Wendy Wagner

Welcome to issue #166 of Nightmare Magazine, your home for horror and dark fantasy of all shapes, flavors, and colors. If your physical home exists within the borders of the United States, then you are certainly aware that this month marks the nation’s 250th anniversary. There have already been too many magazine covers with red, white, and blue bunting and articles about the Founding Fathers to count, and think pieces are springing up like patriotic mushrooms.

As a San Francisco resident, I was intrigued to see a story set during a lesser-known piece of the city’s history: the bubonic plague outbreak that started in 1900. What about this specific piece of history drew your interest? As I wrote this story, I was mulling over legacy and inheritance, how the way I experience the world now is affected by the way Chinese Americans were treated then.

CW: blood, racism, death, abduction, abuse, sexual assault, torture. Anna is breathless when she delivers us the news: Have you heard? A man has been discovered in Chinatown with the black boils of plague all over his body. One of ours. I thread a jade hairpin through my carefully knotted hair and tell her not to call him ours. We are Orientals too, but his sort belong to the gutters while we serve the highest parlor house in Chinatown. Your companions drag the coolie girl to her feet.