Sweet Nothings

May 21, 2013July 29, 2013 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 58 Comments

Little bitch. Thought I’d never find out. I found out all right. Oh yeah, I found out. Knew it from day one. Just kept my mouth shut. Knew it all along. Six months and counting now. Kept my trap shut about it. Sealed my lips. Think I’m crazy, don’t you? Think I’m pretty sad for sticking around. Keeping her. Hey, I know what I’m doing, man. Been waiting it out. That’s right. Patience is the best revenge. Fucking hard to do, man. But I been waiting it out. My girl’s been playing a game.

Too bad by my rules.

You know the best part? My girl’s been coming home late at night. Shit, the wee hours of the morn. Me all in bed like I’m sleeping when I’m not. Watching her in the dark, eyes squinty and all. Watching her peel her clothes off. Feeling those titties I’ve had in my mouth a thousand times brush against my arm as she gets into bed. I make believe like I’m waking up and all. Run my hands over her tight little body even though I know she been worked over by other hands not too long before. Course, she’s gotta lay there and take it. Then my prick gets hard and we fuck. I fuck her hard too, cause she can’t deny me. Can’t make me suspicious. I fuck her hard. There’s a nasty grin on my face. It’s too dark in the room for her to see it, and I laugh to myself when I whisper all sweet shit into her ear.

Little bitch.

I know what her guy looks like. Passed him a few times out on the street. Once in a bar. He don’t know who I am. Don’t know me from Adam. Besides, I blend with the crowd. That’s my way. None too special on the outside. Just special on the inside. That’s what momma always told me. I was special on the inside. Nobody else quite like me. Took me awhile, but momma set me right. Told the truth. If she was still around, she’d be proud.

I know where my girl’s guy calls home. Some apartment. East side of town. Where trouble lives, at least that’s what they say. Gotta laugh when I hear that. See, I was born on the west side and made trouble too shit scared to stick around. That’s the only reason trouble lives there nowadays. On account of me.

I told you, patience is the best revenge. Been biding my time like a big old dog slobbering over a bone. Never get too tired of gnawing on it. Oh no. Not at all. Tastes sweeter the longer you work it over. Understand what I’m getting at now?

Paid her guy a visit today. Don’t look at me like that. I had to do it. Only so long you carry a charade. Look at me, using big words now and all. Yeah, momma would be proud. All grown up and I finally know what I want to be.

A better man.

Yeah, had a nice face to face with her guy and all. Told him the way I see things. Good thing to talk your grief out with another man. Real good being social. Separates us from the animals. Told him I didn’t appreciate him fucking my girl. He understood. Told him I didn’t appreciate him getting my girl home late at night. Not safe. Plus it ruins my night’s sleep, especially when I get up early and all to open the machine shop. Boss depends on me. Got to give a good example. Can’t do that with eyes half shut. He understood that, too. Real good being social, I told him. We’re getting somewhere.

Then I slugged him with the claw hammer I had under my coat.

Gonna leave a nasty mark. But you never know. He’s got long hair and all. Might just cover up the dent. I apologized to him. I have a conscious, you know. Yeah, I apologized. Except he couldn’t hear cause I knocked him cold. Hey, I tried. Counts for something, doesn’t it?

Dragged him into his bedroom. Spread him on the floor at the foot of his bed. Yeah, the same bed he been fucking my girl on. Gotta make that right somehow. Gotta balance things out. So I strip the pillowcase off a pillow. Maybe the same pillow my girl’s head been on? Maybe. Probably. Don’t matter anymore. Drop the pillowcase at my feet. Close my eyes and jerk off across it. Think of my girl as I do it. Feel closer to her somehow. Like we just had…what do you call it… a menash ah trah, or something like that. A three-way, for Christ sakes, is what I’m saying. When I’m all done, I shove the pillowcase into his mouth and gag him.

He’s stirring a bit. Coming around. See, I didn’t hurt him all that bad. I slam the claw hammer across his knee. Just to make sure he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Eyes damn near pop from his head. I grab his throat good and tight. Just getting his attention. I think I got it. Tell him if he wants to walk again, he best stop flapping his arms and leg around. He listens. Good. I pull pliers from my back pocket. A box cutter from inside my boot. Then give him his choice. Your fucking fingernails come off one by one. Or I cut your dick off and shove it through your fucking eye socket.

***

I find a Heineken inside his fridge. Import shit. But it’s beer. And it’s cold. Bites the back of my throat a bit, and that’s all I want. I scrub my hands real good. Pulp going down the drain makes me laugh. That poor fucker never had no choices.

It’s gonna be a long night. But I can’t wait to see my girl later. Gonna fuck her. Kiss her hard. Look into her eyes. Tell her I love her. I really, really love her.

There’ll be a nasty grin on my face. It’s always too dark in the room for her to see it, and I’ll laugh to myself when I whisper all sweet shit into her ear.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

Heed the Tale Weaver: A year of decrepitude we have suffered at the clawing hands of our Damnlings; now the punishment is upon us. Come forth from the shadows, “WANDERER”, and claim from us our Damned souls as your prize!

Visit this wicked, wandering one at secondstaronther.wordpress.com

Beast Below

May 14, 2013May 14, 2013 ~ moondustwriter ~ 29 Comments

The beast he calls to me. Gnawing about far below.

It spells voracious hunger. Of defense I little know.

Scraping out of need; I struggle to resist.

“I am too young you fiend,”

“…but this you shouldn’t miss.”

Vile whisper through the crack manipulates my head,

“I’d like to taste the young…. sweet, succulently fed.

Your peaches and cream skin. A place lips and teeth can run”

A growl from his throat slips.

I scowl, “This for you so characteristically fun.”

“What give you to me in exchange?”

I reply a restraining of my voice.

A strength I do not know.

I’ve changed with little choice.

“I can the rest set free. Upon my word, I’ll leave.

When I am happy, well, and sated. I promise I will flee.”

My family at liberty from this nightly terror. What I could not think.

What happens had I made an error?

For who would trust a beast who feasts on others’ fears?

But bravely I trod on, thinking not of memories dear.

“You will wait then beast. While I do prepare. For my final hour, I’ll dress in finest fare.

The gown in which I’m dressed. Of beauty I’ll be proud. When you take my life, wrap me in crimson’s shroud.”

Joan of Arc awakened as a dream. She a flaming star.

To death’s halls marching as one it seemed. Taking from life’s chalice, one courage filled draught.

So easily it slips. A golden fragrant drop which hangs upon my lips.

He snarled. I grabbed his snout,

“This will be civilized.”

Pleasure struck a laugh that I could only but despise.

“for me this sense it is quite new.” He said between his teeth.

The smile that it drew he’d wish that he could keep.

I licked gold from her lips. She bit into my neck.

I tore her fragrant arm. Never renting crimson, lest I forget.

She ripped open my belly, spat out balls of flesh and fur.

I realized before her gold and velvet, I was a miserable cur.

“I will this not to end,” of course he’d want his way.

“Were we to continue a price you’d have to pay.”

He snarled of foulish pleasure.

“and your promise beast will it ensue?”

“I’ve never kept a promise. I assure you that is true.”

“Then I will finish what you started. Your promise will be won.

Here’s a revelation I’m no longer a mere woman.”

Fire leaped into her eyes, swords unveiled and forged of steel.

I’d failed to see her disguise. She brandished some foul light.

I should have known somehow, as she carved me with delight.

The floorboards gave a howl. They folded pulled me down.

