The Unshriven

November 12, 2025October 22, 2025 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 6 Comments

They come through the tunnels of Hell into the sunlight, wearing rusted armor astride horses of gore. Ancient swords hang at rotted hips and over decaying shoulders. Some carry morning stars, or battle axes upon which the blood of old wars has dried so hard it has bonded to the steel.

In dark madness they come, up fiery slopes of magma toward the snow-capped mountains of heaven. But the holy gates are shut against them and only earth is left to abide their time.

Unshriven. Unforgiven. No Heaven or Hell will have them.

Fortunately, they find that humans are both filling and taste great.

∼ Charles Gramlich

The Stray

November 5, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 3 Comments

The scent of rot permeated the air; I knew I was close. I could almost taste the stench. I took each step with care—silence was essential. My eyes searched the darkness between the trees, looked for any sign of its bodily form. I tried to keep my imaginings to nil, as I didn’t want to spoil my initial reaction when my eyes finally witnessed its flesh. I wanted to see the dream for what it was, not for what it could be.

Movement in the brush ahead halted my breath. I listened to the silence that followed with fierce intent. The musky air thickened. But I heard no steps approach.

My heart pounded with a concoction of fear and excitement. I’d been hunting this legend since I was a boy. Those tales told around a fire, or with a few drinks—they stuck with me. They unraveled my focus on all other things. This was what I lived for. To find out what it really was.

Local lore said it might have once been human, an orphan raised by the wilderness. Others said it might be nature herself, risen from the earth to take vengeance upon anyone it could. No matter its origin, the stories said it traveled on all fours, and its nature was vicious and feral. If you think it’s close, it’s already too late. That’s how the stories always ended.

A release of breath shattered the silent night. It was hot against the back of my neck. I slowly turned to see what I yearned so badly for. My eyes went wide and took in all the moonlight had to offer. She towered above me, bare-breasted and malformed beyond description—an amalgam of evolutionary paths borrowed from a dozen species. But aside from her eyes and nose, her face was close to human.

She stared down at me as she reared up on her hind legs and let out an animalistic vocalization of aggression. I put my palms up and backed away a step to show I wasn’t a threat. She returned to four legs on the ground, her face now level with mine.

She approached, seemingly curious, and sniffed about my shirt collar. Her smell was so awful I could barely breathe. But I was content in that moment. I finally found what I was looking for. A smile spread across my lips as she ran her tongue along my neck.

Then the pain of her teeth sunk in. I heard the rending of my flesh in her mouth as it was torn from my neck. Agony, shock, disbelief, all surged through me in crashing waves. Her front leg pinned me to the ground. My ribs audibly broke beneath the weight.

Gasping for breath and drowning in my own blood, I struggled to gaze upon her one last time before she feasted on my body.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

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

No Madonna

October 15, 2025August 27, 2025 ~ Marge Simon ~ 4 Comments

At sunset she serves herself with a candle on an oaken tray, a glass of wine, a plate of fruit. As she eats, she flips through an album. It contains her trials, loves and tribulations in photographs. There is the damask tablecloth from Surrey, embroidered towels, silver spoons; that certain green silk dress, a size too small she wore for King Henry ll’s ball … Melmac dishes from the sixties, the kind a gypsy could afford, they never broke when thrown … the dark-haired boy with smoky eyes, (she made him happy for a time, until her needs got in the way) … a shredded ticket to Belize with Sven, who never understood a word but never did that matter, at the time. One last sleigh ride in snowy Switzerland. Green yarn from a knitted hat. That sad faced man with the cowboy hat, and the older gentleman, the one she wed, both cattlemen and rich, back in the day. A columbine, pressed in wax paper. The lady smiles, having rekindled memories of her many passions. She blots her lips, wipes her fangs with a clean blue napkin.

∼ Marge Simon

Let It In

October 1, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ afstewart ~ 7 Comments

Awake in my bed, I embrace the oppression of the silence, that moment, not at midnight, but before dawn when the night struggles to remain. It presses against your skin, tangibly scratching at the surface of my being. A smell engulfs me, not the stench of old houses, moldy, stale, but the bitter, smoky scent of lightning in summer.
I wait for it, an unearthly presence constraining at the edges of nothing, an impervious void lingering behind the smell. It murmurs cryptic words, weaves unfathomable visions, its existence liberating fear and solace, like the icy touch of death for a terminal patient.
Sometimes I fight against it; more often I concede, accepting its supremacy over my mind. I squirm as it wiggles inside my brain, excising parts of my existence with surgical precision. Yet, I feel free afterward, and my burdens of conscience, of benevolence, vanish.
With the light of day I function as I was, but I am changed.
Hour by hour, day by day, I become…detached.

