Cleaning House

May 2, 2017May 1, 2017 ~ John Potts Jr ~ 28 Comments

The blinds were shut, and that meant it was Thursday.

It was the only day of the week when Brent would remove himself from the floor. He’d lock his door, turn off the fluorescent lights, and play seventies rock; usually Zeppelin or Sabbath. This was his office time, the time he dedicated to monotonous managerial duties that ate away at him, bit by bit, and Brent would eventually get to them before he went home. But he’d first lean back in his chair, close his eyes, and spend hours daydreaming. He never cast lustful strings of fantasies nor did he muse over troves of impossible wealth. What Brent wanted was simple, and at the very least, fair.

In his haze was Jimmy Nelson, tall and amiable, complimenting the residents of his sober living home while he passed their medication, and he’d notice Selma Ashton, who finally forced a smile, playing checkers or interacting with the residents with anything but her nasty, resentful glare. Even Marco pitched in. Instead of sneaking off to the bathroom to rail stimulants, Marco was cooking dinner and preaching the steps of sobriety like the recovering addict he claimed to be.

“Not like it used to be. I remember when it was okay to send someone home for loafing around more than a few minutes. Shit, I can’t even have a stern conversation to the lazy pricks without H.R.’s approval, you know that?”

He’d tell himself this once a week, and when his morale cowered like a tail-tucked beast, Brent would fold and vent to his subordinates.

“Sorry you’re stressed, Brent. Anything else you need?”

Crystal would try her best not to shift in the dilapidated office chair that occupied the corner of Brent’s cluttered office; close to squalor, distant from orderly. She was promoted months back under the guise of a confident go-getter at Corner Stone Sober Community. “I’ll get the job down, trust me Brent,” she claimed.

Since then, Crystal’s proven to be as useless as the rest, and this morning, he caught her stealing from the petty cash. He tried to fire her on the spot, and it appeared a small victory, but a phone call from human resources squashed his morale like a kid crunching a beetle underfoot, and he knew just what to do.

“Well if we have to investigate the situation, let me at least put her to work and demote. Okay, good. Tell her dress to scrub,” he stated to the H.R. director over the phone. She scoffed and allowed Brent to explain. “She’ll do some deep-cleaning and I’ll cover the floor, okay? I can at least do that, right? Okay, great, thank you. What’s that? No, I haven’t seen her cellphone.”

He opened the blinds and cracked the door, waiting for her while watching his oblivious staff with a seething eye. The three of them sat on the couch, lost into an electronic paradise emitting from their phones.

Someone shooting-up right in front of them, and they’d never know.

A pronounced thud grew slowly. It was Crystal’s nervous footfalls as she approached, and Brent wasn’t surprised or shocked to see that no one cared to look and see who or what it was.

“Come in, close the door,” he said. “Thanks for coming back and I am glad H.R. is going to sort this out with us.”

Crystal stood with her back between a scratched filing cabinet and the door. Her face was pale and her stomach quivered when her chest heaved. Brent could smell the trepidation oozing from her pores like rotted fruit-bits squeezed from a rank sponge.

“I can explain everything Brent—I want to make this right, I do,” she stammered.

He kept his eyes on the box of cleaning supplies at his feet. “Sorry, I just had to make sure everything we need is here. Now like I said, we will get to the bottom of it, but right now we have bigger tasks at hand. I brought on some Agency Staffers for the day to do the AA and NA runs later this afternoon, and I want you to take these,” he pushed the box across the floor to her feet, “and everyone else sitting out there to clean room twelve. We have a new admission coming tomorrow and I want to start getting ready.”

Crystal squatted and hoisted the box up, resting it on her stomach as she nudged the door open with her thick hips, and Brent leaned forward.

“Hey, all of you: get that room clean and take off for the day; my treat, you deserve it,” he yelled behind her and chuckled when they hopped from the couch, finally motivated. “And Crystal, please make sure you use the stuff in the spray bottles first. It’s a mix I made for the new admission. She has allergies and we can only use a thick-alcohol solution; no fragrances type deal.”

“Yes sir,” she huffed.

Brent waited until the creaks of the backstairs quieted to a dull hum before he opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. In the darkness, two white jugs of industrial-strength bleach waited alongside a plastic bag containing metal hardware and a touch-screen phone that he slid into his shirt pocket. Brent then left his office, a hitch in his step as he followed.

“Why so happy, boss?” asked a thick European accent as Brent sauntered by.

“It’s going to be a great day, Mr. Rimski, a great day indeed.”

“If you say so, boss.”

He heard them, his staff. How he soured to refer to them as such. It was an echo of insufferable bickering and boisterous disdain from atop the stairwell.

“Man, I hate this job,” Marco bleated. “I can’t wait to get out of here ya know? And that lazy douche put something like vinegar in this… it reeks.”

“Aren’t you going to do anything more than dick around on your phone, Jimmy?” Selma scorned.

“You’re not my boss, Selma, so shut the hell up.”

Brent appreciated Jimmy’s uncontrollable inflection today, and the fact that they left the mop buckets outside the hall. He unscrewed the caps, and began to pour the bleach in.

“Will you guys just stop it already?” Crystal barked. “Let’s get this done so we can get out of here.”

Isopropyl alcohol and vinegar streamed from room twelve as he pushed the door open. The scent was concentrated, enough to make a buffalo sway, and he knew to be quick. He aimed for the bucket and flung bleach in an awful arch, showering his workers. He kicked the empty bottles inside, dropped the bucket, and pulled the door shut. He made sure to install brackets on the lock this morning. Brent had even pondered at painting them brown, but he knew deep down, it was irrelevant. The thick iron slipped through the plate and the iron bar clicked.

Can’t forget to give this back, he thought to himself as he loaded the playlist on Crystal’s phone. He set it outside the door of room twelve, and sifted beyond the toxin and lyrics to the wet coughs and gasping moans within.

“Seasons don’t fear the reaper. Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, we can be like they are,”

Mr. Rimski hollered from below, “Is that Blue Oyster Cult?”

Brent returned, “Yeah, it is. A little rock-n-roll to help them clean.”

“Sounds good, boss.”

He stuffed the plastic bag down his pocket and grasped the railing, bracing himself down the stairs. Mr. Rimski complained of a foul odor and Brent advised that he may want to close his door or open a window, probably both.

“Actually, how about you and I get some fresh air? Maybe go out for lunch, how does that sound?”

“Really? Let me find my wallet.”

“It’s on me, least I can do.”

Brent daydreamed one last time while they walked to his car. Bodies crumbled, asphyxiating on the floor of room twelve. Lungs drowned by fluids with suffocating viscosity, cruel like sharp molasses. Eyes simmered, rendered to goop. Kidneys shut down for good, brain cells snuffed-out, and nerve fibers disintegrated like petrified bones on a scorched dessert. Skin blistered, stained in deep granite, and all life, absent. He could explain the lock easy enough; cast blame on a temp staff who thought the door needed to be closed while exploiting the extinction of commonsense in today’s workforce, and maybe, he’d even be able to shed a tear to feign sincerity.

He smiled, and cherished the fact that his staff suffered much in room twelve.

“This is real treat, boss. Usually the help doesn’t give us much mind. But not you, boss.”

