Free Fiction Forever

Some very good free fiction to end the month. A trio of good short SF stories and a trio of good flash fiction stories.  There's also cool audio horror from two great sites, flash SF audio at Escape Pod, and a fantasy audio story from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (OK it's a Mystery-Fantasy), and some worthy entries in the other genres section.


[Art from "Head Case" linked below]




Fiction 
At Buzzy Mag: "Paint It Black" by John McIlvee.
     "She dabbed her paintbrush against the palette and applied it to the canvas, blending and feathering with quick, bold strokes until she achieved the exact effect she desired. Stepping back, she appraised her work and returned to blend a spot with her thumb. A pleased smile spread across her tired yet regal face."

At Cosmos: "Head Case" by by Kate Orman.
       "The human mind isn’t big enough for two. Especially when one of you is a ghost."

At Daily Science Fiction: "A Wizard of the Roads" by Therese Arkenberg.
      "The road was falling apart, too bumpy to walk on anymore, so he'd taken the railroad tracks instead. On and on they went, without the curves of the blacktop, and the telephone poles marched alongside them. The wires hanging from the poles were empty, and so were the wires leading to the dark lights in the towns, or to the TVs and fridges and stuff in people's homes. He felt their emptiness. Empty, empty, empty."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "The Manticore" by Arthur Lorenz. Fantasy.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Beautiful Moon" by David Stevenson. Science Fiction.
• At Weirdyear: "Frog Fog" by Joshua Dobson. Weird.

Audio Fiction
At Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: “Normal” by Donna Andrews. Mystery. Fantasy.
       "a tale with vampires, trolls, and other spooky creatures. Award-winning novelist and short story writer Donna Andrews reads her story “Normal” (from the May 2011 EQMM), in which her not-quite-“normal” private eye and a support cast that includes a wizard solve a classical whodunit."

At Escape Pod: Flash Collection Science Fiction.
      "Health Tips for Traveler" by David W. Goldman, "Echoes of the Bouncing Ball" by Paul Celmer, "Tornado on Fire" by Luc Reid.

At Pseudopod: "Unfeeling" by J.D. Brink. Horror.
      "‘I don’t trust them anymore,’ August tells him. They’re in the master bedroom, which is about as big as Shovel’s whole damn apartment. George and Byrd are downstairs, checking out the car and getting everyone something to eat, respectively, as instructed."

At Tales to Terrify: Episode #47  "The Horse of the Invisible" by  and "Treason and Plot" by William Meikle. Horror.
     "The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or portion of the head or dress included in the photograph." - No description found of "Treason and Plot"

Other Genres

• Audio Fiction at Classic Tales Podcast: "The Chimes, Part 2 of 4" by Charles Dickens. 
• Audio Fiction at Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine:: “The Brick Thing” by Jack Fredrickson
• Flash Fiction at Flash Fiction Friday: "F3, Cycle 106, Seven Days: The Stories"
• Flash Fiction at Spinetingler Magazine: "It’s All Peanuts" by Emma Deanston.