Splatterpunk Fighting Back
Author: Jack Bantry
Date: 2017-11-06 02:06:50+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Anthologies
Description: A row with a boyfriend leads to unexpected and bloody consequences...A high powered CEO undertakes a highly unusual therapy to take his career to the next level…A mother frantically searches for her child as the world burns…Featuring new fiction by Adam Millard, Matt Shaw, Bracken MacLeod, John Boden, Duncan Ralston, Rich Hawkins, Glenn Rolfe, George Daniel Lea, Tim Curran, WD Gagliani & Dave Benton and Kristopher Rufty. Cover art by Dan Henk. A charity anthology. Edited by Jack Bantry & Kit Power

Splatterpunk

Fighting Back

A Charity Anthology

Edited by
Jack Bantry & Kit Power

Published by

SPLATTERPUNK ZINE

Cover illustration © 2017 Dan Henk
Introduction © 2017 Jack Bantry

They Swim By Night © 2017 Adam Millard
Melvin © 2017 Matt Shaw
Extinction Therapy © 2017 Bracken MacLeod
The Passion of the Robertsons © 2017 Duncan Ralston
Hellscape © 2017 Rich Hawkins
Molly © 2017 Glenn Rolfe
Only Angels Know © 2017 George Daniel Lea
Limb Memory © 2017 Tim Curran
Feast of Consequences © 2017 WD Gagliani & Dave Benton
The Going Rate © 2017 John Boden
Darla’s Problem © 2017 Kristopher Rufty

All rights reserved.

For the splatter punks

Contents

Introduction

They Swim by Night - Adam Millard

Melvin - Matt Shaw

Extinction Therapy - Bracken MacLeod

The Passion of the Robertsons - Duncan Ralston

Hellscape - Rich Hawkins

Molly - Glenn Rolfe

Only Angels Know - George Daniel Lea

Limb Memory - Tim Curran

Feast of Consequences – WD Gagliani & Dave Benton

The Going Rate – John Boden

Darla’s Problem – Kristopher Rufty

Introduction

In the 5 years I've been doing Splatterpunk Zine I have discovered a wonderful community of writers and artists. Even though I haven't met many in person, I would consider them friends. They’re a bunch of like-minded people passionate about what they do. They’re also nice people. We can all hide behind a facade on social media, but people's true-selves come out when dealing with real life issues, which we encounter on a daily basis. Most of these issues don't affect us on a personal level, but are world issues, and I find my "friends" speaking up for these issues and helping people on a social level. Now, we’ve got together and we’re fighting back for a great cause.

We, myself and Kit, have constructed this anthology. It means a lot to us and it's in aid of a charity which is close to both our hearts. Cancer touches all of us in some way and we are going to donate all the royalties from the sales of the anthology to a Cancer Support charity. All the writers have contributed a new story and Dan Henk has produced a full colour painting, which Mike has turned into a book cover. All the contributors have donated free of payment. We can’t thank them enough for their generosity and every penny made after printing costs will be donated to the charity.

I'd also like to say a big thanks Kit for helping me with the project. It's made doing it much easier and he's a lot better at editing than I am! Finally thank you to everyone who has bought a copy, I hope you all enjoy the stories you’re about to read. Working on the zine and doing this anthology has proved to me what a good community we are part of. I am proud to know you all.

Jack Bantry

They Swim by Night - Adam Millard

“The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.”
– Walter Savage Landor

Alex stared down at the plastic cup with confusion. To the bartender, who was wiping spilled beer from the counter with a filthy rag, he said, “You’ve got to be shitting me.” He’d never enjoyed drinking from plastic beakers; it corrupted the beer, as far as he was concerned, gave it a nasty synthetic tang.

The bartender, who looked as if he’d dropped a tenner and found a quid, grunted and threw the wet rag down onto the bar. “You’ll be grateful the cups are plastic in about ten minutes,” he said, nodding in the direction of the stage, upon which several large men wearing black tee-shirts were clearing up after the last act—some generic indie-rock group called Meskaline—removing amplifiers and drums at a leisurely pace.

Alex watched them for a moment through a fug of cigarette smoke. “Why?” he asked, eyes still trained upon the stage as it underwent its gradual transformation. “Don’t tell me you’ve booked some shitty heavy metal band.” The room certainly wasn’t large enough to accommodate crowd-surfers, mosh-pits and the like. There was barely room to swing a cat, let alone a guitar, a la Status Quo.

Behind the bar, the large man grinned. His teeth were uneven, discoloured tombstones buried in his gums. “Just a girl,” he said, leaving it at that and walking away, disappearing through a low wooden door at the back of the bar.

“Just a girl,” Alex said, mimicking the bartender’s tone and somewhat discourteous attitude. He picked up his drink, took a long draught, and turned to face the stage once again.

The bar—Killion’s—was quiet for a Friday night, Alex thought, which might have had something to do with its location at the edge of the city. Less than half-a-mile away, pubs, bars, and nightclubs would be filled to capacity as DJ’s worked their esoteric magic and doormen wedged themselves into entrances far too small for them in order to prevent the admittance of undesirables.

Killion’s, on the other hand, didn’t go in for all that security nonsense, at least Alex had not encountered anything like a doorman on his way in a little over an hour ago; Killion’s could ill afford to turn people away, judging by the barrenness of the venue. Even on a Friday night, with three bands on the bill—one of which was ‘just a girl’ according to the asshole tending bar—they had failed to garner the attention of more than a dozen patrons, Alex included.

He decided to finish his plastic-infused beer and head into the city, before he became one of the undesirables the doormen just loved to keep out.

“You ever seen her before?”

Such was the unexpectedness of the voice that Alex almost turned and punched its owner. A man of around sixty, whose salt-and-pepper hair matched his beard, had sidled up to him at the bar, an empty plastic beaker in one palsied hand.

“Excuse me?” Alex now found himself wishing he’d left five minutes ago, for there was nothing more banal and pointless than a half-slurred conversation with a complete stranger.

The man smiled, tapped his empty beaker down loudly on the bar three times and awaited the return of the bartender. “The girl! Ana! The singing girl!” He motioned excitedly toward the now-deserted stage.

Alex shook his head, swallowed more of his beer, and said, “I haven’t seen her. Is she any good?” The door at the other side of the room looked so near, and yet so far away.

“Is she… is she any good?” said the man with frank incredulity, shocked that Alex should not know of Ana, the singing girl. “Boy, are you in for a treat! Ana has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. It’s like… it’s like being raped by a hundred supermodels all at once.”

“That good, huh?” Alex couldn’t help but snigger at the old man’s surprising analogy. Ana surely had a lot to live up to now.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” The old man looked offended; had Alex unintentionally affronted the guy?

Fuck him, Alex thought. I didn’t ask him to come over here and start jabbering in my fucking ear. And yet there was something inherently sad about the man now, as if all he’d cared about was the girl about to take the stage and that everyone in the room knew how damn good she was. And now that Alex had taken that away from him, he no longer had a purpose.

“How many times have you seen her?” Alex asked, for no other reason than to alleviate the guilt he felt deep down inside. Immediately he felt better, but then the man started blathering on about how he was Ana’s number one fan, that he had seen her more than a dozen times, and each time he saw her, he wakened the following morning and gave it to his wife the way he had when they were first married, thirty years ago.

“There’s something about her,” he said. “It’s sort of hard to explain, but you’ll see for yourself. You’ll see.” A thin tobacco-coloured tongue whipped out of his puckered mouth and worked at moistening his lips.

Just then, the bartender returned and replenished the geriatric lothario’s plastic cup. Alex made the most of the opportunity and ordered a beer for himself before paying for both.

“Thank you very much,” the old man said as he moved away from the bar and took up the empty space just in front of the stage. He really was Ana’s number one fan. A little weird, perhaps, but who was Alex to deprive some guy his kicks? In the morning, Mrs Old Man would be ‘getting it good’.

And good for them, Alex thought bitterly, for he hadn’t had sex in months, and that had been with a woman he’d met in a bar who had, the following morning, simply left his apartment without so much as leaving a note or phone number. He hadn’t seen her since, despite returning to the place he’d encountered her, intent on instigating a rematch.

The lights in the bar dimmed slightly and an anticipatory hush fell across the room. The old man up by the stage whooped excitedly, his gaze never once shifting from the dais where only an unattended microphone now stood.

Alex was all at once intrigued, and even more so when, out onto the stage, walked one of the most enchanting creatures he’d ever laid eyes upon.

Ana was everything the old man had promised and more. A waterfall of jet-black hair cascaded down over her shoulders, her emerald green eyes visible even in semidarkness. A tight red dress clung to her body, exaggerating every curve. This was clearly a woman with whom self-confidence was not an issue.

Standing in front of the microphone, never once looking out to her audience to see who they were or if indeed there was anyone there, she looked incongruous, a huge star about to perform in a venue unworthy of her.

Alex glanced around the room, noticing the beatific smile upon the face of each man. It was as if they had been hypnotised by Ana’s beauty; the girl hadn’t even sung a note yet and the place was manifestly captivated.

The plaintive strings of the backing music came through the speakers just as the bartender emerged from the room at the back of the bar. Alex watched as he pushed something into his ears, grimacing as he did so.

Earplugs?

Surely Ana’s voice could not be that bad, not after everything the old man had just told him. Perhaps the bartender suffered with some sort of aural complaint. What other explanation could there be?

Alex found out just a second later when Ana began to sing.

Her voice was like nothing he had ever heard before; it didn’t even sound human. She somehow managed to create chords in her throat, three disparate notes in unison.

But that could not be right, could it? Alex had never heard of such a faculty, and so he quickly ascribed the other two notes to the backing track.

Ana swayed slowly to the beat of the music, stroking the microphone as she sang. She knew precisely what she was doing—that every man present wanted to be with her, if only for one night, one hour, one minute—and now, as the beautiful music poured from her lips, she began to search through the drifting smoke, her eyes imploring those present to worship her for the goddess she was.

An uncomfortable erection caused Alex to squirm where he stood. He repositioned himself, but refused to look away from Ana, whose exquisite voice was somer-saulting across the scales as if it were easier than breathing to her.

Next to the stage, the old man swayed back and forth as if drunk, keeping time with Ana’s own rhythmic movements. But it was what he did next that shocked Alex.

The old man’s trousers came down, settled around his ankles, and for a moment Alex wondered whether the guy knew what had happened. If, perhaps, he was suitably soused, a man might not notice such a trivial thing as unsecured trousers, but this old geezer knew exactly what was happening. He knew because in his hand he held his cock, and was rubbing it, tugging at it frantically, his head thrown back in uncontrollable rapture, his eyes firmly fixed upon Ana as she sang and swayed and sang.

“What the fuck?” Alex couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A man stood masturbating right there, in full view of the rest of the bar, and no one was doing a damn thing about it. Alex turned to the counter, only to discover the bartender sitting at a stool next to the register, filling in a crossword, blissfully unaware that his dancefloor was about to get very sticky indeed. “Hey!” Alex called, hoping to attract the attention of the oblivious bartender. “Dude, a guy’s about to cum all over your fucking stage!”

Nothing. The bartender didn’t even look up from his puzzle.

Alex sighed and turned back to the stage. Ana continued to sing, seemingly unaffected by the grotesque sex act playing out in front of her, and Alex suddenly felt bad for her, despite his own burgeoning erection. Guilt washed over him, although he was certain he had done nothing wrong, was only reacting to Ana’s alien voice.

All around the room the men swayed back and forth, entranced, enchanted. Through the smoky gloom, Alex could see that the old man next to the stage was not the only one masturbating. They were all at it, some of them shamelessly, others surreptitiously, as if afraid their wives would come through the door at any moment and catch them red-handed, so to speak.

It was then that Alex became aware of his own transgressions, for he too was rubbing at his crotch and the swollen member beneath. No sooner had he realised it than he snatched his hand away.

What the fuck is going on here?

Up on the stage, Ana’s first song was about to end, and she locked eyes with Alex across the room, her lips curled into the slightest of smiles. It was that which pushed him over the edge. His legs threatened to buckle beneath him; a strange light-headedness caused him to stagger forward a couple of steps. If it wasn’t for the empty stool pushed against the counter, his momentum would surely have carried him toward the stage, where he and the old man would dance and writhe and masturbate each other until the culmination of Ana’s set.

When the song finished, no one applauded, no one cheered, no one made a peep. Cocks were tucked away for the time being; Alex collapsed onto the unoccupied stool, spent.

For the next two hours he watched Ana perform.

For the next two hours he hungered for her, could no longer look away from her, no matter how hard he tried. The embarrassment of what had happened with all the men in the room soon faded. They were all in this together, all worshipping at the feet of a goddess.

No wonder the bartender wore earplugs.

At the end of Ana’s set a fight broke out between three men from one side of the room and two from the other. Chaos ensued, plastic cups were launched into the air, some empty, some half-filled with beer. It rained down on Alex, soaking his hair, his neck, his clothes.

Through the sea of brawling men—more were joining by the second, and the bartender seemed loath to get involved, lest he find himself on the wrong end of a knuckle supper—Alex could just about make out the stage.

But there was no Ana.

Just a solitary microphone stand and the wispy remnants of artificial smoke no longer being pumped onto the stage.

Alex finished his beer (he hadn’t touched it, not even a sip, for the duration of Ana’s set) and left via the beer-garden feeling strangely sated.

“You like my voice?”

Alex started, for there at the side of the road just beyond the beer-garden gate was Ana. She was smoking a cigarette; its filter was crimson with lipstick. Alex couldn’t help noticing that her speaking voice was very different to her singing voice. But weren’t they always? Singers often adopted certain affectations when performing. If Ana talked like she sang, it would be wholly terrifying.

“You’re amazing,” Alex said. It was all he could manage; Ana arched her eyebrows, as if he had told her something she hadn’t already heard a thousand times before.

She took a long pull of her cigarette before flicking it to the kerb. “I’ve never seen you at one of my gigs before. Just passing through?”

She’s talking to me. She’s talking to me as if I’m her equal. “No, I just don’t usually come out this far.” All thoughts of the city and its myriad attractions were gone. All Alex wanted to do now was follow Ana around for the rest of the night. If he asked nicely, perhaps she would let him. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

Where the fuck had that come from? Alex had never been very good with women, and it was sudden spurts of bullshit like that which had led to him being single at almost forty.

It came as something of a shock, therefore, when Ana said, “I’ve got an apartment in the city. I’d appreciate the company.”

“You would?” He couldn’t believe his luck, couldn’t fathom why this gorgeous young lady would even entertain his offer. But she was smiling, and as she lit a new cigarette —perhaps that was the secret behind her ethereal voice—Alex could see that she had brightened a little.

“Sure,” she said, exhaling a plume of blue-grey smoke into the chill air. “So long as it’s not out of your way.”

I would walk a thousand miles for you, Ana, Alex thought but of course did not say.

Ana’s apartment was a penthouse suite at the centre of the city. As Alex stepped out of the elevator, saw the marble walls, the golden vases, the statues of Eros and Psyche standing either side of a white marble fireplace, he said, “Holy fuck! You got all this from singing in bars?”

“Of course not!” Ana said as she walked across the room to a bar lined with bottles. The bar appeared to be stocked with one of everything: whisky, brandy, sherry, reds and whites, liqueurs and ports. “I sing for the fun of it. I made less than a hundred tonight.”

“You must be a good saver,” Alex said, whistling as he glanced up at the crown molding and tableau ceiling.

Ana returned to the centre of the apartment, to where a white leather sofa stretched three metres across and to where Alex stood in awe. As she handed him a half-filled brandy glass, she said, “It’s not all mine. I actually share this place with two others, but we get along well, so it’s not really a problem.”

Two others? Alex suddenly felt uneasy. Were there men here? Men who owned Ana and allowed her to live in this place in exchange for—

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ana said as she fell back onto the pristine white sofa. It creaked and squeaked beneath her as she got comfortable. “It’s nothing like that.”

Alex lowered himself onto the sofa. This was like a dream; a fairy tale the likes of which seldom happened to people like him. The brandy warmed his stomach as he took a long slug. “So, where are they?” he asked. “These two others? Or is it some kind of timeshare, you know? You get the place for one month, then one of the others, then—”

“They’re probably already in the pool,” Ana said, motioning to a glass partition on the other side of the room.

Alex could only see darkness beyond the glass, and the exquisite décor of the apartment reflecting upon it. “Did you just say you had a pool? All the way up here, a mile in the sky?”

“Best place for a pool, don’t you think?” Ana reached down and brushed a hand against Alex’s thigh. “We use it almost every day. I like to swim as much as they do. What about you, Alex? Do you like to swim?”

But Alex was suddenly feeling very tired. A bead of sweat trickled slowly down the nape of his neck, even though it wasn’t unusually warm in the apartment. “I’m a… I like to sw…to swim.”

“That’s good,” said Ana, only now there were three of her, shifting left to right, right to left. Alex could not decide which of them was the genuine article.

What the fuck’s happening to me? I’m not drunk. I’ve hardly had anything.

The brandy glass felt heavy in his hand. He leaned toward the marble coffee table, set it down there. “I don’t feel… feel too good.” That was an understatement; he felt like shit warmed up, could feel the vomit rising in his throat. It was all he could do to swallow it back down.

He didn’t know what happened next—everything had become a blur—but one minute Ana was sitting across from him, that beautiful smile of hers more ominous now than anything else, and the next she was sitting upon his lap, kissing and nipping at his neck, his throat, his ears.

If you’d told him, back at the bar, that he would end the night with Ana, she of the most beautiful voice in the world and a face and body to match, Alex would have grabbed it with both hands. But now he felt nauseated, drunk, and all at once aware that something strange was happening, and all he wanted was to get out of the penthouse, to suck in the city air until the biliousness left his body.

In that moment, he didn’t care if he offended the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He didn’t give a flying fuck if he spoiled his chances of what might be the greatest night of his life. He just wanted out.

“Ana…” he said, breathily, as she continued to kiss and gently bite his neck. He could no longer keep his eyes open; sleep beckoned him. “I’m… I’m…”

Then her face filled his field of vision, and Alex tried to scream but nothing came out.

Blood covered her chin, her mouth, dripped from her lips in thick crimson globules. Her grin was no longer a thing of beauty, but a razor-sharp smirk. Her previously emerald eyes, like neon back at the bar, were now devoid of all colour, milky-white cataracts with black pinholes at the centre.

Alex silently screamed again. He tried to move, to force the monster from his lap, but found himself paralysed from the neck down.

What the fuck are you?

When Ana next spoke, her voice was thick, vague, as if the apartment had been plunged into water. “Stop trying to fight it,” she said, her now black tongue darting in and out of her mouth, seemingly savouring the blood smeared across her lips. Her voice was deeper, now. Several octaves deeper than it had been back at the bar, and dripping with contempt.

Then she opened her mouth and began to sing, arching her back whilst simultaneously wrapping her legs more tightly around Alex’s back. No sooner had she finished the first note than Alex was lost within her again. It did not matter that she was a monster now, a needle-toothed, cataract-afflicted, bloody-faced creature of the damned; her voice still belonged to the angels.

No! Alex, no!

He managed to lift his arms—though they felt incredibly heavy—and plunged fingers into his ears in an attempt to drown out the witch’s warbling.

She stopped singing, her bleached eyes widened and her smile became a horrific scar stretching the entire width of her face. She pulled Alex’s arms away from his head; white noise filled his ears once again, until she spoke. “That simply won’t do,” she growled.

“Please!” Alex implored. “I can’t—”

Ana yanked his right hand toward her mouth and clamped down hard on his fingers. There was an audible crunch as bones cracked, a meaty slurp as the flesh was swallowed down. When the hand came out it was without its four fingers. Only the thumb remained.

Now Alex did scream. And Ana laughed, even as she pulled his left hand toward her bloody maw and bit down on that one, too. Alex’s bladder gave way; a warmth blossomed out from his crotch, soaking the leather beneath his ass. When Ana released his left arm, he stared at both mangled hands, sans fingers, and roared in agony.

Unconsciousness came then, shrouding him in darkness, and it was welcome.

Unfortunately it didn’t last, and when Alex opened his eyes, through watery, blurred vision he saw that his clothes had been removed. His back and ass clung to the white leather, squeaking slightly as he tried to move.

Ana was down between his legs, quietly singing, doing just enough with that voice of hers to keep him subdued. At first he only saw the top of her head, the black hair, but then her milky eyes opened, and when she saw Alex watching her, she said, “The others know you’re here. The pool is being readied.”

Alex could not speak. Perhaps he had lost too much blood; perhaps Ana had bit the tongue right out of his mouth as he lay unconscious. Instead he managed a series of plaintive groans, not nearly enough to convince Ana to let him go.

“You’re hard,” she said, and as if to prove it she grabbed his cock and tugged it to one side. Had she been sucking it? While he was out? Teasing him with that evil black tongue of hers, taking him into her mouth, where there were daggers instead of teeth? “It’s the voice, you see,” she went on. “What happened at the club, those filthy old fuckers with their shrivelled little peckers don’t know what they’re doing. All they know is that they want me. You know. You felt it, too, only you got lucky. You’re going to get me. You’re going to get all of us.”

But Alex didn’t want her, not anymore.

“But,” Ana said, grasping his shaft as if it had done something to offend her, “you won’t be needing this.” Lightning-fast she chomped down on his cock; for an infinitesimal moment Alex felt pure pleasure. The pain that followed lasted a helluva lot longer.

Ana threw her head back, spat a chunk of meat to the side and cried shrilly, inhumanly, with exaltation.

Alex passed out mid-scream.

Cold. A chill draught from an indeterminate elsewhere. The bitter, coppery taste of blood in his mouth. A burning agony in his groin and at the wide-open nerves of his knuckles. Alex opened his eyes as the song—a chorus of infinite sensuality—pulled him back from the brink of oblivion.

The penthouse was empty. Ana was nowhere to be seen, although her voice was right there, buried beneath others, drifting inexorably past his ears and imploring him to come find her.

The elevator to his right was within crawling distance. Alex knew he could make it, could even reach up to the button which would take him all the way down to street-level, where help would come to him and he would live on. It was right there, and yet it never occurred to him to leave.

The song was far too pretty for that.

He sat forward, his feet slipping momentarily on the bloodied marble floor. Momentum carried him all the way down, down, down to the cold hard ground.

And the song went on.

Pulling himself across the marble, Alex knew what he must do, what Ana and the others wanted from him.

Do you like to swim?

The sliding glass doors across the apartment were open, the source of the freezing zephyr, and it was toward the doors that Alex found himself moving, for that was also the origin of the song. It took him fully ten minutes to get there, but Ana and the others had nothing but time. He knew that now. He also knew that, even if he wanted to—which he didn’t—he could never escape the penthouse, could never return to his life, a life before Ana, before tonight.

Out into the freezing night he went, his knees and elbows scraping over the concrete, leaving strips of flesh stuck to the ground like old bubble-gum. Without fingers, it was almost impossible to pull himself forward, and yet he managed it as best he could, digging his thumbs in and ignoring the white-hot pain as it travelled up his arms.

The songstresses were in the pool, their slick bodies glistening in the moonlight, their mouths open inhumanly wide, as if their jaws had been dislocated in order to allow the song to emerge unchallenged. All three of them were still, their feet planted on the floor of the pool. Ana, in the middle, led the chorus while the blonde girls either side of her—as beautiful as Ana, and just as bloody—intoned a second melody.

Alex could not recall ever hearing such a beautiful sound, and he knew that he never would again.

At the pool’s edge, he stared down at his face reflected in the water. He stared down at it as blood drooled from his lips and stretched down to greet the pool.

The song went on.

Alex shuffled forward, allowed the cold water to envelop him and the song to beguile him. Less than a second after his body hit the water, he felt warm bodies passing by him, beneath him, swimming around his sinking form.

He opened his eyes and watched in agony—in hedonistic fascination—as the sirens slowly devoured him inch by inch.

Melvin - Matt Shaw

Her mouth slightly agape, the tip of the erect penis pushed in past the full lips coated in her preferred brand of cherry chapstick. Inside, it slid over her warm and moist tongue until it tickled her tonsils at the back of her throat. For the first time since drifting off into a peaceful slumber, aware of the fact her alarm would be going off in just over three hours, she awoke. Panic immediately set in as the hard, throbbing penis—detached from body at the base—continued to snake its way into her. She tried to scream but it came out muffled as the cock inched its way down her throat. She gagged out of reflex but was unable to sick out the foreign object as—still—it pushed deeper. With desperate fingers she clawed at the end of the dick before that too disappeared down her throat. Too late. Mouth empty now other than her fingers, saliva, teeth and tongue. Her hands moved to her throat as she continued to struggle to breath, desperate for oxygen that once seemed in plentiful supply. A bulge in her neck similar to that seen in a snake’s body as it devoured prey just recently swallowed. The bulge continued to move as the hard manhood inched its way down the young woman’s esophagus. She gasped—with much relief—as, finally, the object cleared her airway, oxygen back into her system. Still scared, the woman rolled from her bed where she’d collapsed in a drunken heap hours earlier, having discarded her black dress on the floor. She clambered up from all fours, clutching at her chest as an a dull yet uncomfortable pain hit her. The unpleasant feeling you get when you swallow a bit of food slightly too big for easy passage down to your stomach. With a pained cry, she crossed the messy bedroom floor, clothes and shoes all over the place, to the dressing table in the far corner. Clumsy hands knocked at the desk lamp until they found the light-switch; the small bulb flickered on allowing a clearer image of the young girl’s tired looking reflection staring back at her from the mirror’s surface. She let out another pained scream and clutched at her chest again until—relief. Whatever was there had passed.

Claudia paused a moment, unsure as to whether another wave of pain was about to hit. She waited, nervous to move in case that was all it would take to bring the pain on for a second bout. And, then - a belch from deep within her stomach: A low rumble and a strong taste of cheese. She shuddered in disgust and then laughed when she remembered the dream that had woken her so violently: The thought of a severed cock forcing its way down her throat. She shook her head. Clearly she had had way too much to drink that night and if the dream wasn’t enough to point that out then the reflection staring back at her from the mirror was. Her skin was pasty white, her long blonde hair knotted and greasy looking, and the dark eye shadow she wore had smeared its way down her cheeks. Her eyes momentarily drifted to the clock resting at the base of the table-top mirror. 3:42am. She needed to be getting up for work in two hours now. So much for sleep.

Confident the pain had gone, she stumbled back to her inviting bed with her brain almost functioning normally but her body still clearly pissed. She collapsed and pulled the duvet over herself - a deep regret setting in that she’d gone out with her friends in the first place. Or rather, that she’d stayed out so late despite having every intention to get home at a sensible hour.

‘Don’t go yet! You’ve only just got here!’ her friend had moaned when Claudia made her first attempt to leave. ‘Have another drink with me. Please?’ She saw her friend most weekends, so really there was no need to have “one more” drink with her, even though her friend was celebrating her final day in the job. They could have had their own private celebration at the weekend, when neither of them had to be up at ridiculous o’clock. Her friend couldn’t be blamed though. Claudia had wanted to stay out just as much as her friend had wanted her there. Night’s out with the girls just didn’t happen enough anymore, not since they hit their mid-twenties. Most of them were settling down in serious relationships, spitting out babies - or were too busy to come out due to having “proper” careers now.

‘One more and that’s it,’ Claudia had said. Her drunk friend responded with a clap and a little cheer before running off—well, “stumbling off”—to the bar to get more drinks which—of course—she didn’t pay for. Why pay for drinks when men are so happy to purchase them for you? A saying that Claudia’s friend seemed to live by. A little flirting—good eye-contact, the occasional touch, the smiles, suggestive looks and sentences brimming with innuendo—and you never had to purchase a drink in a place like this: Heavy music banging, drinks flowing and desperate men prowling in the hope of getting their dick wet that night, be it with someone they actually fancied or someone who simply had an open invitation to a vagina. Of all the clubs to end up in, it had been one of those places.

A sudden wave of nausea washed over Claudia. She was unsure as to whether it was because of the amount of drink she’d consumed or whether it was brought about by the memory of the creepy guy who’d come over to their table. Tall, skinny, greasy-brown hair and pale green eyes —were those contacts? —and yellow teeth stained with too much coffee. His love of coffee evident from the stink of it on his rancid breath when he leaned in closer to talk to them. Even in her—by then—drunken state this guy had been the final nail in the coffin for Claudia’s night out. By the time he’d been with them—hounding them for a fuck —for thirty minutes (they had timed it), she knew it was time to call it a day and get home to bed. God, what was his name?

Melvin. His name alone made them laugh, almost as much as his obvious desperation. Here had been a man who was clearly a virgin! With no obvious redeeming qualities about him whatsoever, even a healthy bank balance would struggle to get him laid. Claudia shuddered again at the thought of the repugnant man, especially the moment his sweaty hand touched upon hers.

‘There’s not enough alcohol in the world to make me want to go anywhere near you,’ she’d told him when she had finally had enough. He just stood there, a look of hurt on his face, as she gathered her belongings and told her friend she was leaving. Her friend—of course—put up a fight but knew it was for the best. Melvin The Virgin—as they had started to call him—had all but sucked the atmosphere from the group. What was once a fun table had turned to one of frustration and resentment as he refused to leave them be. All the girls there knew that—when drunk—Claudia had a temper on her. If it was a choice between watching her explode, getting them all thrown out, and her leaving - the latter was definitely the better option.

Another wave of nausea hit before Claudia sat up—hands clutching stomach—and she screamed out in agonising pain. Something in her gut was moving and twisting, wriggling around, tearing her up. The worst wind, an unbearable infection… Something. For the second time, she rolled from the bed and landed on the floor on all fours as her stomach continued to cramp with a pain ten times more unpleasant than what she experienced with the worst of her periods. She screamed again before rolling on her side - desperate to find a position that allowed some reprieve from whatever tore at her gut. She screamed again as the pain moved to her lower intestine.

Claudia looked down to her bare stomach and screamed again as she saw movement beneath the skin. Something kicking from within. The skin itself bruising dark purple before her eyes as something bled heavily within her. The next scream was one for help. She lived alone and had done so for a few years now, but it was a small flat with flats above, to the side and under her own. Someone would hear. Someone would come for… She screamed again. Another intense wave of pain as the purple beneath her skin spread further down. Desperate to reach the mobile phone charging over on the make-up table, Claudia tried to stand but immediately collapsed, her inner thighs now bruised and the white cotton of her panties starting to turn red before her very eyes. Alarmed, she pushed her knickers down and let out a wail as blood seemingly poured from her pussy. Not just a heavy - and unexpected - period. The blood was dark. Another scream, with another wave of chronic pain that bent the petrified girl in two. This time the pain came from up inside her pussy. Pain and movement. Another call for help through the tears. Please make this stop. Please make this go away. It’s just a dream.

Shaking, her hand reached down to her pussy and immediately flinched away as her fingers touched upon what she immediately recognised as the head of a penis.

‘Someone help me!’

The hard cock continued to push through her from inside—each movement ripping her internally—before, finally, it plopped to the floor like a turd from an arse. One final scream from Claudia as the severed cock started to move towards the open window, it’s movement replicating that of a worm: Bend in the middle, push forward, bend in the middle push forward, bend in the middle… Unable to comprehend what she was seeing and losing too much blood, Claudia passed out. Out cold, her skin over her stomach continued to darken, as it did around her groin and thighs. Deep red blood ran from between her ripped pussy lips like water from a tap. She would not wake up. She would not witness the severed cock shoot a sticky trail of semen up the wall before using the spunk as a glue in order to help the dick move up the very same wall, towards the open window. Curtains blowing in the gentle breeze. Nor would Claudia wake to witness the penis drop - unharmed - to the shrubbery below where it could pause a moment before continuing its journey across the garden and towards the road. Bend in the middle, push forward, bend in the middle, push forward, bend in the middle, push forward… Claudia would not see Melvin standing in the tree-line across the road with his trousers unbuttoned and open, exposing where his cock should have been. A smile on his face at the satisfaction of teaching the rude bitch a lesson. Her evening could have been so much different had she just fucked him like he’d demanded. Of all the things that Claudia would miss though, given what had happened to her, there was only one she would have actually been pleased to witness.

Claudia would not see the van hurtling down the road.

‘Fuck!’ The driver’s sudden outburst woke the sleeping passenger, along with the little wriggle of the steering wheel that caused the van to wobble on its continued journey.

‘What?’ The passenger sat up bolt-right, worried that they were about to crash.

