[{"id":23993,"date":"2026-08-26T03:01:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T10:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/?p=23993"},"modified":"2026-09-15T17:50:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:50:35","slug":"shapeshifting-recovery-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/poetry\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Shapeshifting Recovery Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

CW<\/strong>: blood \/ bodily fluids and bodily harm.<\/p>\n

\n

from Jobs for Magical People (That Do Not Involve the Military)<\/i><\/p>\n

Your clients are\u2014more often than not\u2014
\nhelpless, a stack of unsorted organs
\nkept pulsating by the will locked inside
\n\u2014and yet somehow beyond\u2014
\nthe bone shards and gristle.<\/p>\n

At best, fingers grow in the throat
\nor toes form a girdle on the face
\nas if someone had stepped on the head
\nand left them there.<\/p>\n

On occasion shapeshifting goes slantwise
\nand people get stuck; it has to do with
\nlocal minima in a multidimensional space
\nand gradient descent. You don\u2019t always know
\nhow the nails scraping at the esophagus
\noptimize anything, but you tell yourself this is
\napplied shapeshifting, not theory.<\/p>\n

You unfold people. Gently or briskly or
\noccasionally with the use of a bone saw
\n\u2014in between rounds of shapeshifting magic,
\nbecause there are times when it helps
\nto hold back a little. Your biceps are strong.<\/p>\n

You recover the human template\u2014
\nyou feel it attracts the shape, pulls it to itself
\nas limbs snap to the all-familiar pattern;
\nusually, but not always. You never force it\u2014
\nyou know about variation, about
\nthe manifold ways to be embodied.
\nYou know about monsters; about yourself.<\/p>\n

You understand about skin flaps and
\na ribcage knotting around itself like
\none of those old-time bags for produce
\nwhen you go grocery shopping.
\nThe lung, the stomach, the liver
\nflopping around. You can sort it out.<\/p>\n

The end goal is, always, the client\u2019s satisfaction:
\nto make them look like they\u2019ve intended to look
\nas opposed to your own best guess. It can be felt
\nreverberating through tissue, when you get there\u2014
\na soft burbling certainty and a rightness
\nin the way muscle attaches to tendon,
\ntendon clings to bone; in the leathery wings
\nand the ridges along the spine, in the heel spurs,
\nthe three eyes and the ears that can seal closed,<\/p>\n

finally, in the outrushing breath;
\nin the unspoken but tangible relief.<\/p>\n

\n

Author\u2019s note:<\/p>\n

I started working on this poem cycle of magical jobs that do not involve the military after the current Israeli invasion of Gaza started. I think speculative literature does influence, even if only to a small extent, what people consider possible; and I found myself reflecting on how so much of it shows magic as necessarily warlike. I wanted to come up with alternatives, the more the better\u2014I encourage everyone to do likewise and also find ways to act in your own environment against war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your clients are\u2014more often than not\u2014
\nhelpless, a stack of unsorted organs
\nkept pulsating by the will locked inside<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","section-poetry","status_flag-original"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nShapeshifting Recovery Staff - Nightmare Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/poetry\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shapeshifting Recovery Staff - Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Your clients are\u2014more often than not\u2014 helpless, a stack of unsorted organs kept pulsating by the will locked inside\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/poetry\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NightmareMagazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-26T10:01:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-16T00:50:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/NM-default-embed-graphic.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Wendy Wagner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@nightmaremag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@nightmaremag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/poetry\\\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/poetry\\\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Wendy Wagner\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e18966e64745715561f9bf38938089c9\"},\"headline\":\"Shapeshifting Recovery Staff\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-26T10:01:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-16T00:50:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/poetry\\\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":424,\"commentCount\":0,\"articleSection\":[\"Poetry\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/poetry\\\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/poetry\\\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\\\/poetry\\\/shapeshifting-recovery-staff\\\/\",\"name\":\"Shapeshifting Recovery Staff - 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This is his first appearance in Nightmare Magazine. His other publication credits include <em>Apex Magazine,<\/em> <em>Strange Horizons<\/em>, and the <em>Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction<\/em>. You can often find him on JSTOR reading about world mythologies, even if it’s the weekend. Elsewhere, he is at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ferdwrites.