Tag: John Potts Jr

Damned Words 29

~ TheDamned ~ 7 Comments



Worthy of Heart
Lee A. Forman

Preserve their milky flesh; make bare soft, pink innards. Harvest remains, cover them in garnish, make beauty of woeful frames. Consume the fetal home—the birthing apparatus—for it is not lasting. But the tiny, wriggling creatures, perfect for trimming. They grow with skill, become things that made them. They pose for desire, malleable to intention. To play with life and death, their brittle models, is to be a god with artful power. Divine imagination is the finest tool. To make rich and vibrant something dull, paint life onto spilled passing.

Beautiful as the collection stands, it is but practice. Want of larger work—a showpiece worthy of burning hearts—fuels stimulus with copious motivation. The hunt must seek substantial result. Perhaps, something less of nature. A fine canvas, tall and supple. The grand puppet of evolution. Two masters of the Earth, to be my servants. They’ll birth the final piece, to be emptied of mortality, and filled with tender love of my pursuit.

Tableau
A.F. Stewart

I loved my secret hobby. Some could call it macabre, this taxidermy, but I saw it as repurposing dead things by turning them into art. My latest project was my best yet:  a ferret and squirrel tea party. I had trouble getting the ferrets at first, but I worked it out. And today I’d just tightened the last screw in the glass case.
“Hey, Jay. How are those ferrets doing?”
I whirled at the voice. Dave from the pet store stood by the open garage door.
“Hey, what’s that?” Dave stepped forward and saw my new tableau. He went ballistic. “What the hell did you do to those ferrets?” He grabbed me. “You little shit! That’s animal cruelty! I’m calling the cops!”
Staring at his angry face, hearing his threats, something just snapped. Panicked, I plunged my screwdriver into Dave’s throat. He grabbed at his neck, gurgled blood and collapsed. I stood trembling, afraid, but…
I kept gawking at Dave’s pooling blood. It stirred new ideas in my brain for a spectacular scene. I glanced over at the bloody screwdriver sticking in Dave’s neck and suddenly smiled.
I just needed a few more people to make it work…

Companions
Mercedes M. Yardley

After one year of living in the box, he let her out into the cellar. After nearly two, he let her have a needle, only under his watch, of course, and she would stitch up the furry little corpses he would bring her. If you take the insides out and replace them with sawdust or small rocks, they won’t smell. It took her a long time to discover this, but after she did, her companions were more enjoyable.

“This one is Mama,” she whispered. “This is Papa. This is June.” Mama, Papa, and June were cherished. Snuggled. Held tight in the dark.

“Why don’t you name one after me?” he asked. His sweat smelled worse than the animal’s decay. His hands were heavy and did unspeakable things.

She refused to name the last toy, calling it Not-Mama or Not-Papa or Not-June. It sat alone by the bowl she used for a toilet. She made sure it was missing its eyes.

How Is the Tea
Jon Olson

Don’t you love tea parties, my dear? I do, although I didn’t like using dolls so I settled on animals. I had Mr. and Mrs. Mouse, Mr. Ferret and the sweet Miss Squirrel. They always bit me or tried to escape. I killed them. With no will of their own, Mr. and Mrs. Mouse could entertain their guests for days on end. How is the tea? Oh, just lovely! They would rot after a while, smelling awful so I’d switch them up with fresh ones. Did you know I tried people once? It was horrible. They screamed and didn’t even want to play. Imagine! Before serving a single cup, I slit their throats. Besides, I missed Mr. Mouse’s gruff laugh and Miss Squirrel’s squeaky coughs. And now they’re with me here in the hospital. I get to visit them every day. Even the lunatics swing by to see them. More tea, old chap? Why certainly, sir!

Daddy’s Little Girl
Nina D’Arcangela

“Daddy!” I turned to see my little girl, her cheeks roughed, a white rat proffered in her outstretched hands; blood dripped from its stilled nose. “Fix it, Daddy, hurry!” I took the slight offering to my workbench. She watched with rapt fascination as I opened, then gutted the animal. Once the hide was cleaned, I applied a preserving agent. Days later, we stuffed the husk; she chose the position, I sewed its remains. Poised on a miniature chair, she whisked the creature away. The following week, a squirrel accompanied the same desperate plea; again I administered, again she observed. After the fourth, she begged a box to house them for afternoon biscuits and tea. I indulged.

She became reclusive soon after, choosing to spend volumes of time in her attic playroom. Concerned, I climbed the stairs to her private sanctum one afternoon. I swung the door wide–the fetid stench nearly overwhelmed me. There, on the floor, sat my little girl amongst a menagerie of mutilated creatures, including her beloved pet cat; a bird crudely stitched into its open maw. She smiled, clapped with sticky fingers, and giggled. “Look, Daddy, I fixed them, just like you.”

Perfection
Mark Steinwachs

Every stitch. Every tuft of fur.

Every. Single. Piece.

