Approaches: Poetry and Prose From the Hudson Valley Writers Workshop
Author: J. P. Daley; Shane Shane Parkhill
Date: 2020-01-11 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short Stories; dark fiction; Darkfuse; Horror; Anthologies
Description: Approaches is the fifth annual Anthology from the HVWW, offering the best poetry and prose from 2019. Guest editor and judge for this volume is Dr. Joseph Zeppetello, director of the Writing Center at Marist College. Contributors include J.P. Daley, Eva Cagianese, R. Shane Parkhill, Michael Kreigh, John Ebbert, J.P. Egry, Robin Marie Lavery, Howard Massey, Brandon Lisi, and Sharon Watts.
Publisher: Independently published

Table of Contents

DARKFUSE

Volume 5

Other Books In This Series

The Ritual

Hair

Whispered Sweet Nothings

Trashtown

What Lives in the Trees

Antibody

About the Editor

About the Authors

About the Publisher

DARKFUSE

Volume 5

Edited by Shane Staley

First Edition

DarkFuse, Volume 5
© 2016 by Shane Staley

All stories © 2016 by individual authors.

All Rights Reserved.

A DarkFuse Release
www.darkfuse.com

Twitter:
@darkfuse

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/darkfuse

Newsletter:
http://eepurl.com/jOH5

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Other Books In This Series

DarkFuse #1

DarkFuse #2

DarkFuse #3

DarkFuse #4

Lights Out, Happy People

Jeremy Thompson

The building is nondescript, devoid of architectural flourish. No sign marks it an asylum. The squat white edifice could be anything from a daycare to a pharmaceutical research center. Actually, it’s a little of both.

The entrance is locked. Fortunately, I require neither plastic badge nor keypad code. Insubstantial, I enter the waiting room, finding it bright and clean, carefully scrubbed. At the receptionist’s desk sits an attractive Hispanic, her face a study in boredom. The upholstered benches are empty, visitors being few and infrequent.

The receptionist feels a sensation, like a water droplet splashing her arm.

Flowing past another locked door, I enter a cheerfully painted corridor, its polished stone floor reflecting fluorescent lighting. Therein, I pass many closed doors, each with its own keypad and badge scanner. I pass the kitchen and dining room, the laundry room, and a number of therapy rooms, all similarly locked.

Ah, here’s an open door: the dayroom. A fetor spills out the doorway, spoiled food and unwashed flesh. Smears and handprints ornament the walls.

The room is dominated by a large television, rows of benches set before it. Upon these benches, twenty-three patients sit quietly, watching Looney Tunes hijinks. Some wear pajamas, others hospital gowns. One drooling, completely hairless fellow wears only a pair of stained underpants.

The audience consists mainly of depressives and schizophrenics. The depressives stay mute, barely perceiving the cartoon. The schizos, however, talk back to the program. Half of ’em aren’t even seeing Daffy Duck right now; they’re conducting videoconferences with relatives and long-dead celebrities.

I manifest on the screen, a howling static rictus. The audience hoots, screams and jabbers, until the television goes off.

Why is the dayroom open so late? you might wonder.

Last night, a depressive killed herself. Somehow, she attained a bottle of sleeping pills, and swallowed it entirely. Who stole ’em from the pharmacy, and left the bottle waiting on her pillow? Who painted the air with beautiful miseries, as she wept, cursed and giggled? I’ll give you one guess.

Learning of the suicide, many patients couldn’t cope. Having doubled down on individual and group therapy sessions already, the staff decided that extra lounge time might soothe their restless spirits.

Two men play chess at a corner table, with the smaller of the two going through a series of taps, flicks and scratches before each move. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. The chess pieces are large and ugly, constructed from spray-painted Styrofoam.

At another table, a glassy-eyed woman assembles a puzzle, what could be an orchid. An elderly man hovers over her shoulder, intently observing.

Some patients stand around talking, like guests at a cocktail party, with only their shabby attire branding them as mentally imbalanced. Just outside their circles, a tattooed war veteran shuffles intermittently, his countenance vacillating between rage, fear, elation and boredom in rapid succession. Post-traumatic stress disorder, obviously.

At the room’s periphery, a smattering of orderlies, nurses and psychiatric technicians hover, observing the patients. The psychiatric techs hold clipboards, jotting sporadic notations.

The dayroom is off-limits to visitors, but I exist imperceptibly. Thus, I smack the war veteran forcefully, and then push a jittery crone onto her rump. I birth pandemonium, hurled accusations leading to punching, scratching and biting. The orderlies swarm in, dragging patients apart, too late for one eye-gouged shrieker. Pink sludge drips from her socket, blood mixed with vitreous humor.

The veteran bashes his head against the wall now, again and again, trying to knock my voice from his cognizance. “We await you in Hell,” I whisper, repeating it until he falls unconscious, into sweet shadowy oblivion.

* * *

Exiting the dayroom, I follow the corridor. It terminates in a dead end, locked doors branching right and left. Leftward lies the female department. Passing the threshold, I come upon a nurses station, wherein a stern-faced spinster scrutinizes paperwork piles.

I hit the papers like a hurricane, spinning them into fluttering chaos. The nurse curses as they fall, her bloodshot left eye twitching. Beholding her baffled fury, I voice a cackle.

Doors trail both sides of the hallway, with laminated glass windows installed for patient observation. Only a few are open, revealing featureless rooms, unadorned save for dressers, televisions and beds. Within one, a half-nude woman flicks her tongue suggestively, registering my disembodied presence.

I’ll return momentarily, but first I have appointments within the violent patients ward, behind yet another locked door. Therein lie the feral ones, dangers to themselves and others. Their bodies exhibit self-carved symbols; their eyes shift left to right, right to left, sometimes both directions at once.

Imagine you’re confined in a straightjacket. Now imagine that you suddenly feel fingers inside of the jacket—tickling, pinching and slapping. There’s no one in sight, yet you can’t escape the sensations. It would set you off, too, now wouldn’t it?

Others I speak to, claiming to be an 18th century ancestor who’s returned to possess them. They scream until their throats shred, until their overseers pour in, jabbing with needles of tranquility.

* * *

I flow back into the female department, into a certain locked room. Therein, I encounter a bed-bound woman: scrawny, wearing a hospital gown stained and soiled. Her ragged black mane cascades onto varicose thighs. Within a lined octogenarian face, her eyes are deep-sunken.

I coat her countenance like a porcelain mask. Replicating her skull’s contours, I sink subcutaneously, into flesh dominion. Opening Martha Stanton’s eyes, I grin up at the ceiling.

* * *

Tomorrow, Carter—the decrepit remnants of an ex-husband—will arrive, to park himself patiently at my bedside. Squinting through his thick lenses, wearing his stupid visitor sticker, he’ll say what he always says: “Douglas died years ago, Martha. It’s time for you to move past it, to come back to the real world.”

He’ll spill out the usual pained confusion, unable to understand that I cannot think as he does, that this body’s personality burned up long ago. Eventually, he’ll sigh and leave the room, to talk with a green-scrubbed orderly in the hallway. Thinking themselves out of earshot, they’ll recite the same old script.

I’ll hear the usual buzzwords: “catatonia,” “institutional syndrome,” and all the rest. Finally, the orderly will escort Carter out. Driving tearfully from Milford Asylum, he’ll swear never to return. He always does.

Such a sad man, so broken. I think I’ll save him for last.

The Ritual

Jennifer Loring

He pushed the gas pedal all the way down to the floor. Never fast enough. Maybe something in the two cars he kept out front, something he could use to improve the engine. He buried the needle of his ancient Datsun and passed front yards and playgrounds as the beast inside him cried out for sustenance.

Houses flashed by. He did not look at their judgmental clapboard facades, their ostracizing sameness. Pills rattled in their amber bottle on the passenger seat. They made him sick, worse than the damned cancer itself.

You deserve it, the people within those houses would say. You should’ve died in that fire. He wanted to burn the evidence, his neighbors said; they told the papers as much. But there was no evidence because there was no crime, unless thought itself had become unlawful. Yet he had sought to scorch the impurities from his mind and body with those purgative flames, and for a time, it had worked. In the hospital, pain taunted him like a schoolyard bully. It relentlessly prodded his nerves until his screams woke the entire ward and the nurse added more morphine to his IV drip, which slowly pried away each agonizing finger.

He glanced at the face in the rearview mirror. Fifty-five, close-cropped hair like iron needles driven into his scalp. Shiny pink skin where flames had incinerated several layers of flesh. He should’ve died in that fire.

That was the whole idea.

In another life, he would still be a teacher. He locked away the demon feeding on him, bound it in chains of propriety and social orthodoxy. But they invaded his dreams at night with their slender, coltish legs and bright eyes and cotton-candy colored T-shirts that barely concealed the embryonic buds of their breasts. Their coquettish pink mouths whispered his name in his ear. His cock a throbbing red club, a weapon with which to choke them, to make the whispers stop.

God help him.

Faster.

* * *

He returned home with plastic bags bulging—gifts for my granddaughter, he explained to the clerk who tried not to make eye contact with him, though he read the grotesque fascination on her face all the same. And anyway, he hadn’t seen his granddaughter since her birth. He put a record on the player and sank into his tattered, vintage leather armchair. Those candy-colored colts from his dreams barely knew what a record was except as an artifact of their grandparents’ old age.

I am so lost to the world with which I used to waste so much time, Kathleen Ferrier sang in German, the vinyl crackling beneath her warm contralto. She was dying then, the same black beast that gnawed upon his digestive tract having already taken one of her breasts. Only 41 when she died the following year. And the music was like God’s love, wonderful and tragic all at once.

* * *

Bears lived in the woods surrounding his cinderblock cabin, which used to provide shelter for hunters braving the cold, dense pine forest. No windows faced the dirt road, and the suburbanites who walked their dogs so close to his home—did they hope to catch him in the act? Kill him, even?—told themselves their pets shied away from the area because they’d caught the scent of larger animals. Yet inevitably, they cast their suspicious gazes at the nearby gravel pit, and he could almost hear their thoughts: He buries them there, doesn’t he? All the cops have to do is look.

But they would find nothing. Everything locked away in spaces only he knew of, like the demon feasting on his soul. Hiding in plain sight as the worst monsters always did.

Overnight it had snowed another four inches, adding to the six inches of powder that already coated the world. He walked out into the backyard and lay down in the fluffy white field. Cold burned like a cleansing fire in his nostrils, burned going down his throat and into his lungs. He opened his eyes and stared up into the gleaming yellow face of God until his eyes watered, and moved his arms and legs up and down. The cherub took shape beneath him and he smiled, for there was still something pure within him, a promise of Heaven despite all his sins.

* * *

A tow truck dragged away the two junkers. He found an old but functional replacement and hoped it contained what the Datsun needed.

He used to leave precisely at seven a.m., but now that winter break had begun, they flitted about in front yards he could see from his own and along the streets of town, a plague. No, not a plague, for he was the one who was ill. He must remember that, or it was all for naught. Desperation compelled him to make his trips every two hours, or sometimes every half hour on the worst days. Different stores each time, though there were only so many within reasonable driving distance. They mustn’t detect a pattern in his purchases.

He was close now, felt the slimy black fiend devouring him from the inside out. Shitting blood every morning. Yet even now, the relentless compulsion to drive, to act out the ritual when he should have been lying in bed waiting to die. His son would come and clean out the place as quickly as possible. His son believed what they all said. Your father, that crazy old hermit in the woods. I heard he used to teach. I heard what he did. Say, did they ever excavate that gravel pit?

So little time left to make them understand. Temptation itself was the serpent’s whisper in his ear, but after the incident that cost him his job, he had never touched. Had never acted upon them with the desires that held him prisoner. It wasn’t their fault. Something had broken inside him, and he made the necessary sacrifices in response. They would never know what he’d done to protect them.

* * *

He rolled up all the windows, sealed the inside and outside with duct tape, then started the engine. It roared into life with vigor it hadn’t possessed since he bought it in that other lifetime. The pills lay beside him on the seat. This is why he did it, they would say. He didn’t want to rot away. But they would also say it was guilt, and that wasn’t so far from the truth. A man could live with himself only for so long, and he had grown too sick for battle. Just one option remained if he lost the will to fight the demon. Like the thing annihilating his colon, his very life was a tumor he must excise from society. How perfect, how beautiful, was God’s irony.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. He didn’t deserve such a peaceful end, they would say. But peace was a comfortable myth invented by the self-righteous. The war inside him raged even in those terminal moments, when he dreamed of coltish legs and bright eyes and budding breasts.

Someone, someday, might look under the floorboards and gaze in horror. Bright blue eyes and shining nylon hair in the darkness, greeting the glow of a flashlight. He gave each of them a name.

Dolls in cheerful dresses, which below the waist he had torn apart with scissors or even his bare hands. Each genital area gouged with a knife or scissors, or burned to blackened, melted goo with a lighter, until the legs dangled from their butchered artificial crotches. Love and hatred, irreconcilable. His gift of life to the real girls whose names the dolls bore. The townsfolk would stare again at the gravel pit, now grown over with wildflowers and grasses, a meadow just as it had been many years ago. An unmarked grave.

But they would recall no unexplained disappearances or unsolved murders as long as he had lived there. It had always been for the girls. His corrupted body and mind the ultimate sacrifice. The ritual completed at last.

Hair

Mike Thorn

Tonight, Theodore voluntarily ingested hair for the first time.

He hadn’t seen a barber in years, and it showed, but he made no effort to keep his locks from landing in his meals. He always let his bangs hang untethered as he tended to the pans on his stove top; the decision to leave his mane untied while cooking had excited him for quite some time. Truth was he loved nothing more than gliding his utensils through a plate of hot food and uncovering a hair curled between the ingredients, or rising from the sauce like some illicit secret.

In the past, he’d always left it at that. The discovery of a hair was exciting in itself, even dangerous. Tonight, though, when he saw not one but several of his own hairs twined around a spear of asparagus, he made no move to pick them away. He felt the familiar physical reactions: accelerated heart rate, a warming face, the prickling alertness that seemed somehow to bring every follicle on his flesh to life.

And rather than cutting the sensation short, rather than riding the wave of excitement and then, post-climax, removing the hairs and going on with his meal, he smiled to himself and nodded. His life as the manager of a dirty, dead-end rock and metal T-shirt shop simply didn’t afford him enough joy. What could be wrong, then, with allowing himself such real, palpable elation when it presented itself? He pierced the asparagus and lifted it from his plate, watching as the hairs swayed slightly from its shaft. Then, careful to avoid allowing the greasy threads to drift uneaten from the vegetable, he plunged the fork into his mouth, closed his eyes, and chewed.

The fibrous morsel broke down and yielded to the process of mastication, but the hairs twisted and slithered about inside his cheeks, as if consciously resistant. Theodore’s pulse was a frenzied storm as he filled his mouth with saliva and sucked with his throat, a reflex forced into motion. Every moment of consumption was heightened, intensely tangible: the twining within the mouth, the slipping between the teeth, the tugging and slithering sensation as the hair went down, and the final, distant feeling that his throat was clogged with something forbidden.

In his ecstasy, Theodore could hardly continue eating; he tried to steady his quivering hands and eventually pushed through, gobbling every last crumb. Not a single bite came close to the orgasm of the hair-spun asparagus.

* * *

Some might refer to Theodore’s hair obsession as “unnatural.” He was under no delusions to the contrary; but any time he seriously questioned himself, any time he felt the nagging undertow of his thoughts rise up to scream, There’s something wrong with you, any time the guilt bubbled up from his unconscious, he leveled his brain with a coldly rational rebuttal: What could possibly be more natural?

Theodore understood his existence through only two comprehensible constants: life and death. Everything else, the chaos that came between the cradle and the grave, was unpredictable. What, then, could trump hair’s utter completeness? Hair was both dead and alive—some said that even after human beings bit the dust, their hairs continued to sprout and extend. Others argued that this was an illusion, simply the result of flesh receding from a corpse’s skull: as the skin disintegrated, the roots of the hair exposed themselves, thus providing the deceptive image of extended length.

