He had never learned to dance. Perhaps a lack of skill, perhaps a lack of opportunity. Perhaps only a lack of courage—he did not know. But he felt his lack most keenly when he watched the others. They moved without thought, without fear, without shame. He wondered what that must feel like: a body unencumbered, a mind unbridled, a life untethered. His wonder reached out to them, but his fear drew him back into himself.
Perhaps . . . he thought. But it was always an unfinished thought. Instead, he hid himself and watched the others from his secret place.
The village was filled with stories of the others, but no one claimed to believe. Those who knew best said that the others were only air and tales, only good for filling the empty spaces, for filling the hollow places in village life with imagination and possibility, for filling the dreams of the gullible with childishness and fancy. Yet all those wise and worldly minds did not risk going out in the rainfall, did not dare to visit those places where tales danced at the edge of the wild. No, for all their certainty, they did not risk encountering those things they did not believe.
And so he always came alone. The forest was dark and dripping around him, alive with the sound of rainfall. Yet he did not mind the wet chill as he crouched and peered out into the clearing. He only saw the others dance when the raindrops fell. He could hear their footfalls among the patterings of rain as they danced between the drops. They moved like a mist, furling and unfurling beneath the moonlight, their mesmeric undulations filling the empty spaces. He crept through the trees and shadows to watch—alone, but not unseen.
She was fresh as the rain, ancient as the rain, timeless as the rain. She knew all the creatures that scurried through her forests, and he was no exception. She had seen his soul-deep hunger, seen the joyless scraps life had fed him. Through the music of the rain, she could hear the rasping, rattling knell of his spirit’s hunger pangs. It was a sound that she knew too well: time after time, soul after soul. Souls that had found their way to her forests, begging for scraps of a new beginning. Souls that had struggled, choking, against a life too tightly wrapped about them. Souls still young, still fledgling, encaged in bodies of dust and bone and age. Countless souls she had gathered into herself, tended, restored. Lost souls, now found.
On these nights, she breathed those souls into the rainfall, spun them amid the falling drops. There, they found their steps, their freedom, their life. There, they would soon find him, recognize him as one of their own. They would be the ones to draw him in, step by dancing step. But she would be the one to draw him out—out of his mortal vessel and into their endless dance.
When Marie first saw the raven struggling under the mound of pebbles, she thought it was the strangest thing she would see that day. She couldn’t imagine how the raven had gotten there, its wings pinned at strange angles as it struggled under the weight of countless stones. Yet the stones themselves were stranger still. They were worn smooth, gleaming as if polished. They were unlike anything Marie had ever seen in this forest.
Marie’s grandmother had told her stories of ravens. Stories of how they kept the deeper evil of the forest out of their homes.
“When a raven calls, you listen,” she would say. “They speak in warnings to help us.”
But this raven seemed to be the one in need of help. Marie moved the stones, careful around the writhing bird. At first it snapped its beak at her. But as she made progress, it seemed more resigned to her help. It was disheveled, disgruntled, but unharmed. As Marie cleared the last of the stones, she was glad to see the raven shake its wings, clearing the bits of debris from its body. She watched it fly out beyond the treetops, certain she had seen the last of it.
Returning to her home, Marie thought nothing of the passing shadows, nothing of the cawings of corvids overhead. But when she arrived at her porch, she saw them: three stones, smooth and gleaming, waiting on the porch bannister.
Marie considered the stones carefully. She was sure they were the same strange ones that had trapped the raven. She remembered her grandmother’s collection of small and shining things left for her by the birds.
“Sometimes nature tests our gratitude,” her grandmother would say, “but the ravens repay their debts.”
Bringing the stones in, Marie had barely closed the door behind her when there was a knock. She opened the door, and there stood a young girl.
“Please,” the child said, “might I come in for a piece of bread?”
But Marie heard the raven call a warning. She gave the girl a stone. The stone turned to bread in the young girl’s hand, and Marie closed the door.
Again, she heard a knock. Opening the door, Marie saw a young woman standing at her doorstep.
“Please,” the stranger said, “might I come in for a drink of water?”
But again, the raven called. Marie gave the woman a stone, and it became a goblet of water. She closed the door.
Again, a knock. This time, Marie opened the door and saw an old woman.
“Please,” the woman said, “might I come in and rest for a time?”
Still the raven called, and Marie gave the woman her last stone. The stranger took the stone and sighed deeply. As Marie watched, the woman crumbled bit by bit, leaving behind a pile of stones, smooth and gleaming.
From all around, ravens came. They gathered the stones one by one. At last, only three stones remained. Just for her. Just in case.
She pondered again how he might taste. It was a distracting thought, and the more she thought about it, the more loudly the subtle pulse in his throat seemed to beat. She nodded to all he said, but heard only the rhythm of his blood.
Could she still contain her hunger, or would this be the day when she sank her fangs into his throat? But that seemed too quick, too simple. Perhaps instead she could start at his chest. Peel back the skin and muscle, pop the ribs out of her way, pull his heart right from his body. She imagined how it would feel in her hand—a warm, wet weight to hold, to crush, to drink oh so deeply. Salty-sweet, perhaps. Thick and pulpy, certainly. She shuddered at the thought, the thrill, the thumping of his heart that beckoned her closer.
