Short Fiction
Short Fiction from issues of Apex Magazine
Build-A-Dolly
By Ken Liu As soon as she opens the door of the bedroom, I jump up and down on the bed in excitement. All day I’ve been lying here, watching the square of sunlight drift slowly across the room. But this is when I come alive. I adore Amy. I love Amy. Amy is the purpose of my life. But as I look into her face, I see that this is a bad day. I stop jumping and try to shrink against the pillow, to melt into the bedspread. Amy drops her backpack and closes the door. I shudder. She doesn’t want people to hear. She stops in front of the bed, looking down at me. “Hi, Amy,” I say. I open my arms for a hug. Sometimes this works. “Hi Stella,” Amy...
Read MoreThe Lure of Devouring Light
By Michael Griffin –ONE– Lia eases the vintage blue Impala down the meandering gravel drive. She’s sightless in one eye, which makes it hard to gauge proximity to the looming Douglas firs, but she’s so familiar with the place she could navigate blind. All through her twenties, the cabin’s been her off-campus retreat. The last month, she’s stayed away. She parks clear of the trees and quietly shuts the car door. No amount of psyching-up is going to make this easy. It’s partly her fault, she knows. Bringing Mészáros in this term may not have been her idea, but nobody forced her to invite him out here. If he’d stayed in the...
Read MoreWeaving Dreams (v2)
by Mary Robinette Kowal Eva tossed her backpack on the picnic bench and hollered to Giancarlo. “I’m heading to the creek to cut some willow branches for the summoning spell.”The historian strode up the hill from their car with his gear slung over one shoulder and somehow managed to look like a runway model straight from Milan. “You could bring them with you, you know.” God. His accent just made her knees weak—Inappropriate, Eva. Focus on work. She snapped a photo of the area with her phone and texted it to her assistant, Sandra. File under Nunne’hi Project. Sometimes the vegetation changed after one of the Fae or other Hidden Peoples...
Read MoreThe Fairy Library
by Tim Pratt Once upon a time there was a woman who fell in love with a book – No, no. I won’t begin that way. Just because this is a story with fairies in it doesn’t make it a fairy tale. Emily Yuan, anesthetized by the day’s events, drifted into her apartment, volitionless as a cloud. Her housemate Cece sat on the couch and, without looking up from the glowing tablet in her hands, said, “How was work, Em?” Emily lowered herself into one of the hyper-ergonomic office chairs Cece had looted from her failed start-up – it was the furniture in the room besides the couch – and swiveled herself half a degree one way, then...
Read MoreIf You Were a Dinosaur, My Love
by Rachel Swirsky If you were a dinosaur, my love, then you would be a T-Rex. You’d be a small one, only five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you. You’d be fragile-boned and you’d walk with as delicate and polite a gait as you could manage on massive talons. Your eyes would gaze gently from beneath your bony brow-ridge. If you were a T-Rex, then I would become a zookeeper so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats. I’d watch the gore shining on your teeth. I’d make my bed on the floor of your cage, in the moist dirt, cushioned by leaves. When you couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies. If I sang you...
Read MoreMermaid’s Hook
by Liz Argall She caught treasures from the ship with her sisters; dangerous, exotic objects that plummeted through the water. Metal not yet rusted; fractured glass and timbers not yet smoothed by the sea; woven filaments as delicate as jellyfish, and as treacherous. Curiosities from the world above to be dared, caught, examined and discarded. She found him falling. He fell fast, tangled in chains, his shirt billowing up around him, shedding bubbles in all directions as his body tore through the water. She surged towards him, caught him in her arms, then paused. Here was no special prize. Normally, they would let humans sink to the bottom and serve as bait for delicious...
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