Sick! Stories From the Goop Troop
Author: Eric Raglin
Date: 2023-06-07 00:00:00+00:00
Description: SICK! STORIES FROM THE GOOP TROOP is a collection by the most gag-inducing authors around: Lor Gislason, Shelley Lavigne, and Eric Raglin. Their stories feature fluid-swapping, cannibalism, bug-eating, bodily disintegration, and more. Steel your stomach and prepare to get SICK! The aptly-entitled SICK presents a trinity of bold authors pursuing extreme gross-out body horror with an aura of perverse joy. If the body is a temple, these weirdos have stormed it not in anger, but in a mad revel of pus and cum laden excess. Do not buy this book for your mom. -Joe Koch, author of The Wingspan of Seve
Publisher: DarkLit Press

Sick!

Tales From the Goop Troop

Eric Raglin, Lor Gislason and Shelley Lavigne

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2023 Lor Gislason, Shelley Lavigne & Eric Raglin

Cover Art © 2023 Val Halvorson

First published in 2023 by DarkLit Press

DarkLit Press supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce creative works that enrich our culture. We thank you for purchasing an authorized copy of this book. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced, redistributed, or resold without the author’s permission.

The Publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that is not owned by the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-998851-24-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-998851-23-2 (Ebook)

All rights reserved.

Contents

1. CONTENT WARNING

2. 1.

A WORD FROM THESWINESAYER

3. 2.

BABYFACE

4. 3.

SUCH BEAUTIFULNODULES

5. 4.

UNKEMPT

6. 5.

THEDISINTEGRATING VESSEL

7. 6.

HE’S A GROWER

8. 7.

BABY SOFT

9. 8.

A PRESSING MATTER

10. 9.

POXXX PARTY

11. 10.

SICK-OFF

12. 11.

TURN THEIR EYES TO FIRE

13. 12.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

14. 13.

A NOTE FROM DARKLIT PRESS

15. 14.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

16. 15.

CONTENT WARNINGS

17. 16.

Chapter 16

CONTENT WARNING

The stories that follows may contain graphic violence and gore.

Please go to the very back of the book for more detailed content warnings.

Beware of spoilers.

A WORD FROM THESWINESAYER

Pigs get a reputation for being creatures of filth, but we’re no less filthy than any other animal on this planet. We just aren’t shamed by it all.

We eat food that’s gone a bit off instead of throwing it away.

We know that life, death, and sex are things that happen to most of us, so we do them under the open sky.

And we love the cooling, skin-soothing, UV-protecting properties of mud. It feels great to wallow and coat our bodies in it.

Come join us for some stories that wallow in the mud and filth.

It’s what’s good for you.

Whether you like it or not, you are forever bound to family. To their histories and habits, their looks and genes, their blessings and curses.

Yes, curses. You might not believe in them, but that does not make you immune. They travel in bloodlines, inherited from the fathers of fathers of fathers going back generations. The origins of these curses are lost to time, and anyone who once knew how to break them has been dead for centuries.

You are on your own. You, poor human, are doomed.

BABYFACE

By Eric Raglin

Two daguerreotypes remain of my great-great-great-great grandfather, Charles Naylor. Dad told me they were taken one day apart, but I didn’t believe him for the longest time. The person in the first picture—still baby faced at twenty-nine—looks nothing like the thirty-year-old man in the second, if he could even be called a man. That’s not a jab at his character. No, I mean, he literally no longer looks human.

I thought I’d be the one to break the family curse. Of course, Dad thought the same. He told me as much last time we spoke on the phone. It was hard to hear him through the crying—not him crying, but the others, shrill in their ceaseless chorus.

“Where are you living now, Dad?” I asked, holding the receiver half a foot from my ear.

“A monastery, if you’ll believe it,” he said. More crying on the line. A squelch as one of the others spit up. “It’s cold and hard to breathe in the mountains, but the monks don’t seem to mind, uh… them.”

“That’s great,” I said, then swallowed hard. “I wish I could see you.”

“It’s painful enough hearing me. Seeing me would be overkill.” His voice wavered. I think he wanted me to see him, too, but after two decades of hiding, why reveal himself now? “Your thirtieth is coming up. Anything you want?”

“Besides the obvious?”

“Well, yeah, besides that.” Dad shushed his shrieking others, then coughed. “Obviously I don’t have a job, so I can’t spare much, but I could send you a postcard of Nepal. Gorgeous country.”

“Sure, Dad.” A lump rose in my throat. “I’d love that.”

The postcard arrived three days before my birthday. It depicted a monastery, bright red against the gray mountains, roof curved like a smile. Yellow spit-up stained two of the postcard’s corners, but I could still decipher Dad’s shaky cursive. He wished me a happy birthday regardless of what might happen. He also said he’d worn out his welcome at the monastery, having scared off too many children and asked too many times if the monks could cure him. He’d hop a train to somewhere else soon, hoping the conductor wouldn’t catch and kill him like some monster of myth. When I set the postcard down, I sighed and poured myself a whiskey.

Three days and I’d be in Dad’s shoes—not enough time to find a solution. After all, what could I do that the Naylor men, going back countless generations, hadn’t tried already? They’d sought the blessings of priests, the elixirs of witches, and the scalpels of back alley surgeons. Some had died from toxin or infection, others had hung themselves, and far too many had disappeared without explanation. At least Dad was alive and called every few months.

The day after the postcard arrived, I invited my friend and long-time crush Riley over for brunch. Just as I pulled the muffins out of the oven, he excused himself to change his daughter’s diaper in the bathroom. With a moment to kill, I wandered to my bedroom to freshen up with a little cologne. Mid-spritz, I noticed the legendary daguerreotype resting on the top shelf of my closet. I dug it out to see what I’d soon become—and to consider if I’d be able to live with the changes. The picture turned my stomach more than ever. A wave of sympathetic pain coursed through me as I imagined my grandfather’s head erupting and contorting and sprouting those monstrous mutations.

That was when Riley popped into the bedroom, his daughter cradled and burbling in his arms.

“What’re you looking at, Kev?” Riley asked, smiling. “Coffee’s getting cold.”

I nearly tossed the daguerreotype back in the closet, but after a moment’s consideration, I decided to show Riley instead. Without revealing the picture’s history, I’d gauge his reaction and determine if there could ever be a future between us.

When he saw the picture, he laughed. He asked if I’d bought it at a film auction. A true horror nut, he wanted to watch whichever movie the “prop” had come from. My heart sank and an awkward silence descended upon us. The brunch that followed was brief.

Riley and I wouldn’t speak again until the last night of my twenties. With no apparent solution to my problem, I decided to host a birthday party and enjoy one last night among the people I cared about. In my invite, I promised barbecued ribs, an open bar, an EDM DJ, strippers of multiple genders, and a not-to-be-missed surprise at exactly midnight. I’d made all of the booking arrangements and my bank account had suffered for it. It didn’t matter, though; I wouldn’t need money soon anyway.

Four friends came to my house that night. Riley arrived ten minutes early with a six pack of beer and vegetable tray in tow. Maybe he hadn’t believed I’d actually hire a bartender, DJ, caterers, and strippers for the party, but his eyes lit up when he saw them.

Slack-jawed and laughing, he said, “I know this is the last night of your twenties, but Jesus, Kev. All this?”

I nodded. “I… I just want to make good memories while I still can.”

“Life doesn’t end at thirty, man. I mean, I got a baby to take care of and no baby daddy—should probably pick Livvy up from my mom’s around nine, by the way—but I don’t miss my twenties.”

“Sure, but our situations are completely—”

The rest of my friends—Jessie, Mads, and Nathan—walked through the door right then, gawking at the extravagance like Riley had moments ago. I would greet them after I’d convinced Riley to stay past nine.

“You can’t leave until midnight,” I told him.

“What? No, I have to put the baby—”

“Your mom can do it, right? Please, just do me this one favor. There’s a surprise at midnight and I really want you to—”

“Okay, okay, I’ll text my mom.” Riley pursed his lips, shook his head, and typed a message on his phone.

The party began. As much as I wanted to get lost in some trance music, enjoy a sexy cowboy striptease, and savor a rack of spicy barbecued ribs, I couldn’t stop looking at the clock. Every few seconds, I rolled my cheeks between my fingers, hunting for bumps that might hint at transformation. Any time I grazed a pimple or mole, my lungs seized in panic.

Drunk and immersed in luxury, my friends didn’t seem to notice my nervousness. Riley invited me to dance a couple times, but when I shook my head, he shrugged and cozied up to Nathan and the sexy cowboy instead. I couldn’t blame them for having more fun than me, but it still hurt.

By ten, my friends were slurring their words and dancing without any sense of rhythm. Splashes of beer soaked the carpet. A forgotten plate of ribs had tipped onto the couch, leaving a greasy orange stain. Sitting in the recliner, I kept telling myself none of this mess would matter after midnight.

Around eleven, Jessie, Mads, and Nathan talked about getting an Uber. I interrupted—engaging in conversation for practically the first time that night—and begged them to stay. Nathan grinned and, ever the good wingman, said he’d stick around if I agreed to dance with Riley. I could even pick the song so long as the DJ had it on hand. I took a deep breath, then nodded.

The song I chose was “Sandstorm” by Darude. It was dumb and catchy enough to get me out of my head for the first time that night. Riley and I danced in my living room while the others drank and cheered us on from the couch. One song became two became three, and by the fourth, I was sweating and smiling and wondering if Riley might join me in my bedroom. Since meeting in college, we’d shared plenty of flirty looks and dirty comments. We’d even shared a twin bed once on a trip to Aspen. Neither of us had slept much on that trip, but we also hadn’t acted on our desires. It was now or never, right?

But that’s when I felt it: an itching behind my cheeks, soft and hairless and full as a baby’s. For as young as I looked, it was a wonder Riley found me attractive. The itching turned to gnawing, a rhythmic pain out of sync with the electronic beats. An agonizing fullness expanded inside my pores, pushing toward the surface. I stopped dancing and steadied myself. His hand still on my hip, Riley held out a beer, probably thinking I needed a drink.

“Stop the music!” I shouted. “Now.”

The DJ looked up from her computer. Her expression flattened as if she hated to end her set here, but she cut the Basshunter song just before the drop. I glanced at my phone: 11:59. A drop of blood splattered onto the screen.

“Shit, Kev,” Riley pointed at me with the mouth of his beer bottle. “Did I hit you? I’m sorry. I get crazy when I dance and—”

“No, no,” I said. My face felt boiled and puttylike. A feverish shudder ran up my spine. “This is why I brought you all here toni—”

A spasm pulsed through my cheeks. A contraction. They were coming.

As my transformation began, the DJ muttered “oh shit,” the bartender dropped his martini shaker, the caterers backed toward the wall, and the strippers stuffed costumes in their bags a little more quickly.

Then there were my friends.

Jessie ran from the house screaming. Mads wept and buried her eyes in a throw pillow. Nathan vomited at the sight of me and stumbled toward the bathroom.

But Riley was different. He approached with caution, a single hand held out as if to feed a wild animal. My face squelched as the first of the babies squeezed through my pores, birthed into the world but inseparably bound to their host. My grandfather had tried removing his. He’d pulled one out screaming, his fingers sticky with afterbirth, but the second he cut its umbilical cord, he collapsed on the tiled bathroom floor and never got up again.

Hundreds of the bean-sized babies tore through my pores and surfaced for all to see. Their shrieks came out garbled and wet with blood. What they screamed for, I would never know—one of countless family mysteries without an answer.

The babies squeezed the air out of me. My lungs felt tight, and a panic attack seemed imminent.

“Should I call 911?” Riley asked, placing his hand on my shoulder. His wide eyes contained terror, but his voice remained calm.

My breathing slowed enough that I could respond: “There’s nothing they can do. I’m like this now. I’ll always be like this.”

A baby spewed down my upper lip and into my mouth. The spit-up tasted like curdled milk. I started crying—fucking wailing. Startled, the babies shut up. I opened my eyes to find only Riley left in the house.

“The picture,” he said. “The duggerotype.”

“Daguerreotype,” I corrected, a madman’s laugh escaping me.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was—”

I don’t know why I did it with puke and blood and babies on my face, but I leaned in and kissed Riley on the lips. He jumped and grunted, but didn’t pull away. His lips felt warm against mine, his slight stubble bristly against my baby face. The babies kissed him, too. Or maybe suckled.

“Wow,” he said, talking with half his mouth while kissing with the other. “This is… different.”

I pulled away and cackled like a coked-up witch. Riley joined in. Strangely, his laugh didn’t sound nervous, but rather, insane. Just insane enough for the two of us to work.

Baby face. It’s funny if you think about it.

Bodies make a lot of useful things. Skin can become leather, while muscles and organs make good food. We can use milk to make ice cream, bone marrow as glue. Hair can be used to make wigs and clothes. Teeth make nice jewelry.

If you’re willing to be creative, every last part of the body can be useful. Sustenance, clothing, art, adornment.

It’s time we find a use for zit sebum.

SUCH BEAUTIFULNODULES

By Shelley Lavigne

After twenty minutes of pushing on my zits to no avail, the milker gave up. She sighed as she snapped off her blue latex gloves and tossed them into the bin.

Nothing but trash.

“I thought it would work this time,” I said, gingerly touching the red mounds on my face. The overfull pustules of my adolescence were even more tender after failed milkings. I avoided looking in the mirror; I didn’t want to see the splotchy red skin, a testament to yet another shameful failure.

“It's common in the industry, we call it being ‘tightly wound.’ The sebaceous thread is so deep we can’t excise it. You shouldn’t be embarrassed: it’s not uncommon. Usually it passes.”

The milker reached towards my face but stopped, noticing her now ungloved, unsanitary hands. It would be doubly bad to infect me after a failed milking, especially since it might bring her abilities into question. No, I had to be the only one to blame.

“Some think it’s psychological,” she continued. “You can try some breathing exercises. Or yoga. Can’t hurt, might help!”

I’d tried nearly every trick in the book this last year, but there was no use admitting that.

I stood, only just remembering to grab the awful little pink purse (a gift from my mother who said my stuffed pockets were “undignified and unladylike”) before walking out of the small milking room. Since everyone in the waiting room would see the red, ripe zits that marked me as a failure, I took my time strolling down the hall. The ads on either side showed smiling teen girls wearing beautiful iridescent gowns, twirling in fields of flowers.

100% pure, girl silk!

Soft. Flowing. Effervescent.

Proudly produced in sunny Sudbury, Ontario.

When I emerged into the waiting room, my mother made hopeful eye contact. Her face fell when she saw the red, full spots on my face.

She sighed, pulling me into a hug.

“Maybe next time, Camie baby.”

Of course, there would be a next time. I’d be dragged back here next week only to be humiliated again. Mother thought I was failing on purpose, a form of teenage rebellion. She believed I, through sheer stubbornness, was holding in all my silk to hurt the family out of spite. She’d been dropping hints that money from a successful milking would help around the house— “We can’t afford <brand-name soda/a vacation/clothes from that store> on our salaries.” These sessions were a favour from an old friend of my father’s and they weren’t going to last forever, especially if I was not producing. They wouldn’t waste time on me when the city was full of other sources.

Back then, I used to wish I could be like the other girls. It would be so much easier.

As my mother started the car, I felt a pain in my middle. I hoped it was because of guilt because I really didn’t want to start my period after that failure.

Or ever, to be honest.

Jennie was the best silk producer in the school and by far the most popular girl.

The next day at lunch, she was sporting a fresh pink mound with a white bulbous head on her cheek. It was a textbook perfect closed comedo. In the cafeteria, her admirers stared at it in awe, especially her boyfriend, the star quarterback Timbo.

“Don’t,” she said, slapping his hand away as he reached to touch it.

“I’m so in awe of how ripe you are,” Steph said, the little brown noser. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. It wasn’t like anyone would have noticed me; I was sitting alone one table away—even the other scholarship kids avoided me.

“The trick is to keep the pores small and really full. That produces the thinnest, longest filament. There’s a cream you can buy to help, but it’s exclusive, really hard to find,” Jennie said, rummaging through her purse for it.

A magenta bottle of Silky Missy with a white and pink bullseye logo (whitehead on whitehead on whitehead) was passed around the table to oohs and ahhs. It retailed for $30 per 30 ml but was sold out everywhere. An eBay auction was accepting bids over 131 CAD when I checked my phone later that day.

“Can I have just a dab? Trade you for my almond milk latte?” Steph asked.

“Ew no!” Jennie said. “Almond milk is terrible for the environment!”

When I needed a break from class, or finished all of my work and started “annoying my classmates with my constant wiggling”, teachers usually sent me to walk it off.

Since students weren’t allowed in the halls during classes without awful pus-coloured bandoliers, I stuck to a hiding spot, usually the staircase to the rooftop cafeteria.

It was quiet, dark, and frequented by criers or couples.

I opened the door and listened for the sound of either but heard only the hiss of the ventilation fans. I settled into a corner away from the cameras and pulled up some fanfic.

It was getting juicy when the fire escape door below opened and two people walked in. I peeked my head over the handrail and saw a flash of Jennie's golden hair and the red of Timbo’s football jersey.

