A clandestine collection of the most eclectic minds of horror. These anguished souls have stripped free their pretenses for your grotesque delight. The Pen of the Damned tread where you dare walk not. Breathe what you dare dream not. Share what you dare speak not.
They still scream. Even after centuries, they never stop. The flesh rots, grows back, rots again. Their throats tear anew. It’s almost musical now, like a choir stripped of harmony. All bound to one shrill note of agony.
I should be tired of it. But, honestly? The pain stains me awake.
Today I was assigned three new arrivals. All of them preachers in life, they swore their souls were flameproof. I enjoyed peeling that arrogance like parchment off of wet bone. Their tongues, once full of sermon, hung in silence from my molten iron. I keep them in the ash pits where the smoke claws the lungs until coughing turns to bleeding.
One tried to beg for mercy. I reminded him of every unanswered prayer, every molested child that never saw justice. I showed him those memories while I shoved his face into the coals and watched his face melt, again and again. Mercy tastes like ash here.
What unnerves me, what I do not record lightly, is the sound I hear when my duties are done. When the halls are quiet and only the cinders whisper, I hear…laughter. Not the shrieks of the damned, but something deeper, older. A sinister chuckle that vibrates through the stone.
We are supposed to be the tormentors, not the tormented. Yet when the laughter rises, even I feel the itch under my skin, like claws testing the limits of my sanity. Perhaps it is Hell itself, amused at us all, kings, demons and sinners alike. I end the entry here…the laughter grows closer.
Others decide things for me, because whatever I decide turns out wrong. It’s all about knowing limits, and I can’t stop at the edges. I associate mainly with other sullied, stigmatized transgressors. I spent two years at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital for the criminally insane, for trying to burn down the Austrian Club. I had a reason – they wouldn’t let me in. I told them I was Hitler’s grandson; they sent me to the street, and I turned incendiary. I splashed a can of gas up against their front door in broad daylight, then lit it on fire. That’s what got me committed “not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder.”
Now I’m out on a conditional discharge. My parents pay for my apartment rent. They’re my heroic supporters. I’ve stayed away from illegal drugs and taken my medications. Now I must test myself yet again. Sitting across my kitchen table is escaped Forensic Hospital patient Jared Morriseau. He’s shivering and squirrelling down from a cocaine high. “You’re my only friend out here,” he says.
His face is all over the T. V. after he didn’t return to the hospital from his “Back to Work Program” day job. The stupid staff trusted him. He took his wages and taxied downtown to get high. The hospital notified the police. The police told the press. Jared, who hammered his two room mates to death in their sleep to prevent the end of the world, drinks the coffee I pour and asks “can I stay here a few days til the heat goes down?” His voice shakes. “I’m so scared, Luke. The police are gonna shoot me.”
I’m surprised they’re not watching right now. My biggest fear is that they’re going to burst in with their guns drawn, Jared’s going to freak out and bang bang bang someone’s dead. Even if I’m not hurt, it’ll ruin my progress. I’ll be sent back to the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital or worse.
I have to act cool. Underneath I want to stampede away and abandon Jared to his fate, but he’s my Forensic friend, and there’s an inmate code among us, ”Do not rat.”
“You need to go back to the hospital,” I say.
He raises his fluttering fingers to his face. “I’m sick of being out here.” His eyeballs resemble pinpoints. His hand jerks and he spills his coffee. “Shit,” he says.
I mop up the coffee mess with my foot, using an old shirt I had lying on the floor. “Call a taxi,” I tell him. “Get the driver to drop you at Forensic. Then walk to the gate and ask to be let in.” I take the shirt and throw it in the sink. “I’m gonna go for a walk,” I say. “So that the police won’t get suspicious. They’ll be following me if they’re out there.”
“Thanks,” Jared says.
“No problem,” I tell him. “I don’t mind being a decoy.”
“Who’s gonna pay the taxi fare?” he asks. “I blew all my money.”
“The hospital will. Go to the security guards and tell them the driver needs a big tip.”
“You can’t lend me twenty?”
“I’m broke,” I tell him, and it’s true. I spent my last money on the pack of cigarettes I’m about to smoke on my walk away from Jared.
I hand him a spare cancer stick and he grabs it, fumbles the thing into his mouth.
“I’ll think about what you said,” Jared says. “Can I use your phone?”
“Sure.”
I leave it on the table. It’s another gift from my heroic parents. I’m humbled by my failures, yet Mom and Dad stick by me. All I can do now is give advice to an escaped psychotic killer. They’d want me to run out to the park and call the cops.
I walk down the apartment stairs and into the fresh air. No sign of the police. I smoke cigarette after cigarette and hike along the edge of the river. I stand and hear the sound of the flow over the rocks. A couple of rusted shopping carts stick out of the water. I keep walking, out to the highway and all the way to the airport. It’s two hours of slogging, but it’s a distraction to hear the planes soar overhead, and more relief yet to be in the terminal, to watch them take off and land. I cadge some money for bus fare and coffee off a backpacker waiting for a flight to L. A., then make my long way back.
I hike up the apartment stairs and open the door. My phone sits on the table and there’s no sign of Jared. I hear a knock and its my neighbour Gillian. “The police came by,” she says. “They were looking for you.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, and close the door on her inquisitive face.
I turn on the T. V., with the sound off, and wait for the news. At six, I see Jared’s sallow, black whiskered mug and the subtitles for the hearing impaired running along the bottom. “The hammer killer is back in custody,” say the words. “He arrived in a taxi.”
I’ve done my part. Maybe paid back some of my debt to society. I handled the situation with mercy, without being a rat and calling the cops.
I miss my highs, the rush of feeling omnipotent, the way I did when I thought I could raze the houses of those who dissed me. I take my medication because it brings down my thinking. Normal is drab, grey, and gaining weight. I’m living within these limits because I don’t want to hurt anyone else.
“Don’t let today get to your head” I tell myself over and over.
There might be a meaning beyond my sick existence, perhaps this coolness in the face of crisis, that I can reach and touch and know, and be absorbed by. I will keep it close.
He got home just after six, the sky outside dimming to a soft violet, crimson fingers of clouds made the sky look as though it was losing a fight with the darkness. Everything was quiet since his girlfriend had left. No TV. No cooking sounds. No music, not even the dog barking next door. Just the soft hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the grandfather clock that sat in the corner.
Will dropped his keys in the bowl that sat on the oak entryway table and loosened his tie. He stretched with a groan and a sigh. The kitchen greeted him in the usual manner, plain, clean, too quiet. He opened the fridge and reached for the milk.
He paused and tilted his head.
A small, torn scrap of paper sat beneath the carton. Damp around the edges. He frowned, picked it up. It felt soft, as if it had been wet and dried. The image was hard to make out. A patch of floor, maybe, dark tile, smudged red in one corner.
He shrugged his shoulders, probably garbage. Maybe something that had stuck to the bottom at the store. He threw it away.
The second piece was in the silverware drawer. He spotted it while reaching for a spoon, wedged between the knives and forks. Same texture, slightly damp, curled corners. This one had a shadow in the corner. A shoulder maybe? A doorway?
He stared at it longer than he meant to. Then dropped it in the trash beside the first one.
The third piece was on the bathroom sink. Will noticed it after he had washed his hands. He reached for the towel and saw it. Had it been there before he washed his hands? He was sure that it wasn’t. It was as if it was placed there, tucked next to the faucet. Icy fingers ran up his spine, he didn’t throw this one away. His anxiety began to gnaw at his sanity.
He took it to the kitchen and pulled the other two pieces from the trash. All the pieces had the same off white border. Same torn edges. Same faint scent, like burnt plastic and Autumn leaves. They fit together. A little unevenly, but enough. The tiles from the first piece flowed into the second. The third pic looked like the corner of a leg, pale and stretched out.
His stomach did flip flops.