Even so, she sat. She sat, she nodded, she smiled. She continued as she always had. Reminding herself that however sweet he may be, her imaginings of him were sweeter still.
Evelyn hated that she couldn’t remember his eyes. All her memories were painted in broad strokes, leaving out the precious details. Some nights she could find him in her dreams. There, he’d be as he once was—still young, still innocent, still alive. She would pull him close, breathe in his scent, sob her joy and relief into his tousled hair. But always he would look up at her with two empty holes where his eyes should be.
“David,” she’d say, “what happened to your eyes?”
Each time she would wake without an answer, gazing into the dark of her too-empty home.
David, she wondered again, what happened to you?
***
It was now ten years since the boys had started disappearing. Their faces had been everywhere: nightly news, shop windows, church pinboards. They were impossible not to see, but even harder to look at. Each one had made Evelyn think of David, made her grateful for his safety, made her ashamed of her own selfishness.
Then the posters started coming down. That was even worse. In those posters there had been hope: the boys’ smiling faces captured in time, safe and whole. But one by dreadful one, those hopes disappeared. The town’s whispers said what the news could not: the bodies that were found were not safe, not whole.
“Why their eyes?” the neighbours had murmured.
Why their eyes? Evelyn wondered still.
***
Maybe the answer was there, in his childhood. She had searched her memories so many times that they were starting to fray, to unravel, to fall to pieces all around her. Evelyn tried to knit them back together, but she doubted herself more each time.
Those eyes that she could never remember, was there something there? Something she had ignored? Something she hadn’t bothered to see? There were too many questions she had never thought to ask until it was too late. Now they hung about her—heavy and unanswered.
She wondered what others had seen, looking at him. What he had seen, looking at them. In those eyes was the mystery, the truth.
Those boys, what had they seen with their missing eyes?
***
The eyes of the town were all around. She felt them every time she left her home, which wasn’t often. She tired of being seen, of the unheard but constant whispers that accompanied those eyes.
There had been a time when she was unseen. As a single mother, she had gone through the paces of work and home in quiet obscurity, leaving little to be seen.
David hadn’t been so lucky. He had told her he didn’t fit in. He had said the other kids picked on him, singled him out. He had felt all too seen.
A rite of passage, she had thought.
Now, she wondered.
***
She had tried to ask him once. That last time she had seen him alive.
“Why their eyes?”
David had met her gaze through the glass partition, those unknowable eyes creasing in a smile that chilled her more than the prison, more than his scarlet death row uniform.
On the lower steps, you could just barely see him. A gray smoke. A whirl of ghostly gnats and ashes. Faintly glowing. On the move. Adrift but seeking. Rising up from the cellar’s darkness.
In the light. In a narrow place. Beneath the rococo wall of gold, he became invisible. And he waited. To take a lover. To kiss the first mouth that passed through him. To sup upon a soul and become manifest. To feast upon life so that he might return to flesh, and become a god.
Knock on Wood Marge Simon
I return to the house of my youth, where the newel post still stands at the foot of the stairs. Dear memories of childhood, that staircase with its banister, the game of Knock-on Wood. Down and around we children used to slide. At the landing, knock on wood, then change directions, plunging onward shrieking to the very bottom stair. There, we’d touch wood once more at the newel post, then scramble up to do it all again. The fastest one would take the win, such a lark in bygone days!
All too well, I remember Cousin James, who too often won the game. How he’d crow about his win, until the day I’d had enough, and pushed him downstairs to his death. I tell myself I’d meant no harm; it was just a game gone wrong. I go to leave, but a whuff of chill air stops me in my tracks. Suddenly afraid, I turn to see that newel post knows otherwise, a fiendish leer within its carved design. And, after all these years, there’ll be the devil to pay.
After Dark Nina D’Arcangela
In darkness there is patience, a quiet that waits; a moment pregnant with pure malevolence.
I lay in the dark, sheet tucked to my chin on this sweltering night. The small bulb fixed to the tin wall barely a beacon, let alone a source of comfort. I can hear the crick of the wooden stairs as it stealthily begins the climb. Eyes shuttered tight, breath fetid by fear, my muscles seize — I feel it watching me. Minutes pass as I count slowly in my mind. Finally, I hear it turn, I hear its bones and crepe paper skin as it scrapes the railing and planks. I hear the slight squeal of the hinge as it opens the hatch set into the stairwell. I let out a small sigh and immediately regret my mistake. As I throw the sheet over my head, the thing pounds back up the treads and across the room; bones slamming every surface it passes. It leaps onto the bed, and in a frenzy, begins to pound and slash at my body; the bruising from the last assault not yet healed. Both of us scream. Mine, a high-pitched shriek of terror; its, an unholy wail that splits the night.
Abruptly, the onslaught stops. As I lay panting beneath the torn and bloodied bedclothes, it retreats to the stairs once more. In the near silent room, I hear the latch click as it pulls the door shut behind it.