“Come on babe, you promised,” Timbo whined.

“Consent can be withdrawn at any point, babe.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been itching for it all day, all night. I was the one who pointed it out yesterday. Don’t I deserve a bit of it?”

I was frozen, afraid of discovery. I was already pretty uncool, but it would get worse if I got caught spying on two people making out (or worse; my imagination was running wild due to my aforementioned reading material). I would go from being called names— “dried up”, “crusty Cameron” —to being more actively harassed. I did not want my gym shoes filled with chocolate pudding like Tina’s had been last spring. I’m still haunted by the squelching sounds she made during the fitness test Coach Hector forced her to complete regardless. She was always in the cool kids’ pocket, that one. Clearly still working out some issues.

There was also Becky’s famous glue-in-the-swimsuit “incident” to consider.

Kids are cruel and I didn’t want a bigger target on my back.

But I was curious what Jennie and Timbo were up to. They were pretty self-involved; I figured they were unlikely to notice me.

I crept down a level, imagining myself a spy like the AU fanfic I had been reading.

“Okay fine. But not the big one,” Jennie said.

Turning the corner, I saw the pair. Timbo’s back was to me, his hands on Jennie’s neck, popping a red zit near the base. Jennie let out an almost theatrical moan as a thin white thread emerged from her skin. Did it feel good for her? I crouched down to avoid being seen, but I was too slow.

Jennie’s eyes meet mine.

Fight or flight or freeze? Apparently, I’m a freezer.

Frigid in so many ways.

Jennie didn’t say anything, maintaining eye contact as she let out another moan and Timbo leaned down, sucking on the zit. My zits pulsed in concert with the sounds. The fanfic combined with my overactive imagination and I imagined myself as Timbo popping the legendarily pure white silk from Jennie, consuming what only the very rich could afford. Slurping it like the finest angel hair pasta.

I felt fluttery. Like a million silk moths were inside me. Maybe because I was imagining myself close to Jennie or picturing myself as Timbo.

Then I felt it. A zit on my mid-back let go. I bent my arm back to touch it.

The skin was unbroken but something moved under the surface, squirming like a thin worm.

I had a lock on my bedroom door, unlike my older brother Julian who lost his door privileges after visiting adult websites. I was not supposed to know that but the walls were thin in our shitty house and my mother screamed extra loud when she walked in on him.

So, I locked my door before setting to work.

I cataloged the bumps on my skin, the red welts that looked like every other girl’s but just wouldn’t pop. Just wouldn’t produce. The bumps on my shoulders ached under the weight of my backpack, the sprinkling along my nose like an angry sunburn, the mountain range on my chin, like irritation from shaving (not that I would shave or even think of shaving my chin, only dudes shave there. Or really hairy older ladies. But I was pretty sure I would be hairy when I was older. I thought about it a lot, my hirsute future.)

I took my two index fingers to a big one on my neck. It hurt to press, a deep, orange pain. Did it hurt for others? Was this yet another way I was different, yet another reason why my skin didn’t feel like mine? If only I could produce, maybe then I wouldn’t feel like some botched failure of a girl.

I pressed harder. My eyes watered and my vision blurred.

I should stop, this wasn’t doing anything.

But I pushed harder.

The pain felt good. It was me telling my body I’m the boss, listen to what I want, or I’ll make this worse.

If Timbo could pop a zit, why couldn’t I?

Then I felt it. Same as the feeling in the stairs.

A release.

I wiped the teary blur from my eyes and leaned into the mirror, trying to see what I had produced. But there was nothing. It hurt but I tried again, fingers shaking with the pain.

There!

I felt the draining, the zit deflating a bit. But there was nothing on the surface. Were my filaments that thin? That was a good thing. I should be happy but it felt weird. I spent so long wanting this, why did it feel so bad, like a betrayal?

I turned on every light in my room, even the dusty Virgin Mary night light. I stepped in close to the mirror. My pores looked huge, like eyes dotted on my skin, staring back at me.

There! A small filament!

But I couldn’t seem to grab it.

Maybe it’s under my skin, I thought.

Then, sudden sharp pain in my middle. It was like a string had squeezed tight, so much sharper and harder than any past period cramp. I fell onto the mirror and watched from up close as the thread moved under my skin, coiling down my neck and disappearing under my collar bone.

“Can we not?” Steph said as Miss Hugo fired up the projector and started a slideshow about the biology of the now extinct silkworm. There was some snickering at her comment.

“It’s in the curriculum,” Miss Hugo said. The history teacher and the geography teacher had said that as well. Silk production and everything tied to it was the “current issues” topic in most curriculums since the discovery a few years back. It was touted as an example of human progress, a good news story, a local success, and economic breakthrough. “This might be on the test,” she said with a sigh, as if she knew this wasn’t enough to hold the attention of the class but it was not like she had any better ideas.

“The silk moth, Bombyx mori was native to China where they were used for thousands of years—”

I zoned out. Others passed notes or looked at their dimmed phones. Miss Hugo continued undeterred like an automaton, talking about the moth’s natural habitat and growth. I drew a maze of curlicues in blue ink, a claustrophobic close swirl of increasing darkness; an artistic rendering of my mood. The colour on screen shifted after a moment and it caught my eye, so I turned my mental dial back to Miss Hugo.

“The silk was spun around the caterpillar and served as its cocoon. Once inside the cocoon, the caterpillar dissolved its organs and underwent metamorphosis.”

The graph on the screen showed brightly coloured organs dissolving, migrating to different parts of the body, a bit of the stomach moving up to the mouth and a chunk of the liver joining it while another part turned into testes. It was gross and kind of fascinating all at once.

I was kind of invested.

“In order to harvest the silk, the cocoons were dropped in boiling water while the caterpillars were still undergoing metamorphosis. When the water was stirred, the silk unwound and individual strands were cultivated.”

“Excuse me,” Tina asked, “what happened to the butterflies?”

“Moths,” someone corrected to a couple snickers.

“The caterpillars died before they became moths.”

“Old timey humans were so barbaric,” Nita said.

Yeah. I couldn’t help but imagine being that caterpillar, about to transform. And then being boiled alive.

It was back suddenly, that tightness in my middle, the compression, the squeezing. At first it just felt uncomfortable, like too-tight pants, but then it squeezed even more, painful, way worse than it was last night.

I pulled up my shirt a bit, expecting to find a wire or a strap wrapped around me, a prank by a classmate. But there was no strap, no wire. The skin didn’t even look dented. It was squeezing so much, so hard. I should be able to see evidence of it.

It got tighter.

And tighter.

How was I not bleeding? Or garrotted in two?

“Excuse me, Miss Hugo?” Tina said. “I think Cameron is having a fit. She’s panting and stuff.”

Everything went black.

The nurse was worried, but ultimately, decided I just needed rest. I seemed fed enough and the wounds on my arms were caused by worrying at my zits—eating disorders and self-harm being the two more common ailments for students. Not much else she could do but offer her generic brand acetaminophen and a place to sleep. She watched over me as I squirmed into fetal position and offered to call my parents for pick up.

“You know, pain is usually the body’s way of telling us something is wrong,” were her parting words of wisdom.

Father grumbled about having to take time off from work as he quasi-carried me to the car. He normally complained so much about work at the silk plant that he should have been thanking me for giving him an excuse to leave rather than giving me crap for it.

The pain started to fade once I was buckled in, and it was almost gone by the time we passed the new textiles engineering faculty building at Laurentian University. It was one of the many new silk industry buildings now filling the gaps caused by the collapse of mining.

Once home, he handed me a warm ginger ale and heated up the magic bean bag. We watched Star Trek on the couch together.

My sister Sally—a germ-ridden, whoopsie baby five years younger than me—prodded me in the stomach with her bony finger when the bus dropped her off. She was in sixth grade and she’d gotten more annoying as she’d gotten bigger.

Mathematically this made her exponentially worse over time.

“Is it your period?” she practically yelled in my ear. My mother walked in the exact moment I shoved her off the couch. She fake whined, smiling at me from the ground.

“Don’t push your sister around, it’s not ladylike.”

Mother started waiting for me in the car when I went to my milkings. She must have been tired of getting pitying looks in the waiting room.

“Is there stuff going on at school?” she asked as I slid in.

She didn’t even bother to ask me how it went, it was all over my face. Still, the courtesy would have been nice.

“School is fine.”

“It’s just, I don’t want to put more pressure on you. You keep acting like we’re doing these sessions to annoy you. But we’re doing this for you.” I sneered but she ignored me. “All the other girls in your class are extruding and we thought you might like to, you know, be part of the group.”

I shriveled in my seat. By that point, I was pretty sure I would never be milked.

I would always be a let-down unless I found a way around this problem.

According to the internet, here are some methods for increasing silk production:

1) Eat fatty foods (especially chocolate, the sweeter and less natural the better)

2) Don't wash your face

3) Wash your face too much (a lot of websites argue vehemently about this. Some recommend specific soaps too)

4) Have a hormone imbalance (I never figured out how to make that happen)

5) Use products to create sebum (Silky Missy worked this way)

6) Touch your skin a lot (I did. I caressed my lumps, licked those I could reach even if that wasn’t suggested. It seemed better than touching it. In fact, if it worked, I was planning on posting about it and gaining some followers. I bet Jennie would be impressed, maybe even deign to be seen with me, a scholarship kid)

7) Be stressed (of course I was stressed! The world was a mess, my teachers all assigned work due at the same time, my parents thought I was a failure, and I couldn’t seem to create silk like the other girls)

“It's a shame,” the milker said after a five-minute attempt to excise thread from the zit on my cheek. “You have such beautiful nodules. But they just don’t want to produce sebaceous silk. It’s a shame.”

The eleventh grade was in line for hot dogs at the school picnic and I was standing behind Jennie, so close her vanilla perfume nearly overwhelmed me. I couldn’t really say it was unpleasant, just a lot. Kind of like it was anytime Jennie was around. I didn’t think it was just jealousy. I’d read enough fanfic to know what usually came next.

A confused confession. A moment of tension. A passionate make out in the bushes.

Yeah right. In my dreams.

It was a hot day but Jennie showed up that morning with an iridescent white scarf and hadn't taken it off. It twined around her elegant neck, no doubt hiding a hickey from Timbo. That prick.

“Is it real?”

“Of course it is, you jackal,” Jennie said.

“What if it’s got some of your silk in it?” Steph wondered.

“It probably does, my silk is some of the best. My milker always says so. My dad wouldn’t have bought me some shitty scarf with some sub-par silk.”

A gust of wind made the barbecue flare, lighting a table of buns on fire. Teachers ran around frantically, trying to put out the flames, failing spectacularly and instead spreading the fire to the paper plates. It was like watching clowns at the circus. Everyone else was too distracted to see Jennie’s scarf slip over her shoulder, picked up by the same gust. I reached for it subconsciously.

The silk was incredibly soft, like butter.

Jennie looked back at me silently. She said nothing as I reached out again, stroking something that might have once been inside her.

My fingers felt oily, moisturized, for the rest of the day.

In the middle of the night, the pain pulled me out of a dream of Jennie. I woke up screaming. Naturally the whole family barged in to my room, door locked or not.

“Is it food poisoning?” my father asked.

“Get out of my room,” I said. I couldn’t quite muster the vehemence I was feeling and the command fell flat, closer to pleading. It hurt too much to shout.

“Feel her forehead. WebMD says if she’s got a fever, it might be appendicitis,” Julian said.

“You’re probably just having cramps. I had bad ones at your age, before I went on the pill. Maybe we should take you to the doctor, get you a prescription,” my mother said.

“I bet she’s been taking laxatives,” Sally said. She’d had a lesson about “teen issues” at her middle school last week and afterwards thought every teen was suicidal or had an eating disorder. She should have compared notes with the school nurse, they could be friends. Sally needed those even more than I did.

“I will gouge your eyes out,” I said, as I fumbled on my bedside table for a pen.

“Psycho,” my sister said.

“Be nice to your sister!” Mother countered.

“Bet she’s just doing it for attention,” my brother said before flinching to avoid my flying pen. It bounced off the wall several feet from his head. I really should have put more effort into gym class.

“Hey! Don’t hurt your brother,” my father snapped.

“I think we should all just leave her alone,” my mother said, patting father on the shoulder.

“I could have lost an eye!” Julian whined.

But they all mercifully walked out of my room, my mother throwing me one more pained smile before closing the door.

Now all I had to focus on was the pain.

Which, in retrospect, was not the best idea.

It felt like my lungs and stomach were collapsing in on themselves, like I was turning into a black hole and annihilating myself.

I tensed my muscles, thinking it would keep everything in place, preventing whatever was happening from getting worse.

And why was I fighting it? Whatever horrible thing my body was doing, was it really worse than my day to day? Disappointing my parents, getting ignored by everyone at school, losing my scholarship because my grades had been slipping. None of those were as bad as the main problem: the fact that my body clearly did not want to extrude the sebaceous silk. I’d been trying so hard, doing everything I could to produce. But it just wouldn’t happen.

And I was not really sure why I’d been fighting to produce it for this long.

So, I let the tension out of my muscles, gave in to whatever my body wanted.

As soon as I let go, I felt the comedos all over my body burst, felt the thread slither under my skin, wind across my body.

I should have been scared, but I felt calm. It felt like destiny.

My breathing slowed as my lungs became tightly wrapped.

Strands stitched my eyelids closed.

My ears filled with silk.

There was no longer any light, any sound, any air.

Just a tight, dark warmth.

I awoke in pitch darkness.

I reached my hands out—

No, that was not quite right.

I could sense six of them now.

And not a single finger.

I put my appendages against the walls that surrounded me and pushed (it was difficult, I’d never been particularly ripped but I felt even weaker than usual in that moment). I felt a crack, a give. A beam of moonlight, iridescent, appeared. The pull to immerse myself in it, to bathe in it, gave me the extra energy to widen the crack and to slowly, carefully stick my head out.

I saw my old face, slightly deflated, resting on the pillow. I’d never noticed how sad and empty I looked. I suddenly wanted to get out of this old body, wanted to get free right then, that second, minutes ago actually, maybe even years ago to be honest.

I pushed harder, wriggling.

Something tugged on the back of my neck. I twisted my head and saw my new body for the first time.

A moth. Pale like the moonlight. Like the threads of silk in Jennie’s scarf. And behind my neck were two fleshy protrusions that would become wings.

The cocoon of my old flesh cracked under my weight as I heaved myself out. More of my body emerged, abdomen covered in downy hair (ah ha, I knew it!), and six segmented legs. I found my own reflection in the mirror and got in closer to see my compound eyes, the mandibles around my jaw, and the fuzz covered antennae emerging from my head.

Honestly? I was fucking gorgeous.

Basking in the light of the moon, I let my wings unfurl and harden. It wouldn’t be long before I would follow the migratory call to go south.

In the far corner of the sty lies a massive, ancient sow. “How sad,” says the farmer, “I should put her out of her misery. She is too old to breed. Her meat would be too tough to eat.” They no longer feed her with the rest of the swine. She lives off scraps, excrement and insects that stray too close. “She must be miserable,” remarks the farmer’s wife. They are wrong, of course. This hog is exactly where she wants to be. For the first time in her life, she bows to no one, and nothing is expected of her. The mire sets her free.

UNKEMPT

By Lor Gislason

Have I told you how I met my great auntie? Stop me if I have. Everyone asks, so I’ve gone through the whole song and dance half a dozen times, at least.

For as long as I’ve been alive, our trailer had been separated into two distinct halves: the front, with a small living room, bathroom, kitchen and two bedrooms—one for Grandma and the other for me and Bill. The back half of the trailer had always been a mystery. A door behind the couch leads there, but we weren’t allowed in. Grandma would say it’s not safe, the floor is rotted, or that her sister Joanne died there. The story changed every time.

Yeah, you could see it from the outside, just couldn’t get in there. The windows had been shuttered for years, you couldn’t look through them. There’s never been a back door, or if there was it’s long gone. Just shrubs and piles of junk there now.

It always annoyed me we had this huge section of the trailer that went completely unused. Me and Bill got along just fine but I would often daydream about having my own space. Bunkbeds are cool when you’re a kid—not so much as a teen. Got a little annoying when I had to sneak off to the bathroom whenever I wanted a little “me time” if you know what I mean.

She had to know one of us was going to get curious and peek someday, right?

It couldn’t have been better timing. Bill had taken Grandma out of town for the weekend to see a specialist in the city. I had the whole place to myself. Planned on doing fuck all for a few days. Whose Line Is It Anyway? was on and the noise was giving me a headache. You remember that show?

In our house, the TV was always on. I couldn’t think of a time when the screen was dark. Grandma said she liked the background noise and never seemed picky about what channel played. Pissed me off to no end but if I ever complained she’d just tell me to go to our room, pop an Aspirin and take a nap or something. I didn’t see the harm in shutting it off just one time. My first act of teenage rebellion. You can laugh, I know how it sounds. Quite pathetic really.

Click.

And then: sweet, sweet silence.

Maybe for the first time in my life, it was quiet, and by God, it was wonderful. I just sat there with my eyes closed, savouring it. Everything felt clearer, like the first time you get glasses. I started to pick up on tiny sounds I’d never heard before; the hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of our antique clock. My own heartbeat. Then I heard something weird…a scratching, skittering kind of thing. I sat up. Shit, I thought. Did we have rodents?