Into my lake as ghoul, I’d forever, never drown.

What happened on that night. I never will forget.

A turning tide when crimson replaced the soul I’d let.

~ Leslie Moon

Heed the Tale Weaver: The one-year anniversary of the Damned draws to a close…but the celebration of the Damned shall never end. The winner of our comment contest shall be named May 21; your package of ghoulish goodies awaits. In the meantime, revel weekly in our angst and taint. We thank you, Damned Nation, for together we shall redefine horror. Now, go Damn yourself…

In The Name Of Science

April 16, 2013April 16, 2013 ~ Tyr Kieran ~ 62 Comments

“Alright, Detective Dickhole, what do you have for me today?”

Pathologist Leonard Kessler’s voice echoed through the cold room. The acoustically prone surfaces usually kept his spoken words to a minimum, but he never missed the opportunity to insult his big brother.

Darren Kessler shivered, folding his arms tighter against his chest. “I still don’t know how you work in here.”

“You get used to it, just like Dad’s cooking.”

“I’m still trying to digest his meatloaf from last Easter and still trying to get warm in here.”

“The trick is to stop tying, just accept it.” Leonard said.

“Screw that. I’ll wait for evolution to give us internal thermostats. Anyway, I pulled some strings to get this case for you,” Darren said, smiling. “I know you like working on the weird ones.”

“Lay it on me!”

“The body,” Darren said, reading from the file folder and pointing to the freshly wheeled-in corpse, “is a 36-year-old Caucasian male, 182 lbs., 5’ 11”. Dr. Patrick Mahoney, a Marine Biologist. He was found dead in his laboratory nearly seven hours ago. The man’s financial backer, Charles Grawner, discovered the body after Mahoney was a no-show for a status meeting. No immediate indications of foul play—the lab was locked from the inside. Mahoney had just returned from a research jaunt through the Pacific.

“Suicide?”

“Don’t think so. Too messy and bizarre for self-inflicted damage—wait till you see him; strange. Here’s a copy of the file.”

Darren handed him a file folder of crime scene photos and documents. “Run a full report on him. Call me when you have something.”

“Yes, Sir.” Leonard tossed his brother a mock salute.

***

Detective Kessler sipped the runny tar his co-workers called coffee while sifting through evidence bags in his office. One, marked Bodily Possessions, held a cell phone, ID badge, wallet, and a small portable computer drive. He plugged the USB drive into his laptop while mumbling to himself, “Please, no kiddie porn.”

Sorting through the extensive list of folders and files, he scanned the recent documents. Heading the list was a mpeg video titled ‘URGENT – Watch NOW’. Darren double-clicked the file.

An unshaven man with ruffled hair stared at the camera. His eyes, clearly visible behind small, wire-framed glasses, were red, puffy, and underlined by dark baggage.

As the video began, the man rubbed his face and took a deep breath.

“April 14^th, 2013. 10:39pm. My name is Dr. Patrick T. Mahoney. I’m a marine biologist working under an unlisted grant from Grawner Bio-Chem, Inc. through a NOAA privatized research arm, Marine Research Discoveries Division.

“We were researching the waters above the Mariana Trench, dropping probes when a Mitsukurina owstoni (Goblin shark) floated to the surface, deceased. To learn more about the pink Mitsukurina and what happened to it, we hauled it aboard for analysis.

“The shark’s characteristic protruding jaw was dislodged and broken. This particular specimen had abnormally long teeth which was quite odd and seemed the most likely the cause of death… but we were wrong.

“Upon dissection, I discovered foreign tissue residing inside the cartilaginous skull. This tissue was in fact an endoparasitoic creature—still thriving after its host’s death. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“Two crew members of Māori descent had been very uneasy with its presence on the boat. They referred to it as ‘Wheke Pōtae’, which roughly translates to ‘Head Squid’. An old fable passed down from their tribe elders claimed it was crafty and evil, not to be trifled with or risk bringing death upon the whole village.”

The doctor paused, his eyes shifting back and forth restlessly as if ratcheting his brain toward a decision. After a loud exhale, Dr. Mahoney returned his gaze to the screen and new distress had carved deeper lines on his face, advancing his perceived age.

“Do not misunderstand what you are watching here,” he said. “At this moment, I am of sound mind and body. My actions are taken willingly. What I am doing, and what you are about to witness, is in the name of science. Please learn from this, I beg you; heed my warnings and study my experience, or it will all be in vain.

“In the days between docking and now, I’ve studied the specimen to learn more about the endoparasite. You can find all the documentation on the data drive with this video, including a hypothetical case study of the organism’s method of reproduction.

“But now… theories be damned, I am the case study.”

Raising a hand, Dr. Mahoney showed a puncture wound on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. Swelling had ballooned the curve of his hand from a concave pink to a greenish convex mound with blue lightning-veins racing down his arm and out of the camera frame.

“It must sense other living beings’ proximity through electrical impulse sensitivity. It projected a reproduction-capable proboscis and injected an embryo of sorts under the dermal layer. I clearly underestimated its capabilities.”

The doctor exhaled a deep, quivering breath.

“I felt it… crawling up my arm, along my jugular, and squeezing into my skull. That was 7 hours ago. Since then, I’ve experienced heightened sensitivity in my jaw and teeth and increased cranial pressure.

“The organism stimulates unprecedented growth in the host’s teeth. After close inspection, I’ve identified a siphon appendage wrapped around the nerve within each tooth’s inner cavity, which extends to a tiny hole in the outer enamel. I believe this is used to increase pressure within the skull in an attempt to replicate the pressure levels of its native ocean environment. The teeth must gr—”

The biologist winced, crying out and clutching his head.

“I think it’s feeding.”

He reached up and stopped the recording.

The screen flashed. The Doctor was now very pale with dried blood around his nostrils and ears. His lips, suffering multiple points of laceration, were split and pushed back in a skull’s grin. The lower jaw jutted out and down in what would have been an open-mouthed posture, but the view was obstructed by teeth—an enamel cage overlapping from a massive under-bite. His harsh breaths hissed through the dental wall, whistling and slapping against the continual production of crimson-tinged drool.

Dr. Mahoney held up a small dry-erase board with a poorly scrawled message stating, “I can no longer speak clearly. I cannot move my jaw, the pain is incredible.”

He lowered the board and wrote a new message. His body was quivering and tears flowed freely as he held up message after message.

“With growing teeth and chewed brain, I’m not sure…

“…how much time I have left, how much more I can take….

“…I feel teeth growing, forcing jaw open further.”

Before displaying the next part of his message he jolted forward and howled as if an invisible hammer struck him in the back of the head. The tortured sound was muffled behind his overlapping wall of teeth. It barely sounded human. He recovered in his chair but his breathing quickened.

Between the man’s hissing breaths, the detective could hear the multifaceted squeal of enamel pushing against enamel.

Mahoney finished the written words and held up the board.

“my experiences and spec It’s moving around, eating again.”

Blood dribbled from his nose. He started writing more but never finished. His rasped, violent breathing stopped cold. The doctor’s eyes widened. He stared into the camera with unwavering intensity for so long that Detective Kessler wondered if the video had paused. Then, the man’s subtle tremors, tight convulsions of the head, became noticeable.

Dr. Mahoney screamed again, but this time he didn’t stop.

Kessler lowered the hand covering his mouth and leaned closer to the computer screen, riveted to the horror unfolding before him.

The doctor pounded fists against his temples and clawed at his scalp. It looked as if he’d gone insane—sanity eroding right in front of the camera.

