Author: Rich Bottles Jr.
Date: 2013-09-01 07:00:00+00:00
Description: Introducing the complete set of horror stories from the controversial anthology, "The Big Book of Bizarro" by Burning Bulb Publishing. Featuring the following twenty bizarro works: Daniel In The Lion's Den by Kai Miro Wet by Mark Gallagher The Whore of the Dartmoor by Rich Bottles Jr. The Fall by David J. Fairhead Glory Holes by Gary Lee Vincent Channel 666 by John Russo Forever Ago Sunshine by Wol-vriey Honey-do by Nikko Lee Every Bite by Matt Smallwood Nothing Really Satisfies by Kelly R. Martin Decorations by Nelson W. Pyles Karnivali by Jesse J. Saxon Front Page by Michael A. Migliore Into

The Big Book Of Bizarro Horror Collection

Edited By Rich Bottles Jr. and Gary Lee Vincent

Burning Bulb Publishing

P.O. Box 4721

Bridgeport, WV  26330-4721
www.BurningBulbPublishing.com

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

Copyright © 2011 Burning Bulb Publishing. All rights reserved.

Cover art by Jon Towers; used under license.

Kindle Edition

Daniel In The Lion's Den
Kai Miro

Wet
Mark Gallagher

The Whore of the Dartmoor
Rich Bottles Jr.

The Fall
David J. Fairhead

Glory Holes
Gary Lee Vincent

Channel 666
John Russo

Forever Ago Sunshine
Wol-vriey Jesuto

Honey-do
Nikko Lee

Every Bite
Matt Smallwood

Nothing Really Satisfies
Kelly R. Martin

Decorations
Nelson W. Pyles

Karnivali
Jesse J. Saxon

Front Page
Michael A. Migliore

Into The Night
Heather Lin

Hades on Ice
Kimberly Bennett

His Own Worst Enemy
Laird Long

Writer's Block
Ryan J. McBriar

Every
Charlie Kirby

City of the Dead
Clare de Lune

Want
Meself John

Daniel In The Lion’s Den
By Kai Miro

Some circus traditions die hard.

Kai Miro lives in her family’s hundred-year-old farmhouse in Washington State. She loves cats and manga. When she’s bored, she gives herself tattoos and walks in her Dad’s old zen maze.  According to Kai, “I write crazy lies that I half believe about the wasted fields and woods around the house. I like to hunt ghosts. I’ve seen stuff. I write a lot of dark stuff but this is my first sell. I wrote this story ‘cause racism, cruelty, inhumanity, abuse of any kind really pisses me off.”

Maria must have come up with the plan shortly after watching the old circus lions eat her latest baby. This was the third child served up to the animals and she would have been Maria’s only daughter. Yeah, she probably had the plan already in her head because she wouldn’t even look at One-Eyed Daniel, not once, while she flirted with the Knife Man, aka Bernard aka El Cabron. Knife Man paid Pit Boss extra to cut the girls. Girls got better drugs if they let it happen.

Maria just waited patiently as Bernard fed her his dick until the knife came out. Then, she bent his wrist in so he could get the first taste of it, swinging his fat arms sideways with the blade until his stomach spilled yellowish blubber in a wet red greasy smile. Knife Man screamed like a new girl in her first gang-bang.

Daniel and all the others in the cages howled, screaming Maria’s name to encourage her. Maria smiled briefly as Knife Man fell away, weeping desperately and struggling to pull his intestines back into the gaping wound of his body. The Pit Dogs came running, bearing their spiked baseballs and electric prods but it was too late. Tears in her eyes, Maria pulled Knife Man’s razor one last time, opening her throat to release her soul.

In his cage, Daniel howled and shook the bars.

Girls who fought back were bad for business. As punishment, everyone in the cages were prodded with electricity. Then, the other girls were forced to cut Maria up into small pieces and feed her to the crocodiles. The girls wept until one of the scarred ones, a former fighter, both of her legs gone to the animals, started singing “Ava Maria.” Silence reigned then and Pit Boss returned to his mobile home, not able to do anything about the mood.

Daniel went silent with deep thought.

By dinnertime, Daniel’d come up with a plan closer to reckless death and senseless degradation than actual revenge and redemption. But, it was something and that something looked better and better as evening fell. Experience had taught Daniel that for every minor rebellion in the camp, Pit Boss hit back with an iron fist. The dark man had gone angrily into his mobile home to brood. Now, hours later, Daniel was sure the payment for Maria’s rebellion and body loss was going to be their blood for his money.

Now, as the other fighters in the cages scooped up cold greasy stew from the ground, Daniel gave an upwards nod towards Mark and Matthew, the blond American boys. Mark grinned, his white teeth sharpened into canine butcher knives. Matthew just ducked his head back in an animal nod before whoofing softly like a chimpanzee. Daniel could always count on those two.

Daniel focused his one-eyed glare on Black Jude. She cocked her dreaded head as if listening to his thoughts. What she found there, she liked, her mouth slightly open and drooling. Tomas had his back to everyone. Daniel racked his brain trying to figure out how to get his attention but then Tomas shouldered the bars of his cage to a rattling. Tomas was in, then, and that was a good thing. Tomas was big and he didn’t seem to care much about pain. By the time Daniel got around to checking in with Zeke, he found the small intense boy already staring at him. That was good then, there were fighters he could rely on. Fighters who’d cross the Pit Boss with him.

Ruthie came up to Daniel’s cage, one hand curving around her softly rounded belly, the other wrapping fingers around the cage bars. She whispered, “Where you go, we will follow,” and walked back to the other party girls.

Daniel examined them. Magdelina, the party girl who used to be a fighter until she lost her legs, she was tough as hell. Maria may have actually been Ruthie’s sister. Addicts would sell all of their kids to the Pit Boss. Daniel was sure his mom would have but instead, after her mouth, her ass and some of her better working organs, all she had was him. Lucy, Catrina and Agate just had the dumb luck of being pretty and alone. They were kidnapped. It would be good to have outside help. He nodded his thanks. The party girls simply stared back with their dead black eyes.

Daniel took a nap to gather his strength. He would need it all when night fell and the floodlights roared on, announcing Showtime.

***

In the dream, Daniel stood alone and unarmed in the center of the pit. The old circus lionesses circled while the sickly Bengal tiger bided his turn on the outskirts with the scarred up Lion male. In nature, it is the females who hunt while the males fight for harem control.

Now, as Daniel watched, the lionesses wove hypnotic patterns of hunting songs they barely remembered their mothers telling them as their father roared forlorn and lonely in his cage far away. Daniel could follow the hunting lines the lionesses danced, those haunting songs predators sang to their prey.

Behind them, and past the two males watching and waiting, packs of hyena gathered, their yellow teeth and golden eyes bright as urine. Beyond the packs of hyena, narrow-headed jackal gathered, followed by a flock of vultures. Then, a murder of black crows descended. Rainbow-colored flesh-devouring beetles poured out of the ground, quickly over-run by small black ants.

And finally, in the far away distance, past multitudes of animals, and past the last crumb of land and sea, the red hot sun ate itself, leaving behind only a cool darkness that promised stillness but smelled of rain.

Daniel no longer wanted to fight. He wanted to give in instead. To become part of something bigger, wilder. Something liberated and free.

It hurt at first when the lionesses came but the tiger and lion had dull teeth and that kind of tickled. The hyena and jackals were quick while the vultures and crows took their time. By the time the beetles and ants came, Daniel wasn’t really feeling much of anything but peace and timelessness. He wished desperately he could offer his face to the sunshine, his soul to the cool still darkness but there wasn’t anything left of Daniel that was Daniel by that time.

Everything he had been had now become everything else instead.

***

Daniel woke in the harsh flood lighting, more sure of his mission and confident than he’d ever been in his life. When Pit Boss screamed to release them all into the pit, Daniel laughed out loud. It was as if all of reality was aiding his plan. Maybe the old childhood nuns had been right. Maybe there was a God who listened to the prayers of one-eyed pit boys with acid scars, beating welts, and half-healed animal wounds on their bodies. Maybe a little suffering sweetened the deal.

If that was so, Daniel thought, God could take his other eye and all the rest of him, even take all of the others. Just give them one night of grace and miracle.

The Pit Dogs prodded all of them into the pit where they stood in a circle, backs to each other, facing the paying audience.

“Tonight,” Pit Boss sang, “We have a Special Treat. A One Time Finale to the Pit Show Extravaganza. Tonight, for one night only, we offer up all of the warriors together in a grudge match war. Never seen before. Never to be seen again. Anyone with less than one thousand marks must leave the arena. Only big spenders here to watch the show. Only big spenders may stay.”

Pit Boss waited. No one in the audience wanted to leave. Pit Boss pointed at a few audience members he knew didn’t have one thousand marks. The Pit Dogs carried them out of the arena kicking and screaming. The Pit Dogs walked among the remaining audience members, collecting the fee for watching a massacre.

Daniel tried to focus his breath, to control his racing heart. Black Jude took his icy hand in her thumb-less hand. Daniel returned her reassurance gently so that he wouldn’t crush her remaining three fingers. On Daniel’s other side, Mark and Matthew crouched like animals. Beside them, Zeke swayed back and forth, humming his half tongue between his cracked teeth. Tomas stood beside Zeke and on the other side of Black Jude. He centered his weight, digging in with his heels.

“What’s the plan?” Black Jude whispered. “What are we doing?”

Daniel shook his head. It was a stupid plan. It wouldn’t work. They were going to die like dogs. Black Jude squeezed his hand. Daniel peered at her with his one eye. When he’d lost it, it’d been Black Jude who’d got him through the first rough nights. Her husky voice singing to him in the dark. Her hands, scarred and missing fingers reaching out to comfort him through the bars. Daniel wanted to back out now. He was going to give her a meaningless death, her flesh torn by animals and men, her bones scattered to desert and wind. He was going to give the same to the others, too. His name would be burned into their souls for all eternity, marking him their Murderer.

Then, all lingering doubt fell away as Daniel saw the party girls weave their way into the crowd. Pit Boss probably thought it was their last chance bid for life. Daniel grinned. Pit Boss was going to choke on his assumptions. Along with all those bad, bad men with their one thousand marks. From a fat man’s lap near the arena wall, Ruthie blew Daniel a kiss. The rest of the party girls followed her example: they sat near or on the men closest to the arena wall.

“We’re bringing the fight back to them,” Daniel said hoarsely.

Pit Boss stood up, his arms raised upwards for attention. A hush fell over the audience then. Daniel and the others stiffened, waiting to see which weapons they would be given. The minutes stretched. Finally, one of the Pit Dogs threw in a spear made by attaching a thick bladed knife to the wood shaft of a gardening tool. No other weapons were given.

Daniel stepped forward and picked up the spear, glaring up at Pit Boss. Had Pit Boss expected them to open up the games by fighting each other for the spear? His face hard and cold, Daniel turned and faced the other fighters. They were kind of his friends now. This was as close to friendship any of them had ever gotten. And they were going to follow where he led.

Smiling, Pit Boss opened his arms as if throwing roses and gifts into the pit. Then he clapped his hands. Doors opened in the arena. The Lionesses poured through first, taking the pit in a leaping run. The lionesses stopped a few feet short of the fighters. Warily, they circled. Experience had taught them that the fighters usually carried weapons. A cautious if hungry lioness was better than being a quick dead lioness. The male cats, lion and Bengal tiger, walked leisurely behind them. Then, the bears came from the other side: one grizzly mother and three sub-adult males blinking in the spill of floodlights. The mother grizzly stood, straining to see the others in the pit.

Daniel looked up. In the sky, vultures circled. It was time. How he could interpret angels from vultures was a mystery even to Daniel, but a sign was a sign.

Daniel sighed, passing the hand-made spear to Tomas. Tomas raised an eyebrow and Daniel nodded, pointing at the fat man Ruthie sat on. “Feed the animals, Tomas.”

Tomas hefted up the spear and after a few seconds of scan found his target. The handmade spear whistled thickly, the strapped metal singing in the air before it thudded to a wet stop in the center of a fat hook-nosed man sitting next to Agate. She jumped up, giggling wildly, and shoved him towards the edge of the pit. He fought her, one hand striking at her, the other desperately pulling on the shovel handled spear in his belly. Then, Catrina quickly joined in, kicking the man in the head until he fell spear first into the pit. He slid slowly down the wooden shaft, screaming the entire way.

Matthew whooped, running alongside one of the younger lionesses to get to the body and the spear. She fell on the man first, spinning him before sitting fully on him. Ravenous, she dug into the meaty flesh of his left leg and thigh. Matthew howled, arms waving until he just gave up on trying to scare her off. Warily, he jumped on the man and tried to pull the spear out of him. The lioness turned to growl at him briefly but hunger won out. She ignored Matthew for the most part, eager to tear her pound of flesh from the dead man instead. By the time another lioness joined in, Matthew had pulled the spear free. He threw it towards Mark just as the other lioness decided to make a live kill. She took Matthew down quickly, his screams ending in strangled laughter. Daniel turned away sharply at the first crunch of teeth on skull, Matthew’s sudden gush of blood squirting black in the bright floodlights. Matthew was his first cross.

From then on out, everything else happened so quickly, all at once.

Mark ran to the spear just as one young male bear rushed towards him. He swung the spear wildly, dancing just past a swipe of long black claw. For the longest moment, Daniel was afraid it wouldn’t hit out of the arena but wind like a finger of grace spun it upwards at the last instant. The spear found its way true, breaking into the bodies of two men, taking one in his skinny chest and the other behind him in his fat groin.

Lucy had been entertaining the both of them and when the spear hit, she jumped up naked, clapping and squealing with glee. Agate and Maria came running to help Lucy push the bodies into the pit. On the other side of the arena, legless Magdelina was crawling from man to man, cutting throats and balls, before feeding the animals. One of the young bears followed Magdelina’s carnage, licking the blood up from the seats, sharing the kills with the older lion. At one point, the old lion even took meat from Magdelina’s hand. She laughed cruelly, her witches’ cackle raising goosebumps on Daniel’s arms.

At Daniel’s side, Black Jude growled darkly before she ran towards Mark. The yearling had pressed its attack and now Mark pounded on it fiercely, trying to free his leg from the bear’s mouth. The mother bear roared angrily from across the pit and she charged.

Daniel screamed out: “NO!” his voice harsh and husky.

Desperately, he tried to grab Black Jude’s hands, to slow her down, to stop her. Black Jude broke free, sparing only a quick determined look for him.

But Black Jude leaped forward, meeting the mother bear head on, her arms lifted together over her head like a mighty fist. Black Jude cracked her fists down on the grizzly’s nose, breaking it with force and weight. The mother screamed, blood pouring into her open maw and she rushed, roaring into Black Jude, her jaw open to accept what her paws pulled in. Black Jude screamed back: anger, fear, and pain. Again and again, she pounded her broken hands on the mother’s skull as the mother tore her flesh, rending her to pieces, her giant head turning side to side. Then, Black Jude flopped like a rag doll, her arms and legs weak as knotted string, her face quickly matting and caking with dirt and blood. The grizzly settled down to devour, her final child joining her in the feast.

Mark continued to pound weakly at the bear eating him until the old Bengal tiger came up and bit the back of his head. Then, it was just a tug of war between white tiger and brown bear.

Daniel dropped to his knees, screaming brokenly, his sight narrowing to a small dark tunnel. Tomas lifted him up with one hand. He shook Daniel roughly, Daniel’s toes barely touching the ground before shoving him away. Daniel whirled to drop some of his anger onto Tomas but stopped just as abruptly, the anger dying in the face of Tomas’s calm accepting eyes.

“Someone must survive,” Tomas said in a deep rumble, nodding at Daniel.

It was a question. Daniel nodded back finally, accepting. Tomas lifted Daniel then, pushing him out of the arena and into the audience. From the pit where the animals still roamed, Tomas stood, looking up at Daniel but not making a move to join him. Daniel put out his hand to help him if he wanted to come but Tomas grinned and turned his back on him. Tomas roared, charging the other animals. As calm and accepting of their fate as he was, they came running. Tomas took many companions into the dead lands.

And all around the pit, the bodies of the watching audience fell as the party girls slaughtered their way through their customers. Daniel took a step. Then, another. Men screamed around him, running, desperate to get out, to get away. Some were customers, others pit dogs. Lionesses roamed, killing indiscriminately, taking a bite here, tearing a part there. One of the young male bears grunted wetly, its muzzle black with blood and gore before passing Daniel in the stands and leaving behind it the scent of raw savage death. The vultures came down, squawking at each other, fighting over the bounty.

Zeke was already there in the stands, stabbing Pit Boss in the throat as Maria held him down, her hands wrapped around his fleshy arms, her legs crossing over his fat belly. Zeke shrilled with his half-tongue, singing madly a song Daniel nearly recognized from childhood. Something about all the pretty horses.

Then a sharp loud sound silenced Zeke in mid-song. Smoke drifted up from Pit Boss’s pistol. Maria shrieked. She climbed on top of Pit Boss, choking him and banging his head on the wooden stands. But Pit Boss was already dead. The pistol had gone off in his death spasms. Growling lazily, the old lion came up and started eating Zeke.

Daniel picked Maria up, dragging her away as he kept on walking. At first, Maria sobbed quietly. Then, she fought against him. Daniel dropped her, staring intently at her, trying to understand. Her mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear a thing over the wet tearing sound of teeth and claw on flesh, followed by the scraping sound of teeth on bone. Then, sound came but it was like she was jabbering in a foreign language. Finally, he made out the words: something about Magdelina. He stood up and looked around. A few rows down, Magdelina stood on her bloody stumps, one hand still cradling the razor knife.

Beyond her…there were just bodies and animals roaming.

There was only blood and stillness. And when the wind picked up, the smell was sweet decay, copper sweetness, and the earthy rich scent of feces.

Magdelina waved a bloody hand but the dead never left her eyes.

“OK,” Daniel muttered, leaving Maria behind as he went to fetch Magdelina, “OK.”

After Maria’s weight, Magdelina didn’t seem to weigh anything at all. Daniel carried her the entire way, Maria following behind them as they left the arena, the cages, the compound. In cool darkness, they moved through the wet forest, finally finding the sandy long highway under the bright cruel sun. No one asked for water or food. No one complained or talked about anything. When night fell again, they cuddled together for warmth. Maria cried for all of them, Daniel shriveled up inside at the loss of Black Jude and Magdelina too dead inside to feel any loss for long. The stars remained cold and distant, silent in their judgment.

Daniel didn’t dream. When he closed his eyes, he was still awake. Still alive.

Maria dreamed, though. Nightmare after night-mare. Magdelina slept like the dead. By morning, she seemed better, healthier somehow, like a well-fed vampire. Daniel couldn’t stop watching her. She scared him just a little.

They crossed the border at dawn one day, leaving one country of night to come into another at daybreak. If there hadn’t been yellow territory signs, none of them would have realized that boundaries had been trespassed. They kept walking, stealing water and food from cars and houses along the way, never taking so much that it would matter. They’d all lived on so little for so long. This was paradise in comparison. They were finally free.

By the time the blue car came, Magdelina had licked her skin and clothes clean of blood and gore. A smile had entered her face and never left. There were three white men in the blue car, all of them robust and healthy. It was a tight squeeze for all six people in the car but no one mentioned it. None of the men asked for money. Daniel thought it could be because they didn’t need any. Later, when night fell and the darkness outside the blue car had ridden so long with them, Daniel realized that money had never been an option.

It started with the white man in the passenger seat turning around to face them with a gun. He waved his gun at them happily, telling Daniel in great detail what they were going to do to Maria and Magdalina. Then, he went on about what they were going to do to Daniel. It must have annoyed the white man when Magdelina started laughing. He made the driver pull over so they could shut that bitch up first.

When the blue car stopped, the Driver with a knife took Daniel to a tree and handcuffed him with a plastic tie. Back at the blue car, Maria started screaming. Magdelina didn’t though, not even when the passenger seat man began punching her in the mouth with his gun. After a while, Maria stopped screaming and then, there was just the muffled sounds of fists and flesh.

The Driver snickered, flicking a cigarette at Daniel, “Welcome to our country, wet dick.”

Suddenly, the sounds stopped and the night was silent and peaceful again.

Even though she’d lost some teeth, Magdelina’s voice was still sweet and strong. “Ava Maria” rang out into the darkness, clear as church bells. Daniel nodded as the door to the blue car opened, spilling black blood, pale flesh, and a whole lot of dark promise.

Magdelina stopped singing mid-verse, slowly rolling forward on her bloody arms and stumps, her smile a bright knife cutting across her shattered face. Beside her, Maria stood, the gun held at her side. She lifted the gun, pointing it at the Driver. The Driver snorted in disbelief. Maria shot his left knee. The Driver went down, whining. Pain was not something he knew how to deal with. He stared at the girls, as if trying to figure out how this had happened to him. If this was really happening to him. Maria started laughing. Licking her lips, Magdelina rolled closer.

“You’re just animals,” Daniel said, looking down at the writhing Driver. “We know what to do with animals.”

Wet

By Mark Gallagher

An unhappy suburbanite finds a unique way to wash away the effects of depression.

Born and raised amongst the horrors of cows and cornfields, Mark Gallagher has pursued careers as an actor, model (you may have seen me on Japanese television), computer whiz, and finally writer (his latest screenplay, SATURNALIA, was selected as a finalist in the Paranoia Horror Film Festival in LA, and the Pittsburgh Horror Film Festival).  With over two dozen short stories (published in Abberations (RIP)), screenplays (including a spec/hire adaptation of Kiss Them Goodbye by Joseph Eastburn), and novels under his belt, he continues to write about the one thing that has been his inspiration throughout his atypical years:  horror.

From the earliest days of Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella magazines, through HP Lovecraft, Poe and King, Mark's undying thirst for works of the macabre continue to provoke and propel his imagination to ever higher (or lower) depths.

I like the way it feels, running through my fingers, dripping off my hair, splashing against my chest.  I don't know why, exactly, I just do.  I was never molested, never abused, had average grades, an average job, an average family.  Even my name, Steve, reeks of normalcy.  I just love getting wet.

I don't mind who I get wet with, or what, for that matter.  Solo, group, men, women, children, dogs, cats.  Christ, even fish, I don't care.

As long as it bleeds.

I wasn't always like this.  Before my first, well, I guess we can call it a “dip,” I was pretty much the opposite.  Miserable, a real Mopey Mike.  I didn't understand what part I was supposed to play, couldn't see the opportunity life presented me every day.  I was blinded by the universal, self-absorbed morbidity of a man striving to be what the slick advertising bastards on Madison Avenue told me I should be.  I thought I needed the perfect house, the perfect car, the perfect body, the perfect family, the perfect life.  When all I really needed was what was inside me all along.  What's inside all of us, every man, woman, child, every animal on this planet.  But I didn't know that.  Not then.

Not until my first dip.

***

Sunday afternoon; August; hot; humid; sitting in my favorite leather recliner in front of the large picture window watching the grass wither on my three-quarter acre backyard that I had just spent over five hundred dollars re-seeding and paying the goddamn Weed Doctor another three hundred to kill anything that was not genuine Grade-A Kentucky Blue Mountain Grass.  And it was all dying.

I didn't even have the energy to get off my sweaty ass and turn on the hose.  I felt like I was dying, too, with my lawn, out there, shriveling and withering and dry as death.  My wife, Chrissy, had left with my daughter, Caitlin, taking the minivan to her sister Marsha's house for the afternoon.  I had to practically push Chrissy out the front door.  Today we were supposed to go to the lake together, the three of us, the perfect little family frolicking in the sun and showing the whole goddamn world how fucking perfect we were.  Well, today I just didn't feel so perfect.

What I felt like was dying.  Just like that lawn.  I leaned back, wondering, trying to imagine what it would feel like to die, right here, in my chair, bake in the sun until my skin bubbled off my bones and my eyes burst.  Chrissy would have a sight when she came home, one hell of a mess to clean up.  Not that she would.  With me reduced to a greasy pudding, she'd have no one to tell her what to do.  She was incapable of performing even the most basic tasks, like cleaning, making dinner, washing Caitlin's piss-stained sheets.  Chrissy had to be constantly reminded to do the things a woman was supposed to do.  I tried like hell to remind her as gently as I could, but it was getting harder and harder.  Like teaching a dog over and over not to shit on the rug.  Chrissy was shitting on me, it seemed, on purpose, just to make me want to die.

I was more than a little puzzled to see the van pull back into the driveway.  I was downright amazed to see Chrissy get out without Caitlin.  Just Chrissy, in her bathing suit, a skimpy spandex thing that showed off her figure and made the most of her long, incredible legs.  She could lift those gams clear over her head if she wanted to, or if I wanted her to.  I watched her skip over the hot tarmac and disappear around the corner to the front of the house.

I realized I hadn't budged an inch since they'd left.  I glanced at the clock.  It was 2:30.  They'd been gone for almost two hours.  I thought about running to the bathroom and jumping in the shower, try to put some life back into me, but I didn't.  I couldn't.  I just sat there, listening to her open the door and call my name.

“Steve?  Stevie?  Honey, where are you?”

I almost answered, but held back.  It was dark where I was sitting, dark and hot and the air smelled like sweat and despair.  I wanted her to find me this way.  Wanted her to see how miserable I was and how useless my life had become.  Wanted her to feel the same way I did because she was a part of it, of my life, of my dying.  I'd worked so damn hard for her and Caitlin, for this house, for the damn lawn.  It wasn't right that I suffer alone.  I wanted her to suffer too.

I sat there until she found me.

“Oh, Christ!  Honey, you surprised me!”  Her hand flew to her chest.  I heard the wet slap as it struck her sweaty tits.  “Are you okay?  It's so hot in here!  Why isn't the window open?”

She meant the picture window, of course, the one I'd been staring out of for the last two hours.  She walked around me, close.  I could smell her skin, it smelled like coconut and sex.  Her feet made soft shushing noises on the carpet, as if she were walking through fine sand.  Her arms swung by her sides, long pendulous motions that brushed against the golden moons of her breasts.  I reached out and caught her arm before she reached the window.

“Wait,” I said.

I don't know if it was the sound of my voice, or maybe her eyes had become accustomed enough to the dimness so that she could really see me, but when my hand touched her arm, she gasped.  As if instead of my flesh against hers, her husband's flesh, the man she slept with and fucked, some scaly, slimy thing had slithered out of the darkness and circled around her wrist.

“Let go of me,” she said.  Her voice was too bright, too quick.

I didn't let go.  I pulled her toward me.  She came unwillingly, her heels digging in the carpet.

“Steven, let go of me!”

“I wanna tell you something, Chrissy, something important.”

Chrissy stopped trying to resist, she became almost limp, just the slightest trembling in her fingertips belied her nervousness as I pulled her onto my lap.

I looked into her blue, blue eyes.  She was looking into mine, too, and I could tell she saw something she didn't like, something that made her clutch the sides of the recliner and take short, rapid breaths.  Like she was getting ready to bolt, like she were inhaling something foul.

There was something in her eyes looking back at me.  Not her soul, surely, not hers.  It felt too familiar, too close.  A vague, cloudy thing that pulsed and shimmered like a distant star in a smog-choked night.  My breathing had become very deep and very relaxed.  I was seeing the reflection of my soul.  The depression which had almost crushed me vanished.  My voice was level, almost velvety as I spoke to her.

“Chrissy, I'm losing my mind.”

“You're what?”  Her voice held just the tiniest trace of panic.

“I'm losing my mind.  Everything I've ever worked for means nothing to me, nothing at all.”

I heard two quick “pops.”  Looking down for a moment, I noticed that two of her fingernails had punctured the upholstery.

“Steve, honey, you're -- you just need to get out.  It's too dark and hot in here.  Why don't you come back with me to Marsha's house?  Her pool is perfect and Caitlin keeps asking for you.  Come on, honey, the sun will do you good.  Here, let me help you.”

She tried to climb off my lap, but I wrapped my right arm around her waist and squeezed.

“I don't want to go to Marsha's.  Didn't you hear what I just said?  I don't feel like going out, I don't feel like taking a swim in Marsha's fucking perfect swimming pool, and I don't feel like playing with Caitlin.  I don't feel like -- anything.”  I loosened my grip around her waist, but placed my left hand behind her neck, entwining my fingers around her thick auburn hair.  I drew her head closer to mine, until our eyes were inches apart.

“You're beautiful.  The most beautiful woman I know.  You're all I ever thought I cared about, but now I realize I don't care about anything at all.”

As I pulled her closer still, her eyes seemed to change from the calm blue of an autumn afternoon to the violent slate-gray of a thunderstorm and I lost my soul's shifting reflection.

Chrissy reached behind her and tried to pry my fingers from her hair.  “Steve, I -- I just don't know what to say.  Not now.  Let go of me, please?  You're starting to hurt me.  Honey?  Please?”

My soul had left me.  That's exactly how it seemed.  I had lost my soul and I couldn't fight anymore, so I did as she asked.  I didn't want to hurt her.  I let go.  What happened next may have seemed like an accident to a detached observer, but I know in my heart that this was the moment my whole life had been waiting for.

Chrissy was still reaching behind her when I let go.  I guess the momentum of her efforts to escape combined with the sudden lack of resistance propelled her backwards as if she had been shoved.  She had no chance to protect herself.  A cat maybe, but not my Chrissy.  I watched it all, like a home movie, frame by frame in slow motion.

She arched her back and reached up above her head as if a trapeze would magically appear and carry her to safety.  Instead, her fingers curled around air and despite her backwards fall, she leaned her head forward to look at me, her eyes growing so wide that for a moment I thought they would explode and show me the lightning behind those thundering orbs.  Instead I saw my own reflection return.  A reflection of a man watching his destiny unfold before him.

Her eyes didn't explode, but her skull did as her head struck the corner of the coffee table with a sound that reminded me of cracking a walnut.  The meat inside Chrissy's shell was not just white, but red and gray and white and blue, a rainbow of gore.

I sat there in my chair, my hands clutching the armrests as a torrent of blood washed over me.  As Chrissy's life rained upon my face, I felt something come alive within me.  It was almost as if her life were flowing into me, replacing the cold maddening emptiness with a fiery sweetness I had never known.

I got off the chair and kneeled down as close as I could get to the wound in my wife's skull, letting the remaining blood pump onto my chin and into my mouth.  It wasn't the taste of the blood that was making me dizzy with excitement, it was the feel of it -- the thick, syrupy weight of it as it trickled down my neck and soaked through my t-shirt.

I found myself giving in to it, like a delirium of pure euphoria.  My ears filled with rushing sounds, my body shuddered.  And then I must have lost consciousness entirely.

I woke up some time later (only about ten minutes when I finally checked the clock) and saw Chrissy lying next to me.  Her skin was white, so white I though she had covered her body in cold cream.  Then I saw the still glistening wound above her ear and the blood which was everywhere.  I started to cry.

I wanted more.

***

I stripped out of my t-shirt and underwear and took a shower. As the blood was rinsed from my body, I was struck with a great sense of sadness; of loss, as if something precious were being taken away from me, denied me.  This feeling was immediately followed by an uncontrollable fit of anger.  My body trembled with it, my vision blurred and my heart raced until it felt like it would sever itself from its cavity and burn its way through my ribcage.  I quickly turned off the water and pulled on a pair of jeans and a fresh t-shirt.  The simple act of covering up my naked flesh seemed to lessen the rage.  It enabled me to focus on the task at hand.

I found a pair of work gloves and got a heavy lawn bag from under the sink then went back to Chrissy.  I removed her bathing suit and soaked up as much of her blood as I could.  I put it in the bag and hastened out the side door to the driveway.  Chrissy had apparently expected that I would not be long in returning with her to Marsha's because the keys were left in the ignition.  See?  I can't count the times I asked her never to do that.

Anyway, I got in and drove the van around the opposite side of the block to a deserted movie theater where I parked behind the building.  I left the keys in the ignition and took out the bathing suit.  I smeared Chrissy's blood on the front seat and the windshield and threw the suit on the back seat.  I left the driver's door open and walked back calmly to my house, rather pleased at how I felt.  I even managed to whistle, “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” which is one of my favorite schmaltzy songs from the sixties.  Chrissy never liked it, but her disapproving days were pretty much over.

I got back to the house and began cleaning up the living room.  Luckily, most of Chrissy's blood had gone into the area rug enabling me to get the majority of the job done in one quick roll.  It was long enough to cover Chrissy's beautiful, long legs and thick enough so that the blood hadn't soaked through.  I took the rug to the garage and left it by the table saw for later.

I did a quick mop-up and wiped down the recliner and the coffee table and made sure that nothing was too obvious.  I would do a more thorough job after Caitlin got home.

I called Marsha's house and made up some lie about Chrissy having to go buy some kind of steak roast and asked if she would mind bringing Caitlin home.  Marsha was very understanding and said she would have Caitlin home in ten minutes.

I waited for Caitlin by the front door.  Fifteen minutes passed before Marsha finally pulled up in front of the house in her shiny new Mustang convertible.  Marsha had always fancied herself something of a perpetual babe.  She could still turn heads in bars, but only the ones that were hazy with smoke and inadequately lit.  In the bright afternoon sunlight, her Jackie Onassis sunglasses and Courtney Cox pressed-hair only accentuated her haggard desperation.

Caitlin hopped out of the passenger side and raced ahead of Marsha to the door.  With her golden hair bouncing around her sunburned cheeks and her Pool Side Barbie towel flapping around her shoulders, she resembled an angel from a heavenly Toys 'R Us ad.  I opened up the screen door and let her inside, closing it after her.  I remained just inside the screen door as Marsha climbed the steps.

“Hey, Steve,” she said, weaving her hips back and forth like she were balancing on a row boat.  “Chrissy home yet?”

“No, Marsha, she's not,” I said, keeping the screen door between us.