“Well, I think things are going to change quite a bit around here. Hey, how does barbecue sound? I’m famished.”

~ John Potts Jr

Devil Is In The Details

April 25, 2017May 1, 2017 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 28 Comments

Her eyes speak volumes, assuring him it will be as it was; it will be alright. He knows it won’t be—it can’t be.

Nothing escapes the scrutiny of the incandescent lighting above their heads. No dark space exists for him in which to hide. He scrubs the stubble along his chin. “It’s coming out amazing, honey.”

He watches the artist deliver life to his daughter with thoughtful strokes, imbuing pallid skin with a fresh blush. He pushes a smile to his lips, watching his little girl watch him. She knows his nuances; the flutter of his lashes gives him away every time. She is his blood, after all.

Statuesque, she sits quietly for her portrait. It crushes his heart. Her beautiful lips, once so full like those of her mother, stretch like crinkled strips of weathered jerky now, the music silenced from her dancing eyes. She is tired, so tired, draining slowly from the inside. He scrubs his chin, weary as well, weary and broken witnessing the erosion of his child.

The artist half speaks, half clears this throat. “Sir… Sir?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” he croaks.

The artist nods politely, aware he has trespassed across guarded domain. Brush hovering atop the canvas, he motions to a specific area of the portrait, then repositions himself atop his stool, respectfully waiting.

“What is it, Daddy?” his little girl inquires; the harsh lighting does nothing to conceal the flutter of his lashes. Quickly, realization dawns; she is his blood, after all. “Daddy, he can paint me as I was that day, it’s okay.”

The artist reaches forward, pats her knee, resumes painting once again. Before long, the canvas depicts wavy locks where no hair has existed for some time. It flows in luxurious strokes; the toe of the artist’s brush a mere whisper in the sea of her chestnut mane. At long last, the final touch—soft pinpricks of white to lend the gleam back into her eyes. The artist lowers his arm. “I believe I am done, sir.”

His vision blurs; he cannot quite make out the deft details of the artist’s conception, not yet. He wipes at his tears. “Baby, you look…”

“Yes, Daddy?”

He wishes to say beautiful, but the word fails to find his lips. Instead, her portrait seizes his attention, unwelcome details pulling his eye. Flustered, he swings his gaze toward the artist.

The man has already packed his tools, cleaned his brush. With a dispassionate tone, the artist states, “The devil is in the details, sir.”

Open mouthed he stares, beyond the depiction of her soft countenance, beyond the eternal capture of her cherubic innocence, he gapes at the jarring angle of her neck; the angry bruises that ring it, marring what should be a masterpiece. “She was terminal,” he barely mutters. “The disease, it was taking her.”

The painter turns to him. “Yes it was, and had you left well enough alone, I would have no need to take you, too.”

His hands flutter about his neck. The incandescent lighting above reveals long slits along his forearms; nothing escapes its scrutiny. “This isn’t… It was a mercy, she was suffering,” he pleads.

“Daddy, no one understands it was an act of love,” her gentle, childish voice intones. By the time he faces her, she is gone. A ghost of her ghost.

He lunges for the painting, but the artist seizes him by the neck. “Take a long, last look at her. She finds her peace in the form I have painted. As for you, peace will be but a memory where we are going.”

Slowly, the painter drags him away, until the incandescent glow no longer reveals a thing, and the pitch is all he will ever know.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

Holomorphs

April 18, 2017April 17, 2017 ~ Brian Moreland ~ 23 Comments

Eager with excitement, I downloaded the new app. It asked to connect with my friends and followers on social media, and I accepted. I filled out the detailed profile, answered a questionnaire that recorded my voice, and linked my Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Within minutes of completing my profile, my first holomorph friend appeared! I stood speechless in my living room as light beamed from the ceiling. Swirling particles formed into my best friend, Dane, from Seattle. Not the real him, but a vivid, life-sized hologram. He was partially transparent, like a Technicolor ghost, but somehow the illusion felt real.

“Oh, my God, this is incredible!” I said.

“I know, right? Like the Starship Enterprise beamed me here.”

We half-embraced, bro-style. There was actually a supple texture to his three-dimensional form, like hugging someone made of thin rubber. Dane was shorter than expected. I’d never actually seen him in person. We’d met on Facebook and became instant friends in a group that discussed sci-fi horror movies. For years, I’d only known Dane through typed-word conversations on a screen, along with his stagnant profile photo—a plump face with a beard.

“The hologram you looks different from your photo,” I said.

“I kinda lied about my weight on my profile,” he chuckled. “I like the holo-me better.”

I didn’t care. I had a 3D friend to cure my loneliness. Dane hung out with me all weekend. We watched a marathon of Netflix horror movies, played video games, and had the best time getting to know each other. Sometimes Dane’s responses were off. It didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t talking to a live version of him, but a software recreation based on his profile. Eventually, we ran out of things to talk about. So I downloaded three more holomorph friends—Raquel from Chicago, Jon from Tallahassee, and Niles, transported all the way from London.

Our eclectic group played poker at the dinner table and chatted about our favorite books, music, and politics. Raquel and Jon debated over whether Democrats or Republicans should be running the country. They were such extreme opposites that trying to convince one another to switch viewpoints was futile. Pretty soon the poker chips started flying. Niles ducked to stay out of the line of fire. “This is better than watching Hulu!” he said and we all busted up laughing.

We played cards for hours. I was the only one eating and drinking, since my holomorph friends didn’t require food or drinks. Cheap entertainment.

My first week using the new social media was a whirlwind of crazy fun. I downloaded friends from all over the world. I threw holomorph parties. Holograms of people filled my den, kitchen, and backyard.

I’ll never be lonely again, I’d thought.

Some of the parties got rowdy. A few friends started fights and trashed the place, so I unfriended them. The friends I wanted to keep, like Dane, Raquel, Jon, and Niles, I couldn’t figure out how to get them to leave without unfriending them. The app’s settings seemed to be missing a ‘go home’ button, so I let my favorite friends stay and hang out. I couldn’t bear the alternative of living in an empty house again.

One evening my friends became glitchy—their bodies flickered and their voices cut in and out.

I contacted the app’s tech support and a holographic man in a blue repairman’s jumpsuit and ball cap appeared in my living room. “Hi, I’m Felix the Fixer. What seems to be the problem, Mr. Bradley?”

“My holomorph friends aren’t projecting fully.”

“That’s due to a technical issue with our satellite. We’re fixing the problem.” Felix winked. “Until then, enjoy some of our premium packages for free.” He gave me the codes and disappeared.

On my iPad, I scanned through all the app’s newest features. Hundreds of choices boggled my mind. I could hang out with holomorphs of famous celebrities, dead historical figures, or adopt a holodog or holocat. I could project scenes from my favorite movies right into my home. There seemed no end to the pleasurable escapes I could experience.

Curious, I ordered from the app’s most popular feature—holoporn! My bedroom filled with a harem of horny holowomen. It took a while, but eventually I grew tired of shallow sex. I felt ready to settle down with a holomorph girlfriend.

I swiped through countless screens of profiles until I found my ideal match. When I downloaded Simone, it was love at first sight. Long auburn hair, cute face, a girl-next-door personality, she matched every trait that turned me on. We had loads in common too. The only downside was she looked like she’d been molded into glowing Jell-O, but the sex was good.