‘Something in the road… I think I just killed a fucking animal…’

‘Fuck sake… Just about shit myself. Thought we were about to crash, or something…’

‘I didn’t see it until the last minute, fucking thing just moving across the road.’

‘What was it?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Well—fuck it… If it doesn’t know the basics of road safety, it deserves to die.’

‘You’re an asshole.’

‘Me? You’re the one that killed an animal. Poor thing probably has a family waiting for it at home. They’ll be wondering where daddy is.’

‘Fuck you…’

‘It was probably nothing, don’t worry about it.’

‘Too late now anyway.’

Claudia wouldn’t see Melvin screaming by the roadside.

Extinction Therapy - Bracken MacLeod

1

The view of the city from the hotel room window was spectacular. Spencer looked down on the reflecting pool behind the Christian Science Center dome and watched the people gathered around it enjoying a sunny day in the park, small and insignificant from his vantage. That was the greatest joy he took from height—the relation of beholder to beheld in its proper ratio. Whether from his office, his apartment, or this room, elevation served to reinforce his vision of where he stood in relation to the city: high above it all.

Walker beckoned him to the leather chaise. Reluctantly, he parted with the view and joined the man. If one wanted a guided meditation session with Dr. Miah Walker, one had to sign up for one of his expensive week-long retreats at SkinWalker Temple outside of Seattle. Or, alternatively, one could make a healthy donation to his foundation and put him up in a luxury hotel for the week. Walker had explained that he didn’t normally arrange private meetings, but the personal endorsement of their mutual friend convinced him to make an exception in this instance. He’d also told him that a single session wasn’t likely to have miraculous effect, though it would start him on the path toward overcoming his mental roadblocks. “If this is beneficial for you, I’d like to see you at my Dream Dance Retreat in the fall,” he’d said after the initial interview. “It’s very exclusive.” Spencer agreed that if the initial session helped with his problem, then he’d come to Seattle in November for the retreat.

Dr. Walker’s public bio advertised that he had both Navajo and Cherokee heritage, and had spent many years studying with tribal elders from a number of different North American tribes in both the U.S. and Canada. It explained that he’d learned from many shamen—including his grandfather who’d been a Code Talker in World War II—the ways of spirit healing. Spencer’s private investigator found instead that Walker had come from an ethnically unaware family of Italian extraction in northern Utah, and that his actual grandfather had been an Insurance salesman and 4F during the war. But the testimonials from certain vetted people who’d received direct therapy were compelling.

Spencer was a skeptic; he didn’t buy into energy fields and chi and other New Age bullshit. But he suffered from a crippling hesitance, and Dr. Walker’s technique, however unorthodox, was highly lauded by trusted friends.

He sat and reclined in the chair. Walker let his hand hover over Spencer’s forehead as he started to chant in some language Spencer didn’t recognize. Chances were, it was less likely to be Navajo than some made up glossolalia.

Dr. Walker was supposed to be guiding him in a therapeutic visualization. He thought it’d be more effective if he could understand what the hell the man was saying. Still, Walker’s baritone jibber jabber was relaxing. Other than a little relaxation however, he didn’t feel much of anything else and started to fear that he’d wasted a considerable amount of money. What can it hurt? Spend a little money and see. If nothing happens, then I know. If something changes... if this first session works out, it was money well spent and perhaps worth a trip to Seattle to do more.

Then, he felt it.

It was just a tiny push at first and then a little harder, right in the center of his forehead, like Walker was pressing the tip of a finger against his skin. He resisted the urge to open his eyes. Walker had assured him that at no point during the session would he physically touch him. Anything the patient felt was the power of his spirit being channeled through healing hands. Spencer played along and thought of the endorsements from people he respected. People who said that Walker had unburdened their spirits and set them free into a world they’d never known was so ripe for their appetites.

The pressure on his forehead increased and began to feel hot, like Walker wasn’t touching him with a finger but with the melted end of a candle. Spencer shifted in the chaise. Walker said, “Shh. Let your body go, and become a being of pure thought.”

When had he switched back to English?

“Be mind, be spirit, be the eternal consciousness that can travel through time. The self of your mind is energy and cannot be destroyed. Since Creation it has existed, and you have been traveling through the ages from body to body. You have already been there. Go back now.” Spencer felt the wax finger burn and pierce his skull, probing deep into his brain and sending sharp spikes of hot pain through his whole body. He jerked up from where he lay and opened his eyes.

He looked around the dark, low-ceilinged room in which he found himself. The hotel penthouse high above the city with the comfortable chaise lounge and the R. Carlos Nakai flute music on the sound system was gone. A fire pit built close to a far wall sat unused, blackened char piled in the center. A few clay pots lined another wall and a blanket made of some kind of tanned and bleached hide was laid out with what looked like the remnants of a hastily abandoned supper. Through a doorway in a separate partitioned room, he could see the bare legs of a woman lying on her side on another treated animal skin. The bottom of her ass was visible through the door, and Spencer felt a stirring in his abdomen. Discomfort and desire. Repulsion and longing.

He stood and, ignoring the woman lying still in the other room, walked toward a hanging cloth haloed with bright light like a rectangular eclipse. On the other side of it, he could hear the distant sounds of people. Shouts and chatter. Calls of panic and screams of terror. His anxiety rose. He hesitated. But then the voice of Dr. Walker came drifting down to him from above, saying, “You are a consciousness which has lived a thousand lifetimes. You have always been welcome and will always have a right to live whenever you choose.”

Spencer rubbed at his eyes. When he opened them again, he was still standing in the low, primitive pit house staring at a cloth door separating him from the world beyond. He grabbed the tapestry, pulled it aside, and stepped up and out into the daylight.

2

Doug walked along the bike path beside Cary listening to her chattering about the mess that waited for her at work. He listened, occasionally expressing his sympathies. “How does someone get fired from that lab?” Cary groaned, “Right?” and went on with her story while they moved around slower pedestrians, and dodged bicyclists flying by in neon spandex racing gear imagining themselves in the Tour de France and not on a two lane pedestrian path to the subway. Despite the discomfort of walking in the early summer heat in a suit—it was already seventy degrees and humid—their time together on the bike path and riding the subway in the morning and the evening were his favorite parts of the day. There was nothing to distract them from one another—not work (though they talked about it), not dinner or the dishes, or work they’d brought home. It was just the two of them in a bubble of togetherness where no obligation or chore could distract them from each other. So, he walked, sweating through his sport coat, and listened to his wife talk about the day ahead of her.

At the station, Doug held the door open for Cary. She smiled and drew a finger along his cheek as she slipped through, followed by two other people who didn’t acknowledge him or say “thank you” for saving them the second it would have taken to let him follow his wife in instead of barging on through. The sound of a train arriving at the platform below sent several commuters rushing for the escalator, furiously digging in backpacks and briefcases for their fare cards, risking injury on the slick escalator stairs for the sake of catching this train instead of waiting five minutes for the next. Doug and Cary kept their normal pace, stepping to the right side of the escalator steps as people flowed past them. What’s the hurry? He knew none of them were hurrying because they loved their jobs so much they couldn’t stand to lose five minutes of the work day. Maybe a couple of them did. But he saw the faces around his office. He knew his colleagues came to work for the same reason he did: to earn a paycheck. His salary paid the rent and his student loans and allowed them a little money left over for fun. But after only a year as an associate in the firm, he realized he was merely a billing unit doing document review, and work for Baylor, Hansen and Aaron LLP was no more than a way to finance his real life. Being on time was merely a step taken to keep a job he tolerated. And five minutes was nothing that would cost him. Not as much as he billed for the firm.

Unlike him, Cary enjoyed what she did. Not so much that she was willing to cut their daily walk short by running for a train, though.

On the landing halfway down, they scanned their passes and the Lexan doors slid open, letting them through. The couple walked down another flight of stairs instead of taking the escalator. The departure warning bell dinged and the subway car doors slid closed. Watching a train leave, Doug always thought about those plastic canisters and vacuum tubes people used to use to send their bank deposits to the teller at the drive-through, before direct deposit and online banking meant he never went to a local branch to do anything more than get quarters for the laundry. He watched as the train pulled away, leaving him and Cary and a few winded commuters who weren’t quite fast enough standing on the platform waiting for the next train. The pre-recorded female voice of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority above them announced that the next Red Line train to Braintree was now approaching. Not even a five-minute wait, he thought, feeling cheated at its early arrival. The train arrived, brakes screeching, cutting off their conversation. Together, they stepped into the car and took seats next to each other.

Cary pulled a book out of her bag and gave Doug a big smile. Her daily acknowledgment that she was not ignoring him, but was now going to read. It was too noisy aboard the train to keep trying to have a conversation. He nodded and put his earbuds in and rested his hand on her thigh. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and listened to Freddie’s trumpet drown out the sounds of the subway. Before he knew it, Cary’s hand patted the back of his to let him know they’d reached her stop. She was getting off to transfer to another line that would take her to the lab. He took out one of his ear buds and said, “Think about what you want to get for dinner.”

She winked and put her finger beside her nose. “Not it! I picked last night.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Off to the arena!”

“Fight well,” he called after her as she stepped through the doors. They closed behind her and he was swept off to help move money from one rich person’s bank account to another. Hardly the glorious career of dragon-slaying he’d envisioned in law school.

3

Climbing the rock hewn steps out of the low house, he looked across the red sand and rock yard of the pueblos carved into the side of the cliff. The morning sun shone in his eyes and he raised a hand to shade them. A shrieking man rushed past, naked and bleeding. He stumbled and tripped and another man fell upon him, swinging a rock maul down on his face again and again until the man’s head was bloody, muddy pulp. The man with the maul grinned with excitement at Spencer and held up the dripping tool in acknowledgment before returning to his victim.

The mud and wood roofs of the other pit houses smoked and smoldered as more men war-whooped and swung clubs and axes at people trying to escape. A woman crawled through the rocks, her intestine dragging out behind her like a wet tail. She wept and her head lolled as her blood dripped out of her mouth and her stomach, splashing in black beads onto the dirt. She stumbled on her hands and knees, falling on her face. Behind her, a man followed, his weapon hanging lazily at his side in a loose red fist. He grimaced as she pushed up, and kicked her in the back. She fell again, her breath heaving up a cloud of dust. She coughed and lay still, not dead, but waiting. Her tormentor obliged her. He began to bash her like his compatriot had done to the other man.

“What is this?” Spencer said. His words sounded foreign, but familiar all the same. He reached up and touched his mouth, shocked at having spoken in a language he’d never heard before. His unanswered question was lost in the cries for mercy and whoops of ecstatic savagery. He looked down at himself. The familiar paunch he hid beneath his tailored Gitman Bros. shirts was bare and significantly reduced. His gray-haired, fish-pale belly replaced with a flatter, hairless, tanned midsection. He moved and felt the body he inhabited. It was energetic and powerful. Young and beautiful and vicious. A woman ran up and fell against him, smearing her blood on his smooth belly and begging for mercy for herself and her children. Behind her, another man stopped and waited, staring at Spencer, waiting for his answer.

“Please stop! Please don’t hurt my children!” she begged. Spencer grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet. He looked into her dirty tear-streaked face and listened to her plead for mercy a moment longer. He spat in her eyes, shoving her back toward her pursuer. She screamed as the man caught her. “Why?” she screamed. Her pursuer answered with a stone knife.

Two men held another in place as a third beat the soles of his feet with a club. Beyond them, a group dismantled the roof of the largest pit house in the center of the development, casting aside mud covered branches to expose the shallow, round hole dug out as a community gathering place. As fast as they could remove the roof, other men pitched the remains of their victims into the hole. Spencer’s mind raced as he tried to absorb all that was happening around him. He stood in the center of a village being razed, heart pounding and short of breath with the excitement of it. He watched as people were torn from each other, from themselves, from the world and thrown into a mass grave to lay together forever in their silence. The people killing them screamed “Witch!” and “Devil!” Their words fell on the bodies like rain on rocks. The smell of slaughter flew on the breeze and slipped into his body with every breath. He inhaled the scents deeply, imagining ghosts seeking to escape the horror all around penetrating him, coming to live in his heart where he could love their dying forever.

The odor of blood baking in the dirt under the scorching sun made him feel dizzy and he turned from the mass grave. He stepped out of the heat into a pit house to find more men working, removing limb from body, flesh from limb, breaking bones against stone anvils before scorching the ends in a hearth fire. They worked in silence while the screaming outside continued. Shoving past him, two more men arrived bearing corpses. They sat down in the dirt to set to work performing the same processing ritual. “What are you waiting for?” one asked as he hewed a hunk of meat from a slender thigh. He cut it into two smaller pieces and shoved one in his mouth, blood running down his chin and dripping onto his bare chest. The men pointed and laughed at Spencer as he turned and rushed out of the house back into the light. He ran for the house in which he’d awoken.

Around him, the voice of Dr. Walker chanted in the strange language he still could and couldn’t understand. He rushed through the familiar door to find the young woman he’d woken up with. She was bleeding from her head, but was breathing and alive. He picked up the maul that lay in the dirt next to her and hefted it. Its weight and shape and balance all felt so natural in his hand, though he couldn’t remember ever in his life picking up a tool like it. Wood and stone, lashed together, primitive and perfect. He swung it once in the air, getting the feel.

Looking at the woman, he felt a stirring in his guts. A pressure under his balls excited him and he felt his cock fill with blood and push against the leather apron hanging from his waist. His breathing quickened. His heart raced. He could hear it beat in his ears, deadening all the sounds of chaos around him. This is what I paid for!

4

Cary sent Doug a text letting him know that’d she’d be leaving the lab in another ten minutes. He knew it’d be more like twenty; it always took her longer to wrap up work than she anticipated. Though she possessed this self-awareness, she never adjusted her estimates to reflect it. Both of them factored that lag into her messages. They liked being able to joke about her magic power that made time pass half as quickly as it actually did. Teach me, oh master. It’d be great for my billable hours, Doug would say. Today, though, she got out of the lab exactly when she said she would. She reckoned that meant she’d end up skipping a train or two to meet her husband on the deck so they could ride the rest of the way home together. It was that or head back to her desk to goof off on the Internet for a while. She preferred waiting on the deck. Underground, without a signal, she could sit and read her book without the distractions of social media or another lab associate cornering her to gossip. Or, she thought, if she got into Downtown Crossing early enough, she could drop in to her favorite bookstore and browse for a bit. The day can’t get much better than that.

She headed for the bus that would take her downtown. As she approached the stop, a trolley pulled up, no waiting. She contemplated sending another text to let Doug know how her luck had come in, but decided it didn’t matter. As soon as I do, we’ll get stuck in traffic. Cary wasn’t any more superstitious than she was timely, but she liked to hedge her bets. Worst case scenario thinking was something both she and Doug leaned toward. They were so often pleasantly surprised when things went better than anticipated, they felt like it made them a perfect couple.

5

Dr. Walker handed Spencer a glass bottle of sparkling spring water, careful not to let go until he was certain the man had a good grip on it. Often, it took new travelers time to get their shaking under control. “The first time can be very unsettling,” he said. “And thrilling.”

Spencer was sweaty and wide eyed; possessed of that charge Dr. Walker had seen so many get in a place like Sacred Ridge or Barkol during the Dzungar conquest. He’d actually been much more receptive to the suggestion than most of the others. If this man possessed a hurdle to his fullest potential, it was low. He was going to be someone truly magical if Walker could get him to undergo the therapy again. This session had taken up the day, and he’d had to forego lunch and shopping on Newbury Street. Given what the client was paying, though, it was worth it. And from what he could tell from the look in the man’s eye, maybe doubly so. Spencer was shaken and looked worried, but if Walker was right about him—and he was always right—he had a new convert. A moneyed disciple who’d broaden the circle.

“You didn’t tell me it would be... like that.”

“The Sacred Ridge massacre is a truly special event. It’s a chance for you to push yourself to the limits of your ability to comprehend your own potential. Like I told you when we began, however, a single session isn’t usually enough to overcome the totality of your reticence. Every journey begins with a single step, right?”

Spencer finished the rest of the water and gasped. “Was it real?” he asked.

Dr. Walker cocked his head to the side and held out his hands, moving them up and down like a scale. “As real as your mind. As real as time or any of your perceptions of it. What matters is how you chose to live the experience. What you took from it.”

Spencer smiled, showing his back teeth. Dr. Walker felt something change in the air at that man’s grin. A charge like he had become lightning looking for something tall to strike.

He looked at his watch. “Jesus Christ! I’ve been here for—”

“The meditation takes place in real time. But as you’ve come to know first hand, it’s what we take from time that matters.”

Spencer set the bottle on the table next to the sofa, stood, and straightened his tie, buttoning the front of his sport coat. “It was something special.”

Walker gave the man the big wolf smile that graced the back of his books. “So, I’ll see you in November?”

“That’s a guarantee.”

“Excellent. You should know, in the Invitation Only Group, we’re going somewhere far better than the Dream Dance Retreat. Bank on it.”

Spencer laughed. “If it’s anything like what I just did, I’ll break the bank for it.”

Of course you will. Walker led his client to the door of the suite, ushering him out into the world.

6

Doug rushed out of his office. He’d gotten distracted and only half-heard the chirp of his phone when Cary sent him a text letting him know she was out of the lab on time. Actually, on time. By the time he noticed the green light on the device, a quarter hour had passed. He scribbled down the last three six-minute billing increments of the day on a notepad and vowed to do a proper job on his timesheet tomorrow. They weren’t due until tomorrow anyway, and he was ahead on billables for the week. So, it could wait. He had time.

He grabbed his suit coat off the hook on the back of his door and hurried past his secretary’s empty desk. She left every day at five like clockwork, unencumbered by time that had to be counted in tenths of an hour. Where he counted minutes, she counted days. Three more until Friday. One more until the weekend. Two more before it was time to come back to work. He envied her. With her seniority in the secretarial pool, she made more than he did as a second year associate, and had less stress. She didn’t have to justify her time to the partners.

The elevator seemed to take forever, stopping at every floor to gather more and more people leaving work. Halfway down from the 18th Floor, it was too full, and when the doors opened, no one else could get on. The stop was just a delay in their descent. The air was hot and Doug began to sweat again. What had dried out in his air conditioned office, was freshly moistened, and the scent of that morning’s perspiration wafted up to his nose. He felt embarrassed and clutched his elbows to his side a little tighter, trying to contain his body odor. He’d probably end up taking a shower both before and after he and Cary went to the gym. She’d laugh, but he wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

Outside, he hurried along the sidewalk, not running, but walking briskly enough to dart around other commuters. He didn’t run for trains, but he’d run for Cary. He didn’t want to leave her alone on the subway platform for too long. This time of year, it was hot as murder down there.

He scanned his fare card and hustled down the escalator to find a train waiting. A small flood of people disembarked and he fought against their tide to reach the car doors before they closed. The signal bell chimed and the doors closed. He slapped a hand against one and shouted, “Hey!” The MBTA operator looking out the window stared right through him. The operator rang the bell again and the train started to pull out of the station. The asshole only had to flip a switch to open the doors to let him on. It would’ve only taken a second.

Doug stepped back behind the yellow line as the increasing speed of the train buffeted him with wind. He checked his watch and sighed, hoping that Cary hadn’t been waiting too long.

7

The driver held the limousine door open, but Spencer told him that he’d like to walk home today and stalked off without waiting for a reply. The man’s face showed an expression of concern for a second before returning to its professional blankness. Whether his boss wanted to walk a mile and a half back to his house wasn’t any of his business. Spencer set off in the wrong direction, and his driver remained by the car, waiting for him to change his mind. But he was set. He walked around the corner, toward Back Bay Station.

He wanted to go underground.

Once there, it took him a few minutes to figure out how to pay the fare. He hadn’t taken the T in adulthood, and while he knew they had replaced tokens several years ago, he had thought getting a ticket to ride would be as easy as handing a person in a booth a certain amount of cash, and them handing him back a card. The booth he approached was unoccupied and didn’t look like anyone had worked in it in quite a long time. Standing off to the side of it was a bank of self-service machines. He approached one and made his way through the process on the touch screen, buying himself a month’s pass, though he only intended to take this single experimental ride. He hadn’t ridden the subway in decades, and wasn’t about to start regularly. But if this experiment was successful, perhaps he would make it a more occasional indulgence.

The people waiting behind him in line were anxious and one was outright rude, but he didn’t care. The rabble could huff and puff all they wanted; he was still tingling from his experience in the pueblos. Or, the illusion of it.

It had seemed so real. So, present. He still felt the touch of the sun on his bare skin and the weight of a stone club in his hand.

Descending the escalator felt almost like stepping into a pit house. It was dark and humid and the smells were slightly similar, though different enough to spoil the illusion when he tried closing his eyes to imagine.

A train arrived before he could get the real lay of the station. He stepped on board along with the other commuters. It was crowded, and he almost fell when the train began to move, because he hadn’t wanted to grab on to a pole or a strap. A woman caught him and helped steady him as the car moved faster. She smiled at him with crooked, yellow teeth. He thanked her and reached out to hold the pole. It was cool in his hand, and felt like it was slick with the residue of hundreds—thousands—of previous riders who’d grabbed onto it before him. Despite his strong desire to let go and wipe his hand on a handkerchief, he held on. Falling on the floor would be worse. Being double indebted to the woman with the idiot smile would be the worst.

Anxiety started to build up in him. His heart beat faster and it felt harder to get a breath. He hadn’t had a full panic attack since he was a boy, but he remembered them well. Spencer closed his eyes and imagined the odors of blood and smoke. He tried to pretend that the acrid stink of the subway car was the smell of a pit house fire. The movement under his feet dispelled his best attempts at recreating the illusion. He needed Dr. Walker to return to Sacred Ridge. But the Doctor had said the next meditation would be different. It would be something special. November was so far away.

He rode for several stops until the mechanical voice announced they were approaching Downtown Crossing. That felt far enough. This is where he wanted off. This was where he wanted to see how Dr. Walker’s therapy had affected him.

8

Cary hustled down the stairs of the station, a plastic bag of books slapping against her hip as she dug in her purse for her Charlie Card. She’d found a first edition of one of her favorite books and had spent a little too much time lovingly admiring it before finally settling on used copies of two other books she could actually afford. Looking at her phone, she’d realized that Doug would likely already be on the platform looking for her. She’d explain she saw the copy of The Blind Assassin, and he’d understand—he knew that she “lost time” inside bookstores—but that wouldn’t mean that he wouldn’t be worried. She kind of loved his little panics. Still, she wanted to protect him from that kind of misplaced anxiety when she could.

She turned the corner to find the train pulling out of the station. People leaving the station slipped around her like water around a rock. She moved carefully toward the wall, where she could wait for them to pass and then get a look to see if Doug had gotten there ahead of her. If he hadn’t, she’d sit on the bench and flip through her new used books. The half-finished novel in her purse would have to wait this evening, while she flirted with her next lovers.

The last of the riders filed out of the station, leaving her momentarily alone on the platform. It wouldn’t be long—likely seconds—before other commuters came down to wait for the next train, though they’d be fewer than when she first got there. Rush hour was almost over. She had lost so much time in the bookstore.

She walked to the bench and turned to sit. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the image of a man at the far end of the platform. Too far down to have just arrived—he hadn’t passed her. He must’ve gotten off the last train. He just stood staring at her. That familiar feeling crept into her bones. That feeling that this man’s gaze wasn’t the same kind of gaze she met whenever she went out. It was something different. Something that made her skin pimple and her scalp tighten. He had a weird vibe. You’re being paranoid, she told herself, and sat down on the bench. Vibes aren’t reality.

That the man was wearing a suit was no guarantee that he wasn’t a creeper, she knew. But, she also knew that men in suits had jobs and families to protect. As soon as someone else arrived on the platform, she’d be safe. He wouldn’t try anything in front of a witness.

Cary cracked open the copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but didn’t read a word on the page. She kept her eye on the man, watching her.

9

“Hey, there you are!” Cary started at the sound of Doug’s voice and fumbled her book.

“Jesus Christ! Where did you come from?” She bent over to pick her book up off the floor, frustrated that she’d just bought it, and now it was getting filthy.

He shrugged. “Sorry. Asshole conductor wouldn’t let me on. Instead of waiting, I went back up and hiked to this station.”

“Meanie.”

“Right? Anyway, you been waiting long?” She held up her Brattle Bookshop bag and he nodded. “I’m sweating like crazy and you didn’t even miss me, did you?”

She shrugged and pointed to the bag next to her on the bench. “Books.” As if that was all that needed to be said about it.

The man at the end of the platform started to walk toward them. Cary felt her skin crawl again, but Doug was there. He wouldn’t do anything to her with Doug standing right here. He’d abide by The Man Code and not objectify another man’s woman. Especially not one accompanied by a man in a suit. Men in suits did not do things to offend another member of his tribe. Men in suits were well behaved around each other.

Except when they weren’t.

“Excuse me,” the man said. Cary thought he looked familiar close up. Like she might have seen him before, but couldn’t place where. He definitely wasn’t an academic. He was a lawyer or a banker or something. Maybe she recognized him from something at Doug’s firm.

Doug said, “Can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you knew how often these trains run. I missed the last one and have been waiting here for a while.”

Cary knitted her brow. That was bullshit. He hadn’t missed a thing. He’d been standing there the whole time. He got off the train she’d watched pull away. At least she thought he did. She supposed he could have been standing there longer than that. Waiting. No. That was ridiculous. Of course he hadn’t been waiting like that. Waiting for them, instead of a train.

Doug looked at his watch. He looked at his wrist even when he wasn’t wearing it. Another neurosis born of law school. “Shouldn’t be long. This time of day, they run every ten minutes or so.”

“Thanks.” The man turned and walked a few paces in the direction he’d been standing before. He straightened his arm and checked a watch that even from a distance looked like it cost more than Doug and Cary made in a year. She started to whisper to Doug that the man hadn’t missed anything. But she only got, “Hon, that guy...” before he turned and came toward them again.

10

The way that bitch was looking at him, Spencer wanted to break her fucking skull open with a sharp stone and make her cuckold husband eat what was inside. He wanted to scrape her scalp off and make the faggot wear it. He wanted to do so many things. But he wouldn’t. More people were appearing on the platform and he couldn’t touch anyone without being caught. His indecision had cost him. The last vibrations of the massacre had worn off and he felt like himself again. Except, now he was underground with these people, instead of high above. Up in his office building. On the hill where his penthouse stood. He was down and debased with all of them.

“I’m sorry to bother you again,” he said. He wasn’t. “Can you tell me if one can walk to Cultivar from here?” The man’s face clouded like the woman’s, though instead of suspicion, it was confusion. He didn’t know where Cultivar was. Looking at his cheap suit, of course he didn’t.

The voice from the speaker above announced that the next train was arriving. Spencer felt the advance of air pushed out of the tunnel ahead of it begin to blow. A damp coppery smell carried along on the breeze.

The man raised his voice to compete with the rising drone of the train. “I suppose you could walk. But if you get on the next train and ride to the State Street exit, it’s right there. It’s just one stop.”

“Thanks.” Spencer took a step back. The woman stood and she and the man walked toward the yellow safety line at the edge of the platform. He wanted to shove her so much. Wanted to put his hands on her back and push hard, so she fell on the tracks. Maybe she’d be electrocuted by the third rail, but really he wanted to watch her cut apart by the wheels of the train. He wanted to smell the insides of her like the scent carried ahead of the train but… more. More pungent. More vibrant. More real.

He wanted more.

That was the point of the therapy. To free him from the reservations of ordinary people and be the true elevated being he was. Someone who not only controlled fortunes, but lives as well. He could decide whether this person lived or died. Whether her man mourned or joined her. He wanted to do it with his hands instead of with a memo or a policy. Not with a pen or in a dream, but with his own hands.

The headlight of the train flashed in the tunnel. It was coming.

The woman looked over her shoulder in a panic. Spencer followed her eyes. She was looking at her shopping bag. She’d left it behind. The man turned and darted in front of Spencer to grab it. He snatched it up and turned to rejoin her at the front of the platform.

Spencer extended his leg, like a playground bully. The man’s foot caught on his and he stumbled. The woman screamed and tried to catch him. Spencer watched, enraptured, hoping against hope that they become entangled and would both go over the edge. He gritted his teeth holding back the smile.

11

Doug saw Cary lurching to catch him. Her hands grazed against him and he intuitively reached out to grab her, despite his conscious desire to push her out of harm’s way. His body did what it wanted, not what his mind did, and he latched on to her. She slowed him and pulled, preventing him from going over the edge. She saved him.

He hit the platform, feeling the raised bumps of the yellow strip pushing painfully into his ribs and elbow. He heard screams from other people on the platform.

He saw the son of a bitch who’d tripped him smile.

He heard Cary shout “No!”

But she’d saved him.

He felt the impact for only a split second.

12

Cary tried to pull him back from the edge, but he was too heavy. He hit the floor and she screamed and the train hit his head with a thump she felt in his body more than heard and then she was screaming more and more. Her eyes flooded with panicked tears and her vision narrowed down to a dark tunnel in which there was nothing visible but her husband’s caved in head lolling at an impossible angle on his broken neck.

She tried to right his head, cradle him and wake him. The crackle of shattered bones in his neck vibrated through her hands and she almost dropped him in fear and revulsion. Doug’s eyes rolled back in different directions from each other. His mouth fell open. Hers did too. But of the two of them, only she screamed.

13

Spencer watched the EMTs cover the man’s body. The police had dragged the woman away. She was screaming hysterically about Doug—his name was Doug—being tripped by THAT MAN! She pointed at Spencer. Another policeman came to talk to him and Spencer handed him his business card. The policeman read it carefully before handing it back. He didn’t need to be told that he was the Spencer Cronin of Cronin Global Investments. It was right there on the card. It was there in the policeman’s mind. In his deference.

Of course, he’d be happy to give a statement, he told the policeman. “Though I don’t know what to say. The man was running toward the end of the platform, and he stumbled. People should be more careful.”

No one countered his observations. No one took the woman’s side and accused him of tripping a man. No one wanted the full force of his fortune and power levied against them. They took him at his word, and never questioned why a man of his stature would be down in the tunnels with everyone else.

The EMTs lifted the gurney the dead man’s—Doug’s—body rested on and wheeled it away.

Spencer climbed up out of the subway station after it, and called his driver from his cell phone. He wanted to have a drink at Top of the Hub. He wanted to look down on the city and dream about November.

The Passion of
the Robertsons - Duncan Ralston

I don't know any stories I'd call a genuine Christmas miracle, but since you asked, I'd have to say the closest was when Harry Maitland met Mr. and Mrs. Robertson on the closing shift at the Hometown Hardware a couple of years back.

You've heard of this so-called "war on Christmas"? Well, Eric and Jean Robertson had been fighting that battle on the front lines before the lines had even been drawn. From the day after Thanksgiving until just after New Year's they'd led a shock and awe campaign of charity work, door-to-door caroling and chants of "Merry Christmas" to just about everyone they met. Not "Happy Holidays," oh no. Not ever. Eric and Jean were "put the Christ back in Christmas" types. If you said to them, "Happy Holidays," you'd get a thousand-yard stare and hear them mutter under their breath, reminding themselves to cross you off their "Nice" list for next year.

And God help you if you wished them a "Happy Hanukah."

These people ate, shat and slept Jesus—and not just on Sundays when Reverend Davies passed around the collection plate. So when an atheist stumbled into their midst on the day the lady's true love gave her three French hens and a partridge in a pear tree, that is to say December 28th, the Robertsons felt a little "Christmas cheer" was in order.

When they came across Harry at the hardware store, it was just about quitting time. Beer o'clock for Harry, if the last few customers didn't dawdle. It had already been a "day from Hell," as Harry himself might have called it in those days, and he wasn't about to stand for their Bible-thumpery.

Come 9:05 the Robertsons finally gathered up their purchases at the front counter, having ignored both announcements over the P.A. that the store was closing. Harry grudgingly scanned the nylon rope, the rolls of duct tape and plastic wrap… and he couldn't stand by and say nothing any longer.

"Got a hot night planned, huh?"

Mr. and Mrs. Robertson just blinked at him.

"It was a joke," Harry mumbled. "You know, because of the…" He shrugged, his humor having flown over their heads. "Never mind."

He rang up their odd purchase and said nothing further until the couple hit him with their standard "Merry Christmas."

"It's not Christmas, anymore," he snapped, and it was the worst possible thing he could have said in that moment. "It hasn't been Christmas for like three days."

