Friday, February 7, 2025

“Scavenger Hunt” • by Jeff Currier

A Buchladen in Brighton yielded Darien his first Magna Carta. 

“Hidden just before the SS pillage of 1943,” the proprietor said, praying Darien was not Gestapo. Darien checked nearby universe branches. Nazis had burned it in every one.

His second, he pilfered from a slow-verse where now was 1215. Cost him a crossbow bolt through the arm.

He came up empty where Rome was eternal, velociraptors reigned, or water drowned the Earth. Einstein-Rosen generator overheating and almost out of gas, he found his last behind dusty museum glass in an eerily empty world, its rad-count through the stratosphere.

Soaking wet, bleeding, arm festering, yet triumphant, Darian returned to universe alpha. He found Sarah sipping free bourbon and three pristine charters adorning the pub’s wall.

“How?” he asked, before popping another anti-rad pill.

“Easy, darling. A 1215-now branch, a little gold, and Johnny happily affixed his seal to three more copies.”

 



Jeff Currier works too many jobs so has little time to write, but the words kept screaming for release. Jeff finally relented and set them free, in very small batches. Now they’ve run amok with no telling what mischief they’ve caused. You can find them roaming in various anthologies or in Sci Phi Journal, Stupefying Stories, Dark Moments, and Flash Point SF.

If you enjoyed this story, you might also want to read:




The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge

Thursday, February 6, 2025

“Visions in the Jar” • by Sophie Sparrow


The air is thick, smells green and hopeful somehow, the day I visit the swamp witch.

She collects marsh gas for me in a jar; curling tendrils of vapour spill and twist inside the glass like smoke.

“You can see portents in there? Visions of the future?” I ask in earnest.

She nods, places a hand on my swollen belly. I shift, protectively.

She peers into the jar, watching the gases swirl, seeing things that I cannot.

Bright colours coalesce and I hear the sound of children’s laughter. Then the gases flicker out, as though they were never there.

“Born dead, just like the others,” the witch imparts, shrugging.

That’s it, then. The ritual’s over, out of gas and out of hope, and my heart’s as empty as the jar.

 


 


Sophie Sparrow writes fantasy fiction and humour. Her work has appeared in PseudoPod, Arsenika, Mad Scientist Journal, (Dis)Ability: An Anthology, and previously in Stupefying Stories, in “Angels,” “The Ghost of Moscow,” and “Dangerouser and Dangerouser.”

She has worked as a content writer, transcriptionist, and software tester, speaks Russian and French, has previously been paid to wander around film sets, and is now quite tired of writing about herself in the third person. She likes cats and red wine, though not in the same glass. Keep up to date with what she's doing at www.writersophiesparrow.com

 

 

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge!

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

“A Visit to the Recycling Center” • by Christopher Degni

Katherine approached the rows of pristine white pods, the place the kids called the “compost heap.” 

But what better way to use her remaining energy than to nurture additional life? She’d had her run. She was out of gas.

She chose an empty pod. The door swished behind her. She pressed the single green button on the display.

Nothing happened, at first. Then her adrenaline surged: that same feeling as her first kiss, her first job, playing with her children, watching a sunrise… she thought: this is it, my life flashing before me, this is the end.

A knock at the door! It opened, revealing a woman wearing the center’s uniform. “I’m so sorry. The units are usually well-charged, but… We’ll fix it right away.”

“You know,” said Katherine, pushing past the woman, “I might have a little bit left after all.” She walked out of the pod and back into her life.

 




Christopher Degni writes about the magic and the horror that lurk just under the surface of everyday life. His short work may be found in 99 Tiny Terrors99 Fleeting FantasiesDeadman Humour: Fears of ClownSherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, and right here on Stupefying Stories, and his debut novella, Ghostshow Live!about a reluctant reality show ghost hunter, is now available from your favorite online bookseller. He was part of the editorial team for the Stoker-nominated MOTHER: Tales of Love and Terror and the music-horror anthology Playlist of the Damned, and he is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He currently lives south of Boston with his wife. You can follow him on FB and Instagram.

For reasons unknown the search function on this web site has lately decided to sort search results by “relevance,” whatever that means, and while we have published quite a few of Christopher’s stories in the past two years, the search function likes to hide them. Therefore, here’s a quick guide to the Christopher Degni stories we’ve published, sorted by… some arcane criterion we don’t understand.   