The man’s right eye twitched and turned in the socket, completely unhinged from the synchrony with his other, which held firm in its gaze at the camera. A moment later, it disappeared, sucked back into his skull with a splash of blood and aqueous fluid, leaving a grotesque void behind.

Despite the screaming, Kessler heard the loud pop of Dr. Mahoney’s jaw finally giving way under the strain. It flopped open, swaying like a bear trap with a broken spring. A pink cocktail of blood and cranial fluids poured from his nose. Choking, the doctor’s shrieks drowned in a long, agonizing gurgle before he collapsed onto the desk.

Darren sat as still as the dead man on the video.

In his eleven years as a homicide detective, he’d never seen anything like that before. He fumbled for his cell phone and dialed.

“Leo, you’re not gonna believe what I just saw.”

“This thing is amazing,” Leonard said, ignoring his brother. “It completely devoured Dr. Mahoney’s brain and grew large enough to crack open the skull.”

“Yeah, it kills the host… not very good for longevity, huh.”

“Darren, I think it’s still alive.”

“Shit! Get away from it, right now!” the detective said, jumping out of his chair. “I’m coming down. Don’t do anything ‘till I get there.”

***

The detective burst into the autopsy room, shouting. “I told you to get back, goddamn it.”

Leonard sat on a stool with his back to the door, leaning over Mahoney’s body.

Darren rushed over. “It’s not safe, Leo. I told you to—”

His brother was shaking. Still holding the phone in his right hand, he cradled the left.

“It happened so fast.” Leonard said in a hollow, reedy voice.

Darren saw the tell-tale wound on his brother’s wrist and knew exactly what had happened. He pulled Leonard away from the table, ranting, “No. No. No.”

Leonard flexed his fingers and winced. “Man it hurts. I felt the toxin spreading all the way up to my head.”

“Fuck!” Darren paced, pausing occasionally to kick over a tray of tools or punch the cooler doors. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

“Hey, we should call 911 or poison control.”

“It’s not a toxin.” Darren scolded him. “There’s no antidote… no way to survive, only the suffering of an agonizing death.”

“What?”

Darren drew his Glock 17 and fired five rounds into the occupied cavity of Dr. Mahoney’s skull.

“Whoa, we still could’ve—”

Darren pivoted to point the gun at his brother.

“What the fuck, man?”

“It’s the only way to save you.” He said with tears dripping from his chin.

“What?”

“I love you, Leo.”

“Wait, Darren! Don’t…”

Responding to the initial report of gunfire in the morgue, the uniformed officers were halfway down the hall when the last two shots rang out.

~ Tyr Kieran

Heed the Tale Weaver: Celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Damned. Through May 7, 2013, upon each new post, a comment you will leave. A package of ghoulish goodies tainted with an offering from every member of the Damned awaits one fated winner – glorious books, personalized stories and eternal suffering at your feet. Now Damn yourself, make your mark below! But remember insolent ones, you must leave a comment, a “like” will not earn you a chance at our collection of depravity. Do not make the Damned hunt you down.

BACK ROOM DEALS

April 2, 2013April 12, 2013 ~ blazemcrob ~ 31 Comments

Something’s wrong in Club Blaze tonight. I can’t put my finger on it, but the heaviness of the air is pushing on my lungs, and I can hardly breathe. The metal band playing their rolling, heavy rifts would normally have me sky-high by now, but I’m anything but.

“Come on, Zack Kullis,” I say to myself, “get it under control. The bar is hopping. If you want the big tips that come with Friday nights like this, you better keep your ass moving.”

The fucking Blazing Skull fresco plastered on the wall behind the performers appears to be smiling, leering even, and I swear it’s staring at me. Shit! It’s not just staring at me, it’s trying to get into my head. It wants my thoughts known to it.

Wow! What’s come over me? I’ve worked here a long time, and I’ve seen some strange things go down but I’ve always been able to look the other way and not worry about them. But the very atmosphere tonight is a choking, threatening force, an entity even, one intent on wreaking havoc on me.

The mere scent of beer coming from the bottles as I open them causes my stomach to retch, and as for pouring one on tap, it’s nausea city. I can hardly stand, doubled over the way I am from the pain deep within my gut, forcing its way up my esophagus, and lingering in the space between the back of my throat and my trembling lips.

Sweating like I’ve just stepped out of a sauna, my fancy bartender’s garb – black tuxedo pants, cumberbund, long sleeved white shirt, and a hideous black bow-tie – is drenched and trapping the heat against my body. Steam! My God, I feel like steam is pouring out from within and frying my skin. Boils pop up before my eyes, and I rush to run cold water over my hands to keep the burns down, knocking Joe, the other bartender, to the side.

“What’s wrong with you, mother-fucker?!” he shouts.

Pointing to my blistered hands, I say, “I have to get water on these burns now!”

“What burns? You’re one crazy fuck tonight!”

What the . . . ?

There are no burns! How can this be? Just moments ago they were all over my hands.

The fresco laughs at me, the fleshless skull opening its mouth wide, flashing those perfect white teeth in my direction. The flames go wild, and within seconds the back drop to the stage ignites and the band is engulfed in a deluge of red, orange, and yellow. The dancing armada of heat demons sets the leather jackets of the band members on fire, and soon their faces match that of my nemesis, as peeling flesh falls from their faces to the floor. Five flaming musicians cavort on stage as if possessed, the intensity of their music reaching a crescendo unlike anything I have ever heard before.

Wild, burning banshees sing of a place much like the stage is now, one filled with torture and pain. But . . . but the band doesn’t appear to be in distress. Can it be? Is this their normal state of being?

Before I can react to the fire, to get to an extinguisher at the side of the bar, the flames reverse themselves and traipse back to the fresco, where they once more become mere paint and fabric. And the band . . . the band and all that was once consumed by the fire is now back to the way it was.

My head! What is going on? This can’t be happening? The painting is causing this. I know it is.

“Damn you!” I shout, staring at the painting. “Stop this shit!”

Joe pulls me back from the edge of the bar. “Zack! Calm down. Go outside and get some air. Pull yourself together.”

Yeah, that’s what I need. This place is closing in on me tonight. That’s all. A little air and I’ll be just fine.

It’s no easy task working my way through the patrons. The joint is getting more packed with every minute. But I have to get through. Even the participants in this crazy drinking, dancing, and orgasmic frenzy of emotions coming from I don’t know where are looking non-human. Their outward personas vanish beneath their false veneers and I see them for who and what they really are.

Putting my hands over my eyes, I force myself through the gathering of miscreants and, after what seems to be an eternity, I find myself in the parking lot. Oh, shit! The parking lot is empty. These people inside; where did they come from? How did they get here?

“A little confused, are you?”

I turn and see Mr. McRob leaning up against one of the porch supports, striking his match against the timber and lighting up a cigar. Cuban. Damn, I remember the aroma from the pre-embargo days.

“Remember these, Zack? Ah, you do, don’t you?”

Before I can answer him, a lit cigar is in my hand.

“Go ahead, my friend. Indulge. I have plenty.”

Standing a few feet apart, puffing on the best of the best, and wondering how he got to me so fast, I simply say, “Thank you, sir.”

He laughs. “Call me Blaze. Everyone else does. Well, almost everyone else. Sometimes I get called rather vile names. People can be rather crude, you know.”

I’m not sure what’s going down, but I haven’t physically laid eyes on Mr. McRob since the day I was hired. And that’s been a long time. Why now?