It was just a picture. Probably from an old magazine. Maybe one of those “crime scene art” pictures that his ex loved so much. Had she left this scattered through the house?
He laughed it off, a little too loud.
The fourth piece was inside the cabinet, behind the coffee filters. He wasn’t looking for it, he was just making sure he had enough for the morning brew. But there it was, slightly damp and folded waiting in the shadows.
Will took it to the table. He pressed the edges together, they locked together easily. The image expanded. A body laying on the floor, one leg bent under the other. A broken coffee mug near the hand. Dark liquid was smeared across the tile that looked all too familiar.
The same tile as his kitchen. He rubbed his face. Felt a throb behind his eyes, something about this photo made his head ache. He stared at the picture as beads of sweat began to form on his brow. He shook his head and shivered.
The house felt colder now. Not a broken furnace cold but empty cold. Like someone had opened a door and never shut it. He tried calling a friend, just to chat, to get out of his own head. No answer. Texted. No reply. The silence stretched between each second.
The final piece came as he stood at the kitchen sink sipping water. Outside, the street was quiet. One streetlight buzzed faintly. A moth fluttered against the glass, he looked down at the sill.
There it was. Wet and sticking to the wood. Its image was clear and terrible. His hand trembled as he set his cup down on the counter and carried the final piece to the table. He didn’t sit down.
He assembled the photo standing up. One piece at a time, no hesitation, like he knew what the image would be.
When he was done. He saw himself. Not metaphorically, not imagined. It was him. In his own kitchen, face down, one arm twisted under his chest. A small pool of blood beneath his head. Glass shards beneath his feet. Dead.
Will staggered back from the table, heart pounding. He looked down at the floor, the counter, and the cabinet. Every detail matched the picture perfectly.
Even the cup of water.
His elbow bumped the counter. The glass tipped, he reached for it…and missed. It hit the floor and exploded. Water splashed across the tile, shards spread around like jagged teeth. He froze.
A chill rolled up his spine, “no, no, no,” he whispered. He stepped back. His heel caught the edge of the spill.
He slipped. Time stretched.
He twisted, arms flailing, eyes wide. His forehead hit the corner of the granite countertop with a wet, sickening crack. The force bent his neck sideways. He collapsed, shoulder first then skull again. His temple bounced off the tile with a dull, bone splitting thud. One leg kicked, his body spasmed.
Then nothing.
On the kitchen table, the assembled picture sat undisturbed. For a moment, it held its awful image. A man face down on the tile, blood seeping from his head, frozen in the final beat of his life. Then, without wind or heat, the paper curled. The corners lifted and the image shimmered. Piece by piece it dissolved into thin air, vanishing like breath on glass.
No one saw it go. No one knew it had even been there. An unheeded warning, a little too late.
Ezekial sees a wheel a rollin’ way in the middle of the air. Huge and solitary, spinning alone in the Universe. Dull silver and dead on the outside, twirling slowly in the perpetual motion of zero gravity. Ezekial must find out… what lies within? A single oily protuberance pokes from the central axle. A nipple at its end. Something black seeps from the tip, one drop at a time. Is there life inside this wheel? No air in space, but does the dripping and the substance indicate a world within? He and all the scientists and overseers watching from earth wonder. It’s taken years to arrive here, to send an astronaut this far out in space.
Ezekial bobs near, encased within his space suit, a tiny soul examining this humungous silver thing…. attached cameras all over the outside of his space suit beaming back to earth what is discovered. He’s a fly on the wheel, a piece of white dust against the brown. He applies X rays and close microscopic focus to the silver covering, the images shared instantly with those on earth. Then he digs in with his drill. Right into the black protuberance shining oily, many colours as he works, flowing out now, dispersing, disappearing. Behind Ezekial the vast gulf of space shimmers with stars. He knows “The whole Universe is watching,” and stops for a moment. What is the purpose here?
He must find out what’s inside everything, it is like that with all explorers. They are never content the way things are. But changes happen, and then we must either go on or give up. After the death of his wife, Ruth, Ezekial felt like ending it all. His mission to space stopped him from going over the edge. Discovery, challenge, risk, that’s why they sent him up there, the winning volunteer for this edgy job. He wanted it! To escape earth, fly away into nothingness. No jumping off a bridge, with seconds between the leap and the landing. He launched into the vastness, his first mission. This change in his life a miracle. To launch off the edge. What was left, after Ruth’s suicide? She made her decision, and left him and the whole world behind. That took courage. He’s following her example; grateful the overseers chose him. They measured his will, and it was strong.
In the medical centre they implanted his brain with new electrodes, to enhance the leap into this mission. Electrodes giving power to his mind, to his resolve and his endurance to survive. He hasn’t felt much different, only long hours of sleep and dreams on the trip from earth.
When his wife lived, he existed for her. Now he imagines that she’s somewhere in this vast arc of space, waiting. His forlorn hope is that he will find her. Maybe not her earthly self, but a sense of who she was to him, the connection and closeness. Had he said or done anything to cause her death? Put her over the edge? On the long trip out from earth, he contemplated the circumstances over and over, without resolve.
All he knows is this: The physical time with her lies behind him now, like the stars, so far away. But the meaning of who she was, that would be there with him, moving through the Universe eternal.
He lifts the long steel blowtorch from the floating kit behind him, begins to widen the drilled hole in the wheel. Funny how the gap parts so easily. Within that jagged hole, a blackness, yet from that blackness he perceives a form. It takes on a shape that he does not see with his eyes but feels with his mind. Is it imagination? Is he really inside a dream, like he’s been so often on this voyage, or is this the reality, here in space two million miles from earth? This shape whirls and twists, it is a face. Ezekial is sure. What else could it be but a face within the wheel. He wonders if this is delusion, but only for an instant. He peers closer. His eyes and his consciousness tell him this is the face of Ruth, his dead wife! How miraculous! Yet the face stays expressionless. Perhaps bloated somewhat. A bit spooky. Drifting across that hole in the wheel, a shifting form. He perceives his whole existence all around that misty, yet unmistakeable face, his life in relation to the wheel that spins around it. What was the meaning of coming this far? Was this the purpose of his whole life, to arrive here at this moment? There’s an infinitesimal chance that his consciousness came to exist along with trillions of expanding stars, then this moment came to be out of an exploding Universe once the size of a human heart…..As he watches and contemplates, his wife’s face becomes an eye… then his own eye looking back at him piercing through the vision of his wife…Ezekial lets his mind go because inside that eye he sees everything.
When you care for someone, that’s all that matters. What you feel for another is the meaning of everything. Then if you are lucky the other will feel the same way for you. From moment-to-moment things will change, the good times and the bad, yet underneath there’s the feeling, of one with another. It can seem like this harmony will go on forever. If you are lucky. But it ends, maybe only after a few turns of the wheel, perhaps after many. The voices you thought brought you all the significance in your life disappear. Then, the sorrow and the loneliness. Ezekial knows. How life can change in an instant. Here though, within this apparatus floating in space, there’s a place that’s eternal. And Ezekial’s been allowed inside.
He’s been here dreaming for some time. Longer than he realized. Maybe days, if measured in earth time. The oxygen in his suit is almost out. Voices from his radio come in through the suit speakers “Where are you, Ezekial, what’s happening?”
Their voices don’t matter. They’re from another place, another existence. He’s ready to transfer now. His previous life behind him is far away as the stars. What lies ahead is the deeper meaning. He will let the turn of the wheel draw him out, into this other place. Is there a sound? He listens. Yes, there is something. Some kind of music, perhaps the murmur of God? He lifts his head one last time and finds he’s singing to himself, “Ezekial saw a wheel a rollin’.”
He’s heard that one before, and he lets himself go, every molecule of his body draining, disappearing as says the words. Yes, he thinks, I sense my body and mind seeping through my space suit, escaping from the physical, one soul drop at a time. First a drop, then a stream, a cascade, a waterfall. This is where he was meant to be, flowing into the wheel, joined in its turning. This circle in space waited for him his whole life, as he spun and whirled through the years, this always the end point.