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.ferdwrites.com<\/a>\u00a0or on Twitter\/Bluesky\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ferdwrites\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@ferdwrites<\/a>, where he follows back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ferdison Cayetano is a Filipino-American writer living in Brooklyn. This is his first appearance in Nightmare Magazine. His other publication credits include Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. You can often find him on JSTOR reading about world mythologies, even if it’s the weekend. Elsewhere, he is at\u00a0www.ferdwrites.com\u00a0or on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":24191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ferdison Cayetano - Nightmare Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/authors\/ferdison-cayetano\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ferdison Cayetano - Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ferdison Cayetano is a Filipino-American writer living in Brooklyn. This is his first appearance in Nightmare Magazine. His other publication credits include Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. You can often find him on JSTOR reading about world mythologies, even if it’s the weekend. 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She won the 2024 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Writer of the Year Award, and her book<em> 1000 Women in Horror<\/em> was adapted in 2024 into a feature documentary from Shudder of the same name (directed by Donna Davies). Heller-Nicholas also appears in Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary Chain Reactions – on the legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – alongside Stephen King, Karyn Kusama, Takashi Miike and Patton Oswalt, which won the Best Documentary on Cinema Award at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Her latest book, <em>Josh’s Blair Witch Mix<\/em> – on the near-forgotten soundtrack for the 1999 horror blockbuster The Blair Witch Project – was released in 2026 by Channel Academic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexandra Heller-Nicholas is a film critic, filmmaker, recovering academic and the author of ten books on cult, horror and exploitation cinema. 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Her short stories and poems have been published in\u00a0<i>Cartridge Lit,\u00a0Cordite Poetry Review, Corvid Queen, Fairy Tale Review, Trampoline Journal, The Kindling, LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, Neuro Logical, OF ZOOS, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore,\u00a0Strange Horizons,<\/i> amongst others. She co-edited\u00a0<i>Free To Play: A Video Game Anthology: A Video Games Anthology<\/i>.\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-US\">Her debut poetry collection\u00a0<i>The Woman Who Turned Into A Vending Machine<\/i>\u00a0is a book on metamorphosis and myth. Her second poetry collection,\u00a0<i>Possession,<\/i>\u00a0is about ghosts, familial trauma, and the Singaporean gothic. 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Did you do anything different during the writing process that you hadn\u2019t done before?<\/p>\n<p>A few things inspired me. Subconsciously, probably one of my favourite K-dramas, <i>Hotel Del Luna<\/i>, about a hotel that only ghosts can see. But consciously, I\u2019d been thinking about decision-making. How easy it is to make decisions you regret, or to avoid making decisions at all. Christie has spent fifteen years avoiding putting down roots, but someone can\u2019t avoid things forever. In real life, you will lose out on or completely miss opportunities. In the story the hotel literally consumes those who cannot choose.<\/p>\n<p>I was also thinking of how predatory nostalgia can be. It can be comforting to sink into remakes and sequels and old favourites and I\u2019m as guilty of this as anyone. But that comfort can also be a trap. Christie\u2019s replica bedroom is one example, as are the other guests feasting on their past. The Concierge is a manifestation of the temptation to live in eternal stasis. It\u2019s a snare that encourages Christie to abandon a messy, but human, life for godlike permanence. The only way for Christie to escape is to stop pretending that they aren\u2019t already standing on the bridge.<\/p>\n<p>About a change of process. One thing I\u2019ve been trying to do is reduce my word count. I used to write longer stories, so recently I\u2019ve been trying to write flash fiction or shorter pieces in general. Originally, I\u2019d envisioned this piece to be almost twice as long, but I enjoyed distilling the story down while retaining the overall intent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\">Airports, planes, and hotels are weird places, and can often make great settings for horror fiction. What made these places the right settings for Christie to explore the story in?<\/p>\n<p>Airports are the epitome of transit spaces. An airport is never really a destination in and of itself, you are always leaving or arriving. Time zones shift, your sense of permanence is lost, and then you find yourself somewhere new. Hotels that you stay in while travelling are similar. They\u2019re almost a home, with a bed, a bathroom, and a private space just for you, but it\u2019s not the same.<\/p>\n<p>Christie feels that uncanny valley. Their bedroom is very similar to the comfort of their childhood home, except for the view over the abyss. The numbers are also a detail that make the space feel hostile. 602 next to room 412 and room 109. This breaks the rational numberings that they might expect, giving the hotel a dreamlike quality.