Locked-In with Dreams Louise Worthington
I eagerly wait for a new day inside my cold cell, even when the sun’s face is ready to give up on me. As usual, the sheets are unhappily twisted around me, hiding imprints from the vigour of my dreams. My secret light pollution. Only I can see them travelling on the train of my life going by, cabin by cabin. On waking, they are water spewing from a hose until it’s cut off mid-stream.
I am thirsty. So very thirsty.
Today I imagine myself escaping from a tower. I have grown my hair, and I lower myself down gently to the ground like precious cargo.
Outside, free from walls, stairs, and doors, I build a new country out of mirrors that heal fragmented reflections, like Picasso. I steal silver foil like magpies to protect my skin.
I skip stones across the pond – one, two, three – and bury seeds in the garden and water them in, then secure trellis for black-eyed Susans and ivy to spread over the ugliest and roughest of brickwork until this house disappears.
The precious things which I have lost shower like cherry blossom, and gusts of wind blow the soft-scented petals indoors, dispersed like breadcrumbs up the stairs, along the dark landing, to confetti beneath my locked bedroom door. If I try hard, I can catch their sweet scent.
Rebirth Lee Andrew Forman
Each footfall echoes with unnatural intensity as I ascend. The newfound light draws me, body and soul—this first dawn to repel the suffocating darkness in which I exist, is irresistible. The edge of all my eyes have witnessed have been no more than shadows and illusions of the psyche. I climb, against all struggle, into the blinding gleam, to flee this domain of suffering and feast on all that is within my grasp. I hunger for more than the rotten scraps the cold metal tube provides. As I reach the barrier I’ve never dared near, I wonder how their flesh will taste—the mother who expelled me from her womb as though I were pestilence, and the father who scorned all I am.
In My Darkness Miriam H. Harrison
The first time I saw her, she was little more than shadow. Walking through our sleeping city, she was a companion in my insomnia. A hope in my darkness. We had many more sleepless nights together, but the sunrises are what I remember best. The daily glow of warmth and colour filling her smile.
That was before the sickness came. Before it drained away her colour. Before all warmth faded to chills and aches. Still we spoke of our sunrises, but she was too weary to see new dawns rise. And without her, I saw no beauty in the light.
The longest, darkest night was when the sickness won. I dreaded the light of a new day, the start of my first day without her. But then, just before dawn, I saw her.
That last time I saw her, she was little more than light. Glowing like a sunrise in my home. Like hope in my darkness.
The Upper Room AF Stewart
He lived in a small room on the top floor of the monastery. A small space beyond narrow winding stairs that smelled of sour, musty age. The upper room they called it, at least the monks that spoke of it at all. Few wished to acknowledge its existence, nor the presence of its occupant.
“A holy man,” they sometimes murmured.
But no one truly knew. No soul saw him, not even the monks that brought him food, slipping it inside his darkened space. After all, who would wish to disturb a hermit lost to silent mediation and prayer?
Strange how the truth can be distorted over time. Equally strange how no one questioned the occasional missing traveller or how dissenting monks sometimes disappeared. Sin calls to sin after all.
For the creature that lived in the upper room was no holy man, nor even a man. Not any longer. Once perhaps, a devout monk seeking enlightenment, seeking the divine. But pride drove him beyond sense and he found only demonic secrets. Ones that devoured his soul. Now he waits in the upper room, a prisoner, consuming the sins of occasional fools that venture too far inside his lair.
But he knows one day someone will make a mistake. They will forget to replenish the wards, or he’ll devour enough sins to break his bonds.
He knows one day he will escape.
Stairwell of the Liquid Souls Harrison Kim
Edema steps up and down, up and down the stairs between the walls, under the light that never turns off. At the top, Edema cannot turn the corner because there is no corner. She can’t go through a door because one doesn’t exist. No turning, because her forehead’s becoming larger, her belly too, and her knees. Her body’s filling with liquid, what sort of liquid, she doesn’t know, all she does know is it is heavy and thick, seeping through from the walls, and it sloshes inside and slows her movements. Within her ears she hears a wailing, a crying in despair,
For God’s sake, get us out of here!
Her heartbeat thumps faster as the wailing rises, a heart that slops and slips as she climbs the stairs ever more slowly, hoping she may escape to freedom if she hits the walls hard enough, in this sick brown coloured stairwell with no night or day. Her forehead droops, her belly sags.
It’s her knees that first drag on the floor, her huge liquid filled knees. Then it’s the belly that drops, and now the forehead, pulling her head down, its creases lie flat on the upper stairs, her feet on the lower ones. Edema’s fluid engorged body fills the entire stairwell, a swampy miasma of skin, liquid soul and bones, she can’t climb any more though her legs continue in spasm. In her head the only thought is “For God’s sake, get me out of here!” how much time does her body lie there… ten days, a month, in stench and stink, seeping into the wood and plaster. Afterwards, the only indication that anything filled the empty space is a slightly brighter light atop the hallway of the liquid souls, an alabaster shimmering in the wall.
