Damned Words 43

July 22, 2020July 28, 2020 ~ TheDamned ~ 8 Comments

Skeleton_Grin_resized

Fate
Nina D’Arcangela

Jabba-jaw, raking claw, with haste to the frenzy you did make.
The fray engaged, you are quick to slay any beast brought to slaughter.
Fierce clashing, teeth snapping, bones split beneath hammering rage.
Yet fleet of feet, it has you beat, as it fells your carcass to ground.
The battle fought, fury spent naught; your grin the jester’s call.
With placid lips and eager sips, it sups where you did fall.

The Bones of Her Earth
Charles Gramlich

Her name at ten was Melody. She lived amid the avocado green woods on Millstone Mountain in Arkansas, near a town called Liberty. Melody had hair like a thicket of weeds and eyes no one ever looked into. She had thoughts no one offered a copper penny for, and all her words she kept in her mouth so they couldn’t be slapped away by Mama.

Her name at twelve was Holly, after the necklace and wristlets of red berries she always wore. Most days, she spent in the woods, eating hickory nuts and wild cherries in season, eating other things no one ever thought to name. She caught tadpoles and carried them in her pockets until they dried hard and dark as rabbit turds. Then she buried them and made wishes over their graves. The wishes never came true.

At fourteen, her name was Harmony. She’d learned to sing the pain of her bruises through the heat of the summer like the cicadas. She would lie in the creek and place flat stones on her belly. The smooth weight comforted her scars. Sometimes she slept out under a roof of cedars and stars and dreamt of flying through the trees like dragonflies. She always awoke before she grew wings.

At sixteen, she threw away her names. That was the year she found the jawbones, white on the ground amid frost-killed leaves. She prayed to them as Gods. They answered. Carrying them in her fists, she returned to the house she’d never called home. The bones were no longer white when she was finished with Mama.

Wednesday
Marge Simon

Today is Wednesday, the day the Beast people come for the dying. The grown-up’s call them ghouls. Once, the Beast people lived deep in the earth and ate dead bodies. But now they came up to stay here. They wear long, hooded cloaks and their breaths rattle as they move. It’s like the sound his father made when he was so sick. Papa coughed all night, even in his sleep. On a Wednesday, the Beast people came and took his father away. Now Mama is very sick too.

When the sun passes to afternoon, he is worried about her. If he stays in the house, they’ll come in. They’ll hide in the shadows and wait for Mama to die. That’s what they did when his father got so sick. He’s sure they want her too. Two miles up the road is the cemetery. He decides he will lure them away from Mama.

When he sees them coming, he goes outside and runs as fast as he can all the way to the cemetery. He is out of breath, but first he walks around, searching the gravestones. One of them has to be his Papa’s, but he can’t remember where it is. He’d come with Mama to put flowers on it last week, but there are no graves with flowers and he can’t read. Exhausted, he sinks to the ground, bumping into a peculiar shape. The headstone creaks, the ground gives way and he falls in. When his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sees the cavern is filled with long skulls and old bones. The skulls have the Beast people’s faces.

Above, he hears the rattle of their breathing coming closer. This must be their secret burial place. There’s nowhere to hide. He starts to cry.

In the Forest
A.F. Stewart

Shall I tell you a story, little one?

No, no, wait, don’t back away. Stay here, with me, and listen. I’m sure you will find it fascinating. My tale is about this forest, you see.

They say this woodland is haunted, don’t they? Well, they’re correct. Spirits move past the trees, within the wind, and worse, the ravenous dead walk here, among the bones.

Can’t you hear their murmuring voices growing closer?

They’re hungry. Always hungry.

I think you understand now, why the villagers told you not to come, not to hunt here. This forest kills everything that enters, and nothing ever leaves.

They’re here now. Can you see them, those pitiful skeletons, gnashing their jaws? You can run if you like, but you’ll be dead soon whatever you do. The forest takes us all.

We all remain.

Until we are nothing but bones.

And cursed souls.

New Friend
Lydia Prime

As little Melanie burst through the back door, curtains flew and the screen-door slammed shut. Mommy yelled for her to stop, but she was going so fast in her slippery shoes that she skidded halfway across the room. She could see her mother eyeing the mud on her new lace dress. With hands on hips, and a scowl on her face, Mommy’s pinched lips said everything her mouth didn’t need to.

Melanie started to protest before Mommy could speak, but one quick snap of the towel she always wore over her shoulder was enough to silence the child. As mother’s hand reached out for what Melanie was hiding behind her back, a pot lid rattled on the stove. Mommy turned thinking it was boiling over, but it wasn’t. Melanie took a step backwards.

Focused on her daughter once again, mother reached out and gestured, but Melanie didn’t want to hand over her prize, it had told her not to.