I paced around the house, tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. Each time I passed through the living room I glanced toward the door and my heart raced faster. I realized that’s exactly where the source of the noise was. I turned and looked at the blank TV screen, saw my nervous reflection staring back at me.

You wanna know what I said? “I’m going in there. Fuck it.”

I jiggled the handle before realizing how stupid that was. Locked. My next idea was to grab the emergency credit card Grandma always left for us when she went out. Prayed it wouldn’t snap in half, I braced myself against the door while I fidgeted with the lock. You really gotta shove the card in there. Turned out it was a lot harder than in the movies, but it was worth a shot, right? I heard the scurrying getting louder like it was right on the other side waiting for me. After a few agonizing minutes, I heard a click and turned the handle. Now here was my second mistake: I was still leaning full force on the door when it opened, so I basically fell into the room. I grabbed the first thing I could reach so I didn’t biff completely.

Finally: the great unknown. It was dead quiet. The rats cheesed it before I got in. It was a bit underwhelming, honestly. A narrow hallway with brown carpet and peeling wallpaper. After all those years I expected something…mysterious. Crosses of all shapes and sizes lined the walls. I flipped the light switch—surprised those bulbs hadn’t burnt out, honestly. Turned out I put my hand on a table covered in knickknacks. There were big dust streaks from me accidentally moving some porcelain babies. I looked at my fingers and rubbed them together. Had some shit on them. This wasn’t dust. It was oily, and all that rubbing created sticky globs that balled up like glue. I wiped them on my pants but they didn’t really come off.

I took a step forward and my foot sunk into the floor. When I pulled it up my sock was covered in that same sticky shit! Fuck man. It smelled stale, kinda woody? Really nasty. Still makes me wanna take a shower just thinkin’ about it.

So there I was with my feet covered in gunk. Down that hallway, two doors on either side. I started my investigation. The first was a bedroom, with just a bare mattress on a wooden frame and a dresser. Next, a small bathroom, equally decrepit. Every window was covered in this dark paper and after peeling it back to reveal the shutters I pried them open, blasting sunlight into the space for the first time in years.

Would you believe it looked much, much worse with natural light? Oh my God, dude. The oily stuff covered every surface and it had this off-brown colour, like straight-up shit. I tried to avoid touching it, was worried I’d get sick. My pants were covered in it.

I threw them out later.

Didn’t realize until I got to the last door that the noise had stopped. Maybe I made too much of a racket when I fell over and scared the pests off. I had to lift my feet and step very deliberately, or else they’d just stick in the carpet grease. There’s no way whatever lived back there hadn’t heard me.

So I opened that final door… And at first, I didn’t know what I was looking at. A doll? A pile of rats? Just a fucking mess. Going from the bright hallways to that dark room really threw me off, too.

Then I heard this creaky little voice calling out to me: “Who’s that? I haven’t had a visitor in so long…”

I almost shit my pants. Propped up on the bed was this lady, ancient looking. All tucked in and smiling at me. Long, thick hair. It looked so fucking greasy. The bed took up most of the room so I was pressed up against the wall, too terrified to leave. I slid around the side and her hair was easily touching the floor—not just that but it kept going. And going. I pulled my foot up again and looked at it. Covered in hair.

You know who she was? Guess, I’ll wait.

Yeah. It was my fucking Aunt Joanne.

I asked her what the hell she was doing back there. Living by herself in the dark!

“Oh I don’t mind, I’m used to it.”

Then I asked what she even ate. “Oh that’s simple, I just munch on some hair every once in a while. It grows back, you see!”

I heard that noise again. A huge strand of hair slithered up the bed and I realized that’s what the sound was. The hair. It bumped into furniture as it moved around the place like a blind ass snake. I watched as it wiggled up next to her.

Then she suddenly grabbed it like a carrot and started munching on it! Seriously! Covered in bugs and lint and stuff that stuck to it from the oil. That’s what she’d been eating all these years!

After the shock wore off, we got to chatting. Told me what happened.

See, turns out Grandpa did not like Joanne. He thought she was an “invalid”, as they called it back then. She couldn’t use her legs. Didn’t like taking care of her, ended up locking her in that room a lot. One day he did it for good. Then he told Grandma that Joanne ran off with a guy from church.

Grandma loved Joanne. Wanted her to be happy! So her getting hitched to a nice fella was a blessing. But she still missed her terribly. When she tried to go into her room to like, reminisce or whatever—he wouldn’t let her. Said Joanne left a candle burning, and the room caught fire. Or that it was mouldy. Or maybe it was full of rats, you know, blah, blah, whatever to keep her out. He never told her the truth, and frankly, I think Grandma got confused after all those years of him lying to her. He was a fucked up dude. You didn’t question him on stuff like that.

After the weekend, Grandma got home and saw Joanne in all her glory. Nearly keeled over!

Both are long gone now, but we had a few more good years together. Joanne insisted on staying in her room but thankfully expanded her diet. Really liked cheeseburgers. Said she enjoyed how greasy they are.

Great dinosaurs once ruled Earth, spreading fear, trampling the weak, and devouring all who dared cross their path. They did not expect their reign to end, but end it did. All it took was an asteroid.

Millions of years later, you humans have inherited the dinosaurs’ spirit, bending this puny planet’s creatures to your whims and believing yourselves invincible. You’ve even developed asteroid deflection systems to avoid the dinosaurs’ fate.

But what if the force that destroys you is much smaller than an asteroid? What if it’s too small to see as any threat? A meteor, for instance. It’ll burn up in the atmosphere, you’ll say. No reason to worry.

This casual, cocky arrogance may be your final mistake.

THEDISINTEGRATING VESSEL

By Eric Raglin

Like beads of sentient mercury, the Infiltrators creep single-file into the bull’s anus. A rectal shiver interrupts its chewing, but it’s back to the cud a moment later. Its jaw rotates in unhurried circles once, twice, three times before stopping. Grassy paste falls from its mouth.

Each Vessel is different, and this one is harder to pilot than the withering tick the Infiltrators used to climb its haunches. More complex biology, and unlike any creature from their side of the Milky Way—meat where there should be chitin, horns instead of acid-spraying stalks. Each second spent figuring out how to make the Vessel walk is a second wasted. The exothermic effects of infiltration have already started corroding its rectum, acrid steam rising and boiled shit dripping from its anus. The Infiltrators smother its pain center, well aware how easily a panicked Vessel can regain control.

Using its eyes, they survey the pasture, a lush green expanse dotted with the manure of a hundred mindless, munching bulls. Just beyond them is the curved chute leading into the processing plant. A human on horseback squints at each bull individually, evaluating whether their loins are at their fattest point or still have room to grow. The Infiltrators chose the largest Vessel for this very reason, but there’s no guarantee the human will select it for slaughter. Pinkish gray chunks of the Vessel’s rectum sizzle, slither down its speckled legs, and settle in the grass. With no way to stop this disintegration, the time to act is now.

The Infiltrators pilot the Vessel toward the human, acclimating to knees that bend the wrong way and muscle groups built for Earth’s weak gravity. The Vessel stumbles and weaves like a dying beast. They have to be careful. If it lurches like a diseased animal, the human may decide it’s unfit for consumption. But with a few more strides, the Infiltrators find an even gait. They approach with confidence, even as the tar of molten innards trickles behind them.

Noticing the bull, the human tugs the reins to turn its horse. The mount shakes its head in protest but obeys after the second tug. Humans, too, have the impulse to dominate lesser creatures. They might be less effective at commanding them, but their partial domination comes with less mess and more longevity. Soon, however, they’ll learn their true place in the natural order. Perhaps they’ll even be more stable Vessels, less prone to melting. Global domination will be easier when the Infiltrators don’t have to spend every moment worrying about a Vessel’s shelf life.

Chewing a brown cud of its own, the human stares at the bull from its saddle. The Infiltrators shouldn’t make the Vessel stand so close with eyes raised and expectant. Bulls don’t act like this. They don’t smell like this either, apparently. When the intestinal steam from the Vessel’s anus catches the breeze, the human gags. Pulling a red cloth square over its nose, it navigates the horse toward the bull’s backside. The Infiltrators turn the Vessel to hide the widening ruin, but the human keeps circling.

“What’s wrong with you?” it says, kicking its mount to speed the rotation. The words mean nothing to the Infiltrators, but it’s easy enough to intuit danger.

Time to change tactics. The Infiltrators pilot their Vessel backward toward the chute, wobbling as they struggle to walk in reverse. The Vessel feels lighter with every step, its core hollowing out one bubbling layer of flesh at a time.

“You one of them ‘mad cows’ or something?” the human says, still in pursuit. “Best get back here so the vet can check you.”

Faster. The Vessel is close now. The human lifts a loop of rope from its side, spinning it like a weapon. Before it can attack, the Vessel passes through the chute’s open gate. The rope goes slack in the human’s arm.

“Damnit, what’d I say?”

The Infiltrators ignore the shouting human. Moving the Vessel backward, dawn light gives way to a tunnel’s metallic darkness, then the processing plant’s dangling fluorescents. The chute widens into a small caged room with shit, mud, and blood stampeded into the floor. Hot, gastric sludge dribbles from the Vessel’s expanded anus and joins the filth below.

No humans here. No cattle either. Perhaps the Infiltrators have arrived too early and the Vessel will melt into a useless puddle of flesh, never to be processed into ground beef and grilled at a cookout, never to slide down the throats of countless human Vessels. Unacceptable. If a human is inside this plant, the Infiltrators need it now. When they tug and squeeze the vocal cords, the Vessel unleashes a low moan that morphs into a screech—a poor impersonation of a bull, but effective.

“Jesus, we starting already?” an unseen voice says. It sighs. Unhurried footsteps follow.

A human in a long white coat appears outside the cage. Dark rings surround its eyes. Its nose wrinkles at the bull’s stench. The Infiltrators angle the rotting backside farther away from the human, but the motion dislodges a spool of free-swinging intestines. That’s it. Operation over.

“Goddamn,” the human says, clasping a hand over its mouth.

Surely it will order the diseased Vessel burned in a far-off field, putting the Infiltrators back at square one.

But no. The human draws a black metal device from a hook on the wall. It grips the handle and points the tubed end into the cage.

“If the boss let you in, guess he figures you’re still good to eat,” the human says. It beckons the vessel with its free hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

Even without human language, the Infiltrators understand. Commanding this Vessel for the final time, they step forward.

Pattied, packed, and frozen, the Infiltrators await their next Vessels. Three trucks arrive at the processing plant and load up the boxes. The first truck takes them to an organic grocery store in Omaha, the second to a hip burger joint in Kansas City, and the third to a private school in Des Moines. Not large cities by any means, but every empire starts small.

Today, the Midwest. Tomorrow, the world.

There is always one pig in the litter who preens, who avoids the mud to keep their skin unmarred, who begs for massages to incorporate fat into their muscles.

When humans inspect us for the market, the preeners show off and strut, bragging that they’ll be next. They think the market is a wonderful place, because those who go there never come back.

They never believe the rumors.

Preeners fetch the highest price at the market. I heard the butchers fight over their corpses, hungry for a perfect, marbled slice.

HE’S A GROWER

By Shelley Lavigne

Once the pain of the procedure had faded enough for me to put on my pants, I discovered they had become too short.

I hadn’t thought of bringing longer ones to my appointment, hadn’t realized I’d need to.

The procedure was expensive enough, and now I’d have to buy clothes I’d outgrow by the next session or risk being teased by the boys at the quarterly meeting for wearing “capris”.

“You’ll want some of this,” the Doc said, holding out a jar of ointment.

I reached for it, trying to stand, and had to lean against the wall casually when a sharp almost electric pain shot up my legs, an echo of the procedure I had just undergone. The stretching had felt nice at first, like a chiropractor pulling before the crack. But as it built, my legs felt like they were being torn off from the inside, straining at the joints like a near dislocation.

It must have felt a bit like those medieval torture racks.

My nose prickled, but I hadn’t cried.

“For the pain?”

“No, for the stretch marks.”

“Isn’t that a pregnant lady thing?”

“Anyone who grows quickly will get them. Like bodybuilders, or folks who gain weight. Or, in your case, those who have intense growth spurts.”

Yet another unexpected side effect to deal with. They really should warn clients better.

Whatever. It was worth it.

The world looked different from my new height. I felt almost giddy with excitement, pain briefly forgotten. I hobbled over to the measurement arm and the Doc announced my new height.

“Five foot, nine inches and a quarter. An inch and a half, not bad for the first procedure.”

“You said I should be able to go over six feet, right Doc?”

It would open up a whole new world for me. Dating, work, respect; everything would get so much easier.

He gave me a smile, but didn’t answer directly. For the amount I’d paid, I was owed honesty. I always gave it to my clients; my word was my bond. That’s why they trusted me with their hard-earned savings.

“The height you can safely achieve will depend on your bone density. We don’t want to turn those lovely tree trunks of yours into twigs and have you snap in the breeze.” He laughed at his own joke but stopped when he noticed my straight face. “It’s completely safe; I’m monitoring the nanites as they work.”

He tapped the box my legs had been in during the procedure. It looked and sounded like a small MRI machine. While it had clanked, he tapped on touch screens and fiddled with shiny chrome knobs and switches. The Doc had explained the process—something about nanites rearranging the calcium scaffolding in my bones—but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m a finance guy, not a science guy. That’s why I paid him.

And I paid him a lot.

If Dickie had managed to grow a whole five and a half inches last quarter, I for sure could do the same. Or better.

“When can I book my next appointment?”

“Come in for a check-up next week. We’ll go from there.”

I took a trembling step forward, misjudging my distance and running into a chair. I was as awkward as a baby deer on ice.

“Let me know if you notice anything unusual. Pain, bruising, lightheadedness, headaches. And if you break your legs, we aren’t liable.” His medical waiver freed him of any kind of liability including but not limited to the nanites going rogue and rearranging my organs or eyeballs—a likelihood of less than 1 in 10 billion. My eyes were a bit itchy as I thought about that clause. “But I’d appreciate if you’d let me know.”

Not the most confidence-inspiring message.

But our eyes were almost level when we shook hands.

By the next session we’d be equals.

And after that, I’d look down on him.

You’d think they would splurge on nicer medical gowns with how expensive the treatments were. Instead, I sat, ass on paper, as the Doc hit my knee with his funny little rubber triangle thing.

“Good,” he said before grabbing my thigh and digging his cold fingers into my flesh. His hairy knuckles looked strange on the thin beige material that didn’t even cover my knees. He didn’t seem to notice me flinching with both physical and emotional discomfort at his touch. “Any pain?”

The first night had been tough, no matter how often I shifted the pain always somehow got worse, from a dull throb into piercing electric shocks running up and down my legs. Even a week later, my knees protested whenever I bent them and my heels vibrated with every step.

But it would go away… eventually. Complaining to the Doc would just cause unwanted and unnecessary delays.

I had targets to meet.

“I feel wonderful. Absolutely fucking amazing, Doc.”

He frowned as he looked at me over his glasses. He reminded me of my dad in that moment. They both had the same tortoise shell glasses and the same balding scalp. One advantage of being taller, folks wouldn’t see that I was starting to thin as well.

“Vince, it’s important that you be honest with me. We want you to achieve your height goals, but we want to do it safely.”

“I’m all good,” I even gave him two big thumbs up to prove it. “When can I get the next procedure done? …And are you done palpitating my legs?”

He dug in punishingly for a moment. I didn’t even flinch.

He lost, so he let go.

“The secretaries will find you a slot for next month.”

The next procedure only got me to five foot ten and a half. It felt like hot needles stabbing the length of my bones. As I grew, I could actually feel my skin stretch, like the ache after a bully-administered snake bite.

I cried a little but Doc didn’t notice.

At work, folks started commenting on the changes. I got asked to reach for stuff in the work kitchen. And I got portfolios befitting my stature, no longer stuck with the piddly hundred K accounts. I’d touched a quarter mil yesterday and there was talk of transferring the MacDenni’s half a mil to me by next quarter.

And soon I’d be tall enough to not get looks of disappointment when I showed up to a first date. Or get comments about how I seemed “shorter in person”. Or be told by crushes that they saw me “as a little brother”.

Every part of my life would get better.

Meanwhile, my legs were both black and blue from bruising—since I couldn’t get used to my ever-changing limb length—and discolored with thin tiger stripes. The promised stretch marks.

I should have used the cream.

But that was the least of my worries when I stepped into my next exam.

This time, after feeling me up, the Doc asked me to put my legs in the box. I was all pumped to get another procedure done (we were less than a month from Christmas and I was hoping to show off the heights I had reached at the family gathering), but he sunk my spirits faster than the DOW index during a recession.

“I need to run some tests.”

I tried not to fidget as he stared intently at his screens and played with his knobs. He made sounds that weren’t very encouraging. When he was done, he urged me to take the comfy seat across from him at his desk. That didn’t bode well; I only pulled out the soft chair for clients when things were absolutely rotten.

