Damned Words 62

March 11, 2026March 11, 2026 ~ TheDamned ~ 1 Comment

The Followed Man
Marge Simon

Upon meeting him, you knew he had something you needed. You were convinced of it. Though he barely spoke, his eyes shone with universal secrets. So you sold your earthly possessions and followed him to a land where it rained continuously, and every meal tasted like mud. But he wasn’t there long.

Soon he was off to the ends of the earth, where all was ice and forever gray, and people lived in strange caves by the sea. You spent the rest of your money on warm furs and boots and traced his footsteps to a hole in the ice. To your dismay, he’d plugged it from inside with debris and fashioned a stone cross at the opening.

For a time, you felt alone, abandoned. Without meaningful purpose, you hunkered there by the entrance in a daze until you realized someone had been following you. When he drew close, you saw that like you, he was very thin. Unlike you, he was very strong and very hungry.

The Worst Thing
Elaine Pascale

The smell was not the worst thing, but it was a close second.

The odor of burnt flesh and hair infiltrated the scorched soil, taking root so that there was no place far enough away to escape the smell.

“Everything is ok,” the Regents announced, “those people were terminal.” Not dying. The Regents never spoke of dying, and all involved with making announcements were forbidden from using words like die, kill, murder, or genocide. “The disease originated with the children, as so many do. And the disease is constantly evolving, incubating inside each new group of youth.” The Regents were the only ones with access to science; they controlled the data.

They explained that it was for the best that the bombs had eradicated the infected.

The Regents monitored those hearing their broadcasts. They had ways of tracking their believability. They had ways of dealing with non-believers.

The smell, being the second worst thing, was inescapable.

It was sulfuric, due to the hot springs that had returned to the surface after the bombs and the floods wiped away centuries of the Earth’s crust.

Nothing grew except for bacteria and parasites. And a few children, including the little girl who sat with her feet elevated, propped on a rusty piece of metal she had been given as a toy. Since children were scarce, games were few and far between and frivolity was highly discouraged. She made the most of her toy, using it to hoist her blistered feet which never healed from the constant moisture.

The smell was the second worst thing on earth, right behind the fact that, despite common sense telling them the Regents were lying, the people still believed.

The Beginning of the End
Lee Andrew Forman

Dark. Cold. Sounds that rang strange to these new ears. That was my beginning. I drifted inert until it was time to feed. The desire to taste, to chew, to swallow what I could catch was all-consuming. Once I’d had my fill, I began to explore. The depths seemed endless, the waterways stretched as far as I dared travel. I found sustenance along the way. There was always a lesser creature to consume. My limbs agile, my mind sharp, I could catch anything.

An ethereal light drew me to a tunnel I’d not traversed before. Intrigued, I broke the surface and found the rest of it devoid of water. I paused a moment, unsure, but the scent.

A scent like no other intrigued me—flesh I’d not tasted. It was different. As I neared a new world, the odor grew stronger. I inhaled its aroma deeply and decided to climb, the grumble in my gut driving me onward…

The Weight of Silence
Charles Gramlich

Sadie barks wildly. She’s looking in the well. I see her backlit by the sun but don’t know if she can see me at the bottom. I know she can smell me. I’m bleeding; my leg is broken. Like a fool, I ventured too close to the edge of the abandoned well and the lip gave way. Now I’m in it. Thank God for Sadie, my border collie.

“Sadie!” I shout. “Get help!”

She’s a smart dog. She understands my meaning. She barks twice, then races away. The closest house is a few miles off. I know the farmer who lives there. He’ll understand what Sadie wants. Help will be here soon. I just have to hold out against the pain.

Sadie barks as she runs. Until a sudden squeal of brakes, I forget that she’ll have to cross the road. A yelp follows, a loud, horrible, terrifying yelp. A vehicle door slams. A human cries out, though I can’t make out the words.

I shout. I shout! I scream! But the well is deep and the earth muffles all. A few minutes pass while I shriek my voice hoarse. The vehicle drives on. Now there’s no barking. And my throat is too raw for sound. I’m alone with silence, a profound and heavy silence.

Immurement
Harrison Kim

We have immured Agrippo the monk into this dry well. He broke his promise of chastity and must pay the price. Take a look, people, at what happens to those who transgress against their holy vows. Agrippo stands naked and alone and will remain forever down this well, secured with bars of iron in the shape of a cross. No food, no water for this betrayer. His body will thin out, and as he falls the maggots will eat his corpse, and his bones will sink into the ground. He deserves this fate.

Several of our wives came to him for counselling and advice. He let sin possess him, then drew our women in to his sphere of lust. These female victims – not only of Agrippo himself but of their own temptations, have been scourged, including our own Amelia. Tomorrow, for their weakness, they will be cast out into the desert. We do this with sorrow. We must follow the holy law. If we do not, we risk the wrath of the gods.

For Agrippo, the monk, he must suffer and by his suffering save us all. Hear him now, weeping at the dark bottom of the well, pleading for water. Let his cries be a message to anyone else who might transgress. We must warn you, do not help him on pain of suffering the same fate.

We have no bad intent. In fact, this immurement is the best prescription for his soul. We have placed the iron cross above him, and he will decline and dry out beneath it until he redeems his own spirit through his suffering and death. With all due respect, it’s for his own undamned good.

Trapped
Richard Meldrum

Bullies always target the weakness of their victims. Mine is claustrophobia.