As Mommy took a step forward, she heard something rattle in the ‘fridge. Melanie was slowly sliding backwards into the hallway as she watched her mother open the icebox. The eggs were tipped and fell to the floor with a smash! Mommy bent down to clean the mess, and when she did, the large, glass milk bottle began to jiggle.

Melanie quickly turned and brought her new friend up to her face, panic flashed in her eyes. The chuckle that ran through her sent a shiver down her spine.

Watch, the voice slithered through her mind.

Melanie turned as the heavy jug crashed into Mommy’s skull and split it in two. Now put me in the puddle to feed, the bones intoned. With little choice, Melanie did as she was told. She was, after all, a good girl.

Mask
RJ Meldrum

Cody heard the truck. Pop was back from hunting. He parked in front of the house. Pop had been successful. A buck. Pop climbed down.

“I want this dressed. Skull needs to be bleached, I want it in my trophy room.”

That was where he kept his skulls and stuffed heads.

“I was gonna go swimming.”

His father’s face went dark. He grabbed the scruff of Cody’s shirt.

“I didn’t raise no pansy, I raised a man, one who can see to his own meat.”

“Yes, pa.”

“Now, get working, while I grab a beer.”

Cody went to the back of the truck to see a bloodstained deer on the truck bed. He got to work.

It took hours. His hatred for his father grew. Every day he was forced to ‘man up’. Forced to play sports he hated, crushed by boys twice his size. Forced to shoot helpless animals. Forced to cut them open, cleave their flesh, rip out their bones for display. He hated it all and he hated his father.

He stared down at the skull, boiling in the huge pot on the outside gas burner. After a couple of hours, he removed it from the water and scraped all the meat off. Cody stared down at the eye sockets. What had this creature felt, just before it died?

He knew what he had to do. He had to avenge the deaths of all the slaughtered creatures. He had to avenge himself.

Later, after sunset, he stood on the threshold of his father’s bedroom. Cody had split the skull in half and reattached the two parts with leather straps. He was wearing it, his face obscured. He was no longer Cody, he was nature. He held Pop’s favorite hunting knife.

The moon emerged. It was time.

What Remains
Mercedes M. Yardley

“Hey. Hey. Marissa.”

She ignored it, ignored the way that it chattered and teased and always called her by the wrong name. She walked past it resolutely, a discarded piece of bone nipping at her heels as she strode by.

“Hey. Melanie. Just pick me up. Take me home. Let’s play together. There are so many different ways to play together.” The animal skull grinned at her. Funny how skulls are always forced to grin. She didn’t believe being dead was as much fun as the living were led to believe.

She pulled her laundry from the line and spun around quickly, avoiding the snapping of the skull’s jaws as it lurched at her feet. She hopped over it and headed home.

“Wait. Wait,” it called after her, and she closed her eyes as she heard it whimper and snarl. It buried itself under the leaves and debris, crafting a safe little home for itself until she passed by again in the morning.

Offering
Mark Steinwachs

The streak of sunlight across the bone makes the situation seem worse. The gods illuminating what I could plainly see. Not a scrap left. I crouch down and take the lower jaw, turning it over, hoping there would be some bit of flesh. Clean. My fingers trace the scratches left in the bone. I shudder and set it down. I lift the upper jaw, not wanting to turn it over. Like the piece before, its clean. The teeth marks in this one etched deeper in bone, its hunger not satiated. I stop myself before throwing the bone across the forest. What good would that do? I did the best I could, and my offering wasn’t good enough. I stand up, remove my shirt, and draw my knife. I slowly run the sharpened blade across my chest, blood oozing.

No animal makes a sound. The wind rustling dried leaves stills. I join nature in stillness, my last moments. Silence. A sharp, hissing breath from behind me followed by searing pain. My last vision is its unholy darkness and razor, white teeth.

Apotheosis
Scarlett R. Algee

Find me, the bones had whispered. Find me. Feed me. Let me protect you.

I’d discovered them by accident last night as I’d crunched through the snow blanketing my backyard: the two damaged halves of a jaw, lying in a cocoon of dead leaves atop the powder. What they were, I didn’t know, except that they were too white and too gleaming: scraped clean.

And that they were exactly what I needed.

Now I lay them, still reverently cradled in my gloves, on my laboratory table, apart from all the other pieces I’ve gathered in the past year. Ribs. Vertebrae. Limbs. Teeth. All of them had whispered to me, little indistinct murmurs, little urges of wanting to be again. None had spoken clear words until I’d found the jaws last night.

Find me. Feed me.

Some sort of intelligence resting in the bones. I shake out the rest of my tools: hammer and chisel and screws, lengths of wire and leather thongs. Enough to bind these shards into something whole, because the urge to be is strong.