The first three weeks with Simone were heavenly. She made me feel whole again. After a month, I reached the limit of her varied responses and she began to sound repetitive. I longed to touch and hold and have meaningful conversations with the real Simone. Her profile said she lived in Boston. I messaged her on Facebook and asked if she’d like to visit me in Dallas. A strange thing, though. The real Simone had no idea who I was. I told her we met on HoloMatch and I was her holomorph boyfriend. She wrote back that she already had a boyfriend. A real one. She threatened to call the police if I ever bothered her again.

I continued to date the holoSimone until I came home from work one day and found her in bed with Dane. Furious, I ran to my iPad and unfriended them both. Their holograms vaporized.

Raquel and Jon yelled at me for sending their friends away, so I obliterated them too. Niles and my other holofriends kept their distance from me. I began to resent them all. None of them had anything new to say. They talked about the weather, TV shows, current events, but it was all surface stuff. When I probed deeper, I kept hitting the limits of their programming. I longed to connect on a soul-to-soul level. I felt alone in a house full of ghosts.

When each holomorph became boring or got on my nerves, I ended the friendship with a push of a button. I had millions more friends I could download. I went through dozens of them. I learned that not all friends match their profiles. Their photos looked friendly, but their holograms projected their true natures. At my birthday party, one weirdo said he saw everything as a video game. Then he went bat-shit and started stabbing my other friends with a kitchen knife. I grabbed my tablet and vaporized him just before he stabbed me.

While my friends moved through the house around me, their names and faces blurring together, I sat on the couch and sifted through the app’s unlimited features on my TV. In bed, I swiped through profile after profile, seeking a woman to be my soul mate. At work, I mostly stared at my computer screen. Around me, in a maze of lonely cubicles, a mix of real people and holoworkers interfaced with their computers and tablets. Wherever I went out in public, I kept my eyes glued to my cell phone. I kept delving deeper and deeper into the app, searching for happiness.

Today I noticed my body turning transparent. My bathroom mirror reflected a ghostly version of myself that flickered.

I summoned Felix again. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re very popular, Mr. Bradley,” Felix said with a grin. “You’ve had multiple friends download your holomorph into their homes. On HoloMatch, you are currently boyfriend to over twelve hundred women. That’s a lot of downloads, my friend. The drawback is you’re beginning to atomize.”

My body flickered faster. “What do you mean . . . atomize?”

“After awhile the holomorph versions of you begin to disintegrate your body into thousands, and eventually millions, of atoms that live in co-existing realities. It’s a limitation when combining our software with human biology.”

“Why didn’t you warn me before I downloaded the app?” I yelled.

“It’s all there in the fine print of our contract. Once you agreed to Holomorph Corp’s terms, you gave them the right to download your atoms to their millions of subscribers.”

My skin began to pixilate and lose cohesion. Tiny holes speckled my arms. I grabbed his shoulders. “You have to fix me.”

“I’m afraid atomization is a permanent glitch for lower grade subscribers.”

My hands disintegrated. My pixilated flesh and bones flew up toward the ceiling like a swarm of insects. Holding up the stumps of my eroding arms, I howled and began to cry.

Felix tapped his iPad. “Not to worry, Mr. Bradley. We still have time to save you. Now that you’ve surpassed five thousand friends, you’re eligible to upgrade to our Holosphere.”

“Wha-what’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s our most exciting new feature. As the Holomorphs founder predicted, people no longer need the physical world. So our engineers developed the next evolution in reality.” He pushed a button on his tablet and a neon red door opened in the center of my living room.

“Follow me. I’ll take you to a place where you’ll always be happy and have plenty of friends.”

Desperate to feel whole again, I followed Felix through the holodoor.

~ Brian Moreland

Death Should Be Remembered

March 21, 2017March 18, 2017 ~ afstewart ~ 24 Comments

When I arrived, the gate to the graveyard was open, wrought iron swinging on its hinges. I hesitated. I didn’t like company when I visited. I preferred to be alone, to stand at the headstones in the silence.

Should I go in?

I looked over my shoulder, back down the road.

I could go home. Come back another day.

No. I needed this. Needed to remember death, relive what happened, hear the screams again. It would help ease the pressure until…

Yeah. Take a chance. Could be someone just forgot to fasten the latch properly. You can always lie if you meet someone.

I passed through the gate, shutting it behind me. I decided to visit Patricia today. Her family buried her in a secluded spot on the east side of the graveyard.

Less chance of being seen.

A silence settled on the place, and the crunch of my feet on the gravel roadway sound like the crack of bone. A familiar sound, but I shivered. It unnerved me for some reason and I was glad when I turned off onto the dirt path. Nothing but the crunch of the occasional leaf there. Not even the chirping of the birds, or the swish of the wind.

I made it to Patricia’s headstone without seeing a soul. I noticed fresh flowers on the grave, a bouquet of carnations.

Patricia’s favourite. I guess her mother made her weekly visit.

I bent over and plucked a posy from the bunch. “Here’s to you Patricia.” I twirled the flower. “I enjoyed our time together, however brief. Though I doubt you found it as pleasurable.” I smiled, the sweet blood-spattered memories making me tingle. I stood a while, reminiscing, then tossed the flower and walked back down the lane.

Halfway along, I spotted a figure. Someone on the path. I pulled up short.

Must have been behind me. Shit.

I took a deep breath.

Just act cool.

I kept walking, until I got close. Then I stopped again. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t every day you saw a woman sitting on a moss-covered rock, dressed like a southern belle in mourning complete with a parasol.

She twirled that lace covered sunshade and giggled. “I’ve been waiting for you, mon cher.”

“Have you now?” Her voice stirred things in me. I smiled, and gave her the once over.

Despite the strange, old-fashioned attire, I liked her look. A pretty blonde with a slight French accent. I enjoyed blondes. Blondes always screamed the best. I stared at her, that familiar itch creeping through me. I never planned on indulging so soon, but when opportunity knocks…

I licked my lips. I never killed a French lady before.

Oh yeah, this one will do.

I reached for my knife.

“That won’t do you no good, chéri. Little pig sticker like that won’t kill me.”

My hand froze. How did she know?

“Oh, I know all about you. You put too many women in this graveyard, mon chéri. Time to stop. Past time.”

I laughed. “Not going to happen. But you’re welcome to try. A little slip like you, could be fun.”

“Thank you, for the invitation.”

“Invitation, what—” I stumbled, suddenly dizzy, and… she vanished. Nothing left but her parasol.

No way! She was there. It’s not— Where did she go?

“Behind you, chéri.”

A whispered breath tickled my neck. I whirled.

No. No, it can’t be!

“Time to die.” Her rotting, maggoty face flashed me a smile, and pain sliced through my gut.

The smell, I know that smell.

I looked down. Her bloody, clawed hand ripped out part of my intestines. Same place where I sliced my victims.

No! No, No, No!

I tried to scream, but only a sad, dreadful gurgling noise slipped past my lips. I grabbed my abdomen, stuffing my torn organs back inside as blood gushed through my fingers. Agony shuddered through my body.

I’m going to die.

I fell to my knees and let it all go, watched my entrails slosh about on the ground. I clawed at her skirts, my blood leaking onto her shoes, her voice echoing in my ears.