To Theodore’s mind, hair filled the tenebrous space between those two reliable poles, living and nonliving. Nothing set his body alight like the discovery of hair in unexpected places, nothing more thrilling than to consume the manifestation of existence’s paradox.

* * *

Theodore felt serene as he disembarked his bus and strolled toward Magneta Metal Tees. He held his head high and smiled at the glowing sun. When a young woman passed by, he made the decision to take a bold, sustained look at her luscious locks. Her face wrinkled into an expression of disgust and she promptly crossed the road.

Oh, it wasn’t a matter of gender—Theodore felt no greater attraction toward women than he did toward men, or even toward dogs, cats, or goats, for that matter. The fleshly bits were of no interest to him—when he thought of exposed bodies, male or female, he felt nothing but vacancy. Now hair, on the other hand—male, female, and yes, even animal—that was the key to Theodore’s proverbial heart.

He stepped into Magneta with a confident smile and waved at Jason, the jaded cashier-on-duty.

Jason lifted his bleary eyes from a true crime paperback and nodded. “Sup.”

As the door closed behind him, Theodore watched a thinning sunbeam cast a glow on Jason’s gel-slicked hair. The feelings of excitement were unusually intense today, almost unbearable. The hair-wrapped asparagus probed his thoughts with urgent force.

And in that moment, while gazing dumbfounded at the locks plastered against Jason’s skull, Theodore made a choice.

Today, he would embrace it. He would learn just how far he could take this. Whatever “this” was, manifesting warm and insistent, like love in the pit of his stomach.

“Go home,” he said; he wanted it to sound kind, like Hey kid, take the night off, but his voice came out garbled and unsteady.

Jason set his fanned-out book on the counter. “The fuck?” he said.

“I mean, take the rest of your shift off,” Theodore said, making a conscious effort to level his tone. “I can handle the shop tonight.”

Jason smirked and cocked his head. “I sort of need the money, Theo.”

“The money,” Theodore said with a smile, “won’t be an issue. You’ll get paid out for the remainder of your shift. You’ve been pulling a lot of overtime lately, covering Lacy and Nick’s sick days…you’ve earned it. Scram, skedaddle, go have some fun.”

Jason, still smirking, arced an eyebrow in confusion. He looked at Theodore for several seconds, as if searching for the punchline.

“I’m serious,” Theodore said.

Jason remained stationary, his face a mask of confusion. By the looks of him, Theodore guessed he was even more stoned than usual. After an agonizing minute, Jason finally appeared to register that the offer was real.

Theodore tried to smile good-naturedly. Made a shooing gesture with his hand.

Jason shrugged and scooped up his book. “Alright, sweet.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder and circled around the counter. “Thanks, Theo. I am feeling a little tired, actually, so this is cool.” He reached out and fist-bumped Theodore’s half-closed hand. With that, he crossed the sales floor and strutted through the glass door, chime tinkling in his wake.

Theodore waited a few moments and then took a quick scan around the shop. No customers whatsoever.

Perfect.

His heartbeat pummeled. His body came alive with the thrill of fantasy in motion.

He made his way behind the sales counter and found a container full of band patches. He dumped the logos, leaving a puddle of Burzum, Misfits, and Nirvana behind the till. He’d put them away once he’d refilled the container with enough treasure.

Yes, once he’d combed a substantial portion of the store for the stray sheddings of customers and miscreants, he’d get straight to the work he was paid to do.

* * *

“You guys got any Godflesh hoodies in stock?” a young woman’s voice asked.

Theodore had been so caught up in his excavations that he hadn’t even noticed the customer entering the shop. He’d now spent nearly an hour searching the store’s corners and baseboards, greedily gathering locks and curls left behind by anonymous head-bangers. He jolted in shock and upended the container, flinging tufts of dust-coated hair. He turned to look at the customer, his face split into the palsied imitation of a smile. “Godflesh,” he said weakly. “Godflesh, let me think here…”

Too late. She’d seen the hair explode before him, surely an abject spectacle in her eyes, and she cried out in horror. “Ew, dude! What the hell? Is that even sanitary?”

“Sanitary, I…”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Cleaning shop,” Theodore said, trembling like a teenager caught masturbating.

The woman pivoted on her heels and burst out the door.

Flustered and more than a little distraught, Theodore collected his findings and crammed them back into the plastic box. He’d need to leave it be for the rest of the night. Too risky to continue.

Later that evening, the container made its way home quite effortlessly—no strange stares on the bus, thank you very much. Theodore had concealed the hairy treasure trove in one of Magneta’s large black plastic bags. Nobody glancing at him would’ve suspected anything more unusual than, say, a new bong, or maybe a stack of records.

Or a Godflesh hoodie.

* * *

He was home now. He could enjoy his findings in private. He steadied his excitedly quivering fingers as he slipped the bag from his secret gift. He opened the lid, and a thick plume of dust wafted into his face. He coughed fiercely. No matter; it was a natural consequence. This special experience was more than enough to make up for the inhalation of a little dirt.

The hairs, which had been forced into compression beneath the box’s top, slowly rose and unfurled. It was almost as if they were lifting up to get a look at Theodore—hey sweetheart, how are you doing? Like flowers reaching for sunlight.

Theodore felt tears prickling the corners of his eyes. So many hairs, so many unknown origins: some nappy, some straight, and some miraculously clean, but most coated in oil and detritus and scum.

Theodore had a plan.

* * *

He first let them soak in the tub for a while, surfing YouTube while he waited. When he came back, the bath water was charcoal-gray and the washroom was ripe with a smell not entirely unlike filthy gym socks.

Yes, a second soak would be in order; Theodore knew this rationally. His brain’s calm and collected side was losing traction, though—it was soon buried by the loud and insistent voice of unreason.

He’d waited enough.

He undressed and dipped a foot in the mucky soup. Locks, like tentacles, swam and twisted around his toes. The water had cooled down to room temperature, but he wasn’t dissuaded. His skin was flushed with the heat of ecstasy.

Any thoughts of restraint were gone. He pulled air into his lungs, a shuddering inhale, and he slid into the tub. The physical effect was overwhelming—the tepid water sloshed and redistributed, stirring the hairs into spirals, drifting in waves across his body. Eventually the hairs settled; he could feel them nestling on his naked flesh, whispers of the undead, traces of unknown pasts that made this forbidden and intimate moment possible.

His body came alive.

* * *

Theodore awoke feeling cold, confused, and delirious. He raised his dripping, dehydrated arms. Hair clung and dangled. He shivered and jumped quickly from the mucky bath. He snatched a towel from the rack and promptly swaddled himself. He padded across the sticky linoleum and made his way toward his bedroom. He was, of course, still covered in hair—it stuck to the sweat and dirty water in beautiful clusters. Theodore didn’t mind at all.

His eyes stung with fatigue; whatever short amount of sleep he’d caught in the bathtub, it must’ve been restless.

He entered his bedroom. He dropped the towel, shedding hairs across the carpet, and eased his quaking body beneath the bed covers. He was slipping from consciousness and into darkness when he felt it: his mouth, going slack with sleepiness, developed an entirely new sensation. It felt thick, somehow full.

It felt almost as if his tongue was sprouting hair.

* * *

The feeling was still there when Theodore awoke. Groggy and perturbed, he entered the bathroom and looked in the mirror, extending his tongue like a child making a funny face.

His senses were not deceiving him: his tongue, that previously smooth pink muscle, was coated in ink-black hairs, slicked with saliva. What he hadn’t expected was all the other hair. Strands grew from the cracks between his teeth, curled from the meat of his gums, rose in clumps from the insides of his lips.

Anyone else might’ve screamed, might’ve jumped back in shock.

Theodore did no such thing. Some kind of miracle had occurred, and he wasn’t about to resist. He’d made the hair his, and now the hair was making him its. Yes, it was only natural. He would need to attend to the matter, no doubt about that, but he wasn’t about to lose his composure.

It was time for a bit of unorthodox dental maintenance—the kind that would require a razor and clippers.

Theodore tried to whistle as he rummaged through his toiletries drawer, but discovered that his vocal acoustics were incapacitated by the new growths. No matter. He unearthed his clippers, opened his mouth, and said ahhhh just like the doctor used to tell him.

He clipped away. The trimmings fell fast and heavy, forming a dark mountain in the sink basin. Once he’d satisfactorily shortened the length, he went searching for the next instrument.

Ah, there it was: Gillette, the best a man can get.

* * *

When the procedure was complete, Theodore ran his fingers along the finely stubbled flesh of his gums and tongue. It had been harder than expected; the wet, ridged surface of his gums proved much less amicable to shaving than did the flesh on his face. He’d left some inelegant cuts, but nothing as dire as the aftermath of a dentist’s appointment. He fancied himself something like the flinty-jawed men in those stupid shaving foam commercials. The best a man can get…indeed. He chuckled.

He dressed in his finest clothes and exited the apartment. He didn’t even lock the door behind himself; he had no fear.

He had time to kill before today’s shift, and that was fine by him. He wandered for hours and trailed several strangers, staring intently at their scalps. In his travels he found a visibly unclean man passed out in the corner of an abandoned alley. The filthy sod appeared to be wasted on some nefarious drug.

Instinct clutched Theodore. Feeling bold, feeling reckless, he reached out with a trembling hand and grabbed a fistful of the man’s matted bangs. The man, slurring and babbling, jerked in shock and took a defensive swing. His open palm connected with Theodore’s forearm, hard enough to leave a stinging mark.

Theodore backed away and dashed from the alley, only slowing once he felt he’d made safe distance.

That was enough excitement for now. While waiting for the bus, he eased his mind with the thought of all the comfort food awaiting him at home: he wasn’t about to let a sink full of beautiful tongue-hair go to waste.

* * *

As Theodore entered Magneta, his guts clenched at the sight before him.

The Godflesh woman was chatting with Jason, and Theodore only needed to hear the tail-end of their exchange to catch the meaning.

“—honestly, dude,” she said. “Full of hair.”

Theodore saw Jason recoil, his wet-eyed babyface a caricature of horror. Yesterday, Theodore had fled the scene of a disturbing encounter. Today he was a different man. He’d woken up with more than a few surprising growths, and the discoveries only made him feel stronger. When he’d conducted a Google search about the possibility of hyper-speed oral hair growth, he’d found no evidence that anyone had ever experienced what he was now experiencing.

He was content to be an anomaly, and he was more than happy with the results; to calm down, he reminded himself again that none of this morning’s clippings would go to waste.

But the solace of home would come later. Right now, all he saw was this judgmental, nosy metalhead. Who was she to condemn him in his place of work?

Dirty little rat.

He pounced. He wasn’t a big man, but he had the element of surprise. He seized her shoulders and sank his teeth into the crown of her head. He tasted sweat and dandruff, but what he felt was the thing that mattered: her dye-damaged hair yielding to his spit, softening and tangling around his tongue.

She screamed, probably more from shock than pain, and she clubbed him in the neck with her fist. He heard Jason yelling in astonishment, a stunned repetition of “Whoa, fuck, whoa, fuck”, but Theodore wouldn’t let go, no way, not yet; instead he bit down harder and then even harder still, before finally tugging away, his mouth clogged with a clump of the woman’s hair, torn right to the roots, blood speckling the countertop, and he could hear customers elsewhere in the store, here they came, clamoring like vultures to the ugly scene, cursing and shouting in protest, but this was his day, not theirs, and so he got out before they could reach him, bolting for the door like a soldier avoiding gunfire.

He got out safely, but he wasn’t paying attention to the road.

Theodore died in a most sudden and undignified way—chased onto the street like a rabid dog, a bloody tuft of some metalhead’s hair hanging from his mouth, and he looked up just a second too late as the Subaru tried to swerve but plowed into him anyway, three thousand pounds of speeding steel pulverizing his left side, mashing his ribs, snapping his spinal cord with a crack like a whip, ripping skin from muscle like the peeling of a potato, spinning his limp body into the storefront across the street in a vibrant flurry of gore.

In Magneta’s open doorway, the Godflesh fan brought a hand to her mouth and said “God.”

* * *

The news reports were nasty; Theodore’s parents, wherever they were, would likely weep at the headlines and interviews, if ever they read them.

“He was always a weirdo,”
said Jason, Theodore’s 21 year-old co-worker. “There was always something off about him, ever since he first hired me. When I heard about the hair thing, I just said ‘of course.’”

Turned out Theodore would’ve died within the week, if not later that same day, of natural causes (if one were to use the word “natural” loosely). The autopsy report revealed a medical aberration: a heart whose ventricles were sprouting hair at an impossibly accelerated rate, a brain whose cerebellum was beginning to sport some gruesome imitation of a mullet. There was nothing the man could’ve done to prevent it.

Death, the dependable opposite of life, would’ve come along sooner or later, just as it always does.

Whispered Sweet Nothings

T. G. Arsenault

The woman’s eyes snagged Tristan Ward’s attention from his elevated passenger seat on a Greyhound bus. Right before the duct tape covering her mouth and wrapping around her entire head seemed to lodge a grapefruit in the back of his throat. Almost choking on the shrinking confines of his windpipe, he sat up straighter, unsure if he was simply slipping into the hypnotic lull of the passing miles and on the fringed edges of a daydream with glazed eyes.

Or wide awake.

Squinting harder into the shadows that lurked in the back of a green Econoline van below him, the whites of those eyes glowed like iridescent orbs hovering in the darkness.

As the bus kept pace with the van and took a slight turn north—the direction of the sun’s rays changing just enough—the profile of her neck and shoulders appeared as vague lines and angles. Soon, a mote-infested ray of sunshine spotlighted a glistening blotch that started from the cup of her left ear and ended at the collar of her shirt.

When she caught his gaze among the few people on the right side of the bus, he swallowed hard and could only stare in return—disbelieving, shocked. Angry. Blood beat heavily within his ears as his heart galloped against his chest.

When she brought her bound wrists within view and shook both arms as one, he almost jumped out of his seat. Her cheeks blew outward against the tape—any sounds she made silent to his ears—and shiny trails fell down her flaming cheeks.

His brain was firing through all synapses, actively churning through a thousand different questions and scenarios. Things he needed to do…immediately! But his body held firmly in place—from shock or disbelief or both—the two parts of his being not connecting, caught between the fight or flight of responsibility. At least until she started bashing her head against the window and a spider-webbed crack sprouted within the window glass.

A chaotic visual tumult invaded his silent world, something he’d never experienced and struggled to understand. Words wanted to fall from his lips in a slew of syllables that would never form. Any semblance of spoken words linked into a complete sentence was an impossibility. A memo book and a pen rested inside the left breast pocket of his shirt, always within reach to communicate with those around him.

He couldn’t understand why he was breathing so fast; he hadn’t even moved from his seat, yet he felt exhausted, his chest heaving, temples pulsing with pressure, vision dotted with floaters.

He shook the shoulder of a man sitting in the seat next to him, immediately pulling away when the man’s fists came up defensively. Tristan signed that he was sorry, quickly rubbing his fist in a circle over his chest. Confusion then understanding swept across the man’s face and Tristan pointed to the van that was…pulling ahead.

He jumped into the aisle and darted into a seat three ahead of his own, placing his face against the window to get a view of the van, but the angle was off and only a tinted mirror stared back at him.

No, there she was again—the mirror-like effect becoming transparent—slowly drifting away, eyes impossibly larger.

He felt the stares of others on the bus, could almost feel them inching farther away from the crazy man now slapping his palms against the windows and uttering noises he knew were more animalistic than human. Intense vibrations thrummed within his chest. When he turned around, their glares seemed repelled by whatever expression covered his face, suddenly examining the soles of their feet, plucking at shirt buttons, or twirling the ends of golden locks.

Useless.

And running out of time.