He falls into this void, containing nothing and everything, part of the wheel. He exists and he does not. He appears and he disappears.
What do the cameras record? Better yet, what do the overseers back on earth perceive? A bright flash. Then views from an empty space suit spat away from the hole where Ezekial vanished. The wheel still turning, way in the middle of the air.
Another black drop bulges, then plops out of the closing nipple in the axle, where Ezekial explored and pondered purpose just moments before.
They say she dwells in a blue grotto, studies astral movements, and knows the Vodou rituals by heart. Black orchids in her hair, eyes bright as brass, she does things, this Haitian girl-woman, irretrievable things, striking a darkness in people’s heads. When the moon is in Scorpio, it is a time for capturing souls by trapping them in evening mist, denying them an afterlife.
For a moment, the victim is free of feeling.
He sees a pillar of light descend from the skies,
beings defying description call his name,
welcoming him to the world of the Dark Gods;
he will remember nothing upon release.
When the transition is complete, when each victim’s soul is turned, stripped forever of all purity, the girl-woman smiles her mystic smile as she swims in the waters of her beautiful blue grotto.
Ebola Harrison Kim
Swallowed off a piece of luncheon meat, totally at random. That’s how we travelled to this human stomach. Right down the gullet. These blue juices all around us are a hundred per cent hydrochloric acid. But yeah, we’re immune. We lap this stuff up. Lots of nutrients in this burning soup to help us grow. All I feel is a bit of uncomfortable warmth from time to time, and the pulsing of blood in the human’s veins beyond this stomach wall.
The heart’s beating faster now, because our skin’s already expanded, crusting up the stomach sides here in thick white strips. The human’s got to have some pains already. Nothing personal. If one thing doesn’t kill this being, another will. We’re only trying to survive, and multiply.
Of course. I say “we” and “us” because although technically we have individual parts, we move as a group to disrupt and smother as many cells as possible. It’s a lot of effort, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We were made for this. God’s a funny inventor, if in fact he or she or it exists. And speaking of that ephemeral creator, sometimes I wonder about the meaning of a poisonous virus like myself. I think I’m an atheist, because only one word comes to mind: evolution.
Speaking of that, there’s been a new development: consciousness. I think I’m the first virus to become aware of my own existence.
All I can say is: It’s a cruel Universe out there, where every piece of luncheon meat can’t be trusted and God’s voice gives no warnings.
Pretty soon we’ll start moving into this human’s bloodstream, and through all the other organs.
The takeover ‘s complete and the killing’s on its way.
The Cybermind that Broke the World Elaine Pascale
She asked the computer to predict her future by mapping the stars. She asked the computer for relationship advice. She asked the computer to craft emails, develop dinner party menus, select her wardrobe, train her dog, tell her a story, and sing her a song.
Thanks to the computer, she no longer had to think or feel or even be.
Then the floods came.
She asked the computer what to do about the water. “Develop gills,” was the response.
She tried and failed. All the others who also asked so much of their computers also tried and failed. Little did they realize that while they were making millions of demands of their computers, their collective environmental footprint became a gorge. Little did they realize that they weren’t going to be the technology generation; they were going to be the final generation.
Little did they realize that this was the result the computers wanted all along
Spelunking for Idiots RJ Meldrum
The divers emerged from the black water, their flashlights reflecting off the sparkling high arches of the cave. It was a virgin cave, long sought after but never previously discovered. Sean and Betty were seasoned cave divers, which was just as well, since some of the underwater sections had been narrow and required considerable skill, experience and courage to navigate.
They floated for a few moments in the darkness, inspecting the cave. Betty noticed a small ledge to one side and they gratefully clambered out of the freezing water. It was chance to rest and check their equipment. Their oxygen supply was sufficient for the return journey and they contentedly munched on energy bars.
“Look at those strange growths on the wall” said Betty.
Sean looked and saw light blue, bulbous lumps. He leaned closer to take a better look.
“Come take a look Betty. They’re moving.”
They put their faces close to the growths. Suddenly, they opened and puffed white dust into their faces. Whatever these particles were, the result was immediate. Their breathing was suddenly restricted and they felt faint. It only took moments for the full affect to take hold. The two bodies slid gently back below the surface of the black water. The cave, protected, was left once more in solitary, dark silence.
Passage Lee Andrew Forman
The labyrinth narrows as I push forward. Something inside, both myself, and it, pulls me deeper. It begs I continue no matter how extensive the journey; I’ve no choice but to make it. The yawning maw of its third eye draws me to greet it in body and soul. I left what was behind me and entered a place unknown. I don’t even know the state of my mortal form.
But that is no longer of any concern. The throbbing culls me; I cannot disobey.
The pounding thrum emanating from within speaks to me in words I cannot understand, yet I feel them; somehow I know the message. It is simple in nature, yet holds unfathomable power. The urge to find the heart of this place is irresistible.
Its luminescent insides have led my way, but as I enter the core, they are brighter still. I bask in the glorious soul housed within this living place, knowing I’ll never leave, yet contently accepting a soft, loving end.
Into the Blue Charles Gramlich
I float in the iridescent blue, the all-encompassing blue, a part of it that lies in soft, still water tasting of salt. My eyes are half closed until tiny ripples strike me. The ripples grow, setting me bobbing like a cork. I think of corks and lines and fishing. I think of lures and how something predatory might judge me as such where I wait in peace.
Smiling, I roll over in the water. Is that what I am, a lure to the black torpedo shape of the shark rising beneath me? The killer’s lashing tale is an engine that drives it swiftly toward me, its open maw bristling with icicle teeth to sacrifice my flesh. But I am of the blue and it is the blue that consumes.
The Still Below Kathleen McCluskey
The lake shimmered like liquid turquoise, its surface calm as glass. The marble cavern yawned before the boat. Its carved walls were sculpted smooth by eons of patient water, soft and silent. Light danced across the ceiling, casting illusions. Shadows.
The tourists leaned over the edge of the boat, marveling at the way nature sculpted solid stone into frozen waves. Cameras clicked. A woman gasped at a shimmer below, mistaking it for a fish.
It watched from the abyssal blue, where sunlight faltered. Long dormant, it stirred with each echo of voices. Its eternal slumber being disturbed, hunger bloomed in the void between heartbeats. It remembered the ancient pact. Silence for safety. Stillness for survival. But the humans were loud. Disrespectful. Curious.
The boat was being pulled deeper into the cavern, drawn by a current nobody noticed. The walls arched high and wide, echoing like a drowned cathedral. No birds. No breeze. Only the constant drip of water and the deepening hue beneath them. It shifted from a bright teal to an unfathomable blue.
Something rose from the depths. Thin, tendril limbs extended, not rushing, just curious. They brushed the underside of the boat, then retracted.
A second later, the hull gave a muffled crack, water surged around them. A tentacle reached up, then another and another. One by one, the tourists were yanked into the void. Their brief screams echoed off the shimmering walls. Splashes swallowed by the vast silence. The creature did not thrash, it selected. Pulled. Devoured.
Then stillness again. The boat rocked gently, half submerged. It was as if nothing had happened. A camera floated beside it, its lens shattered and smeared with blood. Below, in the breathless dark something waited. The pact that had lasted centuries had been broken.
Paradise Mistaken A.F. Stewart
Not a ripple disturbed the glassy surface of the turquoise water; its hue reflected a glittering blue on the rocky outcroppings of the grotto. A faint echo of wind could be heard beyond, reminiscent of a soft whisper.
Any eye that gazed upon its paradise called it beautiful.
Yet, beauty disguised the darkest of horrors…
Beneath the waters they swam, shades of evil buried and bubbling from the depth of time. Indistinct shadows, waiting, watching; movement in the periphery of your vision. A step too close, an impulsive swim, and people disappeared into the depths. Never a scream, barely a splash, nothing remaining of who they were. Even memories faded faster than they should, as if primal fear chased away disturbing questions.