Listen, the bleached jaws whisper, and I bend my ear to their words and begin to work. First the bones, then skin, then blood.

Listen, I hear again, and I know that whatever I’m creating this night, it will be enough.

Unburied
Lee Andrew Forman

Soaked in crimson, its feasts had been legendary. Limb from body, head from torso, sinew and organs consumed; yet its appetite never fully sated. Memories that live deep within the remains of a banished soul. Unwritten from scripture, cast from history, forgotten by time; these bare, arid bones wait for the caress of the unsuspecting. A taste of copper-tang that will bring about its awakening.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2020
Image © Copyright Lee Bachh Photography

Shadows

June 10, 2020May 26, 2020 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 8 Comments

The blast stripped his skin away, charring the flesh underneath and turning his bones to dust. His eyelids were sealed by the heat, the fluid orbs boiling and bursting in their sockets. He felt a brief moment of pain, then nothing, as his limbs were ripped from his body, his guts torn open and his head shattered. After the explosion, there was nothing left except for a few misshapen lumps of gristle and burnt meat.

He woke. He was in the boiler room as usual. He stood, dusting himself down. He quickly realised the room had changed. There was a hole in the roof and the room was full of smoke and debris. The furnace was ripped open, sheared metal hanging from the frame. He looked down and saw the charred, rendered remains of his body. He remembered the explosion. He was dead.

He’d often thought about death, not morbidly, but in a detached way. What did it feel like, what did you see, experience? Now he could find out.

There were sirens in the distance, but they didn’t concern him. He was well past the point of being saved. No defibrillator was going to bring him back; they’d have to take his body out in a bucket.

He walked upstairs to the factory floor, amused to see the panic and fear on his colleagues’ faces. They had practised drills for this type of occurrence, but none of them seemed to remember. They ran for the doors in a panicked mob. No-one was checking for colleagues, no-one was counting heads, no-one was grabbing fire extinguishers. He laughed to see them, but reflected he would probably be doing the same. He wondered how long it would be before his absence was noticed, who would discover him, the memory of the sight no doubt being burned into their memory forever.

He walked out the factory, intrigued to find he wasn’t floating or drifting. His body felt as solid as always. Nobody noticed him, so it was clear he was invisible. He walked towards a stack of pallets with the intention of seeing if he could walk through objects. The bump on his nose suggested he couldn’t.

He wandered away from the site, keen to get home. He had a sense that his time was limited, and he wanted to see his family for the last time. He wanted to say goodbye.

His car wasn’t an option, so he decided to walk.

The factory was situated in the working-class part of town. It was a Victorian red-brick edifice, originally a flour mill, but converted into a small timber yard in the late 1970s. He walked down streets full of red brick terraced houses, originally built to house the flour mill workers and their families. The homes were modest, two-up and two-down, with a front door that opened straight onto the street and a small yard behind. An alleyway at the back allowed access to the yards.

As he walked down the quiet street he became aware of curtains being twitched in almost every house. Was he visible? Could they see his injuries? It didn’t take him long to realise he was being watched by the dead. Pale faces with sunken black eyes started at him from behind glass. These were the dead of past ages, condemned to the house where they died, condemned to move unseen amongst the living. He saw the sadness in their faces, the despair.

As he walked, getting closer to his home and family with every step, the world around him changed. The real world, the one he had occupied until twenty minutes ago, was starting to change, starting to become unfocused and misty. The figures in the houses were becoming more distinct, more solid, while the bricks and mortar became more and more transparent. His feet started to sink into the tarmac of the pavement. The world darkened. The street, the one that belonged to the real world, faded away. He realised the houses, the pavement, the entire mortal realm had passed from his view.

He found himself on a wide open plain, full of darkness and shadows. The dead were all around him. Most were heading to an unseen point in the distance, some were simply wandering around, lost. He joined the throng, walking to the unknown destination.

An endless time later, travelling through this dark, shadowed land, he arrived at his destination. Standing there, with countless others, he looked across the river into the darkness. Boats arrived on the bank every few minutes, the dead boarded and the boats headed back out into the darkness. Some of his new companions shuffled around, unsure, but he knew he had to make a decision. To go across the river meant the end. He wouldn’t see his family again. To stay on this side was to become a wraith, a spirit that haunted the mortal world, being able to see but not being seen. The sadness was overwhelming.

He stood on the river bank and made his decision. He remembered the misery and despair on the faces staring out at him from the houses in the street. He didn’t want to suffer that fate. Instead, he would move on. He stepped onto the next boat.

∼ RJ Meldrum

Fetchling

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 9 Comments

Flash!

The light strobes; its flare blinding.

Flash!