I was taking the long way home, when I felt hands grab me from behind. I was suddenly powerless, lifted off my feet. Their grins were cruel, eyes wide with excitement.

All I could hear was the panting of their breath and my own heart pounding. I was pushed towards an abandoned industrial site, strewn with bricks and twisted metal.

I was shoved into a large pipe that lay half buried in the ground. The exposed end rose about three feet. I slid to the bottom, stopped by a rusty metal fan. The sunlight was blotted out by the grinning heads of my tormentors. The light was restored when their heads moved away and I heard their voices fading into the distance.

The pipe was filthy with mud, rust and grease. I was coated in it. Panic rose in my chest as the sides and the darkness closed in.

I tried to clamber back up the pipe to freedom, but the angle was too high and there were no handholds. I made it a few feet each time, but I always slid back down to the bottom.

I slowed my breath to try to calm myself, but it wasn’t working. There was nothing for it, I reached for my phone and made the only call I could. My dad.

The rescue was easy and my father insisted on escorting me home. My humiliation was complete. Inside I was burning with rage. A decision was made on that long, muddy walk home. I realized I now knew what the bullies’ weakness was, or at least what it was going to be. Me.

New World
A.F. Stewart

Where am I?

The comforting void vanished. I am not surrounded by the endless dark.

Now there is something else. Something bright that hurts my eyes. My body no longer drifts; the world is solid. A hard scratchy surface pricks against my scales and skin.

I flex my claws and test its hardness. It scrapes, but does not give way.

I shift forward, blinking against the illumination. The second set of membranes drop over my eyes and it becomes easier to see. I think I am enclosed within a rocky substance, open at one end.

Movement. I freeze, watching. Large pinkish blobs appear, bipeds within the radiance, making sounds, flapping limbs.

I am not in my world anymore, but one that lies beyond our realm.

So many strange things, so many questions.

I do know one thing.

I am hungry.

And those pinkish blobs smell delicious.

Once a Year
Miriam H. Harrison

There it was: the sunbeam. Once a year, when the sun and earth aligned just right, that sunbeam would reach her. It would fill the space around her with light, and she would remember what colour was. The reds of oxidizing rocks, the greens of creeping mosses, the rainbows captured in the fragile drops of her cold, wet world. All other days, these things were vague shadows in dim light or unseen textures in blackness.

Such was her punishment for angering gods whose names were no longer spoken, her dark damnation since time immemorial. In the eons that passed, she had wept, she had raged, she had raved, but she did not repent. Even in the longest, coldest months, she knew the darkness would pass. Once a year the sunbeam would come, and it was enough.

Lost Harvest

March 4, 2026February 21, 2026 ~ afstewart ~ 6 Comments

The dried corn stalks rustled in the relentless dry wind, the noise echoing through the neglected field. The harsh sunset coloured the dead vegetation with garish crimson and burnt oranges, blending with the growing shadows that danced off the fading light.
In the middle of the field, something fluttered inside an amorphous shape that was once a scarecrow. A ghost of life, illuminated in scarlet hues, pulsed within the moldy straw and tattered cloth. The bulbous head of the thing lifts, revealing a skeletal face under a rotting hat, as boney fingers twist to unhook itself from the pole on which it hung.
Dropping to the ground with a thud, desiccated foliage cracked and scrunched under its feet. Instinctively, it knew there was a wrongness in the air, abandoned neglect where there should be a bountiful harvest.
How long had it been sleeping?
Long enough for the old ways to be forgotten by most. It sensed that. The soil under its feet reverberated the neglect, the violations. The loss of rite and rejuvenation.
So how was it here?
Lifting its hand, it saw the bones. Mortal bones, newly dead, still with the hint of blood and hovering memories. Violent images full of agony, floating in its consciousness with familiar words of ritual. A man strung up in the lifeless field and sacrificed to summon it back to this world.
Someone still knew the old ways.
Shifting position, it tasted the essence of its host, not enjoying what it experienced. The mortal thing had been a despicable creature, a defiler of the sacred earth, but at least the man died eviscerated and screaming. An offering given, and accepted. The land cried out for restoration. It would oblige.
Yet, it would need more sacrifice to restore the crops, the earth.
It needed more humans.
More bones, ground to healing dust for the wind to scatter. More blood to seep into the dirt and awaken the land. To deliver the abundant harvest. To fulfill the pact.
It moved forward, the dead corn stalks surrounding it crumpling into powder with each step. As it left the field, it saw lights on the horizon.
While the night fell in ribbons of ashy black, it walked down the old dusty road, headed towards the town…

~ A. F. Stewart

Sting

February 25, 2026February 21, 2026 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 3 Comments

A brief but brutal spasm of pain shoots through her head followed by the gut wrenching memory of the last seeing. It draws her to her knees. The peace and serenity of the past now forever tainted. A flash through time, her mind reels; his eyes peer back into hers, the chalice is thrown, the fluid within betrays her trust. A warning forgotten, perhaps dismissed, arrogance assures her safety in this hallowed realm. Never has she been so wrong.

As she watches, the assailant approaches his target in the dark abandoned lot. A struggle ensues, but ends in a mere blink; the violence feeds her hunger, holds her in its thrall. She misjudges; allows the corridor to widen, permits him to see her watching. For a brief moment, the portal opens on both sides. She sits stunned as he jabs the narrow pig sticker through the wavering fluid and into her left eye.