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a scene in one of my favourite horror films, <i>Nope<\/i>, where spectators are slowly sucked up into an alien digestive tract. It\u2019s visually beautiful while also very horrific. I wanted a similar eerie claustrophobic feeling for Christie: to feel trapped while something was waiting nearby, hoping to consume them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\">\u201cRoom 602 at the Hotel In-Between\u201d deals with identity, but through the lens of identity throughout a person\u2019s life. We are not the same person we were five years, ten years, twenty years ago. Is this something you find yourself thinking about a lot? Was \u201cRoom 602 at the Hotel In-Between\u201d written in response to this theme?<\/p>\n<p>Some people might figure out their identity from their youth, others might take more time, or continually consider themselves. I knew I was nonbinary from a young age, but a bit like Christie, it took time for me to share it more openly. As someone given the woman-coded name Georgina who goes by the man-coded George, I felt exploring that might help inform Christie\u2019s internal journey.<\/p>\n<p>Their internal growth is shown in the list of their names in the ledger. The Concierge doesn\u2019t see these names are aspects of them, but as a number of separate people. The offer to be \u201canything, everything,\u201d shows that lack of understanding. To stay in the hotel would be to allow all of these Christies to exist as avatars to choose between. But Christie rejects the offer and tears out the page. They don\u2019t need to choose; they already contain all aspects of themselves.<\/p>\n<p>The one self Christie had been ignoring\u2014the hollow-eyed person in the mirror\u2014is the self that has already been partially consumed by indecision. A ghost of choices never made, she exists as a warning and is finally reintegrated when Christie makes a choice and leaves.<\/p>\n<p>Does this story show I am mad at myself for being too indecisive? Maybe so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\">What\u2019s next for you? Do you have anything coming out soon that you can talk about?<\/p>\n<p>I have a few stories coming out in the Flame Tree Press romantasy series this summer, a piece in the Flash Fiction Online \u201cTiny Gods\u201d issue in September, and an upcoming Interactive Fiction game, <i>Court of Veils: The Peacock<\/i> Throne via Choice of Games.<\/p>\n<p>I can be found at the following places: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kamsika.com\/\">Kamsika.com<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/gkamsika\/\">Instagram, <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/gkamsika.bsky.social\">Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was also thinking of how predatory nostalgia can be. It can be comforting to sink into remakes and sequels and old favourites and I\u2019m as guilty of this as anyone. But that comfort can also be a trap. Christie\u2019s replica bedroom is one example, as are the other guests feasting on their past. The Concierge is a manifestation of the temptation to live in eternal stasis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-spotlight","category-nonfiction","section-author-spotlights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Author Spotlight: Georgina Kamsika - Nightmare Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/?p=23978\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Author Spotlight: Georgina Kamsika - Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was also thinking of how predatory nostalgia can be. 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Or rather, the hotel exists only in the moments where existence itself hesitates: between one time zone and the next, between the breath then the decision, between the life left and the one not found yet. It appears at the stroke of midnight for those who are neither here nor there. There are travellers mid-journey, refugees between borders, insomniacs caught between yesterday and tomorrow. Those who know of it call it The Hotel Between.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s only one rule. Stay while still in transit. But the moment a destination is chosen, the hotel vanishes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>Christie has been neither here nor there for fifteen years. They know the exact weight of a Boeing 787 cabin at cruising altitude, the way recycled air tastes after twelve hours, the muffled silence of a hotel room in a city where they don\u2019t speak the language. They have no apartment, no plants, no pets. Their life is held in a single rolling suitcase, their friendships maintained in thirty-minute layovers and texts from different time zones.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re a ghost,\u201d their ex had told them once, half-admiring, half-accusing. \u201cYou don\u2019t leave traces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie likes it that way. They want nothing more from life. Until the night they see the hotel for the third time.<\/p>\n<p>The first sighting had been in Reykjavik, a flicker in the corner of their vision as they dragged their suitcase through the empty arrivals hall at one a.m. The second was in Dubai, a door where their hotel bathroom mirror should have been, just for a heartbeat.<\/p>\n<p>But this time, Christie\u2019s been drifting in and out of a half-sleep, lulled by the drone of the engines, when turbulence shakes the plane like an angry child, jolting them awake. Outside their long-haul crew bunk window, the night is endless, a black ocean of clouds, then a flicker of a neon sign, glowing faintly against the darkness.<\/p>\n<p>Christie blinks. It\u2019s still there. A building, impossibly suspended in the sky, its windows warm with golden light. A revolving door turns slowly, as if waiting.