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    Apex Magazine: Issue 89
    Apex Magazine: Issue 89
    Apex Magazine: Issue 89
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    Apex Magazine: Issue 89

    By Jason Sizemore

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    About this ebook

    Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month.

    Table of Contents

    EDITORIAL
    Words from the Editor-in-Chief – Jason Sizemore

    FICTION
    Damnatio Ad Beastias – Kristi DeMeester
    Pagpag – Samuel Marzioli
    Zayanim – Adam Roberts

    NONFICTION
    Interview with Author Kristi DeMeester – Andrea Johnson
    Discovering Somnio: Interview with Travis Milloy – Betsy Phillips
    Interview with Cover Artist Denis Corvus – Russell Dickerson

    POETRY
    American Dreams – Allie Nelson
    Winged Beings of the Necropolis – Gary Every
    Starfields – Andrew Gilstrap

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApex Book Company
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9781370850549
    Apex Magazine: Issue 89
    Author

    Jason Sizemore

    Jason Sizemore is a writer and editor who lives in Lexington, KY. He owns Apex Publications, an SF, fantasy, and horror small press, and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for his editing work on Apex Magazine. Stay current with his latest news and ramblings via his Twitter feed handle @apexjason.

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      Book preview

      Apex Magazine - Jason Sizemore

      APEX MAGAZINE

      ISSUE 89, OCTOBER 2016

      Jason Sizemore, Editor-in-Chief

      Table of Contents

      EDITORIAL

      Words from the Editor-in-Chief – Jason Sizemore

      FICTION

      Damnatio Ad Beastias – Kristi DeMeester

      Pagpag – Samuel Marzioli

      Zayanim – Adam Roberts

      NONFICTION

      Interview with Author Kristi DeMeester – Andrea Johnson

      Discovering Somnio: Interview with Travis Milloy – Betsy Phillips

      Interview with Cover Artist Denis Corvus – Russell Dickerson

      POETRY

      American Dreams – Allie Nelson

      Winged Beings of the Necropolis – Gary Every

      Starfields – Andrew Gilstrap

      Words from the Editor-in-Chief

      Jason Sizemore

      Welcome to issue 89 of Apex Magazine. It is October, a favorite month for many of our readers: changing seasons, falling leaves, the potential of supernatural evil on October 31st, and most importantly the return of PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE! After you spend your money subscribing to Apex Magazine, I need you to go to your favorite coffee shop and order yourself an extra-large cup of this glorious caffeinated and sugar filled miracle of fall.

      Ahem, where was I? Oh right, issue 89.

      While nefarious ghosts and ghouls might decide to leave you be this Halloween, Apex has three dark stories that will add some chill to your nighttime reading.

      We welcome Kristi DeMeester to the pages of Apex Magazine with Damnatio Ad Beastias. This is a visceral piece that explores addiction, need, and the lycanthropic mythos in a new and heartbreaking way. Pagpag brings Samuel Marzioli back into our pages with another story full of ghosts and loss. Marzioli blends his wonderful writing technique with his own cultural background to create a story that is memorable and unique. Adam Robert’s Zayinim is a fine example of that most dreaded (and elusive) of things: a quality zombie tale. It makes for the perfect reprint for this creature feature issue.

      Our poetry this month comes from Allie Nelson (American Dreams), Gary Every (Winged Beings of the Necropolis), and Andrew Gilstrap (Starfields).

      Andrea Johnson interviews Kristi DeMeester about Damnatio Ad Beastias, among other topics. Russell Dickerson talks with cover artist Denis Corvus. Finally, Betsy Phillips has a feature on the upcoming film Somnio, delving deep into the movie’s intention with an interview with writer/director Travis Milloy.

      Our podcast fiction this month is Damnatio Ad Beastias. Be sure to listen!

      Until November …

      Jason Sizemore

      Editor-in-Chief

      Damnatio Ad Beastias

      Kristi DeMeester

      7,000 words

      The blue pills came first. Robin’s egg blue and smelling faintly chemical when Madeline opened the bottle. Then yellow, and a green the color of scum that grew on the pond her landlord called a water feature. Finally, a striated capsule all violet and cream. Madeline had liked that one. It made her feel like she was swallowing flower petals.