Marsha came up to the door and pushed her sunglasses on top of her pretty brown hair.  Marsha was prettier than her sister, my wife, Chrissy, but she had the hard lines around her eyes and mouth that spoke volumes of an unhappy domestic life.  Although, to look at her simply as a piece of meat, she had a very fuckable ass.  I'd always wondered if that was what attracted her husband, Stewart, to her in the first place.

Stewart sure did have an eye for ass.  He left Marsha a little less than a year ago for an eighteen-year-old boy from his high school social studies class.  The “scandal” wasn't pretty and the only headlines were the poorly spelled ones in the local rags, no National Enquirer, never even made it to Jerry Springer.  Just enough to utterly annihilate Marsha's eggshell existence.

“Well, I'd invite myself in,” she drawled in her affected southern accent, “but the sun's just too perfect to pass up.  Sure you won't change your mind?  You could leave a note for Chrissy and come for a splash with Caitlin and me.”  Marsha stepped close enough to the screen to actually flatten her perky nipples against the mesh.  “You look like you could use some sun.  Whaddya say?  A little sun, a little Coppertone and a whole lot of frozen daiquiris?”

She was coming on to me again.  Ever since I'd known Marsha, she'd been a bit of a flirt.  With Stewie out of her life, and rum his replacement, her boldness was increasingly annoying.

“No, Marsha, thanks, but I'm getting the grill ready and besides, Caitlin looks a little too rock lobster as it is.  Maybe tomorrow.”

“Well, okay, Steve,” she answered, poking her finger into the mesh against my chest.  “But don't come crying to me if you wake up tomorrow and there's no sun.  Seize the day, and all that, right?”

“Yeah, right,” I said and managed a small smile.  Marsha really looked good, in a carcass hanging from a meat hook kind of way.  Maybe I would pop over tomorrow for a splash.  “I promise I'll seize tomorrow, how's that?”

“That, Stevie, sounds wonderful.  Give Chrissy my love.  Bye Caitlin!” she yelled into the house patting the screen door (and my chest) one more time before returning to her car.

I closed the door and stood there a minute watching Marsha drive away.  For a moment, as she opened her car door, I imagined I saw a wave of blood spill from the Mustang and wash over her, leaving her shrieking and beautiful.  The most beautiful I've ever seen her.  Then the vision was gone and Marsha was waving as she drove back to her lonely life.  Her loneliness would be temporary.  I promised myself I would take care of that.

A small gasp from the living room alerted me to the fact that I had almost forgotten my daughter was home.  I hurried from the door and entered the living room to find Caitlin standing in the middle of the room staring at the floor where the carpet had once been.

“Daddy,” she said, her voice small and clear like a tiny bell.  “How come the room looks so big?”

I looked at her and smiled.  In the gloom of the fading afternoon light, she appeared as a revelation among the shadows, a bright flame in my eyes and in my brain.  And like a moth, I was drawn to that flame with my arms outstretched and my smile widening as I picked her up and held her close to my heart.

“Daddy had to take the rug to the cleaners, honey.  Now, let's go upstairs and Daddy will fix you a nice, hot bath before Mommy gets home.”

“With lots of bubbles?” she asked, already squirming out of my arms and running up to her room.

“Lots'n lots of bubbles!” I called after her.  I took my time climbing the stairs, listening to the familiar sounds of Caitlin opening her drawers and watched her race across the hallway into the bathroom just as I crested the last stair.

“Come on, Daddy!” she cried, her voice urgent with anticipated pleasure and yet strangely hollow sounding as it echoed off the floor-to-ceiling blue bathroom tiles.  “I wanna use the purple bubbles!”

“No, I don't think so,” I said as I entered the bathroom.

“Why not?” Caitlin whined, her little nose crinkling and her brow furrowing together in an altogether convincing expression of genuine dismay.

“Because,” I replied comically, making my voice obscenely exaggerated like Caitlin's favorite purple dinosaur, “Daddy's got a surprise!”  Caitlin had her own separate bathroom.  Caitlin had insisted, and I, as always, went along.  Now I was glad.  I didn't want Caitlin's surprise to be spoiled by the sight of her mommy's and daddy's bathroom.

Caitlin clasped her tiny hands to her chest and jumped up and down.  “Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

“Okay, but first you gotta say, I love my daddy more than anything else in the whole wide world.”

“I love my daddy more than anything else in the whole, wide world!”

I picked Caitlin up and squeezed her to me and began to tickle her bony little ribs.  “Say, I love my daddy more than a whole truck full of vanilla ice cream with hot butterscotch syrup!”

“I love my daddy more than a whole truck full of vanilla ice cream with hot butterscotch syrup!” she repeated, giggling and squirming as I carried her to the tub.

“And with a cherry on top!” I added, to prolong the delicious feeling of this sweet, delicate life hammering me with her fists and laughing so hard tears were running down her apple cheeks.

“And with a cherry on top!” Caitlin squealed, just as I drew her into my chest with a convulsive hug that cut the air supply to her lungs and left her suddenly gasping and rigid with shock.

“Tell daddy you love him, baby,” I whispered fiercely into her reddening ear.  “Tell daddy you want to bleed for him, tell daddy, honey, tell daddy you want to bleed.”

Her fists began to beat my arms and her legs kicked violently against my thighs, once or twice connecting painfully with my groin before I lifted her high in the air and in one motion turned her upside down and plunged her headfirst into the tub.

I would not have believed she was capable of such a loud scream had I not heard it crash off the tile walls and ricochet into my brain.  Even under water, her cries were almost unbearable.  They quickly, blessedly, died down as her lungs filled with water and her thrashing body soon relaxed into my arms once again.

I wasted no time, but gently rolled her over on her back and wiped the long strands of hair from her face.  Her cheeks still puffed in and out with the weakest hint of a breath, but with every watery exhalation, her body grew weaker and I knew I had to act quickly.

I reached over behind the toilet where I had placed the cleaver and withdrew it in one hand, keeping my other firmly on Caitlin's chest.  Raising the cleaver over my head, I brought it down just between my daughter's delicate blue eyes and watched as her flesh unfolded before me and the tub exploded with cherry-red froth.  Abandoning all restraint, I threw myself on top of her and began to hack furiously at her body until I could no longer recognize her.  All was red, warm and wet.  After a series of ferocious orgasms, I lost consciousness.

***

The authorities have a name for me.  They call me “The North Country Butcher,” but that's not really what I am.  It sounds too destructive, too insane.  I create, I do not destroy.  I release that which is within all of us and within its candy red current I find the only true passion that is man's alone to know.

The house was put up for sale a month later.  That was over eight years ago.  Chrissy and Caitlin have not yet been found.  At this point, there wouldn't be much to find, and besides, I wasn't foolhardy enough to forget to remove their teeth before I ran them through the table saw and disposed of the several dozen pieces in various rivers, lakes and ponds throughout the wilderness that had always frightened me as a boy.

Now, the wilderness has become my accomplice and protector.  I live in the woods, enveloped in its infinite seclusion, in a simple, yet very comfortable cabin that I had built with the money from the sale of the house and, much to my surprise, the substantial life insurance policy Chrissy had taken out completely unbeknownst to me.  It took seven long years before they were officially ruled “deceased” and the insurance company reluctantly paid up, but everything has worked out beautifully.

Except for one small thing.  I'm not really sure how to describe it.  It's just a feeling I get while I wait for the “latest” furor to quiet.  I shop.  I read.  I ride my bike.  And wait some more, until my flesh feels like its shrinking so tight my bones will snap.  And the air becomes so dry I can no longer breathe.  I take showers, five, six, ten times a day.  The hot, steamy water scalds my skin until it turns pink and soft like the cheeks of my once beautiful daughter.  And as my fingers stroke my fevered, soap-slicked skin, I find it harder and harder not to open up my own flesh and swim in my own eternity.

The Whore of the Dartmoor
By Rich Bottles Jr.

An aspiring writer finds that copyright infringement is frowned upon on both sides of the pond.

Although much maligned for his handling of The Big Book of Bizarro, Rich Bottles Jr. is best known for his genre-defying novels Lumberjacked,  Hellhole, West Virginia, and The Manacled. After an unillustrious print journalism career in southwestern Pennsylvania, Rich moved to West Virginia at the age of 32 to pursue a career in technical writing. He spends his free time visiting and hiking at the many state parks in the Mountain State, which is also where he develops the concepts for his novels.  His only regret in life is that his out-of-state secondary school education prohibited him from earning West Virginia's prestigious Golden Horseshoe Award

Stephanie could never decide whether she was a literary whore or a literal whore. The readers of her fan fiction on deviant art dot com probably considered her the former, while the people she met through adult friend finder dot com probably considered her the latter. The only thing she knew for certain was that she needed to earn some cash from the former to take care of a medical condition resulting from the latter.

But how could an unpublished writer create and market a best seller in as little time as possible? After all, the itching and inflammation were becoming unbearable.

Working from home, in her underpants, as an underpaid and underappreciated customer service rep for the online bookseller amazon dot com allowed Stephanie to understand that the popular trend in fiction was the horror genre, especially stories involving vampires and werewolves.

Unfortunately, eighteen-year-old Stephanie was used to writing about giving blowjobs to celebrities and her recreational reading included very few horror novels. Her personal entertainment budget was also limited, which is why she had to do all of her reading online, predominately the stale ancient fiction available at gutenberg dot org.

It wasn’t until she finished reading the serial novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that she had her epiphytic epiphany. She began drooling as she read the legalese located at the bottom of the text file.

“Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed.”

Edit – Select All; Edit – Copy; File – Exit; Microsoft Office Word; Paste – Paste Special – Unformatted Text; Replace – Find what: Holmes – Replace with: Vampire Hunter Holmes; Replace – Find what: Stapleton – Replace with: Count Stapleton; Replace – Find what: hound – Replace with: werewolf…

After the initial auto-rewrite, Stephanie forced herself to read through the manuscript, correcting some of the inconsistencies that MS Word inadvertently created. She also added some gothic flourishes and supernatural tidbits to enhance the story and make it appear as if some thought had been put into the process. It took her about an hour.

Once the format of the document had been ported to a portable document format and the absence of a cover had been covered by the selection of a generic cover, Stephanie uploaded her slavepiece to wepublishanything dot com and awaited approval. Approval can take up to forty-eight hours! What the fuck?!

Frustrated by the lack of instantaneous gratification to be derived from the wepublishanything website, Stephanie decided to retire to her nearby bed, where she had more control over her desire for instant gratification.

Before climbing into her perpetually unmade bed, Stephanie stripped off her bra and panties and stood in front of a full-length mirror, which interrupted the wall space between her computer desk and her double-sized bed. Sometimes the lack of food available in her double-wide trailer drove her crazy with hunger, but she appreciated her economically-induced diet plan every time she admired her slender naked body in the mirror.

Her shoulder-length, greasy, red hair actually contrasted with the wiry flame-like red bush between her legs, which she patted down like she was putting out a small brush fire. She then massaged and caressed her fun-sized breasts, just like one of her favorite celebrities would do if he were in the room with her at that moment.

A sense of guilt overcame Stephanie as she continued to watch herself in the mirror. Was it because of her current role as a self-satisfying voyeur? No, because she had express written consent from the author to watch herself naked. Was it because she was masturbating yet again? No, because she wasn’t Catholic. Was it because she was trying to profit off of someone else’s hard work and creativity? Maybe, but that dude was dead. Regardless, when her none-on-one physical relationship moved to the bed, she was going to have to make sure she was properly disciplined for her transgressions.

Prior to stretching out on the bed, Stephanie sat on the edge of the mattress and collected two spring-activated clothespins and a couple of elastic hair bands from the bed stand. And before she turned off the lamp to darken the room, she patiently wrapped the bands around the business ends of the clothespins, making them difficult to open.

Covered in darkness as she reclined onto the bed, Stephanie pretended it was someone else who was cupping her left breast and clamping a banded clothespin onto her erect nipple. While she was still wincing from the pain encountered by the initial assault, the second clothespin was snapped shut onto her right nipple.

As pangs of anguish shot deep into her beleaguered breasts, Stephanie’s oxygen-starved breaths became quicker and shorter, almost to the point of hyperventilating, and she instinctively directed her right hand to the burning wetlands between her legs. Skillfully spreading her labia with her index and ring fingers, she then began feverishly rubbing and circling her swollen clitoris with her middle finger.

Stephanie felt a climax building almost immediately, but knew that she must maintain control over her affliction if her body was to experience the true retribution it so richly deserved. Her middle finger skimmed smoothly and effortlessly across the moistened playing field, but somehow Stephanie managed to slow down the maddening pace of the circling strokes that stoked the flames of her desperate desire.

As the fingers of her right hand began to neglect their disciplinary duty, like the guardians of a red-headed stepchild, the fingers of her left hand began twisting the clothespin imprisoning the left nipple. Every nerve ending within the throbbing nipple seemed to erupt in a fury of boiling, blood-engorged, short-circuitry. Tears began squeezing out through Stephanie’s tightly closed eyelids and muffled cries started pouring from her trembling lips.

When the torqued and tortured flesh of the tormented tit was twisted to 180 degrees (Fahrenheit and Radial), Stephanie knew that the slightest touch of her right middle finger on her locked and loaded clitoris would trigger her body into a series of uncontrolled convulsions. Still she tried to still her hand. But soon the climax began building without any clitoral stimulation, so Stephanie resigned herself to finish the job by flicking the last bit of oil on the out-of-control brush fire.

“Ugh!!!” she screamed out as her body bounced upon the bed and she simultaneously yanked off the clothespins, one at a time, immediately increasing the waves of passion that violently shook and overtook her senses.

Completely exhausted, emotionally and physically, and breathing deeply through her mouth to maintain consciousness, Stephanie unclenched her left hand atop her chest and allowed the clothespins to drop down between her overheated breasts. She then delicately removed the sticky fingers of her right hand from the depths of her vanquished vagina.

Swamped in sweat, Stephanie knew she should get up and shower off, but she didn’t seem to have any energy left in her paralyzed person. Soon her breathing normalized and she was able to close her mouth in a smile and drift off to sleep.

Until the voice woke her up…

Stephanie knew she was alone in the trailer that evening, so was she dreaming and violating the first rule of bizarro story-telling - or was the voice coming from outside her bedroom real? Stephanie covered her head in her blankets, but still tried to listen.

“Aye, I’ve finally cornered me the daughter of the yeoman!” shouted a man’s gravelly and grave voice from just behind the door (before the door was kicked in by the man’s heavy riding boots). The parenthetically busted door swung inside the room and crashed against the wall, knocking off various framed posters of harmless-looking male celebrities, who were probably gay but still fancied nonetheless by Stephanie.

Stephanie sat up in bed with a blanket pulled up to her terrorized eyes as the intruder fumbled with a light switch inside the doorway. Soon yellow energy-saving light bathed the scene in all its horrific glory and a stocky crazed-looking man, overdressed in severely outdated formal garb, approached her bed with a black riding crop in his gloved hand.

“Do you know who I am, young maiden of the Dartmoor?”

“You’re trespassing?” stammered Stephanie through the blanket.

“ My name is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” replied the man with a heavy British accent, lifting his hand and pointing his index finger at her trembling head. “Perhaps you recall removing the name Conan Doyle from my manuscript this very evening!”

“You’re not him,” Stephanie cried out. “He died a long time ago. Get the hell out of my house, whoever you are!”

“But I am he!” shouted the man straight back at ‘er. “If you’d done your research on me, you would know that I was good friends with fellow spiritualist Harry Houdini. We both studied spiritual materialization and we both made a pact that we would assist each other in avenging any injustices to our character even after death.”

“You’re fucking nuts!” screamed Stephanie, throwing down her blankets and revealing her naked torso, which the man immediately slashed with the crop.

When Stephanie felt the sting of the crop cutting across her bare chest, she immediately curled up in a ball, hiding her face in her hands, as the Englishman circled around to the side of the bed where he’d have a clearer shot at her back and arse.

“ Fucking nuts am I?” he yelled as he started to slash her fetal body with the whip. “Was Roy Horn (slash) fucking nuts (slash) when Houdini (slash) materialized (slash) as a white (slash) tiger and (slash) attacked him (slash)?!”

Stephanie tried to escape the enraged onslaught by rolling off the bed away from her attacker. After she slammed onto the floor, she quickly crawled toward the open door of the bathroom, which was only a few yards away from the bed. The man then jumped up onto the empty bed to see where his victim was going.

“Get back here, you thieving whore!” he commanded, slicing the air with crop. “I’m not near done with you! I plan to ravish every inch of your body, like you ravished every page of my book! I plan to assault and tear apart every filthy orifice that I can find, just as you assaulted almost every word of mine that you could find!”

Stephanie successfully crawled into the bathroom and quickly shut and locked the door. Knowing that her aggressor could easily kick in the bathroom door, she quickly threw on a terry cloth bathrobe that was hanging on the inside of the door and then ran toward a small window above the toilet. She climbed onto the toilet seat just as she heard the man’s boots hit the floor beside the bed. As the heavy boot stomps approached the bathroom, Stephanie pushed open the small opaque window and began squeezing herself out head first into the cool night air.

When the bathroom door crashed open, Stephanie’s body crashed onto the cold ground outside of the trailer. She hit the ground hard, but still managed to leap up on her bare feet and dart toward the moor. Her feet sloshed through the icy mud of the moor as she tried to get as much distance between her and her pursuer as possible.

She kept looking back as she ran, hoping that she would see no tall shadows approaching her from behind. The dim light of the diminishing trailer gave her eyes no indication that she was being followed, but she thought she heard a faint growling coming up behind her.

When the growling erupted into a sharp barking, Stephanie quickly increased her pace, even though she was already out of breath. Now Stephanie was afraid to turn around.

As happens in all outdoor pursuits of females, the victim eventually trips and falls to the ground. In Stephanie’s case, her foot got finagled in some foliage and her forward momentum forced her face first into the frosty moor.

With the front of her terry cloth robe now thoroughly soaked and soiled, Stephanie resigned herself to rolling over onto her back and using a moistened sleeve to wipe off the remnants of her au naturel facial.

As soon as Stephanie scooped the caked mud from her eyelids, she looked up to see a massive wolf-like beast straddling her midsection. Its red eyes stared directly into hers like lasers cutting through thick cataracts. From its snarled snout came a steady growl and clouds of steam emanated from its dilated nostrils.

With the front of her robe now pinned open by the sharp claws of the beast, Stephanie felt hot saliva dripping down onto her bare breasts like melted wax from a dominatrix’s candle. Stephanie had no choice but to lay still under the crushing weight of the animal and sob uncontrollably.

The moonlight provided just enough illumination for Stephanie to watch the beast slowly open its mouth, revealing razor sharp canines that glistened through the darkness. She could also see its tongue curled back inside its mouth as if it was going to speak.

“You’re mine now, bitch,” it snarled in the most non-human evil voice she had ever encountered.

Stephanie managed to break away from the beast’s hypnotic glare, but as soon as she turned her head to the side she unknowingly offered her pulsating jugular to the predator. The beast instantaneously struck its prey, tearing out half the girl’s throat before she even had time to gasp. Blood gushed from the open wound and the beast lapped it up like a dog being sprayed with a garden house.

Can’t this please just be all a dream? Stephanie thought as she drifted into unconsciousness.

Indeed, the horrific scene taking place in the small West Virginia town of Dartmoor turned out to be exactly that – a dream and nothing more. But the nightmare proved so unsettling and disturbing to the dreamer that sleep was no longer possible.

Waking up from the nightmare, drenched in sweat and screaming in terror, the conscious mind took a few moments to adjust to the stark reality of a darkened bedroom. Or was adjustment even possible when one reality suddenly switches to another - and both seem equally absurd?

“My god that was horrible!”

The loud voice even startled Louisa, who woke up in a coughing fit, which was a symptom of her secret East End opium-smoking excursions. As soon as she could get the coughing under control, she angrily replied, “What’s wrong with you, you old fool? I finally get some sleep and you start screaming like a crazy bastard!”

Sitting up on his side of the bed with his back now turned to his wife, Sir Arthur apologized as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow. “Forgive me, Louisa, but I’m afraid I had another one of my bizarre dreams. This time I was in a strange land and I was acting like Hugo Baskerville from the Hound novel.”

“Ask me if I give a damn,” was the response from Louisa’s side of the bed.

“Louisa,” begged Sir Arthur. “Why must you always be so disagreeable towards me? I understand that you are (supposedly) ill, but you are still my wife and I would appreciate some level of basic respect. I have never once complained of your coughing, which has kept me awake for many a night.”

“Go to hell and let me sleep!” yelled the woman, who immediately broke into yet another coughing fit which shook the entire bed.

Sir Arthur felt his anger rising to unchartered territory as he rolled back onto the bed and got onto his knees. When he looked down on his hacking spouse, he was suddenly overcome with a pounding headache and his blood seemed to boil inside his skull, causing his vision to be tinted in red and his mouth to become dry and sticky.

“You want sleep?” he rhetorically asked, suddenly grabbing the pillow from his side of the bed. “I’ll help you sleep, you ungrateful junkie!”

Soon Sir Arthur found himself sitting on top of his coughing wife, who desperately wanted to curse him but could not gain control of her vocal chords. The hate and scorn in her face seemed to penetrate Sir Arthur, even in the dark room, but he quickly found solace once her face was completely covered by the pillow.

“You’re mine now, bitch,” he snarled in the most non-human evil voice she had ever encountered.

Sir Arthur held the pillow forcefully in place as the woman pathetically struggled beneath him and he did not let up until her body was completely still. He knew she was dead when five minutes had passed without a cough or a gag emanating from her drug-starved lungs.

Pleased by the sudden silence within the room, Sir Arthur threw the murder weapon back to his half of the bed, making sure the side of the pillow containing her last breath was not facing up. Still panting from the thrill of the kill, he then rolled off his prey and onto his pillow. Soon his breathing normalized and he was able to close his mouth in a contented smile and drift off to sleep.

In the morning, Sir Arthur awoke to the sudden reality that his poor wife must have passed away in her sleep. Since he was a well-respected and dutiful London physician, he felt compelled and obligated to immediately draw up his wife’s certificate of death and give “Tuberculosis” as the cause of death.

Later that day, after screwing his mistress in neighboring Hampshire, the grieving widower had a good laugh at his dead wife’s expense.

“What do think the great Sherlock Holmes would make of this day’s events?” asked Jean Elizabeth after she finished licking Sir Arthur’s cock clean of her vaginal juices.

“Unfortunately for Louisa, her case is one that Mr. Holmes shall never take up!” laughed Sir Arthur.

The Fall
By David J. Fairhead

With the rise of every good civilization, there is inevitably the fall.

David J. Fairhead is the author of the romantic fantasy/science fiction trilogy, Worlds Apart and currently touring with his comic book series WZWA (World Zombie Wrestling Association) in association with Jon Towers and Stigmata Studios (www.jonnyaxx.com). The creative force behind Fairly Dark Productions, David is also the artist and writer of twenty-eight issues of his own comic series. Finding his passion in writing contemporary fiction, he has two horror novels in development (CHARLIE, A Child’s Tale of Terror; and the demon zombie epic IN THE DARK), as well as this current work in progress: THE FALL.  He grew up on Long Island and currently resides with his wife in Pittsburgh.  Contact him on Facebook.

We had been running for weeks.   You will truly never know how to run until you’ve been chased for your very flesh, blood and bone.   I had run my whole life, whether in a soccer game, street hockey, even from the cops with my friend Eric on a Friday night binge-drinking episode.   None of this was real relentless running.  Not until you have to run or face a horrific death by mutilation, do you know the meaning of the word fear.   In the dark, you forget who was with you at different intervals.  Friends, family, old and young, they just became fellow runners from the dark itself.

In the first few weeks it was chaos abound.   Like ants raiding mounds of sugar, humans were plucked from their beds, from their cars, pulled down sewer drains and dragged to the sky by dark feasting claws, and calloused hate.    Eric told me it had been months already but his little sister Drea said it was longer.  The sky had turned a dark turquoise on her sixteenth birthday, she reminded me.  Girls, even in duress, seem to remember anything associated with their young birthdays.    The last memory I have of safe daylight, real daylight without being hunted, was in the beginning of it all, right after Drea’s birthday party.   High school girls dressed up in their newest jeans, party dresses and blouses from expensive department stores, smelling pretty, looking happy in the sun of Eric’s backyard picnic party.    It went to shit in twenty-four hours I think.

I found Eric and Drea in the basement of an empty warehouse in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, down the road from our neighborhood a couple of days after.

“They took our mother…” Eric said, his thinning blond hair plastered to his forehead, jawbone protruding with despair.   Drea held his hand tight.  She too was drawn and thin with grief.   They had a canteen with them and shared some water.

“We are heading to the Midwest.  There’s talk of more people and a light…”

“Nowhere is safe Eric.  You know what this is…”  Something in me just wanted to pound out any hope Eric had.  This was selfish of me, but I did not care.

“Fuck you…we’re going.   We’re going to our camp, and from there I’ll get the Jeep.  Come with us Kyle.”   His deep brown eyes practically ordered me.  I shook my head and watched them leave up the dusty steel stairs to the street above.   Pale sunlight shone down those stairs from the building’s giant industrial windows.   That last bit of pale and ailing sunlight seems so brilliant now.

I waited.  Surely they were in the street by now.   No screams.

“No screams.  It might be safe…” Darrell Peck, an older co-worker of mine at the bank, just months before all of this, stepped from the shadows.   His black face and curly hair riddled with the dust and asbestos of the basement haven we called a temporary ‘place to sleep’ during the day.    Shany McCocklyn, his much younger girlfriend, stepped into the dusty light.  I could smell their sweat from across the room.

“You shouldn’t have let them go out there….”  Shany tried to guilt me.

“How else would we know it was safe for us?”  I asked my old college drinking buddy.   “Now, we know we can go out there.   I do not want to stay down here one more night.  That slithering sound was only one floor up last night…something we may not have seen yet…”

Shany glared at me as she always did when she felt guilty, and I felt nothing, about anything wrong we did.  And we did a lot wrong.   But those days of stealing quiz papers at school and robbing the pizza joint that we worked for to get us through school, by tapping the register now and then, just really did not matter any more.

Yeah, I loved Eric and Drea, but these were the days of the fall.   Numbers meant there was less chance of you being dinner for some crouching predator that looked half goblin and half wolverine.   I’m not exaggerating about that description, except that those furry beasts inhabited the woodland regions, not the cities.   One ate my neighbor’s kids while I stood in their living room in horror.  It happened so fast… I was babysitting… I don’t know… I guess it snuck in through the basement flap windows and ran up the stairs, passed me …straight to the kids’ bedrooms.  There was a sidelong glance at me while the galloping ball of teeth and fur ran past me.  I swear it was smiling.

Those sounds…

We eventually came out from the warehouse basement when the sound of other voices seemed to be gathering.  It was daylight, if you want to call an amber haze of heat, daylight.   The night came earlier and earlier and the turquoise and blackened sky lasted longer and longer.   That afternoon, the city of Pittsburgh stood like a cemetery in the sunlight.   The Ohio River was still brownish green at that time.    One side of the street was empty, but then the other had a crowd of fifty some people of all races and ages.   I knew this was bad.   This many folks should never feel this comfortable in the light of day making such a racket.

“Let’s move…” I said to Shany.  Darrell nodded in agreement.

“But there’s others…came out from hiding too?”

“YES… that’s the problem…”

No sooner than I said that had the swooping black giants fell from the sky.  They made no noise, only the cacophony of their beating raven wings swooshed overhead.  Their heads were burrowed so deep in their chests that you could never really focus on the faces.  Eventually I would.

The familiar fray began.   People scattered, blood spattered wetly on the blacktop, screams gargled, dying cries.   We ran.  I made the two of them keep tight to the buildings, running through alleyways that we were familiar with on our old lunch breaks together.   I remember wondering if Eric and Drea were among those people being cut down and slaughtered, and tried not to care.   One woman’s screams just never seemed to stop.  Four blocks away we could still hear her screaming.   Why were they taking so long to kill her?

“...Oh God oh God… that woman…”

“Shany, there is NOTHING we can do for anyone against those things…guns barely have an affect…”  Darrell used the butt of his 45 to smash our way into a department store on Smithfield Street.   Guns were still good for that.

As we climbed through the glass, avoiding shards, Shany cried insistently, “I can still hear her…why do they do that?”

“Because THEY CAN, Shany… Because they can… now move inside!”   I rasped, spitting my own hair from my face.

The final wisps of sunlight disappeared that afternoon behind clouds of permanent turquoise.   We did not know we had witnessed the last of our Sun through the barrier of bleakness.   The three rivers of Pittsburgh now glowed red too.   Red water was one of the early reports we heard over some radio shows and news blurbs in the beginning.   Further inland now.  That’s where the running would continue.

***

I ran toward the thinning blue light.  Our deadening world’s darkness lashed at my heels.   Most were dead.   Others were enslaved or dying in the bellies of winged soundless demons with diamond eyes.   Faithless hearts on the rise in the final years…. We opened the doorway.

There were many others.  Soon, the three of us became five and then ten, and I welcomed it.   More pickings and less chance it would be me the next raid.

Trees had black bark.  All the trees.  The leaves were gone for the most part and tentacled shrubs and vines threatened to engulf your every step.   On more than one occasion it did.    No longer could you tell the difference between a branch and a black slimy tendril that just…

Numbers dwindled.  Then we came across a camp of families, or bikers.  Numbers went up.   A raid.   The running continued as numbers disappeared repeatedly.

One night walking through the woods, still heading west (but never really knowing where we were, just where not to go due to screams of the tortured and dying in the distance) all the woods seemed to come alive.   I had my hunting knife, and so did some of the others.  We were able to cut our way out.   Darrell was by my side, I had to grab him as we watched Shany’s pretty brown face elongated into a scream while she was dragged through the dead leaves. A blackened tendril that had wrapped around her leg tugged and dragged her relentlessly.   We gave chase, and then her screams faded into the putrid ashen woods.

Nights later, one of the bikers, a man by the name of Mason, first, last name… no freakin’ clue, became sort of a leader for a bit.   He claimed to know the woods and his barrel chest and shotgun gave him that right.   I didn’t like him though; he breathed too heavy and smelt of tobacco.  I wondered if that smell would give us away.

Those first days, or more distinctly, on the same night that I ran from my neighbors’ house where I was babysitting, I learned just how well these creatures relied on more than their sense of smell.   Their taste for destroying all you hold dear, ripping all your beloved memories right in front of you was their glee.    Terrified I ran out of the house and ridiculous as it sounds I feared for myself, and how the hell I was going to tell these parents that there was something upstairs eating their six and eight year old daughters.  Would they believe me?  A dumb college kid with a pot smoking habit and long hair that worked part time at a bank and delivered pizza at school?   No… I would get the blame first…

That’s when I found Mr. and Mrs. Kindrick on the lawn.   I should say, half of them.   They were still alive as I was backing down their front steps, looking up at the girls’ bedroom window.    Literally I backed into them, being chewed up by some ungodly thing underground.   Briefcase, purse, VHS tapes and a pizza lay on the ground in front of them in a pool of mud, blood and their own torn clothes.   Under my feet, the ground shook and sounded like a lawn mower that took breaks to swallow chunks.  The Kendricks still had their glasses on and stared wide-eyed in shock as they were slowly being pulled under ground in short bursts of crunching and horrid rumbling.  Their arms reached out for me, and I took Mrs. Kindrick’s thin hands in mine.   She went under in no time and I had fallen on my back in  the grass.    The kids were still screaming in the house.  Three ribbons of blood had striped their bedroom window.   Mr. Kindrick saw that, looking up at his house, from the middle of his lawn right smack in the middle of DOWNTOWN USA, Suburbia, affluent neighborhood… sunny day… pizza for the babysitter…watch movies with the kids….get eaten on my front lawn… but first let me watch my kids being slaughtered.

He disappeared under the shredded mulch and blood-soaked sod.

I had no idea, outside of strange news reports what was happening, but I knew I had to get home to my family.   So I ran down the block four houses to the Cape Cod I grew up in.

Mom was there and so was my older sister Tammy.    They were at the dinner table.

“What is it Kyle?  What’s wrong…” My mother’s hair was wet from the shower.  She was getting ready for the nightshift at the police station where she was a clerk.   Tammy was dolled up like a slut, ready for her date with Peter Glitchen (that was IF the rich prick from New York even showed up).   Don’t get me wrong, Tammy was pretty, but also so much more naïve in her mid twenties than this swinger from the Bigger city.  He was a dick, and I didn’t like him.

She made me sick with her tight black pants under a sundress, and her curls all falling to her shoulders and her “cum–fuck–me” boots. Smelled of desperation.

“What?  The Kindricks kick you out?  You have like three jobs… what the hell! Just stay at school and party! You’re such a freakin loser…”

“SHUT UP Tammy…not now… not now.”  I turned to the other side of the table to my mother behind her make-up mirror.   “Mom… it’s not safe… something…”

Maybe the sirens were first, maybe the screeches of the winged creatures, or perhaps the agonized shrieks of those taken by surprise, like the Kindricks, stopped me short.    The noises were the immediate answer to my shouts at the two of them.   Soon, the lights went out.   Cars in the distance smashed.   More screams, and some gunshots.  “To the basement!”  I shouted.

The front door was bashed to a million splintered shards and something clawed its way through and poked into our foyer.   If you have ever seen one of those brown stick bugs that they have in the Amazon or some shit… that’s what was pulling into my foyer now with four extended arms, each with pincers.   It tap-danced its way in to our hallway like a giant grasshopper.  Down came the head into my face.  One yellow eye with a black pupil and two sets of mandibles made up the face.    It had tentacles too, coming off its back where it had none other than Peter Glitchen, stock broker from New York, the young go-getter, wrapped and dangling.     I guess he showed up after all.  I would have a laugh about this all to myself in later weeks, alone in the dark.