The heat from the bulb dries the sweat from my face.

Flash!

My eyes slam shut; they flicker open to rivulets of blood running down my thighs.

Flash!

She screams for me to turn back to the camera. A line of spittle draws its way past the rag in my mouth; drips from my wet chin.

Flash!

An involuntary blink, I jerk and turn away; this enrages her.

Soothing darkness falls; I feel movement within the shadows.

The dog whip sounds its crack just beyond my right ear. Her intent to miss, I’m certain; we’ve been at this for hours.

Crack again, this time it strikes my bare shoulder. Another flick and the skin shreds, the blackness so acute I can hear her draw back for another strike. I scream through the gag, this pleases her; she returns to the camera.

Flash!

I jolt so hard the chair wobbles; blonde stands fall forward to block my vision.

Flash!

Crying hysterically, I scream and beg through the fabric tearing my mouth; I hear her mild sigh.

Flash!

Closer, hotter, brighter. My desperate pleas are met with silence. I can feel her standing over me; I will not look.

Flash!

As the bloom fades through my lids, the chair back makes contact with the floor; my head splits open. Tears streaming, one word is left to me – a stuttering please. She leans over, strokes my face, calms my shattered nerves. She strokes again, I relax a bit more. She hushes me as the final stroke cleaves my throat; I feel warmth.

Flash!

My eyes fly wide in panic. The bloom fades; identical icy-blue irises stare back into my own.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela

Mental Anesthetic

May 20, 2020April 30, 2020 ~ Lydia Prime ~ 4 Comments

Smoke swirling overhead, I lay on the cool filth covered ground, ashing in front of my face. A particularly crisp piece of dried wallpaper lights from the dropping embers. The night is nearing, the shadows cast upon the walls aren’t dancing nearly as much; I won’t be alone when the sun drops beneath the horizon. They are coming, as they always do.

I flick the butt of my cigarette and allow more pieces of detritus to smolder and pull my limbs in tighter to a fetal position. It’s easier this way, to just rest on the ground and wait rather than try with futility to hide; the past few weeks have taught me that.

The wind howls as thin branches scrape against the weakened glass, I shiver and light up another. Within minutes, the cherry of my cigarette is the only light left. A door opens a few floors below and hurried footsteps rush the stairs. I count each foot fall, there are more this time. Facing the wall and finishing my nicotine delight, the door behind me slowly slides open. My heart doesn’t quicken; the nerves I used to feel have all but been replaced by a mental anesthetic.

“Miss us?” One of the creatures questions; I don’t reply.

“Of course he did,” says the other, tapping my shoulder with its toe. My body rocks back and forth as they get into position.

I close my eyes as their teeth sink beneath the surface of my flesh. They lap from my open wounds, savoring the taste of a metallic iron liquid. The grotesque slurping and gargles wrap my stomach in knots but I know better than to fight back.

“What a shame, looks like this one’s tamed.” I hear, my head becoming fuzzy.

“Perhaps another? His daughter?” They’re taunting me, covered in my blood and snickering. My pulse quickens, not from fear but anger. “Definitely his daughter, his adrenaline is starting to rev.” These wicked beasts cackle and I stay silent, nothing I do will help me now.

“D-D-Daddy? I’m scared.” A faint cry from the hallway. It’s her.

“There we go!” Blood pressure springing through the roof, my lesions gushing while the freaks continue their feast.

I try to get up, to fight them off, but all I can do is mumble, “Youuu-bazztir…” As the silence and darkness consumes me.

∼ Lydia Prime

Damned Words 42

May 6, 2020May 6, 2020 ~ TheDamned ~ 5 Comments

DW_42

Awakening
R.J. Meldrum

The house had stood alone for years, shunned by the locals. It was supposedly haunted, dangerous. They broke in, looking for something worth stealing. The first room was empty; the paint peeled away from damp walls, dust and cobwebs lay everywhere.

“There’s nothing here.”

“Let’s try another room.”

They opened the door to find a fully furnished drawing room. No dust or cobwebs. The furniture was polished. A fire burned in the fireplace.

“What?”

They glanced back at the first room. It had transformed into a dining room, the table laden with sparkling crockery and glass.

“What’s happening?”

Piano music tinkled and they could hear the murmur of distant conversation. Above them, footsteps. Something was moving. After years of dormancy, the house had woken.

Forgotten
Nina D’Arcangela

Hell has laid claim to places on this earth, places that are lost, forgotten; for all intents and purposes, no longer exist. I woke in such a place.