With every step Tristan took toward the front of the bus, the van pulled ever farther away. He tried to walk faster, swaying in the aisle, arms steading himself with the top of every seat he passed. In the extra-long rearview mirror, the bus driver’s glare met his own then darted between the road, the rearview, and both side mirrors. With tentative fingers, the driver touched the radio microphone.

Good, Tristan thought, you need to call the authorities.

As he reached the front of the bus and clung to the metal pole near the stairs, he pulled the small notebook and pen out of his pocket, ready to write out instructions for the driver to do just that. Two words: Call Police. Quick and easy.

But as soon as he put pen to paper, a tractor-trailer loomed into view in front of the van, casting a shadow across the paper. Unable to cross into the other lane, the van started drifting backward.

A moment of celebration rose in his chest, at the small amount of time given back to him when every second counted. After scribbling Call onto a blank page, he paused, a desperate need to see the bastard driving the van crawling inside him like the scent of prey in the wild.

Two hands first came into view, locked tight against the steering wheel. Small hands.

Thin arms.

A turquoise blouse torn at the sleeve.

Then a face.

The memo book fell to the floor. The pen followed close behind when his shaking fingers lost their grip and went to cover a gasp.

* * *

A backpack contained everything he needed when he first stepped onto the bus.

With a few rolled-up changes of clothes, a paperback copy of McCammon’s Speaks the Nightbird, some bathroom essentials, and a single credit card tucked inside his wallet, travel was light and convenient. He thought the paperback weighed more than everything else combined, but made sure to include it when he abandoned his previous life as though he were evacuating his bowels.

The book had been his escape in recent days, quickly delivering him to a place where he imagined the sounds and sights and smells with every turn of a page, casting himself as the soon-to-be legendary, Matthew Corbett.

A tome, a bible.

A means to forget about the wife, whom he knew, was having sweet nothings whispered into her ear from someone who could do so.

They had met in high school as part of a sign language club. The fact that he was deaf at first seemed a mystery he was happy to oblige her with as she learned to sign herself. They spent enough time together to have a child before they even graduated, and thought they were doing the right thing by getting married and raising a daughter they both cared for deeply. His only regret was the inability to hear her infantile sounds, her cries.

Her voice.

A glint off the windshield jerked him back to the present where both vehicles maintained the same speed for the moment, neither gaining on the other. His heart skipped a beat, then almost failed to beat altogether.

Oh. No. That look …

In the van’s front seat, colorless lips were stretched into a wicked grin that bared all teeth. Sweaty strands of hair fell across eyes that bulged from their sockets. Nostrils flared with every deep breath of the driver.

He blinked, trying to clear the reality that it was his daughter who was driving the van.

No, Missy, no!

But when he focused back on the van, it was his daughter who stared unblinking at the road ahead, a powerful gaze he had seen before, the memory painfully seared into his mind, as though the very folds of his brain were burning with its branded image.

She was only six at the time, playing in a sandbox with a younger girl that wanted to use the same plastic pail. From a bench nearby, he saw Missy’s body visibly stiffen and tremble, her face seem to radiate with fire, and that same wicked grin taking up most of her face.

Yanking the pail from the other girl’s fingers, Missy brought her arm back into a violent arc and smashed the girl square in the face, leaving behind two trickles of blood. The pail broke away from its handle and Missy quickly tossed this aside before tackling the girl, raking her fingers across the girl’s face then grinding sand into the poor girl’s eyes with the palms of her hands. A matter of seconds it took to go from friendly, content child to the spawn of Satan.

Breaking away from this incredulous moment of awe, he had jumped from his seat and picked Missy up by the back of her pants, holding her at arm’s length as he would a rabid dog: her arms and legs flailing, teeth gnashing together, hair snapping around her scalp and looking more like the spastic strikes of serpents. He kept her like this until she slumped in his arms, exhausted, a string of drool hanging from the corner of her mouth.

As she got older, so did the severity of her tantrums. And as a recent teenager, she was too much to take. He quickly became thankful for his deafness as her enraged screams slipped into a void he would never have access to with his senses, though he still felt the intensity of slammed doors, punched walls, and objects thrown to the floor.

Drama. He couldn’t seem to get away from it.

Not even while on a bus heading nowhere.

* * *

Their stares locked for a moment, but any recognition in hers appeared lost on a distant horizon. Unblinking, she returned her attention to the road ahead and sped up as the tractor-trailer increased the space between them. In the distance were a couple options: continue on to meet the actual highway or visit a State Park for the day, complete with a 100-foot gorge and a raging river canyon nestled between jagged cliffs.

When his pulse suddenly matched the flashing right blinker, a surge of panic spiked through his veins, seeming to peel back his nerves and leave them as a jumble of exposed wires sitting in a puddle.

He needed to get off the bus.

Now.

Tristan tapped the driver on the shoulder then pointed to the side of the road where they both looked out the long door window of the bus. The van, the park entrance, and his daughter with a battered hostage in the cargo compartment all disappeared in an instant.

He pointed again, telepathically trying to tell the man to pull the fuck over!

His chest was rumbling, the sounds coming out of his throat a mystery, but enough to have the driver slow down in a hurry.

Then pull over.

And jab his index finger into the air toward Tristan’s chest, cords standing out along the sides of his neck, cheeks flushing red as he screamed…something.

Then opened the door.

Finally!

Tristan jumped the two remaining stairs before the bus stopped moving, falling as soon as his feet sought purchase, one shoe coming completely off. He slid on the pavement of the emergency lane, rolling twice before using his palms to slow his skid, rocks and pebbles tearing into his flesh.

He got up and jogged, ran, then began to sprint, arms pumping at his sides. His breaths came hard and fast—painful, like slivers of glass were sprinkled throughout his lungs. Still, he ran as fast as his feet would carry him, ignoring the gawks and gapes coming from passing vehicles, focused only on the distance he had to travel. And quickly.

His stride was uneven, awkward with his shoeless foot wearing only a sock, but went unnoticed even as a pothole took off one nail and blood quickly seeped to the surface of his big toe and began to stain the white cotton.

He had to stop her before it was too late, before she came out of the haze that consistently made her do things without her even knowing it.

Why, he thought, does this always happen? What gene, what abnormality, what sickness could cause such a thing? So many questions he had never found answers to and finally decided to run away. From a marriage that was a complete waste of time, a constant rigmarole of playing the part for the benefit of those who could witness from the outside and judge. And his daughter…so exhausting.

He’d simply had enough and made a decision—years it took to lead up to this—and at a time when his daughter needed him most.

Of one thing he was certain: he would not let his daughter suffer for something she didn’t realize or understand. Nor would he let her commit the appalling mistake she was considering.

He still didn’t know who the woman in the back of the van was, or why she was even there. Only that she needed help. And if his daughter’s past was any indication of future events, he needed to hurry.

* * *

Tristan’s pace was slowing, but the park entrance coming into view sent fingers of adrenaline through his weary limbs. He squared his shoulders, leaned forward on the balls of his feet, and kept shuffling, finally making it through a funnel created with redwood trees stacked atop each other on either side of the entrance.

He followed a winding curve that never seemed to end, passed a wooden sign with park details and papers swaying in the breeze. He slowed to a walk—more of a hobble, really—as he came into a parking lot that contained only an empty park maintenance vehicle.

Leaning on his knees, back arching with every breath, he looked up through a tangle of hair.

A carriage trail wound its way to the rear of the park, leading toward the beginning of the gorge. It was here that Tristan saw the flicker of brake lights.

With ginger steps, he moved forward and veered left, leaving the trail and concealing himself behind sporadic bushes and trees as he worked his way toward the van. A small amount of smoke curled away from the tailpipe. Then dissipated.

After a length of time that had him wondering if something horrible had already happened, the driver’s side door opened.

When Missy stepped from the vehicle holding a hammer, he froze, mind reeling.

He still couldn’t believe the world he had suddenly become a part of—almost as though he had invented a fucking time machine and stepped out at the most inopportune moment.

What…the…fuck!

There was simply no other way to get to the woman—the goddamn hostage—in a hurry than open the back door, jump in, and straddle her to begin removing the tape from her head and wrists.

And for once, a little luck dotted his life. The door was unlocked.

So that is exactly what he decided to do, ignoring the look of momentary surprise (or was it recognition?) from Missy as she made her way to the rear of the van. Either way, in a matter of nanoseconds, Missy’s blank stare fell across her face like a curtain at the end of a show.

Or was that just a spark of absolute clarity he had seen?

Once inside, Tristan pulled and yanked, tearing at the tape. Watched the woman’s skin stretch against the adhesive, her lips begin to mouth something.

Fucking crazy, is what she said…don’t even need to be deaf to know that, Tristan thought.

A cell phone suddenly hung in front of him like a floating television screen.

He stopped, leaving a corner of the woman’s mouth still concealed behind a gray strip of tape. Her eyes rolled upward then danced from side to side, trying to see what he was looking at.

Missy had climbed back inside the van, leaving the hammer on the center console, and crawled into the cargo compartment where the seats were conveniently missing. When she knew she had his complete attention—a raise of one eyebrow and the twitch of a grin—she slid a finger across the screen with an exaggerated and painfully slow fervor that held only one purpose: to let him completely soak in every image.

Missy flipped through the photos on her phone. And with each one, Tristan’s eyes opened a little wider.

Like a slew of still frames linked together to create a jittery piece of film, the story all came together. The clues that were previously strewn about his feet like a pocket full of change thrown to the ground finally came to fruition, neatly stacked on the curb.

A nasty flavor weighed his tongue down and dropped his jaw.

It all made sad, pathetic—why-the-fuck-didn’t-he-see-this-coming?—sense now.

The first photo showed the green Econoline van pulling into his driveway, its driver hidden behind mirrored Aviator sunglasses. Clearly, the driver was the same woman trapped between his thighs. Same oval face. Same nose, with a small upward curve at its tip. Cute.

What the hell was going on here?

Missy quickly advanced to a similar set of photos with the flick of a thumb.

They began with the same woman, glasses now perched atop her head and she ringing the doorbell with a bouquet of flowers hidden behind the small of her back.

Another series of shots followed, showing the space between the door and its frame getting larger. Larger still, as the silhouette of his wife appeared—undefined at first, then undeniable in its shape with the curves he knew well. In the next few frames she opened the door to a world that he had no idea twirled around his feet.

Even more difficult were the images of the kiss, lasting long enough to take more than a dozen additional shots. With the way the camera had captured the lighting, the two of them appeared surrounded by a halo of brilliance. He tried to turn his face away, but couldn’t.

Sensual it appeared, with feelings he could feel even through the two-dimensional images of a cell phone, plucking at the emotions existing in every fiber of his being, right below the surface of his skin, tender. Painful. Through the blur of his tears or the numbness of disbelief, it would still appear the same, as an absolute pure love existed within that kiss. Such a simple gesture—savored with a meaning and purpose he apparently couldn’t provide.

Real.

So real that nausea permeated his stomach and forced a gag reflex to erupt within his throat, making him turn away and double over, right there while straddling this woman who was beginning to struggle with vehemence.

But Missy wasn’t finished yet.

At last, an image created a taste he would need to scrape away from his tongue: his wife’s face buried in the crotch of the other woman’s—Roxy was how his mind started to refer to her. A nice, slutty name.

Roxy was sitting at the end of the bed, her back arched so hard he was surprised her spine hadn’t broken. Nipples bigger than eraser heads poked from her small, pointy breasts. Then she was grabbing the back of his wife’s head, pulling, shoving it into her crotch while her neck craned back in complete ecstasy. Completely shaved down below, she shined with a mixture of his wife’s saliva and her own juices in the frames where his wife had to come up for air.

Fire bloomed in his belly.

The clues were all there.

New perfume he thought his wife had hidden and used only for her new man, was actually Roxy’s. The lack of sex for months at a time, and uneventful when they did have it. She didn’t even try to fake that she was cumming, just lay there waiting for him to finish, probably counting the number of bumps on the popcorn ceiling, for all he knew. The extra time spent in the bathroom, and always coming out with her phone. And the texting, texting, texting…

Hatred blossomed from the center of his chest and spread through his arms, extending to the hands that wrapped around the woman’s throat and squeezed. Then squeezed harder, thumbnails digging into flesh. He could tell from the way the woman’s flesh tightened and created more wrinkles around her eyes as she clenched them shut that his nails were stinging, biting. And hopefully burning with the causticity of acid.

He squeezed again. And squeezed until he felt cartilage crunch under his grip. A strange scent entered his nostrils—acrid, metallic; a powerful and intoxicating scent that made him almost delirious. And the smile that he felt stretching from cheekbone to cheekbone—completely wicked—felt just so right!

He locked his gaze onto Missy’s, seeking justice, revenge, looking for a love he never received from a person he himself had created. And then he saw it, in the way she opened her eyes just a bit wider as she enjoyed watching him apply more pressure; the glow in her cheeks and the slight giggle she smothered in the back of her throat said it all. Good Lord, he could almost hear it!

His actions at this moment felt so perfect, so utterly natural and exciting, that he felt an erection beginning to stir. A pulse in his manhood made him shift his position and stop straddling the woman’s legs lest his own daughter see his weakness.

Roxy’s eyes rolled.

Soon, her lashes fluttered, then closed, coming together in what he imagined a soft embrace, forever sealing the windows to her soul.

So much cleaner than a hammer.

* * *

In a one-two-three swing, they tried to let go at the same time, but Roxy’s head struck the guardrail with a muffled thud. Yet the momentum was enough for her to tumble over the guardrail, body cartwheeling, limbs flopping around like a discarded misfit doll. She continued like this until a splash signified the end of one journey and the beginning of another as she floated to the surface and down the river, bobbing between the foamy pillows of rapids.

Though he and his daughter couldn’t speak except through signing, there was absolutely no need as they both erupted into twin fits of maniacal laughter and each realized exactly what the other was thinking.

There was other business to finish. Tristan could see it in her eyes, could read her thoughts completely. In some senses, they were very much alike.

Someone else was waiting at home.

Bound and gagged.

Trashtown

D. S. Ullery

The tires of Ed Hollins’ pickup truck crested the diameter of a large pothole in the center of the road, causing the vehicle to shudder. The heavy burlap sack he’d wedged into the extended cab shifted to one side, colliding against the back of his seat with a dull thud.

“You getting bounced around back there, bitch?” Ed drawled, tossing the comment over his shoulder, half-paying attention to the road. A sign appeared on the side of the highway, looming in the glare of the truck’s headlights as Ed drove past: Okeechobee County: 15 Miles.

Good, he though. Trashtown is just a few clicks ahead.

He spared another glance into the back and regarded the sack, taking particular pleasure at the red stain seeping through.

I surely did work the bitch over. Ed’s dark laughter filled the cab at the thought. Serves her right.

Up ahead and to his right, the woods running parallel to the road broke, revealing a narrow, unpaved trail winding into the heart of the undeveloped land.

Ed had made this journey many times over the years and he knew to slow the truck, turning onto the road carefully. There were no street lights out here (the power grid in town didn’t extend to this area) and Ed was aware of a fairly deep drainage ditch—dug in years ago to catch storm runoff during Florida’s hurricane season—bordering the narrow strip of dirt and weeds on either side. The culvert was practically invisible in the dark and if he went too fast or too far in either direction, he’d end up taking a header into the ditch. Tonight of all nights, he couldn’t afford to have that happen.

He finished slowly motoring the pickup around the bend, until the front grille was facing down the trail, the headlights casting an amber glow across twin depressions worn into the soil over decades of use. The tracks disappeared into the gloom.

He gazed into the shadows beyond the perimeter of the light, feeling just a bit nervous. He had never been out here this early. The closest he’d come had been one morning a few years ago. On that day, he and his nearest neighbor Norbert Philips had set out just before dawn and arrived at a little past six. By then the first rays of the sun had begun to glimmer above the trees, so it really hadn’t been all that dark anymore.