“Why now? I’ll tell you why now,” he says.

How does the bastard know what I’m thinking?

“Let me explain what’s happening here, Zack. Club Blaze is a little more than a gin mill with heavy metal music. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. Damn me. Truth be told: it’s a lot more. See, we cater to some pretty special people.

“Alas. The special people are pretty much gone. You know the back room where you thought the high stakes poker games were going on?”

“Yes.”

“The games were going on, but other things were happening as well.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Please, call me Blaze, Zack. Deals were being made. Special deals; deals with a purpose, a special meaning.”

I’m still confused. What does all this have to do with a full joint, an empty parking lot, a wall painting becoming alive, and non-humans hiding inside the bodies of what appear to be humans?

A sarcastic laugh reverberates around me from all sides of the parking lot. “Oh, Zack, you are such a virgin when it comes to the ways of the world. My world, anyway.”

He walks to the road and beckons for me to join him. Gingerly, I walk to where he waits for me.

“What we have here is a crossroads, Zack. Two paths intersecting; two choices to be made. And for me, deals to be made. Some people are rather unhappy with their lot in life and work out a deal with me to gain riches, a longer life, or maybe some guy wants a hot floozy to scratch his scrotum for awhile. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I totally understand what he’s saying, but I don’t know if I can believe it or not. This is too far over the top. It just flies against logic.

“Fuck logic, Zack. You’re working for a bit of a bastard. Sorry you have to find that out, but better now than later, huh?”

“Yes, Blaze. Better now than later.”

“Great! We have some common ground. Now we go back to choices and deals. What do you want from life?”

“Nothing much. I have a job, make some decent money, and my wants are really not that exorbitant. I’m pretty content with things the way they are.”

“Oh, Zack, come on now. Surely you would enjoy riches and all that comes with it.”

“Not really. I live alone, and my salary here is quite good. I enjoy my job, for the most part, anyway – tonight was wonky – but there’s not anything else I need.”

“Women?”

“I’ve been burned too often. I need a break there. When the time is right, things will gel. Until then, I’ll just wait.”

Blaze is pissed. He wants to make a deal, and I’m not amenable to his little game.

“Let’s up the ante, Zack. What would happen if you were fired from this job, you searched high and low to find another one, only to find out you’re too fucking old to be considered? What then?”

“Social Security, maybe?”

“I don’t think so, Zack. It’s not very secure anymore, is it?”

This isn’t sounding too reassuring. I’m thinking my job is heading south, and my options are not too high in the sky.

“So what are you suggesting, Blaze?”

“There we go, Zack. I’m just suggesting we make a deal. As you can see, I’ve tapped into everyone else around here. My present clientele is waiting for their time to pay up or shut up.”

“So I’m fresh meat?”

“Interesting way to put it, but it’s true.”

“Fuck you!”

Blaze is really pissed now. “You don’t have a choice in the matter.”

The final ashes fall from the exquisite cigar, and as I stomp the butt out in the lot, I stare into the faces of everyone from inside the club.

“Well, Zack, it seems to me that keeping your job is pretty high on your list of wants. If you don’t deal, that job is gone. What do you say?”

Fuck, he has me. I need a job. “So what’s the deal?”

“Usually, I would love to play some poker, but we have an audience. How about we flip a coin? You call it. If you win, you not only keep your job, but you’ll own the club. What a deal, huh?”

“My coin, and it’s heads.”

“Fair enough.”

I take a quarter out of my pocket, stare at the entourage around me, and flip it high into the air. There is electricity in the air as everyone waits to see which way the coin lands.

“Hey, Blaze” I say, “it’s heads. Heh, heh. Looks like I win.”

The assemblage murmurs in shock. This is not what anyone expected.

A rumbling comes from deep beneath, its intensity building the closer it gets to me. The ground opens under the club and swallows it up. My parking lot companions, other than Blaze, turn into so many variants of wispy personas and vanish into the night.

“Blaze,” I say, “I thought the club was mine.”

“Oh. It is. We just never discussed where the club would be when you owned it.”

A sinister laugh taunts me before I stand alone at the crossroads.

I turn my coin over in my hands. Go figure. This quarter has two heads . . .

~ Blaze McRob

Damned Words

March 26, 2013March 7, 2018 ~ TheDamned ~ 64 Comments

Enter. Sit before the Tale Weaver.
Heed: true beauty tis not in the eye of the beholder
but in the minds of the Damned.
Open yourself to us…

A Picture Paints 100 Words, by Dan Dillard

The knob creaked as I gave it a twist. The ancient sound of metal on metal made my ears ache and slithered panic up my spine. Funny it should do that. That anything was able to do that to me in this stage of the game.

It was brilliant that I even found this place, so fitting to my plan. Her body tucked ever so well into the old crematorium. The drugs working their magic until after I lit the burner and the flames licked up, tickling her with devilish hunger. My favorite part was yet to come. The screaming.

Poisonous Hope, by Tyr Kieran

Imprisoned behind an unlocked gate of decorative iron, I watch the world carry on without me. Each day I remain in captivity works on my soul as bacteria would on a slab of uncured beef. The breeze that swirls in and out of my chamber taunts of life’s sensations that could still be mine. Yet, intangible chains bind me to a rotting corpse while the sweet poison of hope corrodes my chance at eternal peace. It’s too tempting to ignore. I cannot rest, cannot let go. So, I wait for receptive prey to venture in and unknowingly forfeit their future.

Sacred Charge, by Nina D’Arcangela

Day after day I have grasped you, clung to your surface, held you as though you were yet a remnant of her. Many the night I sat below you, gazing upward; wishing, hoping, never praying. Have I made you my false idol? Perhaps. But in your solemn stance, you guard over all that was precious to me, how can I blame you? But I do. My mind bleeds for what should have been, for the chance never to have seen you. My tears shed upon your unyielding beauty only add to my remorse for what lies beyond your sacred charge.

Refuge, by Joseph A. Pinto

Refuge; before these iron gates I tremble. Words, long forgotten, muttered upon this unforgiving draft. Weary fingers graze lips; memory languishes. A song cries. Lost, what once remained. Balm to my wounds, these iron gates I clutch. To twist this handle, to enter into that which I have denied myself. A thousand angels mock my arrogance; their light I have shunned. Tell me godless thing, who haunts your starless nights? My thousand lies expired at last; hollow, barren, crumbled within. Shadows beckon; so soon shall I dance. Refuge beyond these iron gates; blackened tomb. Condemned both by heaven and hell.

Vacuum, by Leslie Moon

You ask me to grasp this? Enter something into which I cannot perceive meaning. Is there a way through this dim portal? Will I come to the end and find a vacuous self? Strain into a haze with no return?

Ask me not to open this sepulcher of doubt. Free my way, menial I will welcome. To touch this skeleton of all my fears, a repugnant notion. You bid me- go, no gentle nudge. I am plummeted to the world beyond my fears. Where all I cherish is missing. All I long for is past. All I was is gone.

Sleeping Dogs, by Thomas Brown

Higher and higher the dog-king climbs, advancing up the stairs. Where the brickwork fails, he catches light; small glimmers in the dark. Dawn illuminates the countryside, and at its heart his tower; a Gothic spike, a splinter, driven deep into the hills.

Steps crumble, break beneath paw-hands, and then he is outside. The rooftop glitters, wet with slime and sunlight on old stone. He crawls to where the guttering clings tightly to the slate, and where the new dawn sees his flesh, his broken face, his lolling tongue, it hears him laugh, breathe rancid breath, then turns him into stone.