      Her dealer told her that sometimes they would help her, but sometimes they wouldn’t. It depended on the batch. Everything depended on the exact calculations and levels in his body when he hooked himself into the machine and poured out all of the darkness he’d seen that week. Minimal input meant minimal output, and so she waited for the bottles and dry swallowed the pills faithfully.

      The pills the government sent every month — pure white and as large as horse tranquilizers — kept her looped out of her mind but did nothing to stop the change. What the dealers supplied may be illegal and inconsistent, but at least it could control the change most of the time.

      Plenty of weeks, she’d be on day three of the cycle and the shakes would start up. Her hands first, the fingers spidered over cheap Formica, and then her arms and legs shaking until she couldn’t stand. Delirium tremens without the addiction.

      Still, she’d power through, drink glass after glass of water, try not to go near the windows, and chain herself down until the next bottle came.

      It was at the end of the violet and cream pills when Bennie appeared outside of her door two days early. He usually came to see her on Saturdays, that beautiful glass bottle clasped in his hands, but it was only Thursday, and it was his face she saw through the peephole when she looked.

      Open the goddamn door, Madeline, he said, and she threw the lock, pulled the door back so that only a sliver of sunlight poured into her apartment.

      You’re not supposed to be here. Not today.

      He held up the bottle. You really going to tell me to leave?

      She opened the door wide, and he hurried past her. The air he brought with him smelled of cinnamon, and the back of her throat prickled with something like the reminder of a different life. A life before stale rooms and the taste of blood in her teeth. A life before all of those pills sinking like stones in her belly.

      Well? Let me see, she said. He tossed her the bottle, and his hands fluttered at his side as if he wanted nothing more than to take back the movement, to secure the bottle and then run, but then his palms were pressed flat against his thighs, and he wouldn’t look at her. That part hadn’t changed.

      She lifted the small glass cylinder, let it catch in the scant light coming from the single lamp, and it refracted back to her, a myriad of bright color that reminded her of things she’d long told herself to forget. A thin blanket soft and warm and the smell of baby powder She shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts.

      They’re pink, she said, and he shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. Readying himself to move. To run if he had to. It almost made her smile when he did this kind of thing. Almost.

      Yeah. I’m trying something new.

      She barked out a laugh. Whatever you say, boss.

      He turned his face further away from her and took a step forward.

      So now you want to leave? Act like a tough guy at the door and then don’t even want to stay for a drink?

      You’ll like them. I promise, but I have to get going.

      Sure, sure. All of those other clients to see. Right, she said and retrieved the manila envelope from the drawer of her battered desk. Another relic of a past life. The only thing she kept after everything came apart.

      He took the envelope from her with his fingertips, but before he could scurry out the door like some frightened animal, she gripped his shoulder and brought her lips close to his ear. There aren’t that many of us left, right? If I’m not the last, I’m pretty fucking close, aren’t I?

      She knew what she must smell like to him. Acrid sweat and dirty hair, and underneath all of that the smell of rotted meat. Fetid and close.

      No, he said, but she could smell the lie on him, felt it twitch through her blood, and she bowed her head. Within seconds, Bennie was out the door, and the interior world she’d built for herself went silent.

      Thick dust coated her tongue, clotted against the back of her throat, and she went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. The pills still rested on the counter, and she eyed them.

      A bottle of roses or candy hearts or some other cotton candy shit, she said, but she still opened the bottle, tipped one of the pills into her hand and then swallowed it down. May as well see if the new pills were better than the old ones. She could switch back at the end of the next cycle if she needed to.

      She always watched her hands first. Turned her palms face down so she could see the tops of her knuckles, watch the skin go the slightest bit smoother, the gnarled fingers relaxing, jagged fingernails receding into rounded half-moons. The pills never took everything away; her hair was still wild and thick, her eyes too

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