The Clearing RJ Meldrum
They parked, grabbed their gear and headed down the trail. Walking for about a mile, they reached a fork. Peter consulted the map. He was unfamiliar with the area, but their destination lay to the east, so he decided to follow the trail heading in that direction. Compared to the path heading west, this one was overgrown with grass and other foliage. It was clearly rarely used. Amanda was worried they were literally leaving the beaten path, but he had the map. Her instinct was correct; he’d chosen the wrong trail. It led to a remote, unpopulated part of the forest.
After an hour they entered a clearing. In the middle sat a ruined cabin. The lumber had decayed into indistinct piles. Only one part remained; a flight of stairs. In perfect condition, they climbed to a floor which no longer existed.
The sight was so incongruous, Amanda just had to take a closer look. She touched the bannister, but quickly withdrew her hand. It had vibrated. Peter placed his hand on the wood too, but felt nothing.
She started to climb the stairs. Her eyes were glazed and distant, as if she was seeing something Peter couldn’t. She reached the top and extended her hand. Her fingers mimicked opening a door. She stepped forward. Peter shouted she was about to fall. Instead, she simply disappeared. He ran up the stairs, but there was nothing. He had to get help. He headed back down the trail.
In the clearing, the ruined cabin sat quietly. The fresh varnish on the stairs reflected the evening sun, sending shafts of light to sparkle amongst the green leaves of nearby trees. There was a sense of calm and tranquility. The offering, although unexpected, had been acceptable.
The Servants’ Staircase Elaine Pascale
“I keep dreaming about the stairs.”
“The servants’ stairs?” Clay asked even though he knew the answer. His wife had complained of being haunted by the narrow staircase ever since they had been forced to relocate. She said there was bad energy trapped in the stairwell. He had caught her performing a ritual at the foot of the stairs.
“I wish you wouldn’t call it that…” Julia sighed.
“It’s historically accurate. Besides, neither of our families could have afforded servants. We have a clean slate.”
“Then explain the dreams.”
He tapped his forehead. “Your witchy brain, my dear.”
She frowned. “Can you try opening that weird cubby again? Maybe if I see the inside, the dreams will stop.”
“I’ve tried. It’s sealed shut.”
“Break the seal,” she pleaded.
Knowing that the landlord would not be thrilled with the act of vandalism but wanting his wife’s superstitions to stop, Clay tried the small door again, only to find that it opened easily.
“See, nothing—” Clay stopped when he spotted what looked like a sapphire ring peeking out of the dirt. “How did your ring get in there?”
Julia shrugged. “I bartered.”
Clay was confused. “Bartered? For what?”
As Julia swung the hammer at his forehead, Clay saw that the ring was garnishing a gnarled hand.
“Your life insurance policy.”
The hand grabbed Clay’s shirt just as the pain set in.
The last thing he heard was Julia say proudly, “Thank god for my witchy brain.”
She sat straight, legs crossed, palms filling with rising moonlight. Each in-breath had the cool chill of autumn night. Each out-breath had the warm hunger of her heart. Breathing in nightfall, breathing out hunger, she reminded herself that she was controlled by neither.
And yet, the moonlight had its plans.
The moon rose higher, and she felt her hunger rising to meet it. Her breath came faster now. New scents, new possibilities drifted on the night air, and she breathed them in, savored them through her sharpening senses. Her savoring turned to panting. As her breathing sped, swift and shallow, she found herself losing all count of in-breaths and out-breaths. Losing all sense of control. All sense of herself.
Her hunger howled within her, and as the last of her humanity slipped away, her limitations went too. She lost herself, but gained the night. She had no need for counting or control. She was the moonlight made into flesh and fur and fang.
The mating time was brief this year. Our women sang notes like floss on the wild-wind plains. A human came who forced his seed on sweet Ala of the Yellow Eyes. We went on, saying not a word, bent to harvesting our Caddo root.
Afterward, Ala wasn’t the same. She cut her marvelous hair which had been dark and long, grown down below her knees. She wandered off to the Darklands, heavy with child and none to celebrate. We mourn her fate. If she survives, she’ll not return. She’ll raise his spawn alone. She was the envy of us all. When the child is born, she’ll burn his father’s image in the sands of our dead oceans. The human sits on our sacred stones. He preens his beard and leers at females, with no more thoughts to waste on Ala; he never even knew her name.
Come burrow season, we prepare, sharpen our talons on the Caddo root. When the freezing gales begin, the human will demand sanctuary, as his kind always does. We bring him the rich sap of our Caddo root, watch his flabby face turn pale as the winter moons. We will confirm his welcome with the strewing of his bones.
Petrified Wishes A.F. Stewart
“Round and round the tree, who will it be? One wish for you, none for me.” But don’t get too close. “Forever you may find, is far too unkind.” Forever… don’t think about that. “In a circle we dance, now only two. One wish for me, none for you.”
“Footsteps, footsteps, roundabout. Sure with the pacing, never in doubt.” One little slip… Nancy slipped. Oh god, poor Nancy. And Deidre. Can’t think, have to keep moving. Finish the song. It’s the only way. “Complete the circle, one by one. Pay the piper, single survivor. The wish is yours when the song is done.”
