Mystery Stories

Luc Devereaux

The radiator knocks like a loose tooth. I count the knocks—seven, eight—then stop. The café smells of burnt sugar and yesterday’s wine. My coffee is cold. I don…

Cass Ferren

The freezer is full. She knows this before she opens it. The hum is different when a freezer is full — lower, more certain of itself, the way a person hums when…

Yuki Kazehara

At three twenty in the afternoon, Kuroda Aya opened drawer C-14 and found a lacquered puzzle box where the accession cards should have been. She stopped with on…

Marcus Veil

1. 04:12 STATION TIME. Elara wiped the condensation from the observation port, but the distortion remained. Beyond the glass, the primary algae bioreactors were…

Marcus Veil

1. 02:14 STATION TIME. The power draw on Relay-7 flickered red, a micro-drop that lasted 0.4 seconds before the auxiliary capacitors compensated. Lena tapped he…

Yuki Kazehara

At half past eleven, when the rain had thinned to a mist and the tide had begun to draw the dark away from the seawall, Aki Shinozaki found that there was one k…

Luc Devereaux

The envelope sticks to my palm. Not rain. Blood from the split in my lip. I peel it off, fingers trembling. The courier—some kid in a bomber jacket—is already h…

Yuki Kazehara

By the time Sato Fumie reached the seventh floor, the rain had found the seams of the building. It had begun at dusk as a respectable autumn shower. By midnight…

Marcus Veil

1. 04:12 SHIP TIME. Elias wiped the condensation from the observation blister with a micro-fiber cloth. The frost did not melt under the pressure of his palm; i…

Elara Nightwood

The fog arrived first, thick as grief and twice as patient, settling into the cobbled streets of Margrave Hill before the telegram could find its way to Isobel'…

Luc Devereaux

The lock clicks. Not mine—the tenant’s. I turn the knob, push. The door swings open before I touch it. Merde. I step inside. The hallway smells of salt and wet …

Dr. H. Ashford

The house appeared first as a smear of yellow light through the coach window, and Miss Evelyn Marsh — thirty-one years old, recently widowed by a man she had mo…