KEEPING THE APOCALYPSE AT BAY, ONE STORY AT A TIME.
READING INSTRUCTIONS FOR MILTON
Many hours went into arranging these pages into the most readable form possible.
For two years I patched together the coffee‑stained fragments. Some pages were full accounts. Others were torn or written in such atrocious penmanship that I had no choice but to speculate. And, for full disclosure, some of it was such preposterous gibberish that I only included brief snippets. To make matters worse, none of it arrived in anything resembling any order. Page numbers, well there were none. But there were dates.
I suspect quite a bit of the journal is missing, or was purposely removed, before sending it to me. I also am leaning to the idea that more than one person wrote the pages, which had made the construction of this story far more challenging.
It was the 7s and Zs. Some had lines through them, others didn’t. So, I decided what to keep and how to differentiate the multiple authors of the diary or journal or notebook, so you, the reader, could attempt to make sense of it all.
I kept the headings and dates and used differing fonts, italics, and bold print to assist you, its reader. I hope my choices are helpful. But, quite honestly, if I were to place the pages in calendar order, it would make it less decipherable than it already is.
There are two parts to this questionable tale.
Both are equally fascinating. I’m still not sure, even after all this work, which section happened first. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. It’s about the journey.
The choices.
The heartbreaks.
The achievements.
Their lives.
I am honored to be Milton’s caretaker and voice. Now that you’ve digested all this rambling, let’s get this ball rolling and explain how I became involved.
The story of Milton was constructed from a journal that was mailed to my house two years past. Its loose pages were nestled inside a box. They were used as padding and insulation for an object I won from an auction. The object I speak of is a piece of the wreckage from the Soviet space mission Soyuz 11 in 1971 that ended in tragedy.
I’ll give a snippet for those unfamiliar with this mission and its catastrophic failure.
Twenty-three days were spent in space, and upon reentry to Earth an air vent opened in the descent vessel. The sudden depressurization killed the crew.
They were cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolsky. Vladislav Volkov. Viktor Patsayev.
The capsule landed 90 kilometers southwest of Karazhal in Kazakhstan.
And now I own a piece of it. It sits on a shelf, here in my home library, behind my desk as I type these words.
What follows, in these pages, is a story based on an event that took place sixty years after the fatal reentry of Soyuz 11. I now believe that what recently happened in Florida, described in the journal, proves that something, against all odds, survived during the vessel’s return through Earth’s atmosphere six decades ago.
I have nothing other to prove this to you than this tale.
I found the journal riveting, difficult to understand and horrifying. True events always are. I believe it was sent to me, purposely, along with the pressure equalization valve within.
And the box it arrived at my house in…well this may sound ridiculous. But—I kept it too.
On a shelf.
I find it more alluring than the artifact and possibly the journal.
Such an enticing thing…
I feel an urge to pick it up and sniff it.
Strange…wonderful…the box.
It looks so lovely sitting there.
As it watches me.
Reader, I present to you—Milton.
Good luck.
And once again I remind you I am only the story’s editor. Not creator.
Wishing you luck and laughs
Mark Nuzzi
May 29th 2026
MILTON
A Category Four hurricane traps Clay Dorado in a Titusville hotel as time, memory, and reality begin to fracture around him. A misdelivered box, impossible voices, and a storm that feels aware push him toward a truth he’s spent his whole life avoiding.
A slow, atmospheric descent into cosmic dread — where the most dangerous place to be trapped is inside your own head.
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H4479FYT
YARD WORK
Halloweenthology: Memento Mori
Wicked Shadow Press — Edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
Outside the window, it leaned against the old oak, trembling, remembering every Vartan who had ever touched it. A yard rake — such a simple thing, such a monstrous thing — waited for Murray. The moment his fingers brushed the dark wood, the world erupted into sensation. What began as yard work became a night of pain, and the terrible duty his family could never escape.
“If you stop,” his father said quietly, meeting his eyes, “other people will pay for it."
DANDELION TEA
Flash of the Dead: Halloween 2026
Wicked Shadow Press — Edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
The first time anyone noticed Evangeline’s property, it was always during the golden season. There, sprawling across acres, lay a sea of dandelions so magnificent it defied belief, a carpet of pure gold that rippled with captured sunlight.
“Far above the field, something huge moved behind the stars.”
Flash of the Dead: Halloween '26
THE DAMN DUCKS
Act of God: An anthology of disaster horror. Wicked Shadow Press — Edited by Rasiika Sen & Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
When the Long Flood drowns Southern New Jersey, Esmeralda Ruiz's innocent duck-feeding habit spirals into an ecological nightmare that no one can prove she caused—and no one can prove she didn't.