Mr. and Mrs. Robertson eyed him with suspicion, as if he'd admitted he belonged to one of those strange religions that handles snakes, or worships their ancestors. They snatched their bag from Harry's hand and stormed out into the snow.

"Have a good night," Harry called after them with heavy sarcasm. He'd already begun to count his till as the door swung shut.

At 9:38 Harry finally locked the front door and drew the security cage shut. As he crossed to the bike racks he spotted a station wagon sat at the far end of the darkened, otherwise empty lot. Someone parked illegally overnight. If he'd noticed it before he'd closed the shop he might have called the cops and had it towed.

It was too late for that now. Harry had bigger fish to fry. A good few inches of snow had come down since he'd biked to work and he'd need to walk it across town to the Ram's Head here. After the day he'd had the call of the drink was strong. He'd planned to down a few shots with Marianne, his favorite bartender—she quit a few weeks after the incident in question, fancied herself an actress—before he got down to the good stuff.

Harry liked the dark beers, the kind so thick they were practically meals in a glass. Just perfect for when you hadn't eaten anything since lunch and also had an urge to get plastered. A beer like that fit the bill most days for Harry Maitland. The hardware store didn't pay him well enough to support both dinner takeout and his after-work proclivities, and he'd never been the kind of guy to brown-bag it.

Crouching in the dark beneath the busted streetlamp, Harry slipped a hand into his jeans pocket for the keys to his bike lock. He fumbled them out and jabbed one of the duplicates blindly for the keyhole.

That's not iiiit, he thought, mimicking the way his latest ex-girlfriend had teased him in singsong while he fumbled under the sheets.

Harry might have laughed if the sound of tires squealing hadn't startled him.

He dropped the keys on the ground and spent a tense moment sifting through the snow in the dark before he noticed the bike racks and the brick wall behind them had brightened considerably and were still brightening while he fumbled.

When he finally clued in that a car was speeding toward him, curiosity had him spin around when he should have been diving out of its way.

Behind the windshield of the advancing station wagon Mr. and Mrs. Robertson sat with matching halos of dome light, ferocious determination in their eyes. A moment later the bright white of the headlamps blotted them out of Harry's sight.

When the rust-flecked grill slammed into his pelvis, Harry saw nothing but black.

"—on our naughty list," Harry heard Mrs. Robertson say as his world came back into sharp focus.

Under different circumstances waking to what he saw that night in the Robertsons's den might have filled him with nostalgia. The walls had been decked with tinsel and holly, stockings hung from the stone fireplace, a warming fire rumbling in the hearth. A plate of neatly iced gingerbreads and sugar cookies lay on a green-fringed table runner alongside a crystal dish filled with pinecones and fragrant potpourri, and three gold candles in polished silver sticks, one each—Harry suspected—for the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. A brass version of "Joy to the World" crackled from a record player while Mr. and Mrs. Robertson sat Indian-fashion on the carpet wrapping gifts and placing them under a gargantuan plastic tree held upright by a wire nailed to the wall near the ceiling. The plastic angel stood askew on the crown of the tree, its tiny hands clasped in prayer.

It was almost like Harry had fallen asleep on Christmas Eve during It's a Wonderful Life and woke to discover his parents hadn't put him to bed and he could watch—if he pretended to still be asleep—as they placed gifts from Saint Nicolas under the PVC tree.

Except for the pain, that is. The pain wouldn't let him wax nostalgic.

Struggling to move his limbs, Harry tried to look down but something constricted his head at the neck. A hazy memory recurred of Mr. Robertson slapping a roll of duct tape down onto the counter and finally Harry became truly horrified at his predicament.

"What is this? Why can't I move?"

Looking over his shoulder, Mr. Robertson stood abruptly, appearing both anxious and pleased, dressed in a ridiculous Christmas sweater with a shirt collar peeking out above the neckline. The man smiled. "You're awake. Welcome to our humble abode."

Looking like she'd just stepped out of a '50s television show in a checkered button-up dress with beige nylons, pearls and a plain white apron Mrs. Robertson plucked up a crystal goblet and a decanter filled with a creamy yellow-white liquid from the coffee table. "Would you care for some egg nog?"

"No, I don't want—" Harry remembered civility wasn't required of him. "What are you doing to me?"

Jean Robertson set down the decanter and offered him a pitying smile. "Relax, Mr. Maitland. You've been heavily sedated but you are very badly injured. Struggling wouldn't be in your best interest."

Eric gave his wife a look of concern. "Do you think I hit him too hard?"

Her response was curt. "He'll be fine."

"What if he's paralyzed?"

"He's not paralyzed, Eric. Are you paralyzed, Mr. Maitland?"

"I don't—" Harry swallowed a dry lump. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Do you believe in God?"

Harry laughed in spite of his circumstances. Couldn't help himself, really. "That's what this is about? You fucking whackos—"

Mrs. Robertson slipped a delicate hand into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a dull black revolver. "Tut tut, Mr. Maitland. God is listening."

"Yeah? Well, God can suck my fucking dick!"

Pulling a face like he'd just sucked on a lemon, Mr. Robertson put a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder. Mrs. Robertson's naked lips rose in a sneer of disgust as she pointed the pistol at Harry.

"I don't want to shoot you, Mr. Maitland," she said. "But I cannot allow you to say such hurtful things about our Lord and Savior in this house."

Mr. Robertson dropped his hand to his side. "He's never going to believe, Jean."

"He'll believe, Eric. Did Thomas not believe when Jesus let him touch His wound?"

"What the fuck is going on here?" Harry demanded of his hosts.

"I'm glad you asked." Mrs. Robertson smiled like a teacher toward an attentive student. "Eric and I came to the realization many years ago that a man such as yourself—an atheist—would never truly appreciate the pain Jesus suffered for our sins…without suffering yourself. And you will suffer here tonight, Mr. Maitland. You'll suffer greatly."

The carol ended and the needle rose from the record.

Harry screamed to fill the silence.

Without missing a beat Mrs. Robertson fired the revolver at the ceiling. The bullet gouged a hole in the stucco above Harry's head and a sprinkle of plaster dust fell like snow on his face and chest.

"No one can hear you," Mr. Robertson said, slipping the old 78 back into its jacket. "Our closest neighbor is half a mile as the crow flies."

"It's just the three of us and God now," Mrs. Robertson agreed with a solemn nod. "And if He ignored the cries of His only begotten Son, I very much doubt He'll intervene for you. The next one's going in your chest," she added almost incidentally.

Harry had no doubt of the woman's sincerity. These people were lunatics. They were cuckoo for Christ. And if all they wanted was for him to believe in their Angry Man in the Sky, he had no qualms humoring them to save his own apostate ass.

No heretics would be burned at the stake tonight.

"Okay," Harry said, trying his damnedest to sound calmed. "Okay, you got me. I've just been pretending, okay?" He blinked a drop of sweat from his eye. "I love Jesus. Jesus is my dude, okay? Can I go now? That's what you want, right?"

A new record started with a fanfare of trumpets and cavalry drums. The chorus sang "Onward Christian Soldiers," and Mr. Robertson returned to his wife's side. They took each other by the hand and smiled beatifically down on Harry.

"Jesus Christ," Harry breathed, his teeth beginning to chatter. "You people are insane."

Mr. Robertson approached the chair and tore the tape off Harry's neck.

Harry screamed again. The first three layers of skin felt like they'd come off with the tape and he wouldn't be surprised to discover he was bleeding.

The pain cleared and he peered down at himself, at his hands taped around several times to the dark, rich wood arms of what looked like an antique chair to Harry's untrained eye, with plush red fabric and buttons. He figured if he couldn't break the tape he might be able to bust the chair itself.

But only if Mrs. Robertson was unarmed.

When he saw what lay to the left of the coffee table and the sofa under its clear plastic cover, all hope of escape blew away like chaff before the wind, and Harry began to shiver uncontrollably.

Two four-by-four inch slabs of pressure-treated lumber lay on the carpet by the supper table, fastened together to form a crude crucifix. At the foot of it were a mallet and railroad spikes, along with two lengths of bristly rope.

And even though Harry was an atheist, he had watched the torture scenes from The Passion on the internet.

He knew what came next.

"The people walking in darkness will see a great light," Mrs. Robertson said reverentially, gripping the pistol in both hands against her chest, like a holy man clutching the Good Book.

Mr. Robertson crossed to the hearth and drew an iron poker from the tool rack. He hefted its weight as he returned to Harry's side.

"Unfortunately we'll have to forgo the traditional flogging of Roman crucifixions," the man said, moving around behind Harry. "We wanted your experience to be as authentic as possible, but obviously we couldn't go into one of those awful stores—"

Mrs. Robertson shook her head, glaring at the floor.

"—and we couldn't have the postman thinking we'd ordered smut online," Mr. Robertson continued gravely. "So…we'll have to make do."

"No!" Harry cried, jerking forward, desperate to evade the man's reach. "You can't do this to me! Turn the other cheek! That's what Jesus said, isn't it? Isn't it?"

He searched the woman's eyes for mercy. Mrs. Robertson afforded Harry another pitying smile, and the poker came down across his back.

Cold hard metal slashed through skin and cracked the bone beneath. Harry's scream tore his throat raw, the taste of blood causing his stomach to rebel. When the pain finally lessened he found himself thanking God Mr. Robertson hadn't stuck the poker in the fire to heat it up, and the realization of what he'd done struck him as deeply as the poker had sunk into his flesh.

"I get it now!" Harry screamed as a chorus of horns filled the room. "No atheists in foxholes! That's what this is, right? Well, you win! Glory glory Hallelujah, I believe!" he shouted, and he would have thrown his hands toward the heavens in fraudulent jubilation had they not been taped to the chair.

The corners of Mrs. Robertson's smile turned down in doubt.

"I told you, Jean," Mr. Robertson said.

Harry twisted round as far as he could. "Shut the fuck up, Eric. You want me to pray? I'll pray. Please…" He imitated a booming parody of a preacher's voice. "God, please…forgive my wicked ways! Spare me from the rod of your righteous followers! I know not what I do, you see? I know that now!"

Mrs. Robertson nodded toward her husband.

Harry heard the whoosh of the poker a heartbeat before it cracked against his ribs. The air catapulted from his lungs and he hunched over himself, weeping and whimpering, an itchy stream of blood trickling onto his thighs.

"Please…" Every breath felt like a spear stabbing his lungs. "…I'm begging you, please stop this."

"'He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,'" Mrs. Robertson said, and she nodded to her husband again.

"What does that mean?" Harry cried. "I don't even know what that—"

The poker came down across his fully exposed back, the pain so omnipresent he puked up chunks of chicken fingers and French fries undigested from lunch.

"Why won't you stop?"

"You still don't understand, Mr. Maitland," the woman said with a shake of her head. "We're not doing this to hurt you. We're doing this to save you."

Harry wept.

Mr. Robertson struck him three more times before Harry lost consciousness.

Thank goodness for small mercies.

When his eyes opened again Harry was lying on his back. Even through the pain he could tell they had spread him out on the makeshift crucifix. A choir pa-rum-pa-pum-pummed "The Little Drummer Boy" on the record player, and Mr. Robertson was on his knees tying Harry's left wrist to the horizontal board. Harry realized he couldn't move his arms even if they hadn't been tied down. He wasn't sure if it was the sedative or the injuries to his pelvis and back that had made movement below the neck impossible, but what he did know was that his hosts meant to drive nails into his hands and feet, and let him hang from their homemade cross until he was dead.

There would be no pleading with them. If there was one thing Harry had faith in, it was that. These two lunatics would not relent. He saw no mercy in their eyes, only the fervor of old-time religion.

The Passion of the Robertsons, he thought.

Blood trickled from the corners of Harry's lips when he laughed.

Eric Robertson gave Harry a queer look while picking up the mallet and spikes. With the tools in hand the man glanced up at his wife. From his expression Harry could not tell if the look was for encouragement or in the hope she'd put a stop to this madness before it went so far they couldn't turn back. Mrs. Robertson was out of Harry's line of vision. But he didn't need to see her to know she'd nodded once more.

Mr. Robertson rested the narrow end of the spike on the meat of Harry's left palm, and poised the mallet above it to strike.

The sound rang in Harry's ears like the clang of a choir bell. Metal split flesh and separated bones like the parting of the Red Sea. Harry's agonized scream unintentionally harmonized with the choir of voices from the record player. Mr. Robertson muttered along to the music, and when he struck the spike again it was synchronous with the "ding" of their bell.

Harry had naively assumed the second strike would be less painful. It was not. The wrist contains eight bones, and each one detached further as the spike drove in, stretching outward so that his hand felt as though it might burst at the sides.

On the third strike, Robertson bashed his own thumb.

With a wincing intake of breath, the man brought his injured digit to his mouth and sucked on it. Harry managed a weak laugh through his tears.

"Give me that, you big baby," Mrs. Robertson snapped, as if she were talking to a child.

Through a blur of tears Harry watched Mrs. Robertson kneel at his side and snatch the mallet from her husband. He caught a glimpse of beige satin panties between her thighs and in some distant, painless galaxy Harry felt the stirrings of arousal.

The Last Temptation of Harry, he thought. God, I really am going to Hell.

Mrs. Robertson caught his eye and clucked her tongue in disapproval. But she wasted no time in scrounging up the other spike by tugging down her dress.

And while she drove the final nail, the pain blistering up his arm with each additional strike, Harry focused what little consciousness remained to him on the shimmering fabric between her legs, imagining himself hammering railroad spikes into the delicate, downy folds of her privates, before crushing her husband's testicles with the mallet.

When the job was done, and the choir sang "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," Mr. and Mrs. Robertson hoisted the crossbeam onto their shoulders and dragged Harry and his crucifix toward the kitchen doorway, where they laid it to rest against the arch.

And so it came to pass that Harry Maitland, atheist, bad boyfriend, Hometown Hardware employee and part-time alcoholic, was crucified in the year of our Lord 2015.

Hanging by his hands, his lungs felt constricted. He could barely get a breath. Blood oozed from his stigmata and pattered on the carpet. They'd made him a footrest, but it was of little comfort or joy.

He would not repent.

He would not accept Jesus as his Lord and personal Savior.

He would not let the Robertsons beat him.

Looking up at their handiwork with smiles of approval, the Robertsons took each other's hands, and though his agony reigned supreme Harry wondered if their little passion play had ever been an attempt to save his admittedly wretched soul, or if it had been an excuse from the very beginning for the couple to torture a man to his death.

As they watched their sacrificial lamb for signs he'd received the Holy Spirit, Harry found himself studying the angel atop the Christmas tree, placed at an odd angle, and thinking about how the words angle and angel were similar, wondering if the similarity held a deeper meaning.

He noticed the top of the tree had bent at the same angle, the wire pulled taut.

"You forgot…the crown of thorns," he gasped, and chuckled when the Christmas cheer dropped from their holier than thou faces.

A discordant twang interrupted "Silent Night." A heartbeat later a small metallic object struck the wall behind Harry's head and the tree sprang forward, launching the angel through the air. Bulbs and ornaments crashed to the floor.

And like Harry had turned toward his inevitable destruction rather than leap out of the way of approaching death, the Robertsons whipped round as the tree landed in the hearth and burst into flames.

Mrs. Robertson's nylons caught next. She dropped to the carpet and began to roll, but the fire spread to her dress, the carpet, the red and green table runner, while Mr. Robertson stared down in horror, seemingly immobile.

The fire alarm began to blare as Mrs. Robertson writhed on the carpet. Bulbs burst like popcorn. Ornaments and plastic needles dripped into a black puddle on the floor. The record had warped, the choral voices rum-pa-pum-pumming became ghostly and surreal.

Already the sulfurous smell of Mrs. Robertson's burning hair filled Harry's nostrils. Her cooking flesh smelled something like burnt pork and the coppery tang of bubbling blood. This combined with the foul stench of burning plastic should have conspired to make Harry sick.

Instead he smiled.

Calm as can be, Mr. Robertson bent to pick up the revolver from the coffee table. He turned his back but Harry could still hear the man ask God for forgiveness before firing a single shot into his wife's head.

The woman stopped moving.

Mr. Robertson's arm rose and he put the pistol in his own mouth.

Realizing he was in direct line of fire should the bullet pass through Mr. Robertson's skull, Harry tried to move his head. He could not, and so he closed his eyes instead, awaiting the end.

The second shot rang out. Hot blood struck Harry's face like a splash of holy water on a newborn babe. He heard the thump of Mr. Robertson's body hitting the floor. Unable to believe he'd survived, when he finally dared to open his eyes the fire had already begun to smolder.

Mr. and Mrs. Robertson were dead. Or if not dead, well done.

He was saved.

Saved by a nail.

And he had to wonder if it was a coincidence that nails had very near killed him, but a single nail had spared his life.

Now you won't see Harry Maitland around the Ram's Head these days. Harry doesn't come in here anymore, not since he found God that night at the Robertsons's house.

The fire alarms were tied to the Robertsons's home monitoring system, you see. When the voice of the customer service agent called over the box Harry thought he was hearing the voice of God. It was not God, it was a man named Jim from AlarmSquad Home Security.

Now I have to ask you, do you think what happened to Harry Maitland on the night of December 28th 2015 was an accident of fate? Or was it "divine intervention"?

Would you call that a "Christmas miracle"?

Heck, don't ask me.

But you have to think, if God was there to save him, then didn't God also let the Robertsons kidnap him in the first place? And if a god would put someone through so much torture just to teach them a lesson, then what the hell kind of sick, depraved sadist have we been praying to all these years?

Not any kind of god I'd want to stand before awaiting judgment, that’s for damn sure.

Hellscape - Rich Hawkins

Freya walked the stone path through the graveyard and approached the church, as the sky turned to red and winged forms with thin limbs swooped through the crimson clouds. It was an alien sky, like the desolation and death of Mars. All the birds were gone and the planes had plummeted to earth in smoke and fire. She’d woken to a blue sky yesterday morning, when everything had been fine and pleasant and she hadn’t yet killed her husband. And now she was trembling with grief and guilt, trying to keep hold of her memories and all the little things that made her the person she was. But she was slipping away, very slowly, and her only wish was to find her missing son before she lost her mind to the creeping darkness stalking the world.

The red clouds pulsed erratically. Yesterday blood had fallen from the sky, and before that it’d been some kind of black rain, oily and pungent, its smell reminding her of human grease.

She gripped the machete as she walked through the church’s front entrance, moving into shadow and cold air. A respite from the toiling heat of the apocalyptic summer.

Inside, a congregation of villagers, the last of the believers, prayed for salvation from the terror of this new world. There were no children present. No sign of her son. The reverend stood before his ragged flock, not acknowledging Freya as she sat at the back of the pews and placed the machete at her side. She looked at him. The reverend was an old man, but he knew little, and he was frail and doubtful, carrying on through habit more than true faith. He was urging his parishioners to stay strong in the face of the devilry outside and believe that God would guide them through the crisis and into a purer, better world once the hordes of sinners and sexual deviants were destroyed.

The congregation listened, prayed, muttered scripture from their holy book, and took comfort in the reverend’s words and the house of their Lord with its thick walls and stained glass visions. And the reverend was reciting from the Book of Revelations, when the first of them began to twitch and grunt in their seats, then bleed from their mouths and eyes. Those not yet affected cried out in horror as family members and friends were overcome by awful seizures and bleeding, but within moments they, too, were wracked by the same symptoms and then the entire congregation was a mass of wretched bodies all shuddering and whimpering. Some screamed, beseeching their saints and calling out to Jesus, meek and mild, their saviour, the Nazarene.

Freya watched, impassive, too far gone to be shocked by what her eyes showed her, for there were greater terrors beyond the church. Her hand tightened on the machete grip as the people of the congregation began to split open with wet ripping sounds and spluttering. Fleshy spikes and spines erupted from beneath their skin, and their limbs contorted into suppurating appendages of sopping meat. Faces stretched, tore, and mouths widened obscenely. Some of them spoke through the wrecks of their red skulls as hair and skin fell away. Tortured cries and shrieks. Hands clawing at faces and eyes. Tongues pulled from mouths. And at the end of it all the entire congregation was a turgid gathering of wretched bodies all mangled, useless and crippled.

The reverend was unchanged, and stood there with his hands at his face and a damp patch spreading on his crotch.

Freya rose from the pew and went to the congregation with her machete held high. The worshippers still with eyes regarded her as she walked around the pews. Some spoke in alien words and guttural snorts.

The reverend was making a shrill sound, whistling through his clenched teeth, and he did not stop Freya as she set to the believers with her machete.

The awful forms of the congregation screamed and screeched. Freya hacked and slashed, shredding flesh and rubbery tissue, ligaments and the wrinkled muscle of their innards; she splintered bone and severed hands with several swipes. Blood gushed, sputtered, flew, then dripped to a halt with the failing of hearts, and when she was done, she stood panting and feral, trembling and covered in gore. Her arms were heavy with exertion, threaded veins straining against her skin. She wiped her face and spat. Then she looked to the reverend, who now sat on the steps that led to the altar, his head in his hands. There was piss on the steps, sluicing down to form a puddle on the cold stone floor.

Freya went to him, raised the machete as he cowered, then lowered it at the last moment. She turned away and walked outside, leaving behind the church and its slaughtered flock.

She walked along the main road of the village, stepping between the people lying sprawled on their backs and staring up at the violent sky. She looked for her son, but couldn’t find him. An old woman in a stained nightdress giggled and spoke of old gods with terrible appetites. Freya ignored her.

People were losing their minds in the streets. A man capered past her, muttering with his hands over his eyes.

Everything was dreamlike and vague, and minutes bled together.

There was a writhing horror in the sky, and its nest of great eyes scoured the land below. It was plucking victims from the ground and taking them into its cavernous mouth of sharp pink tongues. They screamed as they went into the sky. Freya wondered if her son had been taken, and the thought of it almost stopped her heart.

As if waking from a fugue, she found herself standing before the front of the village hall. Beyond the stone steps rising from the street, the front doors were open, and a horrid stench of raw meat and brine drifted out to meet her.

She climbed the steps, her shoes dragging through drying splatters of blood, and stood in the doorway, cringing from the awful stink that smarted in her eyes and burned in her throat. She stifled a sob that shuddered in her chest, and bowed her head for a moment before entering the building.

And she barely made half a dozen steps before halting in the middle of the hall, surrounded by shadows and blood and more transformed villagers. They wheezed and sagged against the walls, hunching and twisted, misshapen by the fleshy spines and tumours bursting from their bodies. Freya recognised a few of them, and wished she hadn’t. Old friends and acquaintances. She wept for the people she remembered.

But, still, no sign of her son, and no children amongst the afflicted.

She visited each of them with her machete, hacking at their twitching forms until they were just scattered mounds of pulped meat and wet bone.

She left the village hall, streaked in gore and sobbing into one hand.

A house burned, consumed by fire that heated the air and made her falter. She could feel herself slipping away, losing bits of her mind in slow increments. A stupor inside her head. Her heartbeat was like a failing mechanism ticking down.

Slumping upon a bench on one side of the street, outside the village shop, she let out a tired breath and rubbed at her face with bloodied hands. Her ears filled with a low ringing that ached in the walls of her skull.

Around her, people laughed and cried. She recalled the last news report on the television, when it’d been stated in pragmatic terms that writhing behemoths were rising from the world’s oceans and giant portals had opened in the sky. Before that, there’d been natural disasters, burning cities and mass suicides, followed by the spread of madness across the globe.

Freya sat there until she was aware of someone standing nearby. She looked up and to her right, at the naked man working at his cupped testicles with a pair of nail scissors. His face was joyous, euphoric, and he didn’t notice her rise from the bench and walk away.

She heard the fluid from his scrotum splatter on the tarmac behind her, and the man cry out in exquisite pain.

Freya couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about the village primary school, but she was losing track of things; important names and dates. Information. Her son’s name was David, she was sure. David. It was always David.

She said his name as she walked up the short path to the front doors. She pushed the doors open and stepped inside. There was a cramped cloakroom, children’s brightly coloured bags on wall hooks, and the smell of decaying sea food. She found the first classroom deserted, but a dog had been bisected on a table. Its eyes were gone, nowhere to be seen. Its empty head glistened. She thought she recognised the dog, but didn’t stop to confirm it and entered the next classroom.

Empty. No sign of anyone. Drawings on the walls. A small mound of milk teeth upon the teacher’s desk. She spoke her son’s name.

When she stepped into the final classroom, the sight of the children lying on the floor amidst the tables and chairs stole the breath from her lungs. Her throat and chest tightened. The inside of her head swam, her vision whitening at the edges, and she tottered on weak legs. Then, steeling herself, she stepped among the children.

There must have been more than fifteen of them on the floor in shadowed places, their eyes open but glazed and unseeing. Their chests moved with slow breaths, gently shaking.

She cried when she found David curled against the far wall, his eyes set upon the floor, mouth partially open. His lips were dry and cracked. Freya looked at him then the others; it looked like they were under some sort of spell. She crouched next to her son. Her boy. The relief at finding him was tempered by his unresponsiveness to her hand upon his arm. He didn’t even flinch. Tears swelled in Freya’s eyes as she squeezed David’s arm and prayed for him to respond, to give her a sign, but her silent plea went unanswered.

“Hello, Freya,” a rasping voice said behind her. “Welcome to my larder.”

Freya stood and turned, and it took all of her nerve not to scream when she saw what had become of Miss Blinker, one of the teachers at the school. She was once a beautiful woman, adored by the children and several of the dads, but now she was something else entirely.

“Oh God,” said Freya, her hand tightening on the machete. More memories tumbled away from her, and she forgot her own name for a moment.

Hunched over and wheezing, Miss Blinker grinned with a misshapen and too-wide mouth full of curved fangs. Red tendrils had sprouted from her stomach, swaying and darting in the air. Weeping cysts and bulging pustules had ripped through her clothes, turning them into rags. The right side of her body was covered in suppurating lesions. Her hands had contorted into dripping blackened claws.

Miss Blinker was a monster.

“This is a new world,” the teacher said, her abundance of teeth giving her a slight lisp. “Aren’t you excited? It’s the arrival of all the gods and monsters. They live in the spaces between the spaces.” She paused, dabbed at her horrid mouth with one elongated finger. “Why don’t you come over here and we can discuss things?”

Freya swallowed to clear her throat and glanced at David. “What’s happening here?”

Miss Blinker spread her spindly arms to acknowledge the children. “They are my food. I’ve already eaten two. Are you hungry?”

“What happened to you?” Freya asked.

“The gods smiled upon me. They blessed me with new appetites and perceptions, and made me into a glorious thing. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“What have you done to my son?”

“I merely issued him, and the others, a natural sedative. It makes them more compliant for…well, you know.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Freya said.

Miss Blinker laughed and lunged across the table that separated her from Freya, who only just dodged her swiping claws. Freya stumbled back against the wall, almost tripping over David’s legs. She raised and swung the machete as Miss Blinker leapt forwards, and the blade found the spoiled meat of the creature’s face and took her nose and most of one side of her face. It was like slicing through an overripe pumpkin.

Miss Blinker screamed. She clutched clawed hands to her ruined face. Blood gushed, hitting the floor with the sound of hard slapping. She fell backwards, her stomach tendrils writhing and wet, and when she grasped for Freya again, the machete severed her outreaching hand.

Miss Blinker was a shrieking, manic wreck of flailing limbs when Freya buried the machete in her heart.

Trembling and wordless, Freya stared down at the monster she’d killed, and it was only when she placed one hand to her stomach that she noticed the horizontal cut made by one of Miss Blinker’s sharp tendrils.

The children woke soon afterwards and sat on the floor, glancing around with dull faces. They had no idea what was happening, and Freya chose to leave them oblivious because it was the most merciful thing to do.

Struggling with her gut wound, she helped David to his feet. They hugged. He said nothing. There were tears in his eyes.

She nearly forgot his name.

They walked outside, and the children followed and dispersed into the chaotic streets of the village. Freya and David stood in the middle of the road as alien thunder boomed in the red sky. A glimpse of the sun, draped in scarlet, beyond the masses of shapeless black flesh that drifted above. Even the daylight was turning red. She couldn’t look at the black masses for more than a moment because of the pain that their manifestation caused in her eyes.

Blood dripped from her stomach onto the road. Each drop spilling the best of her. She winced, breathing hard, and held back a sob.

The boy shuddered beside her. What was his name?

She was slipping away. It felt like reality was failing. The fabric of time was being twisted by entities beyond her comprehension. The walls of houses were bleeding, and the village church had transformed into a tower of red pulsing meat that sprouted tendrils and birthed plump spiders the size of dogs.

People were pulled into the sky, and they did not scream.

“Let’s go home,” Freya said to the boy, as she watched a man tear away his own face with such ease that the skin and flesh could have been putty.

The boy nodded. He was slack-mouthed, almost moronic, his eyes dull and weeping. Such a frail thing. What was his name?

She stifled a laugh with one hand. Blood on her mouth. She tasted it on her tongue. She’d dropped the machete, but couldn’t remember where. An old folk song echoed inside her head then flitted away, as if on a breeze whispered by the alien gods.

Details were fading. When was her birthday? What had she eaten for breakfast?

People were skinning themselves in the street and giggling all the while. A young couple rutted in a flower garden as they bled from numerous cuts upon their dishevelled bodies. Blood sluiced in the gutters and gathered in pools. A little girl was pulling the guts from a dead man.

Her vision swaying, Freya took the boy’s hand and they walked on. She wasn’t sure which road led homewards. She let out a pained cry, and the boy looked at her with a confused expression. Behind them, laughter and screams rose then faded. Someone was chanting from within a garage. The stench of rotting meat swept across the street.

In the sky, the black masses of flesh roared in some kind of victory.

Farther on, her hand slipped from the boy’s, and she stumbled down the street, only glancing back once at him as he sat down on the road and raised his face to the sky. Who was he? Had he meant something to her?

She didn’t know.

She laughed.

What is my name?

The blood on her hands. The glistening wound in her stomach. The rancid smell of her guts. She wondered what had happened. She wondered what it was all about. She wondered about everything and why the sky was red and if the black moons up there were grinning at her.

Her mammalian brain dwindled, slowly fading into nothing.

The crimson light pulsed. The ringing in her ears became deafening. And she laughed again as she slumped on the kerb at the roadside. Glass shards lay at her feet. Her stomach wound was not enough to kill her, not quickly anyway. She thought it would be the most hilarious thing to cut her throat.

Yes, it would be. It sounded delightful.

She was still laughing when she took one of the glass shards and drew it across her throat, offering her blood to the new gods at the end of it all.

Molly - Glenn Rolfe

This story is dedicated to the memory of Matt Molgaard.
A husband, a father, a son, a writer, and a fan.
I hope you found your peace, my friend.

NIGHT ONE

His job at the Hilton was bullshit. Some of his co-workers were assholes, and the guests were even worse. Two months ago Caleb left his cozy little Night Audit job at the Super 8. Sure, at the sleazy property on Elmore Ave his nights were full of scum of the Earth—hookers, junkies, real shitty humans—but at least they kept to themselves. They stayed out of your business, you stayed out of theirs. The same could not be said of the businessmen and women that frequented the fancy hotel in Oakman. It was a land of uppity fucks.

“Excuse me.”

Lifting his gaze from the comic in his hands, he knew the voice, knew the goddamn “diamond member” tone. Anne Marie.

“Oh,” she said, “You do realize you’re working, right?”

She was holding a little black bucket.

“Do you have a bigger ice bucket than this puny thing?”

They did, but at this moment, Caleb wasn’t about to fork it over.

“Nah, sorry. That’s all they give us.”

“So…” she looked over her shoulder.

Shit.  He’d left the door to the hotel’s meeting space open. A large red Igloo cooler was sitting atop the first table.

“Oh, yeah. I always forget about that one.”

“Mmm hmmm. I’m sure,” she said.

“I’ll just make sure it’s clean. Where would you like me to bring it?”

She turned and walked toward the elevators. Without looking back, she said, “I want it filled and set it out for us on the lobby table.” The elevator doors opened. She stepped in, did an about face, and smiled. “We’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

No please. No thank you. The door closed.

What he wanted to do was fill the fucking thing with piss.

His front desk manager, Justin, came out from the back office. “Was that Anne Marie?”

“Yeah, she wants me to clean and fill the cooler for them.”

“She’s one of our favs around here, Caleb, be sure to do as she says.”

Gritting his teeth, Caleb imagined beating the snot out of the prick.

