"Gonna have a hard time explaining all this, Harry," Bob said.
"Yeah." Harold got up, dejection sitting in his chest like a lead weight. He walked over to the circle, and with a heavy sigh, smudged the line that separated him from Bob.
"Go on, get out of here," he said, then turned and headed for the mop.
Behind him, there was a sound like wet paper tearing. He looked back, and wished he hadn't. Bob's head had flipped back, and in the gap between his neck and chin were teeth. A lot of teeth. All of the teeth.
Not-Bob stepped out of the circle.
Harold barely even felt the first bite.
Clayton Snyder was born and raised in Michigan, and moved to North Dakota about twelve years ago. Over the years, he has worn more than a few hats, from landscaping to web development. He dabbled in painting — landscapes, mostly — and occasionally picked up an instrument and played it poorly. He currently works for an advertising agency out of Bismarck, and in his free time he writes, which has always been his first love. To date, he has been published by Before Sunrise Press, and Garbled Transmissions Magazine.
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About Fiction Vortex
Fiction Vortex, let’s see …
A fiction vortex is a tornado of stories that pick you up and hurl you through a barn to find enlightenment on the other side. It’s a whirlpool of fascinating tales so compelling that they suck you in, drag you down to the bottom of your mind, and drown you with incessant waves of glorious imagery and believable characters.
Nope.
A fiction vortex is an online speculative fiction magazine focused on publishing great science fiction and fantasy, and is run by incredibly attractive and intelligent people with great taste in literature and formidable writing prowess.
Not that either. But we’re getting closer.
Founded in the 277th year of the Takolatchni Dynasty, Fiction Vortex set out to encourage people to write and publish great speculative fiction. It sprang fully formed from the elbow of TWOS, retaining none of TWOS’s form but most of its spirit. And the patron god of writers, the insecure, the depressed, and the mentally ill regarded Fiction Vortex in his magic mirror of self-loathing and declared it good, insofar as something that gives writer’s undue hope can be declared good. Thereafter, he charged the Rear Admiral of the Galactic 5th Fleet to defend Fiction Vortex down to the last robot warrior.
Now we’re talking.
Take your pick. We don’t care how you characterize us or the site.
Fiction Vortex focuses on publishing speculative fiction. That means science fiction and fantasy (with a light smattering of horror and a few other subgenres), be it light, heavy, deep, flighty, spaceflighty, cerebral, visceral, epic, or mundane. But mundane in a my-local-gas-station-has-elf-mechanics-but-it’s-not-really-a-big-deal-around-here kind of way. Got it?
Basically, we want imaginative stories that are well written, but not full of supercilious floridity.
There’s a long-standing belief that science fiction and fantasy stories aren’t as good as purely literary fare. We want you to prove that mindset wrong (not just wrong, but a steaming pile of griffin dung wrong) with every story we publish. It’s almost like we’re saying, “I do not bite my thumb at you, literary snobs, but I do bite my thumb,” but in a completely polite and non-confrontational way.
We've got more great stories online, with a new story twice a week. Visit our website FictionVortex.com, follow us on Twitter: @FictionVortex, and like us on Facebook: FictionVortex.
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Fiction Vortex - December 2013 Page 11