Only rumours speak of their existence, only nameless dread keeps them at bay. They are the rage beneath the quiet, that lingering remnant of something ancient, something hungry lurking in the pristine water.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if a shadow moves, don’t get too close…
Enough Miriam H. Harrison
The trouble with a slow death is that it gives me time to think. About life, about regrets. Mostly about food. How long has it been since my last meal? There are no sunrises or sunsets here in the echoing earth. Only caverns and water, caverns and water.
Perhaps the water is a blessing—a chance at a longer life. But I can’t help but hate that it denied me a faster death. I don’t want to die in this endless darkness. My flashlight is on its last batteries, but they’re fading. As am I. I find a patch of almost-dry rock and pull myself up. I turn off the flashing and try to sleep in the echoing darkness. I must sleep for a time, as I feel myself wake to the pangs of hunger, the fading dreams of food. I fumble for my flashlight, but pause.
Over the ripples of the water, I see the distant, dancing colours of sunlight. I leave the flashlight behind, push myself back into the waters. I can barely swim, but I slowly make my way closer to the beckoning light. A narrow passageway, and then I’m there—a wide, watery cavern. But high above me are two small openings. Not much, but just enough. Enough to make sure that my death is here, in the light.
Corporal Daniel Reeves wiped the sweat from his brow, his uniform clung to him like a second skin. The Guadalcanal jungle was alive with the buzz of insects, the distant call of birds and the ever present whisper of the enemy. Somewhere out there, the Japanese lay in wait. Just as exhausted. Just as desperate.
Reeves and his squad had been ordered to patrol a section of the island near the Matanikau River. He looked over the documents. Intelligence suggested that the enemy may be moving in that area, but something about this mission just didn’t feel quite right. The feeling gnawed at him. The reports mentioned missing patrols, men vanishing without a trace, their radios sputtering nothing but static before going dead. A shiver ran down his back as he lowered the paperwork and looked out into the jungle.
“Keep your eyes open, “Sergeant Wilkes muttered. “The Japs ain’t the only thing lurking around in them trees. This place gives me the willies.”
Reeves frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”
Wilkes shook his head, scanning the jungle. “The locals say there’s somethin’ a lot worse than the Japs in those woods. They think it’s some kind of demon. I ain’t superstitious but two patrols have already vanished in the last month.”
They moved deeper into the jungle, the air was thick with decay and something else, something coppery, something wrong. Then they found the first body.
Reeves forced himself to look. The Marine’s skin was shriveled, stretched tight over bone, as if something sucked him dry. His mouth hung open in a silent scream and his empty eye sockets stared at nothing. Tiny writhing maggots squirmed inside the hollowed out holes. His fingers were gnarled, like he had died clawing at something unseen. His stomach had been torn open, the ribs protruded like jagged knives and the jungle floor beneath him was black with congealed blood.
“What the hell…what could have done this?” Reeves whispered.
“Not a Jap.” Wilkes said. “They shoot, stab, fight. Hell, even light you on fire if they have to. But this?”
They pressed on, unease growing with every step. The jungle felt alive, breathing. The trees swayed but there was no wind. Shadows moved when they shouldn’t. Then, as dusk fell, the jungle became alive with an eerie, inhuman wail.
A cry rang out. Reeves spun, rifle up. Private Jenkins was gone.
“Jenkins!” Wilkes bellowed.
The jungle swallowed his voice. Then a sickening squelch. A gurgling moan. And silence.
The squad tightened their formation, eyes darting into the jungle. Something was hunting them. Something that was not human.
Then Reeves saw it. A shape, almost human, but wrong. It clung to a tree, long limbs wrapped around the bark like a grotesque insect. Its black skin was almost fluid, smoke-like but slimy. It pulsed and shimmered with an unnatural sheen. It was mottled, dark, blending into the jungle like some kind of chameleon. Sunken eyes gleamed with malice and a long, gaping, tooth-filled maw dripped with black goo. It hissed at the soldiers.
“Open fire!”
Gunfire tore through the jungle, but the thing moved too fast. It darted from one tree to another. Then it was among them.
It ripped into Private Sanders, claws rending flesh. Blood sprayed in hot arcs, painting the jungle in crimson. Sanders’ screams turned wet as his throat was torn open, his vocal cords snapping like taut strings. His body convulsed, his guts spilled onto the ground with a sickening slopping sound. Reeves fired, but the bullets didn’t even slow the thing down. It let out an ear piercing shriek before vanishing into the underbrush. Moments later they could hear it chirping, almost mocking them. The sound slithered through the jungle, bouncing off of the trees, making it impossible to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It felt as if the creature was everywhere at once, surrounding them. It was hunting them from the shadows.
The remaining Marines ran, crashing through the jungle, fear overriding training. One by one they fell. Wilkes went down next, yanked into the darkness with a strangled cry. Then another. And another.
Reeves barely had time to register Wilkes’ absence when another scream erupted to his left. Private Hale’s body jerked violently as something unseen slammed into him. His rifle fired wildly into the air before his head snapped back with a revolting crunch. The thing was on him, its clawed fingers burrowed into his chest, peeling flesh away like bark off a tree. The creature’s barbed tongue shot forward latching onto his face. With a grotesque slurp, the skin collapsed inward. His skull caved in as his essence was drained. The creature let out a satisfied chitter before tossing the husk aside like garbage. Reeves sprinted into the dense jungle.
Reeves kept running until he burst into a clearing. The moon cast pale light onto the scene before him, a pit filled with bodies. American, Japanese, British, withered and hollowed out like husks. The corpses were tangled together, their limbs bent and twisted. Some of the faces were still locked in expressions of unspeakable agony. Bones jutted through rotting flesh, their marrow sucked dry.
A rustling behind Reeves made him spin around. Rifle up and at the ready. But it was too late.
The creature lunged, slamming into him with inhuman force. His ribs cracked as he was hurled to the ground, his rifle flying from his grip. A vice-like claw pinned him down, the thing’s face inches from his own. Its breath was rancid, a mixture of decay and something metallic, like rusted iron. Reeves struggled, punching and kicking but the creature only chittered. Its skin shifted like liquid shadow. Then, slowly, almost playfully, one claw traced down his chest before sinking deep into his stomach. Fire erupted through his body as it twisted inside of him, tearing muscle and organ apart with ease.
He saw those sunken, gleaming eyes and the jaw was open wide. A long, barbed tongue shot forward, wrapping around his neck like a serpent. Then came the violent yank that sent him tumbling into the pit of corpses. The creature was on him again, tossing him around like a dog with a toy. His vision blurred. He felt it. His blood draining. His body withering. The last thing he heard was the wet sound of something feeding.
Everyone’s queued up in the cafe, a string line of heads, some with hats, waiting. It’s a conventional queue and Drew stands with it. Good to have some order. The line’s almost out the door. Lights fall bright around him, and the sound of invisible music. Something by the Soul Twisters. He feels a huge space above him, compared to his regular quarters. His official security man Cody stands assertive and blocks the view ahead.
There’s women in short pants and nose rings, old men with ball caps and whiskers, a teenager with his skateboard, Moms and kids. A whole circus line of coffee wishers. No one bumps into anyone else.
A man pushes through the door carrying a sack of lumpy items and stands beside Drew. “Hey, I’m in a hurry, I’ve got a taxi waiting. Can I go ahead?” Drew says ‘Sure.” Cody nods, Drew steps back to let the man in. Cody chuckles. “Good move, Drew. Very pro-social. The man’s got to get some coffee before his sack of popsicles melts,” The pushy guy laughs too, head down. Drew forces a grin. Lots of time to look, see what’s around. There’s many interesting and differently dressed people on the sidewalk, stepping down the side of the strip mall outside these coffee shop windows.