The thing smelled like shit roasted over hot coals.   Tammy was screaming but she grabbed me and hurled me down the hall.  “Get the bat…Kyle…get the bat…” I’m not sure if it was shock coming out of her mouth or not, but the next thing I saw was that tall elongated mass of legs, tentacles and head of mandibles grab my sister from behind. My mother ran to her side with a chair raised.    They were both screaming when the tentacles and claws snatched them and pulled them into our guest room to the right of the foyer.    Peter Glitchen was pulled in as well, though he could not scream.  It seemed his mouth had a tendril running directly inside it and down his throat.

Trying my damnedest to get inside that room to get to my mother and my sister, I felt desperately deflated.  I’m not even sure if I was screaming while I bashed my entire body against the door.  That thing must have blocked the door with its own body.    Tears poured helplessly down my cheeks almost as fast as the blood pooled under the door, yet the screams of my mother and Tammy persisted for what seemed hours.    I had collapsed at one point, facedown in the warm blood of my family.   It was night when the door opened and that thing stepped over me and threw Peter’s body at me in bits and pieces, shredded and diced like a fish, it had actually scaled the rich stock broker from New York who wanted to fuck my sister.   The giant stick bug seemed to laugh a chittering buggy laugh while it pelted me with bits of the filleted man and his loamy suit.

I got a glance back in the room.  On the floor and very much alive was Tammy, and my mother.   My mother had her back against the wall, her eyes open in shock.  Her black hair turning gray as I looked at her.  There was nothing in her eyes resembling the person I knew.  My mother’s mind was gone, but she lived.   Tammy lay there, naked on the floor, her head turned to face me, her blue eyes filled with dreaded despair.  It took all of her strength to reach out her hand to me, for me to take hold.

The chittering creature scoffed at this, and swatted me aside, returning to the room and closing the door.

I would pound and plead for hours.  At one point I know I had my baseball bat.  They screamed the whole time and the floor pounded in the room beyond the door.  Eventually I went outside, not caring what else waited for me, but aware of the chaos spreading about the city beyond.  My throbbing head, boiling with blood drowned everything out except the fact that I had to get to the window on the side of the house.  It was high off the ground, but I had to try something…

With a CRASH, the window exploded as if the creature knew what I wanted to do.  Trampling over me, bruising my legs and chest the creature emerged.  Shards of glass shattered around me and the side of our yard.  The creature held my mother’s limp body and Tammy, who was still whimpering.    She reached for me when the creature’s praying mantis-like wings opened up and it took to the sky.

***

Now, months later, with this turd biker, Mason in charge I just waited for death, wondering which of the assorted horde would get to me first.

The beating wings followed us till we reached this wooded seclusion that seems to be a Midwestern squatter’s dream.  Survivors, runners, like me, cheating death by the skin of their teeth for months.  Woods engulfed our tribe of survivors.  Dark hunger surrounded our clearing of blue light that emitted from an unknown source.  Some say it is HE that they pray to.  Yes, some still prayed.

Why me, why us?   Why all those dead people who ran with me through the shattered cities and rivers that run red, filled with beasts of the netherworld, sinewy and dead things….

How we got here was amazing in itself.  I only know my story, and a few others that came from the ferry.

Mason and some others knew about this abandoned ferryboat, that, ironically, would get us the furthest in our journey to this part of the Midwest, and this so-called light in the woods, we’d come to find.

Thoughts of the secret ferryboat make me shudder now, but it was big old Mason with the lumberjack beard who knew where to find it.   Darrell was for it and soon we would commandeer it in the quiet eternal night.  I wished Shany had made it this far.

Hope lit anew for me when we climbed aboard and found other survivors.   Over a hundred people had met here and waited because they knew others like ourselves were coming.   Some kind of miracle right?

My own Uncle Richard and Aunt Lisa were aboard (we were somewhere in Mississippi, who knows anymore) with my cousins, Keith, Talayne and Jacob.   I remember at one point me and Darrell had run into them as we fled from Jersey...  so much death... so much rustic blood on the pavement in Jersey and Philly.   We lost them on our return back to Pittsburgh when we found the East Coast to be hopeless.  But our destination was the same.

The skies, still an ethereal turquoise, just light enough for the creatures of legion to see their quarry, and yet it blanketed the woods on the riverbanks and to the horizon of the red river.   Not all relied on smell.  Most did need the scent of flesh on bone to swoop out of the sky and split the tender bone of a child with their needle teeth the size of …

The ferry was a double-decker.   This was by far the most covert of vehicles to use under these circumstances.  Still I had to disagree with Mason and the two men piloting the thing when he said we should take it as far as we could.    I saw this as a liability and it was only a matter of time.   Besides, what likes to swim in a river of blood?

No one had seen anything the first day of our river boat ride, this hardly making me feel any better.   There were splashes and bumps.  My cousin Keith, the fourteen year old pointed at the water once in front of us when he claimed a hump rose up.   I missed it, but I did not doubt the kid.   Aunt Lisa was holding little Talayne in her arms, straining back the child’s tears as well as her own.  Jacob, only six, stayed by his older brother’s side, visibly shaking but having no idea that his was a permanent vacation from normalcy, not just one of Uncle Richard’s day trips to the Delaware Water Gap.

“Kyle, come with me.” My Uncle, a stoic man, lawyer and self-made, was always a bit serious and over the top, unless it had to do with watching the Three Stooges or giving tips on the perfect pool game.   He grabbed my shoulder and we went to the top deck.   Keith and Jacob followed.

“If anything happens to me…”

“I got it Uncle Rich, I got it.   I’m going there.”  We looked out over the woods as if the blue light could be seen from here.  “And I’ll take them …”

He just looked at me sternly.  No tears, no smiles, just understanding.

“Hey Kyle …I found your friend Drea…!”  Darrell came running up to me from the steps on the lower deck.   “She’s here ...” He had Eric’s sister Drea by the hand.   Both were smiling.    She jumped and gave me such a hug.    I think this is when I became more frightened than ever.   Thinking on that night, listening on the other side of the door, to whatever horror was taking place in our guest room.   Now, I had people to care about again.

The sky had been clear of those winged horrors.  They were Sentinel type beasts that calculated strikes on thousands of humans at a time.   We had heard of their pin-like needle teeth, diamond eyes, but until that night, I never got that close.  Saw many other horrors… that’s for sure.  Yet, that night on the top deck of the ferry, is what came down on Jacob and Taylane, snatching them up into the night.   Taylane was swiped from Aunt Lisa’s hands with such a grip and force, that her left arm was ripped from its socket and she fell to the deck.  I went to her but the boat shifted to the side and people were thrown into the water.   There were shouts of surprise below deck and all about us on the top deck.   I got to my feet in time to see Keith jumping overboard into the sludgy lava-like brackish river when one of the giants swooped down on him.   He had avoided the Sentinel by diving headlong.   When I looked down into the red water, Keith was pulled under by something green with jaws like a vice full of iron maiden spikes.   Oh God the boy’s eyes were so wide when he looked up at me….

The chaos of another attack was unraveling again, at a maddening pace!   The boat had struck something, or something had struck the boat from the bottom.  It did not matter because my boat trip was over now anyway…Where was Drea? Darrell?   Uncle RICH!!

He had run to Aunt Lisa, while the boat listed again.

I lost my balance and fell to the side of the boat, hitting my back and then going over the rails.  Breaking my fall was a black crisp branch.  I hung there for a bit and then made my way down a bit using branch after dry dead branch.

I was on the shore, dangling from the black swirls of crusty brush, no longer reminiscent of earthen foliage.  Still, it broke my fall and kept me from going into the red river.

In front of me the grisly show unveiled itself.

In front of the boat, a leviathan of a tentacled head of some unnamable creature rose from the river and proceeded to pick off folks from the top of the ferry.   I heard Uncle Rich scream and crunch like a cartoon character would…this did not look real before my eyes, but the smell of the burnt woods, the coppery river and foul beasts reminded me to focus.

I saw Drea up on the top deck, looking down at me.  Her wide eyes agape in terror and her blonde hair matted and mopped about her as she shook. “NO.”

I was motioning for her to jump.

“DREA!!  NOW… You have to…”

She half jumped half fell.  And I half caught her, and half fell with her further down the thorny tree branches.

Grabbing a sooty tree branch overhead, I hauled myself and Drea up, and then down, the tree as the howls and thunderous roars of the feeding proceeded down that red river.   The screams were almost comical.  One every three seconds as the long tentacle with the cavern of teeth for a head, continued to pluck people off the boat.

I climbed down the tree (the woods not only smelled of soot now but left you marred with the stuff) and hit the charcoal earth with my boots.  Drea followed carefully.   Wiping the knotted hair from my face, I knew we had to run... the relentless run again.  The kind you learn by fear of being eaten alive, you know?   Yeah, now you know what I mean.

The boat moved down the river, and there were other creatures attacking it now...  some with beaks, some with flippers like dinosaurs, and some unspeakable spider crab, which ran from the shore to the frenzy of people swimming toward the shore, only to be met with more atrocities.

The winged black demons were the hoarders and the Sentinels.   In the light of the bright red water I finally got a better look at them.   Their wings converted to horrific stilted legs when they landed on the boat decks.   I could smell those flying overhead, passing Drea and me on the shore, heading to the real kills.  Those Sentinels and their scent of melted coppery blood, and seeping hate in black liquid through pores the size of baseballs;  it was those that were most common. I had seen them weeks ago, corralling humans down the streets in Pittsburgh to walk to whatever slave work was planned  (or more than likely to whatever feasts and blood orgy of the damned they were preparing for HIM and his creations that had now taken our world).

“They’re all dead… Any family I had was on that boat…dead…”

“Not necessarily.”   Drea spoke with a deep voice of a woman, not a young girl of sixteen.  Of Knowing.

We ran that night in the woods, with the screams echoing down the river.  Aunt Lisa and Keith, well, I never saw any of them again.    I was close now, and the ferry was to take us there, or at least a close proximity.

***

I’m here now, and already, the blue shield of light grows in radius every day that one of us makes it to the clearing.   There is food, and precious wine.   I watch the people arrive.   Eric had made it as well.   We hugged when I first arrived.   Shelters were being built and we helped.    I’ll never forget the tearful hug that Drea and Eric shared that day we arrived.    He thanked me deeply.   He now helps me with my drawing of lines in the new Earth.   The lines I carve outside the cabins grow farther away from the blue shield of protection.   It expands, is expanding.   Soon our light will engulf the black woods and soon we will re-inherit the Earth, some say.   More must come.

Sometimes others come.  The damned horde shows itself beyond the blue border into the black of the woods.  Shany came one night.    She called to Darrell, and Eric and myself ran to hold him back.   They like to tease with familiar comforts and they know how to torture, but this night was different.

While Eric held Darrell back, the slithering beast that was Shany stood before us in the glow of our protecting light.   Her body now a mesh of black tendrils, and quills of tentacles that flew back with her hair, while she elbowed up on imitation arms seeping with an open wound of black ooze.    Shany’s ebony skin was gray, cracked and wilted.

Her eyes were empty sockets with a brackish fluid.  Her teeth smiled like a gar’s needle grin.  “Do not hate us.  We merely want what you had.   We intend to get just that.”

“SHANY!”  Darrell screamed through tears.

“I’m not her.”  The creature rasped, and raised its snake-ribbed body higher than any of us stood.  “I’m her child, like many others you will come to find.  We want …”

The creature’s voice reverberated around me, as another’s chimed in.

“…Beauty.   Life, love, warmth and beauty that we were so cheated…” It was Drea, who came up from behind us and in no time was wrapped in Shany’s tentacles.

“NO!”    Eric wailed.

I knew it was too late.   Drea was gone the same night that the rest of Eric’s family died.  I just knew it, as the same happened to mine.  Drea was gone in mind, as she was raped in body.

Drea’s eyes turned to puddles of silver black and she stared and smiled at us.

“I understand now Eric.  I will go be with my family.  They only want to be like us…and they are merely learning…as the humans once did.”

The two disappeared, creeping backwards into the forest, never unlocking their stares from us, and the other people who came to see what transpired.

So here I stay, for now; the blue shield of light grows daily when another here and another there arrives.   We realized that very few women ever made it to our haven (those that were still capable of reproduction, especially).  One for every fifty men or children who showed were female.   So, in the end, we also know why they did not always kill the women.  God, were my mother and sister still alive and becoming like Drea?  Were there slithering siblings of mine on the crest of these woods, watching me, even now?  There were nights that I felt their eyes.

Well, like I said, there is food, and precious wine. Our numbers grow. Our blue shield of protection expands.  How soon our light will engulf the black woods and we will re-inherit the Earth, I don’t fuckin’ know.    But I do know, we better get cracking because if the horde of the damned get it figured out before we grow in numbers, beauty will have a whole new meaning.

For now it belongs to HIM.   But his time will be short too.

Glory Holes
By Gary Lee Vincent

Unfortunately, some Asian massage parlors do not offer happy endings.

Gary Lee Vincent (born 1974) is an American author and musician.  As a fiction writer, his credits include the Bizarro adventure novel Passageway and the West Virginia Vampire Series: DARKENED, featuring the standalone novels Darkened Hills – winner of Foreword Reviews Magazine’s 2010 Book of the Year Award for Best Horror Novel, Darkened Hollows, Darkened Waters, and Darkened Souls.

As a musician, his albums include 100 Percent, Passion, Pleasure, & Pain, and Somewhere Down The Road.  For more information, visit www.DarkenedHills.com and www.GaryVincent.com.

Jerome Thachet lived his life like most people do – obliviously.  In fact, that fateful Wednesday morning was like any other day of the week for Jerome.  Each morning, he would wake up, get dressed, and walk through a sleep-haze to Wagner’s Grocery, where they served fresh coffee every morning at 7:00 a.m.

He would stumble in past the old timers who where always there, mumble something to them, grab his coffee, and go about his business.  Jerome’s ‘business’ was a few blocks down the street where he worked at a hardware store that dubbed as a farmers’ co-op.

Yes, there was not much exciting for Jerome to do but wake up, get his coffee, and go to work – day in and day out.  That was, until he found the token.

After leaving Wagner’s, Jerome had made it about a block and stared at a newspaper vending machine reading the headlines.  He rarely bought the paper, but every now and then would find something worth reading about.  Of course, there was not much crime in sleepy Melas, West Virginia, and all the news came from over in Clarksburg.

As he stood reading about the disappearances of two female hikers, his eye caught something glistening on the sidewalk in front of him.  My lucky day, Jerome thought as he reached down to pick up the coin.

At first, he thought it was some new kind of quarter because it had an eagle on one side.  Upon closer examination, he realized it was a token.  Written above the eagle was an Internet web address – www.sexco.us.   Below the eagle were the words, “The Sex Company.”  Flipping the coin over, he saw a torso of a shirtless woman revealing a nice rack with the words, “Heads I win,” written on the left and right sides of the woman's ample breasts.

Interesting , Jerome thought.  He was a little bit disappointed that it wasn’t money; at least he could spend money.  What the heck could he do with a token?

Placing his new found treasure in his pocket, he continued on to work his oblivious day at the hardware store, forgetting to even mention it to his co-workers.  In fact, Jerome didn’t even mention it to his wife, Missy, when he came home later that night.

“How was your day, honey?” Missy asked as Jerome walked in.

“Fine,” Jerome replied.  “Yours?”

“Fine.”

Like many couples, the Thachets were in a sexless marriage where every day was routine and they simply lived their lives in blissful ignorance and co-dependence.  They ate supper with little conversation and mumbled about work.

After he ate, Jerome had planned to take a shower.  Missy had already left the dirty dishes in the sink and had retired to the living room to get her daily four-hour fix of sitcoms before zoning out to sleep for the night.  As he emptied his pockets, he noticed the glistening token in his hands.  Humm, I wonder what’s on that website? he thought, curiosity driving him wild.

Instead of going into the bathroom and taking his shower, Jerome headed into the spare bedroom where they kept a computer.  He brought up the website and saw that it was an advertisement for a chic adult novelties store and massage parlor.  A cute Asian woman with abnormally large tits that reminded Jerome of Elvira in a strange kind of way was standing next to one of the tables.  “Come try our Glory Holes,” was a caption written underneath the lady.

Jerome laughed so hard he almost fell out of his computer chair.

“Something a matter honey?” Missy yelled from a room away.

“I’m fine,” Jerome yelled back.  “Pay no mind.”

Looking back at the screen, he noticed the store’s physical address was over in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which was not too far from Melas.  He grabbed a pen and jotted it down.  Might have to check this out, he thought.  This was especially true since it had been over eight months since he had last done the horizontal belly dance with the wifey.

The following day, Jerome asked his boss at the hardware store if he could leave half a day early for an appointment.  That was not a problem and by noon, Jerome was on U.S. Route 50 heading for Parkersburg.

When he pulled up to the address, it was in the rear of a truck stop.  Jerome liked this arrangement, because the large trucks concealed the cars that parked at the store.  Jerome expected to see large signs announcing “Adult Books, Videos, Etc.” but there weren’t any.  In fact, the entrance was a bit understated and had a quaint brick façade.  A small sign was affixed above a doorbell that simply said, “Please ring for service.”

A tinge of nervousness mixed with excitement filled Jerome as he pressed the button.  He did not know what to expect, but knew that if it were a queer bar or something, he would be out the door and back down the highway in no time.  To his surprise, the door was answered by the Asian woman from the website.

“May I help you?” the lady asked.

“Yes.  I saw your website and want to know about your glory holes.”

“Of course.”  The woman gestured him inside.  “Please come this way.”

Jerome was led through a small adult novelty shop and through a doorway that had beads dangling from the frame in place of where a door would be.  Very Seventies, Jerome thought to himself as he passed the threshold.  It reminded him of a hippie set-up and he quite expected there to be longhaired folks smoking the old Mary-J somewhere in one of the rooms beyond.

“You said you found us on the web?” the Asian host asked.

“Yes,” Jerome replied.  He then added, “Actually, I found a token with your website on it.”

“Do you have the token with you?” she asked.

“Yep,” Jerome said, pulling out the coin to proudly display it to the woman.

“Well then,” she said.  “It is your lucky day!”

She led him into a small room with a six-inch hole in the wall and shut the door.  She lowered her voice to a whisper and asked, “Are you with law enforcement?”

“No,” he replied.

“Good,” she said.  “Let me have the coin.”

Jerome obediently handed her the token.

“You are going to get a freebie for having this,” she said as she took off her blouse.  Jerome stared at her with his jaw dropped as she unfastened her bra and revealed the most perfect set of D-cups he ever laid his eyes upon.  He instantly felt himself getting hard as he watched her undress.

Next, she provocatively took off a pair of blue jean shorts she was wearing to reveal pink thong panties.  Jerome could tell that her pussy was shaved and it was a good look for her.

“Now to keep things legit,” she said, “I am going to go over to the room next door and you can fuck me through the hole.”

“Okay, I get it!” Jerome exclaimed excitedly.  “Now I know what you meant by ‘Glory Hole’ on your web site.”

She grinned and winked at him.  She picked up her jean shorts that were on the floor and pulled out a condom from the front pocket.  Handing it to him she said, “Be sure you use protection.”

“Sure,” he agreed as she left the room.

“I’ll be on the other side,” she said.  “Don’t keep me waiting!”

Within seconds, Jerome took his pants off and was over at the wall.  He hurriedly put the condom on his erect penis and pushed it blindly into the hole on the wall.  Instantly, he felt himself penetrate a wet orifice that – in Jerome’s mind – was the Asian woman’s mouth.  The sensation was tight and as he began to thrust his hips at the glory hole, he found unbelievable pleasure.

As the pleasure built, his speed increased and he thrust harder at the wall.  Within minutes, the pleasure was so intense he felt his knees growing weak and he put his entire body against the wall to steady himself.  At some point, the condom came off and his engorged shaft was met with warm wetness that caused him to go at the hole with even more force than before.

Jerome no longer cared as he fucked the hole.  Twenty seconds later, he came.  As he pulled out of the hole, he was shocked to see that his genitalia were covered with a green slimy film.  In shock, he stumbled back and touched the substance, bringing it to his nose.

The goo stank with a heady, pungent aroma.  Jerome quickly dressed and ran out of the establishment, not even wanting to know what in the world he had just fucked.

As he drove away, he was a nervous wreck – at least for the first couple miles anyway.  However, as he began to think about how much pleasure he found in the glory hole, the initial remorse slowly faded and was quickly replaced by arousal.

Missy had never felt like that before , he thought.  If she had, Jerome was sure their marriage wouldn’t be sexless.  Hell, I’d tap that every day if it were that good, he imagined.

Suddenly, he realized he was so aroused that his penis ached.  Without even pulling the car over he unzipped his pants and masturbated.  The horrible stench of the green goo that repulsed him before now did not seem to smell as bad.  In fact, it had a pheromone effect that he liked as he stroked away.  He brought himself to orgasm quickly, shooting cum all over himself and his steering wheel.

“Wow!  Fuck yeah!” Jerome exclaimed in his car.  His penis throbbed and glistened with a tint of green and cream.

Unlike the normal plateau effect when a man ejaculates, where the sensation goes away, Jerome had quite the opposite effect -- he had become hornier. It was almost as if his penis was growing as he drove.  In fact, Jerome could swear it looked like it had grown two inches!

The drive back to his house was about forty minutes and the entire time, he left his hardened manhood out.  He couldn’t wait to see Missy this evening.  He didn’t care if she wanted to fuck or not, he was going to have his way.  The cock wants what the cock wants, he thought.

As he pulled into his driveway, he found that his erection was getting so big that he could hardly fit it back into his pants.  It actually pained him to walk with the constricting clothing.

When he came into the living room, it was roughly the same time that he usually returned home from work.  To Missy, she did not know of Jerome’s escapades and to her, it was just like any other day.  “Dinner will be ready in a few, hon,” she yelled from the kitchen when she heard him come in.

“Baby, I can’t wait for dinner,” Jerome said.  “I want me some dessert!”

“My God, man,” Missy exclaimed, looking at Jerome disheveled look and hardened sex organ.  “What is going on?”

“I don't have time to explain, only fuck!” was Jerome's reply.

She started to protest when he brought his hand to her nose.  The horrible smell made his wife recoil in disgust.  “Ooh!  What on earth do you have on your hand!” she shrieked.

Her rear hit the kitchen counter-top and suddenly her head began to spin.  Somewhere deep in her loins, she felt herself getting wet.  Something just ain't right, she thought to herself.  But then, on second thought, she found herself reaching for Jerome's hand, bringing it up to her face and inhaling a deep sniff of the green substance that was caked all over it.

After the second sniff, she reached for Jerome's engorged member with her other hand and brought him to her.  “Please, come inside me.”

She didn't have to ask twice.  Jerome pinned her against the kitchen counter-top and hiked up Missy's dress.  His penis had grown another two inches and by now was almost a foot in length.

Somewhere deep inside Jerome's mind, he could feel sheer pain from his skin breaking away as his penis grew, but at the same time, it also felt incredible.  So much, in fact, that he no longer minded that his penis had turned entirely green and resembled an octopus’s tentacle more so than a man's penis.

Missy screamed as Jerome entered her love cave.  “Damn!” she cried.  “It is so huge!”

Within seconds he drove the tentacle deep into her vagina and ejaculated about a pint's worth of green jism.

“What the fuck!” Missy cried, as the green goo seeped out of her.  “I've got to clean this up!”

She retreated to the bathroom and began douching her vagina to get rid of the green substance.  Much like Jerome, she found herself growing more aroused as she tried to clean the goo. In only a matter of minutes, she was deep inside of an empty bathtub with feet hiked high, playing with herself.  She was like that for most of the night.

After twenty minutes or so, Jerome decided he was still horny and could no longer wait for Missy to come out of the bathroom.  In fact, he always wanted to give one of the prostitutes that hung out over in the Melas railroad district a try.

He ran into his bedroom, changed from his jeans to a pair of loose gym pants and headed out the door.  “Honey, I'll be back!” he yelled as the door flung shut behind him.  He didn't really care if she heard him or not.

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled his car up to a man standing inconspicuously near a street corner.  Jerome recognized the man as Owens, a local pimp whom he had seen from time to time in the hardware store.  “Owens!  How goes it, my man?”

“Yo, Homie, whatcha doin' over in this side of town this fine evening?” Owens asked.

“I need me some action, if you know what I mean,” Jerome replied.

“Yeah, I hear ya,” Owens replied.  “He leaned into the window and said in a hushed voice, “Gimmie fifty bucks, and I'll hook you up.”

Jerome quickly handed Owens three twenty-dollar bills and said, “Keep the change!”

Owens instructed Jerome to park the car in a nearby alley and come with him into an adjacent building.  Owens led Jerome to a door and motioned for him to go inside.

Inside was an attractive blonde about 5'7” in height, kind of skinny, but definitely fuckable.  Owens nodded to her and left the two alone.

“What's your pleasure,” the blonde asked as she helped Jerome out of his gym pants.

Her eyes got really big as she looked down at him.  “Boy, you’ve got a horse cock!  I don't know if I can handle that!”

By now, Jerome's tentacle cock had grown over two feet and was the size of a small baseball bat.  It was an accurate description that Blondie applied when she labelled what she saw as a 'horse cock.'

“I am so horny!”  Jerome exclaimed, moving towards the prostitute.

“Wait!”  Blondie protested.  “You gots to getcha a rubber on ya!” she said with a ghetto-like slang.

Suddenly, the two-foot tentacle sprung to life like an alien appendage and shoved its way towards Blondie's vagina, not waiting for her to find a condom.

“Stop!” she screamed, but it was too late.

The tentacle cock pulled Jerome across the room at lightening speed and plunged all two feet into the woman's vagina.

“Aaaah!” she yelled.  “Please, don't!”

Suddenly, the tentacle grew another two feet and Jerome pressed her arms down against the bed.  He thought he was going to black out, but the pleasure was just too good.  The tentacle continued to fuck her even without Jerome being consciously present.

As the whore screamed, her sounds were muted by the tentacle as it pushed completely through her organs and out her mouth.  It pulsated and erupted in an orgasm that shot the woman over five feet across the room, where she landed in a heap.  Green goo ran down her chin.

Owens, who had heard Blondie's first screams, entered the room just in time to see Blondie soaring through the air with Jerome in a half-standing posture with a tentacle cock whipping madly around in the air.

“You're killing my hoe!”  Owens screamed.  With a knee-jerk reaction, he pulled out a Glock 9mm and shot Jerome, killing him instantly.

Meanwhile, Missy had started to grow tentacles of her own, only hers were tinier and looked similar to the appendages on a jellyfish.  As she fingered her labia, the tentacles sent pulses of pleasure all over her body.

Suddenly, there was a knock on her door.  She covered herself the best she could in a nightgown and went to answer it.

On the other side of the door stood an Asian female.

“How may I help you?” Missy asked.

“My name is Mei-Lien,” the woman replied.  “I work at Sexco over in Parkersburg.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Missy asked.

“I'd like you to come and work for us,” Mei-Lien replied.

“In what capacity?”  Missy asked.

“We have hundreds of men wanting to fuck.  Would you like to fuck them?”

Missy grinned.  The tiny tentacles pulsated with shockwaves of pleasure at the thought.  Yes, she would like that very much.

The two headed into the night towards the other town.  When they arrived, the Asian showed Missy to a room with a hole in one side.

“See that?”  Mei-Lien asked, pointing to the orifice.

“Yes.”  Missy replied.

“Bend over and put your ass against the wall,” Mei-Lien commanded.

Missy did as she was told.

It was only a matter of minutes before she felt the first penis penetrate her from the other side.  The tentacles like this.  They liked it a lot.

Channel 666
By John Russo

Isn’t television a marvelous invention? It brings good news and bad news into our living rooms.  Some say it stimulates our imaginations.  Others say it pollutes our minds with images of sex and violence.  If you could step through your television screen the way Alice stepped through her magic mirror, would you be entering a land of wonder or a land of horror?

John A. Russo (born 1939), sometimes credited as Jack Russo or John Russo, is an American screenwriter and film director most commonly associated with the 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead. As a screenwriter, his credits include Night of the Living Dead, The Majorettes, Midnight, and Santa Claws. The latter two, he also directed.

He has performed small roles as an actor, most notably the first zombie who is stabbed in the head in Night of the Living Dead, as well as cameos in There's Always Vanilla, The Majorettes, and Santa Claws. John Russo is also the founder and one of the co-mentors along with Russell Streiner of the John Russo Movie Making Program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, Pennsylvania.

Thanks to the strange-looking converter box he got by mugging and robbing a strange-looking old man in an alley behind a video arcade, Spenser Katz’s TV was bringing in programs that nobody else could get.

The box was wireless; no cables connected it to Spenser’s TV.  It sat on top, glowing softly, pulling in fabulous shows. Spenser figured the shows must be beamed in by satellite from somewhere.

Funny thing, but all these great shows were hosted by the same creepy guy, a guy named Nasta.  He opened each show with a chuckle, saying, “Welcome to Doc Nasta’s Wacky Far-out Medicine Show!”

Nasta certainly looked like a snake-oil salesman.  He also bore a weird resemblance to the old man Spenser had mugged to get the converter box.  But uglier.  Much uglier. His face was bruised and burned, oozing yellowish fluids, the skin stretched tight, exposing teeth that grinned perpetually as if in rictus, under his black, heavily waxed mustache.

On one of his shows, Nasta said he was a serial killer who had died in the electric chair forty years ago, which couldn't be true because there he was on TV, live, not prerecorded. They certainly didn’t have these cool, far-out programs forty years ago - all they had was square, boring pap like AMERICAN BANDSTAND.

Last Saturday, Spenser had brought his friends, Gary Parsons and Elena Holmes, into his bedroom to show them some of the great stuff he’d been watching lately. But all he could get was static. The converter box perversely decided to go on the blink at exactly the wrong time, just to make him look like a fool or a liar. He blushed and stammered furiously in front of Elena because he had a mad crush on her even though she belonged to Gary:  they were engaged.

Spenser had trouble getting dates. He was gawky and shy in most situations. But underneath his shyness lurked a nasty, violent temper that he turned loose in dark alleys when he was mugging people like the old man with the converter box.

Because of the anger locked inside him, Spenser was addicted to MTV and its weird, angry, erotic imagery. He envied the rock stars, the rap stars, and pictured them in a constant orgiastic swirl with the voluptuous groupies who permeated the music videos with their red, sneering lips and pulsatingly perfect hips, breasts and thighs.

Spenser’s favorite rock group starred on Doctor Nasta’s Medicine Show, a group called Triple Six with a dynamite song called The Devil Made Me Do It to Ya. Spenser tried to tape Triple Six, but got nothing but static. He hunted for their stuff in music stores and video stores. He asked about the group, but nobody seemed to have heard of them.

He got mad at Gary and Elena when they told him there wasn’t any such group, maybe he dreamed it all up, including Doc Nasta and the Medicine Show. But Spenser knew he wasn’t going crazy. This shit was real, goddamn it, even if he couldn’t figure out why he could only tune in to the stuff that really turned him on when he was in his room all by himself.

One day Nasta read some of his fan mail out loud. Spenser didn’t know how people could be writing in, since he had never seen the station’s logo or address onscreen. The fan letters asked Nasta to satisfy various whims, urges and desires. Some wanted exotic vacations, some wanted expensive cars, others wanted jewelry or furs or love or sex.

Nasta gave out “prescriptions.” He told the people exactly what they must do in order to satisfy their wildest whims and urges. He prescribed sins for them to commit. Sometimes the sins were venial: little white lies or tiny acts of malice or spite. Other times they were mortal: rape, robbery, murder or worse. These sins had to be “taken” like doses of medicine.

Spenser figured it was all a gag. Nobody really wrote in. Doc Nasta just had a weird and maybe slightly evil sense of humor - because of whatever kind of accident that had caused his disfigurement. It certainly wasn’t an electric chair, or he’d be dead. Maybe he got burnt by a hot wire in his own basement. He was so ugly it was easy to see why he couldn’t get a job hosting a regular network show.

With a chuckle, Nasta announced that one of his fans had sent in a homemade videotape to prove that she had “followed doctor’s orders.” The tape looked amazingly real, but Spenser figured it for a fake. No way could anybody get away with showing such a thing on TV, even on a cable channel. Some fat guy in loud pajamas was being stabbed over and over by some skinny gray-haired old woman. The fat guy was groaning and screaming, blood flying all over the place, splashing the walls and soaking the mattress.

Triple Six started singing The Devil Made Me Do It to Ya, as the images got wilder, crazier, sexier. Spenser was riveted to the TV, horrified yet enthralled. Not only the band members but everybody in the music video began copulating with each other - right on the air!

Then Elena appeared on the screen, wearing something flimsily transparent. She smiled seductively, undulating to the beat of the music.

Spenser cried out her name, “Elena...Elena!”

She beckoned to him. He got to his feet.

He found himself in the TV screen. Suddenly, unaccountably, he was a part of the music video...the beat wilder, crazier...people copulating all around him.

They fell into each other’s arms, kissing passionately, their bodies writhing hotly together.

She pulled away. She kissed her fingertips and touched them to his lips.

Then Nasta’s voice intruded. “Spenser Katz?”

Spenser sat up in bed startled. He still had his clothes on. His forehead was beaded with sweat. He gawked and stared - Nasta had come into his room. Behind him the Triple Six video still blasted on the TV screen, its denizens continuing their orgy.

Nasta said, “Spenser Katz, you have just had a brief trip into my world, a special treat reserved for my disciples.”

“But I’m not one of them,” Spenser blurted.

“Not quite yet, for you have not fulfilled your initiation. But soon you shall do so. That is why I have allowed you to sample the delights that await you once you join my Medicine Show.”

“You’re kidding! This can’t be happening!”

“It can be, and it is. And now I have a prescription for you.”

“What... sort of... prescription?”

Nasta emitted a sly chuckle, his waxed mustache twitching, his face wounds oozing. “You want her badly, don’t you? Well, take my prescription, and she shall be yours.”