Justin pushed his glasses up his nose. “I know this is a big change for you, coming from that motel, but our clientele is a bit more…sophisticated. They pay good money to stay here. I hope you can appreciate that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Caleb muttered.

Prick.

“What’s that?” Justin said.

“I’ll get it ready for them.”

“You’d better,” Justin said, before he left.

Caleb cleaned the cooler, filled it with ice and the twelve-pack of Bud Light that Justin purchased for the group on the hotel’s behalf, and left it on the large table by the lobby TV. Sure enough, they sauntered down at promptly 6:15. Anne Marie, the queen bitch, and her getaway lover, Isaac, an over-muscled, P-90 X douchebag, sat down first. They were definitely fucking. Caleb had seen them making out in front of Anne Marie’s room before she pulled him inside by the crotch of his pants. Lizzy and Donna rounded out the little tribe. Lizzy was a bubbly blonde that seemed like the type to go along with anything, Donna was a bit older than the others, twice as hot, but mean as fuck. Long black hair, perfect curves, and legs that she loved to show off in tight little business skirts, a real life Black Widow. It wasn’t long before Justin came out of the back office and joined them, whispering and staring daggers in Caleb’s direction. Their cackles echoed, carrying like rabid bats threatening him with their infection.

An hour later, Justin grabbed his keys, said his good-byes to Anne Marie’s crew before turning to Caleb.  “Make sure you clean the lobby before shift change,” Justin said. “I don’t want Stephen to have to deal with this shit, he’ll throw a hissy fit.”

“Oh, we love Stephen,” Lizzy said.

Of course they do.

Stephen was another fucking winner. A grade-A douchebag convinced that he did everything at the hotel, frequently branding the rest of his co-workers as lazy and incompetent.

Justin whispered something into Anne Marie’s ear. She craned her head in Caleb’s direction and laughed.

Justin hugged her and headed out the door.

Good fucking riddance.

They continued on for the next forty minutes, being loud and obnoxious as always, blasting bad dance songs from their phones and laughing and swearing up a storm until they finally went back up to their rooms. The lobby table was a disaster of Chinese food containers and beer cans.

Caleb left it there. He kept his head down, plowed through his second shift checklist, and was making the cash drop just as Stephen came through the lobby doors. Caleb grabbed his sweatshirt from the coat rack, punched out, and passed the desk.

“What’s with the mess in the lobby?” Stephen said.

“Justin said to have you clean it up,” Caleb said.

“Oh, wonderful.”

Heading out the door, walking across the wet pavement, a cool wind blew his shaggy bangs across his forehead. On impulse, he looked over his shoulder at the four-story building. A silhouette in the top corner room stood before the lit window. A person holding a small child. The light died out as the curtain fell. The sight sent a tendril of fear crawling up Caleb’s spine. That was Anne Marie’s room.

Why did I think she was holding a kid?

A car horn blared, and brought him back to reality

He was standing in the middle of the parking lot, looking like a pervert staring up at the hotel windows.

“Get outta the way, moron,” a man with a New York accent barked from behind the wheel of a shiny Dodge Challenger

“Sorry.”

The car and its New York loudmouth jerked around him.

“Fucking kids,” the man said.

Caleb got in his Kia, pulled up Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” on his iPhone, hit play, and backed out. The light in Anne Marie’s room was on again. He stamped the brakes and stared. His jaw dropped.

Behind the sheer curtain, a set of curves stood, a second silhouette, a man, appeared before her, dropping to his knees.

Isaac.

Caleb watch as the hands roamed over Anne Marie’s breasts and down to her hips.

Caleb’s dick stiffened. Now, he really was that pervert.

He pulled his gaze away, put the car in Drive, daring one last peek at the window, they’d moved away, but something else caught his eye. The small child was there.

The light died.

Dressed in goose bumps, he headed home.

Anne Marie watched Isaac slip from the sheets, pull on his underwear, slacks, and t-shirt. He was fun and beautiful. And he could fuck like a beast. It would be a shame to have to do what needed to be done. As hot as he was, the man had more brains in his cock than in his head. Lizzy was clueless about, well, everything, but Donna, Justin, and that dickwad, Caleb, knew better. She’d seen Caleb just this past week catch her with her boy-toy in the doorway. That was all right. She had plans for him, too.

Her job up here in dead-as-fuck Maine would be finished tomorrow, and then she and Molly were off to the Caribbean. Isaac tiptoed to the door. Lights bled into the darkened room, cracking over Molly’s face.

Molly.

The darkness returned as Isaac shut the door.

Anne Marie sat up. Molly’s silhouette moved.

“Come here, baby,” Anne Marie said.

The doll crossed the room, a shadow in the night, and climbed up into bed. Anne Marie held the sheets up, allowing the doll to take Isaac’s spot.

Molly lay still, the stitched red smile in perfect place upon her pale face.

Anne Marie covered her with the sheet, kissed her forehead and snuggled up next to her.

“You’ll show them, won’t you, Molly?”

She traced the doll’s blood-red smile with her finger, and then closed her eyes.

Donna, clad in a red leather thong and nothing else, pulled Lizzy’s night shirt over the trembling blonde’s head. She dropped the cotton shirt to the floor, placed her hands on the woman’s tan shoulders, and eased her back on the bed.

“Shh,” Donna said. “No one is going to find out, okay? This is our little secret.”

Lizzy, biting her bottom lip, nodded.

Donna slipped out of the thong and kicked it to the side.

“You’re going to go first.”

She loved the nervous energy radiating from the Lizzy. A few drinks and a little Benadryl and the woman was putty in her hands. Well, almost. Under the concoction’s spell, Lizzy’d confessed that while she’d never been with woman, she had fantasized about it. Donna decided that was all the yes she needed.

She straddled Lizzy’s hips. Taking her time, she let her fingers matriculate up the young woman’s nubile body.

“You have beautiful tits,” Donna said.

Lizzy gave a weak smile. “Thanks.”

Donna bent down, tracing the erect nipples with her lips, first one then the other. Lizzy took in a sharp breath. Donna smiled, and went to work, knowing the perfect nibble to tongue-flick ratio to get the woman’s motor running. She continued, slipping one hand between Lizzy’s legs. Intoxicated by Lizzy’s heavy breathing, quiet moans, and the way she squirmed at her touch, Donna pulled her fingers from Lizzy pussy and sucked the juices from them, before bending and kissing Lizzy full on the mouth. Their tongues darting and sliding against each other. Donna broke the kiss and sat up, sliding her slick, shaved pussy up Lizzy’s warm flesh.

“Your turn,” she said.

Lizzy smiled and nodded.

Donna got up and wrapped her knees on either side of Lizzy’s head.

Now, it was Donna’s turn to purr, moan, and cum.

NIGHT TWO

Caleb’s night had been a doozy. He’d arrived to work late this afternoon after getting his third speeding ticket of the year. He caught a rash of shit from Justin, and then he had to watch Angie, one of his cooler co-workers, burst into tears after finding out something horrible about her fiancé. She never said what it was before becoming a complete mess and being sent home by Justin. Now, Caleb was on his own, and every nutjob in the area seemed to be trying to either get a room (two clowns, high as fuck, and demanding he match the price of the Motel 6 across the street) or was stirring up shit in the parking lot (a group of local rednecks in pickup trucks decided to get in a shouting match with two black guests). Oakman wasn’t known for its crime, but there seemed to be something in the air tonight.

Before he could look up whether the ticket meant he was in danger of losing his license, Caleb’s favorite guests stumbled through the lobby doors.

Anne Marie’s tits were just about falling out of her low-cut blouse. Caleb spied her left areola and felt his face flush.

“Oh,” Anne Marie said. “See something you like?”

Isaac whispered something in her ear before helping her stand up straight.

Caleb saw Donna through the lobby door, having a cigarette out by the smoker’s bench.

“You know,” Anne Marie said. “You could be cute…if you weren’t such a fucking little prick.”

“Whoa, shhh shhh,” Isaac said. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. She shoved Isaac back toward the stairwell. “You’re drunker than I am. Why don’t you go to bed?”

Isaac looked at her, waiting.

“Go on.”

“Seriously?” he said.

“That’s right, Isaac. Go sleep it off.”

When she turned back to the desk, her face had gone stern. Her green eyes were mesmerizing. Caleb tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. His nerves were all over the place.

The corners of Anne Marie’s red lips turned upward.

He was frozen. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his neck.

The lobby doors rattled open.

Donna held up a six-pack of Bud Light.

“Hey, stop eye-fucking that boy and come drink these with me,” she said.

Anne Marie gave him a wink and turned.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I’m coming.”

Caleb tried his best to focus on his computer, blindly scrolling through his Facebook feed, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off Anne Marie. It was like his brain and his body were betraying him. He’d hated this bitch since the first day their company placed them at the hotel. He’d overheard Isaac and Donna mentioning that this was their last week at this job. Caleb surmised that the group was heading elsewhere, and he couldn’t wait. But was it possible that he’d wanted Anne Marie the whole time? The thought repulsed and excited him.

And tonight, “you could be cute….” That wink and the smile. “See something you like?”

By 9:30, now joined by Lizzy, the three women headed for the elevator. Only Lizzy said good-night. He collected their cans from the table and wiped down the area.

Anne Marie said good-night to Donna and Lizzy, and headed for Isaac’s room. He’d want to fuck her one last time, especially with them parting ways in the morning, but she had other plans. She knocked on his door.

He was smiling as he let her in.

“Sit down,” she said.

He tried to snake his arms around her, but she slapped him hard across the face, and repeated the command.

Isaac, holding his meaty hand to his reddened cheek, looked ready to cry.

Pussy.

“I get it, all right? I have a family, but we should—”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

He fell silent, his shoulders slumped.

She set her red handbag next to him.

“We’ve had some fun, haven’t we? Don’t answer that.” She took a seat on the bench against the wall. “All this time, and you never once told me you loved me.”

“I…”

He tried to say it, but she knew he couldn’t. Which didn’t mean shit to her; she’d never felt a thing for him, either.

“That’s okay, Isaac. I know you’re incapable of loving anyone besides yourself. Your poor wife. Does she know what a slut you are?”

He went to open his mouth.

“Don’t,” she said.

She stood and walked toward the bathroom.

“Isaac, there’s someone I’d like for you to meet.”

“What?”

Anne Marie flicked off the room’s main light.

Molly’s silhouette stood before the room’s window. Something gleamed in her hand.

Anne Marie smiled and went to Isaac. She pulled his chin up and kissed him.

His hands found her ass.

She lowered her lips to his ear. “Okay, big boy. Put your hands over your head.”

“I knew it, hell yes, I knew it,” he said.

Anne Marie produced a set of handcuffs from her bag at the end of the bed.

She cuffed his wrists and trailed a finger down his chest.

“That’s so fucking hot,” he said.

She felt his big prick press against her thigh.

“I can’t believe we waited so long to role play.”

She grabbed a second set of cuffs and a piece of rope from the bag.

“Oh, baby. Don’t you even worry. I took a shit ton of Viagra. I’m gonna cum and cum again.”

Anne Marie held the handcuffs in her teeth as she undid his khaki’s and pulled the waistband of his underwear down, releasing “Kong.”

She teased him, letting her lips drag across his jizz-drooling cock.

He moaned and pressed himself against her.

On the floor, she cuffed his ankles and tied the rope through the chain. She tossed the rope under the bed and felt it pull taught.

Anne Marie crawled back up and took him in her mouth.

“Hey, who…oh, god, you are so fucking good. You, oh….ah…hey, wait? What the fuck? Who is that?”

Her lips made a loud smacking sound as she came up for air. She reached into her bag of tricks and brought out the role of duct tape. She stretched out a piece, tore it off, and slammed it over Isaac’s mouth as he struggled, the cuffs on his wrists now tightly bound beneath the bed to the ones at his ankles.

She lit the candle he kept on his nightstand,

Molly sat beside him. He was horizontally stretched across the bed, bound and at their mercy.

His eyes looked ready to explode from their sockets. He began squirming and flopping, a dying fish frying on the hot concrete, knowing something was about to go exponentially fucking wrong.

“Isaac, Molly. Molly…make him scream.”

He turned his gaze to Anne Marie, mumbling something beneath the tape.

Anne Marie stepped back and watched as Molly, knife in hand, slid off the bed, and quiet as a mouse, slid the razor-sharp blade across Isaac’s Achilles tendons.

Isaac’s top half thrashed in overdrive. Tears spilled from his horrified eyes.

“Molly’s wanted to meet you for some time.”

He tried to speak, but it was useless.

“Oh, dear Isaac, you’ve never had anything to say, why bother now?”

Molly climbed from beneath the bed and stood at her side.

Molly craned her head up. Anne Marie nodded. The doll, holding the blood covered blade, started toward the bed.

Shaking his head back and forth, trying to buck himself free, Isaac squirmed in terror as the doll pressed the blade to his throat and drew a crimson smile across his tanned flesh.

“Molly, can I trust you to take care of the girls?”

The doll looked back and nodded.

“Good. I’m going to have a little fun of my own. Meet me back in the room in an hour.”

Anne Marie left Molly to take care of Isaac. She headed toward the elevator.

Caleb slammed the phone down.

Fucking Stephen, that piece of shit.

Thanks to that jerk off, Caleb would be pulling a double. The asshole claimed he’d broken his ankle while trying to help a man from being attacked in Capitol Park. That was bullshit. The guy didn’t have a brave bone in his body. More likely, the fucking loser twisted his ankle trying to catch a fucking Pokémon with his phone. Caleb couldn’t count the times Stephen had tried to engage him in conversations about that ridiculous waste of time app.

Caleb was about to pick up his comic when Anne Marie sauntered up to the desk.

She held her room keys at chest level, her cleavage redirecting Caleb’s brain.

“Sorry, my keys aren’t working. I feel like an idiot. I might have had them next to my phone.” She reached into her blouse and freed the phone from her bra. Her nipple reappeared.

“Oh, my god, I am so…” she fixed her bra and shirt.

“It’s all…it’s all right, I can make you new ones,” he said.

He couldn’t stop his eyes from returning to her chest as if he had a .44 kissing his temple.

“Actually,” she said, placing her hand on his, “I was hoping you’d bring your master key up. Just to make sure I get in. I don’t want to have to come…back down again.”

Holy shit.

He fumbled for his master keys and gave it a half second’s thought: escort her to her room with the intentions of promptly returning to the desk and keeping this job, or follow her into her room, see what she has to offer, and, in the worst-case scenario, get canned.

“Yeah, of course. Lead the way,” he said.

As he came around the desk, she hooked his arm.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” she said.

“Nah, what? You’re one of our best guests.”

They reached the elevator. Caleb pressed the button.

Her perfume was intoxicating.

“I probably wasn’t so nice myself,” she said.

Arm-in-arm, they entered the elevator. Before the doors even slid shut, she threw herself on him, slamming him against the wall.  Her tongue in his mouth, her hand pressed against his dress pants, he kissed his job good-bye.

Fuck it.

Thank you, Stephen.

Donna whispered, “Sixty-nine” into Lizzy’s ear.

Lizzy didn’t hesitate to crawl around the bed and place her wet pussy to Donna’s face.

Donna let her tongue go to work, somewhat shocked but equally turned on by how quick her padawan had plunged into the world of girl-on-girl. And goddamn was she a fast learner. Donna squeaked as the young woman pressed into her and flicked away at her clitoris like a snake in the grass.

She had Lizzy’s delicious juices all over her face when the door to the room opened and the lights died.

Donna eased away from Lizzy, Lizzy did the same, as both women scurried to cover themselves with the bed sheet.

The door closed and left them in complete darkness.

“Hello?” Donna said. “Anne Marie? Is that you?”

She couldn’t think of anyone else it could be, but how and why she would have a key…

Lizzy yelped as she disappeared from the bed. The coolness left in her wake sent a shiver up Donna’s spine.

“Lizzy, are you all right?”

The silence of the moment was shattered by thick, gurgling sounds coming from the floor

“Lizzy?”

Donna prided herself on having the upper hand in every situation she encountered, like with Lizzy, like with any man she chose, even with Anne Marie, letting her co-worker believe she was the Queen Bee in their hive, but Donna knew better. Now, that confidence was seeping out at warp speed.

She reached for the lamp on the nightstand and felt something sharp puncture her wrist. She gasped. Whatever it was went in one side of her wrist, came out the other, and then was pulled back out. It happened in seconds. She pulled her arm to her chest and felt the warmth of her blood spill between her tits and down to her navel.

“Please, who’s there?”

She heard someone shuffle around the bed. She didn’t dare reach for the light again.

“Lizzy, she whimpered. “Help me.”

She was stabbed just beneath the ribs.

She moaned and tumbled toward her assailant, falling to the floor.

Her face smacked against the thin rug, her body crumbled down.

“Please,” she cried quietly.

She was punctured like a pincushion, over and over, in the breast, the shoulder, the neck, and finally, before she could scream, there was a blinding wave of pain as the blade entered her eye and shoved through to her brain.

Anne Marie let Caleb open the door and then tackled him to the bed.

Caleb’s body tingled from head to toe in anticipation as she opened his pants, and slipped her hand past the waistband of his underwear, wrapping her hand around his stiff cock and stroking him to the point of madness.

“Oh my God, fuck,” he mumbled through his gritted teeth.

“Yeah,” she said. “You like that?”

“Fuck, yes.”

“I’m going to give you a night you’ll never forget,” she said.

He felt like he was going to explode in her hand. He crawled back, trying not to cum too fast like a goddamn chump.

She freed her hand, slithered down his body, pulled his cock free and took it in her mouth.

Caleb had never felt such intensity in any of his previous sexual experiences. His mind spun, his thoughts flew from corner to corner, as his hands clenched the comforter beneath him, he cried out in ecstasy, delirious as he spurted again and again.

She swallowed every drop, leaving him spasming on his back, his eyes closed, a smile smeared to his face, sweating and on the verge of giggling like a schoolgirl.

He put his hands over his eyes and breathed a sigh. He didn’t look up until he heard the door open and close.

Sitting up, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“What the…?” he said.

The doll reached up and took Anne Marie’s hand.

“Caleb, meet Molly.”

She’d talked about this doll since the first week she began staying at the hotel. Molly was a bit of running joke around the back office. Even Justin and Angie had fun with it. They’d claimed to have seen Molly, but Caleb never had until now.

He stared at Molly. She was the “child” he’d seen in the window, the silhouette next to Anne Marie last night. And she was alive.

“Jesus, what is she?”

Anne Marie, ignoring his question, bent and met the doll’s dead gaze.

“Molly,” she said. “He’s all yours. Just remember, you need to clean up your mess.”

With that, Anne Marie opened the door, offered him one last sinister smile and left them alone.

Caleb’s psyche could not get around the vision standing before him.

The fucking doll was alive.

Then he noticed the bloody knife in Molly’s hand, his gaze travelled to the crimson splotches on the doll’s filthy white dress.

Caleb hastily buttoned his pants, and crawled across the bed to the phone on the nightstand. Who the fuck was he going to call? He was supposed to be at the desk. He heard shuffling and looked back at the entrance.

Molly was gone.

Holding the phone like a weapon, he scanned the room.

This was fucked.

He was fucked.

How many times do you hear never get involved with your guests? And he never had. The one time… he still couldn’t believe it had even happened. He hated that Anne Marie, and yet…

“Fuck!” Caleb cried out as the knife sunk into his thigh.

The goddamn doll was going to kill him. He reached down to snatch the thing by its yarn-like yellow hair when it pulled the knife free and swiped at him. The blade ran across his wrist, splattering the wall by the phone with his blood. He drew his hand back and flung himself across the bed and to the floor.

I’m gonna bleed out.

Trying to get up, his leg buckled. his attempt to catch himself failed, thanks to his bleeding wrist. Caleb hit the floor and wanted to cry. He was feeling woozy and weak. Everything was happening so damn fast.

Molly appeared above him. Her button eyes had changed. The plastic pieces that had been sewn there had melted into two black pools, pulsing and swirling with death.

He had just enough time to bring his good arm up as she dropped down. The knife clutched in her hands entered one side of his forearm and came out the other, and drove into his chest. Her weight was impossible. It felt like there was a boulder on top of him. He felt the tip of the weapon pierce his pectoral and prayed it wouldn’t hit his heart or lungs. Despite the pain, he forced himself to roll. The move knocked Molly off balance and to the floor. Gritting his teeth, Caleb stood. The tip of the blade came free from his chest as he hobbled toward the door with the knife sticking through his arm. He glanced down at wet stain blossoming beneath his light blue work shirt.

I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die.

He reached the door, and tried to press the handle with his elbow.

A sharp pain exploded in the back of his calf.

Caleb fell backwards, the door handle racing away from him.

The wind was knocked from his lungs as he hit the floor.

Molly stood. Blood, his blood, smeared across her face. Moaning, his head swimming in a fog of blood-loss, Caleb watched as the creature’s mouth opened wide and slammed its needle-like teeth into his throat.

Anne Marie went behind the front desk in the lobby. She pulled up Isaac’s room and hit the checkout button. She did the same with Lizzy and Donna. The ladies were single and wouldn’t be reported missing for a few days. Isaac was a different story, his wife would be a mess, but all three would have checked out from the hotel and disappeared together. Prime suspect? The missing front desk agent that checked them out.

Anne Marie grabbed a cup of Sleepytime tea from the coffee station and took a seat in the empty lobby; Molly needed time to finish Caleb. There would be nothing left of his body or the others. Molly never left so much as a fingernail behind. The group’s meager travel belongings would eventually be found strewn across the field out back of the hotel, but that would be another dead end. They always were.

Anne Marie and Molly had a Caribbean Cruise to catch tomorrow. A long overdue vacation, just the two of them. What kind of fun could they have out to sea? The possibilities were endless.

Only Angels Know - George Daniel Lee

No. Never, never right; never the way it's painted inside my eyes. I try...everything. I promise, I threaten; I kiss and scream until I can barely move, until they abandon me, abandon the art...none of them...none of them understand. If they did, perhaps they'd do as I ask, be as I require. None of them can, no matter what the magazines say; the mewling, empty praises of critics, the professions of love, the scented, seeping letters...it doesn't matter. None of it right.

Painting with bodies, making art from the living...almost impossible. The dead? I tried that already; donated corpses, barely cooled; men, women, children...one who'd been in a car crash, another a suicide, flung before a train, another burned alive, charred of distinction. They love me, they hate me; call me prodigy and pervert; monster and messiah. This... the driving imperative, the first inspiration. Everything else...echoes; fumbling foal's steps. I'm nearly there, so close, so close, to seeing it, making it real.

We came close today, so close I dared to believe; offering a prayer of thanks to whatever masochist muse, whatever flayed God, ripped open my mind and bled dreams into me. Premature; a child hacking its first and only breath. The breakdown taking a little slice of my soul with it, leeching me away. So tired, but I won't sleep; not yet. How many days has it been? I remember Monday...the rain, the protests outside the studio. Some Christian group, I think, the images on their signs and placards a thousand times more gruesome than anything I've ever created:

Christ on his cross, bleeding from wounds in his hands and belly, eyes upturned, as though the pain has rendered him visionary or imbecilic. Cameras outside when I go to speak with them; news reports. I don't see the broadcast, but Lucia, my agent, calls to give me a run down: Apparently, the BBC did a number on the protesters, framing them as barking, bleating hypocrites, leaving the audience with lingering and lurid shots of their signs and placards... the crude, scratchy images of Christ on their T-shirts. There'll likely be some official statements from the churches, Lucia says, amazing publicity, she says. The last book flying off the shelves. Wants me to do some sort of documentary.

I can't. I can't. The cameras might see; how much of a failure, a fraud, I am. I can't stand there and pontificate to the world what art is when I don't know; when I can't so much as touch it. For that, I need perfection; to realise that first dream, that I recall from my crib, the womb: Legion in Love.

No sleep. Coffee, a few tabs of MDMA. Time distorts, rippling and stretching around me. The telephone rings, once, twice, the sun going down, the sun coming up. I work; I sketch and write and scribble...I think, think, think, until it hurts. Until everything hurts. I can't do this; not alone.

Who? Who? That's the question. The medium is problematic; the models, the acrobats, the contortionists...not enough; not fluid, too static, set in their own skins. The ones I need...the uncomfortable ones, who dream of splitting out of themselves; of hatching and giving birth to something beautiful...the cutters and the piercers and the mutilators. I need them. I need them.

Give Yourself to Art.

The summons. Lucia organises it; the BBC, TIME, the Guardian; institutions where I know people and people know me; who have profited from my failures. They send out the call. Requests for interviews which I happily give:

“The call is somewhat vague in what it requires. Is that deliberate?”

“I don't find it vague at all; it states what I require.”

“Yes, but, give yourself to art...it seems to imply that those who answer...they will belong to you.”

“Not to me, never to me; I wouldn't presume. But they will be like me; they'll belong to the art.”

“So soon after your controversial Dead Dreams tour...this seems a conscious step up from that; from the dead to the living. What is it you are trying to say?”

A shrug.

“That people can have purpose, I suppose; that everyone is a potential work of art and, if they can't decide what that art is, maybe others can.”

They love it. They love me. Proposals of marriage, requests for my shavings, my toenails; my spit and blood. Women wanting me to be the Father of their children, men to play Daddy for them. Endless, ugly photographs; those who take my statements on being art to heart, turning whatever instruments they can find on themselves; entire bodies shaved and swimming with tattoos; elaborately pierced, ornamented, surgically altered...these I keep, along with their contact details. They're the ones; not the models, the acrobats...the ones who send me images of their cross-hatched tongues and mutilated genitals; who've had their facial features surgically altered to resemble snakes, cats and lizards. I don't have Lucia call them; I do so myself; a medium for the Art. None of them denied; every single one signing their flesh to me.

Mad. They all say it; even Lucia, the only one who's never raised a word in protest against any of my visions; even what she calls my “Herbert West Period.” No sleep; the sketches pouring from me, moving me towards my ultimate design. I anneal myself; the studio littered with fresh instruments; sculpting tools, surgical implements. Clotting agents, antiseptics  and bandages. I can't do it myself; lack the expertise, the nerve. I need others to be my hands; others who understand. Surgeons. I send out the call, and they answer; the fled and the disgraced; the lunatic, the lauded. One, a name well known throughout Hollywood's enchanted circles, his business the maintenance of youth, the ironing of crow's feet; stretches, tucks and chemical peels. Another who found herself plucking bullets from the bellies of mob men; stitching up faces that have been slashed or doused in acid as recompense for some slight. They come, for the promise of new lives, of salvation...some, the ones I want most, because the art calls to them; because they've been waiting their whole lives for the summons.

Not all of them are ready, not all of them ripe. It doesn't matter; nor am I; not after the first cut, the first cry; not after the tenth, the hundredth. Awake...awake and aware; I have to be; the art demands it; pain, violation, all parts of the process; of the beauty that will follow.

Filmed. I want them to see; all of them. What I will do, what I will become, for my faith: walk out amongst them; the bleaters and lamb-worshippers; let them see how much stronger mine is. Icons? Images? What does that mean? When one of them comes to me wearing the wounds of their Messiah, I may acknowledge them.

So many failed, so many too stunted, too withered from birth, to accept it. The BBC send several, all of them refusing me, walking away, even under threat to their livelihoods. No matter; a hundred others waiting to take their places; ones with the stomach and insight to do so. They love me, see me in ways no other has or can; slit and screaming, stretched and slathering, teased out, stapled down...praying, praying; to the God of those outside, to the Devil he threw down; to those that went before, the nameless, shapeless ancients that writhe, knot and mate; endlessly devouring and birthing one another behind reality's ragged curtain, waiting for it to finally unravel, for the blind to see...

What good is this? Words. Scratches and scars on paper. Inert. Even if I slit myself, bleed and spurt on the page, it captures nothing; nothing of the depths and the heights; the sense of shrivelling into myself, as though the surgeons have punctured some fundamental valve, carving a hole in my heart from whose depths gravity allows nothing, not even light, to escape. I walk among the ghosts there; damned memories, old cruelties, lost loves, defeats, despairs; every secret, verminous longing, made manifest in the blood and darkness, aroused and inspired by the singing of my flesh. They swarm with cannibal lust, with slobbered pleas for a salvation I can't provide (not yet, not yet). Here! Thread the cameras through, press them into the wounds; let them see, let them know! This is the way to Hell. I grin, suppurating, swollen and maggot like, the ghosts that seek to cannibalise me devoured in their turn; fuel for apotheosis. This...what the art sings of, what Legion in Love promises; the message I will carry, when all is done, out into a world choked and blind with sun-lit lies...

Sprouting; shimmering wings, laced with filth, carrying me up, up from the pit, back to where my body trembles and voids itself, where my features are stretched out and hooked to an iron crown driven into my skull, slit down the centre to form two tattered flaps, peeled back and pinned in place, jewelled fixtures shimmering, casting rainbows. Through the blood; the shit and the semen, they all hear, all feel it. Drips and heart monitors and sustaining engines, the song singing through them; the art calling. I rise, beyond my own skull, beyond the metal driven into it, higher, higher, beyond human edifice, beyond human concern, still trailing the shit that births me, still feeling every pang, but carried by them now rather than buried, soaring with the stars, the lightning; the states of pure inspiration that linger between. I see them; the engines of fire, the wheels of eyes; the things that churn at the hearts of suns, waiting their moment to wake and take flight.

Systems of pure passion, hot circuits of inspiration. Inspirata. The Choirs. And beyond..?

No written gospel to convey it; no poetry, no strain of music, that might evoke...The First, of which all others, myself included, are made in emulation, which we all aspire to; the ember of divinity in every soul, that we deny, that we bury, drown, to preserve sanity, to prevent pain. That we love, no matter what the world demands; that we turn to, in the depths of despair, in our ultimate wretchedness, praying to flare, and immolate us from within.

I can't write what I see, I won't; no words, no language sufficient. Only what follows, when I open what remains of my eyes, see what the surgeons have made:

Myself; more so than I've ever been, than accidents of biology could ever contrive. An emulation of the things in the stars and sewers, whose contradictory messages I devour with equal appetite. Naked, still dripping, I step from my restraints, the cameras following, none daring to defy or stand in my way, as I go to meet them.

Lucia raves. So do others; the Mail carrying a particularly viperous piece, its writer condemning me as: ...a symptom of society's cancer; a walking avatar of the immorality corroding our cultural fabric. Not content with spewing out abortion after abortion and calling it art, this...specimen, this parasite, now has the gall to present himself as some sort of Messiah? The fact that so many seem to have fallen for the charade stands as testament to how far we have fallen...

How far we have fallen...not far enough.

I go to them, stepping out onto the doorstep naked and bleeding. Let them see. Not only the gathered masses, but the world, cameras flashing, phones raised, cries and condemnations stilling, stilling. I raise my arms, half expecting the flocks to part, for the clouds to peel back, the sun to stream through. I can do it...this wretched art, this seepage across the canvas...reality; a bad joke; the true abortion... can wipe it clean, make the canvas ready for new inspirations.

One step, another, and another, those behind following, intent on every moment. I don't know what they'll do; the ones whose hate I've watched seething and fomenting through the studio windows. Maybe they'll flee, maybe they'll vomit; maybe drop to their knees and praise me; a walking icon of the suffering they've made messiahs from.

All of these and none. I walk, dust beneath my naked feet, sweet pollen in the air...the scent of their bodies, their eyes on me. A hush. Hearts beating; breasts about to burst, as though the organs sprout wings, ready to erupt from their chests, taking flight. Nothing would surprise me. They follow; the filmmakers, the photographers; the camera men. Those who can stand it. Others amongst the crowds, the first to recover, stars igniting before my eyes. Many do not; dropping to their knees, turning away, clutching at their bellies as they run. Others stand, hate and sudden adoration co-mingling, tangible; a concert of scents in the air. Rain pattering down, sluicing us all clean. I tremble, though not with cold. They call to me, cry, weep; demanding my murder, my lionization...calling me monster and angel. Both and neither. Eyes and minds bent upon me, the world seeming to slow and warp, the canvas stretched to tearing. A prophecy of art.

No words. No requirement. The inspired, the truly faithful, see me for what I am; the article of faith my flesh has become. A poor reflection on them, with their tracts and placards, mass-published bibles and korans clutched close to their chests or waving over their heads, the smears of blood and matter I leave on the doorstep more meaningful.