Inner Sanctum, by Blaze McRob

From down the hall, the words do come, and with them now, a screeching hum. As door does open, telling all, that deep fears wait at beck and call. But now must I with no noise crawl, or parents both will make me call, out in the night as they will beat, the stuffing out from my small feat. For in my bed I am to be, and not in hall the place for me. As radio for this great show, within my soul is not to grow. But Inner Sanctum does arrive, and three year ears in story dive.

Welcome Home, Baby! by Hunter Shea

Shirley, I’m coming!

The words came out as, “Sssrlleee, mmmm cnnngggg!”

One foot stepped on the other and my forehead slammed into the grated door. It should have hurt, but then again, all the should haves were dead and gone.

Unlike me.

Unlike the other shambling wrecks in the cemetery.

Do I look that bad?

I twisted the iron knob. I’d been able to breathe last time I’d been here. I came to bring flowers, talk to the air.

The door opened with a steady creek.

Shirley!

Her skin slid off her face. So what? We had each other again.

Veneration, by Daemonwulf

The shrieks of the ageless faithful defile him, seeking restitution from an eternally deafened heart. Their history of torment, revealed in screaming admonition, scrapes the frozen memories and claws at cold, darkened walls, struggling for a chance to be heard.

Theirs is a multitude of ignored voices; immeasurable lives ending as grist to be chewed by holy teeth.

He slams the door as the suffering faithful yearn for salvation, choosing instead the false prophecies he utters in glorious silence.

Crying out for redemption, they clamor for their promised reward, only to find sanctuary within the warming shit of their God.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent.
Image © Copyright Dark Angel Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Visions of the Reaper

March 19, 2013February 25, 2013 ~ demonauthor ~ 28 Comments

The sky was so blue it hurt. Not a cloud, not a plane, not even a bird in sight. The air was warm, the humidity low and it smelled of jasmine and coffee. Corbin Adams walked with a skip in his step and a satisfied smile on his face. He considered it a perfect day. In his opinion, one of three in his entire thirty seven years. Maybe even his best day.

He’d been on a date the previous evening, and Ellie had kissed him full on the lips. Three hours ago, she’d called and thanked him for a wonderful evening and accepted his request for a lunch date. Corbin Adams was over the moon.

He’d longed for her ever since she’d come to his office, a new client, and sat in the marginally comfortable chair on the other side of his desk. A pudgy man, he’d had a tough time with woman. As a loan officer, he had a tough time with people in general, especially in the current economic climate. Ellie’s credit was sterling, her job secure, her income impressive, her hair soft, her lips full, her eyes dreamy and she’d agreed to a second date. It didn’t matter to Corbin that she was roundish as well. Nothing mattered because they were going to have lunch. And if he didn’t screw that up, maybe dinner a second time.

It is a smashing day, the smashingest! he thought.

If only that dark figure wasn’t standing on the corner, all would’ve been perfect. It made him feel uneasy and slowly deflating, like a balloon just untied and farting around the room in giant figure eights. He shuddered.

“You’re being silly,” he said to himself.

Three blocks away, it just stood there. Thoughts crossed his mind. Could it be a walk light with a trash bag wrapped around it, or a fallen awning? He squinted, trying to pull details from the distance, and walked another fifty paces. It didn’t flinch.

Corbin stopped, steadying his view, and smoothed back his thinning hair. Farsighted, he pulled his reading glasses down to the bulge of his nose and looked over them. It caused his double chin to stand out. A mannequin perhaps? Maybe a prop for a local theater version of “A Christmas Carol.”

Not in April, he thought.

It stood on the corner where he needed to turn to get to his second date with Ellie. He wouldn’t let anything interrupt that. Nothing could interfere with one of the three best days of his life.

There was no plastic bag wrapped around a traffic signal, walk-don’t walk or otherwise. It was a humanoid form, with black cloth draped over a thin frame. The few other pedestrians paid it no mind. Had it been there and he not noticed—an odd cigar shop Indian for some strange new store?

Then it moved. It shifted its stance and held up a gloved hand. The sleeve of its cloak slid down, revealing a pair of forearm bones, no skin attached. Corbin gasped.

It’s waving at me, he thought.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked around to see if there was an alien, or some other creature waving back…hoping a costume party was gathering and he was in the middle. The street was empty, save for a single car going in the opposite direction. When he turned, the figure was gone.

“Shit,” he said.

He didn’t often swear, but felt it was appropriate under the strange circumstances.

There were three blocks between him and Amato’s Deli—Ellie’s choice. Three blocks to go. He checked his watch. There was still plenty of time, fourteen minutes to be exact. He liked exact. He liked order. He liked black and white. He kept walking.

Corbin turned the corner and saw the black figure again. It was in front of the deli, two blocks away. He glanced across the street and saw the usual bustling shoppers and dwellers of town, but the sidewalk between Corbin and the thing was empty. When he looked back, the figure hadn’t moved. Its black hood fluttered in the breeze, giving a glimpse of the bony grin beneath. Corbin stopped. He could move no further.

His heart pounded, exiled from his chest, it lived in his throat.

“You don’t want me. You can’t want me,” he said, clutching at his swollen and throbbing neck.

Not on my perfect day. Not now, he thought.

Gathering himself, Corbin turned and stepped into a corner bookstore. A bell jingled announcing him and a kindly old woman stepped forward.

“Thanks for coming in,” she said.

He saw her but didn’t speak. Instead, he moved to the book stacks in the rear. There, he paced, trying to slow his pulse. The old woman stepped from behind the counter and smiled at him.

“If you need anything, just ask,” she said.

“I need a shrink,” he muttered below her radar.

There were four rows of shelves in the back of the store and Corbin fumbled from one to the next. Absently, he fingered the various book covers. The longer he paced, the sillier her felt. His face flushed.

“I’m an idiot. This is just nerves,” he said.

The bell above the front door jingled again and he froze. Fearing, for a moment, it was the black-cloaked thing, coming for him. He held his breath, and then turned to see. The old woman was inches from his face.

“You’ll not escape death in here,” she said with moist, rotten breath.

But it wasn’t her face. What he saw was hollowed-out with holes its eyes should’ve been. Corbin screamed. He stumbled out the door and down the two small steps to the sidewalk. He rushed to his right, then looked back and saw nothing. There was no one on the sidewalk and no monstrous hag with missing eyes. There was no skulking reaper.

He released the breath he’d been holding and checked himself. His shirt was untucked and there was a patch of sweat bleeding through the chest of his short-sleeve button-down.

“Calm down, Corbin,” he said and allowed himself a nervous chuckle.

Again, he noticed the blue sky, a brilliant color that reminded him of Ellie’s eyes, of his lunch date and of his perfect day. Still rattled, he looked back toward the bookstore. Nothing looked back. He checked his watch again.

“Shit,” Corbin said for the second time in one day.

Only the direst of circumstances called for two swears in the same afternoon. Had an hour really passed? Was he late for their meeting? He yanked the handle, pulling the deli door open as if he meant to take it off the hinges. Inside, he found the dining area empty and a young man behind the counter gave him a nod. Corbin sat in the last booth and watched the front door while he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone.

He could simply explain. He could apologize for screwing things up and she would understand. Before he could dial, a shadow crawled over him and when he looked into it, he saw the boy from behind the counter.

“Can I get you somethin’?” the young man said.

Corbin looked out the window, hoping Ellie was also late and that he might see her rushing to the deli as he had.