“Elena?” Spenser murmured incredulously.

“None other.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Kill her.”

“Never!”

“Oh, but you see,” Doc Nasta said soothingly, “in giving her the gift of death, you both shall become more alive. Both of you will join my show. Eternally you will feel and understand a level of ecstasy that is unknown to mortals.”

“ Who are you?” Spenser cried.

“Never mind,” said Nasta, and his oily laugh reverberated as he dematerialized on the TV screen and the screen rapidly dissolved into static.

The very next day, Spenser got Elena to come to his room by telling her he had gotten the box working.

It turned out to be true! The box was working!

Elena sat on the edge of the bed next to Spenser, her short skirt hiked up, her creamy thighs showing. He didn’t say, “See, I told ya, Doc Nasta is real,” he just smiled and smiled, watching her take it all in.

Nasta said, “A new disciple will join us today, along with his lady love. I have given him a prescription that he is bound to follow.”

Spenser got goosebumps, partly from fear of what he was about to do, and partly from the thrill of being mentioned on the television.

Triple Six blasted into the first chords of The Devil Made Me Do It to Ya.

Soon the orgy started.

Elena jumped up, covering her eyes, yelling, “Turn it off! Turn it off!”

Spenser pounced, seizing her throat and squeezing hard. She barely made a gurgle, but she pounded and scratched at him, her eyes bulging. He choked her harder. Her tongue came out between her perfect white teeth, oozing spittle and turning purple.

He kept choking even after she went totally limp and sagged at the ends of his achingly weary arms. Then at last he let her sink onto the bed, half on and half off, till she thudded to the floor.

He looked at the screen. Triple Six was blasting. The orgy was in full sway.

He looked at Elena’s dead body, shuddered, and closed his eyes.

Suddenly the music was surrounding them both and they were in the TV. He was more alive than he had ever felt. And Elena was alive, too - gorgeously and nakedly alive in his arms - and he reveled in an orgasm that overcame him, sweeping him to a pinnacle of erotic delight...

But something was wrong.

Elena’s skin was burnt and oozing like Nasta’s, peeling away from her face.

He touched his own face, which suddenly felt as if it was on fire, and a huge gob of burning, oozing flesh stuck to his hand. He stared at the gob, then frantically tried to paste it back where it belonged and pat it into place.

Elena laughed. Her breasts were flat and rotted, her abdomen split wide open, stinking of decay.

Nasta chuckled. Standing over Spenser, he said, “Welcome to the Medicine Show!”

He wished he would wake up. But he didn’t. And now he knew from where the show was broadcast. And he understood who Nasta really was.

Forever Ago Sunshine
By Wol-vriey

Always be sure to read what you’re signing.

Wol-vriey Jesuto is Nigerian and quite tall. He currently resides in a state of uneasy stalemate with his threatening-to-thin-beyond-redemption hair, and believes there actually are things that go bump in the night. As you will see in this tale, Wol-vriey recycles the ridiculous into reasonable reality for the reader.

His WEIRRRD fiction philosophy?  WEIRRRD = Warp/Write Everything into Realistic Ridiculous Readable Distorted Dream Dimension Descriptions.

A free PDF of his WEIRRRD book Invasion Of The Ass Chickens can be downloaded from his blog: oddityfarm.wordpress.com. A number of his other assaults on polite literature can be read online at newfleshmagazine.blogspot.com. He’s also the agent provocateur behind the band Rocksurface (www.myspace.com/rock.ng). His novel Vegan Zombie Apocalypse is available from Burning Bulb Publishing.

1.

You’re seated at the table, as always. There was once upon a time when you weren’t seated there, but that was forever ago--seems way back before you were born even.

You’re a prisoner. Your wrists are shackled to the table facing you, your ankles to the sides of your metal chair. Both table and chair are bolted to the floor.

Your right wrist shackle is separated from its table restraint by a foot of chain so you can move your hand to your mouth when you need to eat.

Seeing as you never alter your posture, you’re now adept at sleeping sitting upright.

You’ve just woken up.

The door opens and Ms. Sexy minces in, bearing her tray of medicines and breakfast. You look at her in learned apprehension, dread concerning what’s about to happen to you now. Again, for the nth time.

Ms. Sexy isn’t sexy in the least, you think, though her cute white nurse’s uniform is cut way too high for a nurse, its hem more than halfway up her thighs. In addition, and you think intentionally, she’s popped several buttons off its top, so she appears to be wearing a low-cut party dress. Her breasts are small, almost invisible, and her legs are scrawny, in addition to which, she has over-large feet.

Her face is passable, a handsome spinster’s--a wide fleshy mouth, small nose, calm blue eyes, and black hair done up in a bun.

She never wears makeup.

You like her bunned hair, but it doesn’t make Ms. Sexy any sexier.

You’ve always assumed that’s her name: ‘Ms. Sexy’ is what’s written on her white nametag.

“I’m the only game in town, as far as you’re concerned,” she says, answering your unvoiced question.

She walks over to your table, and puts down her tray. As usual breakfast is a bottle of cola and a Huckleberry Finn sandwich. You poke the Huck Finn with a finger, to make sure it’s dead. They played a trick on you once, serving you a doped Huck Finn which woke up screaming when you bit through its legs. Shit, you couldn’t eat anything for two days after that.

You satisfy yourself however that today’s Huck Finn is dead, and relax a little.

“So how do you feel today Andy?” Ms. Sexy asks with a professional smile.

Her smile creeps you out, her teeth are perfectly even, and her canines project just that bit too far down. You always have the feeling she’d love to bite a chunk out of you.

You don’t reply, rather point to your left forearm, from which a half-grown hairless rabbit projects. The result of yesterday’s shot.

Ms. Sexy smiles. “Oh, we’ll take that off tomorrow.  I know it hurts a little, but don’t worry Andy, I’ve got just the thing for you.”  She picks a large syringe full of green liquid off her tray and swabs your arm.

You look at her startled.  “What?”

“Just the next test.”

You slump back in your seat, already feeling unwell with a capital ‘U’ as the drug begins taking effect.

Ms. Sexy reaches below you and removes your chamber pot. She gives you a sponge bath, smiling with amusement at your wormlike penis. “So you still don’t find me attractive?  That’s a real shame: I’ve told you: I’m the only game in town.”

You make no response.

Ms. Sexy spits in your hair and rubs the spittle into shampoo lather on your scalp, working it into a foam, then she finishes your sponge bath.

She towels you dry, then after cleaning and disinfecting the underside of your chair, exits the room, taking the chamber pot with her.

She’s back in three minutes flat with a fresh commode, which she replaces beneath your seat.

“You’re nice and clean for today now,” she says. She pushes your breakfast tray at you, and then minces off again. “See you this evening.”

She always minces.

Once she’s gone, you stare at the overhead lamp in its metal bracket, and wish you’d never signed that damn petition.

***

“Please sir, can you spare a minute?”

The girl had been young and pretty, nothing like Ms. Sexy. You’d listened to her because you liked the sound of her voice, not because you cared about stopping animal lab testing, which was what she was proselytizing.

You’d signed the petition, appending your signature after that of a Mr. Lionel Jackson.

“Thanks sir,” she’d said when you handed her back her pen, her smile dissolving, and promptly walked off to proposition the next person.

Afterwards, you’d felt cheated by her attitude; there had been something professionally perfunctory about the way she’d broken off your brief social interaction, as though from the offset, all her friendliness had been camouflage, and she’d simply intended using you to achieve her own selfish ethical ends and discard you afterward.

Like a hooker who was only after you for your money, she’d romanced you for your signature and left. You’d felt dirty, like tissue must feel after its been used in the toilet.

Well screw her, you’d thought and promptly forgot both her and the lab animals she was campaigning for.

But you wouldn’t forget her for long. Signing that petition had been the biggest mistake you ever made in your life.

Its ‘substitution clause’ had read: ‘all signatories to this petition accept that they will be compulsorily used for laboratory and other miscellaneous experimental procedures, in place of all animals they succeed in freeing as a result of the success of this petition.’

No shit.

2.

You’re seated at the table, as always, remembering that series of distant yesterdays when you weren’t seated here, that forever ago sunshine.

Your skin has turned bright green from yesterday’s injections. You look like a plant mutation, the sort of ‘anti-radiation treatment’ example protesters show during campaigns against using irradiated seed. Your dinner tray reflection has blood red eyes, like those of a rabid wolf.

Yesterday’s rabbit had grown to full size now and hopped off your arm. It has skis in place of paws. It’s a major distraction to you, hop-sliding around the room in endless stop-start motion. The noise of its metal runners scraping over the floor is worse than fingernails on a blackboard.

You feel you’re about losing the little amount of your mind you’ve still got left.

“Shut the fuck up!” you yell at it. The hairless rabbit glares back at you. It bares its teeth and twitters. You’re startled--its teeth are sharp and pointy, those of a carnivore.

You resolve not to annoy it until Ms. Sexy comes.

To mollify it, you throw it the Huck Finn in last night’s leftover sandwich;  better it have your dinner,  than you for breakfast.

The rabbit makes the Huck Finn disappear with a rapidity you find sickeningly astounding. The dwarf is gone in three bites, only the rabbit’s blood-stained muzzle shows that anything out of the ordinary has happened. Its whiskers now look like the ‘positive’ wire in an electric cable.

The rabbit resumes skiing around the room. The grating noise gets so bad you start praying Ms. Sexy comes soon.

3.

“Oh, it’s so cute,” Ms. Sexy says, when she finally does come. “You too, your skin’s so . . . green . . . you’re like a begonia without the flowers.”

“It’s a carnivore,” you point out. “It ate my leftover Huckleberry Finn.”

“I’ll get you another,” she replies curtly, “and one for the cute bunny also.”

“It’s driving me up the wall with its skiing, take it away, will you?  Please?”

“ No--it has as much right to this room as you do. Relax will you!  At least you look like a  plant--it’s not going to try eating you. I’ll work something out.”

You concede defeat.

She removes this morning’s breakfast from the tray and sets it before you--Huck Finn sandwiches and cola as always. Then she picks up a syringe filled with a silver compound off the tray and says: “Please stick out your tongue.”

You refuse. She smiles evilly, then reaches between your legs with her left hand and grabs your testicles. She fondles them lovingly, savoring the pain she’s about to give you. “Now don’t be a prick Andy, stick out your tongue, or you know what I’ll do.”

You know what she’ll do, so you stick out your tongue and take your medicine--a spike deep into the meat of your tongue, which makes you think about death and dying.

“Good boy.”  Still holding the hypo, Ms. Sexy minces over to the rabbit. It waits for her, allows her to pick it up.  You see that she’s kept a little of the silver liquid in the syringe.

“Aren’t you supposed to be against animal testing?”

She ignores you. “And a little shot for the cute bunny too,” she says, stabbing it in its right ear.

The rabbit squeaks, but make no effort to escape. She puts it back on the floor, where it promptly falls asleep.

She bathes you and sanitizes you as usual, then leaves.

4.

The effects of the shot become evident the next time you relieve yourself in the floor pan beneath the table.

Your urine is silver in color and thickens into a stinky black sludge once it’s out of your body. You’re thankful the sludge isn’t moving--like it happened that time she gave you that red strawberry liquid to drink.

In addition your veins all turn silver, and your head aches like you’ve two separate migraines waging the headache world war for control of your pain centers.

Also, you seem to have developed a slight magnetic ability; the edge of your breakfast tray lifts above the table when you place your hand above it. You already know it’s nothing really useful--using the ability seems to amplify your already amplified dual migraines further, but maybe Ms. Sexy will be impressed.

The effects of the chemical on the rabbit, are much more mundane. It just sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, snoring like an overweight human being.

It snores so fucking loud, its nasal emissions sound like the Hollywood soundtrack to the migraine war in your head.

You start screaming at it to wake up and start skiing again.

5.

“We’re in luck,” Ms. Sexy says, when next she visits you. “I’ve been able to kill two birds with one stone.”

You’ve no idea what she’s tattling about, but you know it’s bad. It can’t be good; nothing has been good since you signed that damn petition and wound up here.

Your warring migraines have now declared a ceasefire, though you’re still peeing the same silver-urine-turning-to-black-sludge, and you’re still magnetic.

The rabbit is also awake again; it’s been skiing round your cell for the past two hours, a blur circle. Thankfully it both stopped and made itself scarce the moment Ms. Sexy arrived.

Ms. Sexy pokes her head outside for a moment. “You can come in now Marcie.”

Marcie’s here?  Shit, no!

The door opens wider behind Ms. Sexy and your wife Marcella walks in.

You gasp.

Her eyes are as vacant as a parking lot after closing hours. In addition, she’s been shaven bald and has a brown goat growing out of the left side of her head.

She’s also butt-naked, and has finally gotten the breast implants you always wanted her to. She’s now a 36C.

“Marcie,” you gasp, “are you okay?”  You already know this is the world’s most stupid question before you ask it: it’s obvious she’s not okay, not in the least bit.

In response, she bleats. Marcie bleats. You see her head-goat not-moving its mouth like a ventriloquist, and Marcie bleats.

She’s totally fucked-up. Even worse fucked-up than you are.

You lose it big time.

“What have you done to her, you psychotic bitch?” you scream at Ms. Sexy, your sanity beginning to fracture.

Concerned for your mental stability, Ms. Sexy brings you back to both docility and seamless sanity immediately, by reaching between your legs and squeezing your balls soprano-hard. Your growl dwindles to a comic-opera whimper.  “Now Andy, what have I taught you about using bad language?”

“I’m sorry Ms. Sexy,” you gasp/whimper/plead.

She smiles, lets go of your testicles. “Good boy.”  And my name’s not Sexy, it’s Lovely.”

You look at her like she’s joking, then you see her name tag’s been changed;  ‘Ms. Lovely’, it now reads.

“But your name’s always been ‘Sexy’,” you gasp.

She smiles at you. “No it hasn’t. I’ve always been this version of myself.”

You smile your best castrato smile, realizing you’re wrong after all--her name has always been Lovely, how in hell did you forget?

Your wife Marcie hasn’t moved since she’s entered the room. She just stands there, a Statue of Liberty expression on her face.

Ms. Lovely notices you looking at her. “I was saying I’ve killed two birds with one stone. But first I’ll explain. Just like you, she signed a ‘Stop Animal Testing’ petition.”

Shit, you think--how could Marcie have been so dumb?  Then you remember how easily you were taken in yourself, preyed on by that pretty girl with her toothpaste ad smile.

But that’s different, you reason; Marcie should have recognized her scam a mile off--women’s intuition, or just plain feminine suspicion of other females.

Whatever, you’re both equally fucked.

Ms. Lovely has stopped speaking so you could digest her bad news that your wife is no smarter than you are.  Now she continues:  “I thought it would be nice to put the two of you together. No sex is permitted, but it’s the thought that counts . . .”

“ You said two things,” you venture tentatively, certain you’re not going to like the other, “What’s the other?”

“Your wife can resolve your rodent trouble.”

This is obvious bullshit. How can fucked-up Marcie, with a goat growing out the side of her head, blank-eyed bleating Marcie, resolve anything?  You’re not sure she even has a personality anymore.

Ms. Lovely looks around for the skiing rabbit. The rabbit is now seated on its haunches in a corner, its fore-skis held up before its face as if it’s VERY scared of Ms. Lovely.

You think the rabbit is VERY smart to be VERY scared of Ms. Lovely.

“I’ve got a present for you cute bunny,” she calls to it. “I’ve got you your very own snow machine. Now you can ski all you want.”  She turns to Marcie: “Start snowing Marcie.”

You wait, unsure what will happen, and definitely aren’t expecting what does.

Marcie lifts both hands to her breasts and begins to squeeze them, like she always does when she comes when you give her cunnilingus. Clouds of fluffy white snowflakes spurt from her nipples.

Her face is as expressionless as a corpse’s. On Ms. Lovely’s command, she paces the cell, spraying a thick layer of white frost everywhere.

It takes the rabbit a while to cotton on to what the snow is for. Finally however, after Marcie’s third round, when the ice crystals are a foot deep, it takes its first tentative steps onto it. Soon it’s skiing like a pro, zipping around the room, between both Marcie’s and Ms. Lovely’s legs at speeds which make you dizzy to watch.

Thankfully, it no longer makes the horrible nails-on-blackboard noise.

“Okay Marcie, that’s enough for now.”  She points to a corner and Marcie marches into it and positions herself there, turning to stare blankly at you. “Top up the ice occasionally Marcie.”

Marcie bleats her response.

Ms. Lovely now attends to routine matters. She serves you your unvarying Huckleberry Finn sandwich and cola breakfast.

“What’s that?” you ask, pointing to a wrapped food pack which smells better than your sandwich. She unwraps it. “Roasted Tom Sawyers for the bunny.”

You stare at the cooked dwarfs hungrily. “May I please have one?--they look delicious.”

“ No, I said they’re the bunny’s--it needs to keep its strength up.”  She walks over and drops the package in the bunny’s favorite corner.

You know Ms. Lovely better than to ask her again. To get your own back at her you don’t tell her that the last shot made you magnetic.

When Ms. Lovely lifts and examines the contents of your chamber pot, you discover you were VERY wrong about its contents inertia. Your last poop is a copiously quivering silver jelly. When Ms. Lovely prods it with a fork, it opens a pair of cow-eyes and blinks at you both. You’re very traumatized by this.

“Nice, nice,” Ms. Lovely says as if vibrating silver poop with cow-eyes really is nice.

She cleans you off as usual, disinfects you, draws some blood from your silver veins into a syringe, gives you today’s shot, nods, and leaves with the blinking poop.

After she’s gone, you stare at Marcie for a long time, while she bleats back at you.

Suddenly, you can’t take this shit anymore and you burst into tears.

6.

This latest shot melts your brain. It mugs you with a psychic cosh. Everything becomes larger, more vivid, more intense.  You are suddenly able to interpret non-existent meanings.

Marcie is THE sex goddess, more beautiful and desirable than any woman should be legally permitted to be. You want to strip her skinless so she’ll be really naked, and then fuck her to death a million times over. You’ll incinerate the world in the blaze of your cumulative joint orgasms, and then you’ll both pee on the flames together to put them out.

Put out humanity’s fire with freezing golden showers.

The snow is COLD. You’re in a fridge shivering, and this motherfucking skiing rabbit will most definitely win the Olympic Slalom gold medal if it keeps with this current training routine.

Damn, this bunny’s good.

You pick up your sandwich, and take a bite, and yeeeeesssss, it’s the meal to end all meals. And even though Ms. Lovely’s tricked you again, slipping a doped and alive Huck Finn inside your bun instead of a cooked one, you don’t care, you eat that sucker, turning it round and biting its head off when it starts screaming. It tastes better than a roast Tom Sawyer or Mark Twain even.

You chew and chew on its tiny brain, crunching its bones, relishing both the taste and feel of blood-soggy bread between your lips.

Afterwards you see your reflection in the breakfast tray. There’s red dribbling down your chin. It matches your eyes. You dab it away with a crust of bread.

Sheeeiiit, now that was a meal.

The world is fucking fantastic. You feel like masturbating, but your wrist chain means your hand can’t reach your penis, so you simply shit and piss yourself instead.

After a while you calm down and watch Marcie walk round the room spraying a fresh layer of snow. You are now able to accurately count the number of snowflakes she’s ejecting from each nipple with each spurt, as well as correctly predict the number to come.

You’re certain Ms. Lovely, bless her ultra-sexy ass, will be really pleased.

7.

Tonight, you’re unable to sleep. The rabbit is still skiing maniacally around your cell, your wife Marcie still stands in her corner, spurting ice flakes from her breasts, squeezing them for all she’s worth.

You wonder if her head-goat is making her malfunction. It’s HUGE now.

The rabbit occasionally stops below Marcie to bask in the snow. It sits back on its haunches and bows to Marcie, letting her snowflakes pour over it, till it’s half-buried in them. You can see it clearly thinks she’s a goddess.

Though extremely grateful that the damn rabbit no longer makes noise while locomoting about, you’re growing more scared by the minute.

Then there’s a noise above you.

You look up, see a trapdoor has opened in the ceiling, a three-foot-square concrete flap dangles down, swinging delicately as though concrete is paper.

Through the flap you see a spaceship hovering above your cell. It’s a replica of those ‘golden age’ sci-fi movie ships--all brass and tin spheres and curlicues. A bright light shines out of its bottom.

A ladder descends through the light in the ship’s bottom. Four tiny figures descend the ladder, dropping into your cell.

They’re all totally clothed in white, and have totally white skin. In addition, they have long white beards and eyebrows, and look like wise gnomes without the wisdom.

They look so much like Huckleberry Finns or Tom Sawyers that you’re glad you’ve finished dinner before they arrived.

“Greetings Andy,” they say. “We’re the Great White Hunters from the planet Jazz . We’re here on a hunting expedition, collecting unique specimens from all over the universe.”

“Me?” you ask in horror, too scared to even wonder how they know your name.

“No, we’ve already caught enough green-skinned people. We’d considered taking you regardless, but your magnetic powers will screw up our starship’s steering mechanisms.”

He shrugs at you. “It’s your skiing rabbit we want. It’s a great curiosity to us. We’re sure it will be a major attraction in our zoo.”

“You’re welcome to it.”  You’re relieved--Ms. Lovely isn’t the only one able to kill two birds with one stone.

Three of the Great White Hunters stalk and corner the skiing rabbit in a corner of the cell, holding a table tennis net before it.

The rabbit leaps at them, decapitating one with its skis, using a kung fu move the likes of which you’ve never seen before. While it’s busy eating its victim, the other two wrap it up in the table tennis net, along with their dead comrade.  They drag the bunny across to their rope ladder and begin hooking it up.

The fourth Great White Hunter nods his approbation and returns his attention to you.

“That’s done. Also, we need to take its snow maker. Jazz is a very hot world.”

You stare at Marcie, now standing silent in her corner, her head-goat almost ready to drop off her. The goat is now precariously balanced on her head. It’s still attached to her skull by its rear hooves and will end up dangling upside down if it slips.

“No,” you say. “She stays.”

“Sorry Andy,  but she’s coming with us.”

“You can’t have her,” you scream. “She’s my wife!  Let her go!  Let Marcie GO!!”

You’re hoping your screaming will alert Ms. Lovely to your danger, but you know this is futile--Ms. Lovely has never responded to your shouting about anything. She probably thinks the last shot she gave you is taking effect.

“ The rabbit will be less of an attraction in our zoo if it cannot ski,” the little white man says amiably. “Therefore we  must have the snow machine woman. From what we’ve seen, Earth is half-full of women--marry another one.”

You stare in horror as they tie Marcie up in a sling and lift her up out through the ceiling-hole.  She bleats at you.

The last Great White Hunter ascends after her.

A few moments later, the rope ladder descends again, with a laden sling. The brown goat from Marcie’s head steps out of it and bleats at you.

A dread worse than any you’ve ever known falls on you through the ceiling along with the goat.

You throw it a bread bun, are relieved when it eats it. You both stare at each other. You’re inexplicably very scared of this innocuous-seeming animal, certain it’ll shortly morph into a T-Rex or demon or sabre-toothed goat and eat you.

Above, there’s the hum of engines. The brass-tin spaceship dwindles to a pinpoint in the night sky. The ceiling flap closes over its departure.

The goat lies on its side and chews the cud through the night hours. You don’t dare sleep. Whenever you look its way, you always find its yellow eyes fixed on you.

Scared out of your wit’s wits Andy, you pray for morning, pray for Ms. Lovely to quickly come give you your next shot.

It seems like forever ago since her comfortingly familiar evil presence was last here.

Honey-do
By Nikko Lee

The family that preys together stays together.

Nikko Lee is a scientific curator who enjoys writing paranormal fiction. She was born in Canada and moved to Bar Harbor, Maine, after completing a PhD in Zoology and post-doctoral training. Her erotic fiction is published under the pen name Nikko Lee, and she blogs at nikkolee.squarespace.com.

The warning siren droned in the background as Josh Connolly pulled up to the ten-foot, reinforced steel gates of Green Orchards. Three men in full-body Kevlar armor approached the leaf green Prius with measured steps, semi-automatic assault rifles locked on Josh. An unexpected sneeze was as likely to be met with a triple tap as a God-bless.

“Hey, Thompson,” Josh greeted the point guard with a familiar but slow wave. “Sounds like there's trouble by the river.”

“Another day, another killing rampage.” Corporal Steve Thompson's tone was friendly, but the assault rifle's red laser guide danced on Josh's forehead. “ID, arms, and trunk, Josh. You know the drill.”

Josh popped the trunk release then dangled his Green Orchards' residence identification badge out the car window. His sleeves were pulled back to show the unmarked skin of his arms. Another corporal aimed a square-nosed sensor at Josh's car while his eyes remained fixed on the read-out screen and the third checked the trunk.

“Heart rate elevated, but within normal parameters. Temperature normal. Infra-red scan normal.” The corporal didn't even look at Josh as he spoke. One reading out of range meant a strip-search for bite marks at best and a bullet through the brain at worst. “No sign of infection.”

“You going to Jim's for poker on Saturday?” Thompson asked as he peered into the car for his customary inspection.

Josh's briefcase and a grocery bag topped with a bouquet occupied the passenger seat.

“Only if I get June's honey-do list finished,” Josh replied with a semi-defeated shrug and pointed to the drop clothes piled in the back seat. “She's wants all the upper rooms repainted this weekend.”

“She's a real ball-buster, isn't she?” Corporal Thompson joked as he waved towards the tower ringed in tinted, bulletproof glass. “Open the gates.”

“Yeah, but I would be lost without her,” Josh said then he pulled away from the gate, slow and steady.

The gated community was nearly half an hour commute from his downtown firm, but it was the only place June would consider raising a family. Every house in the community was built according to one of three floor plans. Everything from the length of the grass in the front lawn to color-themed flowerbeds was regulated by Green Orchards' owners association. They kept the world within their guarded gates clean and polished no matter how messy the world outside got.

Josh waved to a neighbor who tended her red, white, and blue flowerbeds while her daughters played hopscotch in the driveway. She returned Josh's cheerful wave before turning her attention back to her garden.

Down the near identical streets, Josh drove until he spotted the red, white, and blue flowerbeds and perfectly manicured lawn June was so proud of. She had fallen in love with the gated community the first time she'd seen the brochure. It was a little out of their price range, but Josh could never deny her anything. All the late nights and weekends at the office had been worth it to give June the home she wanted to raise their children in.

“Honey, I'm home,” Josh called as he entered the house and locked the side door to the garage behind him.

The sea breeze blue house with a pristine white door was as quiet as a graveyard. He hung his coat in the front closet and exchanged his work shoes for the slippers June insisted he wear inside. Even though he rarely did more than venture from the house to his car to his office and back again, June didn't tolerate her floors and carpets being anything less than spotless.

In the kitchen, Josh's weekend honey-do list hung on the fridge written in June's flowing and looping letters. Regardless of how many hours he devoted to it, there was always some chore he needed to take care of. Not that he dared overlook a single item on it. There wasn't a speck of dust in the house or a dirty dish in the sink that escaped June's keen eye.

Josh didn't mind. June knew what she wanted and was never shy about getting it. When she had decided they should get married, he had been over the moon with joy. When she had told him that it was time to start a family, Josh had been more than happy to oblige her crazy ovulation schedule and the specialized positions that would have made a contortionist blush.

The far-off sounds of children laughing and birds chirping drifted in through the open windows.

“June, I have a surprise for you,” Josh called.

From the grocery bag, Josh picked up the bouquet of fresh cut daffodils and snowdrops. Their delicate, sweet scent reminded Josh of early spring evenings spent working the flower beds with June. Under the other arm, Josh clutched a wrapped parcel the size of a roast to his side as he turned the series of deadbolt locks on the basement door. When the last lock clicked open, the parcel slipped from his grasp and landed on the floor with a dull thud. Crimson liquid seeped through the waxy paper. Josh quickly scooped up the package before a single drop landed on the floor.

A blast of floral-scented hot air struck Josh as he opened the basement door and peered down the long staircase. Below him, only a flickering fluorescent bulb lit the basement. The creaking of the stairs beneath his weight was greeted by a soft, low moan. At the bottom, Josh's eyes focused on the canopy bed that June had spent months searching every specialty furniture store in the Twin City area for.

On top of the stripped mattress, June was splayed out. Her wrists and ankles chained to the bed frame. Josh drank in the sight of her.

June's body undulated like a dreaming snake, eyes half-open. Her tussled auburn hair tumbled around her face. Piercing green pupils rimmed in crimson were surrounded by a sea of red. The blood-sweat sheen on her ashen skin gave June an almost life-like appearance, and the heated basement always kept her flesh warm and pliant.

When she caught his scent, her undulations took on an urgent rhythm. Her eyes locked on the package he carried. Delicious, guttural moans bubbled from June's throat. Her whole body reacted to her hunger. Lips reddened. Nipples hardened. The soft skin of her inner thighs made a silky sound as she slid her legs together and apart. The mattress beneath her butt darkened from her growing wetness. June's hunger for living nourishment was insatiable. It consumed her body and mind until she became pure want.

At first, Josh had tried to sate her hunger with her favorite foods. They only reduced her to a howling, sobbing wreck. If she went without sustenance for too long, her body started to digest itself.  The only thing that satisfied her was meat, raw and as close to living as Josh could manage without presenting her with living prey. He had already decided he'd be willing to do that if it came to a choice between June and the life of another.

He placed the package on the dresser and replaced the withering flowers in the vase.

“How was your day, honey?” Josh asked. “I landed the Patterson account today. Don't worry, I already told them that I wouldn't work late nights. Family is my priority, and they respect that.”

Josh eyed June's ruby lips streaked with cuts from her incessant gnawing. Behind them were razor-sharp teeth that could strip flesh from bone in a matter of seconds. As much as he missed the feel of June's lips on his or her playful tongue dancing across his skin, Josh had learned to keep his distance from her mouth. June's tongue darted suggestively over her lips as if she could hear his thoughts. Although maybe she had spotted his thickening erection in his pants. June's hunger did something indescribable to Josh. He wanted to feed her, to protect her, to give her anything and everything she craved.

First, he needed to make sure she was clean and comfortable. June had always been meticulous about her appearance, and now it was up to Josh to care for her. She had already torn to shreds the clothes Josh had attempted to dress her. With the basement as hot as a sauna, she didn't need to wear anything to keep her warm. There was no one else to appear respectable for. June had once admitted to Josh on a hot summer night that she actually preferred the feel of air against her skin. Josh would wash June's body and keep her hair brushed. She would tolerate that much, if only because it brought him almost close enough for her to bite him.

“You are so beautiful.” Josh admired June's writhing body as he cleaned the blood-sweat from her brow.

The damp cloth cleaned her skin and drew a tremulous sigh from June. Her eyes were riveted on Josh's wrist, inches from her gaping mouth. A few near bites were enough to make him cautious about getting anywhere near that hungry mouth of hers. If anything happened to Josh, there would be no one to look after June.

“I hope you weren't too bored today.” Josh continued to recount the mundane details of his day as he washed her.

Josh dragged the cotton washcloth down the length of June's body, pausing only to rinse it in a basin of fresh water. The throbbing of his erection grew painful if he lingered too long on her supple breasts, lithe arms, or powerful thighs.

The gentle motions of the cloth on her skin seemed excite June. Her indecipherable moans and gurgles grew impatient with each stroke.

Setting the washcloth and basin on the dresser, Josh unwrapped the package he had picked up at the butcher's on his way home. Fresh meat drove June wild. It had taken Josh nearly a month to find a butcher that catered to his peculiar requests for meat killed while he waited. Josh never asked where the meat came from, and the butcher never asked whom it was for.

“Just a little something to tide you over until the main course,” Josh said as he sliced off a hunk of warm, marbled meat.

June lurched off the bed as far as her chains would allow. Her head strained at the sight of the meat. Blood ran from Josh's fingers and dripped into her waiting mouth. His heart broke at the need in June's fierce and frustrated cries even as his member stiffened at the knowledge that he could satisfy her. He knew exactly how to ease her hunger, and he had no intention of making her wait. He dropped the piece into her waiting mouth. June swallowed it whole. Delight shined in her crimson-rimmed eyes and it was breathtaking. Sometimes Josh was tempted to unchain her, and let June consume him whole.

“Are you ready for me?” Josh asked as he stroked her cheek.

He pulled his fingers away just in time to miss one of June's fatal love bites. Her desperate moans turned into a demanding and insisting groan. Josh stripped down until he was as bare as June. His erection arched towards his belly as he knelt between June's spread legs. Her swollen sex glistened in the fluorescent basement lights. The sight was enough to make Josh say a prayer of thanks for the beauty before him.

As Josh inched towards June, she lifted her hips to meet him. Her thighs spread and tightened in anticipation. Josh slipped inside her in a single thrust. Her hungry sex tightened around his cock and milked it as he attempted to pull back for the next thrust. He always tried to start slow. The first time, June had been so hungry for him that she had brought him to release upon the first penetration. Josh was always conscientious about his lovemaking and wanted to make sure she was as satisfied as he knew he would be.

June's hips swiveled wildly as he struggled to hold on. His hands locked onto her hipbones. Her sex suckled his cock by rhythmically contracting around it. Her frenetic bucking was wild and uncontrolled. He tried to hold back and make it last as long as he could manage for her. But what June wanted more than anything was the living fluid that accompanied his release. It fed her hunger just as well as the freshest meat.

“June, I'm going to come,” Josh warned his wife. Her eyes glistened with a need that urged him to abandon his last strand of self-control.

The slick slapping sound of their bodies merging filled the basement, but all Josh could hear were June's undead moans and his erratic grunts. When his eyes opened, he marveled at the change in his wife. A peaceful look of satisfaction replaced her pinched and starved expression. The frenetic want of her body settled into a stillness that assured Josh that he was doing what was best for June.