It’s perfect. Unlike the world. My views on humanity evolved as my project progressed. My coworkers joked about what I was doing because they didn’t understand. It hurt, but I kept going. They flitted about their lives, unfocused, I continued to center myself. I started crouching over my creation night after night. Soon, all I had left was work… and this. I work so I can create. And now I am done. Alone with perfection.

Every. Single. Piece.

When you truly give all, nothing remains. This is my all. I want nothing more from this world, nothing from the lost people who drift about until they wither away. When they find my art they will understand my patience and attention to detail.

I sit at the reception desk, decisive-sounding clacks filling my ears as I tap the last few keystrokes. Only I could pull this off. Computers are wonderful, if you know how to manipulate them.

Within moments, doors lock, cell phone signals jam, and gas pours from vents. We die as we live. I smile, watching my coworkers’ panicked final seconds. Calm, I take my last breath. Perfection.

Guest or Demon
Christopher A. Liccardi

They looked like fucking rodents. They died how they lived; like a pack of biting, gnashing vermin. Each one poised and refined. But, lift the glass and you’d be gob smacked with the stench of decay and putrescence that will never leave you.

Each had done me a bad turn so they had to pay.

Revenge?

No. Not for a moment could you think this elaborate scene was crafted with such feeble petty intent. That game, I left to the jilted lovers and business partners not savvy enough to see their other half beat them to the punch. My motivation was societal, selfless. Each played a part in my loss of her. Each took something away that I was, so each had to be outsmarted, out-gunned or out maneuvered.

She is gone now and will never return, but I have these four elegant guests over for tea and I will hate them no less as the decades creep past and the lust turns bitter.

At least I have these demons for company as I slowly rot alone.

The Last Tea Party
Scarlett R. Algee

When I see my inheritance, my jaw drops. Four taxidermied animals in a glass display case: three ferrets and a squirrel. They wear scraps of velvet and silk, sitting around a table piled with miniature pastries and a tea set. One ferret wears a top hat at a jaunty angle; another mouths a doll’s pearl necklace. Nana’s sticky note, taped to the glass, reads For Rachel and her sisters, together forever. I swear under my breath. Nana had been sick, but not demented. She knew my sisters were gone, and this is what she left me?

I lift the lid, the stench of mothballs wafting up. Dizzy, fumbling with the glass case, I turn around blindly and smack the wall. My vision blanks out. When it clears, my tail is being squashed against my chairback. I don’t remember having a tail.

I recognize them, those three pointed faces. Sarah teethes her pearls. Lana grins from beneath the top hat. Reilly’s still, but beneath her feathered headband, her eyes gleam. Rachel, each says through a stiff, pointed smile, sister, you made it, you found us.

Me and my sisters, together forever. I want to scream, but I can’t open my mouth.

The Time Out Box
Lydia Prime

They were being mean and I didn’t want to listen anymore. Mommy said that if I invited them over things would change and we could be friends. Mommy’s never been seven years old, obviously. I tried to show them my real friends. The ones who were never mean to me, but those girls said I was weird. One of them even started crying! I didn’t understand! How could they not be immediately drawn in by the tea party my fuzzy little friends were having?

I cried alone for a while, my insides began to burn. I heard them whispering. They were saying awful things about me, the whispering grew louder and my head started to hurt. I just wished I could put them all in time out. Then the voices stopped. I heard four echoing thumps, and walked to my room. They laid seemingly lifeless about the floor. I looked to my fuzzy friends and saw that their eyes had changed, no longer empty. I could see the mean girls reflected back against them, my wish came true. Time out for bad girls.

I set them up exactly like my fuzzy friends, I think I like them better now.

Memorabilia
John Potts Jr

Wrapped in an old sheet was the diorama Grandma made for my graduation. Gary saw only a piece of junk and beelined for the trash but somewhere along the way he stopped, turned to me, and performed this…this un-Gary-like act of love: he asked me if I wanted to hang on to it. I smiled and nodded. He playfully teased back. I could tell that Gary was drunk. So was I. Maybe that’s why I spilled the truth.

“I told you that Grandam loved serial killers, right? Well, that’s because she was one. And she never let anyone bully me. Grandma lured my high school bullies—those fuckers—into her basement and kept them locked there, alive, for days. She tortured them hour after hour until chopping them into bits small enough for the birds to devour. Chloe really did have turquoise eyes, too. I wanted to keep her hair and her lips and her eyes—especially those eyes! Of course Grandma wouldn’t let me so she gave me this diorama instead; something special to remember her by,” I took his hands and smiled. “That’s why I can’t part with it, Gary.”

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2018

 

Damned Words 28

~ TheDamned ~ 6 Comments


In the Darkness, Gently
A.F. Stewart

The snow falls silently in the night, drifting softly to the ground against the moonlight. The wind is still, the tree branches unmoving. Not even a rustling mouse or the shadow of an owl overhead to break the spell of quiet peace. I hear nothing but the hushed sound of my own breath. So I wait.

