READER BEWARE 2021

Reader Beware is a free to download collabrative horror literary magazine featuring prose and poetry from ten new authors. 

Excerpt from the cover story:

The gnashing teeth, pleading bleats, and snarls from the beasts and livestock had grown louder with each passing second, beating against the family’s eardrums. Pop had been able to fend off the vultures in the daylight, but when dusk brought the wolves, he recruited the middle child’s help. The gun Pop had given Cyrus was almost as tall as he was. Both his legs and his voice had trembled so terribly as Pop showed him how to load the ammunition. Shiloh had cried out as he held Daniel. 

‘He doesn’t even know how to use that thing!’ 

‘Then he’ll learn; I’ll be damned if we lose the whole herd.’ 

‘What if you lose your son instead?’ 

‘We’ll be okay. Just trust me.’ 

‘But Pop, what if the wolves get me?’ 

‘That won’t happen, Cy.’ 

‘But I―’

‘Let’s go before it’s too late.’ 

‘I’ll go instead. I’m older, after all.’ 

‘No.’ 

‘But Pop―’ 

‘No, don’t take him!’ 

Shiloh reached out to try and stop their father, but was met with a swift backhand. Pop grabbed Cyrus by his left arm and yanked him out into the night, the both of them stumbling downhill back to the pasture. Shiloh would never forget the look of fear that plastered his brother’s ghostly face; a look so foreign to the second son. Within seconds, he heard gunshots ring out from down the hill. On instinct, he covered Daniel’s small ears. Round after round. The firing lasted an eternity. 

Also featuring: 

• a monstrous child birthed from roadkill
• a corpse discovered in a quiet Vermont town
• madness at sea
• wife in a box