Josh supported his weight on rigid arms. He had to resist the urge to lie down beside her and melt his body to hers. June had nearly ripped out his jugular the last time he had tried to rest his head on her chest. Before long he pulled out and replaced the water in the basin. Most evenings Josh spent caring for June and doing the chores on the last honey-do list she had made before she had been infected.

“I have one more surprise for you, my dear.” Josh smiled as he spoke. He would do whatever it took to hold on to some semblance of the life he once had. “I'll be right back.”

With a sheet draped over June's calm body, Josh dressed in his clothes and headed back upstairs. Josh returned to the basement with a small, limp body in his arms. The tranquilized boy let out a soft moan as he started to come around. Josh set him down on a chair ten feet from June's bed. Her eyes were riveted on the boy while Josh locked a shackle around the boy's ankle.

“June, you remember Billy?” Josh asked as he checked the other end of the chain fixed to the wall with an iron bolt. “Eric and Tina's son? You met him at the company party last summer.”

A gargling sound burbled from June's throat. Josh couldn't tell if June remembered the boy or not. He had hardly recognized Billy when he had first spotted him at Eric's abandoned house. Josh had gone to check on Eric when he hadn't been to work in a week, and no one had heard from him. Josh had found two bodies ripped to shreds and the five year old boy huddled behind the sofa. It was hard to tell how long the boy had been on his own, but he was as dirty as the torn clothes he wore. Everyone would assume that the boy had shared his parent's fate or worse. No one would be looking for him. This was his chance to give June what she truly wanted.

“Time to wake up, Billy.” Josh shook the boy gently by the shoulders until his eyes fluttered open. “There's someone very special that I want you to meet.”

The boy's mouth opened and an ear-piercing scream erupted from his small lungs.

Josh scrambled backwards as the boy raged towards him. Billy didn't stop until the chain attached to his foot reached its full length. The boy's momentum jerked him backwards to the ground, but he didn't stay there for long. Billy jumped to his feet and lunged again.

“He's going to take some looking after,” Josh said to June.

They finally had the family that June had always wanted.

Every Bite
By Matthew Smallwood

Chef Hoy goes the extra mile to see that your dish is seasoned just right.

Matthew Smallwood is a native of West Virginia and a graduate of Buckhannon Upshur High School where he majored in lunch. He has worked for West Virginia Radio Corporation writing ad copy and has spent some time as a pro-wrestler and a correctional officer.

When not sleeping he writes and occasionally works but not very hard. Matthew is a fan of most fantasy and horror books and is working on a novel about the mountain state.

Apple pie, peach cobbler and Bavarian crème... Had he forgot any? Yes, strawberry. It slipped his mind because it was seasonal. “What’s happening to me,” he thought. In ten years of waiting tables he’d never forgotten a special, never stumbled when someone asked about the wine selection.

“But why today?”

“---Hey, Hoy, this is my steak here…since when do we top it with raspberry sauce?” Courtney was the newest server. She was young and pretty and stacked in all the right places. It was simply a matter of time before the new owner was giving her what he called ‘the chef’s selection’ in the freezer. Hoy didn’t turn around; he didn’t say anything. It was loud in the kitchen - too many plates rattling.

Effram the dishwasher had his radio cranked on as high as it would go, filling the kitchen with Spanish rock and roll. Back when Hoy was a server, the chef ruled the kitchen. But anymore, he felt like he was second in command to the screeching guitars and snare drums. When Hoy was a lonely grunt waiting tables, there was a rule about no radios in the kitchen or the dish room, but somewhere along the way the rules stopped being important.

As the leader of the kitchen, Hoy blamed himself. His grandmother said, “God made men strong because they have to be able to lift the burden He sets upon them.” Hoy always felt his burden was a boulder among pebbles, but so is the way of things. He also thought the new owner pranced around like a butterfly among bees.

Twelve-ounce steak, charbroiled chicken, creamy shrimp Alfredo…no ma’m, no artificial thickeners - our Alfredo sauce is made from scratch.

“Where am I?”

The room was darker - less bright. The color was fading like a red shirt machined washed to a dull pink. The sound carried all wrong - too much volume. Things were too loud.

“What’s wrong with me?”

Cholesterol-friendly omelets, blueberry pancakes, and buttermilk biscuits with homemade apple butter – you also get a choice of either sausage or bacon. You see it costs more, because of our guarantee that the meat is one hundred percent hormone and steroid free. We don’t like to brag, but you can trace the pig farm where we get our bacon all the way back to the Mayflower. That’s right, the ship with the pilgrims.

“Hoy, my main man, I’m going to step out for a smoke. You holler if you need anything okay?” Hoy set the cleaver down and gave Effram the thumbs up. “Hot in the dish room (whew!), like an oven. Hoy, what you think of that Courtney? Pretty senorita. And that Coolo?” Effram whistled and then he was gone.

Hoy’s leg hurt, the room spun, and somewhere someone was laughing. It was hot, but he was shivering; and he thought he could see his breath. Hoy worried he was going to faint. Years ago when he was still taking culinary classes all day and waiting tables at night, he used to have dizzy spells. The doctor said it was stress and told him to relax. Easy to say, like telling the guy stuck on a roof not to look down. But gradually the spells passed, and after he became a chef they vanished all together - or so he thought, but it would seem they’d only gone dormant.

Lamb curry, veal cutlets in a light spinach sauce, swordfish and three-bean soup…Napoleon buried his son in a dress. Liars go to heaven ‘cause hell hates the truth. It shouldn’t make sense, but it does - perfectly clear.

There was blood and bone-gristle on the cutting board, and a bloody stump where his thumb should have been. He saw a trail of droplets and a red smear on the blender lid. Without a second thought, Hoy hit the puree button and watched what was left of his thumb dissolve into a gooey liquid mush.

As a boy, he would fall asleep watching the flames leap around his grandfather’s fireplace. Staring at the shapes in the flames soothed him like a lullaby or a nightlight. He was thinking of the fire and the smell of his grandfather’s cologne when he clicked off the blender and poured the contents into the tomato bisque. Hoy stirred it with his good hand and tasted it to make sure it hadn’t been over-flavored. Success! The flavor was perfect. He added a dab of cooking salt and brought the cleaver down on his index finger, or what his teachers in culinary school called his pointing finger. Surprisingly, there was very little blood and no pain. There was a heat, which was something he didn’t expect. Wasn’t blood loss supposed to make your body temperature go down? Hoy was anything but cold. It felt like his stomach had turned into an oven running on high. He knocked off the tip of his already severed finger, leaving it in two meaty hunks - one with a fingernail and one without. The clean part went into the cake batter for the evening dessert and the rest went into the disposal.

Pulled pork with apricot dressing, Mediterranean pizza and stuffed green pepper soup… He forgot dates and couldn’t remember how many miles before an oil change, but the specials were always right there. Temperature, recipes, and what was going bad, these he never forgot.

A server came in, muttering under her breath. She grabbed a bottle opener and left without sparing him a single glance. Hoy flicked his hand toward her back, splattering blood across the kitchen door.

He preheated the oven to four-fifty and greased a baking pan, while servers came and went - some of them speaking to him; some of them not. A cook is only as good as his ingredients, and taste is never something you want to sacrifice. True flavor knows nothing of compromise. While waiting for the oven to heat up, Hoy stepped into the freezer and pissed on the most expensive cuts of meat. He smeared blood on the wall and was admiring his work when he heard the oven’s timer go off. Everything was almost ready.

Ingredients - it’s all about using the best to assault the taste buds.

Passion goes into each dish. Every order is a torrid affair where nothing but the best will be tolerated. It can be infuriating to find yourself failing after trying so hard, but it really drove him to madness to see a customer shamelessly give up at the table. Before taking a single bite, they heap on the salt. They complain until the server brings out some hot sauce (which no self-respecting restaurant should have). And then, after all these injustices, they scrape off the garnish and leave a pile of veggies on the plate, just to shovel the food in without enjoying it. Pigs eat slop much the same way.

Hoy wanted to go out there and tell them there are no accidents. He could sit across the table and relieve them of their knife and fork. If they didn’t want to listen to what he had to say, then they could use their hands and eat like animals. He would pull their head up from the garlic potatoes and tell them everything is on that plate for a reason. The taste of tomato is there because it brings out the fullness of the meat. It’s a delicate balance, worthy of appreciation - not something to be torn to pieces. You can pick an onion off a fast food burger, but you don’t, and he would repeat himself here, “You don’t eat around the mushrooms when you come to my kitchen!” Would they take the overtures out of Beethoven’s fifth?

Hoy took a steak knife out of the dish tub and, with a firm grip on the handle, he drug it across his belly. The blade was dull and the cut barely broke the skin, but it was satisfying nonetheless. He did this with every knife in the tub. By the end, his stomach looked like a spider’s web of red slashes - most of them still dripping blood.

All together kiddies: how can disease get spread? Come on, don’t be shy... “Through blood,” Hoy said to the empty kitchen. “Through blood, and not washing your hands.” He spit on all the forks and put the spoons down his pants.

“From under cheese,” he said. It was the idea of cheese that made him cuss. “Shit.” He’d forgotten about the oven. A slip of the memory, even for a few seconds, and you could pull out a tray of burnt cornbread or smoldering piles of bones that use to be fish.

Baked ham smothered with brown sugar, fried clams (seasonal) with potato cakes and pineapple upside down cake.

Hoy had a cyst just above his belt line. It was as big as the eraser on a pencil and bothered him a great deal. A knot of flesh serving no purpose but to embarrass him - could even kill him if the news was to be believed. It only took a second to separate him from the cyst. With barely a flick of his wrist, the fleshy bump was in the pan already lost among the cloves of garlic and bay leaves. There was blood - more than he would have ever imagined. He felt his underwear filling up with it. He tried to ignore the pain, but the blood was running down his leg. His white pants were turning red.

Hoy prided himself for having the steady hands of a surgeon, but now they shook and had no strength or dexterity. He took a deep breath and tried to relax, but his good hand wouldn’t stop shaking. He was tired and his legs were screaming for him to sit down. Hoy cut a long slash down each calf and dropped the knife into the kitchen sink. He’d need something else for the larger chunks.

Cibatta bread with avocado spread, shepherd’s pie drizzled in pepper gravy with peach pit soup and Boston cream cake made with pure unbleached flour.

If my mother is related to your brother’s uncle, but not your dad, then what is she? Eat is the only English word that can form the past tense of itself by moving the first letter to the end of the word.

Hoy helped himself to a long draw from the cooking wine. It was like drinking oil, but he hoped the alcohol would steady his nerves and his good hand.

“---Of a bitch,” one of the servers said. It had to be the new girl, because the others knew how Hoy felt about swearing in the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder, hoping to see her leaving, but she stood on the other side of the large cooking table, her face nearly hidden by stacks of plates, pots and pans.

“What’s all over the door?” she asked. “It looks like blood. Did you cut yourself? Not very sanitary.”

Hoy kept his back to her, using his good hand to hold the other one against his chest.

“Did you need something?” He wondered if she’d hear the trembling in his voice.

“Counseling!” she shouted, and then she giggled and dropped her voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. It’s just that guy; he’s a real a real…a-hole.”

Hoy said nothing. He put the cutting board in the kitchen sink and rinsed it off with cold water. Courtney was still standing there looking at him through a window of plates and breadbaskets.

“Hoy, this guy’s complaining about the steak I took out. He says he ordered it well done and it was still bloody. Don’t get mad, but he wants you to cook him a new one.”

Hoy froze. His entire body went rigid. He turned off the water and cocked his head so she could hear him. “What did he do with the other one?”

“He ate it,” she said. “He ate every bite and he didn’t complain till I brought him the bill. He’s talked to the hostess and refused to pay until we do something to make it right.”

“What can we do?” Hoy asked, his lips moving just enough for the question to come out.

“I just can’t face that jerk again,” Courtney said, covering her face with her hands. “Hoy could you talk to him…?”

“Every bite,” Hoy muttered, moving his hand across the knife rack till he found the cleaver.

“Hoy?” Her voice sounded weak and maybe scared.

He grabbed the cleaver and spun around trying to point at her with a bloody stump. “Tell him I’ll be right out.”

Courtney’s eyes took in everything and she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Her mouth kept moving, but nothing escaped except a weak cry.

“Never mind,” Hoy said, taking a practice swing with the cleaver. “I’ll tell him myself.” His head still shook, but he wasn’t complaining. All you need in life is a good eye, the right tool and, of course, the perfect ingredients.

Nothing Really Satisfies
By Kelly R. Martin

Some addictions you just can’t shake.

Kelly R. Martin lives and works a day job for the US Government in West Virginia, USA. His night job is as the owner (and sole employee) of Myth/Logic Press (www.mythlogicpress.com). His published works at the time of this writing are The Lucky Cricket Tales from the Reading Dragon Inn Book 1 and Thomas the Poisoner Tales from the Reading Dragon Inn Book 2. He is working on the third book of this series.

It’s early morning as I pull my car away from the drive through window. I've got a cup of black coffee in one hand, and a breakfast sandwich in my lap. I take a sip of the still too hot coffee and think this is good. This was what I had been wanting since I woke up this morning. This would satisfy my desire.

I pull into work at the free clinic. There is a line of people already waiting by the front door. Some of them just poor, many of them junkies, and even a few of them crazies who live on the streets. Welcome to the world of socialized health care, now hurry up and wait. As I step out of my car and approach the employee only side entrance I see what looks like a junkie approaching me.

I move a little faster, and he does too. I think, “Shit, not again,” as I make a run for the door. Another robbery attempt, or possibly worse – it could be a hopped up crazy looking for a fix. The junkie collides into me just as I hit the entry buzzer at the door. I push us both away from the side of the building, and we both start struggling and screaming as we roll around on the ground.

The crazy son-of-a-bitch bites me in the right forearm even drawing blood. I punch and pound him while yelling and screaming. I fight for all I'm worth, but he's clearly hopped up on something, crazy strong, and not feeling any pain at the moment.

Then I feel the unpleasant jolt of forty two thousand volts coursing through the crazy junkie's body and into mine. I spasm in the pain of unwillingly contracted muscles.

Phil the security guard from the clinic comes up with a look of regret plainly in his eyes, “Sorry about that Bob. You know how these junkies are, you just can't fight them one on one. You should be able to walk in a couple of minutes. The police should be here soon. Let me get some twist ties on this twist.”

Later that morning I'm still sitting down at the local precinct looking into the beady eyes of the detective in the interview room. I'm hating being in this place again. It's nothing but unpleasant memories after all. The detective has a look like he knows I just have to be lying to him.

“Look that guy just came and jumped me. He's a junkie hopped up on who knows what kind of shit. I don't know why you think I can tell you anything more.”

The detective has a little sneer, “Why are you working at the free clinic Robert?”

I look up at him, “You know I've got a record. What other kind of job do you think I can get? It's only shit jobs like the free clinic out there for a guy with a record you know.”

The detective shakes his head, “How do we know you weren't dealing?”

I look down at the table, “You know I've never done that right? They won't let me anywhere near the methadone anyway. It's too tightly controlled. I just mop the floors and clean the toilets for junkies and crazies all day. That's all.”

The detective looks at me, “Isn't it a condition of your release that you stay away from the criminal element?”

I get angry, “Go fuck yourself. You damn well know by now that my parole officer got me that job. I don't like the fucking junkies or crazies any better than you do.”

The detective's brows bunch together, “We all know what you like, don't we creep? I'd rather deal with junkies than sickos like you. They're just pathetic, you're something else.”

I glare at him, “Unless you've got some reason to hold me, we're done here.”

The detective gets a wicked cop grin on his smug cop face, “That arm looks pretty bad, possibly infected. You might want to get that looked at. Try the free clinic if you can't afford a hospital.”

I stand up to leave as he says, “Don't forget to report to your parole officer first.”

***

Early that afternoon I'm sitting in my parole officer's shitty office in the shitty building in the shitty part of town. I can tell by looking at him that he's hating his shitty job, and hating to see my face once again two weeks early for our regular appointment. I try my best sheepish look.

“You know I wasn't part of this mess right? I'm just the victim here.”

John blows smoke in my direction, “Yah, you're all just a bunch of victims here. Look son, I haven't got time for this bull shit. Were you dealing?”

“You know I don't deal.”

John gives me a skeptical look, “All I know is that you've never been caught.”

“Then why am I here then if I'm so damn careful?”

John nods, “That's true. You're a disorganized fuck when it comes to that. Nothing but chasing that monkey on your mind huh?”

“I take my meds like I'm told by the docs. I haven't offended for four years. Four years of monthly check-ins with no problems. Four years of that shit hole free clinic, and being robbed or assaulted twice now.”

John took a long drag on his cigarette and blew out the smoke again, “Four years of satisfactory work reports without any significant complaints. I'll read the police report when it's done, but I don't see any problem here. Now get out and tell the next sad motherfucker outside to come in here to tell me his sob story.”

Later that afternoon I'm sitting in the corner bar three blocks down from my house. It's the only bar I can go to because it's a close enough walk. I don't want the fucking pigs having any excuse to pick me up on a “driving while” charge. The place is a hole half filled with other pathetic losers, all regulars, but it's where I can get a cool beer to calm my nerves.

What a fuck awful day. The three things I hate the most: fights, cops, and my asshole chain-smoking parole officer all in one day. I wave the bartender to send another beer over my way and look at the fellow patrons. The usual old whores and hardcore alcoholics. Pickled livers in plenty. My arm is beginning to ache like a screaming banshee. That fucking hopped up junkie. I hope he's feeling worse than me wracked with withdrawal symptoms.

I pull my med bottle out of the jacket pocket and pop a little pill in my mouth as I take it down with my beer. The bottle label says not to mix with alcohol because it may cause drowsiness. Fuck that noise, it's only three blocks back home, and I'm not driving.

The old jukebox which still plays forty-five RPM singles kicks in with some music in the corner. It's some old Rolling Stones tune, but I can't quite remember the name. The song gets to the chorus before I recall it's Satisfaction or something like that. Well the song is right about that, this beer is satisfying shit about now.

***

Early that evening I stagger into my living room feeling like twenty pounds of wet concrete has been dropped over me. I think back to my pill bottle label. Fuck, they weren't kidding about mixing this shit with alcohol. My arm is throbbing and sore, my stomach is roiling with nausea. I push for the kitchen and toss out the contents of my stomach in a mighty heave into the sink. I turn the water on, to rinse out the sink, and another wave of powerful nausea hits. Fuck, it’s going to be one of those evenings.

I wait a while dry heaving for a period before the nausea subsides. I've never used but I have a suspicion that this is what severe withdrawal must be like for a heroin junkie. Fuck, that junkie motherfucker must have had raw heroin on his teeth or shit. I'm coming down pretty hard. No wonder the cops thought I was dealing or something. I must have been already pretty high or something without realizing it.

My body is starting to cramp up in a painful manner. I look out the kitchen window across at the neighbor's house. Sally lives there. Sweet Sally as I think of her. Innocent, pretty Sally, just starting out on her own. On her own and all alone. The nausea hits again, and all thoughts of Sally flee my consciousness. There's nothing left to vacate from my stomach, so I grab the small garbage can and move back to the living room to lie down on the couch a bit.

Later that evening I wake in a chill sweat. My breathing is labored, and every nerve is singing a chorus of agony. How do junkies ever use knowing this is what is waiting in the wings? I wish Phil had shot that fucker in the head.  I feel like I could be dying. My heartbeat is irregular, and my muscles are weak.

I frantically think about what to do. If I call emergency then the police will respond, then they'll insist on testing me for drugs. Fuck I don't even use. Fucking asshole junkie. What did you do to me?  Ride it out or jail? Not just jail, but likely prison too once John gets his teeth into me. Fuck, I don't want to die. Even jail is better than dying.

I try to rise from the couch and tumble gracelessly onto the floor dumping over my empty kitchen garbage can where I left it next to the couch. I start crawling painfully over to where the kitchen phone is hanging on the wall.

***

The next morning I'm still lying on my living room floor. I'm somewhat stiff and sore from the night before. I momentarily fear the withdrawal sickness is stronger now than it has ever been. Yet I'm not quite as much in pain than I was half expecting though. I tentatively raise my head and shoulders up off the carpeting. No dizziness and better yet no nausea anymore. Maybe just maybe the withdrawal sickness has retreated some. I struggle to awkwardly rise looking out the window at the sun rising toward the East.

Then the desire strikes me. That hard to reach itch, that want, that need, that craving. Knowing I just can't get me no satisfaction. I lurch over toward my kitchen and start randomly peering into the cupboards and refrigerator even though I know what I hunger for isn't there. I hold out hope anyway since I've got nothing better to do at the moment.

I catch a glimpse of movement through the kitchen window. Someone walking past the window in the house across the way. Sally's house. Sweet, sweet Sally. She's got just what I want. I smack, smack, smack my lips in anticipation as the stirrings of excitement begin. I just want some girly action.

I shuffle over to my kitchen door, and I fumble with the handle. The sickness has left me uncoordinated, and even something as easy as opening a door becomes difficult. I try. I try. I try try try try try. The door handle finally gives in to my persistent attempts and the door opens for me.

I think back trying to remember the number of times I've warned Sally. Sally still doesn't lock her back door no matter how often I've told her about the junkies, and worse, who live in this neighborhood. Sally's still young, and sweet, and unspoiled. She just doesn't understand. She's got just what I want.

I walk the short distance across my back yard into her back yard. I approach her door, and struggle to think about how I'm going to do this. I move as slowly as I can, and my hands obey me without too much shaking. I manage to turn her doorknob on the first try. Good Sally always reliable, still not locking your back door I see. Let me just come in to borrow that cup of sugar I need.

I step into her kitchen and everything is clean. I can smell baking muffins in the oven, but they aren't what I'm hungry for now. Sally has what I want. I can see her round the corner from the hallway and looking at me – a moment of shock and confusion. I don't belong there, and her mind hasn't caught up to the disconnect yet.

“Bob? What's going on?  You look unwell. Is something wrong?”

I rush her. I press my forearm savagely against Sally's throat as we tumble in a tangle on her kitchen linoleum. Sally screams weakly through the pressure I'm placing on her neck. I tug and I pull viciously until I get the restraining cover out of the way. Sally's sweetness is revealed before my eyes.  Sally stops struggling and I know she has accepted what is to happen now.

I grunt and moan as I satisfy my unquenchable craving. I think to myself as I look down into her emptied skull for any remaining morsels, licking blood from my lips, that nothing really satisfies quite like, “Brrraaains!”

Decorations
By Nelson W. Pyles

It’s just not a family Christmas Tree unless everyone joins in on the decorating.

Nelson W. Pyles was born and raised in New Jersey.  He currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA where in addition to being an author, he is also a performing musician.  He just completed his first novel and is working on his second album.   You can find more information about Nelson at www.nelsonwpyles.com.

Riley walked out of her kitchen and into the living room. There was a small tree with lights and tinsel. No ornaments – she hated them in spite of the urgings of her boyfriend to at least have a star on the top.

“It’ll just look better, baby.” He said that every year. Of course, what he usually said was much worse. Things that were terrible and demeaning. The worst thing he said though, next to “You know I love you,” was the bigger lie.

“I won’t hit you anymore.”

That hurt worse than the actual hitting, because she knew it wasn’t true. Of course she’d get hit again. Worse than the last time. It was always the case. But she never, ever bent on the tree. It was the one thing that was hers and hers alone. Once a year she decorated it as she saw fit – lights and tinsel. Period.

But this year would be different.

She was wearing an apron and thick black rubber gloves. The floor around the Christmas tree was lined with plastic.

It had been six years since she first met Parker. He was handsome and funny.  And, oh Christ, he was charming. She had never gone to bed with someone after knowing them only a few hours, but Parker was different. There was a connection – an almost instant attraction that she’d never had before, and she knew, he was it for her.

Four months in, he had hit her for the first time. Not a slap, but a punch, right in the stomach. She crumpled instantly – she was a very petite girl and Parker was over six foot three. He had played football in college (a lie, she later discovered) and had kept his physique. Riley had spilled a glass of wine on his white canvas hi top sneakers and he had gone through the roof.

“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry,” she had said as the rich, merlot covered his left shoe.  Parker’s face distorted into a knot of fury and punched her as she stood up to get a rag to start the clean up.

“Sorry,” he said sarcastically. “There, does that make it all better?  Look at my fucking sneaker!”

From that moment on, she told herself that it was a fluke – they had been drinking, and well, she needed to be careful. Every punch since then, she had gone down the list of excuses for him because as much as she feared him, she loved him. She was still attracted to him.  Still wanted him. He was the one and only after all.

And then, when enough had been enough, she realized she didn’t love him. She hated herself for staying and had told him she was leaving. When she woke up in the hospital a week later and opted to not press charges, she began to formulate her plan.

She had seen him cry after that one.

“Oh baby,” he sobbed. “Never ever again. You’ll see. I love you so much. I don’t know why I do it…”

She lay in bed looking at him and she kind of liked watching him cry. She knew it was the same old lines. The same old bullshit. She knew what she had to do, but needed to wait for a sign, and then, right after Thanksgiving, she knew.

The tree went up the day after. The smell of turkey and bread hung in the air like a cloud. It was eight thirty in the morning when Parker came down stairs and saw the tree as Riley threw on the last bit of tinsel.

“Another boring ass tree huh?”  he asked. “Just try a fucking ball or a star. It’ll just look better.” And then he slumped off into the kitchen.

And now, it was Christmas Eve. They had blown off all invitations for a surprise Riley said she had for Parker. She’d been working on it all day, so he should go out for a few hours.  She smiled at him and he left without a word.

She was ready. Riley turned the tree lights on and waited patiently for Parker to come home. Hopefully, he’d be home before Midnight, and he did not disappoint.

She heard the car door slam and she sprang to life. Darting into the kitchen, she hid behind the door that led to the basement. Most of the lights were off, and the only lights in the front of the house were the tree lights. She smiled.

The door was flung open and quickly slammed behind him.

“Fuckin’ cold,” muttered Parker. He was drunk. Perfect.

“In here, babe.” Riley cooed and coiled herself.

“Got anything to drink?” he asked as he lumbered toward the kitchen. He walked in and turned the light on. He had a full three seconds to register that everything was covered in plastic – the stove, the counters, the floor – even the little swinging tail cat clock.  He was about to speak, when Riley exploded from the basement door and caught Parker behind his right ear with a swing from a pipe wrench. He fell sideways and landed hard on the floor. She looked and saw no blood. He was out. She put the wrench on the plastic covered counter and got to work.

As Parker came around, he experienced several things at once. The first thing he noticed was that his head hurt very badly of course. The next was that “Holly Jolly Christmas” was skipping on the CD player that ran through several speakers all though the house. It was stuck on the “Somebody waits for you, kiss her once for me” line of the song, except it was only saying “Somebody waits for you, kiss…” over and over.

Then the pain from his hands came next. And, oh Christ, his legs. He was still on his back from the fall. He’d have to think about quitting drinking he thought as he tried to stand. He couldn’t move. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was still on the floor of the kitchen and the lights were really bright.

“Babe,” he croaked, “Baby, I fell.  I don’t feel…” He turned his head and started to vomit. He opened his eyes and blinked after he’d finished and saw the cabinet under the sink. It had red lines running down both doors.

“What’s that?” Riley called from the other room? She padded brightly to the doorway to the kitchen. He moved his head up and saw her there in her apron and gloves.  She was holding something wet.

“I think I fell…and I just yacked,”  he said.

“You did yack and you didn’t fall. Just relax for a minute. Kay?” And she went back to whatever it was she was doing.

Parker started getting angry despite the pain. He was going to yell, but he was sweating. He reached up to rub his forehead and saw that there was a thick rubber tube like they have in hospitals tied around his elbow. The rest of his arm was missing. His eyes went wide. He lifted his other arm and saw a similar scene.

“What the…” he started to say and threw up again. He spat and tried to sit up using his legs. He looked down and saw that the same thing had happened to his legs. His head dropped to the floor and he passed out.

Somebody waits for you, kiss…

When he came to, he saw he was in the living room. That made him feel better for about three, maybe four seconds. Then he heard the CD was still skipping in the same spot.

Somebody waits…

“Merry Christmas, Parker.” He heard Riley say, pleasantly. “I’m almost done with the tree. Do you like it?”

for you, kiss…

Parker couldn’t speak. He turned his head and saw it for the first time.

She had put ornaments on the tree.

Somebody waits…

There were eight of his fingers with hooks through them, hanging off of the branches. His two hands retained the thumbs and were straining the branches they were on.  His hands reminded him of the Fonz for some reason.

...for you…

Ten toes were also sporting their places on the tree, although the pinky toes were hard to see. He began to sob. His arms and legs had been cut into chops and hung with wire instead of hooks. The branches were bent nearly down, but the chunks of flesh were cut thin, so the branches held. His feet were nowhere to be seen.

…kiss…

Parker tried to scream, but couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything but look at the tree and sob. He turned his head and saw Riley. She was smiling and holding an ax.

“You always said it would look better and you were right,” she said. She moved next to him and sized up the ax to his neck. He looked straight up.

Somebody waits for you

“Too bad you won’t get to see the tree topper,” she said, genuinely sounding sad by the prospect. “Merry Christmas, dear.”

She swung as hard as she could and the ax found its mark. The last thing Parker registered and heard before it all went silent was the CD finally catching and finishing the line.

…kiss her once for me.

Karnivali
By Jesse J. Saxon

There’s never a dull moment when the carnival comes to town.

Jesse Saxon lives and works in the zombie capital of the world, Pittsburgh, PA with his wife, daughter, and their cat. He has written various macabre short stories ranging from zombie fiction to dust bowl horror, and a full-length zombie novel. Jesse graduated from California University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and has been writing semi-professionally ever since.

The dusty breeze of the Oklahoma plain bit through the Friday afternoon so sharply that if you stood in one place for too long your exposed skin would get a brush burn. Men and women alike were accustomed to wearing scarves around their necks in, what the newspapers were calling, “The Dust Bowl” so that the small dust storms were nothing but a nuisance.

The production of Karnavali wouldn’t slow down for the small dust devils and tumbleweeds, and carnival barker Simon Barns wouldn’t stop his practicing either. “Step right up, step right up! Boys and girls of all ages, step right up! Come and see the mysteries of the world! The Human Blockhead – able to pound railroad spikes through his nose! The Wolfman – raised among the wolves and wild as they come, able to bite right through meat and bone! Step right up and see the Painted Lady Athena, a face as beautiful as God could make but skin that only man could color. Come one, come all to see the wild side of life, the underbelly of the human world, the lost and forgotten souls rejected by our society put on display by the wonderful Maximo Coliusi for this production!”

Outside of Simon’s train car the tents of the carnival were being erected. The dirty brown and yellow striped tents became the trademark of the Maximo Coliusi Karnavali and wherever the brown and yellow striped tents were seen, townsfolk flocked to time after time. The unmistakable sound of metal on metal pounding rose through the air as strongman Bruno Schultz swung the sledgehammer down onto the spikes held by the midget mentalist and snake charmer only known as Olt.

The two close friends had been in various vaudeville and freak shows from Coney Island to New Orleans and in addition to sharing a train car they were very efficient at raising tents. Romanian magician Lucian Radu had the most elaborate tent. Lucian wasn’t a part of the freak show and didn’t need Simon’s barking to bring in the crowd. By all means Lucian was what people came to Karnavali to see, he sold the tickets where the freak shows made the extra money.

Lucian was from the old world and dealt in old world magic. He made a small name for himself in the New England states and the New York City metropolitan area, but when the crowds marveled at disappearing acts and underwater escape, Lucian’s brand of slight of hand and mind manipulation became more and more ignored – that and his affinity for making God-fearing Christians feel uncomfortable on various levels and that they were paying a sorcerer for wicked acts. Lucian was marvelous to take in.

When Maximo saw him hypnotize an aristocrat’s bride-to-be into taking her clothes off, and the sound of applause, Maximo knew that Lucian was someone he would need to have in his array of talents and convinced the man to give up trying to beat out the other magicians of the area and come with Karnival. The allure of the road and seeing the great America was something that interested Lucian but the promise of a place to stay, and pay without having bills, was all that he needed to be convinced.

In the short two years that Lucian had been with Karnival he had become well liked among his counterparts. He ensured a crowd, even in those tough economic times, and crowds always meant pay and hot meals. In addition to all of that, the carnival folk liked that Lucian kept to himself. He was around enough not to be creepy, but he was always a pleasure to have around and always a welcome sight and never over-stayed his welcome. He was always well-dressed, smelled like fine oils and potions, and was the picturesque gentleman of worldliness.

When the Karnivali train pulled into Simmons Oklahoma the day before, Maximo’s wife Izabella went into her routine of strolling through the town from the train station posting flyers for the carnival and giving every man every bit of true information they wanted to know about the carnival and false information about her. She didn’t lie when she told them she was a contortionist and that she’d like to see them come on out. She did lie about her age, her relationship status, and her loneliness being on the road all year. Her blonde hair, brown eyes, and ruby red lipstick made her irresistible to the dirty men used to looking at their dirty wives. They had almost forgotten what a clean woman looked like since any water they came across there was used for drinking first and bathing later. Izabella didn’t care if she needed to give a wink and a smile to get crowds, she didn’t even care if she had to get a little dust on her lips by kissing a man on the cheek if it meant just one more person in the crowd – which made her perfect to get people to come. The women of the towns obviously despised her, but they also would never object to the man of the house and quite honestly didn’t mind the carnivals anyway.

The flyers for the carnival read:

KARNIVALI Elveszett Sufletele!

Brought to you by MAXIMO COLIUSI!

Featuring famous magician and mastermind
LUCIAN RADU!

And MAXIMO COLIUSI’S FAMOUS FREAKS!