“I was supposed to meet someone. Have you seen…”

He stopped because the boys eyes were hollow, and the skin on his face had shriveled to reveal a grinning skull. A plume of black smoke wrapped the monster in a grave hug as the boy-reaper-thing slid into the other side of the booth.

“You’re quite evasive,” it said.

Corbin couldn’t speak, he only stared. A sick feeling ate his perfect day and swallowed it whole.

“I rather enjoy a good chase,” it continued.

Corbin closed his eyes and found his voice. A single tear leaked out.

“I’m…not ready to die.”

The reaper laughed a most horrible sound. At the same time, Ellie emerged from the bathroom. Her face was wrinkled with anger as she looked around the room. She slammed the door, but it made no sound. She walked to the counter and spoke to the boy, now back at his post, but her high heels didn’t click on the tile floor, and her words were muted. Corbin looked back to the reaper. It was still chuckling.

“But you are already dead,” it said.

It was then Corbin noticed the blood smeared on his hand, the gash where his broken radius and ulna protruded. A greenish artery leaked onto the table. Then, he remembered the accident. He remembered being so giddy after Ellie’s phone call that he’d run a red light on his way to work. The mess the truck made of his tiny hybrid, of his pudgy body, was astonishing.

The reaper giggled again, like a maniac from a black and white horror film.

“I only wish to take you home,” it said.

~ Dan Dillard

Sex-Starved Thing

March 12, 2013July 29, 2013 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 73 Comments

Nails grate across stone; she comes for me. Hellish echoes impaling the frailty of my senses through the back of my skull. Scratch, ssssscratch. Blistering pants herald her arrival from somewhere deep within my institution of darkness. Blistering, born sodden with covet, sin. I am unsure to whom those breaths belong.

She comes for me. My sex-starved thing.

Beg

Limbs twist; these cords bite into wrists, offering little freedom, holding fast my famished body to this chilled limestone. So chilled. I strain to see her; this dark surrenders nothing. I shudder with the callousness of a desperate want. So desperate. Nails grate across stone; ever closer she slinks.

Beg

“Choke me,” into obscurity, I gasp.

Nether’s inviting ledge…always upon which I teeter. A void exists below, an oblivion so familiar; I will be lost should I fall. Much the same as this thing…this thing the light of sun has never licked. “Choke me,” mouth too careless, eager. My dick throbs, pulsing with a life I wish I myself had known.

I will taste you first

Toes curl; shadows shift so subtly beyond blind eyes. Fingers clench; shadows shift so subtly beyond screaming senses. She is all around me, shifting so subtly beyond wildest imagination.

Open

My sex-starved thing I never disobey. Mouth parts; beads of moisture tease my lips. I arch against my bed of gypsum, slam inhibitions atop stone, aching for her to break me. Delirious, this wait. I swallow dank air, the fester of her home; finally, her tongue fills my mouth with the sweetest taste I could ever despise. Swirling, swirling over teeth, probing, probing deep into ragged throat.

Fire, raging through my head. I gag; her tongue clogs my passage. I desire more. Always more. “Choke…me…” I bite down upon pulsing meat in my mouth. Chew upon festering wretchedness. Deeper her tongue thrusts, sealing pharynx, sealing remains of wasted breath within my gut. Endearing, her plague, burying my last wail deep into chest…snuffing life as I asked…interring me with the usual disclosure: she will never belong to me.

I have found the perfect end. She was born to make me hurt.

Nether’s inviting edge beckons; body numbs, stars bursting behind my lids the only light mine. From the cusp of unconsciousness, she gently rouses me. I cannot see. I am blind. Her leer fondles; the skin crackles over her jaws. Somewhere from deep within, the dissonant scuttling of things bloated with far worse than abandon. She nuzzles my cheek; her tender, moist lips nuzzle my own, grazing so softly the diseased affection left unspoken. With razor teeth, my sex-starved thing rends flesh from my face.

Sweet agony. Howling…so desperate for her tease. Fingers rake my heaving chest—Heaven. Hades burns beneath her nails. Squirm squirm squirm I do—her little slug. These cords do not yield; in turn, she yields no hope. Into my abdomen, sink her nails. I spit the contagion of my devotion from reverent mouth, screaming for more.

Within the deadened, inky blanket of her lair, the fervor of her gaze singes my engorged organ.

“Consume me,” I offer.

My sex-starved thing snorts cruelly over my body; the chill she illicits delicious. Breath swirls across pelvis.

Beg

Those bloated things, they scurry away. Reverberating between the stalagmites, feelers seeking some other form of rot. Done with me before even they start. My beautiful destroyer, she has only begun. “Consume me!” A challenge from bloody lips.

Beg

“Please…” Terribly deft fingers wedge a spreader bar between my legs. “Consume…” Cuffs snap, bite into ankle, nearly to bone. “Me!”

I am numb to her affliction.

A chortle, repulsive beyond limits of known sanity. Brutal, pitiless—a stony palm seizes my shaft, squeezing as her sadist mouth engulfs, razor blade tongue sucking, lapping. Shredding skin from my dick, shredding as she bobs. Coarse hair pricking my stomach, shredding shredding until I erupt; an orgasm of blood. My essence, it escapes in rhythmic pulses, filling her mouth—the seed of all my sin. Slowly I bleed out, for me, for her. Body stiffening; this sensation of depletion exquisite, my only regret that no longer do I die virgin deaths for my sex-starved thing. She has murdered me more times than I can count.

“Now steal me…” Mouth betraying me always.

My sex-starved thing lies atop me, my death rattle commencing beneath her jaded eyes. She laughs, the sweet music of all gone wrong. Lowers her head. Tears my throat apart. She eats, she snickers; spits blood, semen back into the wheezing hole in my neck. Taunts some more. The joke is always on me; I love my sex-starved thing.

She slides along my body. Nipples graze skin. The stone, it chews spine. I remain mutilated beneath her—an emasculated piece of nothing, a chunk of meat detained by her lure. Broken, so willing for her promise. Ruined, left yearning for more.

Blistering, the tortured pants between us. Still unsure to whom those breaths belong.

“Steal me,” pleading to the worst of all I am.

She obliges; it is what she does. My curse the blessing she delivers. Fist deep she plunges into my chest, twisting, tearing at my very corruption. Her brutality unmatched, rending my heart free of its cage. The lump of flesh now my dick twitches.

It belongs to me

She devours my heart.

The gagging nearly immediate.

The gurgling incessant from her mouth.

Resurrect…me…

Somewhere in the dark, she collapses.

“Never,” voice oily in her lair. I wait until silence clots my ears, shred wrists free of her knots. For all the Devil in me, I love my sex-starved thing. I could never tell her of the poison within my heart.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

Route UB1

February 26, 2013February 25, 2013 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 34 Comments

Long weeks working. Rain still falling. Heavy droplets, water crawling down bus shelter, dark skies bawling. Another day is done.

Through the grey a bus approaches, teeming inside, full of roaches, human insects, tired voices, “Ticket please,” one grunts. Franz knows the feeling; hating, hurting. Sick of service, new-world weary. Inside bright. The windows dirty.

Loose change. Find a seat.

Near the front, two ladies talking, behind them, a young boy squawking, rows of faces, soulless, gawking. What’s the world become? Tongues are wagging, swear words snagging, at the back three young men bragging. Stealing-shouting-almost shagging. How drunk they were last night.

Starting, stopping, people walking. Motion sickness, long face balking in the window, movement rocking: Bus Route UB1.