Now, when it is a seeing night, she seeks only the most remorseful; souls in need of comfort and caring, not the heart-pounding excitement of an outcome unknown. Now, when it is a seeing night, she sees with only one eye – the other forever clouded and dead to the world. Knowing better, she no longer reaches for the vials containing drops of venom. Having learned her lesson well, the wasps’ sting will forever be with her – but always more so on a seeing night.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela

Silver Enough

February 18, 2026February 16, 2026 ~ Miriam H. Harrison ~ 3 Comments

Ana had little, but enough. Her home was small upon the village hillside, but she had dreams enough to fill its cozy corners with worlds upon worlds, with wonderings that spilled out through the shuttered windows and down through the forest paths. Her clothes were plain and humble, yet ample enough to warm her in the cold of winter journeys, or to protect against the heat of summer sun. Her shoes were patched and resoled, but sturdy enough for her wistful wanderings, fleet enough for her tireless chase after wonder. She had little promise in marriage prospects, yet she had faith enough to believe in fairy tales—to believe in hope and courage and happily ever after.

Yet when her mother promised her to the butcher, she had tears enough to flood the village. Ana wept in earnest amid her mother’s empty words of comfort.

“You’ll never go hungry. You’ll want for nothing.”

Ana knew that her mother feared the empty cupboards more than anything, feared a life of nothingness for her daughter. It was true that the butcher’s home was the finest in the village. No carriage gleamed more brightly than his. No table held more food and drink and decadence. Still, when Ana thought of him—his hands bloody, his eyes cruel—her weeping turned to sobs.

Yet her tears were not enough to turn her mother’s heart. The day passed in weeping, and the evening came with heavy resignation. Despite herself, Ana packed her modest trousseau, gathered her meagre dowry. Her coins were few, but enough. When she counted them in the moonlight, they glowed with silver possibility.

The very young and the very old of the village had long whispered of a moonlit caravan, warned of its silver horses that trotted on moonbeams. The worldly and respectable scoffed, but still the whispers and wonders persisted. Ana had never had courage to test the tales. She had never left her cozy home after nightfall. She had never had reason to brave the darkness for a moonbeam or to worry about the lure of the otherworldly, the warnings against beings that traded unknown destinations for silver. But now the warnings returned to her. And in those warnings, hope.

All she owned was packed for a new beginning. Her mother had dreamed of finer things for her: of clothes and carriages and comfort. But Ana knew there was no love in her fear of him, no love in his hunger for her. She was not willing to lose herself to him, not for all the finery in the world. Ana did not fear empty cupboards, empty tables, empty stomachs as her mother did. She feared an empty life: a future without hope and courage and happily ever after.

Ana had so little, but perhaps enough. Hope enough to dry her eyes. Courage enough to find her way into the night. Silver enough to trade for safe passage on a moonbeam, into a happily ever after of her own choosing.

∼ Miriam H. Harrison

Once is Enough

February 11, 2026February 1, 2026 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 3 Comments

“Dr. Lansing, enough is enough. I called you here today because I want an update on progress. You are already three months late!”

“I apologize, Mr. Brown. This therapy is so novel, the development took more time than anticipated.”

“And more money than you originally asked for!”

Brown’s voice was shrill, commanding.

“I did warn you the original amount may not be enough. This research is highly illegal, I had to pay extra just to avoid any…complications.”

“I’m not sure you can justify all the extra money you got, but no matter. Only one thing matters now. Are you reporting success or failure?”

“Success. We’re ready.”

“The stem cells, they finally worked?”

“Yes, we had to combine them with a cocktail of drugs, and we finally got the mixture right.”

“So, you can bring me back?”

“In theory, yes.”

“Theory is good enough for me. When will you be ready to perform the procedure?”

Lansing nodded to the bag he carried.

“I have the first batch with me. I anticipated you’d want to proceed immediately.”

Brown’s eyes gleamed.

“You can do it here and now? You need no other equipment?”

“No, the test animals revived after the injection alone. No CPR or defibrillation was required. But before we go ahead, please accept my advice and don’t do it.”

“I didn’t fund your opinion. I funded your research.”

Lansing glanced down at the man in the wheelchair. William Brown. An ordinary name for an extraordinary man. He had been a millionaire by thirty, a billionaire by fifty. Now, at seventy-five he was confined to a wheelchair with crippling arthritis. Lansing felt no sympathy; by all accounts Brown had made his wealth by being an unpleasant, grasping bastard. He was no philanthropist, he kept all his money for himself. Brown read his expression.

“I know you dislike me, Lansing. I don’t care.”

Brown spoke to the other person in the room.

“Push me over to the window, Lucas.”

Lucas, Brown’s personal secretary, did as he was told. Brown stared out at the lush garden beyond.

“I am a rich man, Lansing. Richer than you can possibly imagine. I’ve dined with kings and emperors. I’ve visited nearly every country on earth. I’ve even flown in space. ”

He pushed the chair round to face Lansing.

“In short, Dr. Lansing, I’ve lived a long and fulfilling life. I’ve done everything I‘ve ever wanted to do. The only thing I haven’t done is died. I am not scared of dying, quite the contrary in fact. I want to experience it, but I want to come back so I can savor the sensation. I want to experience what it feels like to die by poisoning, by electrocution; by a dozen different methods. Your treatment, the one I have paid so much for, will bring me back, restored and rejuvenated, so I can die again and again.”