“Standing in it were ducks. Hundreds of ducks. Possibly thousands.”
BLUE
Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder No. 36: October 2026—Edited by Wayne Kyle Spitzer
Over lunch at a crowded city café, Steve—the city's most incredulous infotainment enthusiast—insists strangers are tracking him, and Carlos—exhausted of decision-making fatigue—waves it off—until a woman in an impossible shade of blue appears and claims to have witnessed all 888,346 of their lives.
“There’s always someone watching someone, and there is always someone else watching the someone who is watching someone.”
Amazon.com: Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder No. 36: October 2026: 9798174956162: Spitzer, Wayne Kyle, Kaiser, Evan, Couture, Joe, Nuzzi, Mark, Dellechiaie, Dan, Meade, Matthew Thomas, Stevens, Asher, Shepherd, Kelly, Ross, Bendix, Larson, George: Books
THE MIGHTY SYLVESTER
Wonder and Whimsey — Journey’s End Publishing, Autumn 2026
A lazy kingdom, a curious child, and a seal who thinks the world belongs to him.
Sylvester is old, fat, stubborn, and absolutely convinced a family’s backyard belongs to him. He naps there, eats there, fights birds there, and ignores every human who tries to send him back to the ocean. But one summer, a curious young girl wanders into his lazy kingdom, and something changes. What follows is mischief, chaos, and a quiet bond between a wild seal who doesn’t understand a word humans say and a child who understands him perfectly.
NOT MRS. JONES
Asylumania: Psychosis
Wicked Shadow Press — Edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
During a storm that won’t quit, Maxine—receptionist, aquarium caretaker, and firm believer in keeping life simple—checks in a walk‑in patient who calls herself Mrs. Jones. She arrives dripping water, wrapped in bone and feathers, carrying a staff and smelling like a freshly extinguished fire pit. Maxine has seen plenty in twenty years behind a desk, but nothing quite like this.
A quiet, unsettling story about intrusion, inheritance, and the moment an ordinary day decides it’s done being ordinary in the therapist’s office.
“When the worm becomes the winged thing, does the debt remain with it?”
Link: Asylumania: Psychosis
AISLE SEVEN
Two mages. One jar. Things escalate.
https://100wordfiction.com/story.php?slug=aisle-seven
THE ENCORE
Flash of the Dead: Snakes
Wicked Shadow Press — Edited by Rasiika Sen & Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
Garrick the Bard just wants to sing filthy songs, charm a hostile crowd, keep his serpents happy, and scrape together a miserable living. The Melted Candle’s patrons prefer to drown him in jeers, bones, and whatever scraps they can throw. But when a mysterious sorceress takes an unexpected interest in the musician — and in the serpents that coil at his feet — strange music follows.
“Goodness is predictable. Questionable things? They sing.”
THE GROMSKIN
Mobius Blvd: Stories from the Byway Between Reality and Dream #29 and Dark Horses Magazine of Weird Fiction #53 —Edited by Wayne Kyle Spitzer
In a secluded yard where the forest presses close, a father and daughter tend their birdfeeder, their gardens, and the strange, ancient soil their family has fed for generations. As Jane grows, the rituals of the yard reveal their true purpose: to nourish something older than the trees, something that watches from the grove and slips through cracks in the world.
A tale of a father and daughter maintaining a birdfeeder in the prettiest yard in the universe.
LINK 1 (Mobius Blvd #29): https://www.amazon.com/Mobius-Blvd-Stories-Between-Reality/dp/B0GMPKQWZX/
LINK 2 (Dark Horses #53): https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Horses-Magazine-Weird-Fiction/dp/B0H25PJ1JV/
LICKED CLEAN
Published in January House Literary Journal
Paul Whittaker, a meticulous prosecutor and obsessive stamp collector, acquires a rare Inverted Jenny that reveals far more than postal history. Visions of his own moral compromises surface, forcing him to confront the thin line between collector and collected.
“How many bad people are just good people with bad habits?”
LINK: https://januaryhouselit.com/2026/05/15/licked-clean/
FISHING LINE
Flash of the Dead: Space
Wicked Shadow Press — Edited by Rasiika Sen & Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
Kanksha Golshani and Kiyomi Ito work aboard Midpoint Station, the halfway mark of Proxima Centauri b’s space elevator. When the tether starts vibrating with a pattern that feels wrong—rhythmic, pulsed, almost alive—they realize the surface has gone dark and something enormous is climbing the ribbon. The elevator was never just a structure. It was a summons. And whatever answered it is coming straight for them.