“Don’t worry, mon ami. I’ll be sure to visit your grave. To always remember this moment.”

~ A. F. Stewart

Unfortunate Legacy

February 28, 2017February 27, 2017 ~ jonolsonauthor ~ 21 Comments

The demon stood in the snow.

Fergus saw it standing in the knee-deep powder through the small window of his front door.

“Don’t try to do too much out there,” his wife Nancy called from the kitchen. “Just take your time.”

“I won’t, don’t worry,” he answered distractedly.

“Amber might join you out there in a little bit if that’s okay.”

Fergus could hear his daughter playing upstairs and nodded.

With his winter jacket, boots and gloves already on, Fergus pulled his toque down over his ears and with a deep breath opened the front door.

It wasn’t very cold although the wind packed a sharp bite as Fergus grabbed the shovel leaning against the house. Ignoring the demon, he began tossing snow from the driveway onto his lawn.

Not much time had elapsed when a burning sensation erupted in his chest. Damn acid reflux.

The demon spoke. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“What hurts?” Fergus asked, keeping his back to it as he dug into the snow.

“Your heart.”

Fergus paused, acknowledging the comment. “It’s acid reflux,” he muttered. “That’s all it is. Acid reflux…”

After a few more minutes of shoveling, the pain grew worse. Grimacing, Fergus stopped and rubbed at his chest. “Is this your doing?”

The demon seemed closer yet remained motionless. Only its mouth moved. “Maybe. You don’t see surprised to see me.”

Shaking his head, Fergus said, “No. Somehow I knew you’d be back.”

“Back?”

“I saw you that day,” Fergus said.

“When?”

“The day my father died.”

The demon’s mouth twitched ever-so-slightly, staring hard at Fergus with its emotionless, black eyes. “What did you see?”

“I was only five but remember watching from the living room window,” Fergus began. “It was similar to today. A storm had just dumped over a foot of snow on us and Dad went out to clear the driveway.”

Fergus dug the shovel into the snow and heaved the pile aside.

“You didn’t look real, almost like a reflection off the snow.” Fergus glanced at the demon who appeared even closer. “I remember him looking at you, like he was listening and then nodding. You reached out, touched his chest for a moment and he collapsed. The doctors said his heart gave out.”

The demon nodded. “They always do.”

Fergus rubbed his own chest again, “I had nightmares about you.”

“Worried that I would come for you?”

Fergus shook his head. “No, what scared me was wondering what you said to him.” He took a step toward the demon. “What did you say?” He glared into the demon’s eyes, noticing that they rippled in the wind.

“I explained your family’s unfortunate legacy. Would you like to hear it?” Not waiting for an answer, the demon continued. “Basically, thanks to a distant and sadistic ancestor of yours who made a deal with my master, your family has to forfeit a male soul to us every generation. We leave it up to you to determine whose soul we take.” In the blink of an eye the demon was face to face with Fergus. “Your father gave us his.”

The front door opened and Amber bounded from the house into the snow, drawing her father’s attention. “Hi Daddy,” she called out playfully.

“Hey there, sweetie,” Fergus replied. Turning his attention back to the demon, he asked, “So why go through all of this? Why not come and take the one you want?”

“As I said, you or a male from your family has to make the decision. That was the deal. Sadly, since you have no brothers, it will end up being you.”

“What if I say no?”

“Don’t.”

“If I’m the only male and I say no, then are you shit out of luck?”

The demon’s brow creased and its eyes narrowed. “Don’t.”

“Or else what?”

The demon blinked and time stopped, frozen in place. Snowflakes hung motionless in midair. All went deathly still. Fergus found he could turn his head but quickly grew concerned when he realized the demon was no longer in front of him. It was kneeling in front of Amber. Her eyes were wide, full of fear; her mouth open forming an ‘O’ shape. She’d never looked so fragile or terrified.

The demon had the tips of its fingers inside of her chest.

“Get the hell away from my daughter!” Fergus screamed trying to run but his feet would not move.

“This is your only warning,” the demon hissed. “You may hold the initial choice of whose soul we get but when complications arise, the rules change and the choice becomes ours. We can take any soul we want at that point. It would still be better if you made the decision to honor the original deal, but either way, a soul will be coming back with me.”

It twisted its hand slightly deeper into Amber’s chest.

Tears streamed down Fergus’s face. “Get the fuck away from her!”

“Then make the choice.”

Fergus screamed, “Take mine, damn you!”

In a flash the demon was back in front of him. “You made the right call,” the demon grinned.

Time resumed as Amber shook her head, slightly dazed. She looked at her dad and smiled as the demon plunged its hand into Fergus’s chest. The cold, demonic fingers wrapped around his heart, slowly constricting it.

With his legs growing weak, Fergus sat back in the snow. A tingling spread through his body but after a few seconds it began to subside. Fergus then felt nothing as the demon pulled its hand out.

“Are you okay, Daddy?” Amber asked.

The demon disappeared and Fergus’s world went dark as he replied, “I’m fine… sweetie…”

~ Jon Olson

The Final Arrow

February 14, 2017February 10, 2017 ~ Veronica M.Nero ~ 27 Comments

Park benches are the domain of lovers. They sit cuddled together, giggling as they etch their names in the wood, their pride palpable as if no one else has ever vandalised public property before. I’ve lost count of the number of times a park bench has been the site for my aim. It is apt that I found him there, a new kind of saviour for these loveless days.

I had one arrow left.

I clutched it with both hands and pointed it at my own chest. The shaft was dull and rusted but the tip was razor sharp, imbued with magic, ready to transform the flesh it pierces.

It is not that I longed for love, not that I wanted to be blinded to the reality around me by romance. Rather, I hoped the arrow would kill me and put an end to this game I have been sentenced to play since time immemorial.

I realised I had done this world a great disservice, leading them astray into the folds of daydreams. If they had gained any wisdom it was not because of my arrows but through the pain of surviving them. My arrows had not been able to hold at bay the rising deluge of suffering in this world.

By a large fountain in the remains of a city park, I readied myself for the plunge of the arrow’s tip. The early morning was clear and quiet. A cool stinging mist from the splashing water was in the air, like blessings from heaven. But the blessings were bitter and twisted, the water green and acidic.

I glanced around, hoping I would soon be free of this wretched place. That’s when I spotted the man, through dead tree trunks, asleep on a park bench, swathed in grimy rags, his bare feet blue and swollen with cold.

An idea occurred to me, a better idea. The arrow lowered, my grasp softened. I would not use it on myself.

Once more I resolved do what was expected of me, one final arrow fired to spark and flame hope.

It has been said that love conquers all and indeed over millennia there has been nothing I could not infiltrate, no darkness or terror that could stop my arrow. When Vesuvius erupted I was there, piercing the hearts of those destined to fall in love even as they tried to outrun rivers of lava, huddling together in dark corners, their eyes meeting in sudden realisation, my arrow melting their hearts as liquid fire melted their flesh. Amidst the blistered pus of the sick and the rotting corpses abandoned by the Plague, my arrows did not hesitate on their course, bringing lovers together despite poverty and disease. During world wars and terrorist bombings, in small overflowing boats of refugees that rocked and sank on high seas, through chemical spills that wiped out species of birds and fish, I was there, eternal and invincible in the face of life’s horrors. Giving them hope, giving them joy, always driving them forward, with the focus and strength of Love’s arrow.

