The Dark Issue 88 by James Bennett

Author:James Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2022-08-28T16:56:46+00:00

Meg Elison is a Philip K. Dick and Locus award winning author, as well as a Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Otherwise awards finalist. A prolific short story writer and essayist, Elison has been published in Slate, McSweeney’s, F&SF, Fangoria, Uncanny, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and many other places. Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She can be found at megelison.com and on twitter @megelison.

The Concert

by Kurt Newton

The double line of stationary vehicles stretched for nearly a mile along the narrow access road before disappearing into the distant woods. Andy’s car sat in the right-hand lane. He was boxed in by a blue minivan on the left, a white two-door directly in front, and a black-bodied, chrome-grilled, muscle car directly behind. The temperature had remained in the 70s all day as groups of clouds slowly tracked across the sky, casting giant shadows on the surrounding marshland.

Andy didn’t mind the wait. He had been waiting for one thing or another all his life.

Andy tapped the search button on his in-dash radio and watched the digital numbers cycle through. The car’s speakers produced nothing but static. He switched the radio off. He had CDs but he’d already played each half-a-dozen times over the past two days. He listened instead to the music coming from the pickup truck three car-lengths ahead. It was country bluegrass, but at this point nobody seemed to mind.

When the free concert was announced, it was as if a switch had been thrown somewhere deep inside Andy’s being, prompting him to move, to act. In less than an hour he had emptied his refrigerator and kitchen cabinets into an assortment of coolers and shopping bags. He’d grabbed a week’s worth of clothing and loaded it all into his car. At the time, the concert was still a week off. He figured he would drive the 1500 miles, get there early and camp out in front of the main stage. Apparently, a couple hundred thousand people had experienced the same epiphany. He’d be lucky now to get close enough to see the stage, let alone the performers on it.

There was a flutter of movement to his right.

A red-winged black bird flew out of the reeds and landed on a wooden post nearby. The bird tilted its head one way then the other, as if inspecting the long line of vehicles, before taking flight again. Andy watched it glide effortlessly through the air. It tipped and turned until it returned to its nesting spot.

The white two-door in front of Andy started its engine and slowly rolled ahead, then stopped. Andy started his engine and closed the gap. He sat for a moment eyeing the continuous chain of trunk hoods and rooftops. Like a long red fuse growing ever shorter, brake lights fizzled. The fuse burned out when it reached the white two-door. Andy put his car into park and turned off the motor.

Andy imagined some distant checkpoint where cars were being searched and inspected before granted access into the festival grounds.

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