I raise my arms, my face to the rain,  feeling it flow into every fresh runnel, every new seam and slit, washing severed nerves, running down my body tinged red. They break, clambering over one another, stumbling, trampling their kin against the concrete. The faithful, the lambs; the desperate for some place or poetry in their lives... come intent on hating me, on seeing me murdered, fantasies of lynching and burning; of me dragged out and stripped naked, kicked and beaten and bludgeoned 'til there's no article of my being or body that might offend, rendered sexless and imparticular by their violence. A pang of sorrow that it won't come to pass.

Tearing at themselves, at their clothing; at one another, exposing breasts, bone; priapic cocks,  beating hearts. Squirming in the rain and filth, lapping at the bloodied water, smearing it upon themselves whilst those who will never know, never understand, look on aghast. Some attempt to hold them in check -self-fancied shepherds, those for whom humanity is animal; cattle to be corralled - but soon falter, their faith not sufficient to warrant the loss of a tooth, a finger, an eye. I laugh, seeing them flinch and recoil, stepping back from the wives, the husbands; the children they proclaim to love, wishing that I could go to them; ride the tide of flesh, step upon the heaving, undulating backs of my believers, and show them; show them what I've given, what I've sacrificed, for Legion in Love; more than they have or ever will for their absentee saviours.

Sirens in the distance, the luminous jackets and barked voices of police, shrieking ambulances. Taken inside, away from the scene, happy to be guided, though it pains me to part from those who love me enough to wish me devoured; to have my meat and blood in their bellies. Perhaps, perhaps; when the work is done; a post-rapture feast, a last supper.

So many come after; so many who lend themselves to the work. No flight, though Lucia and others demand it, no answer to the summons of those that presume authority. Committed no crime, breached no law; nothing they can do, no one they can send. The BBC air the documentary, much to the protest of many within and without, others following suit, the footage of that moment; of the moments it inspires, soon familiar to every living room, every home and head within the country; in places far beyond. Calls for my arrest as frequent as demands for my murder; as threats from crusaders and jihadists who believe me the Devil or  his messenger on Earth. They might be right, but what of it? What a glorious monster the Serpent must be, if this is what his ways consist of!

I have the house emptied; its walls filled with glass and broken mirrors; with water kept in perpetual motion. Many flee; those who pretend to care, those who see in me only a means of making money,  attaining status. Rat and maggot souls. It doesn't matter; so many more come to take their places; the inspired, the faithful; those happy to express and be expressed upon; my children and incestuous lovers, who lick the blood from me, whose tongues and fingers trace the paths of my scars, of the slits that will never heal. Those whom the police and shepherds fail to drag away, to imprison against their own desires.

Lucia. My friend since the beginning; since before I was anything. My friend.

“I can't do this any more. There are people...they come to my house, to my office. I'm afraid...”

I laugh. “There's no need to be. Come and be with us; let me show you...”

Angry, then, not understanding: “Don't try to feed me your horse-shit. I don't know what's wrong with you; I don't want to know. The world has enough problems...”

The end. A click, a dead tone. Twenty three years, done in as many seconds. The world has enough problems...her world. Their world. Not mine. Theirs is ending; even insulated from it as I am, I know; my lovers bring whispers; tell me stories of the decay beyond the walls: The wars, the scandals, the collapses; trains that no longer run, hospitals standing vacant; the companies to which they've been sold grown cancerous, dissolving under the weight of their own corruption. Greece and Romania and Spain...revolutions, hangings, burnings. Mass riots in London, Manchester; clashes between white supremacists and Muslim extremists in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Brighton...

The world they call sane. The world they wish to drag us back to, that they fear we might break... ha, no; provide alternative to; that we shame by our very being, the demonstration of our joy...

The children of that world, to which we were all born...we see them suffering, hear them starving; barking at one another on the street, brawling, drunkenly spewing in their sickness; for lack of any other means of venting their frustrations...

Our children...so different, another species; loving and loved in their turn. Even in pain, which we teach them to adore, even in anxiety, which they come to anticipate. Laughter, tears; both experienced with equal enthusiasm. Their parents and siblings; their guardians and saviours; the ones who bring them here, to taste the blood...we teach them, inspire them; they teach and inspire in their turn. A house of love.

Petrol and broken glass through the letterbox, bricks and stones through the windows. The jealous ones; the judges, the crusaders, the executioners.  By then, it doesn't matter; nothing they can do to hurt us. They fly when they see, when even the least of mine go to the windows or doorways. Those that linger...we bring inside, out of the rain, the cold; show them better, teach them how to paint with tears, with meat and sweat.

Legion in Love...they help me, every one of them; the lovers, the faithful; the fellow artists. Those surgeons that remain...the truly inspired, those who came not out of disgrace or desperation, but vision. They aid me, their scalpels, their saws, their bindings and braces, moving like instruments in an orchestra, guided by my conduct, my inspirations.

Everything I've done and become; everything I've loved and learned, culminating here, in this moment. The end of me, of the world; of everything we've ever known. Hesitation? Perhaps; traces of old fever, of a nightmare that insists on itself; a leprous state in love with its own disease, knowing nor wanting anything better.

We tremble, moan; every cut, every motion; every stitch and seam, bringing us closer to waking. My hands move over flesh, my blood beading it, flowing into it, as its does into me. We know one another...my children and I, more intimately than any congregation, any family or brothel's clientele; our most sacred shames; the taste of our skin and blood and sweat; the movements of our bowels, the diseases of our blood. Those outside...the ones lost in the world, never knowing; never born. Not in blood, though they will be, soon.

Nothing left, of me; of them; of what we once were. We shed and shed and shed again; splitting at the seams, allowing our pith and seed to spill. Ripe to the point of fomentation; echoes of the world that bore us, its collapse imminent. None come to stop us, to waylay us; even the highest parasites, those that sustain off the rot, acknowledging our inevitability.

I don't remember, any more than the hours after being born; the days and nights that follow; the sleepless dreaming, the waking nightmares. None of us fall, none of us fail; should we let one soul bleed out, come apart, the entire edifice would crumble, the chrysalis we've made of our own bodies, that we pour our collective souls into, rupturing, spilling the angel within prematurely.

Long days, pleasant nights, as a lost man once promised. We dream, after a time; not of what our sub-conscious might vomit up, none of that necessary now, but of the world outside; of the wailing, the wars; the starvation on the streets. Of those still bound, unborn, still praying that they never will be. Greyness and rain and concrete. Coloured glass and plastic. What we were all once urged to love.

The one inside...the one we give ourselves to, in our love making, in our pain; the gestating child, whose name will be Legion, who we love and will love us all...I feel him wake, as does all the world. The meat, the ones who've slit and sewn it as one; who've nurtured it this far, falling apart, sucked dry in his hunger, his desire for us...we go, flowing into him, his adoration and ours co-mingling, made one there, the soup of our separate lives becoming I within his body, within his myriad memories.

Birth...the first trauma, that none recall, but which echoes with us, through our every thought, our every living instant. I'll never forget, because I've learned to love; pain and transgression, rawness and rupturing. My parents, my lovers; all that I once was, sloughing away. Others wait, stepping back as I emerge. The air...the stink and noise of it; of my own solidifying body. Blood beginning to flow, intention forming. What did I hope, as the author of this? That it would be an art to mark the age, that would echo down all that followed? Yes; I hoped that, in the beginning, when I still knew no better; still raw and only half born. And these? The ones who've facilitated the art that remade me? I smell them; their sweat and soil, the sour dreams they exude...only this one realised, come to fruition, in me.

Their love...like sunshine, warming me, quickening the blood in my veins. Animal prayers, moans of adoration, as they turn their instruments -the saws, the scalpels, the hypodermics- on themselves. The ones who survive...the strong and inspired enough, will follow, out into the abandoned world, where we'll paint the grey red, spread our message; where no meat or bone or brick will divide us.

You know, because you've seen, no matter how much they've tried to conceal it from you; our work, that they call everything from mutilation to terrorism, madness to anarchy. We are not what they proclaim or what you believe; psychopaths and sadists, monsters and mutilators. We are Legion, the born in blood, as you will be, in our embrace, where you will celebrate, and learn what it means to be loved.

Limb Memory - Tim Curran

They kept telling Will Shenard how lucky he was—how very, very lucky—and he smiled politely and nodded his head, forever reassuring them that they were indeed right… even if he didn’t believe one word of it. Getting your ribs broken, one lung punctured, and your left arm torn out of the socket didn’t seem like such good luck to him. In fact, it seemed like lowdown dirty shit luck. The sort of thing Fate or God or providence did to you when they really hated you and wanted you to suffer.

“I know it doesn’t seem all that great,” Dr. Whiply said in his most understanding voice, “but you came out of it with your life and your faculties intact. Don’t sell that short. You’re lucky you’re even alive and functioning.”

In other words, after that semi crossed the centerline and crushed your metallic silver Volvo like a fucking beer can, sending it careening over the embankment where it rolled no less than seven times, consider yourself lucky not to be in your grave or wearing diapers and sucking oatmeal through a straw.

There was logic and common sense to that, Will knew, but in the first few weeks after he came out of his coma, he was feeling far too sorry for himself to even consider it.

The only thing that alleviated some of his despair was that Kim stopped by and she actually seemed glad that he was still alive. In some purely selfish, purely small and hateful corner of his mind, he was suspicious of her. She was the reason he had been out driving that night in the first place. For the third time in as many months, she had dumped him. He had sat with her by candlelight while she gave him the big shove and said corny shit like, “I’m just not feeling us anymore, Will.” and “We’re like strangers moving in different directions.” Hackneyed I’m OK, You’re OK head candy she’d picked up from Dr. Phil or one of those other drooling idiots on the tube. It had pissed him off, of course, and mainly because she had given him the boot three times and he kept taking her back like a pathetic lovesick puppy.

Sure, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But fool me three times and somebody ought to bitch slap me for the gutless, pussified snotworm I am.

Indirectly, Will believed, Kimmy-baby had caused the accident. If she hadn’t dumped him again—dumped him? Hell, she evacuated him like a brown smelly turd into the great stink bowl of life—he wouldn’t have been out on the highway in the first goddamn place.

He knew that wasn’t fair, but laying there in the hospital bed, he wasn’t feeling so fair. Kim came by to alleviate her own guilt and they both knew it. True to form, as the days turned into weeks, he saw her rarely until not at all.

“Thanks, Kim, thanks, my love. The next time you’re on fire, honey, I’m not going to be feeling the need to empty my bladder on you to extinguish the blaze,” he said to himself one night. He was being a prick and he knew it. He was hoping that callous disregard for her would make him feel better, but when he thought of her at night he sobbed like an infant pulled from its mother’s teat.

The scariest part was that he was alone.

He had absolutely no one in his weak little orbit he could depend on. His friends were mostly drunks. Great to drink with, bowl with, and watch the Final Four with, but pretty much useless beyond that. Kim was history and he had no family to speak of which pretty much meant he was flying solo. He kept telling himself that adversity would make him stronger but he didn’t believe it for a second.

Through those many weeks of recuperation and grueling physical therapy, there was one bright spot. Her name was Erin McComb. She was an occupational therapist with short, spiky red hair and a summer tan that made her looked bronzed. Whenever her violet eyes were on him, he felt weak and fluttery inside and was certain he was in love…at least until he remembered he was a freak missing an arm. Erin was pushing hard for him to accept a prosthetic limb, which would be his first step, she claimed, to complete recovery.

She kept at it and at it. “Let me ask you a question,” Will put to her. “If I get one of these arms, will you go out to dinner with me when I get out of here?”

“I would, but my fiancé just wouldn’t understand.”

He looked away. “Ah, I see. Whether you’re engaged or not, I wouldn’t blame you. People would stare. They’d wonder what an attractive woman like you was doing with some one-armed weirdo. And they’d wonder why I didn’t accept my station in life and sell pencils on a street corner.”

That made her sigh. “You really have to quit feeling sorry for yourself.”

“True…but if I don’t, who will?”

“The future is only as bright as you want it to be.”

Will laughed. “You mean well, Erin, but you’re not very realistic. I have no family. My girlfriend dumped me. I’m missing an arm. My boss has been kind enough to keep my insurance rolling for another three months, but we both know I’m not going back to work and I’m basically a welfare case. End of story.”

“Getting another limb could be a new beginning, you know.”

“Sure. I like being stared at just a little more than I like the pity in people’s eyes.”

“Will, please…”

But there was no pleasing him. He knew, on one hand, that he was being an insufferable asshole; but on the other, he seemed to believe that he had every right. He didn’t. He knew he didn’t. Just as he knew there were people out there in a lot fucking worse shape than him. There were people dying of cancer. There were children for christ’s sake dying of that horrible, dread disease before the haunted eyes of their parents. There were quadriplegics and multiple amputees. God, the list went on and on. But every time he told himself to man up, to act his age and face the facts, to make lemonade from lemons and play the hand he was served, to blossom where he was planted and that what can’t be cured must be endured (one of his mother’s favorites next to you can polish shit all day but it’ll never shine), something would hold him back. He’d feel momentarily empowered and toughened…then he’d backslide. My girlfriend dumped me. I have no job and no left arm. How’s that for piss in the punch and doggie doo-doo for dinner?

He didn’t say these things to Erin who was young and fresh and healthy. She had all her limbs and they were smooth and tanned and well-sculpted. What did she know of his loss?

“Listen, Will. It’s not unusual to feel sorry for yourself. Everyone goes through it. There’s a period of adjustment and you have to fight your way through it. I can give you pep talks all day and I can even bring in dozens of people who’ve gone through what you’re going through and some of them with much, much worse stories than yours…but you know what? They can’t help you. Only you can help you.”

He sighed, knowing he was being a baby but, Jesus, he couldn’t seem to help himself. “I know. I guess it’ll take some getting used to.”

“Sure, it will.” She produced a business card. On the back, she wrote her cell number. “Call me. Day or night, call me. If you need to talk. If you need some support. Hell, call me if you feel a need to talk dirty to someone at three a.m. I’m here to help. I’m here to steer you through this. Okay?”

They chatted some more and he felt a little better about things. Then Erin said she had to leave and something in him deflated, a blackness that was ominous and infinite filled him.

“Thanks for stopping. Now get out of here and go enjoy yourself. Say hi to your fiancé for me. And if you can, drop a nickel in my tin cup on the way out.”

“Will, Will, Will,” she said as she left.

Again, Erin did mean well but she honestly had no idea what she was talking about. And it was at that juncture in his wonderful new life that Will decided he wasn’t going to talk about any of it anymore. The therapists didn’t understand what he was going through any more than the doctors or nurses or the whole slew of others. This was his personal horror. His trauma. It was a private hell, a tailored cage and he wasn’t going to share his dirty straw with anyone.

A few nights later, he woke up some time after midnight to a sensation of coldness. His missing arm was cold. They had already told him all about phantom pains and the like, but this was different. It did not seem illusionary. In fact, it seemed almost organic as if his arm was really there, living and functioning, only he could not see it.

He tried to talk himself out of it because that was the only logical, sane thing to do, but still the certainty remained.

It’s there. Dear God, I know it’s there.

The moonlight came in through the hospital window, frosting the bed an even pale yellow, and there was certainly no limb there, yet he could feel it and it was part of him.

Just calm down. You’re having a panic attack or something.

But the most disturbing thing was that he felt perfectly calm. He knew he should have been filled with terror, but the idea of a ghost limb being attached to his stump was almost soothing. And, boy, there was one for the therapists. Is it normal to be haunted by a dead limb…and comforted by it? He could just imagine their response to that.

He lay there another five, then ten minutes.

He still felt the limb.

It was still cold—God, it felt like it had been pulled from a meat locker—and it made him shiver, yes, but now there was a prickling pins-and-needles sort of feeling like it was not a ghost at all but merely a limb that had fallen asleep.

This was not only absurd, it was downright silly. He was tempted to ring for the nurse, but there was nothing she could do. He tried to relax, to be logical and reasonable…still, the chillness of the mystery limb persisted, as did the prickling.

Christ, he could almost feel the dead weight of it. He sweated. He thrashed under the sheets. His teeth chattered. He shivered uncontrollably.

Then, needing to prove to himself that it was just a side effect of medication, he reached out to touch it. But as his fingers got close, they retreated…retreated from a barrier of grave cold. He tried again and this time he forced his fingers to comply. When they contacted the phantom limb, he let out a little cry because it was there.

It was really there.

Cold and fleshy and firm.

He shook for another few minutes then he thought: What are you afraid of? Even if it’s a ghost, it’s still part of you. The logic of that made him laugh, only his laughter was a shrill cackling that he did not like.

“You’re dead,” he heard his voice say. “You’re not real. You’re dead.”

The arm’s physical reality persisted.

“Go away. Go join my arm. You’re part of it, not me.”

Now the ghost arm moved.

The elbow flexed. The forearm slid across the sheet with a subtle swishing sort of sound. As it did so, his guts seemed to tighten in snakelike coils. The terror he felt was like a chill that started at his scalp and spread right down to his toes.

The hand moved now. The fingers scratched against the bed.

Then—

There was a strange feeling of release at his stump, a detachment, and he heard the arm moving down the bed, slinking away like a rejected puppy.

“Go away,” he managed. “Just go away. Go find my real arm.”

In the moonlight, he saw an ethereal, almost vaporous image of the ghost arm. It was raised up in the air, elbow bent, fingertips supporting it like the legs of a spider. In fact, it and the hand formed a perfect three-point football stance. This was the stance used right before a lineman or running back charged into action.

“Go!” he said.

Amazingly, it did just that.

It pushed open the door and retreated into the midnight corridor beyond.

Will lay there, breathing hard as the sweat dried on his skin and frantic thoughts flew around in his skull like caged birds. It hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have happened. These were the things he told himself and these were the things that failed to reassure him. As he mellowed inch by inch, pretending he could not still feel the tomblike cold of his significant other, he began to see images in his head that at first made no sense but soon became alarmingly clear.

He saw the corridor outside and then he saw the wispy image of the ghost arm moving up it, sort of tip-toeing along or (more accurately) tip-fingering. It moved down the corridor until it reached the nurse’s station and there it paused as if it were trying to find its bearings. He could see two of the nurses chatting away, another typing on a laptop. The arm moved past them, sneaking down the corridor. It peered into the staff break room where an intern was sleepily munching pizza and perusing a large hardcover book. It turned away. Back into the corridor, around the corner to the bank of elevators. It waited and waited. A maintenance guy pushing a cart showed up. He pressed a button and entered the car and so did the arm. He went down to the lower level and the limb joined him. He never saw it, of course.

The maintenance guy went on his way.

The limb moved off until it reached one of those secret hush-hush sorts of places in the hospital that patients and visitors never got to see: the incinerator room where infected dressings and medical waste were disposed of. The limb studied the incinerator which was like a huge belt-fed aluminium cylinder with metal piping and conduits connected to it. The waste was placed on the belt and cycled into the burner. All of it was secured in sterile plastic packs. The guy who ran it wasn’t in the room. The arm climbed up onto the belt and then began sorting through packages of tissue and bloody dressings, fleshy masses and unrecognizable things. It found what it wanted.

That’s my arm, Will thought. That’s my fucking arm. They’re going to burn it.

Well, of course they were going to burn it…what else could they do with it? Only in movies were limbs actually buried. The idea disturbed him in ways he could not properly understand and he willed the ghost limb to rescue it. But that wasn’t necessary because it was doing just that. Nimbly, carefully, it opened the package and revealed the arm, which was blotchy gray and bloodstained, the pinkie torn away to a nub. There were dark whorls of something like fungus growing from crusty gashes and missing sections of skin that almost looked like they’d been peeled. His arm was crushed, torn open, the fingers nearly fleshless.

It was a horror.

What happened then, was that the dead limb and the ghost limb were joined again, spirit welded to flesh. And right away, Will felt the agony of the arm and its injuries, the tortured nerve endings. The pain was intense and overwhelming. He cried out and the nurse came and gave him some medication.

Slowly, thankfully, he slipped into oblivion.

He woke up around five, groggy from the Demerol, disoriented, and thirsty. He poured himself some water from the pitcher and guzzled it down. He settled back into bed feeling a bit woozy…and it all came cycling back into his head. Loopy, delusional stuff about a ghost arm finding his dead arm down in the incinerator room.

“You’re out of your fucking head,” he whispered to himself, because that was the only thing that really explained it all.

Then he heard something.

At first, he thought it was from out in the corridor. Maybe he wanted it to be from out in the corridor. But it wasn’t. It was coming from outside the window.

Something bumped into the glass.

He refused to look.

There was a tapping, then a sound of fingers drumming impatiently. He knew what it was because it couldn’t be anything else up here on the third story. It thumped the glass angrily now. It had physical reality and it wanted him to see that, to confirm its presence.

This is a psychosis or something, a frightened voice in his head told him. Ignore it and it’ll go away; validate it with fear and you’ll never get rid of it.

It knocked on the glass now.

Hey, you, over here!

Deciding it only existed if he let it exist, Will got up and went into the bathroom, emptied his bladder, then sat on the edge of the bed. He still refused to look in the direction of the window. He told himself there was nothing out there, the noises were explainable by other things. The hospital was old. Didn’t the brass plate out front say 1884 or something? Sure, old joint like that would have air in the pipes, bad plumbing, timbers settling, walls creaking—

The fingers were scratching at the window now.

The ragged nails made awful noises that went right up his spine.

“Stop it,” he said under his breath. “Just stop it.”

But it wouldn’t stop.

Since the scratching and tapping and knocking weren’t arousing him, it began to slap its hand against the glass again and again, louder and louder until the noise echoed through the room and the glass rang out.

The door opened.

A nurse stuck her head in. “Oh, hi…do you need anything? I heard you pounding or something.”

Will could barely form words and when he did, they sounded dry and squeaky. “No…no, I’m fine.”

“Breakfast in about an hour,” she told him and disappeared.

So, it was real then.

There was no denying it now. Hallucinations do not make noise that others hear. Psychoses are only loud in the sufferer’s head. He was shaking now, making a low whimpering sound in his throat.

There was a knocking at the window.

He didn’t want to look. Yet, his head turned almost of its own accord, eyes drawn by a horrible magnetism. He saw a pallid hand flattened against the glass like a huge white spider sucking up heat. He could see the smears it left on the glass from the seepage of decay.

Whatever was happening, it was real.

The ghost of his limb had returned and he had innocently told it to go and find its flesh and blood counterpart. Now they were one. Now they wanted to be part of him again.

It disappeared about twenty minutes later as if it had never been there at all. In his mind, he could see it creeping down the brick face of the hospital, then scampering through the grass, making for the drainage ditch across the road. It did not like the heat of day. The warmth multiplied the bacterial action of rot within it. It crawled through the cattails and glided through the brackish water, creeping into a culvert where things were dark and cool and dripping.

When a greasy sewer rat nipped at it, it seized it and snapped its little neck. Then it waited.

By one that afternoon, it still hadn’t come back.

That relieved Will, but also filled him with a gnawing anxiety; wondering when it would return, and what it would demand of him. Sitting there in his room after he came back from a tour of the ward for exercise, he felt perfectly ridiculous about it all.

You really, honestly think you’re being haunted by your missing limb?

The idea was ludicrous. It even made him giggle. It was the drugs and the trauma, because it couldn’t possibly be anything else. This was the voice of reason speaking and it made him feel optimistic. It pointed out why such a thing could not be. He listened. He listened well. It was rational and it made sense.

The only thing that upset the old apple cart was that the nurse had heard the noise it made. That was not imagination…but surely it could be explained away logically. He was freaking out, maybe he’d been slapping the bed or stomping his foot in his delirium. Was the idea of that so far-fetched?

The phone rang and he nearly slid out of his skin.

Who in the Christ would be calling him?

He plucked the receiver off its cradle and hesitantly said, “Hello?”

“Hi, Will. How are you doing?”

It was Erin. Oh, dear God, it was just Erin! Did he really think it was his arm giving him a jingle? No…yes…he didn’t know what he’d been thinking.

“It’s my day off and I just thought I’d check in. See how you’re feeling. See if there was anything you need,” she said. The sound of her voice excited him. It was like black silk. “And to see if you have given the idea of a prosthetic any thought.”

He sighed. “You just aren’t going to give up on that, are you?”

“Nope.”

He had to admire her patience. She was a very devoted, conscientious person. That made him like her even more.

“I know if you give it a try, you’re going to like it. They’re nothing like they used to be. Forget all that crap you’ve seen on old movies, they’re very much like real arms. You’ll be doing everything you used to do.”

He bit his lower lip.

No, no, I won’t, dear one. I won’t be holding Kim anymore and that’s the one thing that I can’t get past, he thought. Besides, what would my zombie arm think? What if it got jealous?

He giggled with a low, unpleasant sound.

“Is something funny?”

He swallowed. “Um…no. I was just imagining myself with a pirate hook.”

It was her turn to sigh. “It’s nothing like that, Will. You really need to think about this.”

The sound of her voice made him feel playful. “I told you, no date and no prosthetic. I’m firm about that. Really, really firm.”

She laughed coyly, but not too coyly. “I could take that as sexual harassment.”

“But you won’t.”

“Hmmm.” She made a wet sound and he could just about imagine her licking her lips. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you about Robert.”

“Robert?”

“Robert Hines.”

“Is that Duncan’s brother?”

“Ha! No, Robert lost a leg two years ago and had it replaced with a prosthesis. He was a runner. He never thought he’d run again, but now he’s not only running but he’s winning…”

At that point, he tuned her out because other things demanded his attention. Namely, the splashing coming from the bathroom. It sounded like a fish was jumping in the toilet bowl. From where he was sitting, he could see the toilet. He saw water splashing out of it and spattering the floor. His heart began to pound almost painfully in his chest and he felt sick down low in his guts.

It’s not fucking possible, a near-hysterical voice said in his mind. It can’t be coming out of the toilet. There’s no way an arm could do that. It wouldn’t fit.

But that was the voice of reason talking and it dealt with known quantities of space, time, and physics. The arm, apparently, was not encumbered by such things. He could imagine it slinking through a maze of pipes in the flooded darkness, seeking him out, inexorably drawn to the body it had once been part of.

The next thing he saw emerge from the bowl was not water but the splayed five fingers of the hand…though maybe four fingers would have been more accurate because the pinkie was just a stump. Peeled down to the bone in places, they tapped along the rim of the bowl as if searching for the proper egress. Having found it apparently, they gripped the rim and the entire arm emerged. It slid free of the toilet and slapped to the floor. For a few seconds, it just laid there as if it was stunned. Then it began to vibrate like the tail of a snake.

The fingers wiggled.

They pushed the arm up and off the floor. It waited there, straight as a post, balancing on its fingertips.

Will reached for the button to summon his nurse. The only thing that stopped him from pushing it was his fear that the arm might do something nasty to her.

Meanwhile, Erin was still chatting away in his ear, only he had no fucking idea what she was going on about.

The old bloodstains had been washed from the arm for the most part, probably from the stagnant water in the culvert, but now it was splattered with mud that looked almost black in comparison with its pallor. Sores had burst open on the back of the hand and the fungus that grew from the gashes and cuts was increasing its range. It was so thick it looked as if it had been knitted.

Will’s mind seemed to break free of its moorings. It bounced around in his head like a rubber ball. This is what it must feel like when you go insane. He was dizzy, he was sweating, and his skin had gone unpleasantly cold. His ribs ached with a perpetual throbbing.

And when his voice came, it sounded like that of an eighty-year old man: “What the fuck do you want from me?”

Over the receiver, Erin said, “Take it easy, Will. I just thought it might be a good idea if Robert stopped by to see you.”

He nearly laughed. Oh, beautiful lady, I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Erin,” he said in a high, brittle sort of voice. “I was talking to my missing arm.”

That much was true.

“Your arm?”

“Yeah…um…phantom pains, you know.”

“Oh, I see. Those’ll pass. How do you feel about talking with Robert?”

“I’ll think it over.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment. “Will, are you all right? You sound funny.”

“Just tired, I guess.”

“I better let you rest. Think on what I said.”

He promised her he would. But prosthetic arms and inspiring stories of Robert Hines were of very little interest to him.

The arm was still there.

“Go away,” he said.

The arm tensed and he wondered if it was going to attack him like in some old horror movie. But it did not. He knew it just wanted to be joined with him again. Hurting him in any way was not on its agenda.

“I said, go away.”

The arm slapped down to the floor, almost sulking, it seemed. It crawled back up into the toilet bowl, the crook of its elbow hooked over the rim.

Will was still terrified, yet weirdly empowered. “Go away!”

There was a splash and it disappeared. How it could slip down the pipe and vanish, he did not know. But five minutes later when he worked up the guts to go in there, it was gone.

After that, there really was no denying the reality of what was happening. The voice of reason (and sanity) was no longer trying to convince him that it wasn’t real; it had simply given up. Early that morning, the nurse had heard it pounding. And he had seen the water it left on the floor and a sort of gray, gummy discharge it left on the toilet bowl rim. Not to mention the high, sweet stink of putrefaction that filled the bathroom.

Much as it might have relieved him, he could not imagine a psychosis or a delusion that could create that sort of physical evidence.

That night for supper, he talked the nurses into letting him go down to the cafeteria. Maybe if he was around people, he would be safe. Maybe it could not manifest itself when others were around.

His nurse—Joyce—insisted on pushing him down there in his wheelchair. He was to call her on his cell when he wanted to come back up. He took a table in the most crowded section. It was very busy down there with staff and visitors coming and going. He liked the commotion. He began to feel relaxed right away. The meal was beef stroganoff. He passed on that because burgers and fries were always available. He ordered a cheeseburger, heavy on the mustard and pickles.

This was going to be okay.

This was going to work.

He had a real appetite for the first time in days and although his stomach wanted him to wolf it all down, he ate very slowly, savoring every bite. He caught snatches of gossip that he wasn’t supposed to catch—Dr. So-and-so, who went ballistic because someone ate the last frozen pizza in the lounge; the intern that was arrested for trafficking oxycodone—and smiled secretively over it all.

People passed through the lines, examining the carts of fruit and salad fixings, the aisles of convenience food and the freezer of ice cream treats.

He chewed the last bite of his burger, swallowed, and then nearly spat it back out.

The arm was in the cafeteria.

He went cold, then hot. It felt like his skin was trying to pull off his skeleton. His scalp itched with prickly heat. It was right there. Right on top of the shelf where all the little boxes of cereal and breakfast bars were. People were passing right by it.

Will thought: No way, it can’t be here, it can’t be!

But it was. It lay there amongst the single-serving boxes of Frosted Flakes, Total, and Grape Nuts. It was bloated, the yellow dun flesh set with purple sores, blackened contusions, and a threading of mildew. It was decaying, splitting open from bacterial action. A dark slime drained from it and oozed down the glass sneeze guard over the fruit like droplets of blood.

“What are you doing here?” Will said, much louder than he’d intended because a couple people looked over at him.

As droplets of sweat ran down his temples and he shook with a chill, the arm trembled. It flexed its swollen mass and the flesh at the forearm split open. Several sores popped like bubbles and huge meat flies flew out of them, circling the arm which was like an open buffet to them.

Will nearly gagged at the loathsome, foul odor. It stank like ripe, greening carrion. As he watched, the fingers spread out and began flicking boxes of cereal off the shelf, one after the other.

People stared.

There was a guy over there appraising the fruit. He looked dumbly around. “It wasn’t me,” he said.

Two more boxes fell and one of the cafeteria attendants came over, picking them up and glaring at the poor, confused man with ire.

The arm lost interest in that game.

It slid down the sneeze guard, leaving a trail of ichor like the slime of a slug and dropped to the floor. Several bits of it broke off from the impact. A couple beetles crawled away from it. The fingers flexed as if they were working out a few post mortem cramps, then they began to drag the arm across the floor, ragged black nails scraping over the tile.

It was coming for him.

“Go away,” Will told it. “Go the hell away.”

But this time it was not listening. It was coming for him and this time it was not to be deterred in its mission. It was not going to let him boss it around. It had business with him and it crawled faster in his direction with grim determination.

Will turned in his wheelchair.

He had to get out of there. Propelling a wheelchair with one hand was ridiculously slow. The arm would overtake him. Fuck it. He abandoned the chair outside the cafeteria and hobbled down the long maze of corridors to the elevator. His leg was paining him some, his ribs aching, but he left that dead arm in his dust.

As he rode up, he wondered how long it would take it to find him.

But it didn’t find him.

