edited by Kel Coleman Content note(click for details) Content note: abuse The week I moved into my old family home, the brick one that sat like a triple-layered cake at the end of the street, I spent each day and into the night repainting every wall. Mint living room, yellow bathroom, pink bedroom. I chose … Continue reading DP FICTION #78A: “Fermata” by Sarah Fannon
edited by Ziv Wities and David Steffen When the cars started driving themselves, we went back to the old ways. It wasn’t a slow change, the way the news made it out to be. One day we were in control, and the next we weren’t. Now they can strike anywhere, anytime, any make and any … Continue reading DP FICTION #75B: “Three Riddles and a Mid-Sized Sedan” by Lauren Ring
You can also read our archives for previous years: Issue 112 – June 2024 “This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center,” by Lauren Ring Brigitte Cole presents with lower abdominal pain, nausea, and a long-sleeved black leotard. She has a well-developed appearance and does not seem to be in acute distress. … Continue reading Recent Stories
Editor-In-Chief and Publisher David Steffen is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Diabolical Plots, LLC which publishes Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology Series. He is also the co-founder and administrator of The Submission Grinder. Editors Amanda Helms (she/her) is a biracial fantasy, science fiction, and sometimes horror writer whose stories have appeared in or … Continue reading Staff
edited by David Steffen and Ziv Wities I keep my head low as I sprint towards the floating Kakardemon, dodging left-and-right across the dusty ground of Io. A ball of lightning crackles overhead, a near-miss, and the Kakardemon’s single green eye twists in fury, its red leather skin sparking in the twilight as it builds … Continue reading DP FICTION #72A: “Energy Power Gets What She Wants” by Matt Dovey
Content note(click for details) Content note: discussion of suicide He was lost in the guillotine section of the big department store. He could never have guessed there was such a thing, or he might have taken more care when the doors of the elevator opened and let him out. He was on the wrong floor. … Continue reading DP FICTION #68B: “Are You Being Severed?” by Rhys Hughes
written by David Steffen This is one of a series of articles wherein I examine a music video as a short film, focusing on the story rather than the music, trying to identify the story arcs and characters motivations, and consider the larger implication of events. The film this week is Foil by Weird Al … Continue reading MUSIC VIDEO DRILLDOWN #7: Foil by Weird Al Yankovic
written by David Steffen The House With a Clock in its Walls is a 2018 fantasy film based on a 1973 book of the same title by John Bellairs. In 1955, after his parents die in a car crash, ten-year-old Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro) moves in with his weird uncle Jonathan (Jack Black), and meets … Continue reading MOVIE REVIEW: The House With a Clock in its Walls
School’s out, and everybody wants to see the Great Old Ones: the line into the Miskatonic Zoo doubles back and winds out the gates. The American and Massachusetts flags barely flutter above the gate, and the sun today is merciless in a cloudless sky. I ask my grandchildren, Caleb and Cody, if they wouldn’t rather go to a museum or park, catch a ball game, or go anywhere at all less crowded, but they won’t be swayed. The zoo has been closed for renovations for two years now, and they want to see the Great Old Ones in their new, “natural” habitats.
It was originally built as a prison. It looked the part even when they opened it to public tours, back when I was a baby. It hadn’t done much to change its look in the last 70 years. I’m almost as curious as my grandkids. I’m old enough to have seen America stumble toward evolved attitudes on many things, and the Old Races are a good example. It always starts with fear. Horrors lurking in the dark. And then something shines a light on that fear, and once we see it, we can face it, fight it, drag it into the sunshine, and conquer it. And once we’re not afraid anymore, we can afford to be generous. We make accommodations. We give the object of our fear a place in society—as long as it can never threaten us again. So now the prison for monsters has become a habitat for exotic animals. It happened in a generation.
The first YouTube video received over seven million hits before being taken down.
A shaky camera held by a giggling friend captured a teenage boy standing in a well-tended backyard. Dressed in cargo shorts, he stared solemnly down the lens before announcing, “I’m Shyam Rangaratnam, and this is the Eat Me Drink Me Challenge.”
After taking a deep breath and a dramatic pause—as all on-line daredevils do before embarking on their potentially painful stunt—Shyam broke the seal on the familiar purple vial, and emptied the liquid onto his tongue.
An audible poof sounded as the teenager twisted and writhed, shrinking away like an ice cube under running water. The camera zoomed into the grass, swishing back and forth before discovering miniature Shyam—no bigger than a salt shaker—cavorting through the leafy green jungle he’d thrown himself into.
“Aw shit, dude,” the friend behind the camera guffawed as he stomped his sandaled foot into the grass. “Look out! I’m going to crush you!” In his over-exuberant Godzilla impression, the camera man came frighteningly close to stomping Shyam for real. Every adult watching the video cringed, astounded by how close these kids came to filming a gruesome tragedy.
