ALSO BY LINCOLN MICHEL AND NADXIELI NIETO Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery & Murder Gigantic Worlds This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anthology selection copyright © 2020 by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto All rights reserved ISBN: 978-1-948226-62-2 Interior illustrations by Daehyun Kim Cover and book design by Nadxieli Nieto Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931219 Printed in Hong Kong 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For all of us, screaming in horror CONTENTS INTRODUCTION • LINCOLN MICHEL AND NADXIELI NIETO HEADS GUESS • MEG ELISON REARVIEW • SAMANTHA HUNT GRIMALKIN • ANDREW F. SULLIVAN DOGGY-DOG WORLD • HILARY LEICHTER TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY VETALA • AMRITA CHAKRABORTY WE’VE BEEN IN ENOUGH PLACES TO KNOW • COREY FARRENKOPF LIFELINE • J. S. BREUKELAAR JANE DEATH THEORY #13 • RION AMILCAR SCOTT THE BLUE ROOM • LENA VALENCIA UNBEKNOWNST • MATTHEW VOLLMER LONE • JAC JEMC HEARTS PIPEWORKS • CHAVISA WOODS THE OWNER • WHITNEY COLLINS THE RESPLENDENCE OF DISAPPEARING • IVÁN PARRA GARCIA, TRANSLATED BY ALLANA C. NOYES THE WHEAT WOMAN • THERESA HOTTEL HAROLD • SELENA GAMBRELL ANDERSON CANDY BOII • SAM J. MILLER THE UNHAUNTING • KEVIN NGUYEN THE MARRIAGE VARIATIONS • MONIQUE LABAN THE FAMILY DINNER • MICHELE ZIMMERMAN AFTERLIVES • BENNETT SIMS THE STORY AND THE SEED • AMBER SPARKS LIMBS FINGERS • RACHEL HENG CARBON FOOTPRINT • SHELLY ORIA WE CAME HERE FOR FUN • ALANA MOHAMED THE BARROW WIGHT • JOSH COOK KATY BARS THE DOOR • RICHIE NARVAEZ PINCER AND TONGUE • STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES THE MASK, THE RIDE, THE BAG • CHASE BURKE CEDAR GROVE ROSE • CANISIA LUBRIN # MOTHERMAYHEM • JEI D. MARCADE LEG • BRIAN EVENSON VISCERA VEINS, LIKE A SYSTEM • ESHANI SURYA CARAVAN • PEDRO INIGUEZ DOWNPOUR • JOSEPH SALVATORE HUMAN MILK FOR HUMAN BABIES • LINDSAY KING-MILLER PICTURES OF HEAVEN • BEN LOORY GABRIEL METSU, MAN WRITING A LETTER, C. 1664–66 • HELEN McCLORY INSTRUMENT OF THE ANCESTORS • TROY L. WIGGINS JOY, AND OTHER POISONS • VAJRA CHANDRASEKERA VISITING HOURS • LILLIAM RIVERA PARAKEETS • KEVIN BROCKMEIER PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE EDITORS ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS INDEX ILLUSTRATIONS • DAEHYUN KIM INTRODUCTION An argument can be made that fear made humans what we are. Literally. Our eyes evolved to see monsters lurking in the grass, our ears to hear creatures going bump in the night. Fear is also, for better or (more often) worse, the dark force that shapes society. Whether it’s politicians spreading hatred to scare up votes or the passive fear that keeps so many of us from risking change in our lives, our communities, and our world. In Tiny Nightmares we’ve asked some of our favorite authors what scares them. These stories—from forty-two of the most exciting writers of horror and literary fiction—wander through a vast forest of horror: from ride-sharing murders and mind-reading witches to fears of childbirth and funhouse marriages from which there is no escape. They wrest from the shadows not only vampires and werewolves but also the terrors of the waking world—racism, sexism, online radicalization, economic instability, environmental disaster. In the shadow of these larger systemic horrors, tiny nightmares breed. These nightmares, masked and unmasked, provoke a deeper dread and implicate the reader. We are often the very thing another rightfully fears. For creatures shaped by fear, horror stories hold a unique place. They can explore the dark cracks and dank corners of life, making us see more clearly. Many of our oldest stories are, in a sense, horror stories. Fairy tales and myths are full of terrifying transformations, hidden evils, and dire warnings about what lurks in the dark woods just outside of town. Despite this, horror fiction is still too often dismissed. For Tiny Nightmares, we wanted to poke another hole in the artificial barrier between “literary” and “genre” fiction. We’ve collected more than forty stories from established authors of both worlds as well as emerging writers who we’re confident you’ll be seeing more of in the years to come. We have divided the book loosely into four parts, four body parts naturally—Heads, Hearts, Limbs, and Viscera—loosely held together by sinews of weirdness. The stories here are small in size—each under 1,500 words—but the nightmares are large. Each story is a tiny crack in the door to which we press our eye, unsure of what we will find staring back at us. We hope you enjoy. Sincerely, Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto 1 Guess MEG ELISON Nobody likes it when we’re right. Not the guess-your-age guy, not the guess-your-weight guy, and certainly not me. The age guy, well, he’s never right. Because people are more likely to play along if he guesses they’re ten years younger than they are. He loses bullshit eight-cent prizes made in China and he keeps taking a dollar from every idiot in his line. The weight guy is right more often. He gets away with it because the skinny people are proud of themselves and the fat people are a source of entertainment, no matter what he says. He’s right, he’s wrong, they’re still fat. Then they come around to me. And I am never wrong. Sometimes I think I can do some good. Whenever I say “lung cancer,” the person I’m talking to says they’ll quit. If I say “liver failure,” it goes the same way. That one guy I told it would be a plane crash said he’d never fly again, but I don’t know if he stuck by it. I also don’t know if a plane crashed into his house while he was asleep. But what about the ones I tell it’ll be a car accident? What the hell are they supposed to do? When Dad did it, he told people to try to take comfort in heart failure, in knowing how the end will come. “It’s the one thing in life you can count on,” he’d say. “And now you’ll know its name when it shows up. Isn’t that the definition of comfort? Familiarity?” Dad didn’t do it at the carnival.