This was different. Ed had never been to Trashtown while it was full dark. Even in the glow of the headlights, he’d have to stay alert. The thought of the shotgun mounted on a rack in the truck came to him as a comfort. Though he was familiar with the area, it paid to be cautious being out here alone.

One never knew what they might run into out here in the dark.

* * *

Ed kept his speed beneath ten miles per hour. It was a necessary precaution on such a narrow, rock strewn corridor covered by a natural canopy of Live Oak and Slash Pine branches arching overhead. It was at least fifteen minutes before Ed finally saw the gravel driveway deviating from the trail, splitting away to the left.

He switched on the high beams (Ed doubted anyone would be out here to see them) and glided through the mouth of the drive, bringing the truck to a stop. He peered over the dash into the space beyond.

Something large and rectangular to his immediate left caught his attention, but it was too dark to make out what it was. Ed dropped his eyes to the small storage compartment wedged between the two seats and popped the latch on its grimy, oil-stained lid. He rummaged inside until he came across the small flashlight he kept there.

Ed flipped the switch on the electric torch and the ceiling of the cab flared as it was targeted by a tight circle of white light. He pointed the light through the window, illuminating a makeshift sign erected at the entrance to the site.

It was really a piece of worn plywood nailed to an old, wooden surveying stake. Spray painted in dark red letters across the face of the weathered plank were the words Welcome to Trashtown. Take something, leave something. Leave something, take something.

Ed stared at the sign, his mouth a thin line. Bringing something to Trashtown was no joke. Even more sobering was the knowledge that what he was going to attempt had, as far as he knew, never been tried.

He urged the truck forward gently. There were no gates, no barriers. Nothing mounted by human hands to keep visitors out. Not that anyone other than the population of Shallow Creek ever came here. There had never been an outsider in Trashtown.

Ed couldn’t shake the unease worrying his insides like a dog on a bone. He knew damned well why no one but the townsfolk came to this place. There was a dark energy here. Something mysterious, hovering in the shadows just beyond the fringes of the light, watching and waiting. Everyone in Shallow Creek knew that. Over the span of generations, the town had grown accustomed to it.

For those passing through, it was a different experience. Visitors could only just pick up on it, registering a vague sense of something being off. The unexplained power left them with a feeling unpleasant enough to keep them away.

That power was the very thing which had brought Ed here.

He shifted the truck into park and killed the ignition. The squeal of rusted hinges ruptured the morning silence, causing him to flinch as he opened the door and stepped out. Not even the crickets were chirping at this hour.

Ed took in his surroundings. He had parked in the center of a wide, circular clearing. Tall trees, mostly pines, surrounded the barren acres of land, creating an impenetrable fortress of gloom. The full moon shone down on the scene, a cold, assessing eye holding court in the heavens, surrounded by a sea of stars glittering like points of silver. Moonlight bathed the site, merging with the glare from the headlights and revealing the familiar lay out.

On either end of the clearing stood a row comprised of three concentric piles of refuse, each one standing a good seven feet high. The rows ran north to south. This wasn’t foul refuse, either. There there was no rotting food nor empty cartons. This was an assortment of more permanent junk: Broken toys, old furniture, picture frames, car parts.

The selection was random, with only one consistent theme: In the row to the west (currently Ed’s left), all of the items skewed towards men, such as used sports equipment, tires and old chairs. In the row to the east, the piles consisted of items one would traditionally expect to be used by a woman, such as the soiled remains of frilly dresses, a cracked vanity mirror, and a number of purses.

Ed wasn’t certain when it had all begun or even how. He didn’t even know who coined the name “Trashtown,” only that it had stuck. That knowledge had been lost to time, save for disjointed stories the old barflies would occasionally rattle off. These usually came after one too many whiskey sours on a Saturday night, the details changing with every telling.

As far as Ed was concerned, it was best that way. This place was what it was and it was better not to question it. He often suspected it could damn a person to learn exactly how the dark force living inside of Trashtown came to be there or why it chose to bargain with men. There was already enough in this world capable of damning people. No need to go looking for something to do the job faster.

All that concerned him this morning was whether or not his plan would work.

It wasn’t a question of doubting the power behind Trashtown. Ed had discovered the magic here as a boy. That had been back in 1976, when he’d accompanied his old man to the site for the first time. During that visit, his father had placed a broken muffler on the center pile of the west row.

As young Ed had watched, the pile had collapsed into itself beneath the new addition, swallowing the shattered metal frame.

As the pile reconstituted itself, the boy had caught a glimpse of a long object laying on the ground at its base, a length of metal pipe which expanded into a wide, ovular chamber.

A new muffler.

Ed never forgot that day. Even as his father had picked the new muffler up, wiping down the shiny new chrome, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of the spot where the thing had appeared. He had been staring at that exact spot mere seconds earlier and knew for a fact nothing had been there.

He never did learn exactly where the muffler had come from or who had left it, but before they had jumped into his father’s car to head back to town, the elder Hollins had turned, clasped his hands together and bowed towards the pile, uttering a quiet “thank you.” Then he had added “Take something, leave something. Leave something, take something.”

Ed’s thoughts turned to the sack inside his truck.

He walked around to the passenger door and yanked it open, popping the seat forward and sliding it towards the dash so he’d have space to maneuver. Gripping the sack with all of his might, he dragged it forward, letting it spill out onto the ground. He began to drag it towards the row on his right, where the piles for the women stood.

As he pulled the load, Ed grinned, thinking about how this idea had come about.

He couldn’t pinpoint precisely why he had finally exploded on his wife earlier that night. She’d been nagging him day in and day out for years, a shut-in with an expanding waistline who he had grown sick to death of. The cold truth was it could be attributed to any number of factors.

Maybe it was the customer who had berated Ed for not getting the spark plugs changed in his car in a timely fashion earlier that day. Maybe it was that he had entered their house after work that night tired, covered in grease and ready to sit back with a cold beer and was instead greeted by her screeching, irritating voice calling from the bedroom. She’d demanded to know if he’d stopped by the Quick Shop in town and picked up her bottled water on the way home like she’d asked (he hadn’t).

Or, maybe, he’d made an internal decision at some point that the next time she opened her mouth to give him grief, it would be her last.

It didn’t matter. All of those possibilities led to the same outcome. He’d found himself pulling the hammer from its satchel on the tool belt still clamped around his waist. Edna had been laying in bed (no surprise there), dressed in a nighty that revealed way too much. When she had seen him enter—gripping the hammer in his hand, murder in his eyes—she had let fly a horrified gobble and scrambled for the bathroom.

It had taken Ed mere seconds to break down the bathroom door. It hadn’t taken him much longer to pulverize her skull.

After she’d stopped moving, he’d regarded Edna’s corpse. He’d felt nothing as he watched the shattered remnants of her brain ooze through her cracked skull onto the peach acrylic (Her choice. He fucking hated the color peach and planned to destroy the tub with a sledgehammer, replacing it with a shower stall as soon as he had the chance).

Ed considered this turn of events to be an unexpected blessing. He’d grown weary of Edna years ago and really only kept her around because it was better than paying some bullshit alimony. Now she was finally out of his life.

Good riddance, he’d thought. He had always believed he could have done much better than the stout cow of a woman he had ended up hitching himself to. With her out of the way, he would be free to go find someone prettier. Someone who actually turned him on and had some damned clue as to how to pleasure a man.

He’d tried to think of a worthwhile spot to dispose of the body and that’s when the idea first sparked. Trashtown popped up as a possibility, not because of any mystical qualities inherent to the site, but strictly based on its distance from town and the fact no one would find her buried out there.

Ed had almost dismissed the thought out of hand in the spirit of reverence, but the idea nagged at him until it crystallized. He needed to get rid of the dead meat bleeding out in the tub in front of him. He was also in the market for a new companion.

What if he dropped Edna’s body on one of the piles out in Trashtown?

He had no idea if it would work, but in his life he had never heard a single story warning to not do something like this. It made sense, in a twisted sort of way. He’d leave her there, the pile would take her as it had his father’s broken muffler and, in her place, it would give him—

That part had given Ed pause. Give him what, exactly? Edna was dead. Sure, the power living in (or under, if that was the case) the trash piles could replace broken inanimate objects with new ones, but a dead body?

Well, why not? Broken things were replaced with new ones. That’s how it worked in Trashtown. The item in question on this occasion might be different, but the rules still applied. Take something, leave something. Leave something, take something.

Huffing with effort, Ed finally reached the row. He released the sack at the base of the center pile, blowing out bad air. He pulled a rumpled, oil-stained handkerchief from his back pocket, wiping a huge dab of sweat from his brow.

Ed reached down and untied the sack at one end, then walked to the other and tugged on it. The burlap pulled away, revealing the bloodstained corpse of Edna Hollins. Her head smacked against the ground as it was uncovered, driving small drifts of dirt into the air which cast odd patterns in the shine of the truck’s headlights. Thick clumps of broken bone, mingled with blood and pieces of her brain, had dried on what remained of her scalp. Dead eyes stared at the unforgiving moon from sockets sunk inside a lifeless mask of blue flesh and colorless lips.

Ed crouched, wrapping his arms around her waist, hoisting her off the ground. When he had lifted the body as high as his chest, he turned. Swinging toward the pile, he released his hold on Edna. She tumbled backward into the refuse, landing among headless dolls, old shoes and even a ladies bicycle frame.

Ed watched intently. While it was true he had no idea as to what was going to happen, he had a theory. Whatever was out here seemed to know whatever it was a person needed. He figured—hoped—that if he fed her to one of the ladies trash heaps, the power inside of Trashtown would sense what he was after and send a new and improved model back.

Further thoughts on the matter were cut short by a horrible, wet sound coming from the junk. Ed stepped closer, peering into the refuse. As he watched, Edna’s shoulder separated at the collarbone. Skin tore, creating a zigzag fissure as the limb pulled away, revealing a knob of bone amid the exposed muscle. Her other arm followed suit, as did both of her legs. Her chest imploded and her eyeballs expanded, bloating into glistening balloons until they burst in their sockets.

Ed staggered back, fighting his gag reflex as he bore witness to the disassembling of his dead wife. Within seconds, her remains had been transformed from a recognizable human being to a gore-soaked jigsaw puzzle of torn flesh and loose organs.

The contents of the pile were coated with a sticky, crimson wetness glaring a dark scarlet beneath the headlights of Ed’s truck. The mass shifted and groaned, collapsing in on itself, swallowing the tattered remains. Soon, it was as if Edna Hollins had never existed. There was no blood, no bones. The spirit in the junk had absorbed it all.

Silence hung over Trashtown. The woods were still, the nocturnal inhabitants having grown quiet as what little breeze had been blowing died. Ed’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes tracked from side to side, then up to the top of the pile and back to the ground. He scanned every square foot for signs of movement. He saw nothing. He continued to watch for several minutes more. Waiting for her. Waiting for anything.

No dice, he thought after a while, shoulders slumping.

At least I got rid of the bitch, Ed reminded himself. A part of him had really hoped to be leaving here with a companion worthy of his attentions. Still, he knew he couldn’t feel too bad. All he had to do now was return to his little house on the outskirts of town and clean up the mess. Edna had no family (her mother had been her only living relative and had passed on years earlier), no friends in town and no one ever came calling. There would be no questions about where she’d gone to. In Shallow Creek, what happened in a man’s home stayed in a man’s home. Ed was in the clear.

He began to shuffle towards the truck and, in doing so, missed the sound the first time. It wasn’t until Ed had climbed behind the wheel that it finally registered. It was the thin, clattering of something plastic toppling on top of something metal. It was coming from the spot where Edna’s body had vanished.

Hope flared in the pit of his stomach. Still, just as a precaution, Ed decided to pull the shotgun from the rack. He double checked it, confirming a shell was loaded into each barrel.

He climbed out of the cab, allowing the gun to hang by his side while maintaining a firm grip on it. He moved a few steps closer to the east row and stared. It—she—was definitely standing there. Random objects were scattered around her ankles, having fallen off of the pile as she had pushed her way out.

His plan had worked.

An absolutely beautiful woman, completely nude, stood at the edge of the center pile. Her flawless figure was crowned by a sweeping mane of auburn hair, cascading across her well-toned shoulders. Almond ovals peered at him from beneath naturally curled bangs, inviting him closer. Full, red lips curved in an enticing smile.

She was everything he had dreamed of. Literally. It was as if Trashtown had plumbed the depths of his mind and found his oft-imagined ideal woman, giving her flesh. Through his euphoria, Ed understood this to be exactly what had happened.

He drew nearer, one careful step at a time. It was as if he were afraid to move too quickly, lest he scare her off or somehow dispel her. Though Ed had never seen this woman before, he couldn’t bear the thought of her not being there.

They were face to face now. Under any other circumstances, Ed would have tracked his eyes up and down her body. This time, though, he was captivated. He could not look away, nor did he want to.

“Are you him?” she asked, her voice a melody sending chills of pleasure through him. “Are you the one to take me?”

For the first time in his life, Ed didn’t take the low road and smirk at the unintentional double-entendre. He continued to stare into her eyes, nodding without uttering a word.

The woman assessed him, taking in everything. She moved closer and sniffed the air, then retreated a step. She gave him another once over. Finally, she folded her arms across her chest. A scowl crossed her face and she shook her head.

“No. This won’t do.”

This unexpected shift in the tenor of the encounter snapped Ed out of his stupor, leaving him bewildered. He shook his head to clear the mental fog, then stared at her, puzzled.

“Wait, what?” he said. “I don’t understand. What won’t do?”

“This,” she answered, opening her palms in his direction and waving them up and down. “You. This won’t do. You’re disgusting and vile. I can do better.”

Anger flaring at this entirely unforeseen turn of events, Ed began to protest.

“Now hold on right, there,” he demanded, “This isn’t right! You’re here for me. You’re mine!”

Her arms snaked forward without warning, snatching the shotgun from his hand. Her scowl vanished, twisting into a malicious grin as she raised the gun and, without hesitation, fired a shot into his crotch. His groin disappeared in a crimson explosion.

Ed collapsed, an inhuman howl of pain erupting from his throat, echoing across the woods and along the long trail connecting Trashtown to the main highway. The night answered with continued silence. The force of the screams grew to such a pitch as to choke off his voice, leaving him gasping in silent agony.

The woman gripped either side of his head, lifting him off the ground. She held Ed aloft, carrying him across the clearing, towards the center pile of the west row. As they moved, his blood spattered to the ground, leaving a trail.

In a delirium of final thoughts, Ed found himself thinking of his father. As the woman effortlessly hurled him onto the pile, his mind went back to that day with the muffler. As he collided with broken tools and other discarded items, he wondered if this was why he had never heard any stories about people being left in Trashtown. Perhaps it had been done before, with the same outcome.

He would never know. The pile began to move around him, a tingling sensation registering in his extremities. This was accompanied by a mild pressure across his entire body. The pressure increased, gripping his arms and legs and stretching them in all directions.

Through a disoriented haze brought on by terror and blood loss, fresh bolts of pain managed to mount atop the incredible suffering Ed had already experienced. His nerves erupted with white-hot rage as he felt his skin pulled beyond the breaking point. A surreal looseness settled in beneath the remains of his groin, followed by a liquid warmth. Managing a final glance at his lower body, Ed discovered his right leg had been torn away.

The pressure continued to pull, dragging him deep into the recesses of Trashtown and the waiting maw of whatever lurked beneath. Something twisted and churned inside his stomach and Ed felt his abdomen rupture, his bowels spilling out.

Darkness took him.

The woman stood by, watching quietly as what was left of Ed Hollins disappeared. Soon another would emerge. Someone more fitting, a mate tailored for her.

Something moved among the trash. The pile split and the muscular form of a large, powerfully-built man rose to his feet before her.

“Take something, leave something. Leave something, take something,” she whispered, stepping forward to embrace him.