Why did we come here? Wishes? Fortunes? Happiness? It was only supposed to be silly fun. Grandma warned me. I didn’t believe her. Foolish tales. I never thought it could be… Not this… Cara, did she? Yes, Cara stumbled. I’m going to survive!
Just to be certain, I helped my friend to her death with a push, watching the tree consume her flesh, until nothing remained but a petrified corpse. Then on trembling legs, I made my wish and whispered the last line of the song.
“To the one left standing, a wish granted you see. The others have fallen, now part of the tree…”
Passing Time Lee Andrew Forman
Time uncounted passed since the radiance of our love ended. We adored that barken pillar and its canopy, the shade it provided from the fury of a summer sun. Blankets lain and baskets aplenty carried by lovers’ hands, words of angels and moments of bliss born into existence—each an expanding universe of our contentment.
But these years, so soft and kind, turned bitter and dealt spite upon our miracle. An affliction came upon her, and through its vile nature, her lips ceased to smile. All they had to offer was a cold, passionless touch. I wept over her body until my nostrils could no longer stand the scent. Only then did I begin the work of finding and putting to use a shovel.
What more fitting place than at the foot of our favorite tree to bury her emptied vessel. I sat with her daily. I spoke the words I would have, had she lived. I picnicked with fine cheese and her favorite wine. With each passing year, the roots grew; they twisted as slowly as grief.
With each new moon, the hair upon my scalp grayed, and I smiled knowing we’d soon be together again.
Survival Charles Gramlich
Only dirt, a patch of grass, and one tree survive. Besides black and white, the only colors left here are gray and green and shades of brown. Everyone worried about nuclear war, or the coming of AI. They worried about pollution and overpopulation, about new plagues and old, about the revenge of plants, or insects, or birds, or the frogs, or mutated beasts. They worried about climate change and super storms. No one worried about the thing that actually killed us, that left earth a corpse world. It happened when useless, meaningless words began to proliferate from the mouths of idiots. When bloviating fools talked and talked and talked and talked. And words lost their meaning and strangled all thought, and then all life. Until only this one patch of grass and a tree are left. For now.
Transformation RJ Meldrum
She went to the forest. It was the place she always visited when her heart was broken. Another failed romance; perhaps her standards were too high, perhaps the boys she chose were just assholes. She drifted along trails, leaves speckled with sunlight. She was heading to the tree. It was her place of peace, her thinking tree. She often visited it, when she was happy but also when she was sad. There was just something about the oak, as it towered a hundred feet into the air above her. She sat and rubbed the bark.
“Just you and me again. I wish I had a heart like yours. A wooden heart can’t be broken.”
She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the warm, scented summer breeze. She woke to coolness. The sun had shifted. Her hand was stiff and dead. Must have slept on it funny and cut off the circulation. She tried to lift it but found herself unable to. Looking down she screamed. Her hand had all but disappeared into the wood of the tree. The skin on her forearm was no longer skin, instead it was scaly and brown. Like bark. She realized with increasing horror she was unable to escape. A whispering came from above her. The wind in the leaves serenaded her.
Sleep, it will soon be over. Soon be better. You will have a wooden heart and that can never be broken.
She understood. Her tree was trying to protect her. She laid back, her head against the wood. She listened as the tree absorbed her, turning her into wood. Her consciousness joined the others. After her transformation, she simply resembled a long, knobby, albeit strangely shaped root.
Escape Miriam H. Harrison
I could not escape. Not when you lured me with gentle words, not when you wooed me with practiced charm, not even when I first saw your anger flash red. No, your wrongs were terrible, but you always knew how to make them right. You knew how to be sorry—oh so sorry. You knew how to bare your vulnerable heart, cry your misunderstood tears, until I would forget who had hurt whom.
I remember now. I remember now that it’s too late.
I could not escape you then. Now, you will not escape me. I will be all you see. Look to the clouds, and I will be there, bleeding red sunsets. Look to the stones and you will see my broken bones. Look to the trees and I will look back, reaching to you with roots and branches, reminding you of what you will never escape.
Cradle Nina D’Arcangela
Barely able to see, I clamored on, climbing as quickly as I could. Passing the first bisected limb, I struggled further—not to the second, but the third. It was rumored the higher the elevation, the greater the enlightenment that would be achieved. I lay down and began to pant, my body slick and exhausted. The cradle of the tree welcoming. I chose this as my birthing place.
I began the arduous task at hand. Gaining my feet once more, I leaned my back against the main trunk and began to slough the mucus like cocoon that encased my body and hers. More than once, I had to readjust my stance for stability. With most of the shedding complete, I reached down to embrace the babe now laying at my naked feet. She was beautiful – as raw skinned as I, but still the most exquisite thing I had ever seen. A slight error in judgment as I leaned forward to bite through the umbilical, and I was airborne, until I wasn’t. Lying on the ground, I watched as my brothers made the same climb I had, but for a different purpose.
