The Man who Killed Marty Turco
by Eitan Kensky
Marty Turco, Seventy-five-year-old Professor of Folklore, Media Studies, and Paleoclimatology at the University of Texas, Dallas, had never heard of the other Marty Turco. As far as Marty Turco was concerned--or cared to know, for that matter--he was the only Marty Turco in the lower 48 states.

Love Me With Those Blood-Red Lips
by Maggie Jaffe
Before his interest in boys, Oscar Wilde proposed to Florence Balcombe, "a celebrated beauty," but she chose Dracula over Dorian Gray by marrying Bram Stoker in 1878. Her portrait will be exhibited in the Royal Academy of Art, the same year that Wilde is convicted of sodomy.

The Chalk Birds
by Patty Somlo
It wasn’t hard to imagine her standing there, outside the chain link fence. She must have arrived late, precious minutes before dark, once the sun had set and dusk powdered the sky with pastel. At that hour the playground would have been empty.

Where's My Richard?
by Dan Bradley
So he woke up and put his hand to his wrinkled old face as he did every morning. Rubbing the goddamn crust out of his eyes and huge honker. A shaft of mean sunlight shone through the faded tangerine sheet that had been a curtain for ages so he let his calloused hand shield two gray eyes until the scenery stopped smoldering. He threw the sheets down.

Grave Robbing
by Julianne Mattelig Vince
Let us go then behind / gothic iron fences matted with ivy and weeds / and roll in the damp, mossy, crab grassed grounds.

The Futility of Martyrdom
by Marianna Hofer
The Deweyville Church of God has / a doghouse out back next to / the swingset and sagging pickup. / When the minister lost / interest, the congregation sold / the church out from under him.

Uglyrejects
Links to the mags and rags that rejected the great stuff in this issue.