Lansing was unimpressed. He’d heard the same speech a dozen times over the years.

“As I said, Mr. Brown, it should work…in theory.”

“Then let’s proceed.”

Brown looked at his personal secretary.

“I need someone to do the deed. Lucas, I want you to strangle me.”

Lucas didn’t move. Brown frowned angrily.

“Lucas, I order you to kill me. Lansing will bring me back, there’s no need to worry.”

Lucas laid his hands round his employer’s scrawny neck.

“Now Lucas! Do it!”

Lucas squeezed.

Lansing watched with horror and disgust. Lucas’s face was set, showing no emotion. Brown was ecstatic, his visage convulsed with pain and pleasure.

It was over within minutes. Lucas removed his hands and Brown slumped in his chair. Lucas was visibly shaking. His pampered existence hadn’t prepared him for such an experience. He looked up at the doctor.

“Dr. Lansing, give him the injection. Bring him back.”

Lansing smiled, a bitter grimace. He opened his bag, revealing an empty interior.

“I can’t, Lucas. There never was any therapy. I funneled all the money into cancer research. What he wanted was both immoral and impossible. I chose to help people instead. Despite himself, his money went to a good cause.”

Lucas looked stunned.

“Don’t worry Lucas, I didn’t completely cheat him. He wanted to experience death, and now he has. But once is enough, Lucas. Once is enough.”

∼ RJ Meldrum

Black Friday

February 4, 2026December 20, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 5 Comments

“I heard the people up front say they were going to push; they said they were going to grab all the bags.” A small woman with thinning hair sniffed. “That’s not very Christian.”

“Consumerism’s not Christian,” a man with a trucker hat told her.

A woman pushing a baby stroller to the end of the line overheard them and added, “Sure it is. Y’all ever hear of Presbyterians?”

The queue wound from the front doors of the store through the parking lot and into the adjacent playground. Workers in purple uniforms patrolled to make sure the gathered people remained in line.

“No overtime for this. Ridiculous,” a worker growled. He readjusted his nametag. Tim, it said.

“Do we get one of those bags?” his coworker asked.

“I haven’t even seen the bags. Where do they keep them?” Tim asked.

His coworker shrugged. “I haven’t seen much of anything. This is as much of a grand opening for us as it is for them.”

Tim and the others in purple uniforms continued patrolling. It was still dark and nearly cold enough to be dangerous.

The line was for a gift bag full of secret items. Those waiting speculated about what treasures they might acquire if they were one of the first one hundred customers to enter the new store.

“It better be more than coupons,” a woman with teased hair and inflated lips said. “I didn’t get here in the middle of the night for coupons.” She stroked the dog she carried in her oversized purse.

“It can’t just be coupons,” a man with a neck tattoo replied. “They can’t promise gift bags and then put some paper in them.” He shook his head. “Gift. That implies an object from the store.”

After some moments of silence, someone asked, “How big are the bags anyway?”

“Huge. I saw some on TikTok.”

“Where on Tik Tok, though? I bet the bougie towns have the swaggy bags. We never have anything nice here.”

“It’s amazing they even opened a branch here.”

A man puffed on a cigarette and looked at the sky. “They haven’t put up the sign yet. No one would even know what this store is.”

“Only if you’re not on Facebook,” the woman with him said. “They’ve been promoting it on Facebook to the neighborhood group. They said they wanted us to get first dibs on the bags.”

A solitary light came on in the parking lot and the doors to the store creaked open.

“One at a time,” a worker ordered and the line advanced slowly.

“I smell something,” the woman with the smoking man said. Naturally, he smelled nothing.

“This used to be the site of the old rendering plant,” he informed her, stomping out his cigarette in preparation for entering the store. “There might be a lingering smell.”

The progression of the line picked up pace. The closer to the entrance, the stronger the smell. It was pungent and sweet and rotten at the same time.

“Wait,” a worker on a walkie talkie ordered. The doors to the store closed with one-third of the line inside.

“Was that it? Was that one hundred people?” someone asked.

“No, can’t be. I’ve been counting. That was nowhere near one hundred.”

The sound of a motor could be heard and people speculated that there must be issues with getting the heater running.

Before long, the doors creaked open again and the line pushed forward.

The smell nearly assaulted those closest to the doors.

The dog in the purse growled.

“I bet it’s only coupons anyway,” his owner said and left the line for her car.

The man behind her shrugged. “Good. More for the rest of us.”

People filed into the store one by one, thanks to the purple-shirted workers on patrol. No one shoved, no one grabbed.

Once inside, they realized the store was empty.

And dark.

The door creaked shut behind them.

Then, the floor opened.

∼ Elaine Pascale

The Gray Man

January 28, 2026January 25, 2026 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 4 Comments

He came frequently to the library. The gray man. He was of average height but above average weight. His hair had gone missing except around the edges. It was lighter than his skin, whose gray color looked bad. I thought him constantly on the verge of heart failure. But he never stopped coming.

When I first arrived at the university library, people spoke of the gray man with intense irritation. He was retired. An ex-professor. But he seemed not to have recognized the “ex.” I heard that he would pontificate and exasperate. He demanded services loudly. Staff members were sent scurrying after articles and tomes. And he never said, “thank you.” Always, as he made his slow way through the doors, the library folk watched with hooded eyes. No one liked him. Some said they wished he’d retired, “to Hell.”

