Midnight Echo magazine

With Midnight Echo Issue 7 creeping up on us like your favourite serial killer, the issue’s editor, Daniel Russell, thought you all deserved a sneak peek at the taboos within, a little slice of pleasure to tide you over…. So we’ll be posting story excerpts every Sunday from now on in the lead up to the May 31st release.

Also, don’t forget our Subscription Drive, with all manner of awesome prizes to be won!

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Horrid places and horrid people are things often not discussed in polite company. Schiller has the pleasure of both as he rides through the night, sharing his subway car with the drunks, the drugged and the crazy. It’s his obsession…but something down here in the dark is just as obsessed with him. So step aboard, feel that hypnotic sway of motion, enjoy the Dead Inertia.

Dead Inertia by Eric Blair

The giant’s skin was pale, almost white, but damp as well, as if the man had sweated all the colour out of it, bled it through his pores and now had it flowing down his face. The edges of skin against his hair were bloodied, like a failed attempt at a scalping. A mess of unshaven hair under the chin might once have been a goatee. The ragged and heavy clothes were thick with some dark, viscous fluid. It seemed that he wasn’t breathing.

Under this silent review that stretched  for at least half a minute, the man said nothing. Then his arm, well-muscled and long, reached down. His hand clamped over Schiller’s, gripping tight and furiously cold. The fingers were ice, frozen digits speaking of a deep and hostile winter. But the grip was not hard. There was no fierceness to it, and though terrified, Schiller could not help but feel something familiar in that embrace; like the man was trying to let him know that they were, in fact, long lost brothers, and that their coming together was to be an occasion for joy.

And with these conflicting impressions, Schiller simply sat, speechless and motionless, but awake. He considered trying to use his whiskey bottle as a bludgeon, forcing the man to let go, but this thought was far away. It wandered across his mind with no real connection to his body. He looked back up at that white face. The eyes bore the same welcoming iciness. Then the man, or whatever he might have been, released him and simply walked away, moving not for the doors of the slowing train, but to the next car. He did not look back, but his arm lingered as he passed into the space between the cars. The fingers at first seemed to point back to him, a gesture not unlike the shape of a gun. They curled, the wrist turning over, seeming to beckon him: calling him forward,  deeper into the night that moved with him wherever the train should go.

The train  stopped. The doors of the car opened, but the station was empty. Schiller sat alone, silent and with a sense of unfolding terror in the stolid and motionless car. The doors closed, and the train started to move once again.

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Pre-orders for the limited edition print run are now being taken.
If you live in Australia:

AU$12.50 (includes postage)

If you live overseas:

AU$17.50 (includes postage)

If you wish to purchase more than 1 copy, please contact us at Midnight Echo and we will provide a quote for postage.

And don’t forget, Midnight Echo Issue 6, the science fiction horror special, is still available in both print and digital formats. Click here to purchase your copy now.