Artist: Melissa McClanahan – The Drabblecast

Drabblecast 432 – Housebound

On October 4, 2020

Weirdness is in the air at Drabblecast as we bring you an original story about spousal life and home ownership by author Ao-Hui Lin.

“Hey babe, where did the closet go?”

The Hubby, Victor, gives me a blank look, like the word “closet” is Swahili for “bratwurst”. He neither understands the question nor the purpose of the question.

“The closet. It used to be here, through this door, under the stairs. Now there’s just a pit and bite marks on the door jamb.”

More silent incomprehension.

I let the subject drop. After all, who uses the under-the-stairs closet anyway? I don’t even remember if I ever put anything in there, and if I did, it would have been stuff I’d never planned on seeing again. High school journals, SAT study guides and shoeboxes full of bad poetry to that guy I had a crush on during junior year – Tony? Toby? Tory? I’ll find someplace else to put the vacuum cleaner.

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Drabblecast 414 – Dance, Siege, Swoop

By Drabblecast

On August 20, 2019

In Drabblecast, Fantasy, Horror, Lovecraft Month

Lovecraft Month continues as the Drabblecast brings you an original, commissioned piece of H.P. Lovecraft mythos fiction, “Dance, Siege, Swoop” by award-winning author Robert Reed.

Be sure to keep a night light on, this one will chill you to the core!

Story Excerpt:

“My foot did not discover the prize, nor was I the first of the object’s erstwhile owners.

According to every account, it was a young girl who innocently tripped over the mostly buried artifact while skipping across a whisper field. Since this was near the edge of the habitable world, onlookers assumed that the object was an artifact lost by one of the Great Cranes, and perceiving rarity, it was the girl’s uncle who excavated the prize…”

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Drabblecast 393 – Diamante and Strass

By Drabblecast

On December 19, 2018

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi, Strange

Today the Drabblecast brings you “Diamante and Strass” by Lucy A. Snyder.

Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, appearing in publications such as Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, and Weird Tales. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction.

Our story today has got it all, a sort of Thelma and Louise post-apocalypse Sci-Fi western!

Story Excerpt:

“Are these the gunslingers?” The Queen looked down her long, thin nose through her kaleidoscope monocle at the dusty duo.

“She’s a gunslinger. I’m a bomber,” said Strass.

The Queen of Montana stood regal before her icy throne as her guards hauled in the notorious man-eater Giorgia Diamante and her accomplice, Elvira Strass.

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Drabblecast 382 – Down the Well

By Drabblecast

On August 20, 2016

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Women and Aliens month continues with “Down the Well” by Alaya Dawn Johnson.

Alaya is the author of speculative and historical fiction and has written six novels. Her stories have been featured in Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Welcome to Bordertown. She is also a recipient of the Cybils and Nebula awards.

Story Excerpt:

“I enjoy watching children,” she said. “It comforts me to remember that I too was a child once, and one day they too will be old.”

Her shiny olive skin was firm, but even the best youth-treatments couldn’t hide the purple veins that snaked around her arms like cables. She appeared to be in well-preserved middle-age; only I and a few other agents knew the truth. Her eight remaining fingers were casually laced over a knobby walking stick that she carried for show. A particularly knowledgeable observer might have noted that the cherry-red wood was at once lighter and stronger than any known on Earth. Dr. Constance Roya was a scientist in the ancient sense, when that term implied at least as much of a reckless love for adventure as an appreciation of form and method and the furtherance of human knowledge.

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Drabblecast 356 – An Exodus of Wings

By Drabblecast

On April 17, 2015

In Drabblecast, Fantasy

Before Heidi came along, Michael did everything he could to keep the damn faeries out of his apartment. Every night he washed and dried his dishes, never left one dripping in the drying rack. Always fished the food particles from the drain, took the trash out, sealed his cereal in glass jars.

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Drabblecast B-Sides 55 – The Lonely Child

By Drabblecast

On November 23, 2014

In Drabblecast B-Sides, Horror

Something pricked Marla’s hand. Groggily, very much so, she turned over in bed and spoke to her husband.

“John,” Marla whispered, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice, “turn on the light. There’s a pin in the bed.”

“What?” Her husband rolled over in the dark, and she felt his elbow bump into her leg.

“John, there’s a needle. In the bed. With your baby. Turn on the light.” Her words were firm. John got up and turned on the light, looking at her unsteadily.

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Drabblecast 329 – The Gravity Mine

By Drabblecast

On June 18, 2014

In Drabblecast, Sci-Fi

Call her Anlic.

The first time she woke, she was in the ruins of an abandoned gravity mine. At first the Community had chased around the outer strata of the great gloomy structure. But at last, close to the core, they reached a cramped ring. Here the central black hole’s gravity was so strong that light itself curved in closed orbits.

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Tag: Artist: Melissa McClanahan

Drabblecast 432 – Housebound

Drabblecast 414 – Dance, Siege, Swoop

Story Excerpt:

Drabblecast 393 – Diamante and Strass

Story Excerpt:

Drabblecast 382 – Down the Well

Story Excerpt:

Drabblecast 356 – An Exodus of Wings

Drabblecast B-Sides 55 – The Lonely Child

Drabblecast 329 – The Gravity Mine