INSERT COIN

edited by David Badurina!

Looking for stories that of high adventure and real consequences? Insert Coin harkens back to retro arcades, digital adventures, and pockets full of quarters on a sweaty Saturday night with a group of friends.

There was another coin sitting on top of years of dust. It looked like a dark gray quarter, but where the face was supposed to be was a skull and crossbones. I flipped it over and saw that the back had crossed blades on it.

This was the coin that Captain Cronk flipped on the intro screen before the menu appeared in the game.

– “DewDee’s Booty” by KB Carlisle

“Jesse, where are you?” he asked under his breath, scanning faces and ignoring the tears in his eyes.

“HELP ME, ALLEN!”

Allen turned to his right at the sound of these three words emerging from the chorus of arcade gameplay. The voice had sounded like Jesse’s.

– “Harpy Island” by Joshua Ladd

I felt a weird trembling deep in my belly, like when you’re on a rollercoaster taking that first plunge. Then it got bright, I mean really super-bright and suddenly I felt heavy, really heavy, weighed down like a ton of bricks had crashed over me.

– “Space Knights at Aldo’s Pizza” by John Gorman

The air sizzled, a white-hot spit spearing raw meat, cooking its guts with white witch fingers. The atmosphere held its breath then screamed brass cymbals and cannon fusillades. The ground shook. The screen blazed out like an expanding star.

– “Red Fury” by Nate Stone

... the entire machine shuddered, and the music suddenly wasn’t tinny synth-pop any more. It was a distorted, deafening, terrifyingly discordant bar of “The British Grenadiers,” which was replaced by a booming voice.

“TAKE THE KING’S SHILLING.”

The screen went blood-red.

“FOR KING AND COUNTRY.”

– “The King’s Shilling” by Malory

Burnt popcorn and pizza lingered in the air. Neon signs buzzed above the carpets, their colors bleeding across the walls until everything seemed to pulse. The heat of the crowd made the air stuffy and stale.

– “Rules of the Game” by Reginald Lewis

Jared hauled at the controls, destroyed another Karblathian ship with a hail of laser fire, and turned hard to dodge a missile.

“Nice! Told you you’d get the hang of—look out!” Spencer cried the warning like it was actual life or death.

– “Fist of Vengeance” by Jesse James Fain

It was a man, or mostly a man, its face a smeared mess of polygons, limbs twitching occasionally like a clumsy marionette, an early example of a non-player character. The NPC’s voice crackled through the headset, flat and synthetic: “Welcome to the Void. Find the Core.”

– “The Void Effect” by Eric M. Hamilton

This had been their game. Old-school. Low on graphics, high on punishment. His dad always claimed level three’s snow base was designed by a sadist. “Only way through is to keep moving,” he used to say. “The minute you hesitate, boom—you’re a Popsicle.”

– “Player Two” by Eric D. Bolton

Zach hauled back on the control sticks so hard the plastic creaked as he tried to make the turn and target the missile, but it was already too late. The “view screen” of his tank cracked and the words “game over” flashed across the screen.

– “The Excalibur Test” by Michael LaVoice