For days I screamed for help, but none came. A failed attempt to reach the sill reminded me of shattered tibiae and why hope was a fool’s delight. Day would come, the glass above amplified the sun’s rays to the point of roasting me. My infected legs gleamed in the blinding light near filled with puss and putrefaction—they ached for the skin to crack, but no such salvation offered. An uttered prayer barely mumbled through cracked lips as ignored as the others; divinity’s attempt to further mock me.

I’m left to devour with eager greed what crawls my tomb; to lick dry the weep from the peeling walls. Now I wait. Death will find me, it’s the only thing my diseased mind is sure of.

Weeping
Lee Andrew Forman

The room immured my weak sack of flesh. I dreamed of limits in waking agony, a threshold which mortality cannot pass. But as my knees throbbed where blood of descent stained the floor, I knew this place existed outside the place it was in.

Ever-searching was that boy. He found something. My feet carried a slack frame—with grief holding both eyes blind—to places our kind weren’t meant to see.

Like father, like son. Like son, like father.

They say Jesus wept. And so did I.

Still Life With Window
Charles Gramlich

My life is lived between two walls of peeling paint. Nothing exists behind me except howling shadows. I do not turn my head to see them. There is enough howling within to hold my thoughts. When I’m tired, I lie upon the floor and let chips of fallen paint cradle my face. The chips are sweet when I nibble them. I must be half paint by now, and half flesh.

Of course, there is the window. I do not speak of that.

True food is rare, but I have enough. Ants and roaches and inchworms come across my walls and floor. Sometimes a bee or a butterfly appears mysteriously. Perhaps it arrives through the aperture that I do not discuss. I catch them with my blackened tongue; I crunch them between my teeth, which are mostly functional though they rattle in my jaws.

Once a bird came to me—flitting out of painful light into softest darkness. I caught it and held it for a long time before I fed. Over and over I shred those precious memories, of a warm thing, a thing that throbbed with heartbeats between my fingers.

And sometimes my memories reach further. Even though I fight them. They reach out through the white hole between my walls, out to where lives a beast called the sun. Today, I heard from that place, beneath that light, some wild, free language—a voice other than the one in my head.

It spoke of love, but I don’t know what that means

Charred
A.F. Stewart

The smell clung to the scorched room, buried in the blistered paint. I knew it well in my line of work.

The smell of death.

Three people died here a month ago, in a fire, trapped with no way out. A tragedy, the papers called it. The police called it an accident. I knew better.
Because I had an advantage over them.

But the reasons behind the fire weren’t why I was here, no my extracurricular abilities to commune with the dead led me here. I came to find restless spirits.

I was not disappointed.

I felt their presence the minute I entered the room. The echoes of terrified screams filled the space and their memories of pain lingered in the air, all bouncing off the blackened walls. The people who died here remained, caught in the agony of their last moments.

I smiled.

Every one of them deserved their manner of death. They deserved their pain. The fact they would live in that moment for eternity made me want to sing. I had jumped at the chance when offered the contract and rejoiced when I struck the match that sent them to this hell.

Sometimes I loved my job.

The Larder
Marge Simon

Just at twilight, the old woman hustled to the kitchen. It was time to prepare her son’s special meal, a duty she took particular pleasure in. The larder was cold and damp, even when stocked to capacity. It had once served as her son’s nursery, with Disney characters on the walls. Even the window had darling curtains to match. Of course, it no longer opened to let in fresh air and sunshine, which would likely cause dissention among the chattel. The panes were painted black and covered with solid iron bars. Some of the livestock were crawling around, searching for crumbs and mistaking them for strips of wallpaper. Deftly, she grasped one by the neck. Before he could bite her, she knocked it senseless with a rolling pin and dragged it down to the kitchen.

She settled in a chair to slowly massage the deep groove at the base of the skull. As she worked, she smiled, for this particular male looked a lot like the President. At last, the trembling eased and the head fell forward into her lap. It gave no sign of feeling the knife press deep into its jugular. The cut was neat, and she directed the gusher into her best brass pot.

Vlad appeared yawning. “Smells good, Mom. But I told you my cholesterol was over the top, remember? Just a salad for me tonight.”

Home
Mark Steinwachs

No one used the word abandoned, but that’s what happened. My life didn’t matter in their eyes. I wasn’t alone either. Many of us were left behind. And then our home, no it was a prison, was no longer used. We needed them to live. We fed off their fear, their hate, their worry, and so much more. Our numbers dwindled but some of us kept fighting, we believed we could make them return. Those few of us left grew up as those we were born of did the same somewhere out in the world. Fight and belief are not enough though, and the last few began to perish. There was one thing the rest didn’t have that I did.

Hate.