“I have good news and bad news.” My heart sunk. I’ve said this before, and the good news never balances out the bad. “We can do a treatment next week. But, it will be your last.”

I dug my hands into my thighs rather than bang them against the desk.

Breathe, Vinny.

“Will I be able to get to my target?”

“I think we’re pushing it if we go past five foot eleven inches.” I groaned. “But that’s an excellent height! Average height for men is five foot nine, so you’ll be two whole inches above average.”

“But we’re so close to my target! We can’t give up!”

“Vince, it’s not a question of giving up. Eventually too much of a good thing can be a bad thing… You’re in finance, right? You know how bubbles work. Eventually it pops and people lose their homes. I don’t want you getting hurt over a couple inches. We have to pull the money out now that we know we’re in a bubble.”

“Bubbles are a great way to make money! The smart investors pull out right before it bursts. Not way before. It’s about toeing the line!”

Doc sighed. Clearly, he did not understand the value of a good gamble.

Nor did he understand the importance of standing tall, of a good first impression. He was one of those naturally tall guys, probably rich seeing as he could afford the education bribes and medical school tuition. He had every natural advantage, probably didn’t even notice his privilege. This surgery was the only way I could inspire confidence, power. Or else no one would trust me with their life savings.

“One last treatment. I’ll get you a quarter of an inch over five eleven. But that’s my final offer.”

Clearly Doc did not know the lengths I would go to get to the lengths I wanted.

And he was not the only shop in town. If he didn’t want my money, I’d find someone else who did.

I double checked the address. I’d never been this far outside the financial district; it was weird to not be in the perpetual shade of office buildings and condo towers. I crossed the street to avoid a rat hauling a half full bag of fries with the confidence of someone who had paid for them.

I hadn’t expected something fancy when I found the ad for Jimmy’s Growth Emporium on a men’s health and finance forum but this was worse than I thought. The entrance was almost completely under street level, the window wells filled with so much snow and trash I doubted much light made it in. The pizza shop on the first level was boarded up, although the massage parlor above was very much open for clients.

I planned to stop there after the procedure.

I winced as I descended the steps.

The pain hadn’t yet fully faded from Doc’s treatment but Christmas was in a week and, if I wanted to show off my new stature, I didn’t really have time to wait around to heal.

Besides, Jimmy was fully booked up, I was lucky there had been a last-minute cancellation right before I messaged him.

You have to jump on opportunities when they present themselves to you, that’s the most important thing I’ve learned about the stock market.

When Jimmy answered the buzzer, a bunch of chains kept it from opening all the way. That felt very unfriendly, kind of unsafe.

Not great customer service.

But he was quite tall, at least six foot three. Solid advertisement there.

“Do you have the money?” Jimmy asked from the crack, lips framed by chains.

He let me in after I fanned out the hundred-dollar bills.

The room behind him was dark and smelled strongly of cats and ramen noodles. The only thing in the space was a computer and his machine. It was a platform shaped like the crude outline of a person spread akimbo, with wire loops over the arms and legs. It looked like a high-tech version of a medieval torture device. It was so unlike the clean lines and shiny metal of Doc’s machine that I doubted it would do the same thing.

“Is that it?”

“It works,” Jimmy said plainly.

He was charging just as much as Doc, so it better.

I got closer and registered the difference in shape.

“It does arms?”

“Yeah, keeps you from looking like a T-Rex.”

His tone made it clear he thought I was trending that way.

“Is it extra?”

Of course it was, he didn’t even need to respond. I didn’t have much in my wallet—who carries cash nowadays?—but I handed him an extra hundred. And my watch. It was just a knock off but he probably didn’t know better.

“Clothes off, boxers on. I’ll go prep the arm injections.”

It was cold in the basement and the layer of stress sweat nearly froze on my skin as I jumped up on the table, spreading my legs and placing them in the holes. The metal was weirdly warm, as if it had been recently vacated by the previous user.

Jimmy came back with a syringe. It was metal and tarnished, like a Halloween decoration.

“Is that sterile?” I asked.

“What’s with all the questions? Are we on a date?”

My stomach clenched. Nerves from the procedure.

“I’m careful with what I put in my body.”

He stared at me, needle in the air like a naughty nurse pinup. I felt a chill that I blamed on crappy radiators as I looked at him posing like that.

“Fine. Stick it in me,” I said, immediately regretting my wording.

The injection was warm. First one bicep then the other.

“Massage your arms for 30 seconds and then slip them in the holes.”

Not as full service as the Doc. Probably a good thing seeing as I was only wearing boxers.

The machine started to hum as I scooted in, the metal pulling at my bare skin.

“How many inches did you say you wanted?” he asked.

“How many can we do?”

“You tell me. It’s your body, my dude.”

“Two. Let’s do two.”

I grinned as I put my head back on the table. He was right; it was my body, Doc had no right to tell me what I could and couldn’t do with it. He was just an entitled prick who thought that his medical degree gave him power over what I did with my body.

“You might feel a pinch.”

“It’s—Arg—”

Static filled my mind as a hailstorm materialized in my limbs. It was nothing like the pulling of Doc’s machine. This one was much more powerful. I was impressed, if in pain. I felt my skin tense, pulled taut, not engorged but stretched.

“Half an inch." Jimmy said.

Had it really only been that little?

Four times that to go.

I could feel it in my arms too, my fingers tingling like when you hit your funny bone.

Sweat dripped into my eyes, making them sting.

“An inch.”

Halfway. Thank God. It would all be downhill from here.

I could feel the skin at my fingertips and toes, as if something was pushing against it from the inside.

Skin stretches. I had seen pregnant ladies going around with those big bellies. At this point, I still thought I’d be fine.

I breathed through my mouth.

“An inch and a half.”

The pain lanced through my bones, a sudden rough jerk that made me gasp.

“Two inches.”

Finally!

I tried to level out my breathing so I would look composed when Jimmy turned off the machine and told me to get up. I didn’t want to seem weak in front of him.

But the noise wasn’t stopping. And I could still feel the pulling.

“Hey!” I shouted over the hum.

“Just a slight technical difficulty.”

“What does tha—”

The tugging got worse, sudden, sharp.

I couldn’t help myself, I looked down at my body. My limbs stretched on and on, skin like melty mozzarella. I watched as the stretch marks reddened.

Marks of impending rupture.

“Stop!” I yelled.

I felt something tear in my leg, the pain reaching its crescendo. Warmth spread in my crotch.

It wasn’t piss.

Blood was flowing from my leg, trickling between my ass cheeks.

My kneecaps emerged bloody where my skin had torn. As my limbs continued to grow, it got further and further away.

I could see my toes.

They were so small, so distant.

Too far away to be mine.

Maybe this was like magicians sawing folks in half in a show. Gotcha, it was just a trick. Everyone is fine! Just needed to scare you straight.

Lesson learned, I promised myself. I won’t do this again.

My body had always been fine.

The noise got worse.

Screaming.

I was screaming.

Then I felt it again.

My arm.

I looked down.

I could see a long, bloody bone, glittering with nanites, coming out of the other end of the arm tube.

And at the end of my skeleton, my hand hung, like a glove. It waved goodbye.

When I awoke it was in a lemony sterile hospital rather than the dank air of Jimmy’s. I couldn’t feel much else of my body, filled by the pleasant warm tingle of pain meds. A masked doctor was staring down at me from behind coke bottle glasses.

“You’re up, big guy.”

Even in my drug filled haze I was warmed by the term of endearment.

“Ha… big guy.”

“Do you feel any pain?”

“No,” my words felt thick, like my cheeks were filled with marshmallows.

“Okay that’s good. Cause I have some good and bad news for you.”

Not that again.

“Good news: we managed to find an experimental skin growth medium that has allowed us to cover your bones and rescue some of your muscle tissue.”

I looked down at my arms which were laid over the bed sheets. My fingers reached down to where my feet had once been. What looked like a long yellow rubber glove had replaced my skin, puckering and folding like an empty tube of fabric. It seemed to almost hug the bone, lumpy where it covered the aforementioned muscle. They hadn’t rescued enough for them to really give themselves a pat on the back.

A second hospital bed had been added to the end of my own and I saw a shape that must have been my feet at the very end.

“Bad news: it seems the nanites were programmed in a way we’ve never seen before and we can’t undo the damage that was done without causing further injury. So, it seems like you’ll be stuck this length for a while.”

Well, I had made it to over six feet. But I had gone too far over. My career in finance was ruined; you wouldn’t trust Slender Man with your wallet. Finances were scary enough.

But it might be just right for one of those travelling self-help tours. I heard those could be quite lucrative. There were just as many suckers trying to better themselves as those trying to fatten their wallets.

I could work the corporate circuit by discussing adapting to current needs while changing a lightbulb without a ladder. I could work the self-improvement angle if I focused on seeing the bright side while discussing my career change from sad money man to making people shine through self-improvement. I could go the love-yourself route by talking about loving my changing body while parading it around in custom suits.

I wouldn’t mind them gaping at me, as long as they paid for admission.

It was a billion-dollar industry, and I had just the unique spin to make bank.

When I looked back up at the doctor, I was grinning like I’d won the lottery.

Humans have long denied the value of their flesh. They carve us up, drain our blood, pickle and dry our extremities. Trained professionals pride themselves in their skill at killing my brothers and sisters; finding ways to make us more delicious; to strain our bodies beyond the limits of normal growth. They even steal our hearts to use as their own.

Yet they discard almost all of their dead. They pump them full of chemicals that leech into the soil, tainting our foodstuffs. The few who save their organs for others to inherit are a rarity.

I beseech you to imagine a world without waste, where humans use their skins, organs and fats as they would any other animal. Where the infants are prized like the lamb.

BABY SOFT

By Lor Gislason

Carolyn laughs and turns back to the camera. “It’s great to see families getting together and enjoying Heritage Day. Make sure you check out the CKLA website for more photos of the event.” Her red hair shines under the studio lights. She looks to camera two and an image featuring a soft, purple blanket draped over a chair appears beside her with the words BABY SOFT. “Now, speaking of Heritage, we have a segment from Oscar, who visited California’s own Intech earlier this week. Oscar?”

A dark-skinned man in a tan suit waits a few moments before speaking, gesturing with an arm towards the sterile and brightly lit lobby behind him. His speech is precise, with each word annunciated perfectly before moving on to the next. After each sentence, he takes a small pause.

“This is Oscar Harris reporting for CKLA-TV News at 9. For years Intech has been on the cutting edge of gene manipulation, creating the highest quality fabrics and designer clothes you won’t find anywhere else. Today, we’ll be taking an exclusive look at their newest line of Baby Soft Velvet, developed right here in California.”

A video of fashion models walking the runway plays. Each wears long, flowing dresses with matching accessories. It cuts to various Baby Soft products: scarves and coats, textured ribbons of Velvet worn by attractive people smiling widely. Oscar’s voice plays over the footage: “Baby Velvet has been a highly sought-after textile for hundreds of years. Once a staple of royalty and aristocrats, this luxurious material is now widely available thanks to new innovations in farming, manufacturing, and genetic engineering. While Intech can’t share some details—this is a patented technology, after all—I was able to bring a small camera crew into several of the manufacturing facilities to see exactly what goes into making Baby Soft Velvet.”

Footage of the Stacks family, a husband, wife and five smiling children. The film is old and the colours faded. “Archive footage: 1959” appears in the bottom right corner. Well-dressed kids run and play soccer. George, a tall man with a military haircut and suspenders, overlooks a small factory where women bend over sewing machines.

Oscar continues: “Founded in 1958 by the Stacks family, Intech had humble beginnings. Originally called Stacks Textiles, founder George Stacks started the company after his wife Claudette complained about a lack of affordable clothes at local stores. Determined to change this, he sold the family farm to purchase a small warehouse that became the first Stacks Textiles. Word quickly spread throughout California and eventually all of the United States. By the 1970s you could find Stacks-branded clothes all over the world.

“In the mid-1980s George’s son Peter Stacks took over as CEO. His leadership propelled the company into researching new technologies to make production faster and cheaper. To facilitate this push, he also changed the name to Intech.”

The video shows Peter, a slightly pudgy man in a suit with a thinning hairline talking with men in lab coats, their voices muted. Various machinery in a small room twists and pulls threads, creating fabrics. A worker holds up the fabric as it comes through, inspecting it for mistakes. Once cut into sections, they’re packed into boxes. Another worker carries these to a truck trailer. Zooming in, the Intech label morphs into a newer, sleeker logo.

“Now Intech has taken another step into the future.” Oscar is shown again, walking in front of a glass panel. The current Intech logo, with the words GROWTH CENTRE underneath, are printed on the wall next to the panel. What was once a small laboratory with only a handful of staff has expanded to a full-scale operation. The footage is crisp and in high-definition. Several men and women in lab coats can be seen observing barrel-sized tanks, each with a screen displayed underneath. Dozens of these tanks dot the laboratory. Small pink objects the size of a watermelon float inside, surrounded by opaque fluid.

“Velvet starts in the growth tanks. As we can see here, a researcher inserts an embryo collected from a donor into the tank and adjusts the console. Customers can order a variety of Velvets, and each tank is set to their specifications. A team of technicians monitor the tissue until harvest, with computer systems automatically flushing non-viable products.”

“Meet Dr. Nathan Wilkins. He’s the head of R&D for Intech.” A tall, bespectacled man speaks to someone behind the camera. He smiles shyly. “It’s a complicated process we've been improving every season,” Dr. Wilkins explains. He speaks slowly, carefully choosing each word.

“We monitor tissue growth for several conditions that damage the threads, such as atresia—when a passage is closed or otherwise absent. This is most common in the duodenal, or first segment of raw thread. Malrotation of the midgut, also known as volvulus, can create complications as well. The balance has to be just right, and as you can imagine, training for this job takes years.”

Dr. Wilkins walks through the incubation room, pointing to each tank. Each is in a different phase of growth. “From a tiny seed, the Velvet takes months to reach maturity. The tract actually grows outside the abdominal cavity during the first stage, as you can see here. It pushes into the cord before rotating and retracting back inside.

“Once this takes place, the computer systems alert the staff. Using specialized hooks, a technician pulls the tissue out through the navel string. Research to create velvet that consistently grows outside has been a part of our program for years. With current technology, it is difficult for the thread to maintain the same tensile strength without the cavity to house it.” A man wearing thick black gloves pulls on a length of raw Velvet, showcasing its elasticity.

“It is then cleaned thoroughly before moving on to manufacturing. Leftover tissue is separated into stem cells, skin for grafting procedures, and organs, which are sent to our sister facility for processing into BAAM.” A small metal container with a pull tab is shown, displaying the BAAM brand name. The label depicts a decorative plate of food, including pâté with herbs. The meat is light pink with white flecks. A family barbecue, with children and adults alike eating burgers with BAAM patties.

“Intech is dedicated to reducing waste and being as environmentally friendly as possible, so all discarded tissue is broken down and made into byproducts that can be used in cosmetics, soaps, and processed meats.”

“It’s a lot different from the way tailors collected the textile originally.” Re-creation of life in the Middle Ages with peasants going about their daily chores plays. The camera zooms through a window. There sits a woman in labour, shown from the waist up. Several older women, possibly relatives, assist her. The scene cuts to the same woman, exhausted but relieved, handing a parcel to an aristocrat who exchanges it for several coins.

“Contrary to popular belief, caesarean sections were not the precursor to neonatal thread extraction. Although the procedures are similar, thread was taken from specific women who were paid for their services, called Thread-bearers. Their choice of parturition method varied just as much as they do today. While there is no scientific evidence that natural or medically assisted extraction creates better Velvet, each family sticks to one or the other for tradition. Many families passed on this role to their daughters, and there are descendants of thread bearers still producing today, hundreds of years later.”

Oscar and Dr. Wilkins have now moved to a different part of the building, passing by offices and people typing. “Isn’t it true, Dr., that some women were essentially forced into thread bearing?”

The camera pans to Dr. Wilkins, who looks uncomfortable. He pushes his glasses up with the palm of his hand. “Yes… this is an unfortunate part of our history, just as men and women have been subjected to terrible conditions due to social hierarchies, slavery, and other issues—Intech strives to be respectful and considerate of the past, while not repeating mistakes that were made. This is one of the main reasons we use the tanks, to eliminate any unnecessary complications. The donors are given treatments similar to IVF procedures before the seeds are transferred to our facilities.”

Video changes to a series of large machines, each with a specialized task. “Thread next is separated into individual strands, which are woven together by another machine and turned into fabrics. Special dye pits in every colour you can imagine are also used.” A worker clad in protective gear is shown dunking piles of woven threads into a large pot of purple liquid with a metal stick, saturating the material.

“It can then be sent to fashion designers, workshops and other companies to produce the highest quality Velvet clothing money can buy.” A tall, blonde woman in a maroon dress smiles, showing off both the Velvet and her figure.

Oscar, with his back to the camera, speaks with Dr. Wilkins. “What do you think about the negativity in the media lately, in regards to Baby Soft products? That it’s exploitation?”

His expression remaining blank, Dr. Wilkins responds: “I would once again like to reiterate that our protocols are all approved by the Federal Government and that our labs are inspected every quarter by the BioEthics agency. All our conceptus tissue is sourced from donors who are paid for their work and given the best health care in the country. No one is obligated to buy our products. However, as long as customer demand continues, our business will as well.”