I have kept the final arrow for months, uncertain of how or when to use it. They stopped appearing in my quiver a long while ago. They replenished themselves in the past; my holder was always full with golden arrows, clean and freshly forged. My prayers and pleas to the gods for guidance went unanswered, smothered and silenced by the grey layer of pollution and debris that now surrounds this world. I have not had any contact with the other immortals for years, I don’t know if they have perished or escaped.

Left to my own devices I may have become a little too careless in the last few years. I was shooting arrows like an addict, without any dignity at all.

Love has always been reckless and impulsive, the oddest of couples have been drawn together by my work. Divorced from divine inspiration I lost focus and direction. Perhaps that is why the arrows dried up. But I am simply a messenger, delivering Love where it wishes to go. Love, it seemed, was almost completely extinct in this world, like so many other living things.

So I was down to one. One single arrow. One last shot. The weight of my task seemed unbearable. I wondered who would be worthy of this final arrow. I had to find a heart noble and righteous enough to receive it, to do it justice. It would be a final strike of life in a dying world, a catalyst for revival and change.

I roamed the rubble of cities around the globe searching for such a heart. I searched everywhere from shifting plains of ice to encroaching deserts to tumbledown ghetto towns. Nothing but terrified hearts bolted shut against any more intrusion and burden; not one single heart emitted a tiny spark, necessary to deserve the arrow.

When I saw the man on the bench I realised a different kind of Love was needed in this world. The Earth is blistered, once great cities are piles of smoking black rocks, the oceans are oily sludge. The Love that thrived before has no place here anymore. This final arrow would need a new magic. So I dipped the arrow in lakes of toxic waste, I sharpened it on bones in mass open graves, I rolled it in the shit and vomit of flooding gutters, I laced it with the culture of super viruses bred in clandestine labs, I bathed it in pools of blood from human abattoirs.

I returned to the park after many days and nights preparing my arrow and found the man was still there, sitting in his disease, a large empty paper cup in his hand.

I cradled the cursed arrow; it throbbed with a deadly romance.

I could hear his weak beating heart from across the park, slow and sluggish, weary and broken. He was nothing special, no great man. He was a human shell, already emptied out, a perfect receptacle for a new strain of love.

He raised his blackened eyes to me, glaring, unflinching, as I approached him. His face was coated with grey dust, his mouth a dry purple line.

I aimed the arrow at him, he gave no response. I didn’t hesitate, as is my way, I didn’t think twice. I drove it through his frail chest, deep into the cavity, and the tip touched the beating organ. Still his expression didn’t change, he felt nothing.

I drove it deeper, sliding it through until the tip popped out the other side, his heart pierced and committed. I saw it flash in his eyes, the recognition and desire. Was it love at first sight? No. It was something else. The beast within awakened and it wanted to survive.

~ Veronica Magenta Nero

Place of Beauty

February 7, 2017March 28, 2017 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 28 Comments

In shards the morning broke, shattering high, high above the gunshot reports, the torches, the thick plumes of smoke.

She watched them fall like black drops of rain in the distance. First came a crack, echoing like faraway thunder, then their plummet. Crack, then plummet.

The plate slipped from her soapy fingers into the bubbly grave of the sink. Beyond the grimy pane, beyond the flaked paint of the porch, swaddled by butterfly weeds and Echinaceas, her daughter sat, ruddy cheeks tilted toward the sky. “Isabella,” she gasped, tossing the wet rag aside. “Isabella!”

Her little girl could not hear her. Crack, then plummet.

Crack!

She turned, ran, bare heels squeaking like frightened mice atop the wood. Through the dining room, down the hall; sunlight traipsed from the front door, beckoning just paces away. Each gunshot shook her skull. She burst onto the porch, mid-July scathing inside her lungs.

Silos jutted, arthritic fingers against the horizon, from the flat expanse of land. She tracked the figures, so frantic in the sky, weaving and dipping like grand bats. Her mind raced as she crouched low in the meadow, summoning her daughter. “Isa, come.”

Her little girl paid no mind. Chubby fingers marked the descent of each black drop, tracing the sky. Crack! Her tender folds involuntarily shuddered.

A shrilling—high-pitched like that of a hawk, but full of desperation; human at some point in its life. Its violent death roll cut the air, spiraling, spiraling away from its pack. No further than fifty yards from the porch, it slammed the ground, mowing a swath through the meadow.

Rallying to it, the keen barking of a dog.

She hurried to her daughter. The toddler tilted her head, all smiles, all giggles. Too young still to comprehend. “You will stay here for Momma.” She spoke slow, measured. “Do you understand?” Without waiting for an answer, she crept away.

It bleated weakly, lost amidst the grass, the strangled mewls answered by the nearing bark in turn. She propelled forward, nearly upon all fours, the distressed utterances serving as her beacon call. Bees roused, lifting from the stalks and buds, seeking further riches from summer. Memories of childhood invaded her nose; so simple then, the pollen rich fragrance of sky, the honey glaze of sun. Her own parents had given her up much too early. Wisps of shadows they had become—their touch, their guiding voice mere ghosts. She wished no such thing for her Isabella, but knew now it was too late.

At last, she reached it. Gasping atop the matted butterfly weed, its blood soaked the ground. Upon its back it writhed, bald skull lifting up against the dome of summer, back down, laden with an agony it once doubted could exist.

A bloody bubble popped from the corner of its mouth. It sensed her presence. Upside down, slit eyes locked onto her own. She saw the wound, an angry hole straight through its sagging, bare breast. The perennials trembled; the retriever burst through the swath then, as was its inherent duty, clamped its jaws around the hag’s neck.

The retriever dug its hindquarters into soft earth, hauling its prey back to its master. She lunged, seized the snout, pried open its jaws, allowing it no fight. A savage twist; its muscles went limp. She pushed the heap of fur aside. “I cannot help you further, not now, not without jeopardizing us all. Lay still, and I will return for you.” She took its gnarled fingers within her own. “Forgive me, sister.”

The hag nodded.

She dashed back toward her Isa, aware that the exerted breath of man would soon be chasing behind. Her little girl waited diligently, as instructed. In seamless fashion, she scooped the child into her arms, ran full out without breaking stride. Gunshots, screams; mid-July succumbed all around her. Ahead, the porch; thirty yards, twenty. A husky command echoed; a taunt. Crack! The air whistled above her shoulder. The top step of the porch exploded, slivers of wood and paint.

The front door waited, still ajar. She took the steps, then up onto the porch, splinters pricking her toes. Across her threshold, as the door jamb disintegrated loudly beside her. Instinctively, she pulled Isabella against her chest. “My precious little bean, you must know that we are condemned by man.” She ran through the house, the rooms, the hall, straight toward the back door. “They see us as abominations.”

She threw the door open to a green expanse. There, twisting skyward in the middle of the glade, a solitary tree. “But all things of nature have their place of beauty, my love.” She traveled the distance, rounding the far side of the tree. From within her home carried the ransacking fury of the hunter.