But the gray man’s “loud” days were behind him by my time. I rarely saw him speak, and then only in a stale, asthmatic whisper. He came in, removed papers and volumes from the black satchel he habitually carried, and spread them on a table, rising ponderously on occasion to fetch more books and journals from the shelves. He scribbled notes on legal pads and transferred snippets from one to another. I never heard that he published an article from it, or even that he submitted anything. Perhaps he was working on a book, but his research materials were too eclectic to reveal a subject. The only demand I ever saw him make was to be left alone.

Slowly, the looks the staff gave the man changed: from irritation, to resignation, to tolerance, to pity. Eventually, they seemed not to see him at all. But I still saw him. He became as gray and ephemeral as a passing rain and I knew I could finally approach him. For the dead do not fear the dead.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Mechanica

January 21, 2026November 9, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 3 Comments

The toil of survival is the unending burden of maintenance and sacrifice; our most valuable asset. It is exchanged hand to hand, mouth to mouth, and with pen on paper. Orders handed down, given, and taken without resistance or complaint. One faulty piece, and the mechanical system stutters. Its heart feels the pain.

As do we all, as I now, reminiscing about hues of gray in my memory, prepare my own sacrifice. One unmarked and unspoken. The only hand in this deal is my own. It’s a plan I’ve designed for many cycles. One I’ve questioned again and again, but only to be certain it was right.

I ponder the Temple of Life, tubes miles long feeding what it houses. They snake through every neighborhood like tentacles reaching out to keep watch on what it creates. The piston strokes eternal, pumping the great apparatus with all it needs to keep its labor going. It cries out in steeled agony; the wailing echoes across our sprawling metropolis, a remembrance that without suffering, there can be no creation.

We, in our feeble flesh can only bow in awe of its awesome nature—our Mother, our God, our Giver of Animation, the perpetrator of reproduction. It’s the source of this docile throng I am a part of. The creator of an unending mediocrity content with existing only to sustain existence. Nothing more, nothing less.

My most private thoughts, those hidden deep in the night, led me astray from tradition. I looked into the obscured night sky and wondered what was behind the curtain of civilization blocking our view of it. What did those long before us see?

That was the first line in my plan. And as it evolved, I learned the architecture of destruction.

I maintained conformity throughout this process of inner transformation. I had to remain blended with the community, else I be liquidated as fuel for the societal engine. I walked with the pack, expression blank, while exploring the vivid thoughts unfolding in my mind. A new dawn arose in my heart. A rising light made known all the dreams and wonders that my hands could never touch. To have this knowledge is a blessing and a curse. I’m grateful for the gift of illumination, yet sigh with grief that it cannot exist outside the realm of fantasy. A true metamorphosis within the confines of this autonomous world would not suit its function.

There was only one conclusion I could come to…

So the blueprint in my mind continued. Its foundation was built from hopes and dreams, but as they weathered, I constructed over them with sorrow and despair. Never have these things occurred to me before. A mindless automaton, I filed in with the system in which I was birthed, right where I belonged. I could not see past the horizon; only the menial tasks I was assigned from the moment I came into this world occupied my mind. But now I am awakened, now I can see.

The great mechanism that produces our producers is an abomination. We have aligned to the point where no figureheads are needed, no leaders are required to lead a population of sheep. Some may call this utopia, the apex of achievement, with our vast cities which are living, breathing entities themselves, and the peaceful nature of our lives within them, speak to the eradication of conflict and strife. But are these things not part of what make life alive? Are they not the darkness to give light meaning?

To suckle on the ribbed feeding tube you’re given is to accept death before it is dealt.

As I sign this contract in my mind, I leave my place of rest, the only space I’m free to pursue these ideas. I notice how moist my palms are as I close the door behind me. My legs are weak as I enter the assemblage of others going where they are needed. But the choice has been made, the plan set in motion.

I’ll consume no more, give nothing else to the needless demand we have forced upon ourselves. We have enslaved ourselves to no one master, but the endless living mechanism that we keep alive, so that it may sustain us. It’s a symbiotic relationship with no future, it’s stalled, stunted, halted at this time we’ve been stranded in for countless ages. Our biological mastery of life itself has taken that very thing from us. We’ve grown our infrastructure, and its living mass has covered all land and sea. It is the great connector, the infallible supreme being that has stolen our very souls by nothing more than its inherent purpose.

As I approach a crossing, I travel left instead of right. My heart races as I fear even a subtle change will raise the alarm of any passerby. I’m where I don’t belong, where I’m not deemed needed by the many. I’m a gear turning the wrong direction.

But no one takes notice. They only continue marching in unison as intended. They allow my place in line just as compliantly as anything any of us have ever done. As I continue toward my ultimate and last destination, my blood boils with the thrill of deviancy. This trifling act of defiance, this willful alteration to the system awakens my heart ever more. My insides bloom with life. I feel the air against my face, the impact of my feet against the ground. My skin tingles with anticipation. This radical digression stimulates my being, spawning a rebirth in my core self. I want to grin in the splendor of change, but I must be diligent in my reserve. I mustn’t reveal this revelation. Not if I want to achieve the end of this terminal journey.

My last meal churns in my gut as I see the Temple of Life stabbing the horizon. Its monumental height dwarfs all which surrounds it. It was created to be the creator, it is the edifice to represent all we are, the face of our inhumanity. It was once an icon of glory in my singular thought, but now I see past it, now my eyes are focused, and my heart is open.