I refused to disappear and it will all pay off today. I felt him coming to me. My hatred for him has kept me alive and more importantly kept the most tenuous bond between us. He could never be rid of me fully. Now he is here. Walking down the hallway, his memories flooding back. He knows where I am, drawn to me, but has no idea I exist. He opens the door staring into the broken, barren room. He is back, a full-grown man for me. I coalesce from the darkened corner, a perfect replica of him only in the form of shadowed smoke. He screams as I shoot forward, slamming into him.

This is my home and now it is time to repay those that left me here.

View From an Upstairs Window
Scarlett R. Algee

I can hear my parents downstairs; my mother chatters as dishes clink and pots rattle, my father’s muffled replies and heavy footsteps. I can’t smell what she’s cooking, haven’t smelled anything for days, but it doesn’t matter – there’s no food for me, not now.

I don’t remember anything between the bite and waking. Only opening my dry, stinging eyes and finding myself on a bed in this moldy room, this place that hasn’t been used in decades. My father apologized through the door. “We have to be patient.” he tells me. Either I die again, a proper death, or…something will have to be done.

It’s been a week inside these walls and that something hangs heavy in the air.

I haven’t slept since waking. I pace, circle, throw myself against the door that won’t budge; gouge at the cracked walls. I howl invectives in a voice I don’t recognize; snarl from a mouth that can no longer form words.

I’m getting hungry. That’s the worst part. After feeling nothing for days, the sensation of hunger has come roaring back. I can hear them moving around downstairs, they sound so soft, so delicious.

Going to the window, I lean my face against the glass, leaving smears of black saliva behind. My stomach cramps with need and I scrabble at the sill. Putting my head through the opening, the air is damp against my eyes, dewy inside my gaping mouth. It’s such a long way down, but I’m so hungry. I lean further out, steadying myself.

Either I’ll die a proper death, or something will have to be done.

The Manor of Krystiahn Koryci
Lydia Prime

The twisted branches from the tree outside remind me of just how long I’ve been waiting here. Waiting in an empty home, no one to comfort me, no one to care. But still, I stay, and I watch as the outside world moves on. The day gives way to night just as the seasons flutter by.

I can almost see the faded memories as I stand inside my forgotten room. A smile, a giggle, a hug to be cherished – but no longer felt. The faces have left my mind, however, figures from the past still taunt me.

In another time this room’s decor was perky enough to make me gag. Now that the mauve and flowered wallpaper has almost completely flaked away, I sort of miss the sight. The floorboards creak with each step I take, I’m not sure if my dusty bones creak louder. Closing the flimsy door behind me, I shuffle across the room to the uncurtained window. I watch the sky; the white fluff quickly spinning – warping into a gray warning of sorts. The storm is coming.

I watch the tree, its limbs stretch far and taught, forever reaching for nothing. Perhaps we have something in common. I lean against the wood pane and watch a truck drive up the hidden driveway to the front. A man steps out and smiles, staring up as if he can see me. His wife climbs out of the passenger’s side and joins him, he slinks an arm around her shoulders. She rubs her engorged belly and they grin, taking it all in.

How ridiculous, that these stupid people think they can take my house from me! They must be insane. I’ve been here for longer than I can remember, this is my house. With that final thought, the window shatters and I leave the decrepit room to learn about these trespassers.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2020
Image © Copyright Lee Andrew Forman

Snuff Film Relic

April 22, 2020April 17, 2020 ~ Marge Simon ~ 11 Comments

“Sweetie, I’ve been into film production since I was a boy,” he said. Julian was his name and I was crazy about him. I couldn’t believe such a man of his looks and caliber would ever speak to me, much less invite me into his spacious home. But here I was, sitting in his living room.

He lit my cigarette and kissed my fingers. While I was taking it all in, he placed a snifter of brandy in my hand, his silky baritone like a lullaby. He showed me his father’s Kodak. “This model was made in 1965. Just look at this my dear!” Unrolling some film, he held it up to the light so I could see how each frame had clearly captured a part of the action. Then he loaded the projector and started it.

By that time, I was getting a weird buzz from the brandy. I say ‘weird’ because I was feeling very odd. It was like everything was slowing down. When I looked at the filmstrip, it seemed a great distance away. And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

A lovely woman was sitting in the same chair as mine in the film. Julian held her in his arms. He began kissing her from her breasts down to her toes. A close-up of her eyelids fluttering. A line of drool escaped her lips. In the next set of frames, he was stabbing her with a screwdriver. He’d even added sound somehow — McCartney’s “Let It Be” full volume in the background.

Then he started in on me with a warm embrace, his lips on mine, sweet as that tainted brandy. Oh, yes, I was very much there, eyes wide open, unable to move, watching him remove the used film. He reloaded the Kodak, mounted it on a tripod, and aimed the lens straight at me.

∼ Marge Simon

Waiting for Flies

April 15, 2020March 30, 2020 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 6 Comments

Her eight sexy legs crawl up my cheek.

