Damned Words 62

March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 ~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

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.

The Templar Seal
Kathleen McCluskey

The tunnel was never on any map.

Brother Matthew found it while tracing the crumbling foundations beneath the old abbey. The stone throat dropped steeply, brick lined and ancient, older than the monastery above it. The air that breathed from it was stale and cold, carrying a stench like damp earth and extinguished candles.

He descended alone.

The shaft narrowed until the world became a circle of stone, slick with moisture, pressing in close enough to scrape his shoulders. At the bottom, a crude wooden cross had been wedged into the mortar, its beams darkened with age and something soaked deep into the grain. It stood against the distant darkness like a guardian.

Not a symbol of faith. A seal.

The Knights Templar had built this abbey centuries ago, and they buried more than treasure. Matthew bent, touching the wood. It was warm.

The darkness answered.

A violent gust exploded upward, tearing at his robes as a scream ripped through the shaft. Raw. Inhuman and full of agony. The bricks trembled. Dust fell like snow. The cross burned beneath his hand.

Something struck the other side. Once. Then again.

The beams bowed inward, cracking at the edges as dark fluid seeped from the cracks. A shape pressed against the wood from below. Fingers, a distorted face, a mouth opened too wide to be anything holy.

The seal held.

Then the wind reversed, slamming into Matthew and hurling him against the wall. As he crumbled to the stone, the scream faded into a whisper that coiled through the shaft.

The seal held. It had not escaped. It had only awakened.

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

The 6,666th Circle Rotation

October 29, 2025August 30, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

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.

∼ Kathleen McCluskey

Limits

October 22, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

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.

∼ Harrison Kim

A Little Too Late

August 13, 2025August 13, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 5 Comments

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.

∼ Kathleen McCluskey

Way in the Middle of the Air

August 6, 2025July 31, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 4 Comments

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.

∼ Harrison Kim

Damned Words 61

July 23, 2025July 21, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 2 Comments

Conjuring the Moon in Scorpio
Marge Simon

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.

The Devil in the Jungle

May 28, 2025April 2, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

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.

Private Sanders knelt beside it, gagging. “Jeus Christ! … His face!”

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.

∼ Kathleen McCluskey

When Normal Becomes Real

May 21, 2025May 7, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 4 Comments

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.

∼ Harrison Kim