Shadow of Iniquity

April 30, 2025April 23, 2025 ~ afstewart ~ 2 Comments

“We are gathered here today to repent of our wicked ways. To free ourselves from our sins!” The booming voice from the pulpit reverberated around the small church. “We must pray! Pray for our salvation. We must cleanse our hearts and beg forgiveness. Only through prayer can we walk amongst the godly and the angels!”
Murmurs of assent circled around the pews, but one man cleared his throat.
“We’ve been doing that, preacher, and it hasn’t worked so far. We’ve been praying hard day and night and nothing has helped. I’m not sure God’s listening.”
The parishioners’ gasps slithered through the church.
The man ignored his neighbours and continued, “Maybe we aren’t worth saving, Preacher.”
“Repent, sinner, repent!”
The man sighed, and bowed his head, grumbling, “Prayer won’t save us, Preacher. I don’t think we’ll ever be free…”

The sun rose the next morning, casting its warm light over the burned-out, hollow shell of the church. Three years since the catastrophic fire, since the storm, when lightning flashed from the sky and ignited the blaze. And that fallen tree blocking the exit, well, it sealed the fate of those that died that day, that small gathering of the church elders.
A bizarre tragedy the papers called the fire, and the oddness of it started the rumours. Talk of the Almighty’s vengeance against the hypocrites and sinners of the congregation. No denying that the dead, even the preacher, were all sinners, indulgent in greed, lust, envy, pride. Adulterers, thieves, and liars, wrapped in the facade of faith. No denying very few were sorry to see them buried six feet under.
And of course, there were the stories of the ghostly voices coming from the ruins…

The spectral parishioners shuffled to their seats once again and the booming voice of the preacher shouted, “Repent!”
They all bow their heads in useless prayer, unaware they were already in hell…

~ A. F. Stewart

Clutch

April 23, 2025January 31, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 2 Comments

A hairline crack starts along the side—one of many. It branches out in fractal patterns; the shell begins to split. Where fractures spread, a layer of mucus thins as it’s pulled apart by the breach. Tiny claws puncture the soft membrane and its mewling escapes into the air for the first time.

This newborn pulls itself out of the egg from which it hatched and looks upon the unborn. Its head pivots left and right, pointedly observing the rest of the clutch. It then feels something new, a deep wanting within its belly.

Predatory eyes see heat radiating from thin shells. Its mouth waters with instinctual preparedness. One hesitant step forward leads to the increasing urge to feed, which it follows without restraint. It sniffs its brethren as its eyes widen with elation. One by one, it tears each spawn open and feasts upon their new, unrisen flesh.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

Shadow

April 16, 2025April 4, 2025 ~ Miriam H. Harrison ~ 3 Comments

Her shadow was a sneaky thing, not quite doing what it should. She couldn’t say how long it had been acting up. She had been slow to notice and slower to believe. The fleeting movements at the edge of her gaze were too easy to disregard, too easy to dismiss as imagination. When watched, it would settle back into its place, follow her movements with tame obedience.

Or at least, it did. Lately, it had been acting out more. Even as she watched it would twitch and struggle. She could feel it tug on her body as it fought for control, fought to lead her—where? She didn’t dare find out, for deep down, she already knew.

She felt the tug most strongly in the liminal spaces where death was closest. Near the fast-flowing traffic, near the echoing drop of a too-far fall, even in the rattle of a month’s worth of pills. Oh, the shadow pulled hard in those moments. It was a struggle to keep herself safely in the light, safely in control. Tiring, exhausting. But she kept up the tired struggle, knowing that giving in would be the last thing she would ever do.

∼ Miriam H. Harrison

The Grey Man

April 9, 2025April 2, 2025 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 1 Comment

It was a lonely little spot, deep in the heart of the downtown sprawl. A small green space, neglected and forgotten. Developers had enthusiastically thrown up towering office and condo buildings all around, but for some reason this one spot had been saved. There was no particular reason for its existence. The towers surrounding it meant the space got very little sunlight and the grass and shrubs were anemic and wilted. It was rarely visited.

I was new to the city and frankly, unhappy. I hated my new workplace and I hated the people. It was all so…corporate, with ‘colleagues’ scrambling over each other to smarm their way to higher positions. Networking. Circling back. Thinking outside the box. Faking it until making it. Meanwhile, the companies my corporation owned continued to pump pollutants into the environment and pay huge dividends to the shareholders. After six months in the place, I was finding myself becoming a socialist. I decided to stick at it, but desperately needed a safe space during the day, to rid myself of the toxins generated by my colleagues. It was completely by accident that I wandered down a neglected alleyway between two buildings, a lane no more than six feet wide. There, I found the tiny, overlooked patch of faded green which seemed to be the perfect place for me, an oasis of calm for my lunchtimes.

The first time I entered the park I quickly realized that I wasn’t alone, something which initially disappointed me.

The small grey man sat quietly on the single park bench. He didn’t appear to notice me, despite my smile and muttered greeting. He simply stared ahead, ignoring me completely.

When I tell this story to others, the first question I always get is ‘what do you mean by grey?’. That’s probably in your mind too. That was just the impression he gave off. His fair, his clothes, his face. They all seemed drained of color. Grey.

Over the next few weeks, whenever I had time to take a lunch break I made a point of going to the park. Every time I went, the small grey man was there. Every time he ignored me, much to my annoyance. I was by this time aware of the legendary rudeness of city dwellers, but this was too much. I didn’t necessarily expect a conversation or even a greeting, but to completely ignore me after all this time was just beyond the pale. There wasn’t even eye contact, the most basic of human responses.