Oh! It feels so sweet.

My eyes strain to see her. So beautiful, that red mark like hot lipstick waiting to be kissed. Flies buzz above and my heart races each time one gets near.

The apparatus holds my mouth open for beloved to build her web. She’s done a special job, as seen from the mirror on the ceiling.

It’s like she’s made it just for me.

We still haven’t had our first kiss; I wait for it with a warm tingling in my stomach.

She crawls onto her web which spans my open mouth. She sits, watching the flies as I do, waiting for one to get caught in her perfect creation. If she gets enough I know she’ll share with me.

Patient. Just be patient.

Eventually she’ll crawl in and I’ll embrace her in moist darkness where I can love her forever.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

The Crack in the Sky

April 8, 2020March 24, 2020 ~ afstewart ~ 4 Comments

Moonlight whispers against the grey stone of the church, reverberating against the silence of the night. Blood drops onto the snow, staining the pristine white in taints of crimson. I stare at the contrasting colour and then reach towards the crack in the sky. More blood runs down my arm.

“Are you satisfied yet? Is this enough?”

No answer. The crack does not close. I go back inside the church.

The bodies are still there, but the blood is gone. Except for what remains on my hands. They never take that. I think it amuses them.

I hear a rustle, beyond the pews.

Did I miss one?

I move forward. A child crouches behind the altar and scuttles backward into the shadows when he sees me.

I smile, the sadness of inevitability behind the gesture. “You’re afraid, I understand. I must seem a monster to you. Were some of these people your family?”

I barely hear him reply, “Yes.”

“I’m sorry about that, but it was necessary. They were brave people, sacrificed to save the world.”

Another whisper, “You killed them. I saw you. I heard them scream.”

I sigh. How do I explain to a child I’m keeping demons at bay, monsters far more terrifying than me?

Doesn’t it even matter? I can’t spare the boy. I can feel them hunger for his blood already.

“I’m sorry.” I move forward and shut my ears against his shrieks until the church is once again silent. The new blood disappears quickly. The only drops left are the spatters on my clothes and the fresh stains on my hands.

I turn and make my way past the bodies, heading back outside. I look up at the sky again, hoping perhaps this time I’ll see a black night and stars, not a fissure in the fabric of space. I sigh.

It’s still there.

No matter how many I sacrifice, it remains. No matter the gender, the age, the numbers, it never closes completely. But I know, if I stop, they’ll come through. Then the world dies. So I will continue.

Blood keeps the crack in the sky from widening. Blood keeps the hoards at bay.

For now…

~ A. F. Stewart

Countdown

April 1, 2020March 24, 2020 ~ Scarlett R. Algee ~ 3 Comments

Harry wakes to heat, and to silence.

He opens his eyes to a leak-stained ceiling, but everything feels too bright and he closes them again, trying to push past the cotton-wool thickness in his head to sort out exactly why the quiet is wrong. There’s a small stinging ache at the back of his neck and a sour iron taste in his throat, like he’s held a mouthful of old coins.

There’s no background noise.

That’s it. Harry opens his eyes another fraction. He’s lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room—in the Bonneheure Hotel, if the fleurs-du-lys stamped on the center ceiling tiles are any indication—but there’s no hotel ambiance, no voices or footsteps or air-conditioning hum. No air’s circulating at all: the room has a stifling musty smell that makes his nostrils burn. There’s just the rasp of his own breathing, and the corner of his smartphone digging into his hip inside his pocket.

And the weight of another body on the bed.

Harry turns his head, dizzy, frowning. The woman lying beside him, covered by a sheet pulled above her breasts, is bottle blonde, immaculately made up, her mouth a candyfloss shade of red and her eyelashes crisp with mascara.

Is she a hooker? He’s never seen her before.

Harry doesn’t remember coming here. Or bringing a woman, or anything that can tell him why he’s lying in his clothes on a bed in a silent hotel room with someone he doesn’t recognize; his last memory is of standing in front of his boss’ office door and feeling a sudden cold sting in his neck.

So that’s the pain above his collar; it’s starting to itch. He’s been…drugged? Kidnapped? But why—

This place closed last year, he thinks, and belated understanding brings him fully awake. Harry sits up and his right shoulder is jerked painfully: there’s a cable tie snugged around his wrist, attached to another, and another, a chain of cable ties that leads somewhere under the bed. He shifts on the mattress, heart picking up, sweat breaking out hot on his face; something shifts with him and rolls against his thigh.

The woman hasn’t stirred. Harry glances at her, then at the object, and pulls it into his lap with his left hand. It’s a roll of leather, and he fumbles it open to find a set of steak knives, gleaming blades of various widths, their serrated edges like broken sharks’ smiles.

