As summer edges to a close, Schlock explores darker climes with our latest issue, GOTHIC. Perversion, obsession, fishy fetishism… all that stuff you can’t help but think about on a melancholy autumn afternoon. We know we can’t. Our international team of contributers presents new work that hearkens back to the genre’s golden age, while tapping [...]
by Kris Green Maestro Sardini lived just outside of Paris near a pleasant arboreal suburb called Chapel du Lac. His exile from the life of court rounds and parties was partially self-imposed, and partially the result of an act of plagiarism he committed some years ago and for which he had never been forgiven. His [...]
by Mike Sweeney March 15, 1908 Prague My dearest Lucas, I have entrusted this letter to the representative of Assicurazioni Generali here in Prague, with strict instructions that it be sent with all dispatch to their Headquarters in Trieste and thence by fastest ship possible to New York. Assicurazioni has handled my father’s [...]
by Teodor Reljic Ferdinand knew the hours would feel like years. He was fully aware of how time will stop and stretch its cruel way onwards, and onwards, and onwards, in this castle. How the pock-marked bricks would feel less like a quaint architectural feature and more like an optical illusion as the days went [...]
by Gerri Leen The house dominated the hillside, looking far darker in the fading light than it probably was. Arabella saw the coachman swallow nervously before he turned to her and asked, “Ready to go up there now, miss?” “Ready.” She climbed back into the hired carriage, nearly tripping on her woolen skirts as she [...]
by Annette Bowman Skirting the mud marsh edge of Muskrat Lake My horse’s hooves press into the soft ground. We move through cattails whistling in the wind. Birds sing and mosquitoes buzz all around.
by Peter Farrugia “Late as usual,” she thought, “and later than usual in a minute.” Tightening her grip on a bag full of books and burying one hand in her coat, she trundled down the gravel path. The jangle of loose change followed each begrudging footstep and the prospect of a double lecture (something slimy [...]
by Teena Faye Kingswell Audio available here: http://tinyurl.com/3h74a39 —- -White noise- A fuzzy brand of consciousness began to bleed into the fore… Largely restricted to bodily sensations, albeit in disarray. None of her limbs had their usual distinctness, divorced from the memory of waking sensation. A faint perception of stumpy arms, enlarged hands distant from her [...]
The Schlock podcast goes to the Goths! Or rather, to the gothic, in anticipation to this quarter’s issue, themed to match. And what would a Gothic podcast involve? Not cathedrals (sadly?), but vampires, troubled 19th century authors and creepy flashes, as we discuss the differences between True Blood and Twlight, Frankenstein, Draculas, and Confessions of [...]
Nar: The young man noticed that there was a chair right behind the partition that blocked the view to their beds. He walked silently over to the chair and sat down. Young man: I’m going to stay here until I find out what the hell is going on. Nar: When the young man sat down [...]