What Lives in the Trees

Tim Curran

1

If it had a beginning, Frank decided, then it was when the dogs started getting into the garbage.

It happened three times in a single week. He’d go out to the garage and find the Hefty bags ripped open, the alley littered with eggshells and diapers and fast food containers. He’d scoop it all up, dump it in a new bag and drop it into the can. Then he’d make sure the lid was down tight.

Goddamn dogs.

The only thing that bothered him was that, every time, the cans themselves were not tipped over. The bag or bags were just pulled out and torn open, things scattered everywhere, almost like the dog or dogs were looking for something particular. It all started to seem very un-dog like.

The third time it happened, Frank made a mental note of what was missing from the bag. Some old lettuce. A bag of rotting apples. Some potatoes lost in a cage of eyes. Vegetables. Fruit. It was crazy, but that’s all that was gone. Frank rushed in and told Shelly and she acted like he had a foot growing out of his ass.

So, Frank decided it was time for a controlled experiment.

He carefully selected the garbage the next time around. Not only fruit and veggies, but things he figured a dog just couldn’t pass up: some bones, some hot dogs and hamburger patties. Meat. And, to make it a real challenge, he put a couple bricks on top of the lid.

The next morning, the lid was off the can and the trash was strewn about as usual. The bricks were on the ground. The fruit and vegetables were gone, but the meat was untouched.

And that sealed it.

A vegetarian dog.

Then he saw the print.

At first, it looked much like a depression in a clump of wet grass clippings. Then he stooped down, intrigued without really knowing why. Not just a depression but a pretty well-defined print pressed down into the mat of clippings. It was about six inches long and about four in width. He could just make out the dimples of something like toes.

Frank crouched there, thinking, wondering what could leave a print like that. It almost looked more like some sort of distorted handprint than a footprint. Weird.

He shrugged, figuring maybe one of the neighborhood kids had done a cartwheel there in the wet clippings, their handprint maybe warping as the grass dried.

It was a perfectly logical explanation.

But it wasn’t true.

2

Two days later, just after midnight.

The sky was misting, pregnant with rain.

Frank was out in his driveway again, under the roof overhang, dragging on a cigarette and wondering what it was going to be like come wintertime when the snow was blowing and drifting, the wind just as cold as a meat locker. It was one thing to come out here and smoke in the summer, but January? That was a whole different species of hurt.

But he was doing it for Shelly.

Shelly and little Margaret laying up there in her crib.

And when he looked at it like that, it seemed like an act of chivalry, some honorable and selfless thing he was doing, filling his lungs with filth. But it hadn’t been his idea. It had been Shelly’s. After the baby’s born, she said, no more smoking in the house. Period. You have to do it, then do it outside. Baby’s lungs don’t need to start their life sucking on the tailpipe of a Buick.

Frank had agreed.

After all, she was right. Smoking was bad for you. Everyone said so. Smokers were becoming an oppressed minority. Every time Frank lit up, he felt like a relic from the 1950s. Lots of people smoked, but most kept it in the closet. It was getting to be like masturbation; you didn’t talk about it.

Frank thought about this, took a drag, knew he was doing the right thing even if it was a godawful pain in the ass. Not like the old days. Remote control in one hand, ciggie in the other—

The cigarette paused at his lips.

There was a crashing in the trees lining the street. Big old oaks, huge and spreading things, their branches feeding into one another in a thick jungle of green.

A cat?

He walked down the driveway, paused at the sidewalk. Something crawled over his bare foot and he shook it away. He looked up into the trees. A few leaves drifted down. There was a furtive, quick rustling, then silence. Something was up there all right. And a tiny voice in the back of his head was telling him it was big.

He thought: How the hell do you know that? It’s night. It’s dark. It’s quiet. A squirrel jumping around up there would sound like thunder.

Point.

He waited a moment. Two. Nothing.

He sighed, taking a drag off his cigarette, wondering if there was anything good on Netflix.

A few more leaves drifted down.

He kept watching. Leaves falling on a windless night in June just wasn’t normal. Something else fell. A stick. It dropped into the driveway.

Frank licked his lips, beginning to realize how completely defenseless he was standing there in a pair of shorts and nothing else. He began to back up, his mind creating grotesque, lurking shapes in the tangle of branches and dark foliage. He made it about ten feet from the sidewalk when he stopped.

Up there.

Maybe twenty, thirty feet up…he was seeing a form. A hunched over thing like a goblin from a storybook. Something poised and ready to jump. Crazy. But he saw it and kept seeing it. A chill ran up his spine and something dark and crawly wormed through his belly.

He couldn’t be sure, but, Jesus, it almost looked like a face up there. A face with two eyes staring down at him. It was frozen stock-still. As motionless as a stone in an orchard wall. Like it was trying to become part of the tree, become invisible.

Frank looked around.

Nothing, no one. Not another living being to call into battle. Just him. A guy in a pair of shorts with a ciggie and a Bic lighter to defend himself with. It was so quiet all he could hear was the traffic on the interstate three miles away. The sound of distant tires on distant pavement.

You’re imagining shit, he told himself.

He finished the cigarette, tossed it away, watched it land in the grass like a burning meteorite. He turned his back on the trees and…and that’s when it moved. The very second his back was turned, there was a gentle rustling of leaves as something swung through them like a monkey.

He turned and saw…saw some heavy, but compact and streamlined form glide from one tree to the next. A manlike shape, but small and long-limbed. No man could move with that kind of fluidic grace thirty feet up.

Frank stood there, shocked.

He remembered that print in the grass clippings.

Then he ran into the house and locked the door behind him.

He made it all the way into the living room where he sat staring at the TV. What did a person do in a situation like this?

Call the cops? Would they laugh at him or humor him like they did on TV—Oh, you got an ape up in the trees, have you? Is he juggling little red balls or riding a unicycle? Mmm-hmm, right. Well, why don’t you call us back when the rest of the circus shows up? He knew he couldn’t call the police.

Then what?

Quietly, he moved up the carpeted steps to his bedroom. Moving silently, mind you, so as not to wake up Margaret. When he made it to his room, he shut the door. He snuggled up close to Shelly. She pushed him off, figuring he was trying to get a piece of ass. He shook her.

“What?” she said, up on one elbow, shouting in that loud whisper new parents are so good at. “What the hell is it?”

Frank tried to talk, but he realized he was breathing too fast. He could hear himself now in the darkness, panting. “Baby, listen to me,” he managed. “I saw…there’s something up in the trees.”

She patted his hand, sighed, fell back into her pillow. “They’re called leaves. Now go to sleep like a good boy. Mommy won’t let the leaves get you.”

“I’m serious.”

She sighed again, turned her head in his direction. “It’s twenty after one, Frank. I have to get up in four hours to feed Margaret. If you had breasts, I’d let you do it. But you don’t, so either go to sleep or go downstairs and watch one of your stupid movies.”

She pulled an extra pillow over her head. Conversation terminated.

Frank sat there, staring at the window. The curtains hung limp. No breeze. There was nothing behind those curtains but a screen. If something could jump around in the trees, it could probably cut through a screen.

He got up, pulled on a pair of jeans. A t-shirt.

“What are you doing?” Shelly said through her pillow.

“I’m going to find out what that thing is.”

“Happy hunting,” Shelly said, not amused. Downstairs, Frank slipped on his Nikes. Grabbed a flashlight. Went into the basement, grabbed his Remington .410 pump and filled the magazine. Buckshot.

He thought: All right, you sonofabitch. Let’s see what you’re made of now.

Frank wasn’t trigger-happy. He didn’t run around plastering NRA stickers on his bumpers. He shot partridge every fall and did a little target practice. That was the extent of it.

But if that thing jumped down on him…

Outside, shotgun in one hand and flashlight in the other, he stalked down the sidewalk. He played the light through the trees. Lots of moths and bugs circling around in there. Spider webs. A couple of bats flying off. Nothing else.

He waited.

He started up the walk again, shining for the tree-hopper (as he was starting to think of it). A car passed, slowed a bit when it saw him, then sped up. Sure, it had to look a little funny: him walking around with a shotgun, shining a flashlight up in the trees.

He waited a few more minutes while something in his head started telling him he was imagining things. But Frank wasn’t biting. He didn’t imagine things. It wasn’t his way.

He went back to the house, glanced up at baby Margaret’s window, smiled, then shook his head. Christ, what kind of father was he? Acting like this.

He looked back towards the trees once, called it a night.

3

The next day, of course, he thought it was bullshit.

He went through it all a half-dozen times before noon, sifted it through the screen of his mind. It all fell through the holes. He’d seen something, sure, but not what he thought. Maybe some weird nocturnal animal. There had to be lots of creatures that came out only at night that you never saw, he figured. It was one of those. The night had painted it up with shadows, made it look like something it was not. That’s all.

Regardless, it was his second day of vacation from the foundry and he wasn’t going to waste his week off speculating.

Shelly took Margaret for a walk in the stroller down to the park. After that, probably to her mother’s. That gave Frank the afternoon to get a few things done. First off, the roof. A few shingles were missing since that storm last April.

He leaned the ladder up against the house.

Christ, he hated things like this.

Heights weren’t his strong point. For some people it was snakes or crowds, the feeling of being closed-in. For him it was heights. He wasn’t sure why. All he knew was, when he was up high and looked down…something light and feathery whispered in his belly, his feet felt funny like maybe they were trying to grab hold so he wouldn’t float up and away, come crashing down.

But he could handle this.

He climbed the bright red cylindrical rungs of the old fireman’s ladder. He was okay on ladders; there was always a quick and safe way down. Roofs were a different thing. Like cliffs and football stadiums. Scared the shit out of him.

Just don’t think about it, he kept telling himself. Go up there, see what has to be done. Take it slow, be cool.

Sure. He made it up past Margaret’s window to the overhang of the second story. He was looking across the roof…or rather, up it. It inclined to a low peak, gave birth to the chimney. A tree branch from one of the oaks scraped against the shingles. That wasn’t good. It would wear its way through sooner or later. It would have to be cut. Sucking in a trembling breath, Frank climbed off the top of the ladder—no easy feat with his heart hammering and his white-knuckled fists refusing to let go—and up onto the roof. Once there, he clung on all fours like a cat.

Breathe.

Relax.

You’re not that high. Most you’ll do is break a leg if you fall. There are worse things.

Up near the chimney he saw the expanse of missing shingles. A few of them hanging in fragments by their nails. After a time he crawled up there, pressing himself flat like a spider sucking warmth from a brick. The roof was hot. He was sweating. After a while, he got up on his knees. It was all a matter of balance. That’s what. Anyone could do it. His tennis shoes gripped nicely. Just be careful, is all. He made it up to the chimney, saw a rusting bracket from an ancient TV antenna. Grasping the chimney, he straddled the peak with a leg on either side…looked around.

He had to force his eyes open.

He felt dizzy for a moment, that old flip-flopping in his stomach. But it passed. This wasn’t so bad. A world of roofs and trees. That’s what it was like up there. Just rooftop after rooftop after rooftop and tree limbs seeming to connect them like arteries. The world of the squirrel.

It was kind of interesting.

His fingers were gently touching the gaps left by the missing shingles. They brushed something coarse and shaggy. Frank yanked his hand away, figuring he’d disturbed the daytime ruminations of some big, ugly spider.

But it wasn’t a spider.

With the sun on it, it looked like a piece of steel wool, but rusted a reddish-brown. It wasn’t fungus or mold. It was fur. He snatched it free, stroked it in his fingers. Fur. A tuft of coarse fur.

What would leave a tuft of fur like that?

Not a squirrel. Not a cat.

And then, with a sinking feeling, Frank knew exactly what had left it.

4

He didn’t get anything done that afternoon.

Instead, he went to see Keith Arlinger.

Some people collected books. Some people collected baseball cards. Others collected beer cans and bottle openers. Keith collected monsters. He was into cryptozoology, the science—or psuedo-science, some said—of unknown animals. His little house was filled with books and magazines, scrapbooks of newspaper articles, reams of correspondence with the like-minded. He even ran a website specializing in cryptozoological hoaxes such as sideshow sea serpents and the Minnesota Iceman.

“You believe in Bigfoot and that shit, right?” Frank asked him.

Keith raised an eyebrow, briefly scanning the crowded bookshelves and the poster on the wall which showed an image from the famous Patterson Bigfoot film with the words I WANT TO BELIEVE superimposed over it. “What gave you that idea?” he said.

Frank sighed. “Please. No sarcasm.”

Keith smiled. “I believe in the possibility of such things. Proving and disproving them is my life, so to speak. Why? Do you wish to convert, my brother?”

Frank just shrugged, uncertain how to go about this. “No…I, shit, I don’t know. I saw a show,” he lied. “I was just wondering what you thought about it all.”

Keith studied him, nodded. “Well, let’s put it this way. Do I believe in Bigfoot? The American Sasquatch? Not really. But I do think at one time there was such a thing, but not any longer. The legend lives on, though. I suppose there could be a relict population tucked away in the Canadian Rockies that makes the hop into the States from time to time, but I’d say the chances are slim. Bigfoot has been reported from every state in the Union. But I think it’s mostly bullshit. Whatever they were, I think they died out before we got a grip on them. Just my opinion.”

“So you don’t think they exist?”

“I’m very skeptical for the most part…though I do think the Fouke Monster of Arkansas might still be living. That’s just a gut feeling combined with the immense unsettled territory it is said to inhabit.”

Frank didn’t care about monsters in Arkansas. “What about the others?”

Keith sucked off a joint. “The Yeti of the Himalayas...I’m doubtful, but maybe. Florida’s Skunk Ape? Just a tall tale. The Orang Pendak, the pygmy apeman of Sumatra? I really think it may have existed until fairly recently, but has been driven to extinction by habitat destruction. The wildman of Vietnam and Laos, the Nguoi Rung? I’d give that beastie a higher probability of existence given the remote, underpopulated terrain and the fact that there were so many documented encounters during the Vietnam War. Our soldiers called them “rock apes” because they used to pelt troops with rocks. And scream. They liked to scream.” He smiled, liking that. “Chinese wildman? Russian Alma? Given the reports and the vast, primitive wilderness they’re supposed to inhabit…I’d say there’s a real possibility these things exist. Or did until fairly recently.”

“How come nobody ever gets one? Traps it or shoots it?”

Keith was getting suspicious, but he went on nonetheless. “Because they avoid human beings. Whatever they are—prehistoric survivors, missing links, Neanderthals, Gigantopithecus, maybe some form of evolved erect ape—they avoid us because instinctively they know we’re killers. Plain and simple. They may live in remote, mountainous areas because our ancestors pushed them there. They don’t like us. They may fear us. I’m guessing they’re nocturnal and when they are seen, it’s by accident.”

Frank swallowed. “So you think they’re not seen because they don’t want to be seen…like they’re intelligent.”

“Yes. Not as smart as us, but smart enough to know who their natural enemies are.” Keith took a toke, blew out his smoke, gave Frank his favorite lecture about all the nocturnal creatures that live in the country and the city that people never, ever see—species of bats, reptiles, weird insects, bears and big cats. “There’s countless creatures that inhabit the night world. Just because you haven’t seen them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“I suppose.”

“Now, what was the name of that show you saw?”

Frank sighed, told him the truth about what he’d seen.

Keith just looked at him. “You serious about this?”

Frank assured him he was. “I saw it. I saw it go whipping through the trees. I saw its print.”

Keith just nodded, roached the joint. “You’d be the last person I thought would have an encounter with a cryptid.”

“A cryptid?”

“An unknown creature.” Keith sat back. His eyes were red, his beard long and haggard. There was an intensity to him that was undeniable. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. It’s a new one. At least to us. I don’t suppose you’ve got that print?”

Frank shook his head.