The trunk rose, thick and noble, bark twining in cords around a darkened hollow. Within this, she placed her child, but not before kissing each cheek. “The Ancients will raise you now,” lips lingered upon tender flesh, “then you will emerge stronger than even me, my Isa.” Away the tree swallowed her, and the child was gone.

From the trunk protruded a long, slender knob, identical to a spear, driven at its end to a sharpened point. She retrieved the offering from the tree. As the hunter closed the expanse, she sidestepped into view, driving the pike through his throat, clearing the body of head. The torso ran several paces, then dropped.

Propping the spear against the tree, she slipped free from her clothes. The safety of her coven compromised, her sisters needed her now. Someday soon, her daughter as well. Again she took the spear, straddled it, relishing the power upon her sex. Then she commanded the sky; the still gaping head lay impotently upon the ground.

Mid-July bled until no man shared the whispers of the High Priestess. Or her slaughter.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

Beast of Winter

January 31, 2017January 27, 2017 ~ Brian Moreland ~ 31 Comments

Manitou Forest, Manitoba, Canada

A damn good day of hunting, Angus Kujak mused as his bloodied hands steered the truck between snow-covered pines. The antlers of his most recent kill rattled against the hood. Kujak rubbed his mutton-chop sideburns, feeling proud. Through the rearview mirror he glimpsed the pile of carcasses strapped to the flatbed. Atop two elk bulls lay his prize trophy—a grizzly bear. Took five bullets, but he’d finally brought her down with a dead zinger through the eye. Definitely a story for the boys at the chophouse.

“Hunting’s been better than usual, eh Jeb?” Snoring came from the passenger seat. Kujak reached over and knocked his cousin’s forehead. “I’m not paying you to sleep.”

Jeb, dressed in blood-stained camouflage and a winter hat with earflaps, sat up rubbing his forehead. “Sorry. Shelby kept me up half the night.”

“What’s she moaning about?”

“Usual. I spend too much time at the pub, not enough with her and the kids.” Jeb unscrewed his thermos cap. The smell of coffee and whiskey filled the truck.

“Man’s gotta have time with his friends. Pass that over.” Kujak took a swig from the thermos. The coffee was cold, but the whiskey went down with a fiery burn.

Up ahead, a white squall was devouring the pines. Snow pelted the windshield, threatening to bury the truck with the rest of the forest. He turned the wipers on full speed.

Jeb said, “Angus, I need to tell you something…you aren’t gonna like it.”

“What is it?”

“Shelby wants me to quit working for you and take a job building that pipeline.”

Kujak got a vile taste in his mouth. Jeb’s wife was always henpecking him. Soon after they’d gotten married, she’d cut off Jeb’s balls and stuck them in a drawer. She didn’t care for hunting—Killing animals is barbaric!—or her husband working for Kujak. They’d been hunting together since they were kids, long before Shelby entered the picture, and no woman should come between them. “You wouldn’t abandon your cousin, would ya?”

Jeb looked out his window. “I dunno. Thornhill Petroleum promises good pay plus benefits.”

“I pay you damned good, plus bonuses when you actually kill something.”

“Yeah, but pipeline work’s legal. Mr. Thornhill paid a visit to the pub last night. Said he had plenty of work for anyone interested.”

Kujak slammed his fist down on the steering wheel. “That blasted son’bitch! I’ve lost most of my hunters since that weasel rolled into town. I’d like to string him up by his ankles.”

“You gotta admit, his pipeline has helped business. Ever since they started blasting through Manitou Forest, he’s been driving game right toward our hunting ground.”

“That’s why I need you more than ever.” The road straightened. Kujak shifted into a higher gear. The truck’s engine howled in protest as it drove at forty miles an hour. “Jeb, I been thinking about making you a partner. You’d be surprised how much you can make. I’m selling more than just the meat and hides. The antlers, bones, hooves, and innards, I got buyers for all of it. We can earn…”

Something rammed the side of the truck. The steering wheel spun loose from Kujak’s grip. The truck careened 180 degrees, slammed sideways into a wall of snow. Elk antlers scraped across the hood and punctured the windshield. Kujak’s face hit the steering wheel. Dazed, he stared down at his blurry boots. Blood dribbled from his nose over his lips. “Jesus!” Kujak gripped the wheel until the forest stopped spinning. “You okay, Jeb?”

His cousin rubbed his forehead. “Hit my damn head, but I’m okay. What happened?”

“Felt like a moose broadsided us. See a dead one near the road?”

“Nothing. Not even blood.”

An animal howled from the snowy mist.

“Fuckin’ hell was that?” Jeb crouched in his seat.

Kujak rubbed his eyes. “I’m still seeing double. Can you spot it?”

“Something’s moving fast between the trees. Shit, it’s coming at us from behind!” Jeb yelped.

The flatbed rocked, shaking the cab. Kujak’s neck hairs rose to hackles as something snorted inches from the back window. Claws scraped metal. A blurry shape leapt off the truck.

Kujak’s vision cleared just as the beast disappeared into the falling snow.

Jeb trembled. “W-What the hell was that?”

“Grizzly.” The hunter’s pulse in Kujak quickened. “Let’s bag ‘em!” He threw open the door, grabbed his rifle, and hurried around the back of the truck. “Shit!”

The entire load of carcasses—the two elks and bear—were missing. “How the hell?”

Kujak followed a trail of blood and fur into a thicket of pines. Monstrous footprints made deep impressions in the snow. “Must be the granddaddy of grizzlies. Jeb, get out here.”

His cousin remained inside the cab, his back to the door that was pinned against the snow bank. “I don’t wanna chase a bear that size.”

“It’s running off with our game. Get your ass out here!” Kujak loaded a fresh cartridge in the rifle’s chamber.

Jeb climbed out with his gun. “Oh lordy, your face.”

Kujak wiped a sleeve across his bloody nose, then marched into the woods. He whispered, “I’ll follow the blood trail. Keep to my left.”

“What if he circles us?”

“Shoot the bastard. Now shush.” Kujak crept through the red snow. The drift beyond the road had piled two-feet deep. Sweet Jesus, he’d never seen paw prints that size. His boots stepped from one giant impression to the next. In some places he had to leap, due to the long stride. The claw marks looked abnormally long. The more Kujak studied the pattern, the odder he felt. What kind of bear runs on two legs?

Ahead, the evergreens huddled close together. Snow dropped like a million down feathers. As he weaved between clumps of spruce, Kujak tried to imagine how a bear could run off with the carcasses of three large animals. Scattered across the bloody trail lay broken antlers, a severed elk leg. Tufts of fur clung to branches high above Kujak’s head. His adrenaline pumped with the thrill of the hunt. He had to bag this granddaddy.

Wind howled, long and hollow, like a baying wolf.

Kujak glanced at Jeb, who moved parallel between the trees. Every few feet his cousin disappeared behind pines, then reappeared in a new place.

Jeb froze and pointed frantically.

The brown flanks of a bear moved between the trees twenty yards away. There you are. Kujak locked his scope on the beast’s back and fired. A hole opened in the dark brown fur. The beast roared.

Kujak squeezed off another shot. “Take that you bastard!”

Instead of dropping, the bear in his scope shot toward him, snapping branches. Kujak got off two more shots before a jarring impact knocked him to the ground. His vision went blurry again. More shots fired. To his left. Or was it his right?