“I don’t understand,” he says hoarsely. Harry looks back to the woman—his sitting up should have woken her, but she still hasn’t moved. Has she been drugged too? He reaches out with his free hand to shake her, clumsily.

She’s cold.

She’s not breathing.

His phone rings.

Harry shrieks, almost voiceless, and starts to his feet. His cable-tie tether jerks him down, and his knees bang painfully on the worn gray carpet, his head just missing the edge of the bedside table. He shuts his eyes again and exhales a ragged breath, heart stumbling against his ribs, sweat pouring beneath his shirt. The smartphone trills again, breaking a tiny sob from his parched lips, and with effort he wrests enough slack in his plastic restraint to pull the phone loose and thumb the screen. “H-hello.”

“Harry.” He knows the voice. It’s Conrad from work; Conrad, right hand of their boss, Kurtz, though Harry can never remember what the man actually does for the company. “I take it you found our present.”

“Conrad, God, Conrad, you have to help me—” Harry has almost no saliva, and when the words register, even that dries up. “…Present?”

“Do you like her, Harry?” Conrad is smiling, Harry can hear it in his voice. Can picture it, in fact: the perfect teeth, perfect tan, perfectly parted hair. “Lola. You wouldn’t have known her, she was down in HR,” Conrad purrs. “Shame, really, she’s a hell of a looker, but she was convenient.”

He sounds like a cat licking cream from its whiskers. Harry swallows, looking back over his shoulder at…Lola. “Conrad. What’s going on? Why’s this happening?”

“Oh, Harry, honey. You know.”

There’s a hint of laughter in Conrad’s voice, one that becomes more than a hint when Harry whimpers. “Look. Okay, look. If this is about the money, I—”

“Of course it’s about the money.” Conrad’s friendliness gives abrupt way to a hard edge. “You don’t skim off the top, Harry, not with Kurtz. You knew better. You may be swimming in the accounting pool, but you’re not one of the sharks yet.” The laugh comes out, a short sharp bark. “It’s the assumption that hurts, you know? Mr. Kurtz doesn’t appreciate people thinking he’s stupid.”

“I—” Harry’s heart is tapping painful double-time against his sternum. He’d assumed just that thing, had assumed his wide-bodied, pig-eyed boss was the idiot he resembled; it had been a correct assumption before, with some of the others. He works his jaws, trying to think fast as whatever he’d been doped with burns off. “So what happens now? The cops show up, they find me, they find…Lola”—he chokes on her name—”and they assume the worst?”

“That’s a neat convenient package,” Conrad muses. “And Mr. Kurtz wants to make an example of you. Only…not like that.” He sucks his teeth audibly. “Nobody’s going to look for you there, Harry. That hotel’s been closed fifteen months. It’s scheduled for demolition tomorrow.”

Harry’s chest constricts.

“And there’s Lola.” Conrad must be grinning. “Isn’t she a beauty? Kurtz got a clever idea. There’s a bomb in her.”

The blood drains from Harry’s face with a palpable loss of heat. “…What.”

“A bomb, Harry. Goes boom? One of the IT guys rigged it.” Conrad’s friendliness is back. “That’s why you have the knives, Harry. Nice knives. Japanese carbon steel. Got ’em at Sears. You cut her open and find it, you might have a chance. Kurtz believes in fairness, Harry, even if you don’t.”

The façade drops again. “You have five minutes. Goodbye, Harry.”

The call disconnects. Harry stares at his phone, aghast, but slowly gets to his feet, sits on the bed.

Stiffly, he pulls the sheet from Lola’s cold body.

She’s naked, flawless. Aside from a tiny blue pinprick wound on her throat, there’s not a mark on her. How many times had he passed this woman in the hallway and never picked her out from the others?

It’s a joke, right? It’s a sick joke, it has to be, he can’t—

Within the dead woman’s abdomen, something begins to beep.

∼ Scarlett R. Algee

Revealed

March 11, 2020March 3, 2020 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 5 Comments

Tears run in rivulets between the ashen layers – they carve their own landscape in the hardening cushion of falling powder. Fathers, mothers, small children, they reach for one another; some huddle close with barely a moment to spare, others remain a hands-width apart – all held fast in anguish as death sets upon them. This thriving valley swiftly transforms into a diorama of human terror and suffering.

Many years go by, a window into the past is unearthed; horrors the likes of which mankind has never seen before are revealed. A visage of haunting forms preserved in their final moments of agony – life pocketed in a cocoon of time; tragedy locked in the layers of its vice-like grip. Coincidence that this stroke of Mother Nature’s brush was encapsulated with such precision, or warning that another is coming?

∼ Nina D’Arcangela