“Evidence is the key here, Frank,” he said, going off on another little lecture about strange animals. How the world was filled with them. Some were members of viable, healthy populations. Others remnants of vanished species, barely clinging to survival. Still others were recent in nature, mutations, aberrations. Things that might only be seen once, if at all, before they died out. While he talked, he went over to his filing cabinets. He started yanking open drawers, pulling out file folders. “I’ve got all sorts of man-beasts here. I’ve got Chuchunaa of Siberia. Abominable snowmen and pygmy yeti from Asia. Nittaewo of Ceylon. Chinese Yeren, Barmanu of Pakistan—”

“Yeah,” Frank said, interrupting him. “But do you have any fur from them?”

That stopped Keith.

He came over and Frank gave him a little envelope with the tuft of fur in it. He looked from Frank to the fur, the fur to Frank. For the next ten minutes he stroked it, patted it, examined it under a magnifying glass. He put a strand under a microscope. He then compared it against hair samples in a book. It took quite a while.

“Damn,” he said and kept saying it. “It has all the characteristics of primate hair. And you saw it in the trees?”

Frank had to go over the story about twenty times while Keith scribbled notes, made sketches.

“And it’s been in your garbage?”

“I think so.”

“Outstanding.” He shrugged. “It would take an expert days to compare this fur against that of known apes and a DNA test to be sure, so I’m just guessing here. All I’m saying is that it’s ape-like.”

“So what should I do?” Frank asked him.

Keith thought it over. “I say we don’t let this one get away. I say we bag this sonofabitch.”

5

When Shelly heard about it, she had only one thing to say: “You’re nuts.”

“Baby,” Frank said, trying to be patient. “I saw it. I really saw it.”

She saw the look in his eyes and thawed a bit. “Okay. Maybe you saw…I don’t know. Maybe somebody’s pet monkey escaped. Maybe an orangutan slipped away from a zoo.”

“Sure,” Frank said. “That’s what I’m hoping. Because if it’s not one of those things, then what?”

Shelly propped Margaret on her lap, pulled a breast out from her shirt and gave it to her. Frank remembered when she used to offer it to him. Funny how things changed. Now no more sex and there’s garbage-eating apes out in the trees. Life was something, all right.

Shelly said, “Frank. You know I love you. You know I believe in you. You’re a good man. But…Keith Aberly? C’mon, honey. He’s a nut and we both know it.”

“Yeah, but he knows about this stuff.”

“Mmm-hmm. And he also knows about dealing pot which is how he generally makes a living.”

“Not anymore.”

“Well, he used to. Isn’t that how you met him?”

It was. Frank used to buy weed from him back when he was in high school and still had a taste for the stuff. Lots of stoners would hang out at Keith’s place, hit the bong and listen to Keith’s stories of the Loch Ness Monster and living dinosaurs in Africa.

Frank just shrugged. “Yeah, so he’s a pipe-head. So what? Guy knows about weird shit…stuff like this. It’s his thing. He thinks this could be some unknown animal near extinction.”

“The only thing in danger of extinction is that man’s brain cells,” Shelly said. “He’s a weirdo. You want to play with him out in the yard, fine. But I don’t want him in my house. There’s no way in hell that crazy…individual is going to be anywhere around Margaret.”

Frank accepted that.

Maybe Keith was crazy, but that didn’t mean he was wrong.

6

They set-up that night.

It was quite a circus.

Keith had motion sensors in the trees, audio recorders, video recorders, still photography apparatus. He had a gun with tranquilizer darts. He was loaded for bear. All the stuff was wired into his van parked in the street. He could monitor and operate it all via his laptop. Frank was out in the garage, the door open. He was hiding in the shadows by his truck, his .410 at the ready. The garbage cans were filled with fruit, lots of rotting, stinky stuff. Bait. At the foot of the cans, buried in grass clippings were two bear traps. Not just any bear traps either, but big 48 pounders with spiked, spring-loaded jaws. Illegal as hell. The kind, Keith informed him, that were used once upon a time for grizzly bear.

So if nothing else, Frank was in the garage to keep dogs and people away.

They both had their cells.

It was only a matter of waiting.

Time passed slowly for Frank out in the garage. He listened to the crickets singing and cars passing from time to time. There was little else. He was bored shitless by two a.m. Keith called him every half-hour, told him to keep vigilant. Told him not to smoke either, but Frank had broken that rule out of sheer boredom. Besides, the smell of smoke hadn’t bothered the tree-hopper before.

Why would it now?

So he waited and waited and his eyelids got heavy and he felt himself dozing off, wondering when the next time he’d get laid might be. It probably wouldn’t be anytime soon now that he was associating with Keith. Shelly just couldn’t tolerate him. She was stubborn and she wouldn’t give the guy a chance, which was just wrong—

Something roused Frank to full wakefulness.

He sat up straight and rigid, his heart pounding.

He could see the garbage cans.

He could see some dark and shadowy form digging through them. It looked like a little man, but heavy, stocky, powerful. Frank brought his gun up and the thing stopped, turned in his direction. It made a low growling sound in its throat.

Frank took aim.

And it was gone.

It went right up the side of the garage. In fact, it leaped up to the roof. And fast, quicker than quick. Frank went after it, shotgun in hand. He shined the flashlight up there, saw only a blur, a hopping and leaping form jumping from the garage roof and into the back yard.

He could see the bear traps. They were sprung. That’s probably what had woken him up. That sonofabitch had jammed sticks into them. It had known. Somehow, it had known.

The cell phone jingled.

The still cameras were flashing.

Frank came running around the side of the garage. He saw Keith standing there. He saw the ape bearing down on him before he could even react. It bowled him right over and went bounding up into the trees.

But the worst part was that it took Keith with it.

It carried the dazed man like a rag doll.

Before Frank could do anything, it was already in the trees and he could hear it jumping from limb to limb in the night. He tried to follow, to track it, but then it was just gone.

And he was alone.

7

Shelly didn’t believe a word of it.

Or so she said.

She acted pissed-off. So pissed that she packed-up Margaret the next morning and took her off to her mother’s just like some incensed woman in an old movie. Said she’d be back when Frank came to his senses.

Which left Frank alone against the world.

Thanks, Shelly, he thought. When things get tough, you run.

He realized the right thing to do was to go to the police…but what could he tell them? That a fucking mystery ape, a cryptid, abducted Keith and jumped up in the trees with him? Christ. They’d laugh. Then they’d tear Frank’s life apart trying to get at some darker truth they would be certain he was concealing. Shelly would never come back. She’d make certain that he’d never get to see Margaret. Word would get around. People would never look at him the same way again. He’d be ostracized. He’d probably end up losing his job.

No, no goddamn way I’m going to the cops with this. Maybe I’m concealing a crime, but I think Keith would understand. I know he would.

He packed-up all of the equipment and put it in Keith’s van. He drove the van to Keith’s house and parked it in the drive. Keith lived out in the sticks, so nobody saw him do it. It had to be that way. Because if Keith didn’t show up, there was going to be an investigation and Frank did not want to be part of it. They’d lock him away if he told the truth.

On the off-chance, he checked out Keith’s house.

Silent, empty. All those books and papers waiting for him to return, nothing more. Frank downloaded the video and still images to disk in case he needed evidence at some point. Filled with grief and terror, he walked back into town.

8

It was nearly midnight when it started again.

Frank was in the living room, sitting there with a Budweiser between his legs and the .410 in his arms. He did not know what the tree-hopper was. He did not know where it had come from or how it lived or how it fit into the natural scheme of things. All he knew is that it had taken Keith, probably killed him, and that if it showed, he was going to waste it. No hesitation this time.

Then, just before the witching hour, he got his chance.

It was a warm night and the windows were open, June bugs tapped at the screens from time to time. Suddenly, there was a crashing in the trees above. If you weren’t paying attention, maybe laying in bed and drifting off, you could have mistaken it for the wind playing through the boughs. But if you were awake and waiting like Frank, you’d know better. Such a sound was thunder. Like a body shot through the trees with a cannon.

Frank was instantly alert and ready to rumble.

He hoped the beast was making for the garbage, because he had that covered. He’d gone to the grocery store earlier, asked if they had any rotting fruit, veggies, that sort of thing. Claimed he needed it to bait a skunk trap up at his camp. They went for it. He took that awful-smelling stuff home—apples and oranges, heads of lettuce and bags of soft tomatoes—and, using the syringe from his printer cartridge refiller kit, shot the works full of Decon rat poison.

Strychnine.

My gift to you.

He put everything in individual plastic bags, figuring if the ape was smart, it would take the bags with it, back to its lair.

He heard the cans rattling out back.

He dashed out onto the porch, hid himself in the hedges.

The tree-hopper came bounding over the roof of the garage, carrying five or six bags of the bait. Smart bastard. It leaped from the roof and into the grass. It froze up right there. Frank could hear it breathing low and hard, making wet, smacking sounds. Slowly, it began to move in the direction of the trees.

Frank came running out with the shotgun.

The beast was fast, but not fast enough.

Frank cut off its advance before it could reach the trees. It let out a low, bestial roar that made the hair on the back of his neck stand-up. It was like the howl of a big mountain cat. More than one light came on in the neighborhood.

The tree-hopper dropped its goodies.

Moving in a slow, easy, side-to-side motion, it came at Frank. Maybe it was smart, but it didn’t know shit about guns and what they could do. But it was about to find out. It moved like a gorilla, a massive, muscular thing no more than four feet in height, but with long arms and a head that went to a conical point. It was covered in shaggy, red-brown fur.

Frank couldn’t see its face.

He didn’t want to.

He saw the moonlight reflecting off its teeth and that was enough.

It sprang at him and he pulled the trigger a second too late.

A load of buckshot chewed bark from the trunk of one of the oaks, but did not hit its target. The creature rammed into Frank like a battering ram, knocked him on his ass and started climbing up the side of the house.

It moved so easily.

Finding handholds in the siding where there were no handholds. It shimmied up the side of the house and made the roof in what seemed seconds. Frank grabbed his shotgun and went after it. The ladder was still leaning against the house.

He was no longer afraid of heights.

The thrill of the chase, the kill, had overwhelmed him now.

He practically ran up the ladder. He found the roof and pulled himself up. He knew he had to bag the beast before it reached one of those tree limbs or all was lost. He commando-crawled over the shingles and paused.

Listened.

Countless generations of instinct were channeled through him via racial memory. He was a hunter. He was a killer. The beast was savage, but it was not as smart as he was. Something in him wanted to let out a shriek at the thrill of it all, but stealth was necessary.

The gun cradled in his arms, Frank waited, clinging to the roof like a dragonfly, ready, ready, just waiting.

But it was quiet.

Deadly quiet.

He could hear wind in the trees, felt it ruffle his hair. A dog barked in the distance. He could hear people talking on porches, drawn out now by the shotgun blast.

Frank knew it hadn’t escaped.

Cat-and-mouse.

He sucked in a sharp breath, slid the .410 into position. His blood was filled with electricity, his heart hammering. He could smell and hear and taste everything. He had never been so perfectly alive.

The chimney.

Limned by starlight, the tree-hopper was hiding behind it.

Time to flush it out.

Frank could see the tree limbs. The tree-hopper would have to cross twelve, fifteen feet of open roof to make them. No way. Not this time. He brought up the rifle.

The beast came vaulting through the air.

It struck Frank and sent him rolling. He felt the lip of the roof coming and was powerless to stop it. He flipped over the edge with a scream, his fingers clawing out madly and catching a shingle, only to feel it tear under his weight and he was going down…or would have, but his fingers found the rain gutter and clutched. The whole thing rattled and lurched, but held.

Frank dangled there by one arm.

The shotgun was still in his other hand.

Something in him would not let it drop.

The beast crept down the angle of the roof effortlessly. It could not fall. It could not trip. Nature had designed it so that such things were an impossibility. Thinking it had him, it came down, crouching above him.

Frank could see its face.

Not simian exactly, but suggestive of an ape. More like an ape skull than a monkey face—a bony and jutting expanse of black, leathery flesh with a flattened nose and yellow teeth that were made for puncturing and shredding. But its eyes, small and bright, were intelligent, curious.

It reached down to Frank and Frank screamed.

It rose up, roaring.

Frank swung the shotgun up in a perfect arc and pulled the trigger. The chamber explosion turned night to day and a volley of buckshot hit the beast in the chest and knocked it back four feet.

Then it curled into a shuddering ball, rolling end over end past Frank and off the roof. He could hear it land below in a loose, boneless heap. No grace this time. The shingles were wet with blood and snagged with bits of flesh and fur.

Then the gutter tore free from the house and down went Frank.

He landed about six feet from the dead tree-hopper, his ankle going like a pistol shot. The beast was dead. It was limp and furry and coiled obscenely as if it had tried to compress itself in its death throes.

People were shouting somewhere.

Cars were coming.

Frank didn’t know where the shotgun was.

And that was too bad, because broken and beaten and sweat-covered there in the grass, he saw two more tree-hoppers descend from the oaks. They came right at him, stared at him with something he was sure was hatred. Raw, unflinching hatred.

Then the bigger one scooped-up the fallen beast, threw it over its shoulder and went up into the trees. The other one—much smaller, maybe a child—grabbed the bags of dropped bait and followed.

Falling back into the grass, Frank grinned, thinking, have lunch on me, you bastards.

Then people were coming.

But Frank didn’t wait for them. Thinking of Keith, he passed clean out.

Antibody

Renee Miller

“I heard it only infects poor people.” The woman said to her companion.

As she shifted in her seat, the scent of vanilla and cigarettes penetrated the subway car’s usual aroma of body odor and sausage. Mason wasn’t sure which nauseated him more.

“Don’t be absurd,” her friend said. “Viruses don’t work like that.”

“You see any rich people dying?”

“It started in the government, Janice. Remember the entire Senate was sick. Last time I checked, not many of them were poor.”

“Bet it’s the Republicans behind it. Or!” Janice leaned close to her friend, but her whisper was about as quiet as a freight train. “Space virus. You know people started getting sick right after that shuttle crashed. Well, they said it was a shuttle. Notice how we saw it go down, but no one got any pictures of it? That seemed odd.”

“Now you’re saying it’s aliens?”

He resisted the urge to chuckle.

“No, I’m saying it’s possible the government brought something back from space. More likely they’re getting rid of the lower class, though. Space viruses would be tough to cover up.”

“It’s worldwide, Janice. The president’s hand only reaches so far.”

“Maybe they’re all in on it.”

“You’re certifiable.”

Mason closed his eyes. The women continued to chatter, but he focused on the hum of the train instead. Everyone was talking about the virus. He was tired of hearing about it. Sure, it’d killed a few people, but there was always something out there killing them off. Natural Selection.

When the first cluster of cases appeared, and all but one person died from the virus, the government offered free flu shots for anyone willing to stand in line at free clinics for four hours to get one. Mason never went. If the flu was going to kill him, so be it. The vaccine didn’t do much good in the end. People dropped like flies in a cloud of hairspray (it really does make a decent insecticide) in the first few weeks, but then infection slowed. Clusters of infection still appeared randomly, but they were quickly contained.

Or the government kept most of it quiet. Mason realized the president hadn’t spoken about it publicly, nor had any health agency. In fact, all had been unusually quiet, considering a deadly virus was killing people all over the world.

“Whole office last week.” The woman next to him told her companion. “I heard they found them all dead except one of the secretaries. Carl says she was infected, but went to work anyway. The fever made her lose her damn mind. Started eating everyone’s face or something. Guess it was a terrible sight.”

“Awful. Glad I got vaccinated.”

“Me too.”

He stared at them. Janice was a forty-something soccer-mom-type, while her companion appeared slightly younger, without the severe hairstyle. She played with her phone, scrolling down the screen. Looked like Facebook, but he wasn’t sure. Didn’t care.

“Oh dear,” she said. “My cousin died.”

“Infection?”

“Heart attack.”

“Probably caused by the virus. My neighbor had a stroke when he got infected. Then he ate his dog.”

“I hope you moved.”

“He’s dead. It’s a good neighborhood otherwise.”

