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Edition 1: No Free Parking at Journey’s End by Louis Baum
“No Free Parking at Journey’s End” was second place prize winner of the 2011 Story Quest Short Story Contest. Louis Baum paints a bleak far-future universe, with twists and turns that are well crafted, and a masterful sense of irony. GH
Forty-one years, and now it was at an end. It was hard for Leo to believe. It was like a beautiful dream that once awake you try and hold on to, but whose ghostly substance disappears in the morning light like an evaporating mirage. Only strangely this dream was not fading with sober wakefulness. Instead, every day now, his cherished vision was being made more real, emerging from out of the realm of wishes and growing more solid in its yet opaque flesh.
He was on the cusp.
He was on the cusp of achieving the lifelong ambition of his deceased father, and in turn, the goal around which his entire life had centered. For the last few weeks he had been giddy and had done each hour’s tedious tasks with a big idiotic grin on his face. And yet his patience, which had been eternal his whole life, seemed to expire all at once in the last couple of days. He could not wait. After all, it was not much of a life to live one’s entire existence in space.
Edition 2: Creeper by Daniel I. Russell
Edna and Alan take on the challenge of a new home in their twilight years, buying a charming cottage in the country. But their dream turns nightmare when they can’t escape the insidious tree that covers the facade. A study in making the everyday truly creepy, Daniel I Russell makes sure we won’t be hurrying back to the garden any time soon… SY
Edna snapped from the dream, her bony fingers gripping the bed sheets. She sat upright, fragile chest pumping beneath her nightshirt.
Beside her, the bed lay empty; the sheets folded and straight.
She blinked and peered around the room. The gentle light of dawn slipped under the curtains, scattering the shadow of a chair across the wall at an odd angle. In the corner stood cardboard boxes stacked three high in a pyramid. On each, Alan’s precise handwriting had labelled the contents in thick black pen.
Heavens…
Edition 2: Masks by Stephanie Barr
Stephanie Barr’s Mask was deservedly a finalist in the Story Quest Short Story Contest for 2011. The judges were impressed with the evocative imagery she used in her narrative, as well the tightly written plot and theme. We are sure you will also enjoy this fantasy piece. GH
Two enticed him, two among thirty displayed before him.
One was exquisitely beautiful. The cheekbones high but not too sharp, the lips full, but perfectly so. There was a flash of ivory teeth between the full lips and a gleam of amethyst in the glistening eyes. The face seemed formed of the finest dark wood and polished to a velvety perfection, unblemished and rare in its uniformity. Around the slanting eyes was the unmistakable glow of gold, which rimmed the face as well to where the edges disappeared under the cascade of thick black hair. He had never seen a more beautiful mask. Or one more costly. A chieftain’s daughter was among the prospective brides, and there could be little doubt which one she was.
Oddly, though, it was not that mask that had first caught his attention but another. It was not as costly a mask or as finely crafted. It was, in fact, different from every other mask he saw. It was not of the finest wood; the wood used was riddled with knots and blemishes, with uneven color ranging from honeyed lightness to mahogany red. The eyes were round as if with wonder and dark with the smokey dullness of black topaz. Some surfaces were polished to ravishing softness, but others were rudely hewn and left raw, sharp. There was a lack of symmetry: a different shape to each eye, a twist to the lips, that robbed otherwise attractive features of much of their beauty. No gilt, no craftsmanship, and yet…
Edition 2: The Narrow Gate by Daniel Pearlman
Abu Melek enjoys all the priviledges of being a merchant of the Middle East, and why should he not? But he should beware his indolent attitudes, because the desert is all about survival of the fittest and compromising the caravan is not an option. SY
Abu Melek had much desert still to cross before reaching Baghdad with his caravan-load of silks, spices, gems and women from the East. Was there anything better than the life of a merchant? Every night he took pleasure in his goods—occasionally damaging a roll of silk or breaking an excessively delicate spine in his ardor (affordable losses all). He could eat his kaleb halwa and have it too!
Abu traveled longer in the heat of day than custom prescribed. Time being money, the days thus gained more than offset the losses incurred: inferior camels and women of weak constitution, tidbits tossed to the ever-present jackals. Pushing his troupe to the limits raised not a hackle among his sword-wielding guards, for they too had their nightly pick of the seventy black-haired beauties that had lasted thus far.