It is why I must do what I must do.

As I approach, the living, breathing Mechanica towers before me in its sickening configuration. Black, ribbed pipelines crawl up its sides in geometric patterns, veins carrying nutrients essential for its purpose. Its curved edges and snaking girders mock me in their asymmetrical symmetry. The entrance, a great black maw waiting for no one. There are no guards, no one enters or leaves this place. I walk in, an unchecked heretic among my people.

The Great Queen Mother hangs in the center of the chamber by shining black chains. A tangle of gargantuan pipes and wires extends from her head up into the darkness of the hollow spire above. Feeding tubes penetrate her massive abdomen. It expands and contracts in rhythmic motion as young are pushed from within. They’re placed on a conveyor, ready to be checked, marked, and processed. I look down at the chip in my arm and vaguely remember my youth. I was a child once, birthed from this very same place, the same Mother.

For the first time since my awakening, regret creeps up and holds me by the throat. Suddenly, I don’t want to commit to what I intended. I feel…affection for Queen Mother, my Mother.

Her eyes look down upon me, an expression of anguish warps her face. She begs for mercy. Although a new concept, no words are needed for me to understand compassion. I sigh, knowing now my intentions are more right than ever. She wants this. More than any of us ever could.

I nod to her in the only gesture I can summon as a goodbye, and step to the pipeline which gives her life. I wrap my arms around its slick surface and pull. It rattles slightly in its port. I take a deep breath, squeeze tight, and wrench it loose with every bit of will I have. It falls to the floor, its torn end pumping white ooze. The port left in her belly leaks bodily fluids, they mix and congeal into a sickly black oil. I weep as it begins to cover my feet.

The throb of the Great Machine quiets, the pumping slows its rhythm. Mother takes a long breath, hot steam mists from her vents, and her once eternal hum of life ebbs away forever.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

Blue in the Blacklight

January 14, 2026November 30, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 5 Comments

Rory Dane pretended he never needed the audience. But the truth was that he measured his worth in the glow of the comment bubbles and the rising counter in the corner of his screen. He hiked for the views, sure. The mountains, the cliffs, the overgrown forests but he hiked mostly for the views. The ones that come with emojis and subscriptions or the occasional sponsorship offer. Tonight, after weeks of declining, he intended to climb out of the algorithm tomb the internet had tossed him in.

“Alright, people,” he said as he adjusted his phone and the chest mounted camera. “We are officially entering the Blue Ravine, home of the legendary Black Annis. Hag of the hollow. Eater of children. The blue skinned menace of the Midlands. Or, more accurately, home of bored locals who need a hobby.”

The chat fluttered with laughing emojis and mock warnings. Watch your back.

She hates influencers.

Ask her to like and subscribe.

Rory grinned as he walked the narrow trail between the ancient oaks. The evening was warm and strangely still, as though the forest was holding its breath. He narrated every footstep turning folklore into comedy and fear into currency. The viewer count ticked up, three hundred, then five, then seven. Not great but better than the cliffside camping disaster last week.

“See? Total normal forest,” he said. “No blue witches, no skin harvesting crones. Just trees that probably have more followers than I do.”

As he walked, he noticed the chat beginning to shift. Not the tone, still playful, but the pace. Messages cascaded faster than he could read them. Then the viewer number jumped suddenly, doubling, then doubling again. Fourteen hundred, twenty eight hundred. Four thousand.

He frowned. “Did somebody hack me? What is happening?”

A comment fixed itself on the screen a little longer than the rest. Why is your breath fogging? Rory exhaled deeply. His breath plumed white, curling from his mouth like cigarette smoke.

“Okay, that’s new,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “It’s like eighty degrees out.”

New comments now flood in.

Your skin looks weird Rory.

Is your face stretched?

There’s something behind you..

He spun around too fast, nearly falling over a root. Nothing but trees and gathering darkness.

“Nice try,” he said, shaking his head. “You guys are leaning into the theme a little too hard.”

But the cold didn’t go away. It seeped through the fabric of his shirt. Sank into his arms and washed over his neck like a sudden shadow of a passing cloud. The forest seemed unchanged but something in it felt off, as if a layer of the world had been peeled back.

The GPS pinged an error, then another. The map flickered, showing him in two different locations miles apart before snapping back to normal.

“Okay, I’ll admit, that was creepy.” He was breathing harder than he should. “Probably a glitch. Probably.”

He walked on, determined to keep the stream entertaining but the atmosphere had shifted. The forest around him had darkened, though the sun wasn’t fully down yet. It was as if the ravine had swallowed the light before it could reach the ground.

Chat erupted again. Warnings, desperate ones began flooding in faster than he could comprehend.

Don’t go in there, Rory.

STOP.

Something is wrong with the shadows.

You’re not alone.

He swallowed hard, the cold intensified, like the breath of something standing too close. But he saw nothing unusual, only the half hidden hollow before him. It was a bowl shaped depression beneath a tangle of roots. The sort of natural pocket he’d crawled into a hundred times for dramatic effect.

“Relax.” He told his audience with a shaky grin. “I’ll go check it out and show you it’s empty. This is classic Blair Witch misdirection. I know the playbook.”

The chat exploded with NOs.

He ducked and crawled into the hollow anyway.