“Jimboree” • by Christopher Degni

“Morning, Jim.”“Morning!” Full house today at the copy shop, two guys working the front, three in the back. “Who closed last night?” asks Jim. “They left the lights on.” “I know who it was,” comes a voice. It’s Jim. “It was Jim.” “Team meeting, now.” Jim sounds mad. The five gather in the back. “Do we need some new blood around here?” says Jim. Jim scratches his head,...

“Green Shoots” • by Christopher Degni

They give us all false hope: tickets, with barely one in a hundred making the punch line. I focus on the screen flashing the winning numbers—I’ve already memorized my daughter’s and my own. The prize? A new life, away from here. There! The afterimage lingers: my daughter’s number. While I concentrated, she slipped away into the crowd. “Chloë!” “Daddy!” She comes running....

“A 125-Word Story About Writer’s Block in the Style of Italo Calvino” • by Christopher Degni

You sit down to write “A 125-Word Story About Writer’s Block in the Style of Italo Calvino,” but you have no ideas, so you turn to WiLLiaMs. You: Write a 125-word story about writer’s block in the style of Italo Calvino. WiLLiaMs: I cannot write in the style of Italo Calvino, because I am a large language model and my code has a writer’s block on specific authors. You:...

“Signs of Life” • by Christopher Degni

“Are you kidding me?” said Emmy. “The Perseverance is our last chance off this dying rock.” The spaceport around us bustled with life: people running and shouting, coughing and laughing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have even come here. Dad—” “—has days. He might already be gone. Sweetie, I’m sorry, but—” “I can’t.” “They won’t hold our spots.” Emmy looked down. “Your...

“Upgrade” • by Christopher Degni

My wife smiles after handing me a silver capsule the size of an egg. My back hurts; I’m tired; I don’t know what this nonsense is, but I just want to relax. “It’s our second anniversary,” she says. Ah. Has it been that long? She’ll be due for an upgrade soon, or maybe I’ll trade her in for a new model completely. A quieter one. Less independent. The capsule hisses open. It’s...

“The Six Stages of Grief” • by Christopher Degni

I live with the ghost of my mother. Every morning I hear her practice her ritual: making the coffee, straightening my apartment, sitting at the kitchen table. Strange, as she never did those things when she used to visit me. Perhaps maintaining a routine helps her accept her new lot. My father calls often. I miss her, he says, and I agree. We all miss her. But, he says. I...

“Merry-Go-Round” • by Christopher Degni

The field, once Sara’s favorite haunt, stood graveled and muddy, lonely except for a “Coming Soon” billboard for a 55+ community. She didn’t love the field so much as the annual traveling carnival that had descended upon it, until twenty years ago, when it had stopped. Sara closed her eyes and reflected on that year of lasts: the last carnival, the last year of high...

“The Infinite and the Infinitesimal” • by Christopher Degni

In June of 1986, upon the death of the great Argentine mathematician Luis Davila, the sole trustee of his estate discovered a small enchiridion among his personal effects. A prominent inscription on the title page consisted of a single decimal number of 106 digits, close to ⅓, but not matching any known mathematical constants: .33263638—, along with a request for his library...

“Life and Jacq and the Giant and Death” • by Christopher Degni

Once upon a future, when the Earth was spent and the sun red and swollen, a farmgirl named Jacq cared for two dying things: her father and her fields. Her father, stricken with a plague of old age and fatigue, lay in bed all day, asleep; her fields, following years of declining fertility, yielded only the most meager amount of grain. Jacq and her father were down to their...

Also look for:
   “My Name is Static”
   “Treasure Hunting in the Old City”




The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge!

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

“Panne d'Essence” • by Andrew Jensen


“A ‘pan of essence’ sounds like some Existentialist French cookbook. What’s it mean?”

“‘Out of gas’.”

Mille Bornes is too French.” Jerry packed up the game. His increasing boredom sharpened his permanent edge. “We had enough français back in Montreal. Why’d you move to New Brunswick?”

I gestured at the gorgeous view from my porch overlooking the Northumberland Strait.

“Pretty, but Alberta’s magnificent. There’s action and money. We have real mountains, not these crumbling Appalachians. You’ve moved to the 1950s.”

