My short story “Into the West” is now available at InterGalactic Medicine Show.

Through pure coincidence, this issue ended up being a remarkable one.  Four out of the five short fiction pieces were written by authors who also had stories in Writers of the Future, Vol. XXI: Lon Prater, Mike Rimar, Scott M. Roberts, and me.  We checked with the Writers of the Future contest, and as far as anyone knows, this is the record for most authors from one volume to be published together in a different venue.

But don’t worry, the four of us are not forming our own little clique and ignoring the fifth author, Jeffrey Lyman, just because he wasn’t published by Writers of the Future until volume XXVII. We’re happy to have “Slowpoke Jeff” in our midst, because otherwise who would fetch our frosty mugs of root beer?

Here’s a teaser for “Into the West”:

According to Jorge, sometime after we pass through Denver the California Zephyr will run out of diesel. Jorge’s already decided that when the train stops, he will, too — like a captain going down with the ship. He’s got a wife and a passel of kids back in Chicago who he’ll probably never see again, so I guess I understand.

Me, I plan to keep heading west with as many of the other passengers as care to go. Just keep on going till we drop dead of exhaustion or hit the Pacific or the darkness catches us.

We don’t know for a fact that anyone back east is dead. Or alive, either. Some of the passengers just sit up in the dome car and watch the landscape behind us stretch like salt-water taffy as it reddens and finally fades into the blackness that follows us. Others are so freaked out they just sit in the dining car finishing off the liquor, free of charge. The rest of us sit in our regular seats, like everything’s normal.

Read the rest here (subscription required).  Coming soon for Kindle — I’ll post when it’s available.