Edition 2: A Propensity For Violence by Michael Saad
Lieutenant Kellington is on tour in a far away galaxy, trapped in between the two indigenous races and their bitter blood feud. But Kellington has a secret. Will his past compromise his mission or will he lose it all? SY
2284 AD—Occupied Territories, Planet Adrella, Andromeda Galaxy
The red sky glimmered against the rolling hills of the Adrellan landscape. Planet Adrella was under the protection of the United Nations of Earth, or UNE. The planet’s population consisted of a humanoid race with a small skeletal structure, wrinkled foreheads, and narrow, sunken-in faces. Their physical bodies possessed less musculature than “Earthens,” making them physically weaker. Yet one area where Adrellans equaled human beings was the propensity to commit violence, and the headless torso that lay smoldering in the dirt was a definite example of that.
“Middle aged, Adrellan male,” Lieutenant Ryan Kellington confirmed, kneeling over the body. “The deceased appears to belong to the Tredder race. We can’t confirm that right now because there’s no way to piece together what’s left of the head.”
“That’s the sixth attack this year where the head has been disintegrated,” Arung, the Tredder official, cursed in broken but understandable English. He was an Adrellan belonging to the Tredder caste, a people who lived in the urban areas of the planet. He thrust his finger at the Sekena diplomat, who looked over Kellington’s shoulder. “The Sekena continue to act like barbarians, setting back any hope of peace between our people and yours!”
“Once again you blame Sekena for disrupting the peace,” Kestin B’urac, the Sekena diplomat, shot back. The Sekena people were concentrated in the rural areas of Adrella, and practiced a pastoral lifestyle. “How quickly you forget that it is the Tredder oppression of Sekena civilians that escalates our conflict. It is you who drive our people to these measures!”
“That’s enough! Neither of you are helping this situation.” Colonel Grey Norgale stepped in as he glanced over the body. The UNE commanding officer wiped his brow and let out a slow, defeated sigh. “What the hell is this planet coming to?”
Edition 2: Confinement by Kenneth Schneyer
Kenneth Schneyer’s Confinement was a shortlisting in the Story Quest Short Story Contest, and deservedly so. The judges were impressed with the supernatural undercurrents of his piece, and yet the stark realism of the contemporary setting and characters is a firm foundation. I find it hard to accurately classify, and recommended to the editor that it be considered a dark fantasy. Read it and test my assessment. GH
She first saw him while she was taking the long way to work to avoid the deformed children. For anybody else, the walk between South Station and the looming tower that enclosed the law firm would be a nearly-straight line, due north, fifteen minutes at most. But Tamara stopped treading that narrow path after the first time she attempted it, because she discovered that it required her to come face-to-face with Saint Drogo’s Infirmary for Waifs.
It wasn’t the building that hurt; it was the children. She had encountered Saint Drogo’s at the same moment as a mother with a cleft-palate toddler emerged, and through the open front door she had also caught a glimpse of the twisted back on a five-year-old. In her imagination, the dark building was bursting with lame, drooling, incontinent, gaping idiots, all children, all demanding attention and understanding, all needing her. Nausea had almost overcome her, and she hurried north to the protection of her own sterile cell at Rheingold, Granada & Pearce.
When she found herself unable to get its name out of her head, Tamara looked up St. Drogo’s. The resolute brownstone clinic had had its genesis a hundred years ago, to care for children no one wanted, who were so awful to look at that adults condemned them. Nowadays it also treated crack babies and infants born with AIDS, and even had a licensed adoption agency to place the many children who were abandoned on the doorstep. That was all Tamara needed to know; she promised herself she’d never see the place again.
Edition 2: Duet by Nu Yang
Nu Yang’s Duet was very well received by the judges of the Story Quest Short Story Contest, hence its shortlisting. They were particularly impressed with the dark, psychological overtones of the story, and the hard edged narrative style. GH
My brother came home with a shotgun in one hand and a bag of salt and vinegar chips in the other.
Jason didn’t say anything as he leaned against the wall outside our motel room. That was our home. Room 11. It had been for almost a week now.
I glanced at the gun and waited for him to speak.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the room until I got back?” He kept his attention on the parking lot. Only a handful of cars looked back at him including the black SUV we had picked up from a grocery store parking lot two states back last month.
“I hate being cooped up all day.” I scratched my sticky nose. “It’s so damn hot.”
“Watch your mouth.” Jason turned his hardened gaze to my face. “Girls shouldn’t talk like that.”