Through the city, every evening. Sniffing noses, heavy breathing. Bus vibrating, stomach heaving. Heart hammering against his ribs; an ancient, tribal drum.

All around him, buildings sliding, melting in the rain, subsiding, streaks of grey, rainfall hiding the city’s sobbing face. Lived for ten years. Worked for thirty. Bones are tired, his body hurting. To cut his wrists, his hot blood spurting: a man can dream. He can.

At the back, the young men shouting louder, voices starting harder, jostling they assess their larder. Bus filled with easy prey. He knows the sort; no school, no teaching, fathers gone, their mothers breaching as they spawn more screaming offspring, red between the legs. The bus route is their hunting ground, their web where helpless victims found, like flies stuck to the city, bound to the monsters this world breeds.

Outside the road runs black with water. Under doorways, people loiter, waiting out the never-ending rain that will not stop. Clouds were black at six this morning. Raining since the day was dawning. Since he stepped, pale-faced and yawning, into another day.

Before his eyes, the young men changing. Altogether, outlines blurring. Faceless shapes, new limbs emerging. Monsters in men’s skin. Arms are growing, bodies breaking. Snap like pencils. Sounds like choking. Sucking. Slurping. No one worried, not awoken, dead to this, their world.

From the back it slowly reaches, twelve long legs, thick, dark like leeches bloated on a diet of human peaches; female fruit. Franz watches as the creature prowls, he listens to its high-pitch howls. Once-hoodies, now great fleshy cowls, beneath them glittering eyes.

The monster of Route UB1 drags its large bulk, must weigh a ton, between the seats, no need to run, it knows it has already won, its prey with their returns –

– day-passes, singles to the city, hopeless, tired of living, life is gritty, pointless, shitty, he asks himself, what is there to be done?

What can be done against this beast, which on soft female flesh it feasts, and when encounters men, at least will beat them black and blue? This creature has not always been, not always was, not always seen, but in this time, grown dark and mean, has found a place to
feed –

– and breed, a human brood lusting for food and heat and life and dark corners to do dark things, now brave and bold, the human beast of Bus Route UB1.

~ Thomas Brown

Testing

February 12, 2013November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 20 Comments

Tearing free of the straps binding it to the table, it slams its muscular body against the one-way mirror and snarls, “What have you done to me?” Its hideously deformed jaw and engorged tongue make the words nearly indecipherable. Saliva drips down the glass, its claws scratch angrily at the slick surface; the creature fights in vain to smash its way through three feet of impenetrable barrier.

From the other side of the glass, the doctor stands dead still, staring at the monstrosity thrashing against the window mere feet away. After an elongated pause, he orders, “Open Room Two.”

Without hesitation the operator does so.

As the door slides smoothly upwards into the wall, the staff can see a young woman crouching in the corner shielding two small children. Filth and vomit stain her T-shirt and jeans; their terror is palpable.

The monstrosity slowly swivels its head toward the open doorway leaving clumps of gelatinous flesh sticking to the glass; lips peel from its gums, a chunk of cheek clings to the surface, one eyelid ripped cleanly from its face. Sniffing the air, it abandons its attack on the window and drops to all fours, senses focusing on the three new beings invading its territory. After judging them no threat, it rises slowly to its full grotesque height.

“Excellent instinctual response. Specimen eighty-seven has locked onto the victims without provocation,” the doctor recites into the digital recorder he is holding. Folding his arms across his chest, he waits with the others in the control room – watching silently.

Still a good ten feet from the open doorway, the young woman clutches the children as she tries to push further back into the wall. Shaking uncontrollably, she can do nothing but shield the children’s eyes and wait.

The creature in the main chamber strides menacingly toward them. One clawed talon on the doorway, it ducks beneath the opening to Room Two.

“Switch to video feed.” Monitors in the control room light up and display varying angles from within the multiple small chambers.

Pausing just inside the doorway, it sniffs again, fuller, stronger this time. Its vicious watery gaze assesses the three huddled forms before it. A slight distraction – pounding on the wall to the right. The young woman glances; the goliath never wavers in its stare. The pounding is frantic; another woman’s voice howling in desperation from what must be a room next door. ‘God, is there another of these things?’ The thought flicks through the young woman’s mind.

Encouraged by her fear, it moves forward quickly, plucking a screeching child from her grasp. The woman in the other room seems to go mad; scratching, shrieking, thrashing beyond the wall.

Dangling the boy before it, the thing draws a long breath from the child’s mouth. It smells the boy’s blood, his vomit; it smells his fear. With one hand still holding the head, the other clawed fist shreds the boy’s body from its neck.

Snorting at the young woman clutching the girl, the monstrosity dangles the boy’s head above its mouth. Still looking her in the eye, it pops the child’s head like an overripe melon with its clenching maw. It chews; it swallows. It then consumes the remainder of the head.

Lowering its own head in challenge, it flicks out a claw and rips the young woman’s T-shirt, sniffing at the putrescence staining it. Frozen in shock and fear, she does nothing. It grins. Reaching down slowly, almost gently, it lifts the remaining child from her numb limbs. The little girl struggles and begs; she tries to grab onto her would-be protector. There is nothing the young woman can do. She watches as it sinks its teeth into the squirming child’s midsection, splattering offal across the entire chamber, covering her in the little girl’s drippings. Chewing with slow delight, it continues to stare at the young woman cowering against the wall. It smells her rank terror; it sees her eyes dim as her mind slips to a distant place. It watches as her body goes limp then spasms uncontrollably.

All the while, the wailing from the room next door grows more incessant.

Awareness dawning, it recognizes the ability to reason, not simply act on impulse. It likes this feeling. Malformed knees bent backwards, it leans down and flicks the young woman’s head to the side.

It has a thought: useless.

It has a feeling: mild agitation.

It hears a sound.

Turning its head, it recognizes the scent that accompanies the untamed agony coming from the other room. Smiling, it abandons the useless mass of jittering flesh on the floor, and draws a gore smeared talon across the wall. The sound calms for a moment… only a moment… before the maniacal pounding and ear-splitting shrieks begin again.

It leaves Room Two, returns to the table in the center of the main chamber and stares with smug satisfaction at the one-way mirror. It believes it has won.

“Seal the chamber. Gas it.” The doctor orders. He then speaks into his digital recorder.

“Eighty-seven has shown marked improvement with cognitive awareness, careless brutality, and its ability to identify its own DNA. But it still does not choose to kill the stranger. Is it showing a degree of compassion?” He clicks off the recorder, tapping it against his chin while glancing up at the monitor showing him a single view of Room One.

Flicking the recorder on once more, he continues, “The reason for the test subject’s failure is still unknown. She should have been able to breach containment by now, saving her offspring. End session eighty-seven.”

Rubbing his exhausted eyes, the doctor turns to the others in the control room. “Let’s clean this up, and get her sedated as quickly as possible. She’s already gestating two new fetuses from number eighty-eight. We don’t want to endanger them anymore than we have to.”

~ Nina D’Arcangela

Hard Feelings

February 5, 2013February 8, 2013 ~ Tyr Kieran ~ 28 Comments

Hard Feelings

Projected light flickered through the dark; each burst momentarily painting the shadowed surfaces with brilliant light as if a welder was hard at work in the corner. A muscular but overweight man lounged in a reclining chair at the center of the small living room. His callused hands held the remote control and a cold drink with equal care. He had cast aside his dusty work boots and was watching the flat screen between his grimy sock-covered feet.