I had been an Anglo refugee from Quebec separatism and my Acadian neighbours welcomed me to their gentle pace of life. Some created stunning art with few resources. People lingered at the store to share gossip and jokes. They cared.

“Life here is sane,” I summarized.

Jerry rolled his eyes and headed for the guest room. “Boy, you’ve changed.”

Haven’t we both. Goodbye, old friend.


________________________________________


Andrew Jensen has moved to New Brunswick with his family and too many dogs and cats. He has retired from the ministry, but of course, clergy never really retire. His stories have appeared in Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and the UK. This past summer, his work appeared in both Amazing Stories and James Gunn’s Ad Astra

If you enjoyed this story, you might also like to read his author profile, Six Questions for… Andrew Jensen, as well as these other stories.



“A Can of Piskies”

The elves’ latest plan to overthrow and conquer humanity was flawless and foolproof. All it required was the active cooperation of a large number of cats…



“Chapter 7”

There was a community uproar when the Golden Sandworm closed its doors… well, for a given value of ‘community.’ The guy with the bat’leth seemed pretty upset, but one mention of the police calmed him right down…

“Waxing Crescent”

25 years ago, the Moon disappeared. Really, is there anything more boring than commemorating something that happened to your parents? What can we do to make this interesting?


 

“Happy Anniversary?”

For some, the disappearance of the Moon was a prayer answered. For others, it was a heartache that would never go away.

“Running Away with the Cirque

Even in the far future, even on strange new worlds, some people will still find their worlds just a little too small and dull, and dream of one day leaving it all behind and running away to somewhere else that’s fun and exciting.

STUPEFYING STORIES 24, by the way, is free to read on Kindle Unlimited. Check it out!

 

 




The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge!

“Once With a Blue Moose” • by Lori Jensen

Eighty-five percent of New Brunswick is forest. 

The land is broken by the lumber industry. Still, the trees loom. They swallowed the road I was driving.

I was lost. True, I was on the only road, but I needed a gas station. I needed people to stop me obsessing about moose. “Watch for moose!” everybody said. “They’re unpredictable. They’re everywhere! They’ll take your car off the road with their antlers before they kick it to rubble.”

My car sputtered, then stopped; and a moose walked out of the forest. Its antlers spanned the hood of my car. In the moonlight, the moose was blue. It moved forward as its head wove down toward my window. It tapped the glass. I don’t know why, but I rolled the window down. I could smell it; count its teeth; feel it’s breath on my cheek as it enquired, “Are you out of gas?”


________________________________________



Lori Jensen has been an Adult Protective Service Worker, teacher, Presbyterian minister, children’s book reviewer, psychotherapist, karate sensei, artist, and bead-weaver. She plays guitar and sings. She has lived in New Brunswick for months and is still waiting to see a moose. Her speculative writing has appeared in Illumine magazine and Bards & Sages Quarterly.




The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge!

Monday, February 3, 2025

“Parting Ways” • by C. L. Sidell


Some places can only be found when you run out of gas.

Solilee, one mile.

Melanie locks the car and leaves the road, red container swinging. 

§

Like unnumbered travelers before her, Melanie discovers a memento on the path. A tattered bunny that summons memories of her long-dead sister, Paige. 

§

Solilee appears differently to everyone. For Melanie, it’s ramshackle buildings, vacant streets, a playground. 

She pushes a swing. 

Recalls her last interaction with Paige twenty-five years ago—guilt, still heavy as an anchor. 

§

Paige, materializing on the merry-go-round, skips toward her.

“I’m sorry I let go,” Melanie says.

“You haven’t let anything go.” Paige, wearing her favorite carnation-pink overalls, remains unaged. “Let go.”

§

Each encounter ends the same, with Solilee dissipating.

But do you continue grieving? 

Or do you move on?

§

Casting a final glance over her shoulder, Melanie picks up the gas can and walks back to the main road.

________________________________________



A native Floridian, C. L. Sidell grew up playing with toads in the rain and indulging in speculative fiction. Her work appears in The Cosmic Background, Dark Moments, Dread Machine, Factor Four Magazine, Impossible Worlds, Martian Magazine, Stupefying Stories, and others. You can find her on various social media platforms @sidellwrites

If you liked this story, you might also enjoy:

“It’s In His Kiss”

Go ahead. Kiss the frog. What could it hurt?