When did humanity get so dumb? Maybe they’d always been that way. If he believed in God, he’d say this was the big guy’s way of erasing his mistakes.

The train stopped and the doors opened. Mason glanced at the sign across from him. Thank God. Only two more stops and he was close enough to home to walk. Tomorrow he was driving into work. No more of this public transit bullshit. Screw the environment.

Several people boarded the already packed car. Mason’s eye, though, was drawn to two gray-skinned men, both sporting horrific blisters on their faces. They wore scrubs, but their feet were bare, which seemed odd. It was the New York subway system, though. Odd was normal down there.

The men walked up to an elderly couple as the doors closed and the train started moving again. The one closest to Mason reached for the old man. His heart picked up its pace as the man jammed his fingers into the old man’s eyes. Blood sprayed the pale blue scrubs. He dug his fingers in and then yanked. Mason gagged as vomit stung his throat. The old man screamed while his attacker popped the eyeballs into his mouth. The occupants of the car seemed dumbstruck. No one moved. He would bet no one even breathed.

The other gray man grabbed the old woman’s head and twisted it so hard, he heard the crunch of bones in her neck.

He stood, but had no idea what he might do. The men turned to the next person on the car. While one held the thirty-something man in a blue suit, the other bit into his throat. Three down. Mason wasn’t stupid. It was only a matter of time before they killed everyone.

If they didn’t, the packed car would soon turn into a mindless mob and those rarely turned out well for innocent bystanders.

A man wearing a leather jacket rushed at the gray men, but he was quickly subdued as they went at him with teeth and nails. Then a woman in a red skirt and blazer jumped on the back of one of them, but the gray man ran backward, slamming her into the doors. She sank to the floor like a bag of wet laundry.

Mason yanked on the emergency brake. When the doors opened, he bolted, followed by what sounded like a stampede of screaming elephants. Sure, it was a pussy thing to do, but he had no idea how to fight a guy who plucked out fucking eyeballs with his bare hands.

He turned right, away from the crowd and into a hallway marked Employees Only.

“Halt. Lie on the ground.” A male voice echoed somewhere behind him. “You will not be harmed. Everyone on the ground.”

Mason stopped running and leaned against the stone wall. The crowd still screamed. Again the voice called for them to stop and lay on the floor. His skin tingled. The lights flickered and then everything went dark. He counted three breaths before the lights came on again.

“I repeat,” the voice said. “Lie on the ground and you will not be harmed.”

The sounds of the panicked crowd continued.

A loud noise, like a firecracker, but he knew better, made his ears ring. Guns. Three shots, four, and then so many he couldn’t count. He risked a glance around the edge of the hallway. Several bodies lay on the ground. A few people still scurried about, but they fell rapidly. At least six men in white suits walked through the crowd. They were taller than most men by at least a foot, and the helmets they wore made their heads seem three times as large. One turned toward Mason. He froze.

Three bluish lights shone through the visor of his helmet, giving the illusion of a trio of eyes staring right at him.

The illusion?

“Jesus.” Mason slipped back into the shadows. He glanced to his left. There were two doors at the end of the hall, both unmarked. He rushed to the first. A quick turn of the knob told him it was locked. He held his breath and walked to the other door. The handle turned. He pushed it open and then slipped inside.

Stairs. Praying they led outside, he sprinted upward.

* * *

The streets were only a fraction less chaotic than the subway. Mason rushed toward home, keeping away from the road. Cars sat in the middle of intersections, lights on, doors open. He’d believe the owners abandoned them, if not for the blood covering some of the windows and interiors. Uniformed men chased civilians on the sidewalks, guns drawn. Somewhere in the distance, he heard gunshots and more screams.

What the fuck was happening? One minute the virus was “under control” and clusters dealt with quickly. Infection was a possibility, but no alarms had been raised. Now he was living World War Z.

No. These were not zombies. They were living, breathing people with a virus. They died just like anyone else when you shot, stabbed or ran them over with a car. And then they stayed dead. That they looked like zombies was just a terrifying side effect.

He tried to walk as fast as possible without running. If he ran, someone might notice him, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Something moved at the edge of his vision. Mason jumped away from the building, risking a look through the heavy glass of a bridal shop. The mannequins, dressed for the most important day of their lives, lay on the floor. The white dress on the female was spotted with crimson. She lay over the male mannequin, whose tuxedo was missing its pants.

A woman stared back at him through the glass. Her face was gray like the men on the subway. Angry red blisters marred what was once a pretty face. Blood covered her chin and chest. Head tilted to the side, she put a hand on the glass.

Mason scurried away.

What the fuck?

A siren squawked twice. It was close, but he couldn’t see the car. A new voice echoed into the night. This one was also male, but it was softer, more soothing than the angry man shouting orders in the subway.

“Mandatory curfew is in effect,” it said. “Patrols will continue until daylight. Anyone on the streets after seven o’clock will be arrested.”

He turned left. His house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, flanked by two small apartment buildings and a row of townhouses. It had been his grandmother’s house. The only reason it still stood, despite the development around it, was that it was at the end of a dead end street, on a patch of land she insisted was too tiny to be of use to the city. She escaped development, and left the fruits of her stubbornness to her only grandchild.

He saw the familiar shadow of the apartment buildings and the urge to run almost overwhelmed him. The voice continued behind him, warning people that action would be taken if they didn’t obey the curfew. Just thirty feet or so. He could see his house now. Maybe now he should run.

“Sir,” a woman’s voice called. “Help me. Please.”

Mason didn’t want to stop. He shouldn’t. Still, he found himself turning. A tall woman with dark hair drawn back from her face limped toward him. She held her neck with one hand, the other reached toward Mason.

In the shadows of the early evening, she appeared normal. No blisters on her face and a healthy pink tone to her skin. He continued to walk backward. “What’s wrong?”

“They attacked me,” she said. “I need help.”

“Who?”

“Men. Three of them.”

He should help. Get her to a hospital. She could be infected, though. He didn’t need that shit. “Were they infected?”

“I don’t think so.” She limped forward, slowly closing the distance between them. His house had to be maybe five feet away. Ten at the most. He could just turn and run. Leave her there.

“Just stay where you are,” he said. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Aren’t you going to help me?” She didn’t stop.

Mason swallowed the lump of guilt that dared block his throat. No. She was dangerous. “There’s a hospital two blocks over. I’m just a lawyer. No good with medical shit. Don’t even know first aid.”

“Please,” she whispered, lowering her hand. Blood oozed from a jagged gash near her collarbone. It covered her neck and the collar of her once white blouse. “I’m hurt. Can’t run. I’ll die out here.”

He glanced at her legs. She wore black pants and one shoe. It was sensible. Black. Flat. Probably a nice woman. Still, she had what could be bite marks on her neck and her somewhat pink complexion turned grayer every second. The right pant leg was also torn. Probably another wound. No blisters on her face, though. Didn’t they say it wasn’t contagious without the blisters? No. Not contagious until signs of infection showed, which took…twenty-four hours. Or forty-eight. Something like that. Why hadn’t he paid more attention?

He supposed he could get his car. Take her to the hospital. She needed help and probably wouldn’t hurt him. She wasn’t crazy yet. No blisters. The blisters were the sign to look for. That much he knew. Gray skin might be a sign. Still, she was just been attacked. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours was the window. She’d be what? Maybe a couple of hours at most.

Unless she was infected before the men attacked her. Maybe that’s why they did it. Tried to get rid of her before she became a bloodthirsty not-zombie-but-disturbingly-close-to-one. Maybe she infected them. Breathed on them or something. Nah, if it was airborne, then everyone would be sick.

Mason hadn’t read anything after the clusters of infection had slowed. He didn’t know if the virus was airborne or had to be passed in bodily fluids. Shut in a car with her, he might be infected just breathing the same air. If it wasn’t airborne, she could easily bite him, scratch him…lick him, whatever.

He should help her, but he had to protect himself first. Didn’t make him a horrible person if he just walked away. Made him smart. Cruel, but smart.

Survival of the fittest.

“Sorry,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

“Just for the night.” She begged. “I’ll go to the hospital in the morning. I’m so tired.”

Mason backed away. He felt the curb, and then the cushion of grass. His yard. “Sorry.”

He turned and sprinted toward his house. As he neared the front porch, he remembered the door was locked. Key under the mat. Fuck. The sounds of her shuffling were close behind him. She made a strange squeal-groan noise. Mason ran around the side of the house and into the backyard. As he sprinted, he heard her raspy, gurgling breaths. The back door was locked too, but only with a flimsy chain on the inside. He never turned the deadbolt.

“Stop.” She called. “Ssss…”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Mason opened the screen door. He took a breath and slammed his shoulder into the interior door. It didn’t move. One more time. He turned the knob, stepped back, and then threw his shoulder into the wood again.

The weight of the screen door disappeared. Mason didn’t turn. He rammed the door one more time and it gave way. Stumbling inside, he tried to close it behind him, but she was too fast. She pushed inside, still limping. Her yellow-tinged eyes seemed a little less feverish.

Dead…

He ran toward the sink, where the butcher block was nestled next to the refrigerator. His hands shook as he felt for the handles in the darkness. Finally, he found the knives. He yanked one out, but felt heavy hands on his back.

“Get away.” He ordered, turning to face her.

She rasped, her breath a hot, sour breeze on his face. “Help.”

Mason’s throat closed. Tears burned his eyes. He couldn’t kill her. Wasn’t her fault she was sick. They’d put him in jail. Life probably, although maybe under the circumstances they’d buy his self-defense story. It was self-defense. The woman was half his size, though. Wounded. Sick. He could just push her away. No need for the knife. So he’d get some jail time.

Christ, does it matter?

“Hhhhh…” she breathed, lunging at him.

Mason reached out with his left hand, keeping the knife in his right, to shove her away. She turned her face and bit into his left arm, just above the elbow.

“Ow! Fuck.”

A snarl and the searing pain of her teeth sinking into his muscle. He shook his arm, but she held on. Christ, she was like a fucking Rottweiler. He pushed at her head, slammed the handle of the knife into her temple, but still, she held on.

No choice. Do it.

The voice in his head sounded terrified. Of course it was. He was going to die, whether he stopped her or not. No way he wasn’t infected now. Fucking bitch.

Mason yanked his arm back. She let go, but only long enough to latch onto his hand.

He heard himself scream, but it was like he floated somewhere outside his body. The knife felt hot in his other hand. He watched himself raise it above her head. As he drove it into the side of her neck, he closed his eyes for a heartbeat.

She staggered backward, making a gurgling sound. Though she looked right at him, Mason didn’t believe she saw anything. He ran at her, pushing her out the open door. She fell back, stumbling toward the end of the small porch and then to the ground. Mason slammed the door closed. His hand shook as he turned the deadbolt. Blood smeared the metal knob. He realized her blood covered his hands. Or his own blood. Both. Mixed.

Infected.

Outside, the woman screamed. His heart pounded against his chest. Still holding the knife, Mason looked around the kitchen. She’d try to get in again. Finish the job. The lock wouldn’t hold forever.

He pulled the stove from the wall, and then pushed it toward the door. Satisfied it was tight against the worn wood, Mason sat on the old vinyl chairs he’d always hated. He didn’t put the knife down, but rested his face in his hands. The wooden handle pressed against his forehead. A sob choked his throat. What kind of pussy stabbed a sick woman and then cried about it?

Your kind of pussy. Fucking coward.

His arm burned, as did the palm of his left hand.

Clean the wounds.

Right. Get rid of her saliva. He might not get infected if he was quick about it.

Mason stood on shaky legs and then walked to the bathroom. His head spun, but he felt okay otherwise. Shock, probably. Couldn’t be infected yet. Shock could make a person want to hurl his lunch. Sure, it could. Did all kinds of weird shit to people.

Not infected yet.

In the bathroom, he turned on the light and stood in front of the small cabinet above the sink. He was pale, but saw no signs of grayness in his reflection. Mason opened the cabinet, revealing the shelves inside. He took the bottle of rubbing alcohol from the top shelf and fumbled with the cap.

Taking a breath, he poured the clear liquid over his hand. “Christ,” he growled as his flesh burned. His arm throbbed, reminding him of the more serious wound above his elbow. He shrugged out of his jacket and then pulled his shirt over his head.

The wound wasn’t too bad, just the outline of her teeth surrounded by an angry redness. It bled, but not as much as he thought it would. He poured alcohol over the wound, and closed his eyes as it burned into the mangled flesh. Taking several breaths, Mason poured the alcohol over the wound again. This time it stung, but the intensity of the pain had lessened. He poured the alcohol over his hand again. That one still hurt like a bitch.

Sitting on the toilet, Mason let the alcohol do its job. He stared at the wall. God, he was tired.

He fell asleep at some point, although he didn’t recall when. One second he sat on the toilet, the next he stared up at the ceiling of his bathroom. A thousand tiny needles stabbed at his brain.

Infected.

The voice in his head annoyed him. He recalled rising, falling, and then crawling to the living room. Blackness claimed him one more time, but not for long. The voice in his brain urged him to wake. To clean the wound. He ignored it, but did get up off the floor. As the sun rose, Mason sat in his grandmother’s recliner, watching the windows slowly brighten. Outside, sirens squawked. The sound was like a sledgehammer against his head. He’d never seen a dawn as bright.

Get away from the windows.

The voice was right. The windows were bad. Vulnerable. Old glass broke easily, right? He should’ve had them replaced like he intended. Several times in the night, he heard a pounding on his back door. He waited for the sound of breaking glass, but it never came. He listened to the sounds of gunfire, screams, and then nothing on a never-ending loop.

Something churned in his stomach, dragging his mind from its distorted thoughts. Before he could make sense of the sensation, vomit spewed from his mouth to his lap and onto the carpet his grandmother loved so much. That’d be a bitch to clean, he thought.

Yank it out. Go with hardwood. Cleaner. Clean the wounds. Get rid of infection.

Mason sat for a moment, inhaling the putrid odor of his infected vomit, and then rose. He had to clean the wounds again.

His head felt thick and foggy. His limbs like anchors. Still, he managed to make it to the bathroom. Once more his stomach churned. This time he got most of the vomit into the bathroom sink. Strangely, he felt kind of hungry.

Infected.

His stomach threatened to revolt again. Gasping, he reached for the bottle of rubbing alcohol. It was half empty now. He poured a small amount over his hand. Funny, it didn’t sting anymore. Slightly optimistic, he poured some over the wound above his elbow. Nothing there either. Maybe the infection was gone.

A gurgling in his belly. Mason retched, spilling more greenish fluid into the sink. Why was it green? He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. Shouldn’t have much left in there.

Infected. Clean it.

His brain seemed to know what was what. Mason listened to the words in his head. His hand no longer hurt, nor did his arm. No infection. But his stomach was another story. Green meant infection.

He looked at the bottle in his hand.

Clean it. Get rid of the infection.

Mason put the bottle of rubbing alcohol to his lips and then tipped it back.

The liquid burned past his throat and into his belly. He gagged, but kept drinking until it was gone.

Slowly, the burning in his gut stopped. Good. That was good.

All clean now.

He felt dizzy. His legs felt like jelly. Setting the empty bottle on the edge of the sink, Mason sank to the floor.

* * *

The doorbell rang. He heard it in his dream first, but as he opened his eyes, Mason realized it was real. Someone was at the front door. He looked around the bathroom. God, it smelled foul. Crawling to the door, he heard the bell ring again. Several times. Jesus, did people not realize it was the crack of fucking dawn?

“Curfew is in effect.” A voice said outside. “Anyone on the street will be apprehended.”

“Hello?” another voice called. “Anyone home?”

The doorbell again. Fuckers. Mason still crawled as he headed toward the living room. He saw a shadow. Two actually. One was dark, but he recognized the cap of a police uniform. Beside that one was a taller shadow, bulkier, with something on its back. The head was all wrong. Too big. Three blue lights shone through the filmy curtains.