Below the headline was a drawn picture of either Maximo himself, face hidden by shadow, with his arms stretched out over the carnival below; or of Lucian. Lucian’s picture was more insightful and captured almost exactly his personality of mystery and invitation. What could be confused as a smirk was drawn for his mouth and his right-gloved hand was extended as if asking for yours to join it. His left hand held back the left side of his cape showing the fine clothing he always wore. Izabella put the flyers in strategic locations that every town had: post offices, bars, general stores, and the train station.

Carnivals were always set up just outside of towns. After Maximo’s train would pull in, the train cars would be unloaded and the carnival would be set up just about a half of a mile from the train station. The train itself wouldn’t leave the location and never presented a problem because the down economy didn’t mandate much train traffic and the rails were mostly restricted to traveling carnivals and random supply trains that maybe came once every six or seven weeks. And if ever the event came that there was a backing up of the trains, they never much minded when they saw a good carnival.

***

In a day’s work Bruno and Olt could have the freak show tent and stage assembled and ready with Lucian’s tent operational as well. Athena the Painted Lady would have the popcorn stand ready for her younger brother Rusty to work in. Simon had erected his barker’s podium in the afternoon and that evening the carnival would be ready to go.

Maximo knew the men came to see his wife scantily clad bending for their pleasure, the freaks and oddities, and the wonderment of Lucian. He knew the women came along with no objection, but he also knew kids were a hard sell – especially those whose parents wouldn’t allow them to see the freaks; so Maximo had clowns to roam the grounds and mind the petting zoo.  The bands of clowns Maximo had on staff would dress the carnival with what the carney-folk called “flash” or the oil lamp lights, the colorful posters, the prizes hung from the games of skill, and the ambient carnival music.

The children typically were excited to see the clowns at first, until they got close enough to see the bad wigs and five o’clock shadows poking through whatever make-up they could scrape on their faces. Maximo never asked too many questions for anybody who wanted to be a clown in his show. If he was in need of one and someone happened to ask then they were essentially hired on the spot. Most carnivals were like that and quickly became a refuge for criminals giving credo to the hobo clown paintings.

Friday evening at dusk the oil lamps were lit signaling the carnival was open for business. Entry to the carnival was twenty-five cents a person or one dollar for a family of five. Guests, as they were called, were greeted by the button box music and organ grinding chimes, with clowns doing whatever appealing trick they knew to earn their keep in the traveling band of freaks and outcasts. Food always sold well at the carnival. Maximo demanded that the food be priced well below typical prices because as he said “a well-fed guest is happy, and a happy guest is more inclined to pay extra for the freaks!”

The guests filled the grounds and Karnival went to work.

As the guests walked about, Maximo’s front office, band of freaks, oddities, and Lucian did their tasks, while his backroom team of pickpockets and thieves went among the crowds and into the town itself. On the first night the band of thieves went out to case the properties that Izabella reported back to the Back Hand as “places of interest.” She always marked them with the flyers of Maximo in case there was confusion. While the entire town was out at the carnival, Maximo’s team of thieves were out plotting entry points and looking through windows for fast grabs of items to sell in the next town.

Guests of the carnival were promised by Lucian for more feats of amazement and better magic from the old world the following nights to lead up to his greatest trick on Sunday night. The men were always quick to lead their family to the sound of Simon’s voice projecting the oddities of the freak show to see the beautiful Izabella they had seen earlier in the day. Simon of course would never bark about Izabella but her large carnival poster hanging outside of a tent was assurance enough that she was behind the curtain. Outside of the freak show, Simon would typically call out for various acts to come out onto his stage and give a sample performance of their act, typically led by Bruno lifting anyone willing to come on stage over his head and bending metal bars in his mouth. Athena would typically tease the crowd from under a robe by pulling some away to reveal some of her tattoos. Like any side-show, just past the curtain entry way the walkway was separated into two with a wooden arrow sign indicating men to go to the left and women to the right.

The women were met by the first oddity of a half-man half-woman, which was always just a very skinny, attractive man with padding and make-up on one side of his body. Next the women would see the Wolfman: a man inflicted with a condition known as hypertrichosis – the growth of body hair at abnormal places and length, typically covering the entire face. While the women were gawking at the Wo-Man and Wolfboy, the men were taking in Athena and Izabella.

Athena was always first. Her area was well lit to show off the many tattoos she received from different towns and countries. She wore no clothes but her tattoos covered up any free space of what was once milky white skin so that now the only pieces of uncolored flesh she had left was her face and nipples. The men would try to get a peek at her womanly parts and giggle like children at the nakedness of Athena while they tried to decipher her shape through the blue, red, black, and green ink. She would turn cautiously so as not to excite the men with rapid movement and let them take in her very well crafted markings.

Past Athena was Izabella. Her area was not as well lit as Athena’s but men hardly noticed. She also wasn’t nearly as naked as Athena but any complaining of it stopped shortly after she did a handstand and her gluts flexed tight. Her costume was minimal, but covered all of her like a one-piece bathing suit except with the stomach cut out.

She would bend her body into amazing and provocative positions, making many of the men anxious, but the men behind them kept the line moving enough that no one ever got to see as much of Izabella as they would have liked to, or thought they would, if only they could have stayed just a moment longer.

When the men were reunited with their families, they saw Bruno bending metals, breaking objects made to look like real-life counterparts like safes, and lifting false dumbbells. They would move past Snakeboy, a boy with a skin affliction that caused his skin to crack and peel so that it appeared like reptile scales. They saw the bearded lady, which was always a farce of some sort, but always portrayed very well.

At the end of the freak show they were met by Olt, who would select someone from the crowd and perform acts of psychic ability and mind-reading, and would try to sell potions and Snakeoils. Since many of the town had much of the same problems, it made Olt’s job very easy; and his stature added to the creepiness prompting one child to say, “Momma, God must’a given him the power to make up for him being so little.” No one ever disagreed.

All of that was just a prelude to Lucian’s show. Lucian’s legend was beginning to grow among the guests. Some of Maximo’s implanted “guests,” and sometimes even Maximo himself, would walk among patrons talking up Lucian and his ability. Making up stories about feats that he’s done and once convincing a cripple that he could be healed if he could pay one hundred dollars, which he couldn’t.

Maximo and Lucian always allowed for about two hours of carnival before Simon would announce Lucian’s show starting in twenty minutes. They would always allow the crowd to gather into the larger tent that was about two sizes smaller than a typical big top. Izabella would have a costume change into a ticket taker and gladly sell admission to anyone willing to pay to get in, although no one in Karnival would stop anyone from sneaking in under the tent. The focus was to get as many people inside as the place would allow.

When the music of the carnival stopped, it was cue for Lucian to begin his show and for the Back Hand thieves to either finish robbing the assigned location or get back to the carnival, depending on which night of the carnival it was. This dance lasted Friday into Sunday. But Sunday was always when Maximo Coliusi’s Karnival made their bones.

The first two nights of the carnival were always meant to sell the Sunday performance. The Saturday and Sunday afternoons always involved Athena and Izabella making trips into the towns to coerce men to come back for Sunday (with whatever promises they needed to make and sealed with smiles and occasional gropes). If townies were not able to make it to the performances on either of the previous nights, word through the town and the sight of Athena and Izabella, ensured a trip for the Sunday showing.

Just as the last two nights, and all of the weekends prior to this one, the carnival became alive at dusk. The crowds began the exodus from town to the carnival grounds and the Back Hand found their way to the vacant homes and stores of the Oklahoma town. Simon at his podium was preacher-esque and captivated guests with a “Last night in town and gone till who knows when, do NOT miss your chance to see the wonders of Maximo Coliusi’s Karnivali!” It was at that point where the implanted guests of Maximo would befriend real guests and sell them on Lucian. The male implants would entice the females and the male guests didn’t need anything besides Izabella and the promotional sign in her area telling males to see Lucian.

The Back Hand broke into the homes taking family heirlooms. They broke into stores taking a few dollars here and a few there; just enough so no one would question carney folk of looting. The music would stop and they would make their way back, sneaking through the night like fog off of a river.

Outside, the lights of Karnivali were slowly being extinguished by the clowns and the carnival itself was being broken down. But inside of the tent, Lucian was captivating the guests with feats of amazement and magic. The implanted guests of Maximo would always sit to the left of a vulnerable woman indicating to Lucian that the woman to their left was young, single, and already entranced by Lucian’s reputation. Those were the women Lucian would always perform his hypnosis on.

“A volunteer from the audience, please,” Lucian would say. One of the implanted guests would elbow his new date and suggest her to go. The anxiety would build in that second and she would always whisper a disagreement. And then Maximo’s agent would pinch her side, making her shriek, and the attention of the audience, and Lucian, would be drawn to the woman, who was promptly invited on stage as the volunteer.

“A round of applause for the young lady,” would always overcome her, and before she could point out that she didn’t volunteer, Lucian’s gloved right hand was in front of her, inviting her on stage, which the naïve young woman would always accept.

In walking to the center of the floor, Lucian would always assure them they will be safe and “if you wouldn’t disagree I’d like to invite you back to my staging area after the performance to offer you a formal thank you with a cup of tea and perhaps a gift of your choice.”

The young woman smiled and Lucian went to work. He would amuse the crowd by making the young woman purr like a kitten or bark like a dog. Sometimes he would make them kiss the men he’d pull on stage or make them pretend they were doing housework around the tent while he continued his magic act. It never failed that the women would do whatever he asked. By the time the woman was being hypnotized, the Back Hand would be back in camp and the spoils were secured.

As the show came to a close and the guests began to file out, Maximo’s implanted guests would do as boys do with girls of that nature and attempt to convince them to spend a little extra time together before the night ended.

Lucian would find his volunteer and as promised have a cup of tea with her and satisfy her with mostly made-up stories of his travels and experiences. Shortly into whatever story he began to tell, the sleeping elixir he put into every cup took its effect and the girl fell into a state of lucidity.

Before she could think about screaming for help, Olt, who was hiding somewhere in Lucian’s staging area, bludgeoned the poor woman over the head – either killing her or knocking her out completely.

Lucian never checked for either outcome, but instead took a knife and cut the girl’s throat, bleeding her out before sectioning her off at the major joints. By that time, the implanted guests had also struck out or had their dates unconscious or dead, bringing them back to Lucian’s tent to be dismembered. Bruno would help out and carry two or three women himself.

“This one’s going to make a beautiful rump roast for tomorrow Izabella,” Lucian said.

“Glorious! The bitch’s ass is nearly as succulent as Athena’s. Had it not been for all of that ink I’d have cut into yours long ago!” Izabella said laughing.

“I’d cut you down before you even smelled my perfume,” Athena said back smugly but with a smile.

Rusty, Athena’s little brother, was already at work cutting the dismembered body parts into presentable cuts of meat. He’d wash the blood away and throw the fatty pieces to the animals in the petting zoo.

Bruno and Simon would work grinding the bones to be additives to Olt’s Snakeoils. The blood soaked down into the dusty ground and was easily concealed by either the sifting of new sand or the next dust storm on the horizon. The women’s bodies were cut up and gone faster than any processing plant could cut a cow. Nothing was left when Lucian was finished except a wet spot where the butcher did his deed.

“How I long for the taste of beef again,” Simon said.

“Soon, Simon. Roosevelt’s gotta have something planned,” Rusty said.

“He’s a shit that Roosevelt! He doesn’t give a damn about any of us. As far as he’s concerned we’re already dead and this part of the country is a loss,” Athena said.

“Eat the meat, do your job, and shut your mouth. Like you said, we’re all as good as dead anyway. These people are our cows, this is our beef, and here’s the door if you want out,” Lucian said as he held up his knife.

Bruno and Simon bagged the bone dust, and whatever Olt didn’t need disappeared with the wind only adding to its sting.

When the clowns finished packing the camp, one poked his head into Lucian’s tent, asking if they were just about ready to go. Lucian nodded in agreement.

“Another successful Karnivali I trust?” Maximo said.

Lucian nodded.

“Fantastic. The train leaves momentarily.”

Lucian nodded.

“Oh what’s wrong Lucian? Don’t the crowds love you anymore? Do you not have a full belly everyday? Do you no longer have the finest attire and finest magic?”

“I do.”

“Then why so sad?”

“I- I’m not sad boss.”

“What then?”

“Soulless.”

“Of course you are Lucian. But the show must go on.”

Front Page
By Michael A. Migliore

Celebrities always say that any publicity is good publicity.

Michael A Migliore is one of the founding partners, along with Jenn Thomas, of ColdFront Productions. Currently in pre-production for an upcoming film, “9ers,” ColdFront is the premier film making company in Pittsburgh.  Michael is a disabled veteran who served in the US Navy from 1977 until 1993.

In addition to film making, Michael is a photographer for a local sports magazine and co-hosts a sports talk television show.

Wilbur Canton woke early, drenched in sweat. As he sat up in bed he looked at the portrait of his mother that hung on his bedroom wall. How he hated the bitch. Sure, she was good to him on the surface. She gave him everything he needed or wanted. She appeared kind and loving. On the surface. But, she had committed her atrocity on the day he was born. She named him Wilbur. The Curse.

It had held him down his entire life, no matter what he did, no matter how he excelled, his accomplishments went unnoticed. Someone else would always get the credit. Even in sports, in college he piled up impressive rushing statistics, but the other idiot in the same backfield won the Heisman trophy. The quarterback was drafted number one. Wilbur went undrafted, unnoticed, always unnoticed.

Until today. Oh, how he wished that bitch was still alive to see his work on the front page. The front page of the city’s biggest newspapers. As he rolled out of bed he glanced at the blood soaked clothes on the floor and the bloody knife on his dresser.

Fifty times, he had counted carefully. His arms got tired, but it had to be a lot. It drew attention that way; one stab wound would be on page six. Wilbur had to be on the front page.

The girl had been a pretty little thing, she probably would have been worth the fifty dollars she asked for. But sex was the last thing on Wilbur’s mind.

He killed her fast, with the first thrust. Under the sternum up into the heart. She probably never even felt it. He then stabbed her forty-nine more times to make it an even fifty. Switching hands as his arms tired. He left her body in a spot where it would be found quickly. He was not concerned with being caught. There was no way to link him to the hooker’s murder and, of course, he would never do something like this again.

Wilbur ran to his front door and swung it open. The newspaper lay on the porch. His hands sweating, he grabbed the paper and stared at the front page.

His hands began to tremble, then his entire body.

“You bitch!” he cursed his mother. “You lousy, filthy bitch!”

The headline read:

Man Mauled By Werewolf Killer

The story covered the top half of the page. Under that some bullshit about a summit that nobody cared about and a story about a tax increase.

Wilbur opened the paper. On the bottom of the second page was a one column article about an unidentified prostitute found stabbed to death. She had suffered multiple stab wounds.

“Fifty!” Wilbur yelled out as he shredded the newspaper. “Fifty, fifty times you assholes!”

Wilbur stormed around the room, kicking things and cursing his mother.

The second page? That was unbelievable. He had counted right. Fifty times! It was his name of course. The curse that his mother had given him. That bitch. How could anybody take him seriously when his name was Wilbur?

“No!” He screamed as he threw himself on the floor. He began kicking his feet and pounding his fists. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!”

The tantrum lasted almost ten minutes, until Wilbur was exhausted.

Again!

It came to him suddenly. He would do it again. Exactly the same way, the same knife, everything the same. The media loved serial killers. They would see the connection right away. He just had to make sure to count fifty times. He would not only be on the front page, he would be the headlines! He would be famous! Everyone would be talking about him. They’d probably call him the Phantom Slasher or something like that. Yes he would do it again. Only one more time naturally. After he was on the front page he’d go back to his usual daily routine.

He was calm again. He walked to the pile of bloody clothes. He obviously couldn’t wear them again. He found a new set of clothes and put them on. He took the knife from his dresser, then sat on his bed and stared out the window, waiting for it to get dark.

***

Wilbur pulled his Cadillac to the curb. A pretty young girl walked to his car and leaned in through the passenger side window.

“Hey baby,” she said. “You dating tonight?”

“I sure am.” Wilbur smiled at her.

“That’s going to cost you seventy-five,” she informed him. “That ok?”

“No problem,” Wilbur told her, and the girl got in the car.

She slid next to him and rubbed her hand over his crotch.

“Just pull into one of these alleys,” she purred. “And we’ll do something freaky.”

***

Wilbur stared into his mirror as he stripped off the bloody clothes. The whore had tried to fight him, scratched his face, but he killed her right in his car. He stabbed her the mandatory fifty times and dumped her body on a main road. Wilbur quickly showered and went to bed. He slept well and dreamed of his headlines.

“You slut!” Wilbur screamed as he threw down the paper. “I hate you, you no good witch. I hate you!”

The headlines:

Werewolf Killer Claims Another Victim

The story covered most of the front page. Then another story about the summit meeting: on page four was a two-paragraph story. Hooker Brutally Murdered.

Wilbur ran around his house smashing everything he could get his hands on. The fit lasted fifteen minutes, until Wilbur collapsed.

“Again,” he whispered to himself. “Again and again until I’m on the front page”.

Wilbur thought about that. Maybe he needed a gimmick. Something like this other guy had. Maybe he should bite his victims too. Maybe he should cut off an ear or something. Wilbur found a new set of clothes and cleaned off his knife. Tonight would be the one for sure. Tomorrow he would be on the front page. His life would be starting new. He would get the recognition he deserved.

Wilbur drove around for almost two hours, looking at the girls on the street. He saw many that would be easy. But then he saw one who would be perfect.

She had long black hair. She was beautiful and she wasn’t dressed like the rest of the hookers. Wilbur pulled his car over.

“Hi,” she said, smiling. “Can I get in?”

Wilbur nodded. She climbed in and Wilbur drove away, quickly.

The girl looked around the car. She ran her finger along the dried blood on the dashboard. She looked at Wilbur quizzically, but she still smiled.

“Are we going to have fun together?” she asked.

“You are just like her,” Wilbur said. “Just like the one last night and just like mother. You are all the same.”

“Yes.” She smiled and nodded. “I can be whoever you want me to be, let’s play.”

“I’ve always worked hard,” Wilbur said, as he pulled into a dark alley. “And never got on top, always second best. Because of the name!”

He stopped the car in the shadows, the only light coming from the moon.

“I’ve done perfect murders. Front Page murders. But someone else gets on the front page, not me. Never me! Never Wilbur!”

The girl looked at the dry blood on the seats and floorboard and at the knife that Wilbur pulled from under his jacket. She suddenly realized the situation.

Wilbur flung his door open and ran around the car, knife in hand. He yanked the passenger side door open and reached in to pull the girl out. The claw that grabbed Wilbur’s forearm was covered with course black hair. Wilbur screamed as he was dragged into the car.

“Cheer up.” The beast snarled as it tore out Wilbur’s throat. “Tomorrow you’ll be on the front page.”

Into The Night
By Heather Lin

Sometimes visiting relatives outstay their welcome.

Heather Lin obtained a degree in English Literary Studies from York College of Pennsylvania in 2010. Although her erotica can be found in various anthologies and on several bawdy websites, this is her first venture into the realm of erotic horror. For updates on all of Heather's steamy publications, visit her blog at heatherlin88.blogspot.com. Her non-erotic prose and poetry can be found under her given name, Heather Smith.

Roselyn first met Michael when she was eighteen: young, pretty, and new to the city. She’d moved there from her hick town in an attempt to make something of herself. With her glowing skin, dark hair, and striking brown eyes, she’d been sure she could make it as a model/actress. Instead, she’d ended up as the manager of the burger joint where they’d worked together.

But Michael was lucky. Michael had gotten out of there before the trap of monotony could close in on his life. As she stared out the window of her third floor apartment into the smoggy night sky, she thought about calling him.

But the challenge for Roselyn did not lie in dialing the seven familiar digits on her cordless phone. The challenge lay in having to accept the fact that, once again, this would only be a booty call. As usual, her body would get what it wanted, but her heart would remain empty and unsatisfied. Her shaking hands dialed the number, and the phone rang three times.

“Hello?”

Roselyn jumped, startled. The voice on the other line was smooth, incredibly masculine, and completely unfamiliar.

“Hi, I’m sorry. I…I must have the wrong number.”

“Who are you looking for?”

She ran a hand through her short hair, unnerved by the way his words reverberated through her body.

“Michael O’Mally.”

“What’s it regarding?”

Sex. She wanted so badly just to say it―to come clean. She needed anyone, even a mysteriously sexy stranger on the other line, to tell her that she was crazy, she would never be anything more to Michael, she needed to forget about him. But she held back. Besides, at 3 am, her intentions and desperation must be obvious.

“I’ll try back tomorrow.”

“Maybe it’s something I could help you with.”

Roselyn felt her face flush. Heat rushed through her body. The way he said it―sultry, seductive―he had to know.

“How…how do you know Mike, exactly?”

“Why don’t you come over? I’ll let him know you’re on your way.”

There was a click on the other end of the line, but Roselyn continued to hold the phone to her ear. Was it possible she’d misinterpreted? It had to be. He was a friend of Michael’s. Maybe he was just teasing. Maybe the edge of sexual frustration that the man’s voice contained had only been imagined. She finally put the phone down and decided to at least walk by Michael’s apartment and see if he was expecting her.

She checked her appearance in the cheap, full length mirror that was tacked onto the back of her bedroom door. She hadn’t changed out of her work clothes. Grease spattered her polo, and her hair was a mess. She told herself she wasn’t changing to impress Michael. Cleanliness was a necessity, not a come on―and the little black dress she chose was just the first thing she came across. She fixed her hair, dabbed perfume on her neck, and walked out the door.

Ten blocks later, Roselyn arrived at Michael’s upscale townhouse. Except for the occasional flicker of headlights as a car zoomed past, the building was dark and quiet. Even the streetlight outside was broken, providing no comfort for the eerie feeling that suddenly overpowered her. She looked back over her shoulder, senses alert, debating whether or not she should just go home. Before she had a chance to decide, a familiar voice startled her.

“Come inside.”

Roselyn’s head snapped back around to Michael’s doorway. A strange man stood at the top of the steps, leaning casually against the doorframe. He was handsome, but at the same time he seemed surprisingly ordinary―the glasses perched on his nose and the tousled brown hair that settled around his face didn’t quite justify the sudden attraction she felt for him. Her knees went weak, and she felt a rush of nervous excitement pulsing through her veins.

“Is Michael home?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper for reasons she couldn’t explain.

“This is his house, isn’t it?”

His black eyes settled on her brown ones, calming her, convincing her, and drawing her in. Before she knew it, she was climbing the steps toward him, and he was stepping aside, letting her enter the dark hallway.

“How do you know Michael?” she breathed for the second time, her voice a quivering violation of the stillness and silence.

His footsteps stopped behind her, making the hair stand up on the back of her neck and blood rise to the surface of her skin. She heard him breathe in deep behind her. Even if Michael wouldn’t find her perfume appealing, his friend did.

“My name is Reggie. I’m a distant cousin.”

His breath brushed softly against the skin of her neck as he spoke, almost making her forget that she’d asked him a question in the first place.

“He’s never mentioned you.”

“Hm.”

She turned, suddenly remembering that being in such close quarters with a man she’d just met should be awkward. But even when she saw the way his eyes raked over her body, admiring the way the dress hugged her curves, she couldn’t put the expected force into her next words.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Her soft tone begged the opposite, and she realized the contradiction it had created immediately. Her cheeks flushed, and Reggie―if that really was his name―brought his fingertips up to touch the heated skin. A soft groan escaped his lips, sending a shock of carnal sensation through Roselyn’s body. She shivered, and he smiled. Her mind was a fog of confusion and intrigue as his eyes held her gaze from behind the clear lenses.

“You make it so easy,” he murmured.

She couldn’t think of anything to say. Before she knew it, she was pressed back against the closed door, in the darkness, letting the shadow of his hands caress her neck.

“I can feel it,” he continued, his breath growing heavier. “Pulsing, racing, rising.”

Her eyes asked the question that her unsteady voice couldn’t form into words. He seemed suddenly dangerous, but, still, Roselyn was unable to feel the fear her common sense was trying to push to the surface.

“Blood.” He whispered the answer in her ear. “Don’t you feel it? Any touch, any sensation is magnified infinitely where it gathers.”

He pressed his hand gently against the skin of her throat. “Here.” He moved down to feel her breasts through the thin fabric of her dress. “Here.” The last word was the quietest, his last destination the most secret. “Here.”

Roselyn felt his fingers move her panties aside and touch the soft flesh between her thighs. This was crazy. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it. But the part of her that gasped and moved against his skilled hand won the battle of wills. She grasped his shoulders and felt the sculpted muscles beneath his starched button-up as he pulled her closer to him, letting her feel the hard ridge of his cock against her thigh.

The simple sensation sent a flood of wet heat straight to the mound of flesh that Reggie was still caressing. He moaned and bit down on her neck. A sharp pain nearly broke her out of her reverie, but she was too lost in the pleasure that was building underneath of his fingers.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, but she could tell he wasn’t sorry at all. She was too lost to care. But his next words caught her attention.

“I’m just having a hard time deciding whether I should eat you or go inside of you.”

Roselyn’s eyes snapped open, and she stared into his hungry gaze.

“What…what do you mean?”

The shakiness of her voice was partly due to shock, and partly due to the ecstasy shooting through her quaking body. Reggie stopped, a smile touching his lips while he waited for Roselyn to calm down.

“Let’s go to the bed.”

She looked at him, confused, but his smooth voice once again put her at ease.

“It’s okay. Michael is sleeping elsewhere.”

She followed him reluctantly, the last shreds of her sense battling with the animalistic desire that rose inside of her.

“But what you said…”

“Joking.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Besides, I already ate.”

His look was reassuring, and he put his arm around her shoulders as he led her to Michael’s bed.

“Where is Michael?”

“On the couch.”

“But I didn’t see―”

He cut her off with a kiss, caressing her lips slowly, sensually with his own. He was the most giving lover she’d ever been with. She’d barely laid a hand on him, and he seemed perfectly content with touching her, feeling her, following the blood as it rushed erratically through her system. It was strange. But she couldn’t complain. He nipped her lower lip, drawing a drop of blood from the sensitive flesh of her gums. She barely noticed. He’d moved himself over her, hiking up her dress to rub himself against her through their clothing.

However, the rough treatment of her lip seemed to throw Reggie into a frenzy. He sucked her lower lip as hard as he could, irritating the wound. At the same time, she heard the sound of his zipper, and he ripped her panties down her thighs before pushing himself deep inside of her. Apparently the time for leisure was over. She moaned into his mouth as the hot, silky shaft moved in and out of her, seeming to find the sweet spot inside of her with miraculous ease. She was in a daze of ecstasy, unable to hold back any reaction, clutching at any part of her lover that she could find. Sounds she didn’t know she could make hitched in her throat as more enthusiastic ones tried to break free.

His teeth raked the skin of her throat, shoulders, and chest―never breaking the skin, as if he was resisting the temptation. It seemed to excite him further, and his hand gripped her ass, crushing her hips against his, giving her clit constant contact with the flesh of his abdomen. It was too much for Roselyn to take. She dug her fingernails into his back as she felt the waves building, her defenses weakening, until with one powerful shudder, the impending rapture flooded her senses, and she cried out his name. He panted in her ear, and she felt him convulse against her, sliding himself in and out of her, riding out the orgasm and letting her do the same.

Roselyn couldn’t move. All of her energy had been consumed in the throes of passion. She could barely comprehend the fact that she had just had amazing, unprotected sex with a perfect stranger. Reggie stood and zipped up his pants, then checked his hair in the mirror on Michael’s dresser. He straightened his glasses and turned to look at Roselyn, who was still lying in a daze on the bed. A small smile touched his lips, and the glare from a light somewhere outside of the window made it so she couldn’t see his eyes behind the lenses. It gave him an eerie look, and Roselyn finally found the strength to push herself up onto her elbows and speak to him.

“I…I’m not on birth control.”

His smile widened, giving his now-visible eyes a knowing look.

“Don’t worry. No offspring can come of this.”

Then he grabbed his jacket from a chair in the nearest corner and walked to the doorway.

“It’s been a pleasure, Roselyn.”

He turned, but she sat up and called out to him.

“Wait! I thought you were staying here?”

He turned for a moment, smiled a gleaming white smile, and disappeared into the darkened house. She heard the front door shut quietly, and the sound seemed to bring her back to her senses. She stepped onto the floor and straightened her dress, then fumbled for the light switch. An embarrassed flush rose to her cheeks, even though no one was around to see it. As the light came on, her eyes were drawn to the floor. A trail of red footprints marked a path from the other side of the bed to the door and continued until she could no longer see them.

The blood drained from her face. She knew what it was in an instant. She knew why Reggie had left so suddenly and where Michael was. Roselyn sat down quickly on the edge of the bed. Her mind was unable to form a coherent thought as her body crawled slowly to the other side of the bed. There he was―what was left of him―lying by the dresser that Reggie had so casually stood in front of. The body was mangled beyond recognition. Some bones seemed to be picked clean, the one eye that was still in its socket was open wide, and Michael’s intestines had been pulled from his body.

Murder, cannibalism―these things didn’t happen here. They couldn’t. And she didn’t sleep with murderers and cannibals on the bed next to the dead body of the man she loved. Bile rose in Roselyn’s throat, battling with the fear that was constricting it. What had she done?

Roselyn made her decision quickly. She crawled back to the other side of the bed and stood, avoiding the bloody footprints. Then, she checked her hair in the connected bathroom mirror, and headed for the front door. Although she lived in walking distance, she hailed a cab, knowing that Reggie was perfectly capable of jumping out from the shadows and killing her.

When she was home, she stripped off her clothes and climbed under the covers, keeping the light on. It took her a long time to get to sleep, and by the time she woke up the next morning, she’d convinced herself it had all been a dream―a dream that resulted in Roselyn losing the desire to ever call Michael again.

Hades on Ice
By Kimberly Bennett

Fish stories are always more interesting when alcohol is involved.

Kimberly Bennett was born in Warren, Ohio and has been a lifelong resident of Northeast Ohio. She Graduated from Kent State University with a degree in Computer Technology. She is a recently published independent author whose main goal is to provide readers of fiction a thrilling and memorable experience when they pick up one of her books and begin to read.  For more information, visit her website at www.kimberly-bennett.com.

“Oh, Brian,” Cara softly moaned in Brian’s ear.  Cara pushed her hips upwards to meet Brian’s as he plunged his shaft deep within her.  Cara’s legs wrapped tighter around Brian’s waist as he increased his rhythm.  Her nails dug into Brian’s back as she arched hers, signaling that she was close to climax.  Brian watched as Cara’s plump, bare breasts bounced up and down as he pumped her faster.  Beads of perspiration formed on his back and ran in rivulets down his spine and disappeared beneath the flat sheet that clung to his buttocks.

A horn blared outside the bedroom window, startling Cara and Brian, while announcing Jack’s arrival.  Out of breath and annoyed at the interruption, Brian reluctantly rolled his eyes, pulled the sheet aside and rolled off of Cara and onto the mattress.  Lying on his back, Brian tried to calm his breathing and his nerves.  He knew he had better get moving because any second his brother would burst through the door and drag him away.  Jack was an impatient fellow with a compulsion to run his life by a schedule of his design.  Right now, Brian was throwing off Jack’s brotherly fishing getaway schedule with his midnight delight.

The horn blared again, this time the next-door neighbor’s dog began to bark furiously at the intrusion.  Cara cringed and rolled towards Brian and gently nuzzled his arm with her breasts, as she moved dangerously close.  The close proximity of Cara and the pressure of her bare breasts on Brian’s arm did nothing to detract from his current state of arousal and unsatisfied need.

The horn blared a third time, making the neighbor’s dog bark much more loudly. The distracting sound reverberated through Brian and Cara’s one bedroom bungalow, causing the windows to rattle.  “What the…” Brian’s exclamation remained unspoken as Cara softly placed an index finger on his lips to silence his profanity.

“Shhhhh,” Cara whispered in Brian’s ear and leaned closer into him.  “You better hurry up before Jack comes in here to get you.”  Cara placed a tender kiss upon Brian’s lips and rolled away from him so he could get up and get a move on.

Brian sighed heavily and sat upright in bed.  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet on the carpet.  Brian rubbed tiredness from his eyes, yawned and bent to pick up his jeans that lay haphazardly thrown in a pile on the floor.  Brian hopped off the bed and pulled his jeans on in one swift movement.  He zipped his pants and buttoned his button and bent a second time to retrieve his thermal shirt that had been lying next to his jeans, in an equally haphazard fashion.  Brian pulled his shirt over his head and smoothed it out.  Brian sat back down on the bed and reached for his work boots that he had kicked under his bed, before his intimate encounter with Cara had begun.  Retrieving his socks from each boot, Brian straightened and shook out his socks and pulled them on his feet and then quickly put his boots on. Fully clothed, Brian rose from the bed, reached down and playfully slapped Cara’s naked behind.

“You better be careful,” Cara called after Brian, as he grabbed his coat and gear, before dashing out the door.  “We’ll finish what we started when you get back,” Cara said with an impish grin.

“I’m holding you to it!”  Brian exclaimed, as he gave her his signature smoldering look of desire.  Cara giggled and then Brian was gone.

Brian dashed from the bedroom, briefly stopping to grab his fishing gear, jacket and case of beer.  He raced out the door and slammed it behind him.  Brian hurriedly strode around Jack’s pick-up truck, opened the passenger door and threw his gear and beer in the back, pulled his coat on and got in.

“Damn, brother!” Jack exclaimed while scrunching up his nose.  “You stink like sex and sweat,” he informed his little brother, unashamedly.

“Thanks, man,” Brian replied.  “I hope you like the stench because you’re gonna smell it all weekend.”  Brian leaned back in the seat as Jack revved his engine, took off down the drive and turned onto the street.

The night clung to its inky black canvass as morning was on the verge of peaking over the horizon.  Jack’s first mission was to get him and Brian to the fishing site before sunrise.  His second agenda was to cut the fishing hole, while Brian unloaded their gear.  Third, was that they would remove the fishing shanty from the trailer, that bobbed happily behind them at the present, and position the shanty over the hole.  Jack’s fourth and final agenda was to sit back and fish the weekend away while drinking beer with his little brother.