Inside, the air felt like the deep interior of a freezer. His breath fogged so deeply that he had to wipe at the phone’s lens, but frost reformed at the edges of the frame. He crouched low, the roots overhead formed a sort of ribbed ceiling that pressed down in the darkness. Something about the space felt wrong. The shadows didn’t simply exist, they layered, like folds of fabric hung too thickly over a window.

His laugh came out brittle.”See? Just dirt and…”

A second voice repeated him, a fraction of a second later, “…and…”

He froze. His muscles locked all at once. He turned slowly. A long, blue hand rested on his shoulder.

The fingers were as thin as bones, ending in curved, iron-black talons. Veins like dark threads pulsed beneath blue skin the color of deep bruises. The hand squeezed. Slightly at first then with a dreadful familiarity as if it had found him before. It held him firmly but not necessarily aggressive, like it remembered him from long ago.

Rory didn’t scream. He just inhaled rapidly, breath rattling into the cold. “Who’s there?”

The chat feed went berserk.

RORY RUN!

GET OUT!

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD.

It’s her! It’s Black Annis!

She’s right behind you!”

He stumbled and bolted forward, scrambling on all fours as the thing behind him shifted. The roots overhead groaned as something too large to be in that hollow moved through it. Rory scrambled out onto the forest floor, the chest mounted camera catching jagged angles of dirt and leaves as he rolled to his feet.

He ran.

Behind him something crawled, no scraped, across the ground, its limbs dragging like sticks over wet stone. He heard breathing that did not match his panting, it was a low rasp that carried the sound of hunger.

The view count shot up by ten thousand, then twenty. He didn’t know it but this is exactly what she wanted. New watchers gave her direction, new pulses to track.

“Please, somebody…” he panted. “Call the police…please…God…”

His foot caught on a stone, launching him, cartwheeling into a clearing. He crashed to the ground. The camera mount cracked, sending the phone tumbling several feet away. It came to rest at an angle upward, catching Rory’s legs and the huge arc of the valley behind him. He clawed at the earth trying to rise but something seized him by the ankles and dragged him back. His scream shredded the air.

The chat became a wall of horror:

STOP THE STREAM!

Get away!

DON’T WATCH! YOU’RE FEEDING HER!

It’s Black Annis! It’s really her!

TURN IT OFF!

Rory’s legs kicked wildly as he was dragged across the dirt. His jeans tore open at the thigh. Then came a wet, ripping sound, unmistakably real, accompanied by a dark splatter of liquid on the leaves. The cracking sound was short, sharp, snaps like frozen twigs breaking. He screamed, his throat raw. “Somebody help me…God…dear God…” The legs in the frame twitched one, twice and then stilled.

Chat messages blurred in a furious, useless avalanche, thousands of people typing and none could look away. They had become part of the ritual without evening knowing the rules.

The camera lay untouched for nearly a minute, pointed at Rory’s unmoving legs. Then, softly, footsteps circled the device. Slow. Deliberate. Too soft to be human, accompanied by the scrape of a claw on stone.

The viewer count plummeted. Ten thousand. Five thousand. Five hundred. Ten. One.

Just one.

The final message scrolled up.

I have seen all of you.

∼ Kathleen McCluskey

The Vengeance of His Evil

January 7, 2026December 28, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 2 Comments

Ted visited psychic surgeon Dr. Munstre Croon after relentless daily pressure headaches pounded the side and top of his head. Tad’s own doctor diagnosed stress and tension with possible depression and hypochondria “you don’t need a specialist,” she said.

“If you won’t help me,” Tad responded, “I’ll find my own cure. Pills aren’t the answer here.”

Sally, the janitor at Ellis and Company Insurance where Tad worked as supervisor, gave him Croon’s name. “This man’s a unique psychic healer.” she told him, “He will charge five thousand dollars cash, but he will solve all your ills.”

Tad wondered for a moment why Sally was being so nice. He always criticized her cleaning because she kept leaving half full wastebaskets all over the office and never scrubbed under the fridge. Tad gave her a written reprimand and announced that the next time she forgot to thoroughly sanitize the wall behind the couch she’d lose her job. “But thanks for the doctor tip,” he told her, “I haven’t tried the psychic angle, but I’ll do anything to get rid of this pain.”

Ellis and Company had hired Tad to get rid of all its unproductive employees so it could cut costs, and he’d been firing a lot of people. Nan, the old boss’s secretary was three months from retirement, but Tad dismissed her anyway, “you’re too set in your ways,” he said.

She pleaded and cried “I’ll lose my pension,” but Tad explained that the company couldn’t keep “dead wood.” She picked up all her family photos and ran crying from the room. Sally gave her a long hug and they whispered together. Tad thought “I’ll keep an eye on that janitor.”

Tad’s headache drilled into him as he sat in Dr. Croon’s office waiting for the healer. Eventually, the Doctor appeared, a very short round faced fellow with big sad eyes. “Sally said you have bad pain in the cranium,” he said, in a low and barely perceptible voice. “I’m sure she told you my cost.”

“I don’t care,” said Tad. “No one else will help me.” He was raking in the dough in his new position as assistant to the executive director, so had no problem passing the doctor five thousand dollars in small bills. “Cheap compared to the regular rip off artists,” he said.

“Let’s begin our assessment,” nodded the Doctor, as he carefully placed the bills in a paper bag, and then carefully placed both his hands on the sides of Tad’s head, as gently as he’d handled the money.