Edition 3: The Spacesuit With No Spaceman… by Sergio Palumbo
An astronaut from the People’s Advanced Republic of China goes missing while in orbit and it is Xing Yi, a secret government agent, who must travel in the same footsteps. Will he be liberated by unknown sympathetic forces or is there a darker fate awaiting him on the edge of space? SY
The investigation Xing Yi had been assigned this time by the exacting Chinese Space Program staff wouldn’t be an easy one, to be sure.
Jian Juhi, was a young taikonaut—that is, he was an astronaut from China, the word ‘taikonaut’ coming from a mixture of the terms “taikong”, meaning space, and the Greek “naut”, meaning sailor. He had disappeared while aboard his spacecraft which was in Earth’s orbit, with the main hatch surprisingly still locked from the inside.
The People’s Advanced Republic of China could tolerate the deaths of plenty of expendable taikonauts when they were caused by accidents that occurred over the course of its new, exhausting space program, which had as its goal to quickly build a Chinese base on the Moon. But its tyrants could not accept the unexpected disappearance of one of them while still on board the precious Shenzhou 15 orbiting craft, leaving only an empty spacesuit inside the cockpit, no matter the reasons or the problems involved.
The appointed technicians at the Control Station back home immediately began pouring over the recordings and all the instruments about what had really happened up there in space, while the spacecraft was still orbiting our planet. Some politicians even suggested that such an event could have only occurred with help from some international organizations or a few countries which had helped the missing taikonaut defect from the government’s grip over its citizens—even though, regretfully, they couldn’t explain by what means exactly.
Edition 3: Skinbucket by Stephen McQuiggan
In a small neighbourhood, a teenage girl is missing, thought to be the latest victim of a serial killer. Bitter divorcee Tony just wants to be left alone to enjoy his time as a bachelor, looking for that one everlasting love. SY
The water moved in ghost light flame across her skin. The contrast of her heavy black hair against the crystalline suds made him think of fairytales, of Snow White. She lay, her eyes closed, luxuriating in thoughts he could only imagine. Maybe she was the one, maybe this time it would last longer than a quick soak and a frenzied union of flesh. He felt uncomfortable at the thought of her leaving, or perhaps that was because he had given her the lion’s share of the bath and the taps were digging into his back. Perhaps it was love after all.
He would let the water out soon, and they would sit there and let it slowly slide down them. It was something he longed to share with her, something to make her smile again. It was her smile he loved the most, and his desire to put it there. When she smiled her face was a palette of wonder.
When the water ran out you could almost believe you would be sucked down the plughole, it was an upsetting feeling, no doubt about it, but if you could just hold on a little longer then you would feel so light you’d swear you could fly. And then, feeling invincible, he would towel her down, dry her hair, comb it…
Edition 3: The White Glove by Nick Seifert
What do you do when the truth of an object becomes an obsession? This story shows the lengths some will go to in order to get to the heart of a mystery or to possess what they desire. SY
As my employer, Mr. Percy Esq., began to dictate litigation, I found my eyes constantly drifting away from my newly purchased quill towards Mr. Percy’s left hand. Whenever the opportunity arose, I had trained myself to study the hand so as to not draw suspicion from Mr. Percy. For you see, his appendage is always shrouded in a pristine white glove. The fabric looks extraordinarily smooth to the touch as though it came from an exotic land where materials, even white cloth, never get dirty. While with most gloves one can see the seams along the inside finger line, this particular mitt shows nothing to indicate a tailor crafted the item. Around the wrist a small oval mother of pearl belt buckle delicately secures the glove to the arm. As immaculate and interesting as this glove itself is, there is more to Mr. Percy’s story; for you see the hand never moves and is forever locked in a twisted position of discomfort. Mr. Percy’s fingers—long feminine extremities for such an obese and selfish old man—are frozen in some sort of crooked claw forever trying to hold a lost item in a frustrated embrace. What ill fate befell this hand my employer will not say or disclose to even the closest of acquaintances. I wholeheartedly believe Mr. Percy wears the glove to conceal the hideousness of what lies beneath. During times like these, when the opportunity to catch a glimpse arises, I find myself dreaming about the hand’s mystery or unholy scarring underneath the glove. This unhealthy obsession of conjuring is constantly making me yearn for resolve in regards to what the white glove so elegantly hides.
SQ Mag 