Mason backed out of the living room. They’d see he was sick if he let them in. Then they’d shoot him. Wouldn’t understand he dealt with it. Cleaned the infection. God, why was his brain so hot?

He crawled toward the kitchen. As he cleared the doorway, a loud thump sounded from the living room. They were breaking the door down. He hurried, though his legs refused to let him stand. On his hands and knees, he scurried like the piece of shit coward he was.

Hide.

He felt the crack in the linoleum where the hatch that opened to reveal the cellar stairs was hidden. He pried the floor up. Christ, it wasn’t this heavy last time he opened it.

Mason found it difficult to breathe. A weight settled into his chest. His head spun, but he used every ounce of strength to lift the floor. He saw the stairs, and shimmied through the opening. As he pulled the hatch closed, he heard the splintering of wood.

They were inside.

* * *

Mason never turned his lights on and kept to the shadows. He’d learned after the first sweep to lay low. Be quiet. Stay inside, on the ground. No lights. No television. No flushing of toilets or running of showers. Do nothing to attract the attention of the armed men in white suits patrolling the streets for infected bodies.

Whatever he’d had three weeks before, it was gone. His hand and arm still bore the scars, the wounds all but healed, but his body and mind were sound. He was okay. Still, they’d see the scars and believe he was infected.

Then they’d shoot him like they shot all of them.

His neighbors, the Casterly’s, tried to hide their daughter last week. He saw her in the windows though, stringy hair, gray skin, festering blisters on her cheeks, and so had the armed men when they did their daily sweep.

Every day they came, white suits on, giant faceless things protected from whatever it was that plagued the city, and pulled out anyone showing signs of infection. Clearly, Mason thought, they had no experience dealing with a terrified populace. Instead of trying to calm everyone down, they stalked them. If they saw signs of illness, that was it. Bullet to the head. No questions. No taking anyone to a hospital to confirm they were in fact infected with the strange virus that made people into almost unstoppable murder machines. Just shoot. End of story.

His street was empty now. No one left. Yesterday the white-suited men evacuated the apartment building to the right of him and the townhouses, though most of those neighbors were already dead.

Everyone cooperated. They really didn’t have much choice.

The white suits shot eight of them. The rest were put into a large van and taken away. Mason didn’t know where. He didn’t dare turn on the television to find out. Any noise would be a sign of life. A sign of life would bring the white suits. He wanted to be forgotten.

Occasionally the infected found him. It was like they smelled fresh, healthy blood. He’d hear them pounding on his door, on his windows, and then the white suits came and shot them. He hid in the cellar when they came. Now and then they’d search his house, making sure it was as empty as the last time. He was getting low on food, though. Would have to raid the neighbor’s kitchen again. He’d done it once before, after they cleared the townhouses. But he’d been afraid, and only took a few cans of peaches, one box of raisin bran cereal, and a few packages of hamburger from a surprisingly barren freezer. The hamburger was pointless, as cooking might draw attention. It remained in his freezer. Useless.

When the white suits left for the day, and the sun went down, he’d explore a little more. Now he knew their pattern. He was safe outside once the sun went down. Well, safe from the white suits anyway.

* * *

The air felt cool on his face. Mason breathed several gulps of air before he snuck along the perimeter of his yard toward the townhouses. He heard the distant sound of sirens, always sirens, but nothing moved on the street.

His hand throbbed, which seemed odd. It hadn’t bothered him for at least a week. Rubbing the almost healed wound, he ran toward the back of the townhouses. The front door of each was marked with a large orange X. That meant they’d evacuated and shot or relocated the residents. No one was inside.

His door had the same X, so he’d be careful. He might not be the only one smart enough to hide from the white suits.

Mason tried three doors before finding one that was unlocked. Each townhouse had a patio door facing a pretty but small courtyard. A few square feet of grass bordering a cobblestone patio. Cute, but generic. He slipped inside the door, taking one last look for moving shadows before closing it behind him.

The house smelled. Rotten food, probably. He made his way through the dark living area and toward the kitchen. It was small, with only enough space to move through to the dining room on the other side. He pulled the plastic bag from his back pocket and then opened the white cabinets.

A few cans of soup, some boxed mac and cheese, and several cans of mixed fruit. What was it with his neighbors and canned fruit? Mason put every can into his bag, but left the mac and cheese. No cooking. He turned to the fridge. Glancing toward the front of the house, he opened it. The light was too bright. He’d have to be quick.

Inside the fridge he found very little. Expired carton of milk. A bottle of orange juice. The label gave it three days before expiration. Mason put it in his almost full bag. He glanced at the door. Cheese slices, some liquefied salad in a bag. Gross.

On the bottom shelf was a bottle of vodka.

He took it.

After closing the refrigerator, Mason crept toward the back door again. He had his hand on the glass when someone cleared their throat. His balls quivered.

“I wondered when you’d venture outside,” a man said.

Mason put his hand on the door handle and then turned. “Who are you?”

From the shadows, a white suit appeared. Through the helmet, he could make out the outline of a face, a familiar trio of blue lights, but nothing more. “You’ve eluded us for a while. Mason, is it?”

How did they know his name? He pulled the door. “I’m not infected. You can leave me alone.”

“You were bitten, though. I can see the scar on your hand.”

“I was but I’m fine. I won’t bother anyone.”

“It’s not safe out here by yourself. Let us help you.”

“Fuck off.” Mason opened the door and jumped outside. He ran a few feet before skidding to a halt. Three more white suits stood at the edge of the cobblestones, guns pointed at him.

“Mason,” the other white suit said from behind him. “We only want to help. Please, don’t make this ugly.”

“Like you helped my neighbors?” He searched for an escape, but the yards were fenced on three sides. No way out but through the white suits holding the guns. “I watched everything. Saw everything.”

“We thought it was the only way.”

“Well, if you thought, then I guess that’s fine.”

“We didn’t realize if you survived, you became immune. If we’d known, we’d have taken a different approach. Please, Mason. Let us take you to safety.”

He heard his heart pounding, the sound echoing in his ears. He couldn’t let them take him. He’d been infected. That meant a bullet.

But they haven’t fired.

The thought calmed him a little bit. He’d seen them shoot without discussion before. Never once had they tried to reason with their victims. Maybe the white suits wanted to help.

“I’m fine here.” He insisted. “No one’s left. I won’t bother anyone.”

“You must come with us. We need you.”

“For what?”

“A cure.”

He stared at the three white suits facing him. No one moved. No one said a word. Only the one behind him had permission to speak, apparently. He did hate living in fear. Hiding every day, wondering when they’d find him. Wondering why he lived when so many died. If he went with them, he’d no longer be hiding.

His muscles suddenly felt tired. Mason dropped the bag in his hand. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Good boy.”

“Can you tell them to put their guns away?”

“No,” the white suit sounded amused. “I’m afraid we can’t. It’s the only way.”

Mason blinked. One of the white suits fired his gun. Something stung his belly. He felt a strange spinning in his head, the release of his bladder warmed his thighs, and then he saw the sky.

* * *

He woke in a white room. White walls. White ceiling. White lights. It was quiet, except for the beeping of a machine. Mason blinked the sleep from his eyes. He tried to rub his face, but his arm wouldn’t move. He looked to his right and then his left, panic digging its icy fingers into his chest.

He was almost vertical, strapped to some type of board. The white leather straps circled his stomach, his knees, ankles and shoulders. An IV line ran from each wrist, and something pressed against his forehead. He looked toward the wall, a row of windows actually, and saw no door.

“Help,” he said, though his voice was hoarse. “Someone?”

A rustling sound and then a white suit beside him. It said nothing as it injected the contents of a syringe into his IV. Mason struggled, but darkness clouded his consciousness once more.

He remembered little and had no idea how much time had passed before he regained consciousness again. The white suits came in and out, he remembered. He was never allowed to fully wake, though.

“Mason?” he heard a familiar voice in his dreams. “I know you’re awake.”

Mason licked his lips. Fuck, his throat was so dry. “Where am I?”

He didn’t recognize his voice. It sounded so frail.

“You’re somewhere safe.”

Strapped to a board with sedatives pumped into him like water?

Not safe.

“You’ve been a great help.” The white suit said. “Already we’ve learned so much about your kind.”

“Kind?” he managed.

“Humans.”

Must be dreaming. Mason willed himself awake, but he remained in the white room, strapped to the board. He turned his head. The white suit stood near the row of windows. In front of him, a bag of blood.

He tried to move his arms, but only managed to turn his wrists. “What are you doing to me?”

“Your blood contains an antibody that we need to survive on this planet. It could also help save what remains of this planet’s population if we can synthesize a vaccine. I promise the sacrifice you’ve made will be known.”

“The what?”

“Only a handful have the antibody in their blood. Sadly, we need as much as we can get. The only way to know who has it is to infect them. We never imagined humans would be so frail, though. Pity.”

“Frail…what?”

“It’s regretful that humans need most of their blood to live. We had to decide what was best for the majority. Since humans are no longer the majority…”

“Please. I’m so thirsty.”

“It won’t be long now.”

Wait, he said humans, like he wasn’t human. “Why are you talking like you’re an alien or something?”

Whispers. “Yes, alien means being from another planet.” The white suit said. “We are aliens to Earth. We didn’t want to hurt your people. How were we to know the pathogen we infected you with was too much for your bodies to tolerate?”

“Infected…” he remembered now. Sort of.

“We were wrong. I apologize for the suffering.”

“So, you’re aliens. Seriously?” Nothing this man said made sense.

“Yes, although the adaptation to your atmosphere could be temporary. Only time will tell. Best to keep a few of you around, I said. That’s why we contained the infection and rescued part of the population. You’d think you creatures would be at least a little grateful, but no. Not really.”

“What?” The guy was a lunatic.

“I won’t bore you with the details. What matters is that you know we appreciate your sacrifice.”

“I don’t care.” He wanted out of there. He wanted to go back to sleep.

“We will vaccinate the survivors. Healthy bodies full of the right kind of blood.”

“I don’t feel healthy.” Mason’s brain felt like it was drowning in a thick soup. He licked his lips again. So thirsty.

“You’re not infected, but I suppose you’re not in top form. Sorry about that. On the bright side, the virus is all but eradicated. Soon, the breeding can begin.”

“Bree—you’re insane.”

“Thank you for your sacrifice, Mason.” The white suit said. “It will be known.”

Mason tried to speak, but couldn’t. Something burned his arm, and then his thigh. He looked down. A tube protruded from his leg, dark fluid filled it and then poured from the end into a large basin.

Blood.

That’s your blood.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Your sacrifice will be known.

* * *

“Is that the last of them?” a voice asked.

Mason saw nothing, but the voices continued.

Something touched his head. “So soft. I do like these humans.” He remembered the voice. It haunted him even in death. “They are like infants, without the nasty temperament. We must find more like my friend. It is imperative we continue harvesting the right blood.”

“Everyone has been treated. We no longer need the suits to breathe their air. That was our goal.”

“And there are at least a thousand more at home who will require treatment when they arrive.”

“But there aren’t enough.” The new voice said. “We must breed from the remnants, let them grow, and then we can infect again. I told you it would be a slow process. Human reproduction is ridiculously time-consuming. Gestation alone lasts several moons and the offspring require years of growth before they’re strong enough for infection.”

The familiar voice sighed. “I know. Begin again. I will tell the others to wait.” He touched Mason’s neck. “His heart still beats.”

“I am impressed.”

“Such a strong constitution will be useful in the new batch. Patch him up. Give him the blood you salvaged from the basement. If he survives, we may use him for breeding.”

“He will not survive. If he does, his blood may no longer contain the antibody.”

The hand still stroked Mason’s head. “Oh yes it will. It remains, even with transfusion. Remember the girl? If you hadn’t shot her, she’d have been a good host for his offspring. Two are better than one.”

“She stabbed me with a pen.”

“You are twice her size.”

“Still. It hurt.”

“Well, Mason will live. He’s strong. If he does begin to expire, put him on life support and extract the liquid from his genitals like we did with the others. We have three females downstairs. Begin with them.”

“As you wish.”

“Perhaps breeding an antiviral human with a standard one will create offspring that already have the antibodies to the virus in their blood. Could synthesize a treatment from the blood of the offspring without waiting for them to mature. Would speed our timeline along. Be less messy as well.”

“Interesting hypothesis.”

“Let’s see it through. Oh, and be nice. I’m quite fond of him.”

Mason tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t. So thirsty and weak. He felt himself tilt backward. His throat hurt. Something touched his balls, and then whiteness enveloped his mind.

Your sacrifice will be known.

About the Editor

Shane Staley is a Bram Stoker Award winning editor and publisher. He is considered by many as one of the most influential editors and publishers of the modern era horror scene. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the legendary specialty press Delirium Books (1999-2012). Staley started his publishing career in 1995 with a ‘zine called The Darklands Project. Since then, he has published more than 300 books in his career and has been a part of launching some of the most important writing careers in the horror genre.

About the Authors

Jeremy Thompson is the fictionist responsible for The Phantom Cabinet (Necro Publications), a sci-fi-infused ghost novel that connects a haunted Southern California city to a soul-digesting afterlife. His stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Into the Darkness, Under the Bed, DarkFuse, Sanitarium, and Walk Hand in Hand into Extinction. A San Diego State University graduate, the author currently resides in Oceanside, California.

Jennifer Loring’s short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, webzines, and anthologies. In 2013, she won Crystal Lake Publishing’s inaugural Tales from the Lake writing competition; in 2014, DarkFuse published her novella Conduits, and in May 2015, Omnium Gatherum released her debut novel, Those of My Kind. Limitless Publishing published her latest novel, Firebird, in October 2015. Jennifer lives in Philadelphia, PA with her husband, their turtle, and two basset hounds.

Mike Thorn was born in Drayton Valley, Alberta. He is currently pursuing his M.A. in English literature at the University of Calgary. His fiction appeared recently in Turn to Ash and the anthology Creepy Campfire Stories (for Grownups).

T. G. Arsenault’s first novel, Forgotten Souls, was published by Five Star Publishing in 2005. His second novel, Bleeding the Vein, was released in 2012 from Gallows Press. Forgotten Souls was also released as a trade paperback in 2012 from Gallows Press. His short fiction has appeared in the anthologies, R.A.W. – Random Acts of Weirdness, Octoberland, Made You Flinch: Stories to Unnerve, Disturb, and Freak You Out as well as others. His short story, “The Eighth Day,” received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteenth Annual Collection.

D. S. Ullery has been published in Blood Reign Literary Magazine, Sirens Call Ezine, Dark Eclipse Magazine, Disturbed Digest, The Literary Hatchet, Plasma Frequency Magazine and the anthologies When Red Snow Melts, Creature Stew, Journals of Horror: Found Fiction, Wild Things: Thirteen tales of Therianthropy, Paying the Ferryman and The Final Masquerade. His first collection of short horror fiction—titled Beyond Where the Sky Ends—was published in February of 2016. He is an Affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association. A born and raised Floridian, D. S. lives in the city of Lake Worth with a demented black cat named Jason, who was born on Friday the 13th.

Tim Curran lives in Michigan and is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, The Devil Next Door, and Biohazard, as well as the novella The Corpse King. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, and anthologies such as Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things.

For DarkFuse and its imprints, he has written the bestselling The Underdwelling, the Readers Choice-Nominated novella Fear Me, Puppet Graveyard as well as Long Black Coffin.

Renee Miller lives in Tweed, Ontario. Someone called her a powerhouse once, but quietly, and with a bit of a whimper. She has poor self-control, an addiction to cake and potato chips, and inappropriate fantasies about Kevin Spacey. Renee has published several novels in the crime/suspense, romantic suspense, paranormal, fantasy, horror, comedy, and erotic horror genres.

About the Publisher

DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.

Also check out DarkFuse's flagship online magazine at www.darkfusemagazine.com.