“Hmmm,” he whispered. “Please put on these glasses.”

He stepped back and handed his patient some fake-jewel encrusted specs from a gold case. Tad pulled them on.

“Jeezus,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

“Most glasses look out. These are looking in,” Dr. Croon said. “What do you see?”
“A giant grey and brown blob!”

“That’s your brain. What else do you perceive?”

“Wow, it’s pulsating… and there’s something on it!”

“Hmmm” Dr. Croon put his hand up to his client’s ear. “Now what?”
Tad peered closer with his reverse glasses and exclaimed “Something’s climbing around in there! It’s got suckers!” Tad gasped.

“Hah!” nodded Croon. “I knew it! Does it look like a devil?”

“Well, it’s got spines and omigod, it’s staring back at me… it’s got no eyes!” Tad ripped the glasses off as his head pounded.

“Yes,” said Dr. Croon. “You’re possessed with an extraordinary type of cancer.”

“Omigod, Doctor, how did that happen?”

“Well,” Croon took out a huge pair of curved forceps, at least two feet long. “Everyone’s born with a seed of evil, and while some extinguish that seed with good acts, others feed it with bad ones.” He clicked the forceps. “Do you want me to take the demon out?”

“Oh, indeed!”

“The tumour has grown very large,” Dr. Croon concluded. “You must have done a lot of bad things.”

Tad thought of all the hard decisions he had to make in his life. “A man needs to be tough to succeed,” he thought. “Sometimes he has to be ruthless.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have disowned my son,” Tad told the doctor, “but he did marry trash.” As if in response, needle like agony squeezed its way through his eyeballs, and Tad thought of the demon sucking his brain. “Doctor,” he moaned. “I want this to stop.”

“Well,” replied Dr. Croon. “Then we should go ahead with the operation?”

“Certainly,” Tad nodded as enthusiastically as he could.

“Sit right there.”

Dr. Croon took his giant forceps and stuck the ends inside each of Tad’s ears. The forceps fitted neatly over Tad’s head, and Croon moved the points further in. “Hmmm,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen such a huge devil tumour.” He adjusted his tool and tapped the forceps on the table to remove the ear wax. “In order for this method to succeed,” he explained, “You must tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done; get it out there, and the demon will show itself”

Tad thought of all the rotten lies he’d told, all the firings, all the foreclosures and property seizures he’d ordered when he ran a loan company, but those weren’t the worst things. Tad wasn’t sure he should tell Dr. Croon, but he wanted the pain to end.

“I killed a man,” Tad said. “In the South African jungle, when I served in the army twenty-five years ago; he was injured, and his wound became badly infected.”

“He was one of yours?”

“Yes. I was the patrol sergeant when this stupid guy was holding us back from getting out of there, moaning and crying, he acted like such a pussy. It was gangrene, sure, but he endangered everybody with his noise.”

“So you killed him?”

“I strangled him in secret away from the others. It had to be done. The enemy might hear him and discover our position. Also, we were out of morphine.”

“Well,” the Doctor frowned and rubbed his round stubbly chin. “That fellow is the main demon in your head right now; it’s your worst sin, fed huge by all the others.”

He adjusted the forceps and commanded “Put on the glasses.”

Tad lifted his specs.

“See how fat that sin is.” Dr. Croon insisted.

Tad gasped, witnessing the living tumour behind his eyes, and perceiving the demon’s attached suckers pulsating on his brain. The devil twisted its horny head, showing hollow skull bones and the demon face like the soldier Tad killed, mouth slack jawed in the moment of death. Tad saw huge growths and lumps pulsating all over the demon, and the being’s huge gut “all your other sins are stuffed into it,” said Dr. Croon. “It’s feeding now. A good time to pull him out.”

“Get it outta me!” Tad yelled. “This thing’s a f….. parasite!”

“We will,” said Dr. Croon. “Hang on, Tad!”

The forceps moved in, and through the reverse specs, Tad saw the steel pushing; he screamed as the force points jerked and pierced the devil in his brain. He screamed again and the devil screamed too as liquid and chunks of rancid meat poured out of Tad’s ears. He felt the gushing and pouring, an overwhelming sulphur stench, and an immense immediate pain free relief, like the lancing of a boil. He yanked off the glasses. “What in the name of God?” he yelled.

In front of him, a demon formed from the liquid rushing from Tad’s ears. It twisted and molded itself into human shape right there in Croon’s office, and it looked exactly like Tad.

“There’s your devil,” said Dr. Croon, as the coal-eyed stinking demon snarled and leaped towards Tad’s throat. “And it’s coming for you.”

Tad writhed as the demon pushed into him completely, forcing all its matter back inside Tad’s body. Tad convulsed for the last time and his features shimmered back to normal, as if nothing had ever been cast out.

Dr. Croon pulled out his smart phone and called Sally the janitor.

“Hey, Sally,” he announced. “This Tad guy seems to have had a stroke or something like that in my office.” He looked at the paper bag full of money on his desk and said “I’m giving you a discount. You don’t have to pay for the removal of the body, the police will do that for free. I’m calling them now.”

Dr. Croon knew it was a bit of a risk, having the police involved, but Tad looked peaceful there lying with one hand over his heart; the Coroner’s report would diagnose a burst aneurism. Croon picked the jewel encrusted spectacles off the floor, carefully examined the lenses under the office’s fluorescent lights, and secured them back in the gold box.

∼ Harrison Kim