“And how is business?”

Dr. Wilkins smiles for a brief moment. “Business has never been better.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.” It’s a cynical philosophy, and many humans reject it on principle. However, it contains a grain of truth.

In their efforts to do good, does the do-gooder not lose time? Money? Sleep? Perhaps they consider these worthy sacrifices and not punishments at all.

But occasionally, a good deed backfires in a truly awful way. Maybe if the do-gooder had known what would happen, they wouldn’t have bothered doing good at all. And who could blame them?

Sometimes selfishness keeps us alive.

A PRESSING MATTER

By Eric Raglin

It’s 5:30 p.m. on a Monday and the gym is packed. Every treadmill is occupied, the line for the squat racks is four meatheads deep, and the wait for the lat pulldown is nearing ten minutes.

The only machine without a crowd is the leg press. It’s not that everyone made the collective decision to skip leg day; it’s the fact that he’s using the machine. Anyone who’s been to the gym a handful of times has seen the man. Not spoken with him—they know better than that—but certainly heard whispered tales. The veteran gym members warn newbies to avoid him. It’s a shame not everyone follows their advice.

Today’s newbie is Grant Collins. Grant works forty hours a week at the DMV asking strangers for three proofs of address and getting yelled at when they only have two. When he flees the building at five each day, human interaction is the last thing he wants. But not wanting to turn into a bitter, joyless misanthrope like his old man, he’s decided to burn his rage off at the gym.

On this first and last day of his fitness journey, he isn’t keen on getting to know the other gym members, not even the hot, ripped dudes. He’s just left a shift in which a woman spat in his face, and while today can’t get much worse, he’s not willing to risk it by inviting conversation. He puts on over-the-ear headphones and blasts a Converge record—perfect music for blowing off steam and killing it at the bench press. It’s been twenty years since his high school weight training class, and while his muscles still remember proper form, they’ve lost their mass. He starts with ten-pound weights on each side of the barbell.

Before he can launch into his first set, a brawny woman in a tight gray tank taps his shoulder. Grant figures she’s offering to spot him, but the weight is too light to be dangerous and even friendly social interaction seems unbearable. Grant waves her off. The woman opens her mouth as if to say something, then turns to the other three meatheads waiting in line. They all share a look of uncertainty. Grant returns his attention to the bench press where he cranks out three quick sets. He wipes down the equipment, then scans the gym for the leg press machine.

Another tap on his shoulder. Maybe it’s the aggressive Converge album or the blood gone to his head, but Grant rips off his headphones and bares his teeth, emulating so many DMV visitors. It’s the same woman behind him, eyes wide this time.

“I know you’re trying to be helpful,” Grant says, “but please, can you just leave me alone? I’ve had a long day and—”

A cacophony derails his sentence. Metal clanging metal repeatedly, as if someone is lifting a heavy load only to drop it with shattering force. Grant looks for its source. His gaze settles on the leg press machine, though the person using it is obscured behind the squat racks. Still, Grant is close enough that a subtler sound seeps through the racket. A squelch, like someone massaging a wet, raw chicken breast.

“Skip legs. It isn’t worth it,” the woman says. She locks eyes with Grant, not daring to glance in the machine’s direction.

“Why would I skip—?” Grant doesn’t finish the question. It would only extend their interaction.

He pulls away from the woman and wanders toward the leg press where the clanging and squelching continue. The other gym members drop their weights and end their conversations. No one looks at the leg press directly. They only observe Grant’s approach through their peripherals. Their chance to warn him has passed, and doing so now would put themselves in danger.

When Grant rounds the squat rack, he stops dead upon seeing the person using the leg press. The man is completely naked, gym clothes folded and stacked beside the machine. With each chaotic rep, his penis flops, a monstrous thing dwarfed by thighs thick as old-growth tree trunks and just as burled. The burls look like tumors but must be excess bulbs of muscle slipped from their casings. The man’s upper body is a different story. He’s like the top half of a crepe-skinned ghoul stitched to the bottom of a beefcake nightmare. Sweat pools in his sunken eyes, but he doesn’t wince at the salty bite. Unblinking, he stares at his legs, pounding out reps with tremendous speed and hideous form, 500 pounds pushed into the air again and again. His core remains flaccid and his back contorts with each press. Injury is imminent.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Grant says, words escaping before he can stop them. It seems a day spent serving the worst of humanity hasn’t completely drained his compassion.

The man extends his legs for one last rep and holds the position, meaty thighs quivering and knees bowing the wrong way ever so slightly. He turns his shrunken head toward Grant. The sweat gathered in his cratered eyes drips onto the machine’s upholstery.

“Seriously, your knees are going to—” Grant’s voice cracks as the man’s haunted, hollow expression catches him off guard. “I’m not trying to be dick. I just don’t want you to wind up in the hospital.”

“Will you help me, then?” the man asks. His knees keep bending toward their breaking point. There’s a creaking sound like dead tree branches rubbing together.

Grant hesitates, then steps forward as a breathless murmur ripples through the gym. He turns the leg press locking mechanism and then grips the footplate to ease it down. The leg press man lifts a hand to caress Grant’s upper thigh. Grant freezes. The moment feels simultaneously like every gym class fantasy and erotic nightmare put together: an erection pickled in cold sweat. The man’s caress becomes a bruising squeeze. Grant abruptly drops the footplate, all 500 pounds returning to the man’s legs. The left leg pops, knee mangled into a concave ruin.

“Oh God, I didn’t mean to—it’s just that I... I’m not looking to date right now.” Grant remembers the tank top woman’s vague warning. He tries to pull away, unsuccessfully. “Shit, man, let go.”

“But you promised you’d help me,” the man says. His fingernails split Grant’s skin and dig into his flesh with the ease of a hand sinking into wet sand.

Grant shrieks and thrashes. Fingers burrow inside him like ravenous guinea worms. Hot white light fills Grant’s vision, making him dizzy when he most needs steadiness. Heavy footfalls from behind approach fast. The tank top woman lunges onto the scene, punching Grant’s attacker in the head. His ghoulish skull bounces hard against the backrest but appears undamaged. Cobra-like, the man’s hand strikes the would-be hero’s thigh, clamping down. A screaming solo becomes a duet, then a chorus as gym members stampede toward the exit. Hungry fingers wriggle inside the two captors’ legs. Blood gushes from ten deepening wounds. One last squeeze, like juicing a lemon, then a wet rip as the man claims two new thighs for his own. He presses the extracted muscles to his nose, inhales deeply, and moans like a man on the erotic brink.

Grant and the tank top woman collapse. They splash into the growing pool of their combined blood. Convulsing, the woman inches toward Grant, attempting to shield him, but the damage is already done. Barely clinging to consciousness, Grant watches his attacker. The man peels the skin from his own thigh as if opening a car’s hood. Inside, countless quad muscles writhe in a rat king’s tangle. The man shoves Grant’s muscle into the mix, the quads gulping it down one esophageal pulse at a time. The woman’s muscle is next, and the man’s thigh stretches to accommodate its bulk. He moans as it merges, then folds the skin flap back over the voracious wound. It seals seamlessly.

Fading, Grant remembers the woman who spat on him today. He thought she was the worst humanity had to offer but now realizes how naive he was. There’s always someone worse. But there’s always someone better, too: the gore-soaked woman on the floor, a meathead who risked it all for a short-tempered stranger. Grant smiles in his final moments, lulled by the clanging leg press and the squelch of stolen meat.

There are so many ways to get sick: breathe disease in, swallow it up, touch it or pass it through your skin. In the pig pen, all packed in together, transmission is inevitable.

Humans do what they can to stay healthy. They avoid the ill, sneeze into shirt sleeves, rub on antiseptic. With the rising cost of tissues and hospital visits, the lack of universal healthcare and sick leave, only the rich can afford to get sick.

You can try to bribe health to favor you, but Death gets us all in the end.

POXXX PARTY

By Shelley Lavigne

I first saw the outside of Janet’s limestone manor several months ago when I dropped off a casserole to make friendship overtures for myself and my daughter Annah. That time, I’d gone no further than the porch before being firmly but not unkindly turned away. I thought my dreams—to join the hallowed, momfluencer ranks of the Mommy Association of Kildare Academy, a.k.a. MAKA, and for Annah to befriend Janet’s daughter—were forever dashed.

I’d never progress from a jewelry hobbyist to beadwork celebrity. Annah would be forever bullied for her lisp.

This soiree was a second chance to live out my dreams.

I wouldn’t let this opportunity pass me by. I’d dig my acrylics in, past the rind and into the pulpy mess of possibilities.

I’d do anything to join the Mommies.

This time, when the door opened for me, Janet greeted me with outstretched arms. The entryway she stood in was blindingly white. I couldn’t see the joint between the walls and the floor behind her, giving me the impression that she was floating in a light-filled void.

She was an angelic vision in a tongue-pink dress. Her neckline was so low it licked her belly button.

“You brought wine? That’s precious!” Janet said as she pulled me in for a cheek kiss, lingering for an amount of time that crossed over from sophisticated European into lecherous uncle.

Janet’s breath was sweet, cherry flavored. My body leaned into it, enveloped in Janet’s perfume and feverish heat. It had been so long since anyone other than my husband or daughter had kissed me. When the cool refrigerated air replaced Janet, I nearly chased her like a dog begging for a chin scratch.

Be cool.

“Did you tell anyone about tonight?” Janet asked, staring intently into my eyes, like a TV psychic capable of detecting a person’s deepest and darkest shame. I was scared she’d see the hidden parts of myself I’d packed away into dusty boxes marked “for later”.

I shook my head, no, of course I hadn’t. But I still felt nervous. What if I had done it accidentally? I had told my husband that I was going to a book club, even spent the week conspicuously displaying a generic crime thriller around the house, moving the bookmark along to fake progress.

After an agonizing moment of study, Janet smiled, satisfied.

“Okay great! Take a mask.”

I was surprised for a moment, thinking she meant the now-ubiquitous surgical mask. That seemed counter to the point of tonight’s soiree. But the mask she handed me was the type you’d wear to a masquerade, red like muscle.

“Wait with the others in the yellow room. There are some refreshments, reading and music to keep you entertained.”

A panel opened with a hiss behind her and revealed a dark yawning void. She gently pushed me into it. The light behind me faded as the walls twisted and turned. I trailed my hands along the glass-slick walls to avoid bumping into them.

After a sharp turn, I emerged into a red room. Plush red carpets, low red sofas, a bulbous blood clot of a coffee table, a TV pulsing red. Even the air felt red, a hidden diffuser emanating a custom blend of copper and strawberries that coated my tongue like morning breath.

On the couch, there was a pile of moms so intertwined that I couldn’t ascertain their number. One kept getting mouthfuls of hair in her mouth as she spoke; I could hear the crunch of it between her teeth. Another was running a coarse bristled brush through someone’s tangled mane. I could hear but not see someone sobbing.

I hadn’t seen this density of bodies in months. Due to the ongoing pandemics, waves of outbreaks and health-related mandates, people tended to stand apart like lonely islands in an Archipelago. At rare school functions, only the Mommies clustered together, bold, unafraid, skin radiant, hair cut, colored and styled. They were untouchable by anything other than each other, fit to be worshiped by all the rest.

Seeing this cluster filled me with germophobic revulsion—a product of media brainwashing, especially since all the damage was so easily reversible—but also with jealousy. I too wanted to be held by an almost stranger. It brought back memories of nightclubs and sweat, saliva and semen.

Memories of Before.

Bethany, Doré and Argent’s mom and one of the Twelve Mommies, disentangled herself from the mass. Her mask did little to shield her identity since she sported her trademark hairdo—a towering beehive styled using her Rogue Magazine endorsed line of all-natural, homemade hair care products. Her domestic business empire was one I aspired to emulate. Like Janet, she proved you could have it all: a business, beautiful curves, a doting husband and a set of twins.

Bethany grabbed a half-filled wine glass from the table and guzzled it before spotting me. She’d never looked right at me before and my stomach fluttered.

“Never take off your mask. That is the only rule. All other rules are oppression and control,” she said in a way that sounded rehearsed. She moved jerkily, as if under a strobe, to refill her wine glass at a wood cask. The thick smell of patchouli and sour milk drifted behind her like a contrail.

It was not how I pictured her smelling, I felt nauseated.

I rushed to the door at the end of the room and entered another pitch-black serpentine corridor. After what felt like interminable corners, I emerged into a bright blue room.

Janet’s blog often proclaimed that blue was a soothing color but this one was so unnatural, it felt sickly.

In the room were rows of smaller-than-child-sized desks painted the same color as the walls. The proportions made me feel like I was in my recurring nightmare, suddenly thrust into a school room where I was five times the size of my classmates, and mocked for my enormity until I cowered and cried in the corner. I always woke up angry that I hadn’t taken advantage of my size to crush those bullying pests.

“Oh! Sylvie!”

Yellow-masked, Ally stood in the middle of the room, wearing a latex jockey’s costume. Her brand of dominance and power scared me as much as it intrigued me; she figured just as much in my (wet) dreams as my nightmares. Her demeanor made it clear why she was Janet’s second in command, her General. I tried to avoid her at the occasional in-person school function but almost always failed. I was never clear if that was my fault or hers. Our hands would brush by the sanitizer station, her breath would tickle my neck when we sat in our distanced seating.

“I’m here to provide literature to prepare your mind as well as your body for the upcoming infection,” she said gesturing at the books on the tables. I saw the words CONSPIRACY and LIES in a shocking shade of red.

Scrawled on the walls, in red dripping ink was the following text: A NEW BETTER HUMANITY. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.

It was probably not written in blood. It was way too vivid a red.

When I blinked and looked away, the words were branded onto every surface, seared onto my retina.

Ally’s spurs clanked as she advanced towards me. I backed up, nearly tripping over one of the tiny tables. I nearly knelt before her but caught myself just in time.

“Don't you want to be filled up with information?” Her seductive tone made it clear that she wanted to fill me up with more than just words or ideas.

“I—I’ve already read them.”

I’d always made sure to grab the pamphlets Janet distributed. I wasn’t above bootlicking the leader of the pack.

Ally’s shiny brown boots could also do with a lick.

“I have some special leaflets filled with knowledge you’ve never even imagined.”

I felt myself getting wet as my mind filled with fantasies. As a jewelry artist, I had quite the imagination. She didn’t give me enough credit.

But I was also scared. What if I disappointed her and she told everyone? What if she saw my stretch marks, acne scars, lumpy thighs and thought I was hideous? What if she thought I was boring, stupid, untalented? Could my social rank get worse?

I needed to keep my distance; myopia buffs flaws.

A newcomer interrupted our dance.

“Oh, what is this?” Barb asked, walking towards the low tables.

Ally placed a hand on my arm. I felt her tongue on my earlobe as she whispered, “Find me later. There’s lots I want to teach you.”

I lingered for a moment, jealous and confused, knees unsteady. My desire for her was like the need to jump from a tall building, that wish for total freedom followed by annihilation.

Be cool.

Not wanting to appear clingy, I left. I steadied my heart as I walked the winding black passage.

The next room was a bile-yellow dining room. Appetizers of all shapes and for all tastes lay on a table set for 20. There were sliders and stuffed dates and custards as yellow as the walls. It smelled amazing.

Women wearing golden horse bridles, saliva dripping from their mouths and darkening their shirts, carried trays covered in crystal shot glasses. I saw a label on the tray: Saliva of a 20-year-old, female, pre-med carrier; collected today, 10:15 AM.

I grabbed a glass.

This is it: infection.

No more living in uncertainty, testing at every symptom, slave to fear. One and done. The damage is reversible anyways.

I tipped it back, expecting to take it like a shot but it trickled down the glass, slow like honey. I coughed at the foreign taste; it was saltier than my husband’s, with a back tang that spoke of unbrushed teeth.

Another server walked up to me with a tray coated in small squares of tissue. The label identified them as nasal specimens from a 21-year-old, male, pre-law carrier; collected today, 3:15 PM.

I placed a square on my tongue, felt the tissue cling before it dissolved.

Somewhere in this winding maze of rooms, a clock gave nine loud gongs, startling everyone.

“Finally.”

“It’s time.”

“It’s our time.”

A wave of bodies surged me forward—where had all of these people come from—around the table and into another winding obsidian corridor. The slow undulating mass of bodies made this tunnel seem much longer than usual. When I emerged, it was into the grand entry. Floors and walls were made of a red-veined white marble, like blood vessels under paper-thin skin. A grand staircase led to a gallery above.

I hadn’t been in this big of a crowd in years, I’d forgotten the way it made me feel connected, bigger than myself. A crowd like this couldn’t be stopped, it was too powerful.

The room was surprisingly warm. Sweat traced a line down my neck, down my back, like a cold finger.

Was I feverish already? Was it starting?

I took stock of my symptoms. I did feel a bit dizzy, maybe that was because of all the people and their jostling restlessness. I had a bit of a headache, but that might just be from lack of sleep.

Nothing definite yet.