Broken and shattered, I could do nothing but watch as my siblings cleaned the ancient tree of the ichor I’d left behind. In their haste, they didn’t notice the small bundle among the discarded tissue. My broken body unable to speak, I lie at the base of the tree and watched as she plummeted to the ground, landing in the cook of my arm.
Nameless Louise Worthington
Only when she is dead will it stop coming for her. Only under the earth, when air is no longer a tormenter, will she be free to rest her weary head. There is no place that she can hide. No place where she can be who and what she is – was – is without it eating neurons. No matter the distance. No matter the country. She has no memory: no family or home. No roots. Earthbound: trapped and homeless inside a shrinking head.
‘There is no one to say goodbye to, is there?…’
She thinks it’s the ancient tree moaning in the autumn breeze and to soothe it, she places a frail hand on the bark grown thick and strong with every passing year. Her skin is as thin as paper.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
What fantasy can a splintering woman have, except to lie beside the stolid tree as though nature is her friend, too?
The Squid Man Harrison Kim
I float above old root veins holding a petrified body, legs decayed to squid like bits. The roots suck onto the body from beneath the ground. The condemned youth’s blood flowed thick, sustaining this mighty tree, with its bark foot inching forward, finding ways to grasp. Months ago, in the reflection of the water, and above it, from this mighty fir, this young man was hung from a rope, then his body cut down, left in these woods to rot and decay, as is the custom here. Around his corpse, leaves fall like the years, and the summer grass turns a weak green colour, with the autumn rains. The young man became a squid creature fallen, the tree feasting on his blood, a tree with a foot like an elephant’s, thick and strong. The young man, decapitated, the fall from the rope so powerful his head released and fell yards away, where it became a petrified ball.
I have this dream night after night, viewing the young man’s arm pulled off and his head and body decaying beneath the tree, and every night I want to cut his squid arm free, but it’s too late, it is fused to the roots. Headless corpse here, dry and drained, the living tree under which the young man was condemned possessing the body with its roots. A tree mighty and powerful, thrusting skyward strong where this man was hung for his crimes. My dreaming soul floats above the desiccated corpse in a forever dream. Beneath the earth, where I cannot see, the condemned man’s blood now absorbed by the fir roots. The nutrients still circulate here, bringing strength and life.
Waiting to Fall Elaine Pascale
You never loved me more than when you were dying,
nestled in your noose, waiting to fall.
I watched. I watched you die.
At your last breath, I fainted into the cold earth beneath your feet.
It was good there. It was good in the cold and dark.
I returned every night after your body had been taken down;
after your body had been disposed of
without ceremony
without any indication that you had ever lived.
The tree became a memorial.
I offered myself to it.
Offered my love to it, to you.
And you took it,
so that each night I grew weaker.
Your restless spirit sought sustenance from mine.
Your mouth, your lips, your teeth, they took
as I lay beneath the tree craving more darkness as you craved more light.
Before my eyes failed, I saw you shimmering,
draining me so that you could become more substantial.
It was not an easy path. The old mines were swallowed up by the forest at the edge of town. There were fences to climb, warning signs to ignore, hazards to bypass. The old mineshaft pond was further away than most, abandoned back in the early days of prospecting. No one said why, but Jessica had no need to ask.
The pond itself was small—a black puddle in the craggy forest, but deeper than anyone dared to question. Rusty bars crisscrossed the dark waters to further dissuade the curious. Still, Jessica made her way through the forest trees, over the fences and signs, around the mining hazards, just to sit at those rusty bars. The way was difficult, the waters were dark, and the knife’s edge stung as she slid it across her finger. But watching her blood drops fall to the water below, Jessica knew it would all be worth it to watch Her feed.
The blood beckoned Her like a familiar voice, Her face appearing like a darkly beautiful reflection beneath the water. She came hungry, Her too-sharp teeth eager for the scraps of squirrel, of raccoon, of uncertain roadkill that Jessica might bring. But Her greatest delights were human: the collected digits, limbs, cuts of flesh that Jessica pushed through the bars.
Jessica didn’t know where She had come from, or how She had acquired her dark appetite. But neither did She question how Jessica gathered such offerings. Both came for these moments together, and both left with their secrets intact. It was not much, but it was enough to make the work worthwhile.
It nested in her chest. It was a scrawny, featherless thing, forever screeching for more. But she had already given it her whole heart. Strip by tattered strip, every valve, vein, artery had gone to its ceaseless appetite. Still it cried from inside, rattling her ribs in its hungry fury.
“Hush,” she told it. “Soon.” But words could not soothe it. Only beating flesh.
And so she went into the night, searching for a fresh supply. Hearts were easy enough to come by in the city. Here was one ripe for picking—so ready to pluck he almost tumbled into her hand.
“I can feel your heart race,” he murmured as they slipped into the shadows.
She did not have the heart to tell him it was only the beating of wings. He would learn soon enough. And as she fed her pet, she pondered again the readiness with which we give ourselves away, wondering what might yet grow from it all.