The drive to their ice fishing spot was relatively dull.  Jack put the hammer down so they could reach their destination before sunrise and Brian took a much-needed nap.  Brian briefly woke up once when Jack stopped for gas, to relieve himself behind the gas station building, and then it was back on the road again.  They made good time because of Jack’s lead foot, with some time to spare.  Jack pulled slowly down the frozen dirt road to their secret ice fishing spot.  Jack had found the spot at the end of their fishing season last year by making a wrong turn on their way home.   It was a remote area that was down a very rarely traveled, frozen over, dirt road and it was secluded by dense foliage.

Jack’s truck bounced down the icy road as they made their way to their final destination.  “There it is!” Jack exclaimed as the area came into view.  The snow and ice on the ground made it difficult to spot.  It was hard to discern between the ground and the body of water, but they managed.

Jack and Brian arrived at their destination an hour before sunrise, which gave them just enough time to set up.  Jack slowed to a stop while parking the truck facing the lake. He cut the engine but made sure he left the lights on, so they could see.  Jack and Brian clambered out of the truck and began their work.  As Jack grabbed the chainsaw out of the bed of the truck, he immediately fired it up to test it.  The loud growling sound of the chainsaw echoed over the frozen lake and back.  Jack shut down the chainsaw and walked out onto the ice.  He selected a spot on the ice a few yards from where he had parked and started the chainsaw again.  The power tool came to life successfully a second time.  Jack carefully cut a hole three feet in diameter through the thick ice.  Fine chips of ice and droplets of freezing cold water spat up into the air and covered Jack from head to toe.

Meanwhile, Brian unloaded the gear and brought it out to their new fishing hole.  Brian slipped and slid the whole way, while Jack looked up from time to time to watch his brother’s comical trek.  Jack finished the hole by the time Brian had brought all their gear to their spot on the ice, including an unusual wooden box that was locked.  Brian had discovered the box in the bed of the truck as he was unloading their gear.

Jack shut the chainsaw down and slid his way across the ice and to the truck with Brian so they could unload the fishing shanty from the trailer.  When they reached the truck and trailer, Jack set his chainsaw down in the bed of the truck and brushed off all the flecks of ice that he could. Brian walked around the trailer untying the shanty and coughing, because of the wind chill, into his sleeve as he went.

“Man, it’s cold!”  Jack exclaimed, as he zipped his zipper higher on his jacket.  Brian nodded in agreement and finished untying the shanty.  The men then climbed onto the trailer and scooted the shanty off and watched as it dropped to the snowy ground with a dull thump.  Satisfied with their progress so far, they then pushed and pulled the shanty to the ice and across to their freshly cut fishing hole.

The fishing shanty was a decent sized box of wood that measured eight feet high by ten feet wide by ten feet long.  Jack and Brian positioned the shanty over the hole and began to bring their gear inside it.  First, the men brought in the cots and sleeping bags for extreme weather. Next, was the fishing gear and last, was the booze.  Brian made it a point to retrieve the first beer from his case and pop the tab.  He guzzled the beer down like a college kid and then tossed the empty bottle to the side.

Both men set up their cots and rolled out their sleeping bags on top.  Jack then proceeded to leave the shanty to shut the lights off on his truck.  As he was gone, Brian searched around for their camp lights before Jack cut his truck lights.  Smiling at his discovery, Brian retrieved the lights from a duffel bag and turned both of them on and strategically placed them by their cots.  Brian turned around towards the fishing hole when he heard movement in the water.

“What in the world?”  Brian asked out loud.  As he turned around, something white and silky, like wet hair, slid into the water and made tiny ripples on the surface.  Just then, Jack entered the shanty.

“What did you say?” Jack asked Brian.

“Nothing,” he shrugged his shoulders and replied. “It’s just my imagination working overtime.”

Both men sat down on their respective cots, positioned opposite each other at the hole.  They both then made quick work of preparing their fishing gear.  Jack finished preparing his items first and as he dropped his line in the hole, he noticed the sun began to pop up over the horizon through a porthole on his side of the shanty.  Brian wasn’t far behind and followed suit by dropping his line in the water a few moments later.

Jack and Brian each opened a bottle of beer and sat back enjoying each other’s company.  The beginning of their day was dull and without any movement below the surface of the water, but after four hours of drinking beer and talking, there was a hard tug at Jack’s line.  Jack quickly set to work to bring his catch in.  He wound his reel in some, but not too much, and when his prize became visible through the fishing hole he really reeled the catch in.  Excitement on Jack’s face was the real prize, but he was oblivious.  Jack was whooping and hollering with joy as he reeled his catch up through the hole and placed it into a bucket of water nearby and plopped back down on his cot completely satisfied.  Brain sat and watched his brother gloat from his accomplishment and threw back another beer.

“Hey, what’s in that wooden box?”  Brian asked his brother.  The box had been mixed in with their gear and Brian had been curious about it since setting his eyes upon it.

Jack smiled an ornery smile, “It’s something special that I wanted to share with you.”  Jack propped his fishing rod against the shanty wall and pulled the box from underneath his cot.  He retrieved a key from his front pocket and unlocked the lock.  Once the lock was undone, Jack lifted the lid, reached in and grabbed a bottle of scotch.  Jack pulled the bottle out and tossed it to his brother.

Brian’s eyes grew wide with anticipation at the gem of liquor he now held.  Brian licked his lips as he undid the cap and took a sniff of the contents.  “Wow, that’s gonna pack some punch!”  Brian smiled in appreciation and took a swig of the liquor; he then scrunched up his nose and squeezed his eyelids shut.  Brian let the liquid scorch a path past his lips and mouth, down his throat and into his belly.  “Damn, that was good!”

Jack smiled at his brother as Brian passed him the bottle for his turn.  Jack closed his eyelids and threw back a swallow quickly and enjoyed the taste as it traveled a path to his nether regions.  “Mmmmmmm,” was all Jack managed to get out.

After a few hours of drinking and laughing about old times, the scotch bottle had been emptied and Brian gave up on fishing and fell back on his cot to sleep off the alcohol. Through his buzzed up haze, Brian figured that dusk was on its way and they would have plenty of time to fish tomorrow.  Jack quickly followed suit with his brother and within a few minutes they both were sacked out.

As the men slept fitfully, a creature slithered out of the hole and made her way over to Jack’s cot.  She noticed that he was fast asleep and a sinister grin spread across her lips.  She turned her head to observe Brian and ascertained from his open-mouthed snoring and the empty scotch bottle dropped on the ice, that he was incapacitated for the time being.  She crawled onto the cot and positioned herself over Jack’s groin.  She made fast work of undoing his pants and gently pulling out his shaft.  She then began to slowly and methodically lick the tip of his head and swirl her tongue around his shaft.  Jack shivered and moaned with pleasure in his sleep.  The creature paused and smiled again as she took up massaging Jack’s, now erect, penis.  Jack pushed his hips upwards towards the creature’s lips.  She paused again and this time she opened her mouth wide and bared her sharp, dagger-like teeth.  She then bit down on Jack’s sensitive member with enough force to shear his pride and joy clean off.  Jack’s eyelids flew open and he screamed out in pain, waking Brian from his alcohol-induced nap.

Blood spurted from Jack’s wound and he wasn’t sure what to do to staunch the flow of it.  In his panic, he grabbed a small towel that was lying nearby and tightly wrapped it around the end of his penis.  His face went ashen as the blood continued to flow.  Jack looked up at the creature and watched his blood drip from her lips as she spit the tip of his shaft out of her mouth and onto the icy floor.  Jack nearly passed out from shock, still clutching his groin he managed to kick the she-devil off of his body.  The creature fell to the floor but quickly regained composure and clawed her way back on top of Jack.  She lunged at Jack and raised her talon like claws.  She used one claw to pin Jack down and with the other claw she used to slash Jack’s throat open. Jack didn’t let go of his wounded member but clung to it as he bled out from both wounds.  Satisfied with her actions, the creature smiled at Jack’s lifeless form and began licking her claw-like fingers.

Before the siren could finish licking Jack’s blood from her claws, Brian came up and grabbed her firmly from behind.  He wrapped an arm around her chest and pulled her close to him while grabbing a hand full of white hair with his free hand.  Her skin was cool and wet and she was hard to hold but Brian managed in his adrenalized state.  She fought hard while clawing at Brian. She managed to open up gashes on his forearm but he ignored her struggle.  Brian dragged the creature from his brother’s dead body and threw her to the floor and watched as her head hit hard on the ice; a black colored liquid began to ooze from her fresh head wound.  Stunned from the landing, the siren was dazed long enough for Brian to be back on top of her.  He rolled her over onto her belly and sat on her back while grabbing a handful of white hair for a second time.  He reached into a nearby tackle box and retrieved a filet knife.

“Eat this, bitch!”  Brian exclaimed as he rammed the knife up through her neck and into her skull, piercing her brain and causing instant death.  The evil siren didn’t have a chance to scream out her agony.  The creature’s head slumped forward and Brian released her hair and let her drop to the ice.  Brian got off the creature and stood up on unsteady legs.  He slowly took in the horrific scene that had unfolded in an instant.  Jack and the siren’s blood were splattered all over the shanty.  A large pool of blood had formed around Jack’s cot and flowed into a tiny stream to the hole and into the water.  Brian dropped his filet knife on the icy floor and put his head in his hands and wept.  An overwhelming wave of disbelief and grief gripped his being.

It took several minutes for Brian to regain some composure and when he was prepared, he raised his head from his hands. Brian wiped tears from his eyes and took a good look at Jack’s attacker.  Brian knelt down near the creature’s lifeless form.  He noticed that she was a slender, pale skinned siren with a long tail of a fish.  Her tail had flowing fins near the end of it and it was covered in a brilliant shade of blue iridescent scales.  Brian reached down and rolled her over.  He scanned her face and noticed that she had delicate, almost angelic features but when he peeled back her blood-encrusted lips, he sucked in a breath as he exposed sharp, dagger-like teeth.

Brian stood up from the unusual corpse and glanced at his brother’s unmoving form.  Brian took in Jack’s pale complexion and vacant gaze, while sorrow gripped him again.  The grief that struck Brian was almost unbearable but he managed to open the door to the shanty and leave his brother’s body behind for the authorities to take care of.

Once outside, Brian sighed deeply.  He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain to anyone what happened but he knew he couldn’t stay there a moment longer.  Brian began his slippery trek to his brother’s truck while reaching in his pocket for his cell phone to call the police and then to call Cara.

His Own Worst Enemy
By Laird Long

Can sibling rivalry be explained through science?

Laird Long pounds out fiction in all genres. Big guy, sense of humor. Writing credits include: Blue Murder Magazine, Plots With Guns, Hardboiled, Thriller UK, Shred of Evidence, Bullet, Albedo One, Baen's Universe, Ennea (9), The Dark Krypt, Another Real, Eternal Night, Robot, Sniplits, and stories in the anthologies Amazing Heroes, The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy, The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunits, and The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries.

Malcolm Turner was fully eleven years old when his brother, Ethan, was born. Unexpectedly.

The Turners were both in their late-forties, and after the difficult birth of their first son, Arthur, and Millicent had been told it would be impossible to have another child. But miracles happen, and that’s exactly what mother and father considered young Ethan.

Whereas Malcolm was dark-haired and dark-eyed, dour and distant; Ethan was fair-haired, with sparkling blue eyes and a personality to match. He was an impetuous child, playful and physical, quick to smile and laugh, delighting his loving parents.

And where once the Turner household had been shrouded in dusty quietude, only the occasional rustle of news or book paper, an infrequent comment, to disturb the silence, now the home fairly bubbled with happy outbursts and endless activities, mother and father and son.

Malcolm became even more reclusive. He seldom left his room – crammed full of books and experimental apparatus – except to go to school. A tall, thin, frail teenager, he possessed a sharp mind and equally sharp tongue (when he used it), and had no friends. As an only child used to his parents’ full attention, he’d been dismayed by the birth of his brother, and he shared in none of the celebrations of the boy’s remarkable growth.

“Come out and play catch with me!”

Malcolm glared at Ethan standing in the doorway of his bedroom. “Can’t you read, imp!?” He pointed at the ‘Keep Out’ sign posted on the door, then turned his attention back to the test tubes and coiled copper tubing on his workbench.

“It’s the first day of spring!” Ethan chirped, glancing curiously around the room. “What are you always working on in here, anyway?”

“An antidote for unwanted brothers,” Malcolm growled.

He slid off his stool and slammed the door in Ethan’s face.

Ethan excelled in school, achieving grades even better than his brother’s before him, with seemingly little effort. He excelled at sports, as well, a robust youngster who could run fast, jump high, and throw far; a natural athlete. His charisma and accomplishments drew friends, lots of them. His parents were rightfully proud of their son, and lavished him with gifts on his tenth birthday.

Malcolm didn’t attend the boisterous party. He was studying for his final exams at the college library. He had a job lined up in the university chemistry department upon graduation.

“You should’ve been there, Malcolm. It was great!” Ethan enthused to his brother that night, when the pair briefly met in the second floor hallway of their home.

“Birthday parties are for little kids,” Malcolm glowered.

Ethan flashed his bright, white, winning smile. “What did you wish for, by the way, when you blew out the candles on your 21st birthday cake?”

Malcolm stared at Ethan. Then stated coldly, “I don’t need wishes. I have science.”

The young man, who appeared much older with his stooped shoulders and shuffling gait, toiled long hours at the university lab, during the week and on weekends. While Ethan flew through high school, class president at every grade level, valedictorian upon graduation.

“Well, my boy,” Arthur beamed at his son. “What do you intend on taking at the university, when you aren’t playing football, that is?”

Ethan had been awarded a full scholarship to a major college in the east. “Well, old man,” he cheerfully mimicked his father, “I believe that I will major in law, with a minor in political studies and girls. Providing the coach doesn’t bench me, of course.”

They laughed, Arthur slapping the strapping young man on his broad back. Millicent clutched Ethan’s strong arm and gazed up at her son, tears glittering in her eyes.

Ethan walked over to Malcolm standing off by himself, grabbed up his brother’s cold, clammy hand and vigorously shook it. “You’re welcome to come out east and visit me anytime you want, Malcolm. The lab facilities are top-notch, you know.”

Malcolm jerked his hand away. “My experiments are going very well, I’ll have you know. And I don’t care much for football.”

Ethan smiled. “I guess you won’t be seeing me off in the morning, then?”

Malcolm sneered, “No, I’ll be at work.” He turned to climb the stairs to his bedroom. Then he stopped, looked back at his brother, a bitter smile stretching his gaunt face. “Sleep well, fair prince.”

Ethan’s troubles began as soon as he arrived for his first term. He crashed his car – a present from his parents – on the highway into the college town. He’d been speeding, swerving back and forth on the road, for some reason even he couldn’t fully explain. He wasn’t injured, but still he missed his first football practice, and was found drinking in one of the pubs that dotted the perimeter of the sprawling campus.

He was apologetic, vowing to never repeat the uncharacteristic mistakes.

But he did, repeatedly.

And whereas before he couldn’t seem to stop himself from getting good grades, now he seemingly couldn’t prevent himself from failing. He attended only every third class or so, and in that class he slept, as a result of staying out too late the night before.

He was soon cut from the football team, and expelled from the university.

“Don’t worry, son,” Arthur consoled him. “I’ve spoken to Mr. Granger, the plant manager, and he said he’d love to have you working there. He was chairman of the school board when you were in high school, remember?”

Ethan took the job at the plant and moved into an apartment. But he continued to make bad choices, doing the wrong thing. He was caught drinking on the job, then caught with a prostitute in a darkened alley later that same night. He couldn’t explain it to his disconsolate parents, except to apologize profusely, again, as he had for all of his other self-destructive transgressions.

He descended from drinking into drugs, from the night shift to unemployment. His parents and old friends hardly recognized him anymore. Once muscular and self-assured, he was now emaciated and paranoid. Once gregarious and good-hearted, he was now sullen and mean-spirited. He had given up trying to resolve the raging conflict inside himself. But it was still tearing him apart.

“Can’t you help your brother!?” Arthur appealed to Malcolm one night in despair. “It has to be some sort of chemical imbalance, some kind of psychological-”

“Mother never should have had him – at such an advanced age – in the first place,” Malcolm cut the man off, his cold, dark eyes gleaming madly.

Arthur and Millicent drew back, shocked at the deadly bitterness.

The caretaker of the crumbling downtown hotel found Ethan’s body when he came to collect the overdue rent. It was hanging from a hot water pipe in the bathroom.

No note was found. None was necessary. Everybody in town knew the cause of death; they’d witnessed the brutal decline firsthand.

An autopsy was scheduled for the following morning.

Malcolm stuck the suction cup to the basement window, circled the glasscutter around, pulled the cut-out piece of glass back. He took a last look around. The night was silent, dark. He reached in through the hole and unlocked the window.

He found his brother’s corpse in the middle drawer of the cooling unit. Grinning grimly, Malcolm affixed the band with the embedded light to his head and removed the circular bone saw from the small black bag he’d brought with him. Then he slipped a painter’s mask over his nose and mouth, a pair of plastic goggles over his eyes, to shield himself from the putrefying smoke and any stray bone shards.

He switched on the saw, cut into his brother’s skull.

Ethan’s skullcap was just ready to be removed, when the lights suddenly flicked on.

“I thought I heard something down here,” Deputy Jonas stated. He looked from the startled man to the laid-out corpse with its skull cut open, and revulsion twisted his homely features.

Malcolm hesitated only a moment. Then he dropped the bone saw clattering to the floor and tugged at the loosened skullcap, ignoring the deputy’s shouted orders to stop.

It took a blow to his own skull, from Jonas’ nightstick, to halt the desecration. Then it took two more officers to drag Malcolm away from his brother’s body and up the stairs of the morgue.

“You idiots!” he raved. “Don’t you see!? It was me! I made him do it! I was his own worst enemy!”

He twisted his head around, staring wildly back at his brother and screaming triumphantly, “I created the imp of the perverse!”

Something stirred in Ethan’s dead, damaged brain. A tiny creature crawled out from a cavity, through the slit in the skullcap and down the tormented face of the corpse.

The creature that had been inserted into Ethan’s head the night before the gifted young man had left for university.

Writer’s Block
By Ryan J. McBriar

An author finds his muse (or vice versa).

Ryan J. McBriar was born in 1980, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He is a graduate of La Roche College and is currently a high school English teacher in Corry, PA.  McBriar holds a BA in both English Language and Literature and English Education.  When he's not teaching, McBriar enjoys spending time with his wife, also a teacher, as well as film, books, music, writing, and gaming.

He had been sitting in front of the monitor for hours. His elbows were planted painfully on the cheap, wooden desk, hands mashing his forehead into a collection of frustrated wrinkles. Jacob glanced, moving only his eyes, to the window set in his bedroom wall. Through the curtains he could see the solemn darkness of the night beginning to creep over everything. He’ll be here soon enough, Jacob thought harshly. If I don’t have more pages, it’s over.

He pushed himself back from the computer desk, wheels of his chair struggling to push across carpet. Jake had been meaning to get one of those plastic surfaces so the chair would roll smoothly.

Ah, it’s not worth it now.

Jacob Mallory lived alone. He made just enough money to rent the row house, although working two jobs to attain this feat had sapped his creative juices in the last several months. Jacob’s real profession was writing.

He had had nominal success, a few short stories in a few notable publications, but that was the extent of it.  He had been working on his first novel when the block in his mind came like the final blow of the guillotine: swift and unforgiving.  There was no getting around it; the block was very persuasive. This had been the first real case of writer’s block Jacob had ever experienced; he was fresh out of college, and it was to be expected. But when he couldn’t write for three months straight, he began to question his own merit.

That is until you came into my life, he thought callously, but not without a hint of appreciation, and paced toward the window. He parted the curtains with his supple hands and breathed a sigh that cleared his restive head.

The sky was lighter than he had first suspected. It was still magenta-hued across several rooftops. He could see the willows planted in front of his home, spewing forth from the cement, looking strangely alien in the strip of sidewalk devoid of other natural life. They were swaying rather violently. The wind had picked up. His room was chilled slightly, the autumn air dying to get inside. He kept the house cool, preferring to dress warmly rather than swelter under high heating bills.

It's still early.  I’ve got plenty of time.  Time to see her.

She would have to see him, have to understand. Maybe he would tell her everything.

Jacob turned on the overhead light in his bedroom, allowing the room to be illuminated by more than just the blank computer screen. In the fresh light, Jake's eyes were drawn to a box containing the nearly completed manuscript.

He picked up his cell phone hesitantly.

She’ll think I’m crazy, she’ll hang up on me, and she’ll call the police.

He dialed Rose Phillips’s number anyway.

It rang twice, and then went to voicemail, finally beeping in his ear.

“Hi Rose. It’s me,” he said, stuttering into the receiver. “It’s Jake. I need to see you. I know I haven’t called, but I’ve been going through some weird stuff,” he paused, wincing at the sound of what he was saying. “Look, I really need to see you. Tonight. You know where. I’ll explain everything.  Please, I’ll be there until ten.”

He ended the call.

Jacob Mallory was in trouble, and he needed to tell someone, in case he couldn’t finish writing at least three new pages by midnight. He pictured Rose, sitting in her recliner, reading peacefully, wrapped in her favorite quilt, listening suspiciously as the guy she had been dating for the last eighteen months babbled away on her voicemail. Jake was sure by now that she was getting up, pacing, listening to the message again, thinking things over.

She would come, he was sure of it. That’s why he was in love with her. She would come; she would give him a chance.

Jacob slid into his lightest jacket and grabbed his car keys from the wooden hook-rack.

***

The diner was nearly empty of other customers when Jacob slid into a booth near the back by a window. The lone waitress in the Venice Café was flitting between the two or three occupied tables like a pollen-collecting insect. She finally made her way to his table, reluctantly, as if reading something on his face that she didn’t like.

“All by yourself tonight, hon?”

Jacob smiled up at her. He had been hunched forward, chin resting in his folded arms, lost in his own thoughts. “Not for long, I hope,” he said convincingly, and the waitress seemed to immediately relax.

“Can I get you something while you wait?”

“Yes.” He squinted, searching for her nametag. “Barb, yes you can.  I’ll have a coffee and water, hold the water.”

She giggled and walked away.

He sighed heavily, and slumped back against the cushioned seat. Jacob’s eyes darted every few moments toward the entryway, each time expecting to see her ushered in by the chill autumn air. He pictured Rose’s beautiful brown hair, pulled up hastily and falling into her face, tickling her nose.  She would sigh impatiently, smiling as she brushed it out of her eyes.

And suddenly he realized that he must look like shit.  He hadn’t even showered that morning, or the morning before that. The days had been hectic the last week, and his appearance was surely an indicator.

He moved hastily toward the restroom as Barb arrived with his mug of coffee.

“Be right back,” he muttered.

***

Rose entered the Venice Cafe just as Jacob was stepping into the men’s room.  The place was desolate but warm and more inviting than the autumn night she had just escaped. The in-rushing wind as the cafe door fell shut made Rose’s brown, shoulder-length hair kick-up and swirl around her face. She brushed it aside, pulling a few tresses from the corners of her mouth, and adjusted her glasses.

Rose scanned the diner quickly. The booths lining the kitchen were empty save one, which was occupied by an elderly man alone with his newspaper. He glanced up and smiled at her, and she smiled back courteously. She didn’t see Jacob anywhere in the diner.

Rose Phillips was at the end of her rope and about to just lop it off at the knot. He’s not coming, and you’re a fool, she thought to herself, and not for the first time.  She had come here with one purpose in mind. Rose tapped the plastic shopping bag at her side.  The bag was full of CDs, movies, old magazines, and a few typed manuscripts. It was everything (at least all she could scrounge up in the last thirty minutes) of Jacob’s that had been scattered around various corners of her home.

She stood in the doorway unsure how to proceed. She had received his call while working at her computer. Rose had scowled at the buzzing cell and made her decision almost immediately. She loved Jacob Mallory, but things had gotten too weird.

A portly Asian man brushed passed her coming from the restroom, looking pallid.

“Stevey must be off tonight,” she said to herself wryly, glancing toward the kitchen area.

A voice startled her.

“Single coffee, table six. He’s been waiting for ya’. He’s in the restroom.”

She turned and the young waitress was skirting past her with several filled plates.  Rose found the table with the abandoned mug of coffee and slid in across from it.

She lifted the bag containing Jacob’s accouterments onto the table in front of her, pushing it as close as she could to the cup.

After a few moments, she ordered a glass of water with lemon and then slid the bag off and onto the booth next to her. She stripped off her light jacket and covered the bag with it. She wouldn’t stay long. She wanted to be locked up and snuggling safely in her bed by eleven. She didn’t feel safe being out at night, whether the local serial madman was inactive or not. She would give him an hour, and then it was “So long, Sweetheart.”

***

The Venice’s bathroom was surprisingly immaculate.

Jacob stood in front of the mirror, deciding at once that he should not have come here.

“Even if she does come, I can’t involve her. It’s too dangerous, he could easily come after her next,” he spoke loudly to himself.  “And you,” he said to his own reflection, “You my friend have seen better days.”

Jacob’s hair hung in dark, wavy clumps, long enough to be held back behind his ears. A few jagged spikes fell forward, crossing against his forehead. A stubbly five o’clock shadow had mutated into a full-fledged face mask, sporadic and unkempt, moustache and beard trying and failing to connect in several places. His blue eyes, still youthful and spry, peeked out from behind the tangle of hair, but there were heavy black-and-blue bags underscoring each. Those eyes looked as if they had aged ten years in the last week.

Jacob felt the sudden urge to throw his fist into the mirror, shattering his own dirty visage, but he stopped short. Instead, he turned the faucet on and began dousing his face with cold water, hunching over the sink.

“It’s been worth it,” he said reluctantly, and then repeated it. “It’s been worth it!” This time with more force and certainty, a certainty that at once made him uneasy.

The door to the single stall in the men’s room opened suddenly, and Jacob jumped and spun around, startled.

A squat Asian man was adjusting his pants, eyeing Jacob suspiciously and moving in hurried little steps. The man scurried out of the bathroom without washing his hands. Jacob shook his head with a hollow chuckle.

There were no paper towels in the dispenser above the sink, so Jacob moved into the stall to pull out some tissue paper and dry his face off. Next to the toilet Jake noticed the front page of the current Allegheny Tribune.  One of the headlines stuck out to him immediately, and he grabbed the newspaper the Asian man must have been reading.

The headline said, in big black lettering:

The Pennsylvania Prowler Inactive Whole Week:
Sudden Change in Killer’s Pattern Baffles Authorities.

“Jesus,” he said, his voice coming out in a ragged, choking gasp.

His eyes scanned the article, forgetting momentarily he was supposed to be waiting for someone, someone he may have already missed in the café.

He read:

Fear has gripped townships all over Western Pennsylvania for the past six weeks as a series of bizarre murders haunts their streets.

Audrey Dupree, Stanley Norville, Dave Springer, John Peterson.  These people and ten others were found dead in their own homes, in their very own bedrooms, with no evidence of forced entry. Every three days a new victim was found, slain in the same fashion, almost ritualistically mutilated with no apparent motive.

“He seems to move sporadically,” Chief of Police Derrick McCall said, responding to attempts at predicting where the killer may strike next.  “One victim could be 100 miles north of the subsequent murder. Dupree, for instance, was found in Erie.  The next victim, Springer, was discovered three days later in Allison Park.”

The newest development also has the police scratching their heads.

“He’s just stopped,” McCall said.  “We haven’t had another reported murder that fits his MO in almost ten days now.”

Does this mean that Western PA residents can begin leaving their windows open at night and breathe a collective sigh of relief?  McCall urges not.

“The perpetrator of these horrible crimes is still at large,” McCall said.  “Execute extreme caution in your nightly behaviors until we can close this case for good.”

Local residents have their own theories about what has happened to the “Prowler.”

“I think he’s dead,” Brad Raymond, a local retailer, said.  “Took his own life on account of his actions.  And that’s the way it should be.”

Another local resident, New Castle’s Jamie Montani, said, “I’ll bet it's found something to keep itself busy for awhile, a distraction.  I don’t think of it in human terms anymore, not this monster.  But I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it.”

Jacob didn’t finish the article. He swallowed hard; his throat was dry.  He thought of his coffee, which turned to thoughts of Rose, and he panicked.  I missed her, dammit, she’ll think I stood her up again

He folded the paper, haphazardly shoving it into his coat pocket.

Jacob checked his watch grimly as he pushed open the men’s room door. It was almost half past nine. Full darkness had settled comfortably outside the diner. If she’s not here--  he thought, but didn’t have a chance to finish his own ultimatum.

He spied Rose from where he stood, sitting at his booth, the back of her head bobbing impatiently as she thrummed her fingers on the table. She sat alone with his untouched cup of coffee.

Jacob absently tried to straighten his hair, knowing full well it wouldn’t improve his overall appearance, and made his way back to the booth. He felt nervous, and he wasn’t sure why.  It was that queasy, nauseated anxiety that came to schoolboys trying to kiss their first date on her front stoop, sure all the while that her father was glaring at them from inside. This is the same Rose I fell in love with, he thought, the same Rose I made love to, for Christ’s sake.  Something sure is different, Jake, and it’s not her.

***

Rose couldn’t hide her visual shock at Jacob’s appearance as he took a seat across from her. Jacob winced a little at her expression, ducking his head and forcing a thin smile.

Neither of them spoke for a full minute.

Finally, Rose. “Jake, what happened, are you in trouble? Jesus.”

“A lot’s happened, Rose. I’m writing again.”

She paused cautiously. “That’s good, right?  Have you been going to work?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I don’t make it. I have some time off coming to me.”

She sipped her water through tight lips, mentally reprimanding herself for almost falling into what she perceived as a sympathy trap. “I’ve called, you know, almost everyday for the last week, and I get nothing. You’re telling me you’ve been home and just ignoring me?”

Jacob shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t going as he had planned it. Rose noticed he was checking his watch every few minutes, almost manically, between gulps of coffee.

“Have other plans, Jake?” she said, sounding more accusing than she had intended. Nonetheless, her right hand shifted from her sweating glass to the jacket beside her and the bag underneath it.

“I’ve been writing, but it’s been bad. Not normal, I mean.”

Rose looked away, shaking her head and biting her lip in annoyance. “Come on, Jake.  You’ve always been your own worst critic.” She looked back at her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend?  She wasn’t sure. “Remember the fantasy novel you tried to write in college?  You told me every line looked like the bastard child of Tolkien and Piers Anthony, and that nothing you ever wrote was original, and that you were going to go into real-estate.”

This got a smile out of Jacob, but it quickly faded. Barb strolled back over and filled up his mug. He began drinking it again, black.

“Not ‘bad’ as in style or craft, Rose,” he said earnestly. “I mean bad due to the inspiration. Shit, I shouldn’t even be trying to explain this to you. You’ll just think I’ve cracked...another struggling writer gone off the deep end.”

Both of Rose’s hands were on the table. She thought in passing that Jacob was on drugs, but she knew better. Rose had seen something in his eyes; they were scared, haunted, terrified even.

Jacob continued in a low, measured tone. “He comes to me at night. I write to stay alive,” he said and glanced nervously at his watch then out the window into the canvas of darkness.

“Who? Why?  I don’t understand.”

Jacob put a hand up to silence her gently. He said, “Hear me out, then judge me as you will when all’s said, but I have to make this quick. He’ll be waiting if I don’t get home soon.”

Rose sat back and listened in rapt perplexity as Jacob spoke:

“I hadn’t written anything in so long I was beginning to think that I had forgotten how. Everything was stop-and-go for months; write a paragraph, trash it, start over. You remember, of course.  I was edgy with you. I was edgy with everyone. I was unhappy and something had to change, but I didn’t know how to affect it. I couldn’t get a handle on jumpstarting my own brain.

“ Night after night I would sit and pull my hair out. A few times I almost threw my monitor and keyboard out the window. Then one evening I started thinking.  Thinking about the murders and the Prowler. The mystery of it always intrigued me, and I’ve always been a touch on the morbid side to begin with, so I started thinking about the victims. I started to imagine I was one of the victims, or all of the victims, and I started to picture what images they could have seen before they died. What their synapses could have captured, imprinted on their brains, before they were tortured and disemboweled.

“Yeah, disgusting, I know. But it worked.

“That night I was on fire. I could have gone straight on ‘til morning, and then a few more damn hours out of spite. Around midnight, though, I got the strangest feeling that I couldn’t shake. The house was locked up. I could hear through the walls that Miss MacDonald had turned her TV off for the night, and on the other side, John Dillington had quit screaming at the dog long enough to lull himself to sleep.

“I kept writing about the murders in detail, about what happened to those people.  And suddenly I realized what the feeling was that was nagging at the back of my subconscious. It was the feeling of someone reading over my shoulder, breathing faintly just beside my ear and following word for word what I was typing. I stopped and sat up straight, not wanting to turn around, but feeling foolish all the same, like when you’re a kid and scared to pass by a dark alley even though you know nothing from your imagination could possibly be lurking there.

“Then I heard the voice.

“‘Don’t stop,’ it said, ‘keep writing.’

“My computer screen went dark, conserving power like it always does after I’ve been idle, and in that second of blackness I saw the reflection. Towering behind me so tall I must have been blind or stupid not to sense it before, this dark shape was hunched forward, one eye reflected by the moonlight spilling in from my open window. I touched the keyboard quickly and the image was gone, but not before I could discern great hulking appendages, and shapes that looked like...looked like fucking wings. I knew it was still there, and its breathing became huffy, like it was growing impatient.

