The audio production of my cyberpunk story Set For Life is now available for free from the Dark Matter Magazine Audiolab. As with everything Dark Matter Magazine does, the quality of the production is exceptional.
The story is about a man’s first day on the job picking up bodies for Syntech and the disturbing secret about where they come from. It’s also the prequel to my novella Override (which appeared in Dark Matter Magazine Issues 007/008/009).
My story Silly Jilly has been published in Apex Magazine’s Strange Libations: An Anthology of Dark Cocktails, featuring a collection of stories told via drink recipes. Silly Jilly is a bitter cocktail with a sweet finish, made in memory of a little girl lost.
The anthology was created as a reward for Kickstarter backers, so it’s not available for purchase directly. However, you can purchase a copy as an add-on to the Robotic Ambitions Kickstarter, which I highly recommend backing.
My historical horror story Breathtaking has been published in the Monstorm anthology by Madness Heart Press. Proceeds from sales of the book will go to people affected by Hurricane Ian.
Set in 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, Breathtaking tells the story of a young girl and her brother who see a mysterious woman in white screaming outside their house during a dust storm.
“Banshee,” I whispered, mouthing the words as I read. “A spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to members of a family as a sign that …” I trailed off. I felt my stomach tighten. Icicles formed down the center of my spine. “That one of them is about to die.”
My dark urban fantasy story Dragonsbreath has been published in From the Ashes: An Anthology of Elemental Urban Fantasy. It’s the story of a teen forced to wear a fireproof mask to protect himself and others from a power he can’t control. This story is an odd one for me: a little bit fantasy, a little bit horror, and a little bit (gasp!) romance. A portion of sales of the anthology will be donated to the Marco Hope Burn Foundation.
Content warning: gore“Ma’am? Are you the mother?”
She nodded, never taking her eyes off her daughter’s lifeless body.
“Do you recognize this?”
The hand held a large plastic evidence bag in front of her face. Inside was a black fabric mask. It resembled a ski mask made from a thick fireproof material with ovals of dark tempered glass protecting each eye.
My horror drabble In Sickness has been published in Trembling With Fear by The Horror Tree. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…
I like to tell myself I never knew what my husband was doing in the basement.
My cyberpunk story Set For Life has been published in the Zero Dark Thirty anthology, which collects the 30 darkest stories from the first two years of Dark Matter Magazine (2021-2022). The story is about a man’s first day on the job picking up bodies for Syntech and the disturbing secret about where they come from. It’s also the prequel to my novella Override (which appeared in Dark Matter Magazine Issues 007/008/009).
Lifting bodies wasn’t like lifting boxes. Boxes were symmetrical. Structured. You could lift properly: squat down, straighten your spine, lift with your legs. Bodies were limp. Awkward. Their limbs flopped in odd directions. He still hadn’t figured out the best way to lift one without damaging it. Or himself. Or both.
My horror story Things Are Looking Up has been published by Apocalypse Confidential in their ...LOVE issue. After a man and his wife are in a fatal car accident, the man decides he will do anything to see his wife one more time. Even if he has to dig.
I’ve been in a dark place since the accident.
My sci-fi drabble What It Feels Like to Die is now free to read in Martian: The Magazine of Science Fiction Drabbles. When you wake up in a Rejuvenator, you don’t remember anything about how you died … even if someone killed you.
“Mama?” Madelyn asked. “What does it feel like to die?”
“It’s like falling asleep. Except when you fall asleep, you wake up in the same place. When you die, you wake up in a Rejuvenator.”
My obscure cryptid horror story No Bones, Just Skin leads off the new Night Terrors Vol. 25 anthology by Scare Street. It’s about a brother and sister who have a terrifying encounter with an abúhukü, a rainforest demon known for dissolving the bones of its prey and leaving the empty skin behind.
Content warning: mild goreManuel’s older sister, Liliana, stood next to him, looking up at the body hanging high in the tree overhead. The carcass was little more than a shriveled husk of a man, a wrinkled bag of skin draped boneless and formless across the jungle’s dense lattice of vines and branches. It was almost as if the man had been turned into a garment, as if someone had slit him down the back, extracted his skeleton, then tossed him carelessly into the tree like an old bathrobe.
My techno-horror story Blame has been published in Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol 1 (in print and ebook) by Tenebrous Press.
Blame is a “found footage” story consisting of emails, Slack conversations, Reddit threads, phone transcripts, and more unusual artifacts like git commits, JIRA tickets, door entry logs … even a Walmart receipt.
Like many found footage tales, the story is ultimately pieced together based on incomplete information. Multiple reads of the story should reveal new hidden details that may change your interpretation of the ending.
Content warning: misogyny, sexual assault (mentioned), suicide (mentioned)
Blame also made the preliminary ballot for the Stoker Awards, for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. Voting closes next week, so if you’re an HWA member, please check it out and (hopefully) give it your vote!
Warren Benedetto 