Yesterday, my perception altered.
It granted me the gift to discern its reality.
It is here.
My home is its conduit.
Slime oozes through the wall cracks, past the floorboards, thick black goop painting my house in shades of the void. A physical manifestation of my entity, cold to the touch, and pulsing with a rhythmic heartbeat. It is my connection, my lifeline. Alive, subsuming, struggling to enter our world.
In response to the cadence, my blood roars, energy surging deep inside my veins, my thoughts explode in a kaleidoscope of radiance and colour, while a lullaby of starfire sings in my ears. And still no outward sign. I still smile and serve breakfast to my oblivious family.
They used to be my world. A husband and two children.
No longer.
I feel nothing…not as they die, not as I feed their blood and meat to the slime.
Not as I watch the black ooze grow, invading, slithering inside this empty house.
Not as it embraces me, unravels my flesh and drinks my blood.
I welcome the pain, the promise.
We will be reborn as one.

~ A. F. Stewart

Natural Inhumation

September 24, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 4 Comments

The rolling landscape extended beyond sight in all directions. The emptiness engulfed me in insignificance. This dead world I found myself on was as lonely as I. The howl of the constant wind was my only companion, and this planet was accompanied by a dying star that would one day stop sharing its warmth.

Tumultuous rumbles shook the ground. My compass pinned it south, so I headed north, away from whatever force caused the terrifying shakes. My footprints were swiftly erased by the constant gusts of sandy air. I mentally weighed how I might find my way back to the ship if I went too far, but disregarded those thoughts when I remembered there would be no reason to go back. It was irreparably damaged. I was stranded with no hope of rescue.

I knew this place was where my journey ended. Somewhere on this barren world my corpse would lay with no one to bury it. The distress call would eventually reach home, but by the time it did, it wouldn’t matter—the flesh will have rotted from my bones.

I almost wished for a crack in my visor, a tear in my suit, then at least the scythe would greet me with haste. But I had plenty of oxygen, I’d waste away before I suffocated.

I looked behind me every time the ground quaked. Despite my walking in the opposite direction, the vibration grew stronger. I could feel a violent power in the distance, something I didn’t want to be near. I supposed it didn’t matter, I’d meet my end here one way or another. But fear is the great motivator, it pushes one to survive even when there is no hope to be had. So I walked on.

Soon, daylight receded and the vast abyss of unreachable stars yawned above. I’d never felt so desolate and alone, never so meaningless and fleeting. Madness crept into my skull and began wrapping its fingers around my fading mind. Logic and training would soon fail me, I’d watch them fall with relief. They served me no more, not in this cursed place.

The next quake hit with ferocious tremors, its origin no longer beyond sight. The ground opened in front of me, sand poured in as the hole grew larger. Terror struck and slunk behind by back like the coward I was, fear wouldn’t even allow me to run.

As the sand began to move beneath my feet, I welcomed the swifter ending it would bring. This world would consume me. At least my miserable corpse would be buried after all.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

The Call of Possibility

September 17, 2025September 13, 2025 ~ Miriam H. Harrison ~ 4 Comments

She had heard it at the strangest times. When she was young, she had heard it one day while digging beneath the playground slide. It was there, in the cool darkness of the sand, deeper than her plastic shovel could go. Almost a song, more of a whisper. She never could dig deep enough to find it. Then, when she was older, she heard it again in the empty hallways of her high school. An uncanny sound, eerie and beckoning. Somewhere just around another corner, always in a deeper shadow than she could reach. There were other times, too. Times when possibilities stretched beyond her knowing. And those possibilities would sing, whisper, beckon.

Yet she had almost forgotten its call. In the years since, amid the certainty and structure of adulthood, there were few softly singing possibilities. But now, again, she heard it. Despite the beeping of machines, the droning of equipment, it was there. Echoing along the hospital corridors, singing from the labyrinth of passages. It beckoned, and though she could not lift herself from her bed, she could feel herself drawn to it. She could hear it becoming clearer. Drawing nearer. Closing her eyes, she gave way to the call of possibility.

∼ Miriam H. Harrison

A Lovely Day

September 10, 2025August 30, 2025 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 7 Comments

We gazed out from the promenade towards the sea. The tide was in and the sun glittered off the small waves heading towards shore. Despite the weather, the town was nearly empty. We’d snagged an ice cream from a harassed vendor who was on the verge of closing up. We wandered down to the sea front clutching our cones.

“Your ice cream is melting,” I said.

Lucy licked her fingers. Behind us a car roared away, its tires squealing. Maybe it was the ice cream vendor, there weren’t many folk left.

“What a waste of time.”

We watched the sea. I checked my watch. It was nearly time. I took Lucy’s hand.

“It’s been a lovely day.”

“It has.”

Above, the sky was ripped open and a fiery streak blazed overhead. It was predicted the asteroid would land somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. And then, that would be that.

“Yes, what a lovely day.”

∼ RJ Meldrum

Reindeer Antlers

September 3, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 5 Comments

“Myrna, wait!”

The old woman heard a familiar voice behind her, yet she continued to weave her way through the crowded parking lot to her car.