“I started typing and didn’t stop for two hours, didn’t dare look behind me or focus too long on the scattered reflections on my monitor. By the time I did turn around, it was gone. He was gone. The window was shut; I hadn’t heard a thing. I collapsed in relief.  It was short-lived.

“That was almost two weeks ago. The thing’s been back every night since.”

Jacob sat back and took a deep, painful breath. His throat was sore and dry, but he was out of coffee. Rose gently placed her palm on the side of her half-empty glass of water and pushed it toward him. He drank greedily, finishing it off.

Rose realized that things couldn’t get much worse. Jacob Mallory, the man that she loved, was sitting across from her sounding like an escaped mental patient. She corrected herself. His story sounds crazy, but his voice doesn’t.

Jacob was squinting uneasily into the glass she had given him, now only full of ice. He looked like he was expecting the bomb to drop any moment.

She extended a hand that covered his.

“How long do you have?” she asked quietly.

He looked into her eyes, unable to conceal his brazen gratitude. “You believe me?”

“Until you’re proven wrong and I’m proven a fool, yes.”

Jacob looked at his watch reluctantly. “He comes at midnight, usually like clockwork, no matter how well I lock up my sliding window or barricade it.”

Rose’s eyebrows creased. “Why do you call it ‘he’?”

Jacob fidgeted uncomfortably. “We talk sometimes.  He’s obviously male.  He’s told me his name, but I can’t pronounce it, Drah-ka-tzar or something. I don’t know anything about him, where he’s come from, why he’s here.  I just know that he didn’t kill me because of my story, and the murders have stopped.”  He laughed vapidly. “I single-handedly stopped the Prowler. Shouldn’t I get a medal or something?”

Rose wasn’t laughing.  “What do you think will happen if you stop writing?”

***

Things were so complicated.

Jacob wanted to sound noble; he wanted to say that he was writing to stop a vicious killer from continuing his handiwork. But the truth was, as Jacob had come to accept, that he hadn’t written like this before in his entire life. He suppressed this thought and went with his first inclination.

“ Whether he kills me or not, one thing’s for sure. The murders will start again.  I think, hell, wherever he’s come from things had gotten dull, boring, vacuous.  So he struck out, came here, to our,” he paused, struggling for what he was trying to say, “our plane of existence. Goddamn, it sounds like we’re stuck in a re-run of The Ray Bradbury Theater. What I did entertained him in a way that arbitrarily hunting victims couldn’t. It turned what he did into an art. I think where he comes from he’s some kind scholar.  ‘The written word is the choicest of relics,’ Thoreau said, and I think he appreciates that on some level.”

“Christ, it sounds like you admire it.”

“Don’t be silly, Rose. I’m just scared. I can’t live like this for much longer. I wanted to tell you, in case I don’t make it. I had to tell you.”

Rose gripped his hand with more force. “Stay with me tonight.”

“Rose, I can’t, he’ll find me, I’m sure of it, he...”

“Jake, I live on the other side of town. If it finds you, it won’t be right away. At least break the cycle. Maybe it will just leave for good.”

“Yeah, and then the killings will start again. If it’s not me, then someone else. A lot of others, in fact, I’m sure of it. Do you want to be responsible for that?”

***

Rose looked at her watch.  It was five past eleven. “You’re running out of time,” she said. “I can’t let you go back to your house tonight, Jake. Please, stay with me. I love--  You can’t keep this up much longer.”

His refusal to give in made her nervous. She got the feeling there was something else going on with her boyfriend than he was allowing her to see. His eyes were darting from her, to the table, to the window frenetically, as if he were itching to leave her, itching to run home and meet whatever had been visiting him the last two weeks.

Slowly, to Rose’s relief, Jacob began to nod.

“You’re right,” he said. His teeth were clenched. He continued absently, “I’ll stay with you tonight. We’ll sort things out in the morning.” He looked exhausted all of a sudden, and Rose thought fleetingly that she might have to carry him to her car.

They paid the check, leaving a few dollars for tip, and left the diner. Jacob made it outside without Rose’s assistance. Rose watched as he collapsed into her beat-up Hyundai, crumpling into a ball and falling almost immediately into a fitful sleep. He slept as Rose pulled away from the diner, onto Route 8, and across the Fleming Bridge that took her into the city.

During the drive, Jacob’s sleepy mumblings made Rose more uncomfortable.

“We’ll be famous,” he said suddenly. She looked over quickly, surprised, but the passing streetlights indicated his eyes were still locked tightly shut. “I’m not the murderer, he’s done the dirty stuff. I’m just the recorder.”

Jacob remained silent after that.

Rose parked against the curb and the slight bump roused him. She felt fear leading her dazed boyfriend up the long stairwell to her apartment, fear that was knotting her stomach into weighty clumps. Not fear of the outside. In fact, she thought she might feel safer out there tonight. The kind of blind terror she was feeling now was directed at the man she had invited to stay with her to keep him safe. But who would keep her safe?

Pushing these thoughts away, she unlocked her front door and guided Jacob inside.

She locked the door and turned around, but Jacob was facing her, eyes suddenly bright and vibrant. He smiled at her from behind hanging chunks of matted hair, his brows creased inward, his eyes trained on hers. Rose felt the desire to run from her own home build like the gases in a bottle of Coke shaken up before being twisted open.

“Thank you for this,” Jacob said, still smiling that unnerving smile. “We’ll go back to my house in the morning. I love you.” He leaned in without warning to kiss her.

Rose couldn’t explain to herself why she shied away from his touch, but she did and he caught her only on the left cheek. The feel of his dry lips and rough, unkempt beard sent a chill all the way down to her toes.

“Good night,” she said shortly.

Jacob was asleep on her bed in minutes.

Rose couldn’t sleep.

She alternated sitting in front of her computer, unable to add anything of import to her paper, and pacing to the front window of her apartment, which looked down on Butler Street, still active at this late hour.

The worst is over , she thought to herself, but it gave her little respite.

***

The next morning at ten Rose was driving back over the Fleming Bridge, back onto Route 8, and toward Penn Heights. Jacob sat in the passenger seat the exact opposite of the man she had conversed with the night before.

The graveness was gone, magically dissipated over night. His lethargy and sullen earnestness had vanished and left in its place what could only be called bouncy exuberance.

“Damn, Rosie, I haven’t slept like that in weeks. My head’s clear, my body is energized, damn I’m hungry, are you hungry? Do you want to stop for breakfast? No, no, better not, not now, let’s just go to my place first. That’s what we have to do, get to my place.  Then we can eat and talk.”

Rose thought about drugs again, the logical, easy answer, but it treaded no water with the current situation.   The man didn’t drink or smoke; in fact she was almost sure he had never been drunk in his life. Someone doesn’t go from being anti-alcohol to undercover coke-addict in a span of two weeks. Maybe addiction wasn’t the word she was looking for. Maybe there wasn’t a physical substance Jacob had latched onto, but a mode of living, a kind of habit, an obsession.

“Oh no!” Jacob said, ripping her out of her own deliberation as she parked in front of his row house.

She followed his bulging eyes up to the bedroom window that hung directly over the front door on the second floor. The brisk fall wind had sucked the curtains from inside out of the casement, which was missing both glass and screen, and was now whipping them in an aberrant frenzy.

“Jake, wait!” she called, but he was already out of the car, passenger door hanging open, leaping up the six steps to his porch. He disappeared through the front door.

Rose felt sick. She didn’t want to go after him, but she found herself pulling her hair back, fastening it with a rubber band, and pushing the driver’s door open. She took her keys from the ignition and fingered the small canister of mace that hung amongst them without being aware of it. She had procured it when the murders had started.

She hoped it worked as she mounted the cement steps slowly, feeling an almost palpable dread coming from the open wooden door that lead into Jacob’s house. She pictured the inside of the house before she actually got there; small living room, crammed with a television and too much furniture, stairway and chipped white banister leading to the second level.

She jumped when the door of the house to her left creaked open. It was Mrs. MacDonald, one of Jacob’s elderly neighbors. Rose noticed she was wearing a pink nightgown that she held tightly clasped at her generous waist.

“Everything okay over there?” MacDonald asked warily.

“Y-yes,” Rose said. “Jake’s just a little under the weather, that’s all.”

“Must’ve had a fitful night last night,” MacDonald said. “Some time ‘round midnight sounded like he was throwing a tantrum, bangin’ and breakin’ stuff. Must have really been feelin’ out of it.”

Rose swallowed with some difficulty. She managed to nod, which placated the older woman, who slipped back inside her own home.

Entering Jacob’s house, Rose didn’t know what to expect. The Prowler?  Not likely. She was almost certain that it was gone long before they arrived that morning, if it had ever been there at all. She gripped the mace canister tightly.

The living room was well lit from the morning sunshine. She noticed a fine coating of dust had settled on almost all the wooden furniture. Rose turned to close the heavy wooden door, and as the clasp clicked into place, she heard Jacob crying out from upstairs.

“Gone!”

She sprinted into motion; her fear was momentarily dispersed by the sound of horror in his voice.

“Gone,” he called out again, softer this time, as Rose reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the doorframe of Jacob’s bedroom.

It looked like a tornado had landed and been localized in that one room. The bed’s mattress had been overturned, nearly removed from the box springs; plates of long-ago eaten food were scattered across the floor; books and magazines, some of them shredded, surrounded the man crumpled on his knees amongst the disaster area.

Jacob was kneeling with his back to the doorway, his head in his hands, shaking with convulsive sobs.

“It’s all gone,” he repeated.

Rose noticed with a jolt to what Jacob was referring. The oak computer desk on the north wall was empty. The monitor, hard drive, printer, were all gone. Some wiring and cables remained. It looked as if the hardware had been ripped right from the wall. All that was left was the keyboard and a few scraps of blank paper.

She stayed quiet, unsure how to react. Jacob reacted for her.

“He took everything. Backups, memory, the goddamn manuscripts. Hundreds of pages, gone.” His voice was quavering with hysteria.

“Jake, I...”

But he turned with blinding speed to face her. His cheeks were wet, but his eyes were no longer manufacturing tears, instead they had contorted with rage.

“You bitch!” he said and lunged, arms flying out, hands twisted into hungry claws. His eyes were empty, bottomless pits.

Rose was so startled that she couldn’t react in time. Jacob fell upon her, hands attaining their goal: her throat. He squeezed harshly and Rose dropped her keys, which landed silently on the carpet as Jacob pulled her roughly into the room. She took in one long gasp of air before his fingers wrapped around her windpipe.

“ This was chance,” Jake growled. “He was my chance to create something special, to achieve greatness.”

He had her sprawled out on the bed, pushing with all his strength, and she could feel the exposed layer of springs dig into her back.  Rose kicked wildly, beating at his arms with her hands, scratching at what flesh she could find. Her struggling was futile.

“I never wanted to stay with you last night, and now it’s all ruined,” he spat, almost unintelligibly. “You should have listened to me, Rose. I know what’s best, I always have.”

Rose blinked rapidly, her vision becoming clouded, dark, filled with blotchy, putrid-colored masses. She would lose consciousness soon. She couldn’t scream. Her arms searched the bed wildly for anything, anything that could help her. In her breathless panic, the silhouette Jacob was casting on the wall seemed to expand, filled out with shadowy wings that enveloped the whole room.

Then her searching fingers found something near the edge of the bed: a plate, full of half-eaten pizza. Porcelain. Thick. Heavy.

She used her remaining strength to swing her right arm upward, toward Jacob’s face. The plate shattered with a sickening thud, and she could suddenly breathe again.

Rose’s chest was on fire as she drew in precious oxygen. Jacob had collapsed to the floor, cradling his head. Dark blood seeped through his fingers. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She saw Jacob getting up, blood pouring down his face like rain.

Rose heaved herself off the bed, lunging forward, toward the doorjamb. Her hands found the fallen keys, and she fumbled with the canister of mace as Jacob fell on her from behind. He gripped her legs and began dragging her back into the room. His voice had lost all coherence, now erupting in animalistic growls and moans.

She was on her stomach when Jacob let go. She had released the safety on the canister. She could see from the corner of her eye that Jacob was lifting something over his head. She turned herself onto her back and kicked up, hard, into his crotch.

He let out a cry of agony and dropped the heavy wooden desk chair at his side.  He had meant to crush her skull with it. The mindless thing that had been Rose Phillips’s boyfriend bent forward in anguished pain, and Rose brought the mace up into his face.

The spray not only soaked his eyes, but also seeped into the open wounds on his skull and face. Jacob howled in renewed pain, and Rose rolled back and dug a kicking heel into his chin.

Rose had never been physically impressive in terms of strength, but there was enough power in her last burst of defense to send Jacob stumbling backward toward the open window. The wind from outside suddenly flooded into the room, sending the curtains back in as Jacob’s knees struck the windowpane, and then sucking them back out almost in unison with Jacob’s flailing body, soaked in his blood.

Rose didn’t hear him hit the ground, but in fifteen minutes she heard the sirens out front.

She was still sitting on the floor of Jacob Mallory’s empty bedroom. The cops would be rushing in soon, she was sure, with dozens of questions. She would tell them as much of the truth as she could.

***

In the next few days the Prowler’s murder spree remained at a standstill, although Rose noted a rumor was circulating that an unknown foreign author was soon to publish a book about the unsolved case. The work was said to contain incredible detail about the killings.

She had no interest in that particular read.

Every
By Charlie Kirby

Even doctors are in awe at the miracle of birth.

Charlie Kirby has been writing off and on for over forty years, mostly in the field of technical theatre and fiction.  Born in Vermont, Charlie moved west to pursue an education.  Charlie has been married for thirty-two years and currently resides in Stockton CA. When not travelling, Charlie works for a local community theatre as an office manager/resident designer and dabbles with the culinary arts.

Willis Hutchinson huddled over his glass of scotch and stared off into the rain-blackened night. He sighed and took a deep slug of the liquor.

“Willis? Willis, I need you!” His wife's voice cut into his reverie, a glass shard through silk, and he hated her all the more for it.

Damn, couldn't she give him a little peace?

“NOW, Willis!”

“I'm coming, you freaking cow.” He rose wearily and reached for a nearby tray, which held various items. He paused in the hall, frowning at his reflection in the mirror. He looked eighty, not thirty-seven. Had she aged him that much that quickly?

Abruptly, a flurry of activity exploded in front of him and he jumped back, tripping.  He just managed to catch himself in time to avoid a painful, if not deadly, plunge down the stairs. The tray clattered to the floor and he winced at the noise.

“You clumsy oaf!  You practically scared me out of my skin.”

“Good luck with that,” he muttered.  She’d need a map and a Sherpa for that task.  He glared around for his adversary. The culprit, an apricot-colored poodle, growled menacingly at him and made a great show of its teeth. The light from the bedroom made its handmade-jeweled collar sparkle and gleam. “Spare me, you little scum or I’ll boot in those teeth down your throat.” He pulled a foot back and the poodle retreated enough to let him into the room.

He gathered the tray back up and replaced the items on it. Plastic containers of vegetables, bottles of vitamins and dietary supplements, all would be overlooked as his blushing bride made a headlong lunge for the packages of cookies and potato chips.

His wife sat in bed, propped up by pillows, the bluish glare of the television doing nothing for her overall pasty complexion. Lord, what a sight she was, he thought to himself, his mind only barely able to remember her as anything else besides the current swelling mass of flesh.

When he met her, it had been at a cocktail party.  Her sleek, lithe figure caught his eye and before he knew it, they were sharing a table and sipping wine.  How he had paid for that moment of distraction.   He’d never thought much about her eating habits, never wondered how she maintained such a lovely figure.  It was the classic bait and switch.  Once she had his ring on her finger, the jig was up.

He was a gifted surgeon.  He already had his own practice, fledgling though it was, and all the support of his colleagues on a variety of projects. All he needed was a wife by his side and, in time, Mikki became just that. She dazzled his friends and his family. She was perfect, supportive, demure, and ready to take her place by her husband’s side as his partner and life mate.

He set the tray down, close to her side of the bed and watched the pudgy hand snake out for the junk food and carefully avoid the healthier alternatives.

How did I ever have sex with that? Aloud he said, “Mikki, you shouldn't eat any more of that garbage. Your obstetrician said―”

“Who the hell cares what he says?” She protested and stuffed a handful of potato chips into her mouth, the crumbs trickling from between her fingers. She paused to pat her distended stomach.  “After all, I'm eating for two.”

You're eating enough for ten.  The kid's going to be born with a Big Mac in his hand and a premature case of pimples if you don't lay off the junk food.  “I know you are hungry, but you need to consider what your present diet is doing to the baby.”

“Now, Willis, you know that junk food isn't all that bad for you. Get out of the way, HG wants to come up and give his mommy kisses.” The poodle climbed up the small step unit - he was far too old to jump up any longer - onto the bed and walked up to the woman's side, eyeing Willis with a mixture of fear and hatred. “Were you picking on Mommy's poor HG again?  He's so abused.”  She made a clucking noise and the dog sprawled out in an obscene fashion so that she could rub his stomach.

“Damn near tripped over him coming up the stairs. He's ferocious, Mikki. We've got to get rid of him before the baby comes. He'll rip her throat out. Besides, the dog's nearly dead anyway.  One good whiff of him should prove that.”

“HG? Never!  He's Mommy's baby, he’s Mommy’s precious angel. He's too full of love to hurt anything.” She cradled him and the dog whined, its brown eyes filling with affection for the woman.  Then its head turned and Willis could see the contempt the dog had for him.

“Right.” Willis reached for an empty box and barely eluded the razor sharp teeth as the poodle lunged himself at the man. “Love, huh?  That's your idea of love?”

“Isn't that cute? He's so jealous. He's never had to share me before. If it comes down to it, I'll give the baby up first before HG. After all, he was here first.” She lavished kisses upon the grizzled snout, kisses that had once been reserved for her husband.

“You're joking.”  His voice was stunned.

“I'm not. Willis, I'm serious. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. If the baby can't get along with HG, out it goes. There are plenty of adoption agencies that would love to have it.”

“IT is a child, our child.” Willis's thoughts spun and he barely managed to stagger from the room.

“IT is secondary to Mommy’s good boy,” she called after him. “Did HG have a good time with his groomer today, your toes look so yummy sweet!”

And she'd do it too, Hutchinson knew it.  She had divorced her first husband on account of that damned dog, although Willis hadn’t known that before the ceremony. She'd give his baby away because of it too, just for that damned dog.

He remembered how thrilled he was when he heard the news of her pregnancy. From the time he was a little boy, he’d longed to be a father. Even sitting on his mother’s knee he would ask her if he’d be a good daddy when he grew up. In fact, he suspected it was why he’d gone into medicine, the need to nurture and care for others. Still, he'd always wanted to have kids, lots of them. Being an only child and a late one at that had made him a loner, turning to books as playmates. He wanted a houseful of kids, but Mikki and that dog apparently didn’t agree.

Sex with Mikki had become increasingly difficult. After the honeymoon, she’d started pulling away from him. It didn’t help that that little monster was always right at her side. To even get a crack at sex, he had to lock HG in the garage.  She didn't like it and he wasn't terribly happy with it either. As for HG, he just grew more and more aggressive towards him and more loving towards Mikki.

Before their wedding, sex had been fun, even explosive. Mikki had been a wild cat in bed. It wasn’t until they’d come home from Acapulco and the dog had met him at the door, with a snarl, that Willis realized their twosome was a threesome.

The funny part was that Willis loved dogs and they loved him. It only proved that whatever HG was, he wasn’t a dog. A demon, a monster, Willis didn’t know, but he did know the dog’s sole aim in life was to make the new interloper as uncomfortable as possible.

Then Mikki finally dropped the bombshell and told him she couldn’t conceive, but only after the ink dried.  Entrapment, he decided finally. She was a woman on the make for a husband and she'd caught him, hook, line and sinker. After that, she'd reverted back to her real self.

Willis had turned the tables on her though. He’d found her birth control pills and switched them out. No one was more shocked than she at the announcement. Shocked and furious because she knew she’d been found out and didn’t have any recourse. He told everyone immediately and engaged his former roommate from university as her doctor.

He looked around the living room of the small rented cabin and sighed. What could he do to prevent this?  A divorce?  No, the judge usually awarded the children to the maternal parent.  Besides, she'd have everything he'd worked so hard for. Murder?  His job was healing, not killing and the thought of taking a life, even Mikki's, repelled him. Then what?

Willis had rented this place for a month, a sort of last hurrah before the baby came. He’d thought if he could just get her alone, and appeal to her motherly instincts, it would be fine. Until she waddled up to the car with HG in his custom made, hand crafted carrying case, then he knew it was game point in her favor. She was making sure Willis never touched her again.

Abandonment?  Of course, he'd wait until after the baby was born.  He could freeze all his assets and keep her...

A sharp tear of pain whipped his thoughts around and he cried out. HG stood there, grinning at him, blood, his blood on HG’s muzzle.  And all Willis could see was a child, his child, ripped to shreds with HG standing over the lifeless body.

Willis grimaced in pain as he forced the already soaked pants leg back from the wound. HG growled menacingly at him and Willis grabbed a poker and shook it at him.

“Willis?  What's wrong?  Is HG alright?”

“The little bastard ripped my leg open.”

“Oh, thank goodness, he's not hurt.  I don't blame him really.  You probably haven't fed him yet, have you?  If I could get up, Mommy would take care of her baby herself.”

You cow, he wanted to scream. Instead, he uttered one short word, “Bitch” as he reached for a hypodermic to inject a local into his wounded leg.

The idea came to him then in a whirlwind as he was closing up the last inch of the bite.  It sickened him, but it was a way out and when you came down to it, strangely appropriate.

Limping, Willis walked to the kitchen and took out a can of 'Canine Delight' from the shelf.  He opened it awkwardly and shook the contents into a monogrammed dish.  Glancing around to see if the dog had yet made an appearance, he carefully sprinkled the sleeping powder onto the meat by-products and mixed it up.

“HG, supper is served.”  He retreated from the room, entering only again when he was sure that the dog was ravenously gulping down the food. He shared at least one trait with his owner.

Softly he crept into their bedroom, carrying his bag with him.

“Willis, what are you doing?”  Mikki watched him curiously as he swabbed her arm.

“Vitamins, Mikki.  If you'd eat properly, I wouldn't need to do this.”

“No lectures, Willis.  I really don't care to hear any of them.  Besides, what do I care what the kid is like? He or she is going to be someone else's problem, not mine.”

“Then you've made up your mind.”

“Yes and I will call the hospital in the morning and notify them of it. I won't have HG traumatized anymore. He still hates me for bringing you home.”

“Of course, Mikki, anything you say, my sweet angel. Now rest.” He stepped back and waited for her breathing to slow as she dropped into a deep sleep.

Willis Hutchinson wiped his hands on a kitchen towel and smiled contentedly to himself. Caesareans weren’t a specialty of his, but he'd not done too badly at all. She'd heal with only a trace of the operation.

She stirred weakly as he was getting his coat from the closet.

“Willis, what happened?  I don't...” she dropped a hand to her bulging abdomen and winced.  “I don't feel very well. My stomach hurts.”

“Must have been the shot, Mikki. Iron shots will do that. Some people react differently to them.  Just rest and you'll feel better.

“Where's HG?  He always makes me feel better.  I can't sleep without my puppy.  Where's my baby?”

Willis patted her tummy carefully. He thought of the poodle, now resting right where it belonged, and smiled widely. “HG is right where he belongs, my love.  He’s asleep, but I'm sure he'll let you know when he wakes up.”   Well, providing it doesn’t suffocate first.

He pulled on his coat and hurried out, pausing to pick up the small bundle of life nestled in a temporary bed in HG's basket. He kissed his baby girl's forehead tenderly and opened the door, shielding her from the rain and night air.

He still had enough dynamite left over from that stump blasting job & take out the only bridge between the cabin and the main road.  With that gone, it could be weeks before anyone would be able to get to the cabin. By then it would be far too late.

It was then that he heard his wife's scream and realized that HG must be awake and trying frantically to dig his way out. He smiled and held his daughter close to him. “After all, Mikki, every dog must have his day, dear.”  And he stepped out into the night.

City of the Dead
By Clare de Lune

New Orleanians can get under your skin.

Clare de Lune was born and raised in South Louisiana.  She studied at Louisiana State University and has a background as a librarian, journalist, web site guru, model and actress.

Clare began writing as soon as she could hold a pen; her first short story was published at age 11 in an anthology of children’s poetry and short stories titled Ascending.  Clare’s stories have also appeared in The Horror Library, CRASH! Magazine and on various erotica web sites.  Several of her horror and science fiction stories have been made into film shorts, which have appeared on Santa Cruz’s public access television show Whirlpool.

Clare has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin and Los Angeles.  She now lives and writes in the New Orleans area and enjoys the company of several rescued pets.

Fingers traced exit wounds, turned a dark, rosy hue from the sluggish scarring of time. The only thing that was left to do was wait and hope the day would break and she would find her way out of this gruesome maze.

The little hatchback whipped around the crescent curve of I-10, forcing Holly to lean into the console. She looked out of Isaiah's driver's side window. The sky was scattered with dark, menacing clouds, pregnant with rain. She'd noticed the rise in humidity as soon as she stepped out of the New Orleans Airport, and her throat and nose seemed pinched.

Holly leaned into Izzy and he reached up absently to stroke her hair. On either side of the interstate, grey and white mausoleums jutted up into a blue-black twilight sky. A little city of the dead.

There were stories of coffins popping up out of graves during floods and heavy rains, then slowly cruising through the streets, corpses stiff and their caskets aged like old Cadillacs.

But that was if they were lucky. Those coffins usually swelled and burst, bloated with water, and out popped the corpse. Sometimes. Often, the toxic sludge of liquefied remains held the corpse to the bottom of the casket like super glue.

She had heard of something like that before. An old woman in the L.A. area befriended a homeless woman. The vagrant passed away in the passenger seat and the woman, who thought she'd surely be to blame, left her silent passenger in the car for nearly a month. When authorities removed the body, part of the seat cushion came with her before she was discovered on a routine traffic stop. The vagrant oozed generous amounts of thick, vicious matter and even had a few insects take residence in various orifices. Especially maggots. Funny how the lowest forms of life get right to work on the highest to send the body right back into the earth.

Holly bit her lip. She didn't like it here. At least in Los Angeles, they're courteous enough to give the dead a ride. Here, coffins in mausoleums are rudely pushed to the back to make room for the new 'arrivals.'  And murder stories abounded. She only came in from Los Angeles when Izzy played bigger shows here. Tipitina's. The Howlin' Wolf. Honestly, she wished he'd get the fuck out of here and make a name for himself in California. Anything would be better than this.

Soon, they exited and crept all the way down into the Quarter, whipped down Decatur (Izzy promised they'd go to Fiorella's, then maybe Molly's later), then up Dumaine to the apartment.

They walked and talked and argued about him coming to L.A. or her moving down to New Orleans. Despite not being able to budge him, it was nice seeing him again and roaming the Quarter when it was cool, windy and overcast.

They ate dinner in near silence, so back at the apartment, they did what they always resorted to: they fucked.

It was kind of nice with the rain pouring in the background, lightening ripping through the sky like a white hot scar, thunder rattling Izzy's mismatched dishes. Soon, Izzy dozed and she lay back on the cool sheets, slick with sex-sweat and full of thoughts.

She started calling him Izzy instead of Isaiah right after they'd met, after Hurricane Katrina. She didn't like 'Isaiah' and his stupid prophetic message. 'The land will be completely laid to waste and totally plundered.'  Remembering it, she scoffed. Hadn't that shit already happened? Katrina turned New Orleans into a giant cesspool, and Izzy came to stay with Holly's brother, Keith, an old band mate. That's how she met him, and it didn't take them long to fall in love and fuck.

Of course, Izzy went back to the cesspool, the only thing he'd ever known. And Holly called and cried, called and cried, until they worked out this miserable sort of long distance thing.

She twisted over to her side, propped her head up in her hand and gazed at him. He was completely still, and she had to stare to make sure he was breathing. An old lantern, hanging from the intricate iron lattice outside, provided little light through the old French doors. The faded amber glow crept in, providing just enough light to see shadows and outlines. She could see more detail in his face now that her eyes had adjusted to the light.

She heard the strange sound before she saw the thing. It was a low rattle, then a vague hiss. A black, sleek shadow scurried across Izzy's alabaster face, then disappeared into the shadowy contours of his dark hair.

She gasped, leaned over and looked for the thing.

No. Not possible. Had that really happened?

She didn't even want to think of what kinds of critters emerged when it rained like this. All kinds of things would be looking for shelter and warmth. She drew the crisp sheets around her, tried to forget about what she thought she saw. As she did, she reached down and scratched her thigh and felt something.

Fucking mosquitoes. They were relentless little things , she thought as she scratched the swollen bump right above her knee. Must have gotten in from the French doors. As she scratched harder, her eyes widened.

The bite was moving right beneath her fingernails.

She lurched out of bed and switched on the bedside lamp. There it was, wriggling under her skin, slowly making its way up her leg. As the thing travelled under her flesh, it left a raging red path behind it and the skin swelled.

For a moment, she was too freaked out to move; she finally whirled around to wake Izzy.

As she shook him, he felt stiff, and those familiar hisses seemed to be all around her now. Somehow, the rain was also much more amplified. The French doors must have opened. She absent-mindedly rushed to shut them and was met with another surge of bright lighting.

A crackle, then a loud electrical pop. The power was out, and now the fetid creature in her leg squirmed on up the highways of braided nerves. She screamed and cupped her hand over the squirming, disgusting thing, tried to stop it in its tracks, but it persevered. It moved and wriggled beneath her sweaty palm.

Another pulse of lightning showcased the tiny strings of bruises the thing had left behind, a violet ribbon of agony. As the worm-like abomination neared her hip, a tortuous burning filled her groin.

She raced to the phone on the nightstand, tripped on the edge of the rug, and careened across the room. She toppled the nightstand and fumbled with the phone.

No service.

Of course.

On the bed, Izzy seemed to be swaying to some phantom beat. With the infrequent lightning flashes as her only source of light, she saw scaly, glossy black bodies racing in and out of his mouth, nose and ears. He was also nearly covered with squirming white worms that had totally obliterated his once handsome facial features.

Holly darted into the kitchen, the pain searing up and down her leg like a rocket. The thing was carving into her skin and she pinned it under her thumb, trying to crush it. As she pushed, she could feel it boring further into her flesh, consuming pulpy nerves and tissue.

The thing was consuming her, and another flash of faint light told her there were more, multiplying like an infestation.

She yanked open a drawer, fumbled with the contents, and withdrew a small, yet sharp carving knife. It whispered metallically as it sliced the air.

Without hesitation, she planted the tip into her flesh, piercing the skin, and a dot of crimson welled up in its place. The tip of the blade bore into the little worm, and for a moment, the pain stopped. She stabbed where she could feel the foul little creatures squirming and writhing, hoping to eradicate them all with the sharp tip of the blade.

But within seconds, a new pain reared its agonizing, raw head. This time, Holly cried out, clutched her hands to her ears and screamed.

She could hear the insatiable chewing in her ears, could feel the slippery-scaly texture of some millipede-like creature ravaging her facial features as it ventured along with each tearing bite.

The rain and gushing water outside seemed to be a relief from the blossoming humidity of earlier, and now it seemed to be a welcoming, cooling sanctuary from the hot anguish of the creatures inside her. She was drawn outside, hoping somehow that the rain would wash it all away.

She ran and screamed, clawing at her face, hoping someone, anyone, would hear.

With mud caked around her feet, she sloshed through the lengths of growing, mucky puddles until she tumbled to the sodden earth.

There she sat, tracing the little exit wounds where the worms took residence inside her, hoping the storm would stop, that light would break.

Strangely, the gnawing stopped and it was quiet.

Or at least she thought it was. The pain began at the base of her neck; it bloomed all around, driving through her skull like a screwdriver.

In some raw, exotic insight, she knew.

As her screaming brain was finally descended upon, light did finally break, revealing the wet used husks of the bodies from the little city of the dead.

Want
By Meself John

Contribution received anonymously near a bench at the Wheeling Civic Center. This is being published with the understanding that the author will not attempt any further contact with the editors or publisher.

God wanted for women to suffer,

For they are unearthly beings.

God made them to be help mates,

For this should be.

But these women are not.

For unto these women nothing is good.

The sun did not shine

The buds did not bloom;

For they are of Satan.

They shall pay with a gift of pain of birth.

For they should suffer this at least:

Nine times as painful as the burn of the sun.

For sunlight will not shine;

For their fornications are not manly.

They should suffer not this?

They are unwilling uncaring selfish bitches.

They suck one another.

They shall pay for their ways!

I will see to this,

Because they are willful tramps

Who will suffer pain.

My mother did it more to my father,

For this she shall pay first.

And her name is Brenda:

A strong and caring soul.

All children of god will pay.

He is the biggest lie,

For I prayed and nothing came right!!!!!!!!

My father died of horrid, horrendous suffering,

Which came from this slitch.

All will pay,

For none are without sin.

Including her.

May her every day upon this earth be hell.

And her sister is a class act too.

So, I fucked up.

I had both of them up the ass.

And they liked it,

Like they like all things men do.

Sherry will be mine though,

For she was the best.

No screaming or anything.

For this I will change them all.

For the death of them will occur time and time again forever.

I can and I will.

I promise with all of my cum, shit and everything.

Because that tramp exists,

I will make her every day a humiliation forever.

For Sherry is the love of her life.

Ten is one.

No, twenty is still pussy.

Cuntie slitch!

Slitches all of them!

She will pay with tail;

Just like mother,

Who was born without love of life.

For there was none…

Because I exist.

Bizarro Anthologies by Burning Bulb Publishing:

The Big Book of Bizarro Sci-Fi & Fantasy Collection (Kindle)

The Big Book of Bizarro Erotica Collection (Kindle)

The Big Book of Bizarro – (Paperback, complete works)

Westward Hoes (Paperback and Kindle)

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