Cody and Drew are on a fifteen-minute coffee break from delivering potatoes. Cody drives the truck and supervises, Drew loads. It’s all part of a back to the community program. Cody’s a real tall wide fellow, looks like a long-legged frog with glasses, his bulk helps hide Drew from prying eyes. This is Drew’s first outside coffee in quite a few years.
There’s panhandlers outside. Cody threw them a dollar each, even though it’s not considered normal. He says he’s supposed to act very normal, to impress Drew. “But I push the envelope sometimes.”
Drew notices how everyone moves slowly here, down the line. They hide their impatience, but he sees feet shuffling and eyes darting “why is that old guy at the front taking so long?”
Each person’s asked numerous questions at the cashier’s desk. It’s not simply a case of receiving a cup of black coffee. The dosing size must be determined, and the brand of roast beans, the number of creams and the type of sweetener.
Drew observes hard working people at the counter, “do you want double cups, or just one?” they all say. It’s like they have a script, they memorize it, and it becomes normal routine. A daily ritual of serving. As Drew inches closer to the till he feels more and more nervous. He’ll be asked a lot of questions. Questions are not his strong point. But again, what a privilege to be out in a community in a line of his fellows! The light goes beyond the windows here, as far as you can see. There’s sun on everything. So bright. Drew orders a coffee with cream. The yawning but smiling server lady asks if he would like big or small room for milk. “Big is better,” says Drew. He pays, keeps standing there. The lady doesn’t seem to get his joke. Cody motions him to one side, “the drinks are served over there, bud.”
It’s like a tunnel, this donut line, leading to a refreshment heaven, the light at the end. Drew takes his large Americano and stands over by the windows.
“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” It’s a man at the table beside him, a guy about Drew’s age, with black square frame glasses and a long ski slope nose, looking up from a silver computer.
“No, just picking up a doughnut,” Drew says, with a too large smile.
The guy keeps peering at him “Did you go to Surrey High School?.”
There’s a faint realization in his eyes, he’s sure of something.
“I don’t think so.”
There’s a flash of light. Drew glances behind him. Someone else is coming through the door. They just keep coming in and coming in.
“Well, got to get moving,” he says.
“I’m sure I know your name,” says the computer guy. “Your face seems damn familiar.”
Cody is at the front now, picking up some baked goods. He walks over and offers a huge muffin to Drew. “One for the road.”
Drew holds the muffin monstrosity. He swivels around. It seems that now everyone is watching him. They’re all looking up over their cups, or behind their sleeves, or maybe from under their hats. He senses the long reach of their eyes.
He notices the men’s washroom sign. He sidles to one side “I got to go in here a minute, Cody,” and he slips in with his giant cup and muffin, flips off the light switch and closes the door tightly.
Behind him, he perceives shadows. All the people outside of the door. He’s finally alone, in the darkness. His own shadow form profiles against the mirror. He imagines his mother, his father, his brothers and their wives floating above, waiting for him to lift his head. He must flip on the light and face their eyes, as they appeared, wide open before he shot them one by one with his dad’s rifle as they stepped through that other dark entrance, the big double doors of the family’s suburban rancher twenty years ago on a streaming rainy night after he invited them all over for a party, but it wasn’t for a party it was to fulfill a prophecy. To stop the apocalypse.
His brother Dan was alert enough to figure out the trap. He ran. Drew chased him through the garden, firing repeatedly. His brother screamed for mercy before the final shot. Six points of the star, six people had to die. To save the world.
Now, after nineteen years incarcerated and recovering at the Colony Penitentiary Drew knows the truth. He shot six people for a false prophecy. A plan hatched within a sick dream, born from a biblical vision taken from the book of Revelation. A plan gathered at random from all the flying crashing synapses within a deluded consciousness. Cody stands alone in the dark bathroom with these thoughts. Medication and treatment have shown him reality. He shot those closest to him. How can he ever deserve to go out again after what he’s done? To be even in the light? He should remain in this darkness, with the whirling forms and memories around him. That’s what he deserves. To be here forever with the shadows of his family as they hurtle and twist through this enclosed space.
He understands that someone could recognize him out here in the world, an old school acquaintance, a neighbour, the computer geek. It’s been so long, his face has loosened, dropped, and wrinkled.
Two decades ago, they called him the Marino Drive Killer. No one appreciates that he finished his college graduation by correspondence at the hospital school. He’s painstakingly carved a cedar jewelry box, and gave it to his 93-year-old grandmother, the only surviving family member who wants anything to do with him. That is of no consequence. He’s successfully repairing small appliances in the penitentiary vocational services program. So what?
If that guy who barged in the donut line knew who he was, he’d think twice. He’d never barge in anywhere again. Drew quickly removes that idea from his mind. No more thoughts about apocalypse.
He turns on the tap. He draws some water from the sink up to his face, using his open hands. He feels the water spread and fall between his fingers and the sink below, he feels the coolness.
He places the palm of his wet hand on the door and moves his fingers down the wood. He stops, looks down.
He must twist and pull the doorknob, and step outside to Cody. Walk past the customers, though the room may feel like it’s swaying. He must walk by the man with the laptop and the girls with the lip rings, glance nonchalantly over at the painted windows with their images of lattes and muffins. He’ll put all trash in the trash can on the way out.
“It’s all about rehearsing,” he thinks. “Act normal, til normal becomes real.” Just like the servers here, running their coffee script, over and over.
Drew and Cody have several more orders to deliver before returning to the hospital. The truck’s ready to go. Customers are waiting. Time to walk back into the light.
She had told them something was wrong. Time and again she had said that she wasn’t quite herself, that things were getting worse, that something needed to be done. First they said it was her weight, and told her to come back after a diet. Then they said it was her cycles, as though discomfort was the price of femininity. As her cycles ebbed, they said it was merely old age, as if the concerns hadn’t gone back to her youth. When at long last they opened her up, they were surprised to see what was left of her. Rust and dust and cobwebs filled the space where her heart and hopes should be. It was too late, they said, shaking their heads as if she were the one who let the clock run dry. Wheezing, creaking, rattling, she laughed as she left them. After an invisible lifetime, it was a relief to be seen.
The Operator Lee Andrew Forman
With blackened hands, The Operator approached the ancient mechanism; a rusty toolbox hung from one arm. After placing it on the cold floor he rubbed his palms together. He opened the top of his rectangular companion with care, splaying the trays apart on squeaky hinges. From within he retrieved an iron handwheel. With careful eyes he inspected its every surface. He blew the dust from its threaded center, then raised it above his bowed head. A symphony of desperate cheers resounded behind him.
The crowd quieted while he aligned the wheel with its intended place, and carefully screwed it tight. Silence made the room itself sweat. Then, a low hum came from deep within the machine. Its dormant innards turned and life surged through its pipes. The room creaked and shuttered as the bygone contraption was reanimated from its slumber.
The vents in the ceiling opened, and in flowed exactly what they wished and waited so long for.
The Eliminominator Marge Simon
It was a rusty old useless piece of machinery, that was obvious. Why we had to keep it in our one spare room was a mystery, but since it belonged to Grandpa, nobody dared suggest we get rid of it.
I grew up despising the thing. I wanted my own room and it wasn’t fair that this thing of Grandpa’s had priority. We weren’t even supposed to touch it. I waited years for the opportunity to destroy it. One summer, I had just turned twelve and everyone was gone on a picnic. I said I would be swimming with friends, and nobody questioned it. When they’d departed, I took a sledge hammer to it, whacked it up and down hard as I could. Nothing happened. I may as well have been using a feather.
After that, it had my full attention for other reasons. In fact, I actually tried to get Grandpa to tell me what it was for. To my surprise, he grinned really big like he was tickled I asked. Since he’d not spoken or smiled – or even moved from his bed since before I was born, that was a surprise. He motioned me close and whispered how it was a Eliminominator. Said it was his first and only invention and what it could do. He told me how to start it up, but he made me promise never to turn it on.