The crowd stilled as a door above creaked open. Janet and a gaunt man wearing only a plastic horse mask and a loin cloth emerged. His lack of attire showcased the scabs that covered almost every inch of his skin. Some were the faded brown of healing, others the dark brown of freshly clotted blood.

“Welcome everyone,” Janet said as she descended the staircase. Beads of sweat on her skin twinkled like glitter in the light of the chandelier. The man came after her, led on a leash. The hardened corn-like calluses on his feet clopped as he descended slowly. “I’m so glad every single one of you made it to our soiree. Now that you’ve consumed the samples and perused the literature, it’s my immense pleasure to introduce tonight’s guest of honor. Everyone clap for the Horse Man.”

The applause echoed in the marble room, getting louder as the man climbed onto the marble table at the foot of the stairs and removed the plastic horse mask sensually, like a burlesque dancer removing pantyhose. The Horse Man’s face was as gaunt as his body, his cheeks sunken in, eyes glassy from fever. The distinctive diamond shaped sore on his forehead mimicked the one that had been on the mask.

After healing from the illness, I knew most people got that scar removed. Most plastic surgeons also took the opportunity to perform a little brow lift. I would benefit greatly from that procedure. I hoped Janet’s code would cover both treatments.

Janet clapped her hands for our attention.

“Please form a line to receive your inoculation. A select few will be chosen to participate in further infection activities.”

The crowd jostled but was too dense for anyone to surge.

We lined up, pestilence’s supplicants. He peeled one of the scabs, holding it up proudly to display the brown lattice through which light filtered. A woman opened her mouth and he placed it on her tongue. She bowed reverently before moving aside to let the next supplicant receive their dose.

Four were inoculated before the Horse Man removed a scab and a dribble of green ooze emerged. Awed murmurs arose.

“I’m chosen!” Ally said, before receiving the scab on her tongue.

She joined Janet on the staircase. The crowd jostled, thinking being next increased their odds. But at least a dozen were served before green ooze next emerged from a sore. Stephanie, then Maggie, two of the Twelve.

There was clearly no use getting my hopes up, this was yet another case of nepotism.

But then Barb was chosen. One of the lower tier moms.

My hope and jealousy rose like bile.

Finally, it was my turn. I nearly tripped over my feet in nervous fear as I approached.

Be cool.

The Horse Man grabbed a scab on the divot of his hip.

A drop of green leaked out.

Tears of relief poured down my cheeks. I’d surely be in Janet’s circle now; I’d make piles of money selling shiny baubles. And Annah would no longer be teased. Everything would change for the better.

His fingers were salty as I sucked them clean.

I joined the others on the stairs. The rest passed quickly in a cocoon of feverish, ripe warmth, encircled by those who might one day be my friends.

Janet spoke again once all had been served. “Thank you all for attending. Once you have a confirmed fever, you may return to your families and spread the infection. And don’t forget to use my medical affiliate discount code. In the meantime, please continue to ingest the contaminants supplied.”

From my vantage point, the crowd below seemed lethargic; sad, or sick. Their movements were languid, slow. I could hear groans of discomfort and pain as they reached for samples from the golden trays being passed around.

I felt undeniably sick myself: the light from the chandelier throbbed, my swollen lymph nodes felt like hands squeezing my throat, my armpits emanated an odor of sour milk. I’d never liked my own smell but this was revolting.

“Are you all ready for the next stage?” Janet asked us.

We nodded and our hosts looked satisfied as they led us up the stairs. Stephanie leaned heavily on Maggie, either weak from the pox or faking it for attention. She tended to be loud and dramatic in a way that seemed fake. She’d always been the odd woman out on the Council.

Maybe I could usurp her when this was done.

The room we entered was all black, a round leather bed took up most of the floorspace. Two levels of seating around the room gave the space the look of a coliseum. Stained-glass windows made of a patchwork mix of red colors bathed everything in a bloody light.

The hosts climbed onto the raised center stage, Janet removing the man's loincloth, exposing an enormous semi hard dick—was this yet another symptom the media was covering up to keep men from purposeful infection—that was weeping a yellower than usual dribble.

The color and consistency of it reminded me of the time I’d tried to pop a cyst. It had wept pus for a week before I’d gone, ashamed, to the doctor. She’d scolded me for taking a medical procedure into my own hands. It had healed into a permanent stigmata in my side.

“You’re to become the ultimate carriers, to propagate the pox far and wide, messengers of illness. But first, we need one final infection,” Janet said from her stage, undressing, exposing the lesions on her skin.

We followed suit.

This must be the adult part of the party.

I tried to not look at Ally but I felt her staring at me as I undressed.

The man grabbed Maggie’s face. She opened her mouth just as he spat into it. She swirled it like fine wine before swallowing.

I wanted to be next so I nudged Stephanie out of my way. She fell to the floor and stayed there as I stepped over her. I felt a stomach tightening excitement as the Horse Man grabbed my face.

Spit, now fresh and still body-warm, entered my mouth. It tasted sour, like the smell I was giving off.

Ally wasted no time, grabbing my face and turning it towards her, shoving her tongue into my mouth and feeling around until it found the jellied spit in my mouth. I expected her to suck it out greedily but instead she smeared it over my tongue with hers.

Sharing: it’s caring.

Her hands stroked the growing lumps under my arms. They burned when her fingers caressed them.

“Research suggests that Horse Pox can be transmitted sexually,” Janet said.

Ally pulled away and evaded my grabbing hands. Did she no longer want me? Had I already disappointed her?

Barb replaced her, kitty-licking an open sore on my stomach. Our eyes met and I could see that she was weeping reverently. Look! We’ve made it, her eyes said. This was a great honor for us both.

The carrier moaned when Ally roughly jerked him off a couple times. I was disappointed, sad she had forsaken me. But then she rubbed her hand on the black strap-on she now wore, leaving iridescent streaks on the silicone.

Our eyes locked, her intentions clear.

She had just gone to prepare herself for the final step. And she would anoint me herself.

I was ready.

I laid down, legs wide. She knelt, putting two fingers inside of me, as if assessing my temperature, moistness. She grinned down at me.

“Perfect.”

She was right, I was perfect. The flaws I’d always been so ashamed of were proof that I’d been alive, sick and then well again. And I saw similar scars on the Mommies. Stretch marks, acne scars, knobby knees. They were proof that we were all mortal, all alive.

Nothing makes you feel quite as alive as being near death. Ally’s face above me looked like it had been dipped in blood.

She pushed her dick into me, tucking my legs over her shoulders to get a better angle.

Our sweat pooled in my belly button. A little reservoir for later.

“Infect me,” I said to Ally, grabbing her ass to make sure she deposited the virulence as deeply as possible, where no one could extract it. Where it would grow, feed off of me.

Make me into a Mommie.

Make me into the next carrier.

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

- The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe

Pigs and humans have many things in common. Hierarchies, for instance, are won through tests of might, proving oneself amongst the herd, whether hog or man. Discontented with the simplicity of a flesh-to-flesh skirmish, they have devised more elaborate contests to demonstrate prowess. Not all of these are successful.

SICK-OFF

By Lor Gislason

Hospitals are never truly silent, even in the dead of night. The constant hums, beeps, and pulses of equipment echo through the halls.

The Lawrence County Hospital is no exception.

Late one night, while most patients are asleep in their beds, the plan is set in motion. Other than a patient with a persistent, phlegmy cough—a constant reminder of sickness—the entire building is in a lull. No emergencies, nothing that couldn’t wait for say, an hour. It is at this moment that a young nurse named Bradley sees his opportunity. He texts the group chat: 2nd floor Staff RM. 5 mins.

Six members of staff pad through the halls with hurried precision and worried glances. Each carries precious cargo, a personal tribute and a potential badge of glory. One by one they enter the second-floor staff room, squeezing past a tousle-haired man who quickly glances left and right before locking the door behind them. The midnight crew of the Lawrence County Hospital have waited for this window, a solid hour where they can conduct their gruesome contest relatively undisturbed. Four women and two men gather around a simple table littered with styrofoam coffee cups and black plastic bags, exchanging nervous smiles. There’s no going back.

“Right!” The tousle-haired man turns from the door to face the group, clapping his hands together before pulling up the last chair, completing the circle. He speaks as much with his hands as he does with his mouth.

“You’ve all brought your, ah—secret ingredients? Good, good. We’ve got around 45, 50 minutes max before next rounds. Janey, you dealt with Mr. Booth?” He nods towards a redhead to his left who has her nose buried in her phone.

She mumbles without looking up, eyes glued to social media. “Should be out for the rest of the night, God willing.”

“Great, then we can get started. We’ve all gathered here tonight for the first-ever Sick-Off! I’ll remind you all of the rules: We’ll each take turns telling the most disgusting patient story—nothing made up, these need to be true—afterwards we do a shot containing whatever element starred in your tale. If you throw up, you’re out. The winner will be crowned King—or Queen—Sicko, and get to pawn off the shit jobs to the rest of us schmucks for the remainder of the year. Any questions?”

“Yeah Bradley, does barfing in your mouth count?” Henrik asks. The gangliest of the group, he towers a good four inches above everyone else. Bradley thinks he looks like a former fat kid, still sporting extra skin and self-consciousness.

“If you can swallow it down I’d say you’re still in the game.”

Charlene visibly recoils at this but says nothing. Getting her to join in on this ridiculous contest was no easy feat, only relenting after Bradley bought her lunches for a month straight. Both nurses, their paths crossed constantly. She’s always been a stuffy woman and a known penny pincher. Saving her a few bucks and rubbing it in was a surefire way to guarantee attendance.

“Why are you so hell-bent on having me attend?” She’d asked him once, annoyed.

“You told me once you miss being wild and crazy in your younger years; I figured this was the next best thing.” He told her, offering a large coffee (two cream, two sugar), and his million-dollar smile. Then, sheepishly: “Plus I already told Janey you’d be there, you know, for moral support.”

Janey, a medical intern, worked under Charlene’s supervision. She thought of the younger woman as a daughter—albeit one who used her phone too much—and was attempting to steer her in the right direction. Bradley was more than aware of this.

“Fine, whatever, I’ll come to your stupid game. But if we get in trouble for this you owe me more than just a coffee.”

While the group settles in, she grabs a handful of clean styrofoam cups from the water cooler and sets them down before dispensing vodka to each contender.

“All right, who’s first? Any volunteers?” Bradley grins. He knows the win is in the bag.

“I’ll go.” Zoe, a clinical assistant, was silent up until this point. The youngest, she generally avoids mingling with her co-workers but surprisingly said yes to the game. As the only surgical department member amongst them, her experience was the most direct. Bradley hadn’t even planned on inviting her until Janey gossiped about Zoe’s weak stomach—apparently, she’d often escape to the staff washroom after surgery to vomit.

“Come on, it’ll be fun! If you win, we all have to do what you say for like, a whole year.” Janey teased in the locker room one morning. “I’ll add you to the group chat. Give me your number.”

Zoe, who had been absentmindedly staring at Janey’s chest for five minutes, said, “Oh? Oh yeah. You’re going? Sure. Sounds good. See you there.”

She put both hands on the table, clasped together, staring at her fingers intently. They waited.

“We had this patient last month…overweight guy, smelled kind of ripe. He had an abscess that needed draining. I’ve done them before but this was on a whole ‘nother level. It turns out it was a lot deeper than it looked, so he had this huge balloon of pus and rotten tissue hiding under his gut. It gushed out like a waterfall and filled up the kidney tray—we had to get another one. I had to hold up the fat while we cut into it. Awful. The surgeon was trying to remain professional, but I could tell it was affecting her too; her eyes were watering. After we scooped out the cavity, she booked it out of there and left us to stuff it full of gauze. I felt like I could taste it even with a mask on. So, um. That’s what I brought.”

Zoe spreads her hands, revealing a sample jar full of murky yellow liquid.

“Jesus Christ.” Sarah, the oldest of the group, puts her hand over her mouth instinctually.

Bradley laughs. “Sarah, you knew what you signed up for!” She playfully whacks him on the arm in response.

After splashing a bit of pus in each, the group clinks cups—the noise sounding more like a soft squeak due to the styrofoam—and take the plunge. Bradley drinks with no hesitation, and one by one, with grimaces and a “what have I gotten myself into” from Janey, the group takes turns downing the foul concoction. Henrik gazes into the cloudy, immiscible liquid and feels his throat tighten. Yet it somehow goes down.

It was at this moment that Bradley’s confident aura cracks, if only for a second. His near-constant smile briefly disappears as the pus-and-vodka mixture slides down his throat. He shakes his head and pushes nausea down with his cocktail. He’s here to win. Across the table, Charlene looks green and sweaty, while the others held down retches. Sarah curses. Henrik wipes his tongue with a napkin.

“Hey, fuck off dude. Don’t cheat. No water, no wiping!” Bradley ribs Henrik, regaining some composure. Janey elbows him, receiving a slew of apologies and excuses.

No one taps out, though, so they continue.

“Okay. My turn.” Janey finally puts her phone down, then picks it back up, holding it like a worry stone, her fingers brushing the plastic case. “You guys remember when I shadowed that ENT specialist for like a month?”

Zoe lets out a small cough and nods.

“Yeah, you told me you ‘suddenly realized that was not the job for me’ but wouldn’t elaborate. Are you finally going to give us the juicy details?” Bradley resumes his shit-eating grin and rubs his hands together like he’s starting a fire.

“One: Please don’t say juicy. I already want to throw up and you’re making it worse, you fucking prick. Two: Yes, this is why. Everything was so gross. How do people end up with so much shit in their ears!? I feel like my personal hygiene has improved tenfold since working here. I’m practically OCD.”

Sarah folds her arms over her heavy chest. “So what is it? Get to the point.” While Brad figures he’ll win, the rest are betting on Sarah. An old-school nurse, she’s seen all the joys and horrors the human body has to offer. They all wanted to impress the Hospital mom. Sarah just wants to get out of sponge bath duty.

Digging through her purse, Janey continues. “I’m hyping it up! Give me a second.” She stops to focus on her speech. “Young dude comes in, says he’s had issues with his mouth and his GP referred him to us. College age, looked like he hadn’t showered in a week. Probably went even longer without brushing his teeth!” She makes a blegh noise. “...Of course, I knew about salivary stones before this. I’m not an idiot. But they’re like, pea-sized normally, right? These things were like frozen garlic cloves. Massive! And then you pull them out and they leave these huge fucking craters in the mouth after… Ugh. I couldn’t deal. Anyway, after he left for the day I swiped a few.”

Janey’s specimen jar sloshes gently as she sets it on the table. Inside are several inch-long, white lumps, surrounded by mucus, like raw eggs in a bowl.

“Thankfully, they don’t really smell—”

Her silver lining is interrupted by the distinct sound of vomiting. Henrik yells “No! NO! Sorry!” as he runs to the sink, failing to cover his mouth, chunks of spit and his supper– ham and swiss sandwich, banana and jujubes–spewing between his fingers.

The rest of the room erupts into disgust and laughter before Sarah shushes the group. “We’re supposed to be secretive here you morons, shut up.”

Henrik looks up for a moment and stabs a finger in Janey’s direction, who was snapping photos of his shameful defeat. “Hey! HEY! You better not fucking post those. I swear to God.”

“I won’t!” Her voice is sickly sweet. “It’s just for our group chat. Come on, it’s funny!”

“Whatever. I’m out of here.” There were a couple of snickers as his footsteps retreat down the hall.

“Wait, you didn’t even take your turn!” Janey rummages under the table before waving Henrik’s jar at the door, laughing. “Wait, what is this?” She turns the glass with a hand before a sudden movement makes her drop it with a shriek. “It’s moving!!”

It lands on the table, tipping over and rolling before Bradley stops it with his hand. “What do we have here? Ooooh, it looks like we got ourselves a snack!” He shows the group, tenderly holding it aloft with a palm, turning it this way and that.

“It’s bugs,” says Zoe.

Skittering in the container are 6 live cockroaches, climbing over each other, antennae wiggling.

“How sweet. He got one for each of us. Well, we only have one pair of forceps to grab these suckers, so we’ll have to take turns.” Bradley’s once constant smile has shrunk considerably, with his attempts at jokes falling flat. Across from him, Zoe began pouring new shots for everyone and quietly adding a salivary stone, tipping them one by one into the vodkas with a small plunk.

“We didn’t do Janey’s yet. Can’t skip a turn.” She shyly hands one to the redhead. “You went to all that effort to get them for us.” Janey takes it, wincing, and places it in front of her with all the care of picking up dog shit. Zoe fails to notice.

Charlene shoots her a glare. She was hoping everyone forgot. Swallowing giant tic tacs was not on her bucket list, and she’d prefer it remain that way.

“Wait, where the fuck did he get these? Did Henrik just bring us bugs from his shitty apartment?” Janey’s fingers are a blur as she furiously texts. No one was feeling particularly ready to start the next round, and they awkwardly shuffled in their seats.

Her eyes scan the screen as it pings a response. “Sorry, was checking on 307. We found them cleaning a wound,” she reads. “I’m surprised they’re still alive, to be honest.”

Charlene remains uncharacteristically silent during these proceedings. Her eyes dart back and forth from the rock in her drink to the jar of bugs and back again. Her face is covered in sweat and clearly miserable. Sarah, sitting next to her, leans close. “Honey, you can tap out any time. You don’t have to do this.”

