Vonnegut, Poe, and More Freebies

Monday's not all bad when great sites like these give us free fiction like this. There are four short stories and three audio stories (plus one audio serial) of note, and good flash fiction.  There are also a few good comic book stories including a pair of Poe adaptations at the always cool The Horrors of It All. And there are some interesting stories from other genres.


[Art from "Hop Frog" in Comics below]


Fiction
At Black Gate: "Awakening" by Judith Berman. Fantasy.
     "The nightmare began when, thinking someone had called out, she opened her eyes and saw the leathery face of a corpse as close to her as a lover’s. She started up with a cry, heart pounding, certain she would find herself in her bed with her own warm and living lover. But she found only bony hands tangled in her hair, and the smell of cold decay."

At Daily Science Fiction: "You're Heads," She Says. "You're Tails." by M. Bennardo.
     "It's all because, a few minutes earlier, she studied the two of us--me and that other guy. Because she pulled out her magnifying glass and scrutinized every line of our bodies and faces, peered into our eyes, tapped our knees, checked how our hair met our scalps."

At Short-Story.me:  "Fluff" by Joshua Flowers. Horror.
      "Oh how I love fluff! I love the sight of fluff. Ever since I was little the sight of fluff has been the most beautiful thing in the world to me. From the way it looks to the way it feels, fluff was truly a miracle of God. My dad would give me strange looks, saying little boys shouldn’t be doing such inappropriate things, but I didn’t care. The fluff was just too beautiful."

At WiFiles: "MAD" by Keith G. Laufenberg. Speculative Fiction.
      "The year was 2045 and the world was on the brink of nuclear disaster, a war from which no one was very likely to survive, and yet those in the know were scrambling to do just that—to survive. The president and most of his cabinet were intending to take up residence in a nuclear submarine the likes of which had never been seen before."

Flash Fiction

• At Quantum Muse: "The First Story Ever Told" by Patrick Wiley.
• At Short-Story.me: "The Life and Times of Mr Jack Murdoch" by Derek Robinson. Fantasy.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "The Message" by Clint Wilson. Science Fiction.

Audio Fiction
At Author's Site: "The MVP Episode #7" by Scott Sigler. Science Fiction, Football.
      "Quentin sets foot on a new world. His interpersonal skills are brought into play, and we all know how well he does in those situations."

At LibriVox: "2 B R 0 2 B & The Big Trip Up Yonder" by Kurt Vonnegut. Science Fiction.
"The population of the US has dropped from 80 billion to 40 million." and "a comical yet scary description of what over population was going to do to society after aging was conquered and a simple daily dose of "anti-gerosone" would keep you forever the same age."

At Toasted Cake: "Gutterpunk Cheese" by Eric Stoveken. Speculative Fiction.
     "It was three o'clock in the morning and Steve stood in an alley, awaiting the underground cheese tasting."

Comic Books

• At Atomic Kommie Comics:  Lars of Mars in "Secret Origin" Sci-Fi. 195x.
• At Atomic Kommie Comics: "The Purple Mists" Sci-Fi. 1953.
• At Four Color Shadows: "The Asteroid Witch" Sci-Fi. 1950.
• At The Comic Book Catacombs: "The Lost Princess" Adventure. 1949.
• At The Horrors of It All: "Hop Frog by Edgar Allan Poe" Horror. 1954.
• At The Horrors of It All: "The Curse of Metzengerstein" Horror. 1953.

Other Genres

• Audio at Crime City Central: "Lessons" by Laura van den Berg. Crime.
• Flash Fiction at Every Day Fiction: "Sell Yourself Short" by Sarah Crysl Akhtar.
• Fiction at The New Yorker: "Bull" by Mo Ya.
• Fiction at Short-Story.me: "In a Heartbeat" by April Winters. Romance.
• Fiction at Short-Story.me: "Blood Raven" by Shalom Jacobs. Mystery.