His cousin screamed and fired wildly, bullets whizzing through the forest.

“Jeb!” Kujak sat up. The forest spun. He tried to stand, but something heavy and furry pinned his leg. “Shit!” Blind, he stabbed the animal with his knife, but it lay there without a struggle, already dead. Kujak felt along the hairy behemoth that lay on his foot. His hand found a bear’s head; his fingers plunged into a bloody eye socket. It was the bear he’d shot earlier. The granddaddy beast had hurled her twenty yards through the air.

What kind of animal can throw a grizzly?

The gunshots stopped. So did Jeb’s screams.

Kujak scanned the forest, stopping on what looked like a bloody human thigh.

Jeb’s body lay on the ground, an elk carcass covering his head and upper torso. His legs were hidden behind a copse of blue spruce.

Kujak’s scrotum tightened when he heard crunching.

The beast snorted, then yanked Jeb’s body into the thicket. As if taunting him, a severed arm in a camouflage sleeve smacked the tree next to Kujak.

He felt in the snow for his rifle. Found a shattered scope and broken nape. Tossing the useless weapon, Kujak tried to lift the bear’s carcass. He screamed in frustration and immediately regretted it.

The bone crunching stopped. Heavy footfalls stomped through the woods.

An idea came. He soaked his hands in bear’s blood and rubbed his ankle inside his boot. He crawled backward, pulling his pinned foot. After a few yanks, the greased ankle slipped free. He bolted for the truck, half running, half stumbling, his bare foot sinking in the snow.

Tree limbs snapped behind him.

Kujak didn’t look back. Kept his eyes on the truck. Thirty more feet.

A roar like nothing he’d ever heard echoed across the valley. A whirlwind of snow blasted around him.

Twenty more feet to the truck. Kujak charged up the hill.

An elk antler whirled past his shoulder, skidded across the road.

Kujak jerked open the driver’s door and jumped behind the wheel. He fumbled for the keys, his fingers greasy with bear’s blood. “Come on, come on,” he pleaded.

Another antler struck his door.

He turned the key, ignited the engine, and jammed the accelerator. The truck slid sideways as the passenger side wheels spun. He shifted into reverse.

Beyond the frosty windshield a giant shape loomed in front of the truck.

The wipers pushed away the snow, revealing a skeletal creature with pale skin. It had long white hair and a horrid face with black holes for eyes. Its lips had been chewed to shreds. A serrated mouth grinned as it pointed at Kujak and shrieked. The sound pierced his eardrums with ice-pick stabbings of pain. His skin crystallized with frost as a chill coursed through him. Kujak felt his belly caving inward. The muscles tightened around his bones.

The beast picked up what was left of Jeb and ran off into the woods.

Kujak sat behind the wheel, shaking. His Cree friends had warned him not to hunt in Manitou Forest. That’s the Wendigo’s hunting ground. He’d always laughed off talk of Indian superstitions.

His heart turned to ice in his chest as he shifted into drive and pushed the pedal to the floor. The old Chevy flatbed fishtailed then finally straightened. It took a mile before he found the nerve to look at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His face was gaunt, his plump cheeks sunk inward. The irises of his eyes had turned pure white. His teeth grew sharp as icicles. He thought of Shelby, the boys at the chophouse, and that bastard Thornhill. Kujak’s bloody hands gripped the wheel. With a voracious hunger for meat gnawing at his belly, he drove back toward town.

~ Brian Moreland

Block

January 24, 2017January 21, 2017 ~ Hunter Shea ~ 30 Comments

“So, you’re saying there’s no such thing as writer’s block?”

I tamped out my pipe, refilled it with Dunhill Nightcap, touched the lit match to the aromatic leaf and took a few deep puffs. We were only fifteen minutes into the interview and my mind was already drifting to other things. Then my eyes wandered to the bottle of Macallan 25 the young man had brought, a gift from his publisher, and resigned myself to my fate. There were far worse ways to spend a cold, dreary afternoon.

“Would you like a glass?” I said.

He smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, but no. I’m more of a beer man myself.”

I poured my second shot of the amber ambrosia, savoring the aroma a moment before tilting the glass back oh-so-gently.

“I love a cold beer as well, but it’s a poor substitute for fine scotch.”

A gust of wind shook the windowpane, rain pelting it like ball bearings.

I couldn’t tell if the phone on the table between us was still recording, as the face had gone dark. The interviewer, I had forgotten his name, took no notes; his complete reliance on technology baffled me. Then again, most of the workings of today’s world left me scratching my head.

Waving a cloud of smoke away, I said, “I’m sorry, I’ve completely forgotten your question.”

He shifted forward in his seat, tapping on the stack of books, my books, that he’d brought to the interview.

“We were talking about the staggering volume of work you’ve produced in your thirty-five year career. I counted forty-three novels, seventeen novellas, two-hundred and eleven short stories and at least a hundred articles. I’m not alone in being wowed by your output. I asked if you ever had a moment when a story just wouldn’t come to you and you said there is no such thing as writer’s block. I find that intriguing because I’ve yet to find a writer who hasn’t experienced it at least once in their career.”

“You’re not talking to the right authors,” I said, grinning.

“I’ve interviewed a considerable number.”

I noticed the creeping strands of gray hair at his temples, the very beginnings of crow’s feet when he smiled. Perhaps he wasn’t as young as I’d thought.

I drew on my pipe and said, “A real writer is never blocked. He or she may be lazy, tired, scared, or in the grip of some addiction or flight of fancy, but they’re not writing because they’re unfocused, distracted, not blocked.”

The interviewer crossed his left leg over his right and rested his forearm on his knee. I wondered if it was too late to ask him his name.

“In all these years, you’ve never been too distracted to write?”

“Not once. On the day I had surgery to remove my appendix, I wrote a story on the back of my chart an hour after the anesthesia had worn off.”

“That’s incredible dedication.”

“I prefer to call it necessity.”

“To feed your compulsion?”

“Yes and no.”

“Can you remember the last time you took a day off from writing?”

It took me a moment to think. Ancient history gets harder for me to recall.

“It was the day I received my very first acceptance letter for my book, The Forbidden Forest. There was much celebration that night. A little too much.”

He settled back into his chair. “I’m going to be honest, I’m envious. I hope to be a novelist some day, but I can’t seem to get the first one across the finish line.”

I downed a third glass of scotch.

“You just don’t have the right muse,” I said.

“Maybe I can borrow yours,” he said affably, with just a hint of a nervous chuckle.

“Oh, you wouldn’t want that. I assure you.”

“If I could have one tenth of your career, I’d die a happy man.”

I set my pipe down and locked eyes with him.

“A muse isn’t just a mystical force from which ideas spring. Some muses can be strict taskmasters. Happiness has nothing to do with it.”

He looked at me with incredulity. “Wait. So you believe that a muse is a real thing?”

“I don’t believe, I know.”

Perhaps it was the scotch. No matter. I’d said it and let it hang heavily in the air between us.

Now he checked to make sure his phone was still recording, hot to have the scoop that America’s bestselling author had lost his mind.

“Do…do you see your muse? Can you talk to her? Or him?”

There was no going back now.

“Yes and yes, and my muse has no gender. At least not in the sense as we would define it.”