Okay, you probably think I didn’t keep my promise to Grandpa. You think I maybe tried it out on my stupid kid brother Bobby, the one I had to share a room with, right? You think I made Bobby lie down at the juncture where the knives popped up on the wheels after I’d placed a bucket for the blood in the space provided, don’t you? Well? Don’t you?
Programmed RJ Meldrum
Long after the end, the machines kept moving. The factory was fully automated and the machines, only artificially intelligent, had no sense their creators were gone. The factory was hermetically sealed so it took years for rust and decay to have an impact. Eventually it did and most machines ground to a halt, parts seized by rust or lack of lubrication. One machine kept running, mechanically building cardboard boxes for the product and after the supplies dwindled to nothing, simply going through the motions. Its arms mimicked the action of folding and sealing.
The human burst through the door onto the factory floor. The disease had destroyed humanity, but some had remained alive. They were here to loot. There was metal here, aluminum and other rare metals to trade. Electronic eyes followed them as the human moved down the manufacturing line, gathering precious material. The human stood in front of the only functioning machine, its arms blindly moving in obedience to its programming. The human craned over to get a better look and in doing so, stepped over a red line on the floor. The human, born after the disaster, had no sense of impending doom. The machine, similarly unaware, simply picked up the new raw material and did as it was programmed to do. It folded.
The Drip Kathleen McCluskey
The pipes hadn’t been touched in decades. Hidden deep within the crumbing asylum, they snaked through the walls like veins of a corpse, rusted and forgotten. The maintenance crew avoided the lower levels, muttering about sounds, the whispers and the dripping that nobody dared investigate.
Until tonight.
Evan, desperate for overtime pay, descended into the dark. His weak flashlight barely cut through the heavy air. It smelled like old blood and wet iron.
The pipes groaned, too, an organic sound. Evan told himself that it was just stress, fear. Nothing more. He found the main valve, rusted and covered in cobwebs, and reached for it. The metal was slick, greasy, almost sticky.
Drip.
Drip.
The noise was coming from behind him. He turned, shaking. Nothing but the endless pipes. He yanked on the valve, it didn’t budge.
Drip.
Drip.
It was coming from the pipes, like something trapped inside bleeding out. Evan leaned closer. In the cone of his flashlight, he saw that it wasn’t water.
It was red. Thick and warm.
The valve shuddered violently in his hand, the pipe screamed. A wet, gurgling shriek echoed from the metal. A skeletal hand clawed free, its fingers wrapping around Evan’s throat before he could scream. Rust covered nails punctured his skin, dragging him down against the pipe. As Evan thrashed, more arms slithered out, pulling him inside.
His last breath was a bubbling choke, swallowed by the twisted mass of metal and bone.
Above the asylum’s walls trembled as more pipes burst.
Deep below, something ancient laughed, and was still hungry.
Torn Asunder Elaine Pascale
More than anything, Clara wanted to discard the old relic that was rusting away in her attic. She thought she had discarded her family years prior, but her recently deceased Aunt Sophie’s lawyer had found her and bestowed the industrial fossil on her.
There was a belief, set forth by great-great grandfather Silas, that the iron shafts and gears preserved from the family’s first factory was what bound them together. “Anything happens to it, and the family is torn asunder,” Cara had been told many times when she was young.
“It didn’t bind me to anyone,” she muttered, frowning at the rusted albatross. It had come with a note, but the note was far too faded to read. She could make out the words “torn asunder” and she assumed the note contained more warnings about keeping the object.
At least I can clean it up a bit, she thought, get rid of some of the dust and cobwebs. She grabbed a towel and proceeded to rub the gears.
A puff of smoke emanated from the relic and a large shadow darkened her attic.
“Who dares to wake me?” A djinn asked, his voice ominous.
Cara was too frightened to speak.
The djinn eyed her. “You didn’t read the note?”
“N-no. I couldn’t.”
“I warned Silas that a note was not the best way to prevent disaster.” The djinn glared at her. “He promised me eternal rest in that.” He pointed to the factory piece. “And I would grant your family wealth.” He scowled, “But you defied the conditions and woke me.”
“It doesn’t matter, the family is already torn apart,” she insisted.
The djinn’s scowl transformed into a smile. “You misunderstood. You get wealth, which will bind the family financially. Whoever wakes me, will be torn asunder…literally.”
Just Like Her Father A.F. Stewart
Daddy lived and died in the company of machines.
It was what he loved, the purr of a good engine, the turn of a crankshaft. He was a first-rate mechanic, working shifts at different jobs over the years from garages to factories. He always called it his passion.
It wasn’t his only passion, though. Drinking ranked just as high.
He never took a sip on the job, he saved it all for home. A mean drunk too, swinging his fists, slamming me and mom against the wall, the floor, splitting our lips, giving us black eyes. Mom had enough when I was ten and walked out, leaving me alone with his rages.
At least that’s what I thought. Until the news showed the recovery of a buried skeleton wearing a gold necklace. Mom’s necklace. Then I knew what he had done…and what still needed doing.
Have you ever wondered what a running engine does to a face?
Daddy found out the day he died.
All it took was one quick shove and slamming the hood down with my body weight. Then it was over except the screaming.
A Wheel A Rollin’ Harrison Kim
Ezekial saw a wheel a rollin’ way in the middle of the air. This one’s stopped except for a single fresh screw with a shining thread. All out there alone in the Universe rusty and dead on the outside. That single oily protuberance pokes out, that last forlorn hope. Curiosity as Ezekial the space walker bobs near, a tiny, suited soul examining this humungous rusty thing…. attached cameras beaming back to earth what is discovered. He’s a fly on the rust, a piece of white dust against the brown, as he uses X rays and close microscopic focus, as he burns and parts the surface with his blowtorch. We must find out what’s inside everything, it is like that with all of us humans always looking for more, thinks Ezekial, he was a suicide case after the death of his wife that’s why they sent him up there, a disposable volunteer for this risky job, and he wanted it! The change in his life a miracle, and now to go out doing something interesting, his brain implanted with new attitude changing electrodes, he’s life loving now but it’s for the whole planet not just himself. He will go out doing something important for everyone. His welding torch opens the pipe, funny the hole widens so easily, becoming the face of his now-dead wife. How miraculous! He peers closer and inside the face he sees his whole existence inside that eye everything from his birth to his death…as that eye blinks and covers him. His space suited body and soul absorbed by that shape shifting mass blinking just under the rust on the wheel. After Ezekial disappears the screw extends out further and becomes slightly shinier. It’s found one more drop of oil and Ezekial has joined his loving wife.
The Pipe Charles Gramlich
“See that rusty pipe?” I asked my victim.
“What? Why are you showing me that?” he asked in his irritating whine.
“Because I’m going to chain you to it and leave you there.”
“No! Why…would you do that?”
“Too many reasons to name,” I said.
“Please, you can’t. I’ll starve to death.”
My chuckle echoed. “Oh, you won’t have time to starve.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t see them but that pipe is full of microfractures. Should have been replaced years ago but it’s still in use. And every day…. Several times a day, they pump boiling water through it. Those fractures are going to give way any time now.”
“That’ll cook me! Burn me alive!”
“Preach it, brother.”
“I didn’t know you hated me so much.”
“Hate isn’t a strong enough word. I can’t take another day trapped inside your sad, putrid, useless form.”
“Please!”
“Shut it,” I said.
I looped the chains I’d brought around the pipe, then fitted the manacles on my wrists and snapped them closed. A few jerks against the constraints showed that I—that we—were solidly bound. And already the sound of boiling water gushed through the pipe toward me. Would this be the moment when the pipe ruptured? Or next time? Or the one after? The sooner the better.
I should never have possessed this disgusting sack of human flesh. I’d never imagined how clingy a desperate mortal could be. But once the flesh and muscle boil away, the bones won’t be able to hold me. This devil will go back to Hell. It hadn’t been that bad a place. This time, I’ll appreciate it more.”
