searching for her glasses on damp dirt stirring a moist, earthen scent that filled her nostrils. The absence of them pressing down her nose was stark and worrisome. Although Aisha wasn’t blind without them, everything would be a little fuzzy around the edges.
— poetry —
Who Could Ever Love a Monster?
BY DEANNA NGUYEN
Your name takes shape in wary whispers
Never spoken aloud
For fear that you would devour their voices
And bite the screams from their throats
While you watch them in between
The jaws of death
The World Is Quiet Here
BY RACHEL DELAURENTI
There in the shade under a large birch tree,
He sat and waited for his lover
Even through rain or shine or slight breeze
Would he hold out for his other.
Over the course of many years,
Rendezvous were frequent.
Love was a continuous music that filled their ears,
Dissonance never apparent.
Dear Persephone
BY ISLAYA SIRIUS OSIRIS
I know our relationship
Didn’t start off
The best way
With me sweeping you off your feet
Literally
Sorry about that
Blame it on your dad
I do
What Is Done: A Collection
BY ANDY NARANJO
Beware of what is done
Beware the shadow cast against the sun
Beware the snake in the nest that devours your love
Beware the uncertainty that splits what was one…
Beware of what will come
The Horseman
BY KIRSTEN BRAZIL
Have you heard the tale of The Horseman?
A story of love and of loss;
A tale of sorrow and vengeance,
That came at a terrible cost.
I can tell you the tale of The Horseman,
For he will rise this night.
You may, in fact, be a witness
To the Horseman’s appalling delight.