<\/p>\n<p>But then the plane lurches again, and the seatbelt sign dings on. They grab the intercom without thinking. \u201cWe\u2019re experiencing some unexpected weather. Please remain seated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie looks back out the window. The hotel is closer now.<\/p>\n<p>When the plane lands, they don\u2019t follow the crew to the usual airport hotel. They walk past the taxi stand, into the space between terminal and parking garage where the light is thin and the air smells like static.<\/p>\n<p>And there it is. The Hotel Between, reads the sign, the letters rearranging themselves when Christie blinks. The door opens before they can knock.<\/p>\n<p>The lobby is both vast and claustrophobic, the ceiling too high, the walls too close. It smells of old paper and distant rain. The carpet is the colour of blood, worn in patches where countless footsteps have passed.<\/p>\n<p>Behind the front desk stands someone who is, unmistakably, the Concierge. To Christie, he looks like their grandfather, round-faced, kind-eyed, the way they remember him before his stroke. But his features shift. A younger man. A woman with a kind smile. A stranger who makes Christie take a step back.<\/p>\n<p>The Concierge smiles. His teeth are very white. \u201cChecking in, Christie?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t ask how he knows their name. They mean to say no, but instead hear themself ask: \u201cHow long can I stay?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs long as you\u2019re still travelling.\u201d He slides a heavy ledger closer. \u201cYou\u2019ve been a guest before. Unintentional stays, of course. But now you\u2019ve chosen to visit. That makes you special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie touches the ledger. The pages are full of names, some crossed out, some glowing faintly. \u201cWhat is this place?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe in-between. The pause before the step. The breath before the scream.\u201d He leans forward. \u201cYou\u2019ve always lived here, Christie. You just didn\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A key appears in his palm. Room 602.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStay as long as you like. But you can\u2019t leave until you decide where you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>The hallways stretch in impossible directions. Room 602 is next to Room 412, which is next to Room 109. The numbers don\u2019t matter. The doors open onto whatever the guest needs most.<\/p>\n<p>When Christie turns the key, the door opens into a perfect replica of their childhood bedroom. The narrow single bed. The boy band posters taped to the wall. The dog plushie sitting on their pillow. It even smells like home, a mix of floral laundry detergent and the jasmine incense their mother had always burned.<\/p>\n<p>But it isn\u2019t quite right. The window doesn\u2019t show the garden; instead, it looks over a bridge, suspended over an abyss surrounded by swirling fog. A lone figure stands at the centre, silhouetted against a sky that is both day and night.<\/p>\n<p>Christie knows, somehow, that the figure is them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>Christie explores. In the lounge, a handsome pilot sips whisky that never runs out. \u201cI\u2019m waiting for my wife to forgive me,\u201d he confides. \u201cShe will. Eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A girl clutches a stuffed bear. \u201cMy father forgot me, and I don\u2019t remember which home was real.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And at the end of the hall, reflected in the mirrored walls, lurks a young woman with Christie\u2019s face but hollow eyes, who hisses, \u201cDon\u2019t stay too long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Concierge finds Christie at the bar. \u201cThey\u2019re all deciding. Or not deciding. That\u2019s the beauty of this place. No consequences. No endings. You\u2019ll have to leave soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy next flight isn\u2019t for hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you will leave,\u201d the Concierge says. \u201cYou can\u2019t stay once you\u2019ve decided where you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie thinks of the bridge. Of the figure waiting at the centre. They drink something that tastes like nostalgia. \u201cWhat happens if I stay?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Concierge\u2019s face flickers for a second into a woman with hollow cheeks and hungry eyes. Her grin widens. \u201cThen you never have to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>Christie sleeps without dreaming for the first time in years. When they wake, their suitcase is gone. In its place hangs a flight attendant\u2019s uniform, not their current airline\u2019s, but the one they\u2019d worn a decade ago, the navy-blue skirt smelling faintly of lavender, the way their mother used to wash it before she died.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe rooms adapt,\u201d says a voice. The girl stands in the doorway, clutching her eyeless teddy bear. Her skin is threaded with faint scars, like cracks in porcelain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMine\u2019s a quarantine room,\u201d the child whispers. \u201cPlastic sheets. They thought I was contagious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie follows her to breakfast. The dining hall stretches like an airport terminal, tables set with silver domes that contain whatever the guest most craves. A man in a 1940s suit weeps into a plate of pierogis that smells of ruined childhood. A tiny toddler crawls before a cake inscribed with \u201clove from mummy.