That was the glorious part. It did not come that night or the next or the next. Maybe, Will reasoned, it was too damn rotten to come after him. Maybe whatever obscene life force that animated it had run down now and he would spend the rest of his life wondering what the hell had really happened.

A week passed and he was released from the hospital. There was no fanfare. He took a bus back to his boarding house and let his landlady, Mrs. Pettifer, fuss over him a bit. Finally, she left and he was alone and depressed and he had no idea what he was going to do. His savings would be depleted in a few weeks, but Erin told him he could get Social Security disability and his insurance agent said that the payout for the accident was going to be quite large. It would just take time. But when it came he probably wouldn’t have to worry about working anymore.

All of which was fine, but now it was up to him to put together the pieces of his life and face the future without an arm. There were far worse things that could have happened, he knew, but in his dejection and gloom he just couldn’t think of what they could possibly be. Everything was so much more complicated than it was before. Even simple things like putting on his socks or tying his shoes, making a sandwich or reading a book had become laborious. But he learned and he adapted.

One morning, feeling generous and forgiving and downright hopeful, he even called Kim and she was so very glad he was doing all right and very sorry that she hadn’t been able to stop by the hospital more. As he listened to her ramble on nervously, he could hear things beneath her words that she simply didn’t have the guts to say.

“Are you seeing someone?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

He had suspected it. Hell, he had suspected she was seeing someone on the side even before they broke up. He was pretty sure it was Ryan Little, her boss. Kim was essentially okay, but Ryan was loaded and she had a little girl’s fascination of bright and shiny things. Maybe she didn’t have a price tag exactly, but if Ryan flashed his wallet around enough a girl like Kim was going to rise to the bait like a trout for a juicy fly.

It was time to move on. Something that was easy for Kim, but for Will it was difficult because he really had nowhere to move on to. Erin called every few days to see how he was getting on and Mrs. Pettifer was wonderful. She mothered him, making him meals and cupcakes and forcing him to come downstairs and watch TV with her. Nobody had treated him that good since his own mother had died. It gave him hope. It really gave him hope.

After a good night with Mrs. Pettifer which included a dinner of roast beef and cherry pie and an old Mel Brooks comedy, he went up to bed, brooded a bit, then closed his eyes. It had to get better. It just had to. Sleep came and he went with it.

He woke to a tapping sound.

Befuddled with sleep, he had no idea how long it had been going on. It seemed that the sound had become part of the tapestry of his dreams. He blinked his eyes open. The tapping came again. This was no dream. For a moment or two, he was certain it was coming from the door. Was it Mrs. Pettifer? No, the digital clock read 12:45. She would have been asleep long ago. The tapping came again and he tightened inside.

Not again, oh dear Christ, not again.

His brain tried to reassure him that it was just the pipes in the walls or maybe mice gnawing at the woodwork. Hell, even a big greasy sewer rat would have been a relief in comparison to what he was thinking which left him feeling cold from head to foot.

When the tapping came yet again, he knew it was coming from the window. Someone or something was out there and they wanted him to know it. Shivering, he swung his feet out of bed and placed them on the floor. Even a month after the accident, he was still stiff and sore like an arthritic old man. He stood slowly, uneasily.

Tap, tap, tap.

He went to the window, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps now, a fever sweat breaking out on his forearm. His trembling fingers found the pull string of the shade, jerking it down until it responded and rolled all the way up. Moonlight flooded in. He could see the rooftops of the city, branching trees, a lone streetlight on the corner with an unoccupied bench next to it. And, yes, he could clearly see the severed arm waiting patiently on the window ledge.

The fingers were raised to tap once again but had now frozen like a spider caught creeping across a tabletop. Will was frozen, too. He thought of all the usual things: he would call the police, he would cry out for Mrs. Pettiger below or one of the other roomers. But even as these thoughts moved through his head, he knew it would be pointless. The arm would be gone when anyone got here. That’s how things like this always worked.

It will not be denied, a voice told him. It has been looking for you for a long time and now that it’s found you, it’ll never leave.

The hand hovered there, fingers inches from the window, as if it saw him and was waiting for him to acknowledge its presence. When he didn’t move, the fingertips tapped on the glass. Hey, Will, remember me? He let out a little cry, moving backward too fast, tripping over his own legs and landing on the bed. He squirmed over its surface and fell off the other side.

The hand was still there, upraised with spidery fingers. The moonlight had dyed it a sickly yellow that only made it look that much more gruesome.

The index finger tapped twice more, but it was a weak gesture as if it knew he wanted nothing to do with it.

He peered over the bed.

The fingers were shaking out there now out of rage. They balled themselves into a fist and as they did so, the threadbare skin at the knuckles tore open with a shearing sound that he could actually hear. Now it was just waiting there. A ghostly yellow fist set with open putrid sores. It was pissed off. It was part of him and it had come home. It had finally found him and it wanted to crawl into bed next to him and feel his body heat.

He stood up.

He didn’t know what came over him, but suddenly he felt empowered as he had the afternoon he had sent it away, back into the toilet. He walked over there and stared down at it on the ledge. It looked worse than ever. Still swollen and split with large gaping cracks and burst sores, but now it looked as if something—or many things—had been eating it. Great sections of flesh had been chewed right down to muscle and ligament. What skin remained looked like it was ready to slough off. He could see the staffs of the ulna and radius, the socket of the humerus which was like a dirty brown knob.

“What do you want here?” he asked it.

It raised a few fingers. They quivered in the air. The palm was sheared open. Larva squirmed in its dark, fusty recesses.

It wasn’t bad enough that he had lost his arm and his job and had no friends he could rely on. He had to be haunted by this fucking limb. And he couldn’t tell anyone about it or they’d put him in goddamn psych ward.

Kim, you bitch…you started this. You got the ball rolling.

“I don’t believe you’re real,” he told the arm. Then took it farther: “In fact, I doubt your authenticity.”

The hand slapped against the window, leaving a smear of yellow pus and drainage. It did not like being doubted. It had come a long way to see him and it didn’t care to be treated like this.

Kim, Kim.

It was not just slapping the window now, it was punching it.

“Stop that,” Will ordered and it did. “Go anywhere! Do anything! Just leave me alone!”

The arm hesitated. Then it scuttled away out of sight and he stood there for some time, certain his mind was gone but more certain that he had set something perfectly awful in motion.

He went back to bed and lay down. He needed to rest. He needed to clear his mind. Which was quite easy, as it turned out. And once it was clear, he linked up with the arm as he had done weeks before.

It crept down moonlit sidewalks and climbed over creaky fences, slid through puddles and dragged itself under bushes. The truly amazing thing was that Will was experiencing it all. His arm was gone, dead, detached and distant…yet, yet, he was connected to it by some impossible psychic neural pathway. He felt the chill, dewy grass and the tickle of weeds in sidewalk cracks. He winced as one of the old wounds, festering and crawling with insects, got snagged on the nail head of an old board fence and split lengthwise. The arm barely paused. A dog picked up its scent and began to chase it. It slipped through a broken cellar window and waited on a bench amongst cans of paint and varnish, jars of nails and screws.

After a time, it snuck back out and continued on its course.

By that point, he had a pretty good idea where it was going—to Kim. It was going after Kim.

No, no, no! Come back! Don’t go there! Please just leave her alone!

That’s what he thought at it, but it did no good. And he had to wonder, really wonder, if his subconscious mind wasn’t telling it something else, directing it to seek vengeance on the one who had inadvertently caused all this.

Will didn’t really think he could have called it back even if he wanted to. He picked up his cell twice, thinking about calling the police…but what the hell could he tell them that wouldn’t sound like the ravings of a loony? He called Kim, but she wasn’t answering. He texted her, but she did not reply.

The arm was moving faster and faster on the hunt by then. Sometimes it lost her trail and circled around, but it always found it again and he began to see it, actually see it, dashing down lanes and cutting through yards on galloping fingertips. It crawled up a tree and then he knew it was outside her building. It crept along a limb and then leaped, grabbing the ivy that clung to the façade and up it went to her room on the second floor. It pulled itself onto the ledge. There was a screen in the window and the hand deftly removed it.

The arm climbed up the bed and paused. There was a man on top of Kim sliding back and forth, it seemed. And Kim—that whore, that fucking cunt—was enjoying it, moaning and begging for more. Will didn’t tell the arm what to do; it knew.

It tensed.

It sprung.

There was a flurry of activity. A man shouting. A woman screaming. Things crashing and smashing. It was accomplished all within about five minutes of frenetic activity as Kim’s neighbors pounded on the door and called her name and someone made a desperate call to 911 on their cell.

The arm climbed back up onto the window ledge and surveyed the carnage. In the gossamer moonlight flooding in through the window, Will viewed the scene of slaughter. The blood looked black in the dimness, of course, as if a water balloon of India ink had exploded, splashing over the walls, dripping from the ceiling, and coagulating on the bed. Kim’s lover lay sightless on the floor. His eyes were open, his head twisted completely around, vertebrae snapped. Kim had no eyes. They had been popped from their sockets. Her mouth was sprung wide in a lurid grin and that was because her jaw had been broken in order to yank her tongue out by the roots—

Will cried out into his pillow because he had made it happen. He had let negative emotions well up inside him like a spurned teenage boy and then he had channeled them into some fucked up puerile revenge fantasy.

Only it was no fantasy—your zombie arm made it happen because that’s what you wanted. Deep inside, that’s what you wanted. You doubted it was real? Well, now it has proven itself. And don’t think for one moment that it will not want something in return.

Shivering and shaking, hot bullets of sweat running down his face, he was thankful only for the fact that he was now disconnected from the arm. Where it went and what it did he did not know, and he did not want to know.

There was nothing to do now but wait.

It was coming for him and he knew that, and after what he had done he did not honestly believe for a moment that he did not deserve his fate. It had wanted to be part of him from the first. Now it would be.

It was several hours later when it tapped at the window. Will was not frightened, not really. It was part of him and it only wanted to come back home. As revolting as the idea was, he knew he must let it. If he didn’t, it might pluck another enemy from his subconscious—someone, perhaps, that Will did not even recognize as such—and wreak havoc. He couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t allow any of this to go any further.

It had to be stopped.

He opened the window and lay down on the bed. The arm, now sticky with drying blood, punctured and perforated, filling the room with the stench of rotting meat, waited, threadbare fingers wiggling in the air. The skin hung from them in tatters and loops.

“Come over here,” he told it. “I won’t keep you away. Come over here where you belong.”

The arm fell off the ledge, slapped the floor, and crawled towards the bed. Closer like that, its stench was hot and gaseous. It crept up the sheets and waited. In the pale moonlight, it was green and black, writhing with maggots. Slowly, slowly it slid into position until the cold ball of the humerus was poised inches from his shoulder socket.

Trembling, nauseous with the stink of it, he brushed sweat from his brow and tears from his cheeks, then said, “Do it.”

It did.

With unbelievable force, the ball entered the socket, sheering through scar tissue, fusing itself with him, welding the dead and the living into a single unit. Will nearly went out cold from the pain of it. It was his again. It was his arm again. He lifted it up into the moonlight. It was bloated and oozing droplets of corpse drainage, the flesh blackened and green with mildew, pockets of fat maggots just beneath the skin busily feeding on it.

He felt the cold pass from the limb into him. Cell by cell, it took him, making him part of itself, contaminating him with a communal rot as they decayed together into a solid, seeping mass of carrion.

The police came the next day and forced Mrs. Pettinger to open the door of Will’s room. He had left bloody fingerprints all over Kim’s room and they knew very well who murdered her. Outside the door, they could smell the fetid stink of what was waiting for them. That they were too late was more than obvious.

Though they told Mrs. Pettinger to wait outside, she peered between their bulky forms at what lay on the bed. She nearly had a breakdown. The cops weren’t in much better shape. In that job, you see things you can never really explain, and this was one of them.

On the bed, there was a liquefied mass of fly-specked putrescence, bubbling and steaming. The flesh had run like wax, oozing off the contorted fungous skeleton beneath in runnels and ribbons and snotty tangles. Yellow threads of mould webbed the bones together. The skull, its jaw sprung in a silent scream, was netted in a stringy network. A single eyeball stared in horror at the ceiling.

Feast of Consequences – WD Gagliani & Dave Benton

(Anna’s Story)

An Excerpt from the novel Killer Lake

It was the unmistakable rumble of a Harley engine that caught Anna’s attention––but she couldn’t tell if it was coming or going, or where exactly it might be as it echoed through the woods. She pushed herself upright from the tree she’d been leaning against and lifted her head hopefully, the tears finally having dried on her cheeks from what felt like days of crying (except it couldn’t have been) as she’d stumbled in circles, lost in the dark that had come up so quickly now that it was late summer.

She should have just stayed with Jason. She could have cursed him out, refused to give him what he wanted there in the woods, his shorts lowered for her supposed delight, but stayed with him instead of storming off into the unknown. She wasn’t familiar with the area, and she’d barely seen the famous Killdeer Lake. It certainly wasn’t the first time her temper had gotten the better of her common sense, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. So she’d stormed away from the horny Jason in a blind rage. But Jason was her reason for going, damn it. And her cell phone was still in the tent. Ever since then she’d been wandering in the woods, getting attacked by trees, shrubs, bugs, spiderwebs, and who-knew-what (she didn’t want to know). Didn’t help that she was dressed for that damned rich-folks’ kids’ pool party, wearing tight cut-off jean shorts and a strapless hot-red string bikini top with which she’d hoped to harness Jason’s attention. No wonder the bugs had been having a feast, with all that skin exposed. Stupid.

She’d probably never go near the woods again.

Ever.

The growling motorcycle was getting louder and she started to carefully pick her way through the tangled growth, moving in the general direction of the sound. Between the shadow black spaces that had to be tree trunks Anna saw brief flashes of light––like a lightning bug’s mating dance––but this was no bug, it was a motorcycle’s cyclopean headlamp. She hastened her pace.

Stumbling forward in her sandals, she caught a glimpse of the bike flying by on the local asphalt road just as she reached the edge of the woods, dragging behind it the sound of AC/DC blaring from the cycle’s sound system.

Damnit!

All this time she’d been only a few yards from the fucking road.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Wait!” She waved her hands above her head while running out onto the road, hoping the biker would somehow notice her. There were two people on the bike, but neither of them saw her in the mirrors. Or they didn’t care.

Was the passenger naked?

Maybe...

But they were past in barely a second. The single tail-light grew smaller and smaller until the bike followed a gentle curve and the red ember blinked out.

But at least now she was standing on a ribbon of fairly smooth blacktop, confident that she would either be able to find her way back to Jason’s house or help would come along soon. She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled with relief.

She hated the woods.

She really did.

Now, which way back to Jason’s house?

Anna looked the pavement up and down as if hoping it would rise up like a cartoon snake and tell her which way to go.

Crap, snake. Didn’t want to think about snakes. Were there snakes in these woods?

After an indecisive moment, she struck off randomly, hoping there really was such a thing as women's intuition and that it was now guiding her.

She was so relieved to be out from under the trees’ spreading leaves and under a wedge of dark open sky that she forgot how angry she’d been at Jason and his entitled rich-boy act. The fear of being lost in the pitch black, spooky woods melted away as she strode along the edge of the narrow two-lane. Soon she’d be drinking with her friends and her wilderness adventure would be a funny story to tell at future parties.

After a half hour’s walking along the tree line she’d almost lost hope of reaching Jason’s place, or maybe ever again seeing another human being, when a set of headlights materialized ahead of her, coming her way. She waved her hands above her head, bouncing up and down, making herself as visible as possible.

Hard to miss a half-naked girl.

The pickup truck slowed and pulled onto the crumbling asphalt shoulder, stopping across from Anna. She strutted in front of the truck’s low beams to the passenger side door.

“Hey, thanks a lot for stopping,” Anna said after tugging the door open, aware of the driver’s gaze.

He grunted as he turned her way. He was obviously a country boy, overweight, wearing a pair of coveralls stretched over a ratty white tee and a cap covering his scruffy hair. Though she normally liked the rugged look, in this case she thought the black stubble that covered the lower half of his face gave him an almost unclean look. He was what her friends––and her––would call a redneck.

He was staring at her.

But who wouldn’t be? Given the circumstances…

“Need a ride, do ya?”

With a nervous chuckle and fervent nod she climbed up into the truck and avoided slamming the door, rather closing it gently. The truck was old, but maybe it was a classic. Why ask for more trouble? It wasn’t as if she had a more appealing offer. She didn’t want to wander the dreaded countryside all night.

“Where ya headed?” the redneck asked, his voice gruff but not unkind.

“It’s the Caruthers’ place? Umm… Jason Caruthers? On Killdeer Lake?”

“Not familiar with it, miss.”

“It’s a giant house right on the lake.”

“Lots of giant houses around the lake, miss.”

Anna slumped in the seat. What now?

“I tell you what…” the redneck enunciated slowly, “I can take you to this bait shop we got just up ahead some, you can call this Caruthers fella, and if he can give you directions, I’ll take you there. Or he can come pick you up. Don’t make no difference to me.”

“That would be great. Thanks.”

He put the truck into gear by wrestling a huge shift lever on the column and glided out to middle of the road. “My name’s Jeb, by the way. It’s actually Jebediah, but everybody just calls me Jeb.” He extended his right hand sideways, and Anna noticed that his hand was small and gnarled like wood. His whole arm was withered. Worse, it was dotted by thick layers of scraggly hair growing in tufts from a dozen ugly pustules. It must have been some kind of congenital abnormality. A birth defect of some kind.

“I’m…my name is Anna.” She shook his hand awkwardly, reluctantly.

She hoped she hadn’t been staring at his arm. It kind of freaked her out, but she didn’t want to make Jeb feel self-conscious. Fortunately he either didn’t notice, or she’d played it off well. Then again, he didn’t seem like the self-conscious type. He put that small, knobby hand back on the wheel.

“So, Anna, you mind if I turn the radio back on?”

“No, not at all.”

Jeb turned up the volume on the truck’s old fashioned broadcast radio and a scratchy blend of fiddle, banjo, and pedal-steel guitar emanated from the speakers. She wasn’t a big fan of country music, but it wasn’t entirely foreign to her either. She’d had a couple of boyfriends who’d listened to this stuff. In fact one of them had taken her to see…hmmm…Florida something or other. It wasn’t too bad, just didn’t have enough of a dance beat.

“So, what are you doin’ out here, Anna?”

“I was out at this big party and I wandered off and got lost in the woods.”

“A little too much to drink?”

“No! I got into an argument with someone.”

“Sounds like boyfriend troubles. Not that it’s any of my business.” He took the gross hand off the skinny wooden wheel to make his point.

“No,” she shook her head. “Not boyfriend problems, just boy problems.”

Jeb chuckled and it sounded like a clucking chicken. “I don’t mean to laugh miss, it’s just that you’re so darn pretty that you probably have lots of boy problems.”

The thought of Jeb being attracted to her made Anna’s skin crawl. “No, not really,” she said curtly, brushing off the comment. So much for him just being a nice guy.

He seemed to get the point. He stopped making conversation and just drove.

But the comment hung in the air, and she started worrying. Who knew where he was taking her? Where the hell was this bait store? She should have asked. How long would she have to be missing before her friends realized she was gone? How many places were there out here in the boonies to hide a body where it would never be found? She squirmed in the seat, wondering if she should push the door open and jump out, make a run for it.

Her fingers twitched as they approached the door latch almost on their own. She hoped he couldn’t see from his seat.

The truck suddenly slowed as its headlights flashed on a bullet-riddled stop sign and Anna could see the same decrepit gas station they’d stopped at on their way to Jason’s place. The familiar sight made her think that maybe Jeb wasn’t so bad after all.

“Well…” Jeb drawled, “looks like it’s closed.”

She sighed loud enough for him to hear.

“Don’t you worry, miss, old Ezra’s place is just across there. I’m sure he’ll let you use his phone to call your...friends.”

She looked over at the farmhouse tucked a ways down on the other side of the road, remembering how creepy it seemed when they’d stopped for gas. It looked at least twice as frightening now. Like a place you wouldn’t spend the night for a million bucks.

Gravel crunched under the bald steel-belted radials as Jeb pulled the creaky truck into the terrifying house’s driveway. “You look like you seen a ghost,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll come to the door with ya. I’ve known Ezra my whole life. He looks scary, but he ain’t half as bad as he seems.”

The hillbilly wrestled his girth out from behind the wheel and stepped out of the truck, rocking it.

Reluctantly, Anna followed suit.

What have I gotten myself into now!

She walked behind Jeb as he shambled across the lawn to the decrepit front porch. The steps groaned in protest under his weight. She trailed him, staring at what appeared to be long wooden troughs lining both side walls of the house. Pigs, maybe? She didn’t see or hear any of the animals, however, or spot any pens. Maybe they were in back. They sure looked like feeding troughs, though. And there was a smell...smelled like hogs to her, not that she knew what they smelled like. It was more a stench, a permeating foul odor that increased in intensity as she breathed it in. Gag! She was about to ask him about the hogs when he turned to wait for her.

She lingered on the bottom stair––worried the porch might collapse if the two of them stood on it at the same time. Jeb grinned at her crookedly and knocked on the rickety screen door with his withered hand, rattling it in its frame. “Come on up here, miss. Old Ezra don’t bite.”

Sighing, she joined Jeb, her eyes focused on the door even though she was worried about her feet crashing through the paint-flecked planks. She wrinkled her nose as the smell intensified.

“That’s better,” he said. Adding, as if he could read her mind: “Ya see, this old porch ain’t gonna fall down. It’s solid. They don’t build ‘em like this any more. No, siree. It’s the wood. You just cain’t get wood like this any more. All the good trees been used up.”

The light inside the house clicked on audibly, nearly blinding her––she’d become accustomed to the darkness under the canopy of low-hanging trees and night’s falling. A grumbling voice mumbled half-awake curses as a figure appeared at the door. It was the creepy dude from the gas station. He used his hand to shield the interior light, taking a long hard look at Jeb and Anna through the screen door. At length he said, “Is that you Jeb?”

“Hey Ezra, don’t mean to disturb your early evenin’ slumber, but I come across this little lady walkin’ down the road. She needs t’ use your phone. Would that be all right with you?”

Ezra looked Anna up and down. Taking in her minimal pool-party clothes and a lot of skin. A crooked grin spread across his wrinkled face, displaying a few nicotine-stained teeth. “I seen you before,” he said. “Get yourself lost in the woods?”

Anna slumped a little.

“Uh huh, that’s what I thought. You didn’t listen to me, did ya? Where’d your fancy friends get to?”

“I don’t know, sir. That’s why I need to use your phone. To find them.”

“Well, I guess,” he said, swinging open the screen door. “Come on in.”

Did he just wink at Jeb?

Pervert!

Or just a lonely old man faced with an unexpected, attractive young woman?

What am I asking? There should be something in between.

Jeb held the door and Ezra stepped out of the way as Anna tentatively entered the house.

When the door closed behind her, the strange odor she’d smelled outside was cut off.

Thank God!

But then she inhaled and realized there was a sickly sweet, old-person version of the smell in here, too.

She felt a little like a fly who had wandered into the outer edge of a spider’s web––maybe still enough time to get out, but the spider was on its way. She shook her head, clearing the image, but a quick look around gave her gooseflesh anyway. Even if you ignored the smell, somehow the house was even ickier on the inside.

There were stacks and stacks of yellowing newspapers and magazines rising crookedly all around the floor with narrow pathways snaking between them. Some were taller than others, but most were at least waist-high. Old black and white photos framed in repurposed barnwood hung on the walls she could see, the glass in the frames so thickly coated with dust that it nearly obscured the images. Nearly...She realized some nearby were portraits of freaks. Oddities. The type of anomalous grotesqueries that drew crowds at circus sideshows in a previous century. Tall, impossibly thin people. Short, stump-like people with bird-like claws. Hairy werewolf-types grinning fearsomely into the lens. Group portraits of Siamese twins joined every which place they could be, their skin and bones fused like melted wax. The gross pictures did their damnedest to distract from the peeling, smoke-stained wallpaper and the cracked and crumbling lath and plaster walls themselves. Cobwebs spread across the shadowy corners of the room like ghosts hiding from the light.

The place was just this side of a carnival of horrors. Such a cliche, almost as if they’d planned it. But who would do that?

“Right this way,” Ezra––the spider?––said, pulling Anna from her waking nightmare. “For the phone?” he added, as if he had to remind her.

She nodded sheepishly, following the old man through the maze that led indirectly to an arch and another cluttered room beyond.

The front room had been like a trailer of coming attractions for the remainder of the house. This next section was ill-lit by the low-wattage bare bulb in the single ceiling fixture. She allowed the old man to lead her deeper into this new haunted maze. Afraid to look up––afraid to see the images in the many frames along the walls––she trained her gaze on the floor, made of wide whitewashed pine boards beneath a stained and tattered runner often obscured by more stacks of paper and junk. She watched Ezra’s shoes as he zig-zagged expertly then turned and went through a doorway on the right. He clicked on a light, which then splashed a brighter swath onto the tight hallway floor. She followed.

Apparently they were going with the carnival funhouse theme, because this room was in keeping with a set from American Horror Story. The most obvious feature was the bizarrely colored wallpaper. Thankfully there were no freaks on these walls.

“Well, there you go,” Ezra said, motioning to an old-fashioned landline phone resting regally on a spindly old table barely large enough to hold it.

“Oh, okay,” she answered as if in a trance. She eyed the old rotary phone, almost confused.

“Damn it girl, don’t tell me you don’t know how to use a goddamned telephone. Kids these days, I swear. Here, let me show you,” Ezra grabbed the receiver and shoved it in Anna’s face. “You hold this part to your head and talk into it, and you dial the number like this.” Angrily he turned the dial with a finger and it made a clicking sound as it rotated back to its original position. “You think you can do that?”

“Uh huh,” she said, nodding as if in a daze. What a rude asshole!

“It’s almost time, gettin’ late,” the old man said. Apparently he was talking to Jeb.

“Yassir, I know, but we got a good start.”

She ignored them for a few seconds and stared at the dial hoping the numbers would come to her. Hell, she didn’t know any of her friends’ numbers from memory, they were saved on her cell phone. Normally she just had to stab a virtual button: Mandy, Krystal, Jason, Mom.

While struggling to come up with the number to one single person she knew, her attention was drawn to another photograph, this one perched on the small table beside the phone. It was an informal black and white family candid. Clearly the man in the picture was a younger Ezra, with dark hair and slim build. But his teeth were still fucked up as he grinned broadly for the camera. Beside him sat a woman with long, dark, straggly hair. She was looking away from the photographer, with a sad faraway look. After noting the woman’s somber expression, Anna gasped––the woman was a quadruple amputee, propped up in a chair for family picture day. In front of Ezra and the woman stood two young boys who were also physically deformed. The larger of the two had a harelip and misshapen head. The smaller––presumably younger––boy had a hairy, withered arm.

It was Jeb.

Jesus, they’re not friendly country neighbors…they’re father and son!

“Dumb bitch,” Ezra said from behind her, barking a laugh. “You ain’t even smart enough to know there ain’t no dial tone on that phone!”

She pulled the dead phone away from her ear, studying it for a moment as if she’d never seen one before, then slowly returned it to its cradle. The damned hicks had tricked her. Her situation was deteriorating rapidly, going from bad to worse to fucked-up-and-I’m-really-fucked worst. She’d have given just about anything to be back in the woods right now, walking in circles until the sun came up. Nothing out in the woods scared her as much as these two suddenly did. She felt the chill drop down into her bladder.

The creepy old man was still chuckling as she pivoted to face him.

And both his sons.

Ezra’s hideous teeth were prominently on display as he stood grinning like a mechanical toy monkey slapping a pair of cymbals together. Flanking him were his two sideshow offspring. Jeb with a deathly serious look on his pudgy face, his gnarled hand stuffed into the pocket of his filthy bib overalls. And the other one, the bookend to this horror bookshelf, towered over his family in a blue and red flannel shirt that looked two sizes too small. Grey hair almost concealed the unusual shape of his head at the edges of his weirdly shaped bald spot. His harelip curved otherwise somber features into a savage snarl. His arms seemed unnaturally long.

They were rejects from the goddamned Addams Family.

But this was no funny television show. Images of bones and skulls buried in the cellar flashed through Anna’s brain like strobe-lit slides and she imagined it wouldn’t take much to add hers to the collection.

After they were finished with her...

“Git’er, boys!” Ezra pointed, as if they couldn’t tell who the prey in the room was.

The abominable brothers advanced on her and it might have been hilarious in a bad zombie or hillbilly serial killer movie.

But this was her life, they looked like zombie hillbilly serial killers, and she wasn’t waiting around to see the credits.

Anna made a sudden move. She hurled the old fashioned telephone at the big one. It bounced off of his chest innocuously and fell to the floor with a loud clang.

She turned to run––eyes scanning for the exit––but a large hand clutched her left arm just above the elbow. She tried to wrench away, but the giant of a man’s grip was like an iron cuff clasped around her bicep. Still trying to wrestle herself free, Anna went on the offensive. She swung her free elbow backward blindly with all her strength––hoping to connect with something fragile, maybe her assailant’s throat. Instead her bony joint struck Jeb––who had maneuvered himself behind her––on the bridge of the nose.

She relished the cringe-inducing Crack! that rang out.

Jeb whimpered as he fell backward, flattening the tiny phone table and sending the creepy family portrait flying and crashing against the wall.

Serves him right!

But now the big guy grasped her right arm with his free hand. She went all-out psycho on him, but despite her fighting, kicking, and struggling, the mutant redneck held her fast at arm’s length, easily avoiding her flailing legs.

Ezra chided, “You might as well quit fighting, girl. Ezekiel there has never lost anybody once he gets his hands on’em. My boy’s as strong as an ox.” He cackled like an old witch. “And you,” he said to Jeb, “get your fat ass up off the floor. You are absolutely worthless.”

“Hey, I found her, Pa!” Jeb protested. He struggled getting to his feet, using the wall to steady himself, trying to cover his crooked, bleeding nose with his shrivelled hand.

“And that’s all you did,” said his father with a snarl. “I told ya it’s almost late!”

The big guy––Ezekiel?––held Anna in front of the old creep, apparently awaiting further instruction. They weren’t mental giants, not by a long shot. Ezra was looking her up and down, this time ogling her openly with an ugly leer.

Seizing the unexpected opportunity, Anna swung her foot up with all her might, kicking old Ezra right in the balls.

Shocked, the old man gasped as all the air inside him was sucked out and he doubled over, clutching his tenderized package with both cupped hands.

Too late, Ezekiel yanked her back to prevent a repeat performance.

“You bitch!” Ezra finally managed to croak, his voice barely more than a hoarse, pain-filled whisper. Then he pointed out the door and down the hall. “Take her downstairs with the others.”

She started to struggle, and then it sank in.

The others?

“Let me go, you fucking asshole!” She wriggled to free herself from Ezekiel’s grip as the brute dragged her through the doorway and down the hall toward an open door and whatever the darkness behind it concealed. Presumably downstairs and the others.

Were they alive? Or dead? And would she end up joining them?

Her struggling was fruitless. What the ugly man-monster lacked in the handsome department was compensated by size and strength. She hadn’t even managed to loosen his grip or force a break in his stride.

When they reached the open door at the end of the hall, Anna could see that it clearly did indeed lead to a darkened staircase down to a dimly-lit basement below. She threw her legs up and propped her feet against the doorframe like a dog trying to stay out of the vet’s, halting their progress dead, but it wasn’t more than seconds until Ezekiel pulled her back away from the frame, twisted her sideways, and thrust her forcefully through the opening––shoving her down the stairs ahead of him.

Her defense foiled, Anna continued struggling half-heartedly against the big man’s hold on her. She knew she had little chance of escape while his enormous mitts encircled her arms with plenty of length to spare. She stumbled down the rickety steps with her feet barely touching them as Ezekiel maneuvered her like a rag doll. Once or twice her head smacked the slanted ceiling, but never hard enough to do more than cause a momentary friction burn. Then she almost tripped on her own feet when she finally reached the bottom, held up only by the brute strength of the monster who grasped her.

Jesus.

The smell.

It was the first thing she became aware of as they exited the staircase, other than the dingy lighting provided by dust-covered bulbs hanging bare just overhead.

She gagged.

Yes, there was the standard dank, mildewy scent of an unfinished basement. But there was something else, too. Something sweet and sour, sickening, immediately unrecognizable, yet somehow familiar to a primitive part of her brain. Something frightening. Different from what she’d smelled outside, the hog-smell. This was different, sweet, vomit-inducing.