Bradley opens his mouth, tongue out, and lowers the squirming roach towards his gullet. He winks at Charlene before an audible CRUNCH as he chews through the carapace. His cool guy act falters even more as his throat spasms, but he slams a palm on the table, stabilizing himself before he knocks back his shot. The salivary stone feels like a marble in his gullet.

Sarah takes the forceps next, managing to down both cockroach and salivary stone-laced vodka with little to no issue.

Zoe remains stone-faced even as she feels the cockroach's legs get caught between her teeth. It squirms fruitlessly before she bites down, squishing bug guts over her gums. She refuses to look at Bradley, his elation making her feel sicker than anything they’ve consumed thus far. She takes a few extra moments to chew and swallow, but her voice still cracks when she speaks.

“Your turn.” Going down the line, she passes them to Janey, who shuts her down.

“Nope, nope, I’ve changed my mind.” She shakes her head furiously. “I’m not eating fucking roaches. I’ll deal with bedpans, but I’m not dealing with this.” Zoe nods sadly as Janey packs up her things.

“Are we still going to have lunch together tomorrow?”

“What? Yeah, sure, Zoe.” She hurriedly throws her bag over her shoulder before gesturing at her colleague. “Charlene, are you coming?”

After a moment: “Yeah, you know what, I don’t think I wanna be here either. Someone needs to check on Mr. Booth anyways.”

Bradley laughs at the women as they leave. At this point, he’s completely full of himself and knows his turn will end the game for sure.

“And then there were three,” Sarah sighs. “All right Brad, calm down. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“What about you Zoe? Gunna chicken out?”

“No. Let’s fucking go Brad.”

“Ladies and gentlemen…” He spreads his arms in a flourish and Sarah rolls her eyes. “Well, ladies and moi! I present to you—” Rustling his hand in a plastic bag for a moment for dramatic effect he pulls out his offering. “A piece of shit.”

Zoe couldn’t help it. She breaks down laughing. “Are you fucking serious? You stole shit from the lab?” Sarah joins in, wiping a tear from her eye.

“For your information, no, I did not STEAL this, per se—I merely waited for the right opportunity to strike.” Here it was. His checkmate. “I patiently waited for a guy coming down from codeine to take that first, horrible dump, and then I snuck into the bathroom and fished it out of the toilet—luckily for me, the dude didn’t flush. He was too out of it to notice. The perfect crime.” He finishes this retelling with a spin of his index finger, accentuating the point like the world’s worst magician.

“Holy shit, that’s both pathetic AND disgusting. You’re lucky Janey isn’t here, she’d never let you live this down.” A slow smile began to spread across Sarah’s face, before she covers it with her hand, pretending to scratch her nose. “Zoe, pour a full cup. I have a proposition for our dear Bradley.

“If you can eat that, the whole thing, and down this without puking, I’ll double our offer. We’ll—” She turns to Zoe, who is nodding, eyes wide. “No pussy work for two years. Deal?” Sarah extends a hand.

Bradley looks at both women, and then at the lump of poop. His ace in the hole. From the start, he knew no one in the group would dare attempt it, and he’d be crowned the winner. He was expecting to cut it up into small chunks, one for each person. Illustrate the foul proceedings that led to this filth pile. A turd nugget was gross, but manageable, in the rare event that someone actually agreed to eat it. Tackling the entire log is less than ideal. Cracked, dry and hard, with a small puddle of fecal water at the bottom of the jar, it’s a sight to behold.

He imagines Sarah going back to the nurses’ station and casually rattling off his weakness to the others. Spreading throughout the hospital. Their faces as he walks by, and their laughter behind his back.

“Deal.” They shake.

He realizes his error as soon as the shit touches his lips. It’s bitter, like burnt coffee and sauerkraut, with the texture of overdone cake; a hard outer layer and spongey underneath. For whatever reason, he’s been holding his breath. He lets go, intending to tell the ladies that it’s not so bad. Then it hits.

Oh God. I’m going to have to chew.

He tries. He really, really tries to eat the shit. Bradley screws his face up so tight he turns red, as Sarah and Zoe watch with glee, their eyes lighting up more as the seconds become minutes. Then he feels a solid lump, something that hasn’t quite digested. The cheer that arises as he spews all over the table is rapturous.

Half an hour later, Bradley is still vomiting in the staff bathroom. Sarah and Zoe share a victory milkshake from the cafeteria, sweetened by the knowledge that it’ll be the last time in two years they see another person’s shit.

Perversion is life’s greatest joy. It brings pleasure and companionship, and enriches existence with a higher purpose.

But in our unjust world, many are denied this ecstasy. Powerful people deprive the marginalized of their glorious filth and persecute them for thinking it was theirs to begin with. From the safety of their mansions, these oppressors indulge in that which they’ve forbidden and take delight in their hypocritical transgression.

It’s time to take perversion back. To reclaim it for everyone. To make those who stole it pay.

TURN THEIR EYES TO FIRE

By Eric Raglin

It was a Friday night when Erma the landlady came for a surprise inspection.

Claire and Lesley had just sat down for a dinner of chicken parmesan and cheap beer. Cinnamon candles from the dollar store infused their dingy apartment with faux-autumnal comfort. With her mouth full, Lesley shared stories about the douchebags, weirdos, and occasional hotties she’d served during her lunch shift. Her theatrical gestures and exaggerated impersonations of these customers stirred something inside Claire. Still half-listening, she caressed Lesley’s knee under the table. Lesley grinned, then grazed Claire’s breast while reaching for the salt shaker. Uninterrupted, these playful teases could go on for hours, desire swelling as gradually as a rising tide. Whenever they were ready, toys, ropes, and oils awaited them in the bedroom. If the landlady found this contraband, she’d confiscate it and perhaps even evict the lovers, but she’d never once come by for a Friday inspection. There was no need to hide these erotic implements in the ceiling tiles. Tonight, passion and depravity could reign supreme.

But just as Claire was about to invite Lesley into the bedroom, the front door burst open. Landlady Erma’s adult children, Frank and John, shoved past each other and into the unit like starving dogs racing for a fallen scrap of meat. Erma shuffled behind them, thrusting her bony elbows into the twins’ ribs. The men yelped and leapt to the side. The old woman squinted at Lesley and Claire through glasses half the size of her head. She sniffed the air, then grimaced. Her graying top dentures descended half an inch from the gums before she sucked them back into place.

“Fuck,” Lesley said.

Claire shushed her, but the damage was already done.

“Filthy mouth,” Erma said, sneering. “You could learn some manners from my boys. They’d never speak like that, would they now?”

“No, Mother,” Frank said, still rubbing his bruised ribs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mother,” John added.

“A tenant with a filthy mouth surely has filthy secrets,” Erma said. She turned her nose upward and sniffed again. The inhale sounded like a sharp, dry whistle. “I can smell them. You think a candle and some cheese can hide that stink?”

Lesley opened her mouth to respond, but Claire grabbed her lover’s hand. The less guilty they acted, the less zealous Erma would be in her search. That was Claire’s hope, anyway. Her gut churned audibly, a twisting jolt of anxiety rippling through her body.

“Well, don’t stop cramming your gullets on account of us,” Erma said, then turned to her sons. “Fetch the filth, boys!”

Frank cheered and John leapt over the couch. One scurried into the bathroom and the other into the bedroom. Doors slammed open and drawers thunked to the ground. The men rummaged with the carelessness of cops tearing apart a suspect’s home. They grunted to themselves, perhaps taking inventory of their finds.

Claire listened helplessly from the dining room, desperate for a way to stop the inevitable. Soon, the men would stumble upon the treasure trove of sex toys. The lovers had accumulated their collection over the past seven years, their relationship outliving three vibrators they kept around for nostalgia’s sake. The gem of their collection was a well-worn VHS sex tape from their first anniversary. Everything else was replaceable, but that…

“Mother, Mother!” Frank said. “I found it! I found it before John! The filth jackpot!”

“Oh, shove it!” John said. “You always have to be first to-”

“Silence, both of you!” Erma said, taking off her oversized glasses and cleaning them on her moth-eaten maroon sweater. Clumps of fuzz stuck to the lenses, but she put them back on anyway. “Boys, bring Mother her prize.”

Claire frowned, glanced at Lesley, and mouthed, Prize? Lesley didn’t acknowledge her, instead balling her hands into white-hot fists and standing up. Claire had seen her lover knock out some drunk asshole at a karaoke night once, avoiding arrest but earning a lifetime ban from the bar. Punching a seventy-year-old landlady would come with much stiffer consequences. Claire wedged herself between Lesley and Erma, extending her arms to block any blows.

“What are you doing?” Lesley hissed.

Right then, Frank emerged with a towering armful of erotic contraband. When the couple’s sex tape fell from the stack, John scrambled for it, cradling the VHS in both palms and presenting it to Erma as if to prove his usefulness.

“Good boys!” Erma said. She sniffed the pile, then winced and whipped her head toward the tenants. “Moral maggots! Vile sneaks! You think you can cheat the lease’s Clean Living Clause? Well, let this confiscation be a lesson to you both.”

She stormed out of the unit with her twins in giddy procession. Together, the trio clomped downstairs to their basement abode. A door slammed, followed by a throbbing silence.

In their search for filth, the twins had flipped the lovers’ mattress off the box spring. Claire and Lesley hefted it back into place, then flopped onto the disheveled sheets.

“Will you hate me if I say I’m not in the mood anymore?” Claire asked, grabbing a tissue from the nightstand and wiping her drippy nose.

“No,” Lesley said without looking at Claire. She crossed her arms, squeezed her ribs tight, and sucked in a shuddering breath. After a moment of thick silence, she stared Claire down. “You shushed me, you didn’t let me slap that bitch, and you didn’t do a thing to stop us from getting robbed. Where the fuck did your fight go?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Claire scooted closer, cupping her hands over Lesley’s. “Mouth off and get evicted? Throw a punch and get arrested? There were no good options. None.”

Lesley ripped her hands out from under Claire’s. “Some things are worth the risk.”

“Oh, our sex toy collection? Yeah, very much worth the risk.”

Lesley laughed. “Wow. Okay, be like that if it makes you feel better. If it helps you win the argument.”

Claire’s eyes burned with tears. She pushed herself off the bed on unsteady feet and raised a finger but stopped short of a response. Muffled conversation leaked through the floor below. Quiet as it was, there was no mistaking Erma’s voice, like an old nun scolding a hell-bound child.

“Wait your turn, boys,” she said. “Mother gets first pick. Frank, which button is—”

A faint electrical buzzing cut her off.

“Oh!” she continued. “Oh my. We didn’t have these when I was—oh!”

The twins giggled.

“Out! Out!” Erma said. The buzzing intensified. “I’m keeping this one. Go look through the pile and find your own. We’ll throw the rest in the pit. Can’t you give your Mother one moment of—Christ our Lord, AMEN!”

A fourth voice—too low and wet to be either Erma’s or the twins’—unleashed a gurgling moan, both animal and alien. It echoed as if originating from some cavern much larger than the basement unit. Erma’s cries and the boys’ giggling continued, seeming not to notice.

Claire had heard this fourth voice before, but only late at night in states of disoriented half-dreaming. Hearing it now while fully awake, she wobbled and fell to her knees. More sure-footed, Lesley got off the bed and squatted beside her, but didn’t offer a helping hand.

“Nope,” Lesley said. “I don’t like that. Whatever the fuck all that is.”

“I—yeah,” Claire said, still half-collapsed.

“We can’t live here anymore. Let’s get our shit back and go.” Lesley stood, opened the nightstand drawer, and pocketed some travel essentials: wallet, keys, and pepper spray.

“Why would we want our shit back?” Claire asked. “You heard what she’s doing with—”

“Okay, fair, fair. But let’s at least get our sex tape. Pretty sure they won’t ruin that.”

“Promise you won’t pepper spray her?”

Lesley bit her bottom lip and slow-blinked. “I am not talking tactics with you right now. Gonna do what I have to do, but I promise I won’t land us in jail. Deal?”

Claire hesitated. How often had Lesley promised something great that turned disastrous? A Friendsgiving fried turkey turned grease fire. A mountain hike turned search and rescue operation. A threesome turned fight.

“Claire.” Lesley snapped her fingers. “Are you in or not?”

Heat rising in her chest, Claire nodded, but she wasn’t sure if she meant it. She’d find out when the moment came.

Claire and Lesley waited outside the landlady’s door, listening to the twins smack each other with what sounded like their confiscated riding crop. The men giggled after each hit, but it was impossible to tell if their joy was erotic or simply rambunctious. Their voices echoed unnaturally, as if the basement living space was more cavern than apartment.

“God, let’s get this over with,” Claire whispered. “I’ll knock, ask for the tape, and—”

“No,” Lesley said. “You don’t actually think asking politely will work, do you?”

“Well, it won’t get us in legal trouble,” Claire said, pointing to the pepper spray canister hanging from her lover’s hip.

“You won’t be the one pepper spraying them. I’ll take the blame.”

“And I’ll be guilty by association.”

The lovers’ conversation had grown loud enough that the twins’ smacking and giggling stopped. Footsteps approached the front door.

“Fuck,” Lesley said.

“Don’t say that when—”

The door swung open. Frank and John stood smiling, wearing only jean shorts. Their nipples were a raw red, the area around them imprinted with countless puffy swells. Blood trickled from Frank’s left nipple, sliding over his brown leather belt.

“What can we do for you filthy females?” Frank asked.

“Mother is very disappointed in you,” John added, clucking his tongue.

“Don’t care,” Lesley said. “We want our shit back.”

“Our things,” Claire corrected, nudging Lesley. “The tape, specifically.”

Frank glanced at John and rolled his eyes. Together, they chuckled.

“That’s impossible,” Frank said.

“Didn’t you read the lease?” John said.

The men cleared their throats, then spoke in perfect synchrony, like seasoned musicians keeping time: “Clean Living Clause: Confiscated filth is subject to inspection and destruction. Tenant may not reclaim items considered—”

“Boys, who’s there?” Erma’s voice echoed from some unseen room. She shuffled toward the entrance.

The men stepped to different sides of the door and waited like half-naked sentries. Claire glanced into the unit, less obscured now. An ancient, bare lightbulb cast an orange glow over an unfinished living room, a stained couch with exposed stuffing at its center. Towers of boxes clung to the shadowed edges. When Claire squinted, she could barely make out the overflowing contents: decades of confiscated sex toys, erotic apparel, magazines, and hard drives. Countless tenants, past and present, deprived of their depravity. Atop one of the boxes was an all-too-familiar VHS tape.

“Right fucking there,” Lesley said, pointing to it. “Give me that fucking tape.”

In the far corner, a circular hole was carved into the cement floor. Hot, oil-smelling air rose from it and wafted into the hallway. A snakelike, seductive hiss rode the wind. Claire shuddered.

As Erma arrived, Frank and John grinned and straightened their postures. A wet spot darkened the landlady’s nightgown, making it cling to her crotch. The sharp scent of self-pleasure followed her like an overbearing perfume.

“Unless you’re here to pay next month’s rent or beg my forgiveness, I’d suggest you return to your den,” Erma said. “My boys gave you a chance at a clean life. Don’t waste it.”

Claire blushed, then cleared her throat. “We would actually very much like to, um, move out. And, uh, since the Clean Living Clause won’t apply anymore, maybe we could get our—”

Erma sputtered out a laugh, spraying everyone present with flecks of spit. Claire and Lesley wiped the moisture away, but the twins did little more than smirk, seemingly unbothered.

“Boys, care to enlighten these ladies about the rest of the clause?” Erma said.

The twins closed their eyes and, synced once more, recited the words from memory: “Filth confiscated during a period of tenancy may not be reclaimed upon vacancy of—”

“I don’t care what’s in the fucking lease agreement,” Lesley said, clenched hand hovering over the pepper spray. “Give our tape back. Now.”

“Lesley.” Claire held an arm in front of her lover.

Lesley glared, pushed Claire away, and drew her weapon, putting Erma in its sights. “Don’t make me say it again.”

Shaking, Claire backed up one slow step at a time. Her voice trembled with the promise of tears. “Please, let’s just go before they make it worse.”

Keeping the pepper spray locked on target, Lesley whipped her head around toward Claire. “No, goddamnit. Stand with me. Don’t be a coward. These people will walk all over us until—”

“Now!” Erma interrupted.

Frank lunged forward, wrapped his muscular arm around Lesley’s throat, and squeezed. Her face immediately flooded purple. Claire screamed, tripping as she backed away. Her ass hit the cold ground, and John scrambled to meet her. Within seconds, his calloused hands were crushing her windpipe.

“Not fair!” John said, bicep twitching. “You got a head start. Bet mine will pass out first anyway!”

Black ink welled at the edges of Claire’s vision. She writhed, desperate for an escape, but John had a wrestler’s grip.

“You wanna bet money on that?” Frank asked.

The shudder was swiftly closing. Claire’s limbs twitched and tingled.

“Twenty bucks,” John said.

“Twenty it is.”

And then the darkness was complete.