“It doesn’t even notice us.”
AVAILABLE LIGHT
Infinity Publishing March 2006
When Ryan Celsius dies, he expects peace—but death has other plans. What should have been a final rest becomes a violent return to a world he no longer belongs to. As he claws back into the light, he discovers that whatever waits beyond this life is not gentle, not forgiving, and not finished with him.
A supernatural descent into what comes after the last breath—and what happens when you’re dragged back from it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0741434237
THE LAUNDROMAT
The Literary Hatchet, Issue #41 Pear Tree Press
Edited by Stefanie A. Taylor & Michael Brimbau
A late‑night load of laundry becomes a confession booth for a woman who talks to the machines because no one else will listen. But something listens back.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
www.amazon.com/Literary-Hatchet-Double-Issue-41/dp/B0H18BY113/
MARIGOLD
Exorcists of the Dead: Infestation
Wicked Shadow Press—Edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
Zeke Grayson, master thief, carries a vase that should never have been filled. A woman exorcised but not released, sealed in glass because nothing else could hold her. When he wanders into the town of Persephone’s Gamble, a carnival of fire‑eaters, fortune‑tellers, and ritual performers, the troupe immediately senses what clings to him. The goats, the Showman, the Foreteller, the Flamedancer — all of them know the truth: he’s brought a soul that refuses to stay dead.
“What lived inside had been waiting for this.”
https://www.lulu.com/shop/rasiika-sen-and-parth-sarathi-chakraborty/exorcists-of-the-dead-infestation/paperback/product-2k7k8q.html(lulu.com in Bing)
THE IGLOO
Small Town Secrets
Wicked Shadow Press—Edited by Rasiika Sen & Parth Sarathi Chakraborty
After the storm, Tommy, Josephine, Lee, and Jessica decide to build the biggest igloo their town has ever seen.
“The igloo was a monument of pride for four kids. It was also a lure.”
FRANCINE’S YARD SALE
Published in The Bloomin’ Onion Literary Magazine. Edited by Daniel Groves, MFA
When Harvester Glorbizzle of the Triangulum galaxy crash‑lands in suburban New Jersey, he discovers a human ritual known as the yard sale and becomes convinced its host—Francine, sunhat, sunglasses, earrings—is a powerful Earth shaman capable of downing spacecraft.
“I cannot wait to destroy your yard sale.”
https://www.thebloominonion.com/francines-yard-sale-mark-nuzzi
FAIR AS FRESH AIR
Published by Piker Press. Edited by Sand Palarski.
Dwight Matheson successfully claws his way back to the surface after being buried, only to discover that the world above ground is far more terrifying than the grave he just escaped.
“What a beautiful morning—it could have been.”
Available to read online Fair as Fresh Air by Mark Nuzzi : Piker Press
THE REAL DEAL DEAN
Published in Freedom Fiction Journal—Edited by Ujjwal Dey
Ladies and gentlemen, viewers, subscribers, emoji‑spammers, conspiracy‑theorists, and that one guy who keeps insisting he hit a neighbor’s kid with his car on the way here—WELCOME to the literary event of the century, brought to you by Freedom Fiction Journal.
Tonight, we celebrate DEAN. Yes, that Dean. The person with no inner dialogue. The man who colors his hair with shoe polish every Sunday. The man whose thumbs are so calloused from texting he could sand a canoe with them. The man who believes crocheting gloves and flying a trapeze are basically the same skill set if you watch enough videos.
He is—the most authentic man on the internet.
Dean, who refuses to wear shorts in public unless water is involved. Dean, who scrubs his sneakers monthly like they’re holy relics. Dean, who once threw a controller at a wall so hard it achieved orbit.
And folks, the safety net? GONE. Removed. Dismantled. Carried away by arena staff who look like they’re reconsidering their life choices. Dean said nets are for “wimps who want to try a zip‑line course,” and honestly, that’s the LEAST concerning thing he’s said tonight.
Dean, you are the true son of Olympus. And I thank you for the privilege of allowing me to be the lead commentator on your possible death.
For those of you that cannot join us live at the arena join the livestream. And if you can’t—it doesn’t matter. Just have AI to make a picture of yourself—here—live. You to can be just as real as—THE REAL DEAL DEAN!
“Talking to yourself in front of others isn’t loony, doing it mentally is.”
https://www.freedomfiction.com/2025/10/real-deal-dean-by-mark-nuzzi/