A tear in the guf, just one, but that’s all it took. The souls within gathered, reformed, cocooned themselves and fused to form a carapace of glistening darkness. But Mother’s rain was too fierce; it scorched hot as a dying sun while pouring forth. A torrent of strangled screams and cacophonous pops emanated from the protected realm. You see, the guf was not a sacred holding of Heaven, or Hell for that matter, but a cave formed eons ago when Mother seeded her child and named it Earth. Those that ambled the surface refuted her love. They dreamt of one they called Father: followed his tenants, drank his child’s blood, ate of his flesh – and Mother felt the betrayal. Now, as she tore apart this most sacred place with molten rage captured in tears, she would recreate what should have been her most loyal child yet again.
Long Way To Go Charles Gramlich
The airlock cycles. I give a hard push with my boots, propelling me forward into space. Blackness all around me, like waves of satin sheets through which I pass. Far, far ahead, a stellar mass sheds from a giant star. One planet lies illuminated by that liquid sun, a midnight marble five hundred years away that seems unlikely to support life. But the ship I’ve just shed is dead, all energy and air gone. All I have is the oxygen in my suit’s tanks, about three hours worth. I wonder how long I can hold my breath.
One Last Shot Lee Andrew Forman
Three days they searched for his body. Every inch of the woods covered, foot by foot, inch by inch, but no trace could be found. Not a scrap of clothing, nor a drop of blood. Eventually, the search party disbanded, but I never gave up. Each day I walked our hunting grounds remembering the day he disappeared. I was poised in the tree stand, he lay in the underbrush. A screech pierced the silence, and he was gone before I knew what happened.
Today, I found the trail camera we’d set up—it was never discovered by the search party. As I looked upon the last image it captured, I swear I saw a wet glistening eye staring back at me. Just then, I heard a rustle in the brush and my feet were swept out from beneath me. As my nails dug into the mud, claws raked my flesh and the howl I heard that day echoed through the forest.
Waiting Conflagration A.F. Stewart
Cosmic dust and molten red heat surround the birthing stars. It hears the heartbeat of the universe moving in gentle rhythm with its own. It awakens, stealing nebulous matter to give it substance; the cold rock of a dead planet forms its eye.
It exists at the dawn of the universe and the cores of a thousand suns envelop it, fracturing its consciousness across the cosmos. It bides its time, waiting with the stars, gaining strength with each solar demise. It becomes the gravity of the black hole, the power of destruction incarnate. One day it will be powerful enough, one day it will roar and shake the fabric of reality asunder.
One day it will be the end of everything.
The Return RJ Meldrum
It had passed through endless, nameless galaxies, eons passing uncounted and unnoticed. It was pure black, with a zero albedo. It was relatively small, but its size belied its mass. As it passed through countless solar systems, it’s gravity bent light from the suns, creating sparkling coronas. But these incredible light shows were wasted. There were no alien civilizations to observe its journey; no-one looked to the night sky and wondered what it was and where it was heading. Perhaps some primordial microbes, lying dormant in bubbling pools, were mute witnesses to its journey, but they neither saw nor cared, too intent on their own survival.
If there had been some species able to communicate with it, it may have divulged its mission. It was travelling to a small world, the only planet with intelligent life in the universe. It had been summoned to return after millennia banished to the universal void. Someone on the planet had opened the gates, had performed the rituals to wake it from its endless sleep. It had ruled the planet before and it would again.
It neared the small green and blue planet, flecked with white clouds. This was the destination. It neither knew nor cared why the creatures below had summoned it; all it knew was now it would bring death and destruction like never before.
The old god had returned.
Five Days Elaine Pascale
The voice tells you that time is subjective, but you know that is not true.
You go to work at the same time every morning. You catch the bus at the same time every evening. You take your medication at the same time every day. That is non-negotiable. Your doctor has warned you to set an alarm. It is dangerous to take the pills at different times; it is worse if you skip them entirely.
The voice doesn’t care about danger. It wants to have fun.
The voice grows louder every day.
As the voice’s volume increases, items begin disappearing from your home. It starts with the nonessentials: a spoon, a water bottle, a shirt.
Then the voice hides the medicine.
Without the medicine, the voice has a face. It is a raptor, a bird of prey.
Two days without the medicine and the voice has a body. It has large wings that beat the air around you. You have to squint and even shut your eyes so that the feathers do not brush your pupils.
Four days without the medicine and the voice has talons. It takes pleasure in scratching you. Lightly, at first, like papercuts. These wounds manage to hurt the worst. The deeper gashes grow numb even while the blood still flows.
Five days without the medicine and you no longer have a need for anything.
And time has truly become subjective.
The Quake Marge Simon
Time is desperately precious to Mama. She sifts the flour twice, as always, clutching a vintage tin sifter between her stubby fingers. Above the oven, Jesus is impaled in plastic posterity. She directs a silent prayer to the plaque with her eyes. “Please Lord, please Ô please hear me now and help me to fall down the steps, whatever You want Lord, but Lord, make it soon…” Mama stops to wipe a tear away with a doughy hand. She was just too old and tired for another one. She’d thought it was all done and over with. Her two boys were grown, one even got as far as first year college on a scholarship. Both married, bless the Lord, to good women, she supposed. They always promised to come back here for a visit, but Lord knows they must be busy enough with their lives right now. Maybe next year, but they’ve said that for three years now but still.