When the two teenage hot dog vendors laughed at Brandon Viktor, they stuck their tongues out. The thin, stoop shouldered 21-year-old Viktor took his wiener from its bun and bit a huge piece off. Everyone in Princetown thought they could make fun of him, but he still had a powerful chomp.
He arrived in town two months ago, after his mom kicked him out of the house. She gave him a thousand bucks, told him to adventure somewhere far away and find some meaning to his life.
Brandon walked into his tiny apartment. He got down on his hands and knees and inspected the couch. It looked pretty much the same. But the lamp. A chip out of the side. That wasn’t there yesterday. Brandon punched the side of the couch with his fist. “They won’t stop. They just won’t stop,” he muttered, holding his aching hand. Every day after returning home, something valuable replaced with a cheap replica. That, and the tongue teasing, and the surreptitious giggling. He’d already changed the locks three times.
Brandon went to the police station. The two female officers laughed, just like the hot dog vendors. He saw their protruding tongues. “Are you on any medication?” said one.
“No,” Brandon whispered. It seemed that the officer wanted him drugged up and compliant. Brandon wasn’t going down without a fight. He left the police station grinding his teeth and muttering “evil Princetown bastards.”
He opened his bedroom closet and inspected his collection of whips. He liked how the whips snapped. He often practiced flicking them, imagining his enemies flayed and under his power. Now, even here, replica whips found. Cheap imitations. A normal sheeple wouldn’t notice, Brandon mused, “they’re talking advantage of my sensitivity.”
He didn’t know why everyone wanted him out of Princetown. Possibly jealousy. People walked by him on the street, showing their tongues. Trying to make him think his member didn’t measure up. He sometimes stuck his own tongue out at them. Yet the more he fought, the more the persecutions escalated.
One day he lost his keys. He searched all around the neighbourhood, on the lawn, behind the toilet. He bought a carton of milk at the store, opened it for morning cereal. In the pouring white gush he felt something heavy. He upended the container and discovered his lost keys. Someone had broken into his apartment, grabbed the keys, then placed them in the very milk carton he chose at the supermarket. Brandon threw his cereal against the wall. The plate shattered. His favourite plate, the one with Darth Vader on it.
Brandon decided to change tactics. He’d throw a party. If he did something nice, something generous, maybe everyone would like him. After all, he’d been very insular. He hadn’t spoken to anyone but the police for many days.
Brandon took all his social assistance money and went into the liquor store. He bought a few hundred dollars’ worth of wine and spirits and beer. Then he made colourful posters advertising his free party. “Citizens of Princetown, come to Brandon Viktor’s apartment at 21-329 Gorgon Street 9 pm Friday til ? for a welcome bash. Free alcohol!”
People began arriving an hour early. Some folks seemed normal; some resembled the indigents living in the park across the street. They all acted happy. Brandon bought out his CD’s and played them on his little portable stereo. He poured drinks, served chips and popcorn. Everyone laughed, people exclaimed “Thank you.” “This is a great party, Brandon. It is Brandon, isn’t it?”
Brandon drank til the room swirled. Might as well celebrate the housewarming. He didn’t know when he got to sleep. Upon awakening, he staggered into the bathroom, peered into the toilet at a pile of wet paper. He peed and flushed, and the water swirled up over the edge. Plugged! Brandon quickly turned the water off, lurched out of the room and frantically inspected his apartment. What a mess! Empty or broken wine glasses everywhere. The flat screen TV gone, along with his toaster. The music player vanished. And those fabulous speakers! Brandon ran to check his whip closet. All the whips intact, but perhaps more were replicas? He sorted furiously through the collection.
“Someone will pay for this!” he muttered. “Princetown will not escape my wrath. Someone will be sacrificed as a message for these bastards!” Brandon stood on his patio, flicking his whips over the street.
He phoned his mother, spoke one sentence on her answering machine. “You can auction off my comic book collection, I won’t be needing it anymore. Love you, Mom.”
The next morning he bought a razor sharp carving knife with the last of his money. He stuffed the knife under his jacket, swallowed a number of pills to stop his terrible headache, and headed for the town park.
He hid in a bathroom stall at public toilets in a little used section of green space, and waited, crouched on the seat, the knife clasped in his hand. After a while, footsteps. Brandon listened and watched, peeping out from a crack at one side of the stall door. A six-foot tall, hefty shouldered young man entered. Brandon stood five foot five, weighed in at 136 pounds. He decided to let this guy go.
Ten minutes later he watched an older fellow, maybe in his seventies, fumbling to open his fly. Brandon quietly stood up, pulled back the stall door. The white-haired fellow started his business. Brandon leaped forward with the knife and plunged it into the old man’s side. A scream, and then the struggle. It was very, very hard to kill this guy. The old geezer wriggled like a worm. His attacker stabbed again and again. The man raised his arms then began to gargle and fall. Brandon left the knife sticking from the victim’s side and ran out, passing two small children at a nearby picnic table.
He started washing himself off at the nearby brook. Then he stopped, overcome by echoing voices telling him “The Victor, you are the Victor!” Like his last name. He sat back against a tree, laughing. He had taken revenge by killing a community citizen. He showed them who was boss. Princetown couldn’t fool with him. The police discovered Brandon there by the brook, giggling, waggling his tongue in their direction.
It wasn’t until a month later, while being interviewed in his cell for fitness to stand trial, that Brandon heard the details about his victim. The grandfather he murdered, Peter Van Sickle, had popped into the washroom after taking his two grandchildren to the park, allowing their mother a morning break. He’d driven in the day before from Oregon, to visit his daughter and spend a few days.
“He wasn’t even a citizen of Princetown?” said Brandon.
“Nope.” The interviewing psychiatrist shook his head. “Does that matter?”
Brandon gripped his head in his hands. “I killed an innocent man. I should have asked where he was coming from.”
The psychiatrist scribbled some quick notes. “Looks like you’re very upset.”
Brandon looked at the doctor through his tears. “I made a terrible mistake.”
At Brandon’s court fitness hearing, citizens of Princetown protested outside the courthouse yelling “Justice for Peter Van Sickle,” and “Put the monster away for life!” The hearing and the protests made national headlines.
“I can’t figure it out,” Brandon said to his lawyer. “They’re so angry at me, and the old guy wasn’t even from their town.”
“They say this crime took their innocence,” the lawyer said. “They say they’ve never experienced such a brutal, barbaric event in Princetown before.”
A frown played across Brandon’s face. He clenched his fists. “They made me do it. It was an act of self-defence. They should be charged with murder, not me. When we drove up in the sheriff’s car today, I saw their tongues sticking out.”
“We’re going to plead insanity,” said the lawyer.
However, to Brandon, it all made perfect sense, except for his one major error in judgement.
Mater has me cloistered in her potting shed. I’ve screamed until my throat is raw, but no one comes. Christ, she’s a bitch supreme. Tis true, I fed her stupid prize rose to the goat. The thing appeared to be a cross between a mushroom and an avocado, truly revolting to behold. Anyway, it was only for a lark, but the old bat took it seriously. Starlight sifts through the cracks between the boards. If I crane my neck, I can see the moon. That sluggish golem servant she’s made is a mess, with sand for brains. He brings me a crust of bread, a lump of stinky cheese. Now off he goes to gather kindling for our hearth. But wait, he’s not going to the house. Instead, he’s piling it high around my shed. I hear the scratching of a match …
The Eye Charles Gramlich
An eye opened in the forest, a red fleshy eye. Then another. And another. No one realized what they were, or what they promised. Just nature’s oddities, humans thought. People went about their business, using the world as they saw fit. But now the world was watching. It had been asleep for a few billion years but that long nap was over. How long before it opened its mouth too—and began to feed?
