I’m deeply sorry for the loss of your son. As I understand it, Per is now ‘lost’ to you in a sense as well. I feel Dylan’s disappearance every day. I contacted the Norwegian police who had been working on his case, and they said they had already interviewed Per extensively and seen these entries already. I’ve been looking at maps, and think I might have found the Fjord that Per says Dylan disappeared in, but there is nothing else I can do.
I don’t understand why he did what he did. What happened has left me with so many questions to which there are no answers that I find it hard now to trust in anything that I thought I understood.
I’ve actually wanted to write to you for some time, now. I don’t know why, but I feel like the two of us are somehow connected by what happened. I don’t know anyone else who could possibly understand what my family has been through, except for you. Please, if only out of pity, will you reply to this letter? I don’t mind what you write. I just want to have a sense of who you are. What did you do before opening this letter? What do you do for a living? What do you look like?
I feel like knowing you will somehow bring me closer to Dylan, to what happened on the fjord that day. Perhaps I can help lift some of the burden of your loss, too.
There is nothing I wouldn’t give, just to understand why Dylan did what he did.
Yours,
Emily Pilditch
The end
About The Authors
Karen Bovenmyer
Karen Bovenmyer earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and serves as the Nonfiction Assistant Editor of Escape Artists’ Mothership Zeta Magazine. She is the 2016 recipient of the Horror Writer’s Association Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship. Her short stories and poems appear in more than 20 publications and her first novel will be available Spring 2017.
http://karenbovenmyer.com/
S. L. Edwards
S. L. Edwards is a Texan-turned-Californian. He enjoys dark fiction, dark poetry and darker beer. He works on bringing the encroaching horrors of the real world into contact with those of the written word. His fiction has appeared in Ravenwood Quarterly, Turn to Ash, Weirdbook, and New Zenith Magazine.
Brit Jones
After nearly thirty years spent as a working musician, the depredations of effort and time took their toll on Brit Jones, so he returned to his first love: writing short fiction, particularly in the supernatural horror genre. He has been published in the Onyx Neon Shorts Horror Collection 2015 anthology and The Helix Literary Journal. Brit lives in Austin, TX with his wife, two children and three dogs.
Jeremy Hepler
Native to the Texas Panhandle, I’m a stay-at-home dad and a member of the HWA. In the past six years, I’ve had twenty-three short stories published in periodicals, anthologies, and online. Most recently, I placed second in the Texas Panhandle Professional Writer’s Short Story Competition. My debut novel, The Boulevard Monster, will be published by Bloodshot Books in the spring of 2017.
Find me on https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.hepler.5
Michelle Ann King
Michelle Ann King was born in East London and now lives in Essex. Her stories have appeared in over seventy different venues, including Interzone, Strange Horizons, and Black Static. Her first collection, Transient Tales, is available in ebook and paperback now. See www.transientcactus.co.uk for details.
Joseph Rubas
Joseph Rubas is the author of over 200 short stories and several novels. His work has appeared in The Horror Zine, All Due Respect, Thuglit, and others. He is the editor of The Third Spectral Book of Horror Stories; additional volumes are forthcoming.
Ben Stallwood
Ben Stallwood writes literary and genre fiction, and has been published in markets as diverse as Corvus Review and Dark Chapter Press. He also edits Empty Oaks; an up-and-coming spec fic zine. In the real world, Ro lives in Bristol, UK, and works in adult care.
Other Books by Onyx Neon Press
Cifiscape Volume I: The Twin Cities by various
Cifiscape Volume II: The Twin Cities by various
Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams & Projects
by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies
Onyx Neon Shorts: Horror Collection - 2015
Onyx Neon Shorts: End of The Year Collection - 2014
Dream Walker by Kevin Horwitz
Other Shorts by Onyx Neon Press
2014
The Paperless Doctrine of 2152 by Aaron M. Wilson
The Hard-Boiled Detective – Statement No. 1: Pierre-Louis Leblanc by Ben Solomon
Breakneck Cove by David Oppegaard
Harris by Jonathan Hansen
River Don’t Run by Gary Gray
Devil’s Mill by Fred McGavran
2015
Tomorrow, at Dawn by Alienor Littaye
La Elegía por David Alvarez by Scott Archer Jones
Postmortem by Jacob Michael King
Darkness in The Flame by John A. Karr
DEAD by Thomas Gumbel
Botany Bay by Rylend Grant & Dikran Ornekian
Rising of Cthulhu’s Cultist by Aaron M. Wilson
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For more info on Onyx Neon Shorts, the work we do, or a list of our shorts please visit us online at
http://shorts.onyxneon.com
Table of Contents
Introduction by Jeffrey P. Martin
Partisans by Brit Jones
Sweetie by Michelle Ann King
Failsafe by Karen Bovenmyer
The Corners Have Arms by Jeremy Hepler
The Case of Yuri Zaystev by S. L. Edwards
The Marked Men by Ben Stallwood
About The Authors
Karen Bovenmyer
S. L. Edwards
Brit Jones
Jeremy Hepler
Michelle Ann King
Joseph Rubas
Ben Stallwood