Swamptember is over.

As we crest the ridge that runs down September’s back, it’s clear to me that special frequencies hide in autumn air, resonances that only ring out when the air falls back to cool. There’s a reason Swamptember’s been around for centuries. The story continues:

Swamptember marches on, dragging its scaly feet down the canal of time, and our widely-recognized celebration of all things swampy—chokemoss, ancient hooch, sweatflies the size of quarters—has become quite the rage around the world. Here’s more fiction:

Welcome to Swamptember! To kick off our celebration of all things swampy — bog witches, gothic flora, big honkin’ lizards — here is the first part of a short story I’ve written for the festivities.

I sit in a daze for a very long time. There are no more signs of animals. I'm sitting on the rope bridge with a softball-sized bug. A dead bug, now. It's dead, and I've killed it—the only life I've taken in years.

Kate stands before me, her body stone still while her eyes fizzle and pop like pink sparklers. Each one fills its whole socket, wide as a clementine. They strike me as separate entirely from Kate, so different in their restless flits and flickers.

I step into her shadow, her apron stained with rhubarb. I look up at her tight blond curls, some fading into spots of gray. Her smell is sweet and heavy, like the curtains that hang in my grandmother's home. Cate makes her way into the hall to stand beside her sister, then turns to face the tapping on the window.

I have no idea how long I’ve been walking, but a pain in my leg says I’d misjudged the distance. I see nothing for a long time but this moonlit corridor. The stars above me are out in full force, though no constellations I recognize.

I'm driving north. I'm driving north, again, but everything feels fine. South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky. Moods like this come sometimes, trending toward bleaker moments, the narcotic flood of freedom pressing against misery just as cold flattens its nose against my Ranger's windows.

Your move came just in time for a housewarming party on Memorial Day weekend. It's no penthouse, but you can see the Rockies, and there's a pool. Happiness, after years of dormancy, has awakened at last.

Boris Pickett, mad scientist and host of the Monster Mash: The beginning, I would say, is clearest to me—I was working in the lab late one night when my eyes beheld an eerie sight.

It's been almost three months since the night you took a ride in that flying car. None of your friends will believe your story — to be fair, you're not entirely sure it happened either.

Picture this: It's too late to go out. It's one of those Friday nights where you had nothing, so you just rewatched Clueless. You're a little disappointed. Then, you hear a sputtering engine from the street, the waves of the past lapping our postmodern shores.