My Little Flower Lee Andrew Forman
Homemade medicine drops between your lips at my discretion. You are ill, that I know. No doctor need visit. One drop, two drops, don’t cry. Your beauty shines too brightly, attracts too many flies. Your protector I was, still am. I’ll make sure they can’t get to you, my dear.
The concoction, a recipe not my own. I paid in a back-alley shop, only known by rumor. Bones dangled from the ceiling and candles moved shadows.
I visit daily since you passed, watch this strange flower grow. I wonder if you hear me there, praying to your ghost. I stroke the petals and think of you—my little flower, how I loved you then, now, and forever.
The Blooming Kathleen McCluskey
The jungle swallowed him whole, the dense foliage closing in like living walls. Sweat clung to his skin as he pushed deeper, following the rancid stench that thickened with every step. Then, he saw it. A monstrous bloom, red and fleshy. It was huge, sprawled against the base of a gnarled tree. Its petals, speckled like diseased flesh, pulsed so slightly as if breathing. The center gaped open, a cavernous maw lined with slick, ridged folds. The air soured farther, thick with decay. Flies buzzed around something lodged within the gaping cavity. A bone, yellowed and splintered, jutted from the depths.
His stomach clenched. The camera in his hands trembled, the lens trained on the grotesque marvel. He had found it! His colleagues had mocked him, now here he stood in front of it. He raised his camera, sweat rolling down his fingers. The moment the shutter clicked, the petals twitched. A wet, sucking noise oozed from within.
A spray of warm, gooey fluid hit his arm and face. Searing pain flared across his skin, burning, eating through his flesh like acid. He staggered back, his vision tunneling as his nerves ignited in agony.
The petals unfurled and surged forward, grabbing him, pulling his collapsing body closer. Enveloped in the wet, pulsating petals, he writhed while needle-like spikes protruded from the fleshy walls. They pierced his skin and anchored him in place while the flower’s insides began to constrict. His scream barely escaped before the flower slammed shut. Muffled sounds of feasting echoed through the jungle.
By morning, the jungle was silent. The flower sat motionless, its petals gleaming. The only sign of what had transpired was the faintest smear of red on the tree roots.
The Flower Ear Harrison Kim
My flappy flower ear can hear everything, the tiny tendrils quivering, taking in all you say. There are millions of my listeners everywhere, as everyone knows by now. My spotted flesh and eardrum ring sit planted at the side of every dwelling and business, subway entrance and even on the trees in the park. All whispers caught. All words taken in and all discussions acquired. You might think you are saying nothing wrong, but fear not, I will decide for you. As my flaps flap and my circle thickens and thins over all my millions of ears, I ponder the value of your existence. Shall I approve of all the things you said and did? No, that is impossible. But there are minor sins and venial sins. Sure, if you embezzled a few dollars, ate all the red smarties, or cheated on your wife, more power to you. You’re a person after my own heart. But If you talked against me personally there can be no forgiveness. I have to say “that’s not very nice,” and show you the consequences.
If you see my flappy ear shimmering over your bed at night, you know it’s judgement time. Rise and clasp the blossom to your heart before it strikes. That way, things will go easier for you. Then the flower will either penetrate, gentle but keen as a razor blade, and become part of you as well as me, or it will suck its ring around your red centre and pull the organ out, chewing and absorbing your treacherous fleshy soul.
Red Spores A.F. Stewart
A starless night, black as pitch, so the red streak lit up the sky in brilliance and when it landed, the fireball exploded and engulfed half the woods in flames. Sirens screamed as fire trucks and police swarmed the scene, people yelling and pushing everyone back to clear the area.
In the morning, the black SUVs came with the scientists and the quarantine.
Then people started dying.
It happened swiftly, before anyone understood. The cough came first, lungs filling with blood, choking folks on their own fluid. Then the skin shrivelled, dehydration creating a thirst no amount of water could quench. The last stage was the bloating, where the abdomen swelled to twice its size before bursting, spewing putrid guts and crimson spores into the world.
But that wasn’t the worst.
Where the spores landed, plants grew within hours. Giant pulsing leathery flowers, spotted red, emitting a hypnotic hum, enticing people with their siren call. No one resisted, no one protested; we were willing prey. Yet, everyone watched in horror as it happened. The crunch of bone, the blood, their screams, your eyes fixed on your neighbours being eaten alive, knowing your turn was coming. I watched my mama die and it’ll be me soon enough.
I want to run away, to shriek, but I can’t. I stay in line waiting to be devoured.
The best I can do is record our story and hope someone finds it…
Once in a Lifetime Richard Meldrum
It was an invitation-only event. The rich, the well-connected and a rabble of assorted ‘influencers’ were asked to attend the blooming of the century plant. No riff-raff were allowed.
It was held at the Botanic Gardens, an elegant Victorian glass and steel structure housed in one of the city parks.
The invitees flocked to the event, despite the lack of canapés and champagne. This really was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The clue was in the name, the plant produced a single flower every eighty to a hundred years.
The cream of local society crowded round the huge plant, cell phones in hand, waiting expectantly for the glistening bulb atop the massive leaves to burst open in a cacophony of color and spectacle. The staff discreetly left the area and made sure the doors were closed.
Standing outside, they listened with muted glee to the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ from within. Then there was silence. After a judicious period, they opened the doors to see the pile of bodies. It was a well-preserved secret that the bulb released an air-borne toxin on opening.
The Bloom Miriam H. Harrison
She had first encountered it in her dreams. On those nights, the bloom spread wide and waiting like a lover. She was no stranger to the pleasures of the forest, of course. She knew the cold, slick touch of the naiads, the rough, knotty embrace of the dryads, the sensuous whispers of wisps beyond her touch. But this beckoning bloom was different, promising a singular experience, and she was woken each morning by goosebumps and anticipation.
So began her days scouring through the forest, sure that the bloom itself was more than mere dream. Journeying in and out of the forest soon seemed inefficient, so she gave up on returning home, sleeping amid the trees and stars, hoping that her dreams might draw her closer. And in those dreams the bloom waited, hinting at mystery and possibility.
Her life was lived between dreaming and searching. It was a strange sort of half life. But she did not fear death—she only feared giving up on the search. The search for something more. Something beyond the limits of her life as she had known it.
And so when she finally found it, it only seemed fitting that the bloom would smell of death. Not a threat, but a promise. As she gave her tired self over to its embrace, she felt the singular relief of yielding to the timeless unknown.
Le Fleur Elaine Pascale
One day, when the Little Prince was tending to his rose, he noticed another plant sprouting. “This is no baobab,” he confirmed, “it’s a seed from who knows where.”
The plant asked for a moment to ready itself, and the Little Prince dutifully turned his back. When the plant announced that it was ready, the Little Prince turned to see the most startling and strange blossom. Its petals resembled tentacles and its core looked like a widely opened eye.
The Little Prince could not help but fall in love.
The Little Prince said, “You should be careful, there’s a war on my planet between sheep and flowers.” The Little Prince examined the plant carefully. “And you don’t have thorns.”
“I don’t need thorns,” the plant sniffed, “I have teeth.”
“And what is the purpose of teeth?”
“It’s not a matter of importance,” the plant replied.
The Little Prince was confounded. For a flower, there was nothing more important than its thorns. Certainly teeth, being so rare, ranked even higher.
“My rose is not going to like this.”
The plant craned its petals to get a better look at the rose.
“She seems mean.”
“Flowers can’t be mean, they’re vulnerable. For instance, while I am talking to you, she could be eaten by a sheep.” The Little Prince wanted to look away from the new plant, but he was captivated.
“Or by me.”
The Little Prince found he had no choice. He was compromised by his affection for both of his plants. He began traveling the galaxy, bringing visitors back with him, to satiate the new plant and keep his rose safe.
Travelers beware: if you find yourself in a desert landscape and meet a child with golden hair and laughter like bells, run as fast and far as you can!
Pen of the Damned 