\u201d A woman with translucent skin and dark shadows nibbles on ashes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe chose to forget her name,\u201d the child explains. \u201cNow the hotel eats her memories instead of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Concierge watches from the doorway, his fingers steepled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>On the third non-day, the hollow-eyed Christie who lurks in any reflective surface murmurs, \u201cDon\u2019t touch the doors that glow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie finds one that evening, a pulsating crimson door labelled Maintenance. Behind it is the sound of wet, rhythmic chewing. The Concierge materialises beside them, smelling of jet fuel and burnt sugar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s where we keep the ones who tried to leave without choosing. The hotel recycles them. New carpets. New guests.\u201d His teeth glint. \u201cSustainability is important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>Days pass. Or maybe minutes. Time doesn\u2019t exist. But one thing Christie does notice is that the hotel is sick. Christie spots it first in the mirror when their reflection blinks a second too late. Then the walls begin breathing. Guests vanish mid-sentence, their half-finished drinks left behind.<\/p>\n<p>The girl with the bear tugs their sleeve. \u201cIt\u2019s eating them. The ones who can\u2019t pick.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hollow-eyed mirror Christie rasps, \u201cIt\u2019s eating me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The girl unravels at the edges; yarn-like threads drift from her sleeves. \u201cIt\u2019s happening faster now. The hotel\u2019s hungry. It wants you to stay forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She presses the teddy bear into Christie\u2019s hands. Inside its stuffing is a keycard stained with blood. \u201cRoom 000. That\u2019s where they keep the ledger. Where you can cross your name out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The hollow-eyed Christie hisses a warning. \u201cHe\u2019ll offer you a deal first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie searches for Room 000. The halls twist, doors slamming shut, but they find their way with their bones. The keycard burns against their palm. Room 000 exposes the hotel\u2019s guts. Walls pulse like diaphragms. Ceiling pipes drip fluid that whispers in languages they almost recognise. The ledger floats in midair, its pages fluttering like trapped birds.<\/p>\n<p>Christie finds their name, not just Christie, but every variant:<\/p>\n<p>– Christina at seven, hiding in the closet as her parents screamed.<\/p>\n<p>– Chrissy at twenty-one, stepping off the plane in New York, turning her back on her past.<\/p>\n<p>– Chris at twenty-eight, sobbing after cutting off their father.<\/p>\n<p>– Christie at thirty-one, secure and confident in themselves.<\/p>\n<p>The Concierge appears. \u201cStay. You don\u2019t belong out there. Most guests cling to one regret. You\u2019re made of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He opens his jacket. Instead of a heart, there is a miniature airport terminal where faceless figures board flights to nowhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. \u201d Christie hesitates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStay as my successor. I\u2019ve been here since the first traveller hesitated. Here you can be anything. Everything.\u201d Her face flickers.<\/p>\n<p>For a dizzying moment, Christie imagines it: eternity as the hotel\u2019s new keeper, welcoming the lost, feeding on their indecision. Then the child\u2019s unravelling face flashes in their mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to be everything. I\u2019m happy as me.\u201d Christie grabs the ledger and tears out the page with their names.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re alone out there,\u201d the Concierge shouts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can live like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They run. The hotel screams. The Concierge lunges but his fingers pass through Christie like they are already gone. Because they are. They have chosen.<\/p>\n<p>The walls dissolve as their borrowed time runs out. And as the darkness takes the guests, Christie feels the Concierge\u2019s foetid breath on their neck, his voice slithering into their ear: \u201cYou\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\">\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<p>Christie wakes up in their crew jump seat, the plane descending through storm clouds. Their hands shake. Their uniform sticks to them, trousers damp with sweat.<\/p>\n<p>A passenger eyes them, recoiling slightly. \u201cRough flight?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christie almost laughs but feels the tears that haunt their eyes. \u201cI think this might be my last one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They settle back in their seat, then glance at the safety card in the seatback. They freeze. The illustrated exit door is wrong. It shows a familiar lobby, a person with too-white teeth waving from the threshold. And in the corner, tiny but unmistakable, is their own face. Smiling. Waiting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefinitely my last one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a place that doesn\u2019t exist. Or rather, the hotel exists only in the moments where existence itself hesitates: between one time zone and the next, between the breath then the decision, between the life left and the one not found yet. It appears at the stroke of midnight for those who are neither here nor there. There are travellers mid-journey, refugees between borders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,440],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-short-stories","section-fiction","status_flag-original"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Room 602 at the Hotel In-Between - Nightmare Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/fiction\/room-602-at-the-hotel-in-between\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Room 602 at the Hotel In-Between - Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is a place that doesn\u2019t exist. 