After taking another swig of beer, he smiled and repeated a line in sync with the movie, copying the actor’s sing-song sarcasm, “Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…”

Jeremy Kolski was happy with his life. It was simple, but that’s the way he wanted it—steady contractor’s job, detached house, beautiful wife and daughter, and big ass TV. He’d worked hard to put all the pieces in place, and he believed a strict routine would keep the status-quo-machine running. Facing the unexpected at work was inevitable but at home, things were always in order. He even ate the same meals everyday: medium-rare steak and eggs in the morning, brown-bagged sandwich for lunch, and thick oatmeal with a side of bacon for dinner. His wife Mora had it all down to a science, like that baby bear’s porridge—just right.

***

A harsh light flooded Mora’s face. She stared blindly into the glow, momentarily unaware of the blood-red mask it gave her, like some masquerade villain from the mind of Edgar Allen Poe. She stared out the port-hole window above the sink, pausing with pan and soap sponge dripping in her hands. In the small, dimly lit kitchen her vibrant sundress looked drab and unflattering despite the youthfulness of her petite frame. Even the golden tresses of her wavy hair seemed flat and frayed, but a quaint smile played at the edges of her lips, defying the depressive scene the room’s lighting had imbued.

The pulsing red beams faded as a police cruiser rolled past their house in the pursuit of evildoers elsewhere. Mora returned to washing the dishes and a thought—appropriate to the moment—found its way to her lips. She recited the line to herself, “For the uninvited, there is much to fear.”

Her life was forged in routine. Her father and his military background made an impression on her family, and living with her husband was much the same. She always found comfort in knowing what needed to be done and what each day would bring. She spent her time tending to Jeremy, raising little Samantha, and keeping up with the household chores. Change used to frighten Mora, but over the last few days the thought of it had begun to look different to her. In small doses, change could be manageable, and over time, big strides could be made through cumulative steps. With that in mind tonight, she didn’t rush to clean up the dinner table.

***

Jeremy was entranced by the screen. He only tore his eyes away long enough to pour another shot of the amber liquid and toss it back. This time, however, he was forced to look down as sharp pain stabbed through his abdomen causing him to flinch and dribble whiskey onto his twill work shirt.

A few months ago when the discomfort started, Jeremy increased his drinking from occasional to maintenance. Concerned coworkers had asked him about the pain and he’d always replied, “It might be stomach ulcers or goddam colon cancer, who knows.” When he told this to a buddy of his with such indifference, the man’s lunch nearly fell out of his mouth. The inquiry always ended with Jeremy adding, “Na, I ain’t going to see a Doctor. I don’t trust them. They ask too many damn questions and then diagnose you with what’s best to fatten their own wallets. In my house, we’re better off taking the pain and fixing our own problems.”

“Goddamnit,” Jeremy cursed, wiping at the drops that seeped down into the material. Then, setting his eyes back on the TV, he shouted sidelong toward the kitchen. “Mora, get your wide ass moving and bring me a wet rag… and another beer from the garage, but make it quick, he’s about to walk barefoot across the broken glass.” Jeremy poured another shot as he mumbled to himself, “best part of the movie if you ask me.”

The man’s chair was flanked by tray tables burdened with empty cans of Yuengling and a half drunk fifth of Johnnie Walker. He sucked the alcohol from his fingers, unconcerned with the dust caked to his cuticles and knuckle creases. It was a common residual from his job, either by hanging drywall or mixing concrete for sidewalks or patios.

Jeremy cleared his throat and poured another shot.

A diminutive woman entered the room with the requested items. Keeping her head down, she placed them carefully on the nearest tray table, scooped up the empty beer cans and backed away. Passing under the lights in the dining room, Jeremy caught sight of the shine under her eyes. A purple butterfly bruise had spread its wings across the bridge of her newly curved nose. He nodded, agreeing with his punishment for her recent change in the routine. But he stopped abruptly after noticing a dirty bowl still sitting on the supper table.

“Hey, Woman! Better finish cleaning up supper before the movie’s over.”

***

Mora tossed the empty cans into a recycling bin that sat in the garage amid all his tools and leftover work supplies. She stood there for a moment, calming herself and pulling in deep breaths with her sore eyes closed. Tears squeezed free and trailed down her cheeks, their wet tracks leaving a brighter sheen on her bruise that was looking more and more like some kind of hero mask.

She didn’t feel very super right now. In fact, she hadn’t been in this much pain since falling out of a tree at the age of seven. Her father was helping her learn how to climb. Eventually, he gave up trying to mold her into the son he never received, but not before she broke both wrists when an upper bough gave way. The fractures healed, but the pain from his disappointment would not.

Now, trying to center herself in the garage, she was suffering from not only a bruised face and a broken nose, but also the mental anguish of waking up to a six-year nightmare.

She was locked into a routine, again—chained down by psychological assaults and kept productive with physical punishment. How could she have been blind to it for all these years? ‘Because Jeremy wasn’t always like this, it… progressed,’ she realized. Any change, no matter how appalling, if introduced gradually enough, could be accepted with unanimous approval—just ask Austria.

It took undying love and a cold knuckle connection to her nose for Mora to see the change. Jeremy raised his hand to their daughter for the first time and Mora’s intervention—her deviation from the routine—cost her a fractured face.

***

His wife wasn’t doing her job. It’s been ten minutes and she still didn’t come back to clean up that bowl. It was his oatmeal dish from dinner and the longer it sits the harder that shit gets.

Jeremy grunted and cursed as another slash of pain dug into his guts, “Ah, fuck!” Hunched over, he clutched at his stomach and waited for the agony to back off. It was getting worse by the hour, now. The wave passed, but the constant ache went up another notch.

He stood up, kicked over one of the tray tables, and sucked down another shot or two straight out of the bottle. It was time his woman learned that she needed to finish her chores and follow the rules.

***

Mora, bolstered by the need to protect her daughter, was fed up with the routine. Change was inevitable and she welcomed it.

***

Beads of sweat formed on Jeremy’s forehead as he moved toward the dinning room. His legs felt weak. Each footstep was torture, as if they were pulling the ignition lever on a blowtorch inside his gullet—frying his organs and searing nerves. After four paces, breathing heavy and grinding his teeth, Jeremy reached the table. He picked up the bowl and even that felt heavy. Staggering another few steps, Jeremy crossed into the kitchen and fell to his knees. The bowl slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a loud thunk.

A pair of white sneakers stepped into Jeremy’s view. His eyes labored their way up Mora’s body to meet her glare.

She stood over her husband, pouring hatred down upon him. “You don’t look so good, dear. You sure I shouldn’t call a doctor?”

Tears welled in his eyes and he grunted out the word, “Call!”

“But you told me not to, they ask too many questions and I better not go against your will, right?” She waited for a reply but he was busy moaning. Then she noticed the bowl next to him on the floor.

“Oh, look at that. I must’ve left a dirty dish on the table.” Mora picked it up and knocked it against the floor. It made a solid cluck.

“You do love your oatmeal thick, huh? I’ve added a new ingredient to make it extra thick for you. The cement dust from the garage takes a while to harden, but I usually get all the dishes cleaned up by then. I only used a little at first, but the last couple nights have called for a hefty helping.”

A siren screamed past the kitchen window, bathing Mora in vibrant red light.

Jeremy managed to rasp two more words before passing out. “You… bitch!”

Mora smiled. “Yes, payback usually is. But I took the pain and now, I fixed the problem.”

~ Tyr Kieran