“You forgot your lemon.” Cheryl sounded much closer than she had before. Myrna silently cursed her frail legs and the fact that she had to move slowly to avoid falls. Her doctors warned her that at her age falls could be deadly. She believed that at her age most everything was deadly.

Myrna knew she could no longer ignore Cheryl. “I have no need for that or for you,” she spat. Literally. Droplets of saliva shot from her dentures which sat awkwardly in her mouth. She had lost weight recently, despite having a healthy appetite and, at 85, weight loss did not herald the joy it had in her 30s.

Cheryl stepped in front of Myrna, crossing her arms and examining her in a way that Myrna hated. All younger women gave her the same expression now: a sour look mixed with sympathy. “Did I do something to offend you? I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.” Cheryl smiled around her perfect teeth and straightened her hair beside her wrinkle-free brow. “My grandparents taught me that ‘we rise by lifting others’ and I have always lived by that.”

Cheryl’s smugness infuriated Myrna. Cheryl’s smugness and all that she represented—women who felt they were better than Myrna because they had careers and educations and advantages that came from being young in a time period which allowed for such things. “You humiliated me!”

“Humiliated?” Cheryl looked confused. “When? How?”

Myrna felt her cheeks burn. She thought back to the day when she had been walking with a friend and they had passed Cheryl’s house. Cheryl had been in her yard, seemingly watering plants, even though her hose was not turned on. “You…you…you made reindeer antlers at me!”

The confusion remained on Cheryl’s face. “Reindeer antlers?”

“Yes.” Myrna placed one of her thumbs against her temple and raised her second and last fingers. “Like this.”

Cheryl tilted her head, looking at Myrna quizzically. “My hands were just like yours? At the temple like that?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

“Show me again, where were they?”

“Here!” Myrna put her hand at the side of her head.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“They weren’t…here?” Cheryl’s hand moved quickly. Myrna felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot across her forehead. Then she felt nothing at all.

***

We rise by lifting others…we rise by lifting others…we lift others to you, oh ancient one…

Myrna could hear voices chanting. Were they talking to her? She tried to rub her forehead but found that her arms were bound. The voices continued to talk about lifting and she felt the air move around her. Her stomach dropped as it had when she had ridden the old wooden roller coaster at the beach.

Myrna opened her eyes to discover that she was tied, crucifix style, to upright wooden pallets. She had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was in a cavernous concrete room, like a warehouse.

We rise by lifting others…accept the sacrifice at our hands, oh ancient one…

Myrna turned her head to see an old man beside her. She recognized him; he was often at the pharmacy when she was picking up her medication. They had exchanged complaints seasoned with humor about the plethora of pills they needed to wake up each morning. They had compared aches and pains and laughed at how old age had snuck up on them. No complaints or pleasantries would come from this man’s mouth again, as his throat had been slit and blood poured from it as if from a garden hose.

Garden hose…Myrna remembered that she had been talking to Cheryl in the parking lot. As her vision cleared, she could perceive the chanting people. They wore robes that covered their faces and bodies, only their hands were exposed. They caught the old man’s blood in chalices and then poured the blood into a golden tub in front of Cheryl. It was clear they had been addressing Cheryl; she was the ancient one.

Myrna watched as Cheryl rubbed the old man’s blood into her skin. With each application, her skin appeared younger and more vibrant.

“Better than Botox,” Cheryl said, smiling with her wrinkle-free lips.

Myrna gasped, which garnered Cheryl’s attention. “My old friend…but still younger than me,” Cheryl laughed.

That makes no sense, Myrna thought, as she tested the ropes that bound her arms. Even if she were still a young woman, she would not have been able to fight her way free from the pallet.

Cheryl pointed a manicured finger at Myrna. “These wrinkles appeared in the short time I spent talking to her.” Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Normally one sacrifice would be enough, but because she rambled on and on, I have to make it two.”

“Yes, exalted one,” the robe wearers chanted.

Rambled on? “But you, you did something to me!” Myrna tried to remember what happened in the parking lot. Instead her mind went back to the day she had encountered Cheryl on her walk. She realized that she walked by Cheryl’s house often. She realized she had walked by Cheryl’s house for years, maybe twenty years, yet the woman looked no older than when they had met. “You…you made those reindeer antlers,” Myrna spat, not knowing what else to say. Fear had overtaken her. She did not want to meet the same conclusion as the man from the pharmacy.

“’We rise by lifting others’,” the devotees chanted. They lifted Myrna higher, tilting the pallet so that she was bent over a large bucket.

“Antlers?” Cheryl laughed. “Those aren’t antlers, they’re horns. As in devil horns.”

One acolyte produced a large knife and Myrna screamed.

Cheryl tsked. “That’s the problem with this younger generation, they never know when to be quiet.” She rubbed blood into her décolletage. “And when to keep their copious complaints to themselves.” Her smile grew wide. “As I said, ‘I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.’ I was just returning your lemon. If you had simply taken it then…we wouldn’t be here.”

∼ Elaine Pascale