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Or rather, the hotel exists only in the moments where existence itself hesitates: between one time zone and the next, between the breath then the decision, between the life left and the one not found yet. It appears at the stroke of midnight for those who are neither here nor there. 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Under such fraught circumstances, it might be tempting to disregard writing, reading, and viewing horror fiction and film as relatively feckless pursuits, unable to spur humanitarian action or usher in better, more equitable living conditions. This view, however, is entirely incorrect. Stories about monsters and mayhem are <i>precisely<\/i> what we need when real monsters and mayhem are at our doorstep. And the horror genre can\u2019t help but involve itself in the current conflicts of our age. Let me explain why.<\/p>\n<p>By its very nature, the horror genre magnifies the dangers of our political, social, and cultural realms by intentionally or inadvertently shaping those dangers into potent metaphors and symbols\u2014i.e., the terrifying beings and malignant forces that populate its narratives. Horror fiction finds a problem, a negative, a <i>thing<\/i> to be potentially eliminated in our world, gives it extra teeth in a fictional realm, and then pits it against characters who attempt to rid themselves and their fictional world of that thing. Even if an author doesn\u2019t intend to include sociopolitical or cultural discourse in their work, the basic structure of horror narrative cannot help but say \u201cLook! There\u2019s something wrong here! Let\u2019s focus on it and <i>do<\/i> something about it!\u201d That\u2019s the crux of the genre and it\u2019s also the crux of protest: Something is wrong and we must point it out and try to deal with it. In this, horror mirrors reactive political and social movement. It is, by its nature, always a literature of protest.<\/p>\n<p>Consider some of the best-known works of the genre. Mary Shelley\u2019s <i>Frankenstein<\/i>, for example, points out the problem of science\u2019s overreach, magnifies it through the character of Victor Frankenstein, gives its consequences extra teeth (and muscles) in the form of Victor\u2019s creature, then entreats its characters and readers to find a solution for science\u2019s unfettered ambition. H. P. Lovecraft\u2019s <i>The Call of Cthulhu<\/i> does something similar. It points out that any form of exploration\u2014geographical, scientific, cultural, or even artistic\u2014can be dangerous, then magnifies that problem through characters\u2019 insanity and violently cultish behavior. The story gives the problem dire consequences in the form of Cthulhu\u2019s awakening and ultimately calls upon its characters and readers to reconsider any venture into the unknown as a likely leap into catastrophe. Even more explicitly, Richard Matheson\u2019s <i>I am Legend<\/i> points out the myriad problems that arise from preconception and bias, magnifies them in the escalating conflict between Robert Neville and the vampires, gives them extra teeth (literally) with the vampires and Neville\u2019s terrorism of said vampires, then challenges Neville and readers to dissect who and what actually constitutes monstrousness. All three of these aforementioned works implicitly protest against a norm, a rule, a way of being that permeates the time and place in which they were created. They all warn against a political, social, or cultural construct and, ultimately, advocate for a change in the status quo.<\/p>\n<p>Again and again, horror utilizes this same framework of protest against perceived negative influences as its foundation. It\u2019s as inescapable as a masked, undead killer. And, speaking of, the Friday the 13th films provide an excellent example of how this inherent occupation with opposition and dissent can cut in multiple directions within the very same work. Consider: Various critics have read the <i>Friday the 13th<\/i> movies as vicious condemnations of teenage immorality, with the entire social climate of American youth being the negative element that needs to be drastically altered. Those drunken, sexed up teens deserve all the machetes coming to them! Equally, however, it\u2019s possible to interpret the films as railing against the psychotic puritanism Jason and Mrs. Vorhees seem to embody, with the censors of teenage exploration and rebellion marked as the true destructive forces. Here, the real horror lies in trying to violently squash the natural and near-universal inclinations of youth. In either case, regardless of critical interpretation, the movies <i>operate<\/i> in the same manner, as voices of protest telling us that a terrible \u201cthing\u201d exists in our midst\u2014whether wayward teens or oppressive authorities\u2014and we need to protect ourselves from it or change it.