She’d discarded everything after the funeral, except his phone…

 

“Release Me”

Carrie and Vanessa just wanted to find a good spooky story
to tell on Halloween. They got more than they bargained for…

 


Things planted in the offseason here
grow real different, they truly do.
 




The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge

“What Fuels Us” • by Richard Zwicker

Thaxxon gazed at his freighter’s viewscreen of stars, imagining planets teeming with fools.

His calm shattered as a ship of unknown origin appeared. A ripped-off client? When it refused to identify itself, he radioed: “I sold all my weapons of mass destruction except for the one pointing at you. Back off or die!” It was a bluff, as he frantically set his engines to maximum speed. A wail rose from the three imprisoned Doracens whose life force fueled his ship. “Do your job!” he shouted.

The lights dimmed. Silence.

The ship was on emergency life support! He stormed to the engine room. The energy capsules were undamaged, but the Doracens were gone! A material transference, but how? The Doracens didn’t have space technology. Who would bother to save them?

Back on the bridge, he watched the unknown ship vanish, leaving him to drift, out of gas, among the sea of fools.



 


Richard Zwicker
is a retired English teacher living in Vermont, USA, with his wife and beagle. His short stories have appeared in Stupefying Stories, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Dragon Gems, and other semi-pro markets. Two collections of his stories, Walden Planet and The Reopened Cask, are out now. A third, The Sum of its Parts, is due out soon.

In addition to reading and writing, Richard likes to play the piano, jog, and fight the good fight against age. Though he lived in Brazil for eight years, he is still a lousy soccer player.

Richard first came to our attention with “Stellar Dust and Mirrors,” which appeared in the now out-of-print Stupefying Stories #5, and “Riddle Me,” which first appeared in Stupefying Stories #7. Richard was kind enough to let us reprint “Riddle Me,” so you’ll find it at this link. As well, you’ll find “The Slings and Arrows of Childhood” and “Talking Turkey with Tom” at these links, and his most recent contribution to Stupefying Stories magazine, “Possession is Ten-Tenths of the Law,” in Stupefying Stories 26.




The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length that was inspired by the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge!  




Did you enjoy this story? Then check out our magazine. It’s free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers, and you can get the four most recent issues with just one click.

(Or get just one at a time, if that’s what you’d really prefer.)

“Do Not Go Gentle” • by Karin Terebessy

I am very young, barely out of my hydrogen years, and almost out of gas.

“Is this death?” I ask. 

Magnesium and Oxygen, teenage stars near me, just split with Carbon. They are in their post-breakup glow-up phase, cavorting with Neon. This has made them bold.

“Commoner,” they taunt. “Stick to your own class. Leave the upper classes be.”

Rotating, I spot the middle-aged stars, Sulfur and Silicon.

“Will I disappear?” I try.

Sulfur sniffs uncomfortably. Silicon awkwardly scratches an itch.

“We are too busy to think about nonsense.”

They sound afraid.

Ancient Iron, so close to death herself, lumbers nearby like space debris.

“Will you remember me?” I manage.

With extreme effort, she lifts a rusty smile.

“There is a red giant asleep within you.” Her voice is flinty. And kind. “Remember you? Little one, unleash your potential and you will light up the sky.”

 



Karin Terebessy likes to write speculative flash fiction stories. Her work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Stupefying Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Sci-Phi Journal, and other ‘zines. She is currently attempting to write a novel based on her short story “Mood Skin” which appeared in Stupefying Stories in 2016. You can follow Karin on TikTok @karinbendsreality or find her on Instagram at karinterebessy.

Her most recent appearance in Stupefying Stories was “Chasing the Moon,” a story that placed very high in our Top Ten of 2024 list. Coming in right behind it was one of the most powerful and disturbing stories we’ve ever published, “Broken.” Before that she gave us “Bandages” in Stupefying Stories 26, but she’s been with us since “The Memory of Worms,” in the now out-of-print Stupefying Stories 16. In addition she’s given us many SHOWCASE stories, including, “Robin’s Egg,” “Not Quite Ready for Armageddon,” “The Finder of Lost Things,” “Mood Skin,”  “The Real Reason Why Mrs. Sprague Came by Her House So Cheaply.”

If you liked this story, check them all out. It will be time well spent. 

 



The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
 

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 150 words in length, inspired by and using the phrase, “out of gas.”

Special Thanks to Paul Celmer: for going above and beyond to help with this challenge!