She knew what it was without question and without a doubt.

The brutish abomination named Ezekiel carried her past a group of metal boxes and cylinders with pipes jutting out of them heading across the low ceiling in all directions. What were the things her father had always talked about in the basement? Furnace, water heater, fuse box… that’s what this batch of pipes must have been about. She’d never really paid attention to that stuff because in her parents’ house it was all hidden behind paneled walls.

Quickly dodging through the array of strange monster-like devices, Ezekiel marched Anna into a cramped area lit by another dust-coated bare bulb hanging from the ceiling joists by a twirly cord. On the bare concrete floor was a haphazard heap of leaf-patterned camouflage clothes, the type worn by hunters in the fall, on top of which sat the largest flashlight she had ever seen. Beyond the mound of clothes and jammed up against the wall sat a chest freezer and small table stacked high with tools: hammers, clamps, screwdrivers, wrenches…and a rifle. Perpendicular to the work bench a pair of chugging refrigerators formed a partial wall that obstructed her view of the more brightly-lit space beyond.

“Hold it there, Zeke.” Jeb’s voice came from behind them. Clearly her benevolent driver was following them down the steps. “We gotta get her hands cuffed.”

The giant stopped, still holding Anna by the arms like a doll. She was mostly standing on her own, but off-balance thanks to his relentless grip. His arms and hands seemed so very long. Jeb tumbled down the steps and landed beside them, holding a pair of handcuffs. He laid his good hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Fucker!” Anna yelled suddenly, kicking at that chubby mutant for all she was worth.

But it wasn’t much, as she couldn’t get enough leverage to make the kicks count.

“Whoa, ornery! Pin her down, Zeke. Let me get these cuffs on’er.”

The big man pulled her close and leaned in on her. Her kicking radius further reduced, Anna folded, her body pinned under Ezekiel’s great weight as Jebediah slapped the handcuffs onto her wrists right in front of her face. His crazed eyes stared into hers and she flinched away.

“Alrighty now,” Jeb said, patting his brother’s shoulder. He pointed at something ahead of them. “Go hang’er up.”

Ezekiel kept a tight hold on his captive adding to Anna’s claustrophobic sensation of being contained. Though he had shifted her around, she was no less a prisoner. In fact, her situation was markedly worse now that her hands were cuffed. She hadn’t seen that coming.

But maybe you should have…

Yeah, ever since taking the ride on the pick-up, her life had paralleled that of every idiot sacrifice in every low-budget horror flick she’d ever seen, and she’d fallen for it anyway.

The misshapen brute pushed her ahead of him and his brother, shoving her past the old refrigerators––which were humming like transformers on a high-voltage transmission tower––and into the next room.

Before her mind could even grasp the full reality of what she was seeing, the scream escaped her throat. And it continued until all of the air had been pushed out of her lungs. Then she fell silent, gasping for air. Her skin had turned ice-cold as the blood seemed to freeze in her veins. The throb in her ears might as well have been a drum on the moon, because it no longer seemed to be made by her own heart.

There, in the center of the room––harshly lit by fluorescent tubes set in a fixture suspended by chains set into the joists that supported the floor above––was a butcher block the size of a dining room table, and on the block was what remained of a man’s body; naked, headless, limbless, the torso was pried open like a tin can and emptied of all its organs. A massive butcher’s cleaver was embedded in the table top near the remains, its blade smeared with congealed blood. Behind the table a second body hung inverted from a pair of hook-ended chains set into the ceiling. This victim was also beheaded and gutted, but its legs were tangled in the hanging chains, its flaccid arms draped across the cellar floor.

But where was his head?

“No. No. No. No!”

The words grew louder and louder as they burst wetly from Anna’s lips, unbidden. She struggled using new-found strength.

But it was no good.

Jeb chuckled behind her.

Ezekiel picked her up and placed the short length of chain that attached the handcuffs over a large nail that had been driven downward at a forty-five degree angle into the house’s main beam. There she hung by her wrists, the tips of her toes mere inches from the floor.

“If you were any taller we’d have to have cut your feet off,” Jeb said, offhandedly  half-joking––as if she were somehow lucky.

Anna squirmed, mindlessly kicking and contorting until she was rendered breathless. Her efforts were useless.

“You fucking assholes!” she screamed, her voice raw.

Ezekiel ignored her and turned back to the grisly work from which he’d been interrupted––cleaving slabs of pale meat from the corpse on the chopping block. Meanwhile Jeb stood by with a smirk on his face, enjoying the sight of her twisting in her bonds until she was again exhausted by her struggles. And when she stopped kicking, he moved in.

She recoiled when the redneck leaned closer and spoke softly into the side of her face. His hot, stinking breath seemed to cling to her skin like mustard gas. “You’re pretty hot shit, aren’t you? I could see that right off, when you were standin’ on that road. Better than me.” He slipped his withered hand up under her almost-bikini top and kneaded her breast. “Maybe we could find better use for you than plain hamburger.”

The touch of that grotesque hand plus her view of the butchering finally brought up bile and she almost spewed. Instead she spit in his face.

“I’d rather die than fuck you, you dumb, ugly fuck,” she said slowly so he’d get it. She enjoyed seeing him wince as the vomit-flavored saliva slid down his features.

“Disgusting little bitch! You don’t get to choose. We’re gonna choose for you. Maybe it’ll be both, eh, snobby little twat? Every hole, and some we’ll carve out just for the occasion.”

“Hey, hey, hey…What the hay’s goin’ on here?” Ezra materialized out of the shadows behind Jeb. The old man looked Anna up and down as she hung by her wrists, twirling gently after Jeb’s grope. “What the hay,” Ezra said again. “Why’s her titty showin’?”

Jeb opened his mouth. “Un…” he said, before Ezra slapped him solidly on the left side of his face. Then the old man struck his fat son over and over. “You piece of shit. You know if there’s gonna be any gettin’ I’m gettin’ it first. You don’t do nothin’ unless I tell you to. Do you understand me?”

Jeb didn’t reply, instead he held up his good arm to protect his face from further blows.

“That’s what I thought,” Ezra said, wearing a smug expression as he turned to face Anna. He reached down and gently tucked her exposed breast back into her top. “I’m sorry about my boy, he don’t have much experience with the ladies. You can see why. I hope he din’t hurt you none.”

She averted her eyes, unable to look the old man in the face. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks following well-defined tracks. She imagined her mascara had left black streaks on her cheeks. “Please, let me go,” she begged. It was more a prayer than any sort of plea.

“Aww… Now you know we cain’t do that. Not now, after you seen everything. Hell, I let you go and next thing I know, that damn Sheriff Harris and his dumbass deputy-dawg son be out here pokin’ around…”

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

“You know I cain’t trust no city-slicker chick like you. I got my boys to protect. Much easier to have you just disappear. Another victim of that damn lake. I told you that lake was dangerous. Kind of a shame though…You do sort of remind me of the boy’s mother, back when she was young and smokin’ hot.”

Anna remembered the woman in the portrait near that old-fashioned telephone. The quadruple amputee.

“Yessiree, back when we were growin’ up, Sheba was a beautiful woman in shape and spirit. She was a fighter just like you.” Ezra gripped her face in his hand, turning her head to face him––sizing her up like a pig he wanted to take to market. “ ’cept of course she weren’t no Mexican.”

Jesus, I’m Puerto Rican, not Mexican! And how does he know I’m not Italian or Greek or dark Irish, anyway?

Thunk!

Behind Ezra, the cleaver fell again. Ezekiel the butcher paid them no attention as he continued his disgusting chore.

Ezra dropped her face and stepped back in disgust. “But after the boys came, she didn’t want to fulfill her wifely duties, if you catch my drift. Fought me off so bad I ended up taking her arms. That’s when the boys first got a taste for the good meat. After that she kept tryin’ to run off, so I took her legs. Not long after, she went to live with the good Lord above. Bit off her tongue and drowned in her own blood. I guessed she didn’t care for the taste of herself. Oh well, she was a confused woman. Me, I always been sure of myself, ya know? And I got mouths to feed.”

He looked in her eyes as if to seek some agreement there, but finding none he shrugged and frowned.

“Now, I’d let my boys breed ya––even though your offspring wouldn’t be purebloods, like the boys––’ceptin’ that you’re a disgusting Mexican whore. Although that’d be okay with the others...”

The others?

There were more of them?

Ezra spat on the floor before adding: “Come on Jeb, you worthless turd. We gotta let Zeke finish up his chores. It’s almost time.”

The two disgusting creeps left the way they had come, back through the maze of discarded hunter’s clothes and the various tanks and ductwork beneath the house’s main floor, but not before Jeb gave her a wink and a nod giving the impression that he’d be down to visit her again before the night was over. They left Anna hanging by her wrists and the inbred giant hacking apart the dead.

Thunk!

Pause.

Thunk!

Pause.

Every time the weirdo brought the cleaver down, Anna flinched. And then the pause left her hanging, expecting the next hack, and then when it came she would flinch again. Imagining the cleaver striking her own flesh. Except...when it finally did, would she still be alive to feel every single sharp blow slicing into her skin, parting it like lard, and then hacking into her bones?

Her shoulders ached from being twisted at such an unusual angle, while also supporting all her weight. Her hands hurt excruciatingly as the steel cuffs dug into both her skin and deeply into her wrists.

“Please,” she said to Ezekiel, trying to avert her eyes from the carnage of his night’s work. “Please let me go. I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.” She threw in that part on the spur of the moment, not even sure herself what precisely she was offering.

The big man didn’t stop cleaving the flesh into usable portions. He didn’t even look at her or grunt to acknowledge her presence.

“Hey you big dumb fuck!” she shouted.

He ignored her.

Or at least that was what she initially thought. Then she realized that he hadn’t heard anything. Jeb and Ezra had always touched the big brute, or pointed at things, to drive him into action.

Ezekiel was deaf!

And likely mute as well, seeing as he hadn’t made a sound the entire time.

As long as she was down here alone with him she might be able to get out of this. At least it gave her a spark of hope.

She looked up past the cuffs, at the chain hung on the bent spike-sized nail. There was no chance of her bending that spike down so she could slide off the short length of chain that held the bracelets together––it already supported her weight with ease––but...but she might be able to swing back and forth and use her momentum to flip the chain up and over the nail’s head.

Using every muscle in her lithe body, she started swinging her legs. Thank God for all those years of junior and senior high gymnastics!

Then: Don’t thank anyone yet...

Keeping an eye on the oversized butcher-boy, she slowly gained enough velocity to try bouncing the chain off the hooked spike. She pushed up and tried to extend her arms over its large flat head.

Damn it!

Close, but not quite enough height.

She slipped back down, losing some of her speed. Undeterred, she redoubled her efforts.

What choice did she have? She didn’t want to become hamburger on that old fucker’s table after they were all done with her. If she thought too much about it, she’d just deflate and give up.

No fuckin’ way.

Another try, another fail.

She breathed slowly, trying to gather herself as if sticking this landing would get her the gold medal. In this case, it would probably mean her life...

On the third try she struck paydirt, swinging the short length of chain up and over the bent spike as if she’d been destined to all along.

She landed on the floor, hard, like a sack of sharp bones. Not exactly sticking it…The impact knocked the wind right out of her. She gasped, trying to suck in a painful breath. Her joints throbbed sharply. Then she turned and realized that the behemoth, Ezekiel, was staring at her from across the room.

Oh fuck!

She was frozen to the spot where she’d landed.

Ezekiel swung the cleaver heavily, embedding its blade deep into the surface of the butcher’s block. He strode around the table, long legs quickly closing the distance between them.

Spurred by blind panic, Anna rolled over and sprang to her feet, her chest aching from the fall. She made a break for the stairs.

Before she could manage a second step, her head was jerked backwards painfully. The butcher had grabbed a handful of her hair and reeled her in like a doomed fish.

Anna shrieked as Ezekiel forcefully tossed her. She tumbled past the old refrigerators, slamming into the chest freezer. The adrenaline surge sent her brain into action as her eyes settled on the workbench beside her. The gun! But she didn’t have time to make a grab for it. Instead she lurched and went for the closest thing she could use as a weapon––a rusty screwdriver.

Reacting instinctively––a trapped animal––she turned, thrusting out the screwdriver’s point at her monstrous adversary. Its blade caught the giant’s snarling mouth, digging in and then scraping across Ezekiel’s gums above his teeth before sliding sideways and punching a hole in his cheek from the inside of his mouth.

Shock filled the big man’s eyes as he reeled back, ripping even more of his cheek as the flat head became a dull knife. He slapped a huge hand over his mouth and cheek as blood poured from both wounds. Turning away from her, he released a bestial scream of pain and surprise. He lingered there, frozen in agony and surprised indecision.

Making the most of her only chance of survival, Anna jumped up and drove the tip of the screwdriver into the back of Ezekiel’s head, right at the base of his skull, leaving it embedded in his neck up to its handle.

The giant bellowed. Reaching backward with his huge hands, he tried to remove the tool, but each time he touched the handle it seemed to intensify his agony. He moaned and grunted as he spasmodically contorted, suddenly bucking like a wild mustang. He slammed into one of the refrigerators, nearly knocking it over before falling to his knees. Then he dropped to the floor, twitching as a pool of blood formed beneath him. Squawking like some kind of animal.

Anna’s heart jackhammered in her chest, threatening to burst out of her ribcage. She’d never hurt anyone before, let alone killed anyone. Now she was a murderer. But it wasn’t her fault, he’d forced her hand.

She heard footfalls tromping down the stairs. “What the hell is…” Jeb’s muffled voice echoed from the stairwell.

Oh shit, what am I gonna do now?

She turned, awkwardly grabbing the bolt-action rifle off the workbench with her bound hands. Desperately she looked it over. She’d never fired a rifle before. She didn’t even know if it was loaded. But it had to be, didn’t it?

“Oh Jesus-fucking-Christ! Zeke!” Jeb came into view, but he didn’t even glance at her. Instead his eyes had locked on his fallen kin. He stumbled over and squatted beside his brother, whimpering, batting at the body with his mutant hand. Then he pulled the screwdriver from Ezekiel’s neck. It made a slick, wet, grotesque sound. She thought she’d hear that sound for the rest of her life.

Not that I have much left.

“Stay away from me,” she said, her voice trembling. “I have a gun.”

Jeb looked at her, his eyes narrowing with rage. “You fucking cunt!” He slowly rose, brandishing the bloody screwdriver like a switchblade. “You did this.” He stalked toward her.

“Stay back,” Anna warned.

The hillbilly grinned. “You don’t even know how to use that, do ya?”

“Please. Stop.”

Jeb advanced.

She pulled the trigger, preparing for the explosion.

Nothing happened. Nothing! In fact, the trigger didn’t even budge. She squeezed again and again.

Holy hell! She backed away from the deranged redneck, keeping one eye on him and with the other desperately trying to figure out what was wrong with the rifle.

Jeb cackled. He was closer now. He slapped the barrel of the rifle away playfully, toying with her with the surprisingly strong withered arm. “Whatchu gonna do? You gonna shoot me? You said you were gonna shoot me.”

They circled the room, Anna stepping gingerly backwards, trying to fend off Jeb with the rifle’s barrel while he stalked her with blood from the screwdriver staining his clenched deformed hand.

Finally she noticed a tiny lever near the trigger. Fumbling, she flipped it. The old gun immediately discharged.

Startled, she dropped the rifle.

It clattered to the basement floor but Anna could barely hear it through the ringing in her ears. Her wrist ached from the recoil. Shocked, she saw the crimson stain spreading in the center of Jeb’s coveralls. The cruel mirth in his eyes a few seconds before was now replaced with stunned disbelief as he stumbled two steps back.

“You shot me?” he moaned. “You bitch, you shot me!” He wiped his good hand over his chest and held it to his face, scrutinizing the blood as if he couldn’t conceive of it. Suddenly he dropped to his knees, then keeled over onto his side.

Anna heard a step creak above her.

She retrieved the rifle, pain spiking through her wrist as she lifted its ungainly weight. In a panic, she dashed into the butchering room to buy enough time to get a grip, physically and intellectually, on the rifle. She regretted the decision immediately as she was greeted by the hunter’s dismembered body laying on the slab and the no longer human husk hanging from the ceiling. She recoiled in terror.

She heard Ezra calling out.

“Boys? Who the hell’s shootin’ down there?”

Quickly she jabbed the rifle barrel up and into the fluorescent tubes hanging over the chopping block, sending a deluge of glass shards raining down onto the block and the horrifying remains. She hoped the darkness would help her disappear for a few precious seconds. Seconds that could mean the difference between life and death if she could figure out how to reload the damned gun.

“My God, my boys!” Ezra wailed, his pain and anger echoing through the cellar.

Anna crouched behind the gruesome table, ignoring the gore as best she could, and tugged on the bolt handle. She’d seen this done in movies dozens of times, why couldn’t she get it open? Of course, the fact she was still in the damn handcuffs didn’t help. And her wrist was stinging like hell, probably sprained.

In the other room Ezra was sobbing. She almost felt sorry for the old bastard. Almost, but not really. And not so much his sons, either. It had been their lives or hers, and they’d set the rules of the game. Had they just left her alone, Jeb and Ezekiel would still be alive. On the upside, who could say how many innocent people she’d saved by taking out those two cannibalistic mouth-breathers.

Now to deal with their evil progenitor.

Surprisingly the bolt handle suddenly slipped back, discharging a spent shell casing which tinkled like a bell when it bounced off the cellar floor. Her hands had unwittingly discovered how to open the bolt. Now to close it again…She fumbled with it, suppressing a curse.

“Is that you, you dirty little whore?” Ezra asked. He stood beside the refrigerators, the naked bulb backlighting his shape and casting a long shadow across the floor that made Anna tremble. As if the shadow wasn’t human. “You gonna regret what you done, little whore.” The shadow moved and vanished in the surrounding darkness.

Where the hell did he go?

She fought with the bolt handle. How had she got it to open? She should have been paying better attention.

“Oh, I am gonna make you suffer for what you done to my boys.” His disembodied voice felt as if it surrounded her. She was afraid to poke her head out to look for him, lest she give away her hiding place.

A new chill swept over her in a wave. Her intuition urged her to run, forget the gun.

As she rose from her crouch, inching forward, she felt something graze the skin below her shoulder. She jumped away, a tugging sensation retarding her flight, and her top fell away.

Ahead of her––mostly obscured by shadow––stood old Ezra, holding the red fabric by its string, a lunatic grin stretched across his face.

Anna trained the rifle on him. “Stay away from me,” she warned.

“Oh no. I guarantee that won’t happen.” Ezra reached out and yanked the cleaver out of the butcher block. As he dragged the heavy blade across the block, shards of the shattered light bulb flew and sounded like wind chimes as they struck the concrete floor. “First I’m gonna cut your little titties right off, then I’m gonna feed’em to––”

“I’m serious, stay away!”

As if her desperation became skill, the bolt slid closed in her trembling hands.

“Show me what you got, bitch.” Ezra was undaunted. His dead sons were apparently forgotten in the midst of his crazed blood lust. And plain old lust.

Closing her eyes, she squeezed the trigger. The blast might have been a stick of dynamite exploding in the enclosed space. It was instantaneously followed by loud metallic ping. Once again the recoil and her weak grip ripped the rifle out of her hands. Down the gun went, into the shadows. Anna stared. Ezra’s mouth hung open, his eyes wide. He was shocked. Slowly, he looked down and even though Anna needed to run, she couldn’t help but follow his gaze.

On the floor lay the broad-bladed butcher’s cleaver. In the half-light she was sure she saw a divot or crater marring its flat surface.

A twisted smile grew on Ezra’s features as he patted himself down, making sure he was still in one piece.

Anna blinked, getting it. I shot the cleaver out of his hand!

And lost the gun, again.

Ezra barked a wicked laugh. Then he lunged for her.

She turned and ran. Leaping over the spreading crimson pool that still leaked out of Ezekiel’s prone corpse, she sped her way through the room to the staircase. Behind her there was a thump followed by Ezra’s angry cursing. “Goddamned son of a bitch whore!”

She figured he’d slipped in the puddle of his evil son’s blood.

Head start. Head start. Keep running!

She shot up the stairs, slamming the door at the top of the stairwell and looking for any sort of latch or lock. Nothing!

Damn it, didn’t they ever lock victims in the basement?

Ezra yelled up: “I’m coming for you, whore!”

His reedy voice was followed by the rhythmic thud of his boots.

Shit.

She studied the hallway. The front door was straight ahead, wasn’t it? Down the hall and straight ahead? Damn it, the details were fuzzy, but she couldn’t stay here and wonder. She took off down the hall, looking for her exit.

Doors flanked both sides, but nothing seemed familiar. Or maybe everything looked familiar. So much so that it clouded her recollection of the details of the house. Had they drugged her somehow? She didn’t think so. Maybe it was delayed shock and trauma. Maybe she’d had a stroke...

Behind her, the door to the cellar of horrors burst open with a crash. Anna ducked through the nearest open doorway.

As Ezra’s heavy footfalls grew closer, she drew herself tightly against the shadows on the wall in this dark room. Too late to close the door. She held her breath and listened to the steps approaching while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. What now? She needed to think. Even if she made it outside she probably wouldn’t make it far. He knew the surrounding area. He had a truck, a flashlight, and guns at his disposal. And he was crazy with anger and lust, not necessarily in that order.

She needed a better plan.

Ezra’s pace slowed when he neared the entrance to the room where she’d holed up. Maybe he hadn’t seen her slip inside. Maybe he wasn’t interested anymore.

Yeah, and maybe the Easter Bunny would rescue her.

She bit her lip hard, half-hoping it would wake her from this nightmare out of a bad movie. But everything’s based on real life, isn’t it? Even when it’s crazy? She closed her eyes, willing it all to disappear. She opened her eyes.

It wasn’t working.

She almost choked on her held breath, but Ezra moved on, his footfalls receding from her doorway. Anna gave herself a few seconds to breathe regularly. She was in what looked like some kind of sitting room, with a couch, armchair, some small end tables with dusty lamps, a curio cabinet, and a staircase set against the wall heading to the second floor. Even here there were piles of papers and junk giving the room a filled look with no clear path.

What she really needed was the handcuff key and the keys for the truck. She wasn’t sure about the cuffs, but she knew who had the truck keys. If she could somehow get back down to the basement she could turn the tables. But how? Try to sneak down to the basement while Ezra searched for her up here? Seemed too risky. She didn’t know her way around the piles of hoarded stuff. She’d be better off finding an exit and taking her chances outside. She could attempt to relocate the front door––or find a back door––but it might be easier and more convenient to just slip out a window. Even that would be hard while the old pervert was lurking around. What if she bought herself more time by sneaking up the stairs to the second floor and gliding out a second floor window? She seemed to remember seeing a couple right above the decrepit porch. It would be perfect. She could climb out onto the gabled porch roof and jump down to the ground from there. To hell with the cuffs, she’d worry about them later.

Stealthily––never turning her back on the doorway into the hall––she tip-toed to the staircase and avoided the newspaper and book clutter piled up on both ends of each step, slipping as silently as she could up to the second floor. Moonlight seeped in through the window panes at the end of the upstairs hall, staining the dusty floor runner and cobweb-coated walls with squares of fuzzy white light. It was exactly what she was looking for. She crept forward quietly, one slow step at a time. Doors were set at regular intervals along the corridor, but they were all closed. Halfway between the top of the staircase and the window, the floorboards groaned as Anna shifted her weight. Just what she’d been afraid of!

She froze. And waited.

In the silence of the dark hall, the protesting floor had seemed as loud as a cannon.

Only a few more steps and she’d be clear of this hell-house. Slowly she lifted her offending foot. The groaning board called attention to her again, as if the house itself were trying to thwart her. And now she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her.

Desperately she tried the nearest door. The knob spun worthlessly in her hand, the latch refusing to catch. In blind panic, she sprinted to the next door, twisted the handle, her fear causing her to lean in. The door swung open suddenly and she fell into the room. She sprang to her feet and closed the door behind her.

In the dark, she felt along the door jamb hoping to find a lock or latch. Having no such luck she backed away from the door and turned to find another window brightening the room with moonbeams. In the glow a table sat, its top littered with more unrecognizable clutter. Anna approached, hoping to find something to use as a weapon among that crap.

Even from a distance she could clearly make out the plethora of unlit candles of various sizes and varieties standing at the table’s edges, their wax now dry, frozen in strange dripping shapes like landscapes on some tiny alien world. But she couldn’t make out what the candles surrounded. There was something stringy. Hair maybe? And a wrinkled lump of some sort. A pile of blankets, or sheets?

She was close now.

Her breath caught in her throat as her mind put the puzzle pieces together. What she saw in front of her, even after the horrors of the cellar, turned her sweat cold and clammy. It was a body––at least part of one––dry and mummified.

A head? Yes, but there was more...

Skin pulled taught, covered in tight creases and wrinkles. Lips stretched back exposing stained, cracked teeth. Eyes gone––empty sockets with crisp-looking lids sewn open with black thread. A thin, wattled neck like wrinkled bedsheets. And then...The deflated breasts indicated to Anna that it was the body––or just the torso––of a woman. Her second clue was the body’s bare genitalia. The dried labial lips were pried open in a frozen gape as if they had been…used?

Oh my God! She almost snorted: no God here! Not today!

It must have been Ezra’s wife––the boys’ mother. Maybe it was a sick-ass shrine or even more sick-ass sex toy. Or...both?

Crash.

The door behind her flew open. Startled, Anna stumbled forward––bumping the table and overturning it. The mummified torso and half-burned candles spilled to the floor, disappearing in the room’s shadows. She glimpsed a mantle of dark hair covering the torso’s parchment-like skin before her attention shifted to the new threat behind her.

Like a gorilla’s, her mind tossed out at her. But she had no time to process the thought.

“Jesus Christ!” Ezra shrieked. “What have you done, whore?” His hands went to cover the top of his head as if he were trying to keep it from exploding.

Enraged, he rushed her like a bull, all arms and legs.

The terror and disgust clutching at her heart gave her what seemed to be superhuman agility.

She reacted, twisting to sidestep the full force of Ezra’s charge. Dodging his crazy onslaught, she ducked out of the way at the last moment.

Maybe the old man’s fury at her destruction of his bizarre trophy had made him careless. Missing Anna, the power of his rush crashed him headlong into the window. Glass shattered and termite-eaten wood splintered.

Seizing her chance, Anna used Ezra’s momentum to her advantage and gave him a hard shove in the back at the right moment. The old man’s body continued on, flying out the jagged opening and taking out most of the wood around it. With a short scream he plummeted to the ground.

She watched him fall. The gable roof didn’t extend all the way across the front of the house, and the old man caught the edge of it with his shoulder. He hit the ground with a dull thud.

She leaned out, careful to avoid the jagged glass knives, and stared at his still form for a full minute. No motion. He might have a broken back or neck, or maybe some serious internal damage. Even if he was alive, that second story fall had to slow him down a little. She had to find the truck and handcuff keys!

Anna rushed out of the room and raced down the hall. She bounded down the stairs, nearly tripping on the junk and tumbling to the bottom before sprinting to the cellar door and down into the cold damp basement once again. The whole time she was screaming in her mind, forcing herself to go back down there in the butcher shop that had almost claimed her. She shivered but swallowed her fear.

Panting by the time she made her way into the room with the freezer and work bench, she saw the brothers. Ezekiel, face down in a pool of his own blood on the far side of the room––she could see where Ezra had slipped on the blood, smearing it all around the floor. To her right Jeb lay sprawled out on his back, some blood beneath him too but much of it had soaked through his shirt and overalls, staining his entire torso crimson.

Anna sucked in a deep, calming breath through her nose. The stench of blood and spoiled meat and worse soured the air. Her hands still trembling, she stepped over Jeb’s corpse.

You need the keys, she told herself. He can’t hurt you.

She crouched, pulled open the right front pocket of his denim overalls with a cuffed hand and reached inside with the other hand.  She found a full keyring and pulled it out, trying to avoid the blood and not snag his pocket.

Then his gnarled hand grasped her wrist.

She’d been crouched over him, flipping through the keys, when he came back to life.

She dropped the keys as she leaped up, trying to wrench her arm away.

Jeb was still alive, but just barely. He raised his head and looked through her with his lachrymose, piteous eyes. His lower lip quivered as he struggled to say something, but lacked the energy.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

“Let me go, you fucking sicko!”

She pried his twisted fingers off her wrist, grabbed up the keys again, looking for freedom from her shackles. Jeb’s head dropped back to the floor with a sickening wet smack. His body twitched convulsively as the last of his lifeforce evaporated.

With a yelp! of joy and released tension she found the key and freed herself, tossing the cuffs onto Jeb’s still chest. Then she strode into the butcher-shop, trying hard to ignore the carnage. It wasn’t easy. Searching in the dark she finally found her red top, but it was slick and greasy––maybe from the film of fat and flesh that saturated every surface of the room. “I am not wearing this!” she said, dropping it as if it were cursed.

Shit. She shrugged. She knew clothing was the least of her problems but she willed herself to remain sane by focusing on the familiar, not the evidence of gruesome death all around her.

She spotted the rifle again. Should she should take it? Was she going to call the police? Yes! She probably should. But what if they didn’t believe her? She’d just killed three people! And her fingerprints were likely all over this place. She’d seen plenty of unbelieving small-town cops railroading innocent people on TV and in movies. On the other hand, how could they not believe her? There were two butchered hunters here––no way she could have done that. And wouldn’t DNA determine that she hadn’t? If she took the gun, wouldn’t they shoot her by mistake?

She shook her head. Can’t deal with all this now. She just had to get out of this house of horrors. She’d figure it out after a shower and maybe twelve or fifteen hours’ sleep.

Yeah, right. Like she could ever sleep again.

With Jeb’s keys in hand she left the butcher-shop behind and headed up the stairs. Making her way down the first floor hallway by stepping around the piles of papers and strange junk, she recognized the room where she’d tried to use the old fashioned phone. It was much easier to put it all together now that she wasn’t worried about being murdered and chopped into little pieces. Before long she had worked her way through the mazes and stood staring at the front door. It was at the end of the hall after all, but the junk piles had hidden it.

Or maybe it had moved around on her, like in the movies.

The door was unlocked. She swung it open and took a deep breath of the fresh night air.

But...her nose wrinkled. There was that stench again, worse even than what permeated the basement butcher shop.

Maybe these backwoods assholes did raise hogs or something? Anna remembered those troughs she’d seen when she first got here, a lifetime ago. The insulting haze was a mix of spoiled meat, spoiled vegetables, body odor, flatulence, and something else. Musky, like a wild animal. But the spoiled meat part, that was easy to understand, thinking back to that active crime scene in the basement. She’d seen a Criminal Minds where body parts were fed to hogs. The meat stank, the hogs stank...presto, one fine stench.

Before stepping out into the foul-smelling dark she looked over the keys, singling out the one with the old Ford logo. A cooling breeze made her shiver as it teased her bare skin, but it also made her gag because it was so...disgusting.

However she knew how close she’d come to never again feeling a breeze, so she couldn’t help but smile tentatively. No matter how bad the hogs or cows or whatever it was stank, she was free.

Leaving the front door hanging open, she jogged down the rickety steps and headed for Jeb’s truck.

For a moment she thought about checking on Ezra. He could be seriously hurt, dying in a heap of broken bones at the side of the porch. She grinned. That’s what the gross perverted murderer deserves! But what if he wasn’t there? Then what? She hastened her pace.

She covered the short distance without incident. She tried the driver’s door. Unlocked. Of course, who would lock their doors in the middle of nowhere?

Anna hopped into the cab and fumbled around, finally slipping the key into the very old school ignition. She settled into the sprung seat and went to turn the key…

And then a gnarled hand burst into the cab through the side window and clutched at her shoulder with claw-like fingers. The nails were lined with red, blood or raw meat. It was that same old Ezra. He’d somehow crawled up and was standing on the truck bed behind her, reaching through the window. She tried beating his arm back with one hand and finding the key again with the other, but his single arm was stronger than it had any right to be.

She screamed in frustration and rage as he grabbed a handful of her hair, dragging her inexorably through the opening.

Flailing at his arm, she grasped the steering wheel with her knees and finally found the key, turning it with her other hand.

The truck’s engine rumbled to life.

As the old man pulled her head back painfully, Anna fumbled around with the column-mounted gear shift and finally slipped it into gear, any gear. It happened to be Reverse. She slammed her foot down on the accelerator.