<\/p>\n<p>So what does it mean for horror to be naturally primed as a locus of protest? First and foremost, I\u2019d suggest that the genre is capable of much more than the average reader or viewer might suspect. It can act as a powerful site of political, social, or cultural critique since any given monster or destructive force in a horror narrative is already an exaggerated or symbolic representation of a real problem. Because horror often appeals to audiences who are seeking emotional jolts, it can sneak these critiques to audiences who may otherwise avoid or be dismissive of sociopolitical or cultural discussion. How many viewers of George Romero\u2019s <i>Dawn of the Dead<\/i> went into the film expressly seeking a skewering of casual consumerism? Probably not many, yet that\u2019s precisely what they were exposed to. Merely getting that message, that <i>idea<\/i> of protest (in this case of excessive consumption) in front of people who don\u2019t immediately reject it\u2014even under the guise of violent entertainment\u2014is half the battle of fomenting sociopolitical change.<\/p>\n<p>That horror is fertile ground for protest also means that its creators should embrace it as such and celebrate its galvanizing potential. Too often, horror writers say they don\u2019t want their work to be \u201ctoo political\u201d and that they try to focus on \u201cbigger issues\u201d or \u201ctelling a good story.\u201d The problem with those viewpoints is that <i>every<\/i> horror story edges into the realm of the political because of its protest-centric structure. A cosmic horror tale that shows the menace of infinitely powerful alien forces isn\u2019t <i>only<\/i> dealing in broader philosophical issues; it\u2019s pointing out that immense power is a problem and inhuman behavior is a thing to change. Considering the vast power wielded by the ultra-wealthy and the inhuman behaviors exhibited by much of the global elite, these are clearly sociopolitical concerns in the here and now. The billionaire class might as well be interdimensional monsters for all their antihuman actions. Horror creators need to lean into the genre\u2019s intrinsic capabilities and use their creative energies to find new and frightening ways to depict the problems they see in the world and make more people scared of those problems. They shouldn\u2019t be afraid of their work stepping foot into political discourse because, by virtue of creating in a horror mode, the political has already mixed itself into that work\u2019s foundation.<\/p>\n<p>In our present, a time when near-satanic predators and dystopian technocrats rule much of the globe, we need horror as a vehicle for making the wrongs of the world more terrifying and, thereby, setting audiences in opposition to those wrongs. So many of the horrors we see playing out in reality become dulled by their repetition in news and social media, by their everyday existence. Through the repetition, people begin to view awful things as an unalterable status quo. But, by depicting those same awful things in more extreme ways and showing more of their bone-chilling consequences, the horror genre can reignite the emotions that audiences <i>should<\/i> feel at witnessing\u2014and living with\u2014deadly serious problems. In this way, horror is a reminder, a warning siren, a person with a huge sign standing on a street corner shouting for the world to do better and be better. It is, in a word, a protest, and it is one we should not be hesitant to join.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We live in politically combustible times, when social media posts ignite wars and half of the Western world\u2019s populace seems determined to usher in an apocalypse if only to spite their perceived enemies. Under such fraught circumstances, it might be tempting to disregard writing, reading, and viewing horror fiction and film as relatively feckless pursuits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-the-h-word","section-nonfiction"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The H Word: The Revolution Will Be Horrorized - Nightmare Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/?p=23984\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The H Word: The Revolution Will Be Horrorized - Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We live in politically combustible times, when social media posts ignite wars and half of the Western world\u2019s populace seems determined to usher in an apocalypse if only to spite their perceived enemies. 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My hand, a mile or so away, buried under a shallow layer of dirt in what will be someone\u2019s tulip bed next spring.<\/p>\n<p>My head\u2014I don\u2019t know where it is. Strange. Surely it\u2019s what I\u2019m using to think?<\/p>\n<p>I focus and my hand lurches, shakes off a coating of soil, lifts onto its fingertips and straggles into the driveway, makes its way into the shadowy street.\u00a0I do not know how it got there. I do know that it does not feel pain, even when the nails chip on the concrete sidewalk.<\/p>\n<p>I will it to find my arm. It does, in a park. Alas, it\u2019s the right arm. The hand is left. How annoying. I will the two sides of my wrist to rub together. There\u2019s a tingle, spread out across miles, and I see a brief flash of light.<\/p>\n<p>Good. My eyes are somewhere, then. Hopefully, they\u2019re in my head.<\/p>\n<p>Wherever that is.<\/p>\n<p>My left breast is lying exposed not too far from my reunited hand and arm, nipple pointing skyward. It can\u2019t travel of its own volition, and so it only quivers in place. There\u2019s nothing to attach it to yet, so I make my hand drag my arm over to it, balance on my elbow while my fingers search for dried leaves and throw them over the wobbling dome for a little privacy. We\u2019ll come back once we\u2019ve found the rest of me.<\/p>\n<p>I focus.