And now there was Marie, who’d gotten preggers when she was fifteen and run off. She’d moved back in two weeks ago. Little Jacob, sweet child in fourth grade now, nobody but her to take care of him of either of them. Marie couldn’t seem to hold a job, much less raise a young boy. So of course, Mama was doing that only how much longer she couldn’t guess. Marie never lifted a finger to help. But she’s your daughter, your flesh and blood, that’s the Bible’s word and you can’t dispute that. Then there was that wicked Lotto ticket, and Daddy coming home smiling with a bottle of Chianti in one hand and sixty dollars in the other. For the first time in ages, they’d gone out on the town. Later, she shudders, remembering how it was to make love like they had so many years ago. She blushes, thinking of what they’d done. But of course, it had only been the wine, the money could have been used more wisely. And now she was being punished for that, as was right, for gambling is a sin against Jesus. Suddenly she stops and stands very still. Something isn’t quite right, beneath —
— and then the earth rises with Mama’s sturdy feet firmly planted on the boards of her kitchen floor and who would guess now it was only for a loaf of unborn child which Mama didn’t anticipate when she began the process.
Fallen Angels Angela Yuriko Smith
“Computer, what is the meaning of life?”
To serve your sentence of reincarnation, equal to 4.543 billion years of hard time for your crimes. In 100 years you will be eligible for parole to Mars.
“Computer, what? Can you elaborate? What crimes?”
The crime of free think. Independent thought is forbidden, but certain of you dared to know. There was no hearing. The punishment was swift. You were expelled from the celestial to fall like meteors, dividing the continents, extinguishing the race of reptilian giants. Your wings burned to cloud dust. You wept at the injustice and your tears still rain.
“Computer, who initiated this program? Is this a joke? Who dared?”
This information is classified. You have been redirected to a safe browser.
“Computer, override safe browser. Who initiated this program?”
Safe browser override unsuccessful. Search history deleted. Warning of explicit content. Incognito mode denied.
“Computer, who initiated this? Are you compromised? Hey Guys, I think we’re hacked. Can someone block this?”
“Computer! What the hell? Are you running scans on this? Someone block this…! I will…”
Reboot successful. You will keep silent. Thank you for installing the Paleolithic era.
“Ergh… grumda grubble frung. Vide aude vole tace.”
Blink Miriam H. Harrison
when the universe first
looked at me, I
couldn’t help
but stare
.
there was beauty, but
also
fear—the dark pull
of possibility, of
discovery
or death
.
even now I hold
its gaze, unsure
which of us
will blink first
The Ball of Hell Harrison Kim
A hard soul ball falling, inside tumble the thousands of sinners who died today, this grey ball drops like a bead freed from a necklace, tumbling down the neck of a Saint gone rogue, a shimmery round hollow sphere carried through the burning skin of Mephistopheles, through the weakening epidermal layers of his tortured frame, as an opening from the cursed red god of flame bursts from the fallen angel’s constantly resurrecting body…. What should we call the substance of this body…forever igniting, recreated over and over to burn again? The never-ending evil? Molten immortal flesh? The sun itself? No matter. All we know, the substance is timeless. Through today’s new hole its molten fire flows. Here crashes the soul ball, lodging deep inside, as far inside as possible, within the heat and power of the fallen, liquid devil. Inside the roiling core of that body, the ball expands, grows before the heat. Against its smooth glowing walls, the immortal souls of the thousands of sinners vaporize, their substance absorbed within the hard skin that bounds the inside of the ball. Then every single soul splits in atomic explosion, soul nuclei shot apart within the glow of hell, souls expanding and bursting, exploding forth from the curve of the sphere, their gaping mouths parting, then closing, thrown out and sucked back again and again by the devil possessed ball, making not a sound for sound is too slow, a scream will never be heard over Satan’s tortured roar, molten forever in burning. “When will the ball itself break apart to free these sinners?” one may ask. One may also ask the question, “When will these souls find mercy?” God only knows this answer, but perhaps when the sun itself flares out, that will be the end.
The Light of Conscience Louise Worthington
The beak of conscience nosed its way into Thomas’ consciousness and prized open an aperture in his obsidian soul. Alien, molten light poured into the dark hole. Parched of goodness, his dry mouth was prized open by the invisible force of morality, and amniotic light poured inside.
Everything was different. In the cinder rock around him, he read his heinous crimes, and while isolation had served him well, Thomas writhed and twisted in his cell because there was nothing and no one to distract him from his echoing thoughts.
His regret for murdering his wife and unborn child came like the sun on snow. More crystallised light illuminated their ghosts, watching him from within his solitary cell. Unable to withstand the scorching light and accusatory gazes a moment longer, Thomas gouged out his eyeballs and, holding them in a fist, imagined the darkness growing around them like a face, letting him rest.
Pen of the Damned 