With a wet smash, Ezra’s face crashed horrifically into the window behind her. But his hand was somehow still tangled in Anna’s hair.

Turning the wheel all the way to the right and jamming the stick into Drive, Anna made a doughnut in the front yard, the spinning tires kicking grass and dirt up as Ezra tumbled sideways into the bed’s sidewall.

“Goddamn you!” Ezra hollered through broken lips and teeth, as he lost his grip on her locks. Then he slid on the bed liner all the way back to the tailgate where he hung on for his life.

Anna had had more than enough of this bullshit. Gritting her teeth, she punched down on the brake, sending him rolling up to the front of the bed again, where he struck the back of the cab with a resoundingly wet thud. Then she immediately floored the accelerator again and Ezra tumbled to the back of the truck with a shriek. She cranked the wheel hard to the left, making a second series of circles in the yard, the centrifugal force pinning the old man in the corner of the bed.

Then Ezra, struggling to stand, managed to fall off the rear of the truck.

She stopped. Looking over her shoulder, Anna saw him staggering towards the front porch, gesticulating with one good arm and dragging the crooked other one.

Not this time, old man! You’re never going to hurt me or anyone else ever again!

Spitting out chunks of sod, the truck fishtailed in the soil she’d freshly turned over, as she mashed the gas pedal clear down to the floorboards. She wheeled around and framed the limping creep in the pickup’s headlights as she bore down on him. He turned his head at the last minute, and she may have heard him scream out “Noooooo…!” before the truck’s grille impacted with him and he was swept under the bumper.

She could clearly hear and feel Ezra rolling under the truck’s frame as she ran him over. She spun the truck on a hundred and eighty degree arc and––finding his crumpled form on the lawn––proceeded to drive over him a second time, the suspension bouncing as she crushed his body under the truck’s wheels.

She drove over Ezra another half-dozen times, until he was barely recognizably human. His head was a smashed pumpkin after Halloween, his body an array of unevenly stuffed trash bags tossed to the side of the highway. He was just a big greasy, bloody, broken mess.

Not unlike what he and his disgusting offspring had done to innocent people.

Now she’d be able to sleep at night, knowing that the boogie man was dead and gone––down for the count and then some.

Anna sighed, relief overwhelming her. She cried.

It was over.

Easing the old truck down the driveway, she stopped at the turn-in. Maybe she could use the gas station they’d stopped at what seemed like such a long time ago, while on their way in, to get her bearings. Then she could probably find Jason’s house and call the police.

No, home was what she needed. Home and a bath and a margarita or two. And a shirt. And another couple margaritas. Mandi and Krystal could tell her about how great the big party was when they got back into town. If she tried to find a phone to call the police she’d be right back where she started.

The driver’s side door disappeared with a loud scream of tearing, crumpling metal.

Anna barely had time to register what had happened when a nasty odor enveloped her at the same time that a hairy fist snapped her head sideways, then grasped her left arm and whipped her out of the truck’s cab as if she were a child’s rag doll.

Her head burst with pain where she’d been struck and her arm popped out of its socket and there was nothing she could do, the scream frozen in her throat as the rest of her body sent her brain its pain readings.

Some kind of creature grunted over where her battered body lay on the gravelly driveway. She tried to assess the situation. After all, Anna had made mincemeat of those asshole cannibals in the house, but this, this was something else.

And it was worse.

Her body and her brain agreed. Besides the pain, this was way worse.

Thoughts a-jumble, Anna gave the last of her strength to an effort to roll to her feet, but then the shadow of whatever had yanked her from the truck enveloped her and for the first time she saw what it was.

A gorilla-like, hairy, oversize human-shaped form with malevolent porcine eyes set deep below protruding brows. Wide-open jaws full of discolored fangs. Long, hair-covered arms, one of them withered. Grotesquely large uncovered genitalia that signaled just exactly what the monstrous form felt right then.

Anna moaned, fear finally overtaking her every other emotion, erasing the pain of her dislocated arm, and filling her with a tangible dread.

This was it now, the end.

All because I wouldn’t give Jason head.

She laughed bitterly, despite her grim situation.

The monster––was he some kind of bigfoot, whatever they were called?––tilted its head at her laugh, which was already turning into sobs. A long, gristly tongue poked out and licked mottled lips, letting drool leak onto the hairy chin. He poked her belly with a long, smelly finger. Then he poked some more.

Anna screamed.

The thing stood then, and howled a strange kind of sound that was half-grunt, too.

And more of them melted out of the trees. One, two, three of them. Mouths open, fangs clacking like castanets, drool leaking out in ropes. The stench was overwhelming, but Anna was beyond caring. One of the three was smaller, with flaccid breasts spilling onto a belly covered in fine hair. Reminiscent of the horror up in that room, where Ezra had gone berserk. The mother? Grandmother?

Then Anna remembered the long troughs that lined the sides of the house.

No, not hogs. The hillbillies fed their somewhat distant relatives body parts from their victims. Apparently every night, after sundown. And tonight the troughs were empty.

Empty because of her.

Anna had upset their routine, had prevented dinner from being served.

The mother made a squeaking, wailing sound and pointed at Anna.

“Yes, I’m a victim too,” she told the monstrous matriarch through dry lips. She tried to make her expression sympathetic despite her terror. “I can get you food.”

The mother tilted her head and stared at Anna with large, oily orbs.

Anna felt a thin tendril of hope around her stuttering heart.

But then...

The mother released a sudden stream of invective at her children. Two of them took Anna’s hands in their own twisted fists and pulled.

Hard.

Anna screamed in pain when they yanked on her dislocated arm.

But they didn’t stop pulling.

As Anna screamed incoherently, they continued pulling until her shoulders popped and flesh tore and they slipped backward, each holding one of her ruined, bleeding arms.

Anna fainted. Just like that, the lights went out and she was elsewhere.

Which was probably for the best, a little tiny bit of her brain whispered comfortingly as her consciousness slipped away.

Because it was dinner time. And the children were hungry.

The Going Rate – John Boden

With the images on the television providing a strobing background, he held the cloth over her little mouth until her breathing slowed. She looked so much like her mother. As he stared at his daughter, Dennis felt the sad smile he wore wither. If it weren’t for that bitch, he wouldn’t be doing this now. She was the one who had left him with their daughter so she could “Find herself.” Had abandoned him with a replica of herself, one that called him Daddy—that and a mountain of debt. He sighed and sniffled back the tears that were coming again.

It was a tax month, and this time Dennis had to pay in. He rubbed his eyes and watched the clock. The Collector would be by soon. Looking at the bill and the amount owed, he picked up the shears.

He knelt beside the sofa and stared into his sleeping daughter’s face. He lightly slapped her cheek and watched for any sign of consciousness. As the normally pink flesh gave to bright red, with not so much as an eye twitch, he knew he was okay to proceed. He took her hand in his, folded the fingers, allowing only the pinky to remain extended. Holding it between his thumb and finger, he slid it between the blades. He closed his eyes and ground his teeth hard enough to taste the enamel.

The bones snapped with a small crack. The girl winced but did not wake. Thank God for sedatives. He grabbed the ice pack beside him and held it against the slightly spurting nub, then took the shoelace and tied off the base of the finger as tightly as he could. He looked at the iron sitting on the table beside him, wavery lines of heat rising from it. He would cauterize it soon.

He picked up the finger and wrapped it in the proper form, stuffed it into the red envelope and went to the porch. The porch lights winked on one at a time. There were three lights crying red.

He slid the clear pane from the light box and swapped it for a red panel of glass, the one he kept in the decorative milk box by the door.

At the far end of the street, a shadow broke free. A long shape that took on more detail as it stretched to the center of the roadway. Dennis stepped back into the house, closing the door. He peered through curtains as the Taxman approached.

Tall as time and as long as hours, it strode down main street. Cloven feet clicking like boot heels on asphalt. Its fish-belly skin glistened like fungi under the full moon. A black suit, stitched with black hole and strychnine. Taxman's arms ended in hands like squid. Impossible fingers, like lengths of living rope. It stopped at old man Ordini’s house, where it stepped onto the porch, knelt and picked up the red envelope from the mat. The thing swiveled in the direction of Dennis’s house. It smiled at him. The smile was stitches and railroad ties. The eyes that nested above it were beetles in cataract flesh. Dennis felt his bowels somersault.

The Taxman tore open the parcel and extracted something red and dripping. He ate it, reached into the mailer and, with a bloody finger, drew a large circle on the door. The light went out on the porch and the Taxman was back in the street.

Dennis shook as he watched it collect its wages. A tongue from the Melvoins. Mrs. Fallon owed something small. Old man Mellick must have owed more than anyone, for his envelope was bulging, a slender hand dangling from the unsealed end.

Dennis closed his eyes and when he opened them the thing stood on his stoop. It's face inches from his, only glass between them. The eyes were bottomless. Reminding him of the dark and fetid water of the sinkhole on his grandfather's farm. He sighed and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He could not bear to watch this thing eat his little girl’s finger. To see its face up close was almost enough to shred his mind. His wife had always done the taxes. She was the one who knew the ins and outs, not him. He heard a scraping noise as the thing drew the circle on the door. He could smell the rich scent of the blood.

Had he still had a tongue, he'd have screamed.

Darla’s Problem – Kristopher Rufty

“Excuse me, officer?”

Sitting behind the wheel of his cruiser, Sgt. Bruce Thompson chewed his ham sandwich. It was a pleasant October day, and he was backed under a shade tree in the rear parking lot of the public park, enjoying the fall smells drifting in while he ate his lunch.

He looked out his window. Nobody stood there. Checking his side mirror, he could see a volleyball game between a pack of teenage girls was taking place in the field on the other side.

“Down here,” said the shy voice.

Bruce leaned over, poked out his head, and looked down. A little girl, no older than eight, gazed up at him. Her hair was dark, pulled into a long ponytail at the side of her skull. She wore pink short overalls, matching socks, and white shoes that were grass stained. Tiny scabs and scratches spread across knees, evidence of a kid who liked to play outside.

Bruce swallowed his food. “Sergeant,” he said.

The girl’s face twisted in confusion. “Huh?”

“You called me an officer. I’m a sergeant. A guy has to work really hard to become one, you know.” Though he smiled, he noticed his voice held the same snarky tone it usually did whenever he corrected someone for addressing him by the wrong rank. Even if this little girl was too young to understand, it still drove him crazy.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”

Still smiling, Bruce said, “It’s okay. What can I help you with, Miss…?”

“Oh, I’m Darla. Darla Kendrick.”

“Well, Darla Kendrick, it’s nice to meet you. You can call me Bruce.”

She giggled, showing a mouth with a lot of gaps between her teeth. She’d probably made a fortune from the Tooth Fairy.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

Her laughter stopped right away. The sweetness that had been on her face dipped to show hints of anxiety. “No. I…I have a problem.” She bit down on her bottom lip and stared at her dirty shoes.

“Hey,” he said, putting his sandwich on the unfurled wrapper in the passenger seat. “You can talk to me. You came over here, remember? So you must want me to know what’s wrong.”

“Well…” Her lip bent as her few remaining baby teeth chewed it. “Yeah.”

“So, it’s fine. See this?” He tapped the badge pinned to his dark blue shirt. “That means I’m someone who can help. Right?”

“Right.” Her voice showed no sign of conviction. “I…I’m afraid to go home.”

Bruce struggled to keep the smile on his face. He knew from years on the job if he changed anything about his manner right now, he might run her off.

He did a quick scan of her exposed arms and legs, even what he could see of her neck. He saw no bruises, no marks at all, except her knees.

Doesn’t mean she isn’t being abused, though.

“Why are you afraid, darling?”

“Darla.”

Bruce chuckled. “Right. Dar-la. My bad. Why are you afraid to go home?”

He watched the color drain from her face. Eyes rolling upward, she tilted back her head and let out something that might have been a groan. When she lowered her head, she looked up at him again.

“Because there’s a…monster in my house.”

Bruce almost laughed out loud, but he held it in. A monster? That was all this was? She was spooked?

“A monster?” Bruce shook his head. “Is it on the TV?”

“No. In my house. Walking around. It’s my fault it’s there. I let it out.”

“Let it out?”

Darla made a face, nodding as if it hurt to move her head. “Yeah…I…” She gulped. “I’ve been trying to send it back, but it’s not working. It’s trapped in my closet now.”

Bruce whistled. “That’d keep me from going home, too.”

“You believe me?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “About the monster?”

“You bet. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Nobody else does.”

“Not even your parents?”

Lowering her head, she shook it a few quick times. “No. They never would. I kept telling them the monster was there, but they just laughed about it. I tried to show them how I let it out, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“Want me to talk to them for you? Tell them monsters are a big deal?”

Darla didn’t look up. “Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“They’re dead.”

Bruce felt the taste of his ham sandwich rise back into his throat. “They’re what?”

“The monster got them.”

What the hell is this?

A job for Social Services, it sounded like. But Bruce couldn’t make the call, not in front of her. She’d take off for sure. He had to keep playing along. Though it was probably meager, he’d at least established a bond of trust with her. No way had her parents been killed by a monster. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but something had traumatized this girl enough to create quite a farfetched story.

“Why didn’t you call for help?” he asked. “From the phone?”

“I don’t know where their phones are, and…I was too scared to look.”

“You don’t have a house phone?”

Darla’s nose wrinkled. “A what?”

“Never mind. So what happened?”

“Mama sent me to play over here, so her and Daddy could be alone for a little bit. They do that when they want to take their clothes off and flop on the bed. I think they like to be alone because they get loud sometimes.”

Bruce felt the heat of a blush in his cheeks.

Darla didn’t seem to notice. “So I played on the playground for a little bit.”

The girl’s eyes began to fill with moisture. A single tear spilled down her cheek. She wiped it away with a finger. “When I went home and…Mama wasn’t in the kitchen. Daddy wasn’t in his office. I went upstairs to see if they were still naked and found them in their bed. They were…torn up.”

“Torn up?” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. The hairs back there stood on end.

She nodded. Her cheeks were glossy from tears that continued to stream. “Daddy’s head was on the floor.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. He shook his head. “All right. Okay. That’s enough. You don’t have to keep talking.” He let out a long breath that puffed his cheeks. He looked down at her again. “Want to hop in? We can ride over there so I can take a look at things.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her ponytail whipped out like a propeller. “If we go back there, we’ll be killed too!”

Bruce shushed her. He looked around. Nobody acted as if they’d heard her. The laughs and cheers of people enjoying themselves didn’t lower at all.

“I have to go check it out,” he said. “That’s my job. I have to see if it’s what you said it is.”

“I thought you believed me.”

“I do, honey. But my bosses might not. That’s why you need me to check it out, so I can tell them that I saw it too. Understand?”

“I guess,” she said in a low voice. “It’s a bad idea.”

Wouldn’t be Bruce’s first bad idea. He’d had quite a few of them through his life. Only thirty-two, he’d already been married twice. Besides, he still didn’t quite believe Darla. Sure, something was wrong, but kids had the tendency to do and say outrageous things when they were mad at their parents. Most likely, he’d take her home and he’d find a pair of parents worrying about why a cop was escorting their kid home.

“You said you could walk home, so it can’t be far, right?”

She nodded. “I live over there.” She pointed toward the park’s exit.

Following the path of her finger, he saw the entrance to Carriage Way across the street. From his patrols, he knew it was a wealthy neighborhood of big houses with small yards, a large public swimming pool, and a tennis court. “Hop on in,” he said. “Let’s go to your house.”

Without speaking, Darla walked around the front of his car. She kept her head down, her ponytail hanging across her cheek, as she moved. He saw the top of her head appear at the passenger window. While she climbed in, he moved the sandwich out of her way. She sat back, put her hands on her knees, and tightly gripped them.

She does seem to be scared about going home.

“Hungry?” he asked. “I have a sandwich here.” He held it out. She shook her head. “There’s a pickle in that bag. You like pickles?”

Nodding, Darla opened the paper bag beside her and pulled out a dill spear wrapped in cellophane.

“Take it,” he said. “It’s yours. Got some root beer in the cup. I haven’t had any yet, so you don’t have to worry about my cooties.”

Darla giggled. “I like you, Bruce.”

Bruce smiled. It made him feel good, hearing her say that. “I like you too, Darla.”

“I hope you don’t get killed when we go to my house.”

Bruce’s smile felt heavy on his face. “Same here,” he muttered. Then he cranked the car. Since he was backed into the spot, he pulled forward and drove away from the park. The only sound in the car for a couple of minutes was the juicy crunches of Darla eating the pickle.

He drove across the street and into the fancy neighborhood. An immaculate fountain with a concrete cherub balancing on one foot and whistling water greeted him on the way in. At night, it was lit up as if trying to signal its angel brethren in heaven.

He passed gigantic houses on either side of the street, the lawns professionally cut and even, sprinklers jetting water in almost each one.

“Which house is yours?”

“Turn to the right when you come to the Henley Drive.”

“You got it.”

He heard the slurping sounds of the straw as Darla drank root beer. When he left here, he was going to have to go get more. He had no idea when that would be, though. If things turned out to be serious, it might be the end of his shift before he got to eat again.

Hopefully, this was all a big misunderstanding.

He felt a cramp in his gut that suggested he already knew it would not be so simple.

He saw Henley Drive and took it. Darla told him her house was the last one on the left. The side street was a short one, ending at a wall of trees thick with colorful leaves. Pools of felled leaves had gathered against the concrete curbing.

He turned the car into her driveway and drove up the tree-bordered lane. It felt as if his cruiser was climbing the ridge of a mountain. Elbow hanging on the door frame, he listened to the crispy sounds of his tires rolling over leaves. It was hard not to relish such a lovely day, but a quick glance at Darla reminded him he couldn’t allow himself to enjoy it right now.

Reaching the top of the hill, the driveway leveled out and spread into a concrete circle in front of a large, two-story house. A big bay window stretched across the front behind a long and wide porch that reached all the way to the right side of the house. A two-car garage was on the left, underneath a set of curtained windows that probably belonged to a bonus room.

He parked in front of the garage. He saw no other cars around.

He twisted the key to kill the engine. Silence replaced the cruiser’s soft grumble. He heard no chirping birds, no airplanes flying overhead. Though the rocking swing hanging from chains on the porch swayed, there was no breeze to cause it.

Bruce took a deep breath and turned to Darla, hoping he looked more relaxed than he felt. He saw she was gripping her knees again, the skin denting from the intense pressure of her fingers.

“Want to wait out here while I go check it out?” he said.

Darla’s face scrunched as if he’d just cocked his leg and let out a rattling fart. He took her apparent unease as a yes to his question.

“Hang tight, okay?”

Nodding, Darla leaned back, pulling her legs onto the seat so she could hug her knees.

Bruce climbed out of the car and quietly closed the door behind him. He hadn’t meant to be discreet, but somehow it felt wrong to add any kind of noise to this odd quietness.

Though it was a pleasant day with a comfortable temperature, he felt cold inside as he walked up the sidewalk. His shoes clacked on the concrete path, making hollow echoes against the house. He expected the front door to open any minute, but it remained shut while he climbed the steps and walked across the wood floor of the deck.

Pushing the button for the doorbell, he stood with his hands on his belt while the chimes resounded from inside. He waited a minute before pushing the button again. After another minute passed, he began to think nobody was coming.

Putting his forehead against the glass, he made a visor with his hand over his eyes. The frosted glass made it impossible to see inside. Frowning, he stood straight. Then he used the bottom of his fist to rap on the door. On the third hit, the door clicked and slowly swung inward to reveal a small foyer, a hallway that led to the back of the house, a doorway to the left that probably opened on the living room, and a set of stairs ahead of him.

He felt a queasy pang in his stomach. Something wasn’t right. He’d searched many homes before and had found many disturbing things, but never before had he felt so nervous.

Ease up, Bruce. You’re all right. Everything’s fine.

From where he stood, he could hear the quiet tones of conversation. He could tell by the hollow quality of the voices that they were coming from a TV nearby.

“Hello?” he called out. “Sgt. Bruce Thompson, Brickston Police Department. Anybody home?”

Sighing, he turned away from the open door, and stepped over to the porch railing. He looked over to his cruiser.

And saw the passenger door was open.

Darla was no longer in the seat.

“Shit,” he whispered. “Darla!” He hurried over to the steps, ready to descend them. He spotted Darla on her way up. He pursed his lips and huffed through his nose. A similar trait as his father, whenever he was growing annoyed with children. “What are you doing?”

“I didn’t want to wait anymore.”

“I understand. But I need you to stay in the car so I can…”

“Please, Bruce…” Darla’s bottom lip bowed out. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Bruce stared at her as she walked up the steps. When she was standing in front of him, she tilted back her head and looked at him with her big, brown eyes.

Bruce sighed. “Fine. Just stay beside me. I’ll keep it quick.”

“I’ll show you where the bedroom is.”

Daddy’s head was torn off…

“All right. But you wait in the hallway. Understand?”

Darla nodded.

“Let’s go.”

Though he knew the bedroom was upstairs, he still took a moment to search downstairs. The rooms were devoid of human life. Other than the TV in the living room showing a cartoon about parent bears lecturing their two cubs about manners, there was no sign anyone had been home all day.

Dirty dishes were in the sink, others drying in the rack. A vacuum-sealed lump of meat sat thawing in a bowl on the counter. There was a block filled with jutting handles of knives next to it.

He noticed one slit was missing its knife. He hadn’t seen it in the sink.

“Where’s that knife?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The knife that’s supposed to go in that rack. It’s gone.”

“Probably the dishwasher.”

Checking the dishwasher himself, he spotted the knife inside, the sides crusted in old pie goop.

“Are you done down here?” Darla asked. She was rocking from foot to foot.

“Yep.” He forced a smile. “We’re in luck so far. No monsters down here.”

“It’s not down here. It’s…” She looked up, pointed at the ceiling.

Nodding, Bruce said, “Right. Upstairs.”

Something gurgled in his gut.

Upstairs, Bruce’s footsteps were silent on the carpet as he crept down the hall. The only sounds he heard were the stretching noises his belt made each time he moved. He kept his right hand close to his gun.

“That it?” he asked, lifting his chin to the closed door at the end of the hall.

“Yeah.” Darla’s voice barely made a sound.

“All right. I’m going to call for them. Okay? Just wanted to give you a head’s up.”

“They won’t answer. They…”

He held out his hand to silence her. She listened. He repeated his announcement from downstairs, then added, “I’m heading toward your bedroom now. If you’re in there, I suggest you kindly exit the bedroom so we can get to the bottom of this.”

No reply. A deeper wave of unnatural silence spread through the hallway, which insinuated his movements even more. Now he could hear his footsteps, the squishing carpet, the floor below it groaned. Could hear the rapid, shrill breaths of Darla beside him. And he could hear his heartbeat, like a hammer pounding solid wood, above everything else.

He reached the bedroom door. He felt slightly dizzy and wanted to lie down.

“All right,” he said in a whisper. “Stand behind me. Look over there and don’t you dare look inside unless I say it’s okay. Understand?”

Darla moved behind his leg and turned toward the wall.

Bruce thought about announcing himself one more time but decided it was pointless. He reached out with his left hand, fingers curling around the cool doorknob while his right hand flicked back the strap holding his gun in the holster. He put his fingers on the slick steel of his handgun.

He turned the knob and gave it a gentle push. The door swayed open.

And showed him more than he wished to ever see.

“Holy hell…” he managed to say before gagging.

At first, he thought the walls were covered in fresh red paint. He was wrong. Blood oozed down in thick rivulets, forming glutinous puddles on the carpet. The mattress was soaked with crimson, turning the cream-colored fabric translucent. He could see the imprints of the mattress below.

A woman—Darla’s mother—was sprawled on the left side, legs spread wide, her sex ripped open and mangled, a gory hole ringed with glistening goo. It had been stretched wide to accommodate something massive. Her chest was raked in wide gashes from the bottom of her neck down to her belly button, peeling back the skin like curly ribbons. Her breasts, which had been chewed into knobs that resembled old bubble gum, sagged on each side like a jacket that didn’t quite fit her in the front.

The only thing that hadn’t been either slashed or sprayed with blood was her face, which was frozen in a silent scream of horror.

On the floor beside the bed was a headless, naked body. Though its groin had been mangled to a jagged stub, he was able to distinguish it as male by what flesh remained of its chest. Bones showed between the pulpy rips, gristly under sticky red gel.

Then he spotted the head, laying its cheek on the other side of the room, staring at Bruce with its hollowed eyes and slack jaw.

Bruce saw all of this in a flash and was stepping back and brandishing his gun by the time he finished blinking. He pulled the door shut and turned to where Darla had been standing.

She was gone.

Bruce looked toward the other end of the hall. She wasn’t at the stairs.

“Darla!”

He walked up the hall, throwing open each door he passed. He scanned a bathroom, broom closet, and a guest bedroom on his way to the final door. He opened it and noted the pink walls and dollhouses and stuffed animals spread across the floor.

Darla’s room.

Bruce entered and noticed right away how hot it was inside. From the coolness of the hallway, it reminded him of entering the steam room at the gym. The thick air robbed him of his breath and caused his skin to pour sweat. With each step he took, his pants clung higher and higher.

All the evidence of a little girl’s room was before him. Except for the Ouija board spread open on her bed. Darla’s voice reverberated in his head.

I let it out…

A black cloth was open on the floor in front of her bed. Stones had been spread across the felt material to form a pentagram. A small glass of crimson liquid sat in the middle of a pile of feathers that looked as if they’d been freshly plucked from a chicken. When he spotted the pasty meat in the trash can, the feathered neck sagging over the rim, and the beak pointing at the floor, he realized that was exactly where the feathers had come from.

I’ve been trying to send it back…

“What the hell is going on here?”

A thumping sound came from the right. He turned his head and saw a single door—the closet. Something shifted inside, sliding across the door hard enough to cause it to rattle the knob.

“Darla? That you?”

His pistol pointing ahead of him, he took slow steps forward. He saw crayon drawings taped to the walls, posters of popular kid’s shows, and plenty of spots where Darla had neglected the paper and scribbled right on the paint.

He was a few steps away from the closet door when he heard a low, rumbling breath come from the other side of the door.

Bruce stopped. He blinked sweat out of his eyes. “The hell was that…?”

“Bruce?”

Hollering, Bruce spun around. He shoved the gun forward, slipping his finger in front of the trigger. He saw someone across the room was pointing a gun back at him—a tall man, hands trembling as he fought to steady the weapon on Bruce’s chest.

“Drop it!”

The man mimicked his order, his movements.

A mirror?

An oval mirror atop a dresser showed him his terrified reflection. He couldn’t believe he was the pale, sweaty man in the glass with the strained face that suggested he was a rookie on his first call and not the ten-year veteran he really was.

“Bruce?”

Again, Bruce jumped. His finger almost pulled the trigger. Though he recognized Darla’s voice, he didn’t see her anywhere in the room.

Then he looked down and saw the small face underneath the bed. The frilly skirt draped the top of her head.

“Don’t go to the closet,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t think it can hold it much longer.”

Bruce tried to grasp what she was saying, but to him, it sounded like gibberish. He could hear the words clearly. Their meaning didn’t seem to exist.

“What’s going on here, girlie? Tell me.”

Tears trembled in the corners of her eyes. She blinked, sending them down her cheeks. “I was playing with the Wee-jee board. I saw my parents doing it one time at a party with their friends. It looked like fun. So I stole it and hid it in my room.”

Another rumbling sigh came from the closet. Bruce looked over his shoulder and saw the door bulging outward and inward as if it were breathing.

“God Almighty…”

“I called it here,” she said. “I didn’t mean to…but…it tricked me. I thought I was talking to a girl my age. I…don’t have any friends at school, and I just wanted a friend…”

“Darla…What have you done?”

“It told me what to do so it could come over here…It said it was trapped in the Dark Place and it needed me to let it out. I thought it was a girl…a friend. I just wanted a friend…”

The door crackled as it continued to expand like a wood balloon. Fissures began to appear in the white paint.

“Darla,” he said. “We have to go now.”

As if to prove his warning was too late, the door exploded in a cloud of wood shards and splinters. The brunt of the blast threw Bruce off his feet. He felt spiky pieces stabbing into his face, his neck. His left eye felt as if it had been punched, then it went black as a strong stinging current pushed into his skull.

His back whammed the bed. The springs squawked as the mattress bounced him into the air. Twirling upward, he hit the bottom of the bed and rolled off the side. He landed on his back on the floor.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, eyes staring at the ceiling as his vision blurred and focused and blurred again. But when he heard Darla screaming, he snapped out of it and managed to sit up.

Right away, he knew that his left eye had been damaged. He could still see with it, but half his vision looked as if he were gazing through a red lens. But when he looked over to where the screams had been coming from, he wished the wood shards had blinded him.

He saw a…creature. No more than four-foot-tall, its skin was a combination of red and purple, as if its creator had run out of one color and completed its complexion with the other. Its legs were bowed, the feet like a lizard’s, webbed toes and skin between them, tipped with claws that were digging into the carpet.

It held Darla above its face by its elongated arms. They looked too big for its body and probably dragged the ground when it walked. The hands were clasped around Darla’s narrow waist, the fingers entwined as it angled Darla downward.

Darla, screaming, whipped her head from side to side. Her ponytail lashed at the open air.

“Help me, Bruce!” she begged.

But Bruce couldn’t move. His body felt numb and useless. The only part of him that seemed to work was the part that he feared was damaged the most.

His eyes.

And they showed him what he didn’t want to see. The creature’s wide, horned head tilted back. A pair of floppy ears that were more like batwings dangled from either side of its oblong skull. An underbite caused its jaw to jut out like a trapdoor. A curled fang protruded from its bottom lip and seemed to grow as the mouth dropped open. The mouth continued to stretch as Darla’s face lowered closer. A serpentine tongue slithered out, sliding back and forth as it licked Darla’s face and left it coated in thick, viscous fluid. Her hair was matted flat, the ponytail glued to her cheek.

Darla managed one more scream and plea for help before her head was dunked into the gaping maw. Her screams became muffled inside the creature’s mouth.

“Oh, God…” gasped Bruce. “God, help me, God!”

Bruce watched Darla’s shoulders dip inside next. The creature’s throat swelled like frog’s as Darla began to travel through its esophagus. Her kicking legs caused her shoes to fly off her feet. He could no longer hear her screaming and he was ashamed at the relief that came with that.

Within moments, the creature was gripping her ankles and shoving her deeper into his mouth. His throat was nearly the size of a tent, a tent that trembled and rolled as something inside fought to be freed. Then her feet were gone, and the red-purple creature was using a single talon of its finger to push what remained down its demonic gullet.

Its mouth closed, and its throat began to shrink. Bruce looked away when he heard the snapping sounds of bones.

Darla…I’m so sorry. I’m so…

He stopped thinking when he noticed the creature had now turned its attention to him. That serpentine tongue slipped out between its uneven lips and slid across. Thick, gelatin-like ooze dribbled down its stumpy chin.

It’s still hungry.

Bruce could finally feel his arms again. He raised his right arm, aiming his pistol at the monster’s head.

Then he noticed his hand was empty. He’d lost his weapon sometime during his fall. Looking at his hand, formed as if he was holding an invisible pistol, struck him as funny and he began to laugh.

The creature leaned its head to the side, confused by Bruce’s rejoinder. Seeing this only caused Bruce to laugh even harder. He began to think about everything that had happened and tried to grasp it all and the ridiculousness of what he assumed was the final moments of his mostly normal, drab life. No way was this how reality operated. This had to be a dream. He’d simply fallen asleep in his cruiser and was sleeping behind the wheel with a belly sated on a sub from Quigley’s.

Then the creature threw back its head and roared. He felt the booming recoil under his skin. The air smelled like copper, raw meat, and fire.

Bruce wasn’t dreaming. This was really happening, no matter how outlandish it all seemed.

Now, it didn’t seem funny. His fear had returned with a paralyzing force. And when the creature finally stopped its hellacious roar, he noticed that he’d pissed his pants.

The creature dropped forward, putting its front paws on the floor and it stretched like a lion just waking from a long rest. A rope-like tail raised, tipped with a wedge-shaped point. Like a cat, it lowered to its haunches, wiggled its ass, and leaped.

The last thing Bruce saw through his gammy vision was that inhuman mouth dropping open again, even wider this time to make room for his large size. Cleaved between its twisted fangs like a piece of lettuce was the hair-tie Darla had used for her ponytail.