<\/p>\n<p>It takes a while. My legs are akimbo; one is in a dumpster behind a convenience store on the edge of town and the other has been hacked in two. The thigh is in a graveyard, lying beneath a bush, the shin in a discarded cooler in a junkyard. My pelvis has been snapped in two, and each hip is in another, different cooler, spread out across the city.<\/p>\n<p>I will not say where my labia have been left. Only know that I got them, and all adjacent parts, back whole.<\/p>\n<p>Slowly the pieces of my body twitch and struggle together, rolling, creeping, hunching across the miles to find each other and knit together again.<\/p>\n<p>My midsection is the hardest. It\u2019s been hacked into a dozen pieces and sown into the river like seeds. I fear my belly button is irretrievable\u2014some water creature has eaten it, I think. I have to wait until my other hand comes creeping in from the suburbs, then send it down to poke and prod and gather everything together.<\/p>\n<p>It takes almost all night.<\/p>\n<p>Then I make my arms lower the bottom of my chest carefully towards the water until it all connects.<\/p>\n<p>That tingle again. I hear mumbles, swearing, heavy breathing\u2014ah, my ears are working. Where <i>is<\/i> my head? Is it nearby? Is my ear attached to it?<\/p>\n<p>My arms pull my torso out of the water, and my hips and legs amble over, the toenail on one foot missing. At least it\u2019s matched up to the correct leg. My hands are still backwards. Once put together, I can\u2019t take myself back apart.<\/p>\n<p>Someone else does that.<\/p>\n<p>At last, my twisted body is whole. Except for my head, which is still missing. To be honest, the rest of me isn\u2019t exactly pristine. One leg is shorter than the other due to a shattered knee. My shoulders are uneven, and one calf is ragged. Perhaps a rat nibbled at it while it was waiting for the rest of me to find it. I truly will miss my belly button.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I am all together at last. My skin can feel the air changing, but there\u2019s just enough darkness left to go and find my head, I hope.<\/p>\n<p>I focus. Oh. It\u2019s close.<\/p>\n<p>My parts, collected, lurch across the city, holding to the waning shadows, haunting alleys, staying away from the open spaces, the cars. I am a naked, headless woman\u2019s body. I\u2019d never make it out of the city morgue without my face attached.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I come to a studio apartment in a shitty part of town, even for me. A rat much like the one who must have nibbled at my calf runs across my toes as I approach the doorway. I feel its scaly tail as it slithers away.<\/p>\n<p>My hands reach for the door and encounter shapes. My fingers trace them\u2014delicate, many armed and pointed things. Religious symbols. I hope my eyes are on the other side of the door they are trying to protect.<\/p>\n<p>I raise the foot on my non-nibbled leg, kick the door down easily, lurch behind its momentum into a room alive with movement. Something hits me across the back and I fall, reversed hands outstretched. They brush against something round, fuzzy hair at the top, the proud bridge of a nose protruding.<\/p>\n<p><i>Ah<\/i>. My head.<\/p>\n<p>I have no idea why they kept it, and whole at that, but I\u2019m so glad they did. They won\u2019t be.<\/p>\n<p>There is a blindfold across the eyes and hasty plugs in the ears. I snatch them away and will my body to stand as I raise my head to my shoulders, match up the edges of my neck.<\/p>\n<p>When it snaps into place, the tingle rushes through me like a live current, shooting from my fingers, lifting my hair straight at the roots. Sights flood my eyes, sounds my ears. There\u2019s screaming, wailing, too many words. My eyes take in a small huddle of young people, sweating scared.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, I remember now. Medical students and PhDs, one in philosophy, the other theology. At least they were before the ethics violations. Before <i>me<\/i>. There were more of them when we started this dance. There will be fewer, after tonight.<\/p>\n<p>One of their screams coalesces into words, festooned with sobs. \u201cOh God! Oh God, she\u2019s alive! She came back!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I always do.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"dedication\">Author note:<\/p>\n<p class=\"dedication\">The only thing worse than the constant theft and subversion of the rights of women to bodily autonomy is the assumption that we will never find the power to snatch them back, and don\u2019t even innately have that power. I wrote this after a long walk I took to cool my blood after a particularly infuriating instance of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My foot is hidden under a pile of fallen leaves in a ditch near the highway. My hand, a mile or so away, buried under a shallow layer of dirt in what will be someone\u2019s tulip bed next spring.\u00a0My head\u2014I don\u2019t know where it is. Strange. Surely it\u2019s what I\u2019m using to think?\u00a0I focus and my hand lurches, shakes off a coating of soil, lifts onto its fingertips and straggles into the driveway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,437],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-flash-fiction","section-fiction","status_flag-original"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Parts, Collected - Nightmare Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nightmare-magazine.com\/fiction\/my-parts-collected\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Parts, Collected - Nightmare Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My foot is hidden under a pile of fallen leaves in a ditch near the highway. 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