He ran his hands through his hair. No doubt his palms were sweaty with anticipation of how much publicity his interview was going to garner.

I drank more Macallan, enough to make me lightheaded, but not too much to hinder the work that needed to be done later. Oh no, that could not happen.

“Can I ask how often you talk to your muse?” His smile looked like a shark’s, circling for the kill.

“Every day.”

“Your muse has given you a constant stream of ideas and inspiration since when?”

I shook my head, relighting my pipe.

“Truth be told, it’s not very big on ideas.”

This rocked him, wiping the shark grin from his face.

“Then…then what does it do?”

I leaned forward, the leather chair creaking, and touched his knobby knee.

“It makes me write.”

“It makes you write?”

“Yes. Every…day.”

“And what if you don’t?”

Now it was my turn to beam like a sly Great White.

“Terrible, terrible things happen.”

There was a ripple in the darkness behind the eager interviewer’s chair.

“You say you’re working on your own novel?” I asked.

His face blanched. “Yes, in fits and starts.”

I sucked on my teeth, releasing trapped scotch from my gums.

“That simply will not do. Not if you were to ‘borrow’ my muse.”

“I don’t understand.”

I filled the void between us with sweet, aromatic smoke.

“And you never will.”

The gray beast sprang from the ether, tearing the man’s jugular with a single swipe. I ducked to avoid the spray of blood – blood I knew my muse would slurp like a starving cat, leaving no trace of the young man behind.

I looked away, unable to watch the ravenous mastication. I grabbed the bottle of scotch and staggered to my study where my typewriter awaited.

It had been a long while since I had written a horror story.

I guess it was fair to say that today, my muse had given me inspiration. Putting a fresh sheet of paper into the Royal typewriter, I began the day’s tale.

“So, you’re saying there’s no such thing as writer’s block?”

I tamped out my pipe, refilled it with Dunhill Nightcap, touched the lit match to the aromatic leaf and took a few deep puffs.

~ Hunter Shea

Playmate

January 10, 2017January 7, 2017 ~ Christopher A Liccardi ~ 26 Comments

Oh little playmate, you would not play with me…

The discordant jangle of this long ago childhood nursery rhyme echoed under the bed where he hid. Some things never forgotten, he heard the sound of all that screaming like some fucked up sing-song that gets stuck in your head and never goes away. What did they call it, an ear-mite? He didn’t care. The rhythm soothed him while he waited for her to come home.

I’ll take your life, you see…

Those weren’t the words precisely. He giggled in time with the ringing in his ears.

Eddie, lying on his back, sharpened the knife, not minding the flakes of metal dust that landed in his eyes. He was singing and crying and none of the other shit mattered anymore. She wouldn’t play with him; she didn’t want to climb through his cellar door, as the song went. She would be sorry.

“I asked you to play with me, Kate. I told you I wanted to play…” The voice trailed off, but the song kept right on playing, if only in his head. He worried at the edge of the knife while he waited. He tested the blade, touched the razor-sharp edge to his tongue, tasted blood instantly.

Not sharp enough.

Eddie had been killing his way across the mid-west looking for someone to play with him, anyone. But, each time he showed up in someone’s house or their office late at night, all they did was scream.

Not very friendly, were they?

Not a bit.

Eddie giggled again. The sounds of those desperate cries and shrieks were the things he collected. He could listen to them when riding a bus, say, or walking through a crowded city park. They were his friends and he loved each of them, remembered each of them, knew where each came from.

He spent years of his life terrified of everything before he had taken his first friend. After that, he wasn’t afraid anymore.

A sudden jolt of adrenaline ran through him and the blade of his kitchen knife halted an inch from his right eye. This was the same knife that had taken the head off an old man in Meriville, Tennessee and the arms and legs of a woman in Columbia, South Carolina. The knife he’d driven into the skull of a guy who tried to rough him up outside a bar in Fairfield, Virginia. This friend didn’t run and it didn’t scream.

Had he left the bodies of this woman’s family where she would see them? That was the panic that had stopped his hand, and that nursery rhyme mid-jingle. Where had he stashed Kate’s mother and father?

Kitchen, silly!

A piercing rip of laughter peeled away from under the bed. He didn’t know if she was coming home today or tomorrow, but it didn’t matter. Once Eddie made you his friend it was only a matter of time before you’d try to scream.

Once he picked you as his friend, he didn’t change his mind.

One time he waited outside a trailer house door for four days; waited and listened. Apparently the occupants did nothing more than screw and do drugs. When they ran out, the man of the house, on wheels like a toy car, left to find more narcotics.

He never made it as far as the car, did he? No, ahhh.

That screech of laughter again and the rhyme came back.

Eddie had spotted Kate at a local coffee stop. Luck had brought them together. He had been tossed out of the fast food joint down the street. The kid behind the register called the cops, said he looked suspicious. The cops apparently didn’t think so and he was walking down the street five minutes later.

Kate, he got her name from the coffee cup she had picked up at the counter. She bumped into him and Eddie knew at once she was going to be his next friend. He even thought he might love her. She was pretty and tall, like his mother, and she smiled so big and bright when he stepped in front of her. She recoiled a little when he smiled back, but that was alright. Not many people liked his smile.

Let’s be jolly friends, Kate.

That’s what he said to her, or wanted to say as she stepped back from him uttering something mostly polite. He decided she was the one for him, the next one anyway, and followed her down the street to her office.

Kate hadn’t noticed him, but then again, they never did.

Maybe Kate won’t notice I’m here under the bed until later.

His mind ran wild with thoughts of how he’d pop out from under the bed and scare the hell out of her, or maybe he’d drag her momma in here and drop her on the bed next to Kate after she slept?

So many options for my new playmate, so many choices…

He was getting excited.

It was dark now. Eddie thought about trying to stay awake and sharpen his knife more, but one look at the pointed edge and he could tell it was good. More than good. He closed his eyes, dreaming of all the things he and Kate would talk about and all the screaming she would do. He’d never used anyone’s parents as toys before and he was excited.

She will scream the loudest of any of them.

Sleep took him. It was the sleep of the mentally young and the criminally insane. Eddie chased his playmates through a park in his dream, waving the knife at some and running others down in a car he stole. Somewhere in the distance he heard a new scream, a new playmate was coming.

He opened his eyes to a flood of light pouring in from the hallway. Kate had made it home and wandered into the kitchen while he was asleep. She found her parents at the table where Eddie had found them. Well, he had found two people sitting having lunch but now there were enough pieces to fill every chair.

It’s rude not to fill up the empty seats.

Kate screamed and screamed like nothing he’d heard before. It was marvelous. He cried a little at the thought of all those screams to take with him when he moved on.

Like the scream lottery…

Eddie wriggled himself out from under her bed, his knife in hand and a smile on his face. He started to hum silently trying to find the tune he’d been humming for nearly a year now. The words would come, or most of them.

He started to sing aloud, rough at first but by the time Kate heard him, it was steady, if not out of tune. The words comfortably familiar.

“…come out and play with me, I have this knife you’ll see…”

Eddie walked around the corner into the kitchen. Kate stopped screaming for just a moment and listened. She registered the song and then the face. She hadn’t seen the knife until the very end.

Eddie sang and Kate screamed, and he smiled at her all the while.

~ Christopher A. Liccardi