Claire awoke to the worst migraine of her life. Her skull felt swollen twice its size, liquid agony threatening to explode out of her eardrums. A ragged circle of light shone high above her—the hole in Erma’s floor. Claire’s vision doubled, two squares overlapping in a nauseating blur. Blinking didn’t help; it just worsened her pain. Slowly, she sat up, and something on the floor peeled away with her. She touched the back of her head, matted with blood. The thing stuck to it felt crusty in places and pillow soft in others. She pulled it off, tiny bits still clinging to her hair. It was a tissue, center pinched and glued together with a dried yellow discharge. Countless other tissues were scattered all around her, some still mostly white and others browned with age. Decades of spent cum tossed into the sour-smelling pit. She vomited, dribbles of stomach acid and clots of parmesan further fouling the air.

From the pit’s shadowed edges came a sound like some massive beast clearing phlegm from its throat. A humid, fecal wind made Claire scramble toward the opposite wall. She cowered against the slick stone and waited, but no other sound came.

“Lesley?” she said, first mouthing the word almost silently, then speaking with more power. “Les, are you down here, too? Where are you?”

She scanned the rough-hewn walls, hoping the hidden beast—whatever it was—hadn’t gotten to her lover first. In the farthest corner rested a dome-shaped pile of discarded sex toys. The ones near the bottom appeared ancient—cracked dildos carved of ivory and “anti-hysteria” devices of the early twentieth century—while the ones near the top were more modern—high-tech magenta vibrators and remote-controlled butt plugs. Then there were the human bones wedged among the heap of erotic artifacts. Just like the toys, the older bones rested at the bottom, yellowed and plucked bare, and the fresher, still-fleshy ones sat up top. A human profile rested at the crown, motionless, but shadows obscured its features. Claire tensed.

“Babe, please.” She slinked around the pit with her back to the wall, trying to find the perfect angle for viewing the raised human figure. A cum-filled tissue crunched underfoot. “If that’s you, you need to tell me. I have to know that you’re—”

The dome skittered toward Claire on a thousand improvised legs, clicking and squeaking against the stone. Its bulbous middle stretched to reveal its great length, a coil of filth towering thirty feet in the air. Light now illuminated the top. Lesley’s caved-in, lolling head protruded from the God’s crown, her body buried in a cluster of vibrators that shook like a hundred snake rattles. Lesley’s mouth opened wider and wider until her jaw snapped and swung free. The groan that emerged from her sounded nothing like the woman, but rather, a god speaking through a mortal.

Gaping but unable to scream, Claire fell backward, shovelling piles of cum-crusted tissues atop her, as if they would provide camouflage and protection.

“THERE IS NO HIDING, CHILD OF FILTH,” the god said through Lesley’s throat. The skin of her neck rippled from the volume.

Before Claire could respond, Erma’s silhouette appeared in the ceiling hole, just a few feet above the god. The beast lunged at her, Lesley’s loose jaw snapping together before swinging loose once more. Standing her ground, Erma remained a safe but short distance away. She scowled.

“Always biting the hand that feeds, Orenhet,” she said, clucking her tongue. “Now shut up and let me sleep.”

She stormed away. In the distance, a door slammed shut.

Shivering among the tissues, Claire choked out a sob, then slapped a hand over her mouth.

“WHY DO YOU CRY, CHILD?” Orenhet said.

Claire flinched as thick, warm liquid fell from above and splattered her face. Was it Lesley’s blood? Claire had seen for herself how her lover’s corpse contorted and strained to the bellowing god’s whims.

“Let her go,” Claire whispered through tears. “Please, I can’t live without her.”

“YOU’LL HAVE TO, CHILD,” Orenhet said. “THE DOUBLES DUMPED HER HERE, JUST AS THEY DUMPED YOU. ONLY THEIR MOUNTAIN OF SEED-SOAKED CLOTH SAVED YOU. YOUR LOVER HIT THE GROUND WITH NO SUCH CUSHION.”

Claire’s sob came full force, a deafening wail that made Orenhet slither back a few inches.

“I should have helped her when I had the chance,” Claire said, sucking in snot between sobs.

“IT’S TOO LATE FOR REGRETS,” Orenhet said, letting another spray of foul rain fall on Claire. “BUT IT’S NOT TOO LATE FOR VENGEANCE.”

“I’m trapped in a fucking pit with my dead partner. Of course it’s too late.”

From the darkness came a straining sound. Synthetic and organic material stretching upward, easing back, stretching again. Rubber squeaking and bones cracking. Orenhet sighed through Lesley’s throat, which now sounded like a loose flap of skin blowing in a toxic wind.

“FOR DECADES, THEY HAVE KEPT ME HERE. IMPRISONED ME. FED ME WITH THEIR DISCARDED FILTH. I CAN ALMOST REACH THE CEILING NOW. ALMOST ESCAPE AND SHOW THEM TRUE TERROR. WITH A LITTLE MORE HEIGHT, IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE.”

Listening, Claire sniffled and sat up among the tissues. A calm came over her. A feeling that this was not truly the end.

“WE COULD DO IT TOGETHER,” Orenhet said. “ALL YOU WOULD HAVE TO DO IS BECOME ME.”

Claire stood on wobbly legs. She’d lived in fear of taking action for far too long, believing that if she just stayed still and smiled, no one would harm her further. What did she have to lose now? She took a tentative step forward. “I—I’ll do it. How do I—?”

“SAY NO MORE.”

Orenhet rushed her, squelching and scratching and squeaking across the floor. Claire considered running, but she’d made her choice. What other option did she have? Bones and toys and leathered flesh peeled from Orenhet’s side to form a hole. It enveloped Claire, sucking her inward and upward, toward the god’s crown. Rancid fluids lubricated the passage while shards of bone gouged Claire’s exposed arms. She would’ve screamed were there the air to do so. Pulse after pulse propelled her on, and somehow she knew these pulses were orgasmic, Orenhet taking great pleasure in incorporating yet another mortal. The passage squeezed tighter. The wet stench became fresher, more metallic. Claire surfaced through a ring of teeth and realized she’d traveled through Lesley’s body, contorting and shredding her lover into a hideous tunnel of flesh. The upward movement stopped with Claire’s feet still deep in Lesley’s throat. A sob rose from deep in her chest, but Orenhet allowed no time for grief, fusing Claire’s feet to Lesley’s esophagus with a sizzling burn. Claire was closer to her lover than she’d ever been before.

“NOW, REACH TOWARD OUR ESCAPE,” Orenhet said, no longer through Lesley’s throat, but through some new lump-clotted orifice farther down. “WITH MY STRENGTH AIDING YOU, CARRY US TO FREEDOM. TOGETHER WE WILL UNLEASH HELL UPON OUR CAPTORS AND FILTH UPON THOSE MOST WORTHY.”

Claire wiped the tears and nameless ooze from her eyes, then let out a shuddering exhale. She gripped the edge of the open pit and pulled upward.

Orenhet coiled around the darkened living room, scraping and oozing against all walls simultaneously. Claire perched at the god’s crown, her head brushing the rough popcorn ceiling.

From the bedroom came a moist chorus of snores. Claire wondered if Erma and her sons slept in the same bed.

Orenhet slithered toward their targets, knocking a picture frame off the wall and a lamp off a nightstand.

“Careful! They’ll hear us,” Claire whispered.

“THEIR EVENING OF DEPRAVITY HAS CALLED FORTH THE NECTAR OF SLEEP. THEY SHALL NOT WAKE.”

Claire couldn’t argue with that. How many times had she and Lesley fallen half-comatose after a long night of lovemaking? She sniffled, then wriggled her feet, fused to her lover’s stretched-taffy throat.

“HOW SHALL WE END THEM?” Orenhet asked.

Claire glanced back at the god’s coils, sucking boxes of confiscated filth into its ever-expanding body, growing ever more powerful.

“Do you have that pepper spray?” Claire said. “Lesley had it when she—you know.”

Beside her right hand, Orenhet opened a greasy orifice and squelched out the canister. Claire hesitated before grabbing it. Hopefully the weapon would still work.

“I’ll spray those pieces of shit first,” she said. “Then we’ll throw them in that fucking pit and leave them to rot.”

Someone in the bedroom stopped snoring—stopped breathing entirely. Claire froze, sure the conversation had awoken them. But the snoring resumed with a rippling snort. Just a spell of sleep apnea.

“IT WILL BE A FITTING DEATH,” Orenhet said.

A purr coursed through the god’s body and massaged Claire’s weary bones. Their emotions merged. Claire felt Orenhet’s decades of imprisonment and torment as if they were her own. Perhaps the god felt her grief in turn. A burning tingle spread from her fused feet into her calves and thighs, but it wasn’t so much pain as it was energy for the violence to come.

“Let’s go,” Claire said.

Orenhet skittered forward on its countless appendages, navigating the darkness with complete disregard for its surroundings. Boxes toppled, protruding bones gouged the walls, and the unlit bulb above broke in the god’s haste. Discerning snores through this clatter was impossible. Perhaps the landlady and her creepy sons had already awakened and were readying themselves for the inevitable assault. Claire lifted the pepper spray.

Orenhet squeezed into the hallway, coils tangling in its excited rush. As it struggled to loosen itself and turn toward the bedroom, Erma’s voice cut through the dark.

“Clumsy, stupid boys!” she said.

The clink of metal against concrete. The chaos of fumbling hands.

“We’re sorry, Mother!” one of the twins said.

“Very sorry, Mother!” the other added, followed by the unmistakable click of a cocking gun. “Ha! Got mine loaded first, John! You’re always the slow one, aren’t—”

“Oh, cram your pie hole!” Erma interrupted. “Both of you are failures. Now prepare yourselves.”

Orenhet squirmed free of the tangle and charged toward the closed bedroom door. Claire slapped the god’s slick side, begging for it to stop. It did, at least for now.

“They’ll kill us,” Claire said. “The moment we step through that door.”

“I CANNOT BE KILLED,” Orenhet said. “THEY’LL KILL YOU.”

An icy sensation snaked up Claire’s spine. She should’ve known. All along, Orenhet had seen her as nothing more than a means to an end. Whatever happened to her after the escape was—

Melting. Claire’s legs were melting. No, they were separating. Orenhet was sucking her farther down Lesley’s throat, into the rest of her body. Sticky, room-temperature fluids enveloped Claire as the god swallowed her.

“EXTEND YOUR WEAPON ARM,” Orenhet said. “I WILL SHIELD YOU WHILE YOU TURN THEIR EYES TO FIRE.”

Waves of relief and panic alternated as Claire realized the god wasn’t going to sacrifice her. She held the pepper spray out, finger on the trigger, and soon her arm was the only part of her body outside the fleshy tunnel. Lesley was her armor, and a mess of welded bones and sex toys added extra protection.

“I’m ready,” Claire said, chest so compressed that her words came out a wheeze.

Orenhet burst through the bedroom door, exploding wood into shrapnel. The twins yelped and fired their guns. Claire couldn’t see, but the wind of buckshot whizzed past her exposed arm and left her unscathed. She closed her eyes, squeezed the pepper spray, and heard the clank of two guns hitting the floor and three creeps screaming.

“Defend me, boys!” Erma cried, wailing and sniffling. “Protect your Mother!”

Frank and John were too busy weeping to reply. Claire couldn’t see them through the constricted flesh tunnel, but she could hear them writhing like two halves of a severed worm. She smiled.

“YOU HAVE DEPRIVED THE PEOPLE OF THEIR FILTH,” Orenhet said, “AND NOW WE SHALL DEPRIVE YOU OF YOUR LIFE.”

“Ungrateful wretch!” Erma screeched through small, panicked gasps, hacking up pepper spray. “My ancestors created you! I grew you, made you great!”

“YOU FED ME STOLEN TREASURES.”

When Orenhet inched forward, the twins sobbed. Erma’s coughing became more choked and erratic.

A delicious shiver passed through Claire. She couldn’t let Orenhet speak for them both. She needed to say her piece, too.

“You’re dead!” she screamed through the tunnel, laughing with the little air available. “You murdering pieces of shit are all fucking dead.”

Orenhet rushed into the fold, ensnaring Frank first, then John, and finally Erma. The god dragged them from the bedroom toward the place where they’d always belonged.

Orenhet excreted Claire onto the basement floor with surprising tenderness. Globs of blood and patches of Lesley’s fused flesh still clung to Claire’s body. She rotated her neck to ease its terrible ache. Her legs quivered when she stood, but they held her weight.

Pained moans and pleas for mercy echoed from the pit below. Everyone—even brittle old Erma—had survived the fall. Why couldn’t one of them have died on impact instead of Lesley? There was nothing Claire could do about it. She just hoped the landlady and her sons would know suffering, soaking in it for so long that they became bloated vessels of agony.

But any satisfaction she derived from their fate felt hollow. Lesley wasn’t here to enjoy it with her. She hadn’t lived long enough to see Claire grow a spine.

“What now?” Claire asked, barely aware she’d said it out loud.

“PERHAPS A PARTNERSHIP,” Orenhet said.

“What kind of partnership?”

A whimper from below. Orenhet purred at the sound.

“I HAVE SPENT MY EXISTENCE CONFINED,” it said, “BUT I SENSE THERE ARE OTHERS LIKE THEM. HOARDERS AND GATEKEEPERS OF FILTH. PERHAPS WE CAN HELP EACH OTHER. YOU, WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN WAYS, AND ME, WITH MY POWER.”

Claire examined Lesley’s corpse—a stringy, unrecognizable meat pile. A popped balloon of flesh. She knew how her lover would’ve responded to Orenhet’s proposal. An answer without hesitation, without cowardice.

“You’re right,” she said. She shuffled toward a spilled box against the wall. Her sex tape with Lesley was inside, still miraculously intact. She smiled. “Our work is not yet done.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Goop Troop

Thanks to Val for their wonderfully vile cover art, which directly inspired our pig introductions for each story. To Andrew for ceaselessly supporting risk-taking indie horror. To all of our readers for getting nasty with us. We love every last one of you sickos.

Lor Gislason

Thanks to my partner, with all my love. And thank you to my fellow Goop Troop members, Eric and Shelley, who roll in the filth with me. My dear friends.

Shelley Lavigne

Thanks to my friends, both flesh and digital and my parents (hey, maybe don’t read this one though). To Lor and Eric. I am endlessly thankful for your friendship, encouragement, and keen eyes. You inspire me to be fearless and absolutely filthy!

Eric Raglin

Thanks to my partner who I love bonding with over the grotesque, the shadowy, and the playfully macabre. And to my rad friends, Lor and Shelley, the coolest Canadians I know.

A NOTE FROM DARKLIT PRESS

All of us at DarkLit Press want to thank you for taking the time to read this book. Words cannot describe how grateful we are knowing that you spent your valuable time and hard-earned money on our publication. We appreciate any and all feedback from readers, good or bad. Reviews are extremely helpful for indie authors and small businesses (like us). We hope you’ll take a moment to share your thoughts on Goodreads and/or BookBub.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lor Gislason is a non-binary homebody from Vancouver Island, Canada. They are the editor of Bound In Flesh: An Anthology of Trans Body Horror and their debut novella, Inside Out, is also available from Darklit Press. Lor lives with their partner and two cats.

Eric Raglin (he/him) is a Midwestern horror/Weird fiction writer and the editor for Cursed Morsels Press. His debut short story collection is Nightmare Yearnings and his second collection Extinction Hymns was published by Brigids Gate Press. He is the editor of Bitter Apples, Shredded: A Sports and Fitness Body Horror Anthology, and Antifa Splatterpunk. Find him at ericraglin.com or on Twitter @ericraglin1992.

Shelley Lavigne (they/them) is a fine purveyor of moist literature, usually queer horror. Their words can be found at The Dread Machine, If There’s Anyone Left and others. They live in Ontario where they roam their neighborhood in search of haunted houses and cool bugs. You can also find them online at shelleylavigne.com or on twitter @shelleysghoul.

CONTENT WARNINGS

Baby Face

Reference to suicide

The Disintegrating Vessel

Implied animal death, animal mutilation/sickness (cattle)

A Pressing Matter

Self-harm

Turn Their Eyes to Fire

Implied incest, death of romantic partner

Unkempt

Implied abuse of disabled person, eating disorders

Baby Soft

Cannibalism, forced abortion

Sick-off

Depiction of surgery, fatphobia, vomiting

Such Beautiful Nodules

Bullying, body dysmorphia, mentions of self-harm and eating disorders

He's a grower

Self-harm, gore

PoXXX Party

Self-harm, intentional ingestion of disease vectors, implied death

Table of Contents

- CONTENT WARNING
- 1. A WORD FROM THESWINESAYER
- 2. BABYFACE
- 3. SUCH BEAUTIFULNODULES
- 4. UNKEMPT
- 5. THEDISINTEGRATING VESSEL
- 6. HE’S A GROWER
- 7. BABY SOFT
- 8. A PRESSING MATTER
- 9. POXXX PARTY
- 10. SICK-OFF
- 11. TURN THEIR EYES TO FIRE
- 12. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- 13. A NOTE FROM DARKLIT PRESS
- 14. ABOUT THE AUTHORS
- 15. CONTENT WARNINGS
- 16. Chapter 16