A lonely aunt’s pride in her exotic, gift-giving nephew turns to dread when his latest botanical offering—the Venusian “Rambler”—proves to be a massive, blood-sucking, mind-controlling carnivorous plant that begins feeding on local animals until...
Tales From the Blue Line – The Vending Machine Prophecy
The night shift at the hospital is dramatically altered when the staff discovers that the old, untrustworthy vending machine, an office joke, starts dispensing eerie and hyper-specific fortune tea bottles that accurately predict everything from...
The Cosmic Express by Jack Williamson
Bored with the comforts of 25th-century civilization, a famous adventure novelist and his bride convince a drunken friend to use an experimental teleportation device, the Cosmic Express, to send them to the primitive, wild jungles of Venus, where...
Tales From the Blue Line – The Phantom Channel
The late-night technician at an outdated TV station discovers a mysterious phantom channel that broadcasts a live, eerie feed of their town, only to realize the footage isn’t showing the present, but the immediate, inevitable future, with...
Escape From Pluto By William Oberfield
Exiled Martian dictator Marcius Kemble, maddened by defeat and banished to frozen Pluto, believes he has secured an escape ship from the mysterious native inhabitants, only to discover too late that his vengeful return to the inner solar system is...
Tales From the Blue Line – The Midnight Janitor
The exhausted staff of a hospital’s chaotic night shift comes to depend on an unsettlingly silent, unscheduled janitor nicknamed “Saint Squeegee,” who materializes exactly when and where messes, accidents, and minor crises erupt, leading the nurses...
Tales From the Blue Line – Alien Insurance Not Accepted
Exhausted ER Nurse Tanya faces the most bizarre intake of her career at 2:45 a.m.—an alleged extraterrestrial named Todd in a silver tracksuit who, claiming a dislocated shoulder, proceeds to break the hospital’s equipment, reveal Tanya’s secret...
Six Frightened Men by Randall Garrett
Crouching on an alien desert, a man must quickly identify a sixty-foot-tall, seemingly indestructible monster that appeared from nowhere after it kills two of his crew, only to realize the terrifying creature is not a product of alien evolution but...
Tales From the Blue Line – Hold Music
After calling a customer support line for his broken streaming box, Evan is horrified when the voice on the other end begins using an unnervingly cheerful tone to reveal private memories, predict his immediate future, and ultimately prove she knows...
Space-Lane of No-Return By George A. Whittington
When a couple rookie Inter-Planetary Patrol officers a legendary pirate, they realize their mundane “asteroid fishing” equipment holds the secret to defeating the outlaw’s superior defenses. If you have a story you’d like to contribute to the...