I decided to do something about it. Rather than settling on a bench as far as possible from him, I stood directly in front of the grey man. He still failed to acknowledge my existence. Feeling slightly enraged, I bent to touch him on his shoulder in an attempt to, at the very least, move his gaze from the middle distance towards me, his constant companion. To my amazement, my hand passed through his shoulder and, unchecked, bumped into the wood of the bench. I have very little recollection of my actions after that, but I came back to reality to find myself standing in the street, surrounded by people, cars and noise. I almost blessed the concrete jungle I had previously disdained. I glanced back at the narrow alleyway leading back to the park and shuddered at my recent experience, realizing the grey man was a permanent inhabitant of the park. No wonder it was always empty.

Suffice to say, I never returned.

∼ RJ Meldrum

The Discharge

April 2, 2025January 31, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 3 Comments

The first thirty days after the world ended were the worst, as those days were filled with blame.

Lynette had asked Robbie to help with stockpiling. Just as with the blizzards, as with the hurricanes, and with the tornadoes, he had waited too long and shown little to no effort in trying to accumulate food or water. That had left them to the rations that Lynette had been able to scrounge which had been pitiful at best. Prior to the virus, the stores were veritable wastelands due to trucks being stuck on the wrong side of the bombed bridges. Then, the virus had struck and the peninsula was quarantined.

Lynette had just declared Robbie “the death of them both” when he showed her the vomit gun.

“We will get what we want and it won’t cost us a thing or put us in any danger.” He grinned around yellowing teeth.

“Where did you even get that?”

“Dark web.”

She scowled, partly because his breath was bad and partly because she could not believe that she was stranded with this idiot. “When I asked you to prepare…to get us ready for quarantine…you went to the dark web and got some…gun?”

“Not just a gun, a vomit gun.”

“I heard that the first time.” She eyed the remaining products in her kitchen and estimated that they had five days of food remaining if they consumed only a few crackers and pretzels each day. The fruit and vegetables had gone quickly. They had gobbled all produce before it could spoil. They had no meat, not even canned fish, as domesticated and game animals had shown the effects of the virus first. “And how will a vomit gun help us, exactly?”

“I’ve been thinking…,” he began and Lynette hated that he started most conversations that way. Mainly because she knew that any type of thought was a struggle for him. “We shoot people with it.” He was more excited about this prospect than he should be. “They weaken, like they have the virus, or worse, and we steal their stuff. They are so busy yacking their brains out, that they can’t fight us.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s that simple.”

***

They invaded the community three blocks away from them first. The residents lived behind a gate; the gate was to keep people like Lynette and Robbie out. Even without a vomit gun, their type was not welcome in the high income community.

Robbie had not practiced with the gun. His ineptitude was evident when the gun jammed and they were chased to the other side of the gates, prodded by pitchforks like the monsters they appeared to be.

“The death of us both,” Linette reminded him as they ran back to their home, where Linette was forced to further divide the remaining crackers and pretzels.

***

The following day, Robbie set up target practice in their yard. He aimed for the unstable bullseyehe had constructed from an old sheet and Linette’s lipstick.

“I don’t understand it,” he called to Linette, “there’s no vomit.”

She leaned out the window and pointed to the sheet. “There is no mouth or esophagus or stomach on that sheet, either. Where would the vomit come from?”

Robbie considered this for a moment and then a sparkle reached his eyes. He crouched low to the ground and waited. Lynette went back to fussing over rations and contemplating ways to stretch them further when her tactics were interrupted by a bellow from Robbie.

“Well I’ll be!” he shouted. “It works, Lynette! Our problems are solved!”

She peered out the window to see a rabbit on its side. “What did you do?” she asked with alarm.

Robbie looked at the creature with a combination of regret and relief. “I guess it was too strong for him. It’s meant for people. But we know it works.”

He thought he would cheer her up by adding, “I’ve been thinking…we go back out tonight. In the meantime, we can clean and eat this, right?”

***

Lynette begrudgingly put on black clothes, a black knit hat, and a mask to return to the gated community with Robbie. The prior failed invasion informed this attack: they knew to have the gun ready.

They entered a lavish home by having Robbie wiggle through the dog door. He had lost enough weight that he had room to spare. Once inside, he unlocked the door for Lynette.

He started to explain something, but Lynette put a finger to her lips. She hoped they would be able to steal some supplies without notifying the homeowners. She had a bad feeling about the gun.

Robbie nodded and they headed to the kitchen. Lynette found boxes of pasta and bags of beans that she quickly slipped into the pillowcase she had brought. She was so engrossed in pillaging that she failed to notice Robbie stiffen beside her.

“What are you doing?” a man’s voice yelled. Lynette turned to see an older couple standing at the entrance of the kitchen. The man held a baseball bat and the woman cowered behind him.

“I’m hungry,” Robbie responded, as if this were a suitable answer to the question. He aimed at the man and pulled the trigger of the vomit gun. Within moments, the gun’s moniker rang true and the man bent over, clutching his abdomen and splattering vomit on the linoleum floor.

His wife shrieked and Robbie shot her, too. Lynette could not believe that two normal sized humans could produce so much vomit.

“Help.” The woman struggled to get the words out. She and her husband were obviously weakened and any type of ailment could prove deadly in this new world.

“Robbie, we gotta go,” Lynette said, finding it difficult to take her eyes off the failing couple.

“I’ve been thinking…. “ Robbie turned to Lynette, pointing the gun at her. “There isn’t enough here for me and you. I mean for long-term survival.”

Lynette had time to register that the couple had fallen to the floor and seemed eerily still when Robbie pulled the trigger. She realized she had been wrong; he wasn’t the death of them both.

∼ Elaine Pascale