Time passes. The cold seeps in, begins to numb my fingers and toes. It does not matter. Nothing matters but my obedience, my service. They will come. They will deliver judgment. I wait on their inclination, their decision on whether I am worthy.

I glance at the snow by my feet. It has turned red from Richard’s blood. The sight is stark, beautiful, this primal colour against the white. I stare at the blood:  the patches in the snow, where it has congealed around the wound in his skull. Hitting him was easier than I thought. Dragging his unconscious body here from the house was the difficult part.

I hear the whispers now, their sweet voices. They are pleased. They will come. They will accept my sacrifice.

Opening of the Fifth
Lee A. Forman

Reborn as one, those separate in life shall be stitched in undeath. We bring them to our canvas, cold and pure. It’s there we forge reanimation to that which has gone stale. We place their bodies beside one another like angels in the snow. Two souls would be one, flesh woven together by artisan hands. The scent of pine and copper compliments our senses, a perfect blend to accompany the work. Crystal drops rest upon bleak faces with closed eyes. Soon a fifth would open, reveal to them a world of things unseen; a forsaken place where life and death strays from precepts of human understanding—an existence beyond.

The Real Me
Jon Olson

Sprinting, it begins to snow. They’re behind me somewhere, yelling and cursing. No doubt they’ll come in greater numbers. It doesn’t matter now. A few more steps and I’ll be safe. Protected by the darkness, free to change and become my true self. I can still taste the orderly’s blood with fleshy bits of his nose still stuck between my teeth. Licking my lips my stomach growls and the shape-shifting begins. Skin splits, bones pop and snap as my form rearranges. It’s over in seconds. Grinning, I gallop toward the search party. Sniffing the air, I smell their fear. They know the real me is coming and I’m ecstatic to make their acquaintance…

Deceit
Christopher A. Liccardi

Lying under this icy blanket, I smell it approach. The falling flakes mask my scent; it knows not that I wait. It pauses; I hear it feed from the dewy fern, suckling the wet from the branches. With a single thud of its hoof, I know it has begun its advance again. Snuffling the fresh bed before it, I imagine an ear twitch, an eye round further, instinct warning it to fear… Though if it lifts its snout, it will once again smell only the storm scented air, not my stench.

A tentative step, then another. Now it strides with confidence nearing the protected brush. As it ascends the hillock, I strike. Teeth gnash on thrashing limbs, I roll from my bed under the whiteness slamming the creature to its side. I roll again, this time attempting to snap its neck. The leg I’ve seized is too thin, I grasp for a meatier portion of the caribou. I release, I lunge—it lands a kick in my gut, but not before my maw closes around its throat.

Crimson taints the bleached ground; my grunts fill the air as I devour my prey.

Director’s Cut
Mark Steinwachs

I stand on the porch, watching the snow. So silent, so serene, same as it was when I took the picture for her a few days ago. It’s amazing what you can portray to the world, you force people to see what you want, hiding the rest off-screen. We’re all directors of our own movie, only most people don’t realize it, just like they don’t think about the lights and stands and cables surrounding their favorite actor inches outside the shot.

I know, I’m a director. The best. It’s simple, really. Give them what they want to see and they’ll see it. Right up until it’s too late. She loved the country, its beauty, so I showed her, and after a few dates… Well, let’s say she was born for the role. I picked out her spot before I knew who she was.

I smile as my eyes fall to the half-dug hole in front of the tree in the distance. Now to find who deserves to be my sixth. I pull my phone out, one gloveless finger scrolling through profile pictures as the snow continues to fall.

Footprints
Mercedes M. Yardly

She left bloody footprints in the snow.

First they were small droplets, like Snow White’s mother who pricked her finger over her embroidery. Red French knots on linen. Red berries on white stone.

Then they became more. The unsettling slash of lips in a pale face, the slit of split skin, a wound that won’t close.

Ribbons. Swaths. Coils of red. Each step lanced her frozen feet, the crusty ice slicing tender skin. But each step was freedom, closer toward her mother, and the broken chains clinking around her ankles sang, “Let’s go home, let’s go home, let’s go home.”

Sylph Surfer
Nina D’Arcangela

Peaceful, so it seems, a glade shrouded in haze of dusk; sitting calmly in gentle gloam, it awaits full evening’s thrust. A subtle whisper ‘twixt tree and limb, all sway to and fro; snow settles upon thinnest branch, it bends most subservient bough. My siblings and I, we glide on currents lift, licking droplets from the air. The game afoot, as it always is, when wind is true and fair. Below I spy the first; tired, wet and cold. He drags a yelping mutt behind, leaving visage now rutted bold. Fleet as the others be, I am that much quicker, I descend among the flakes, strike the boy from the side–we tumble a mad twister. The white clouds his eyes as he shakes his hooded head, by then it is too late, for I have sunk my teeth, his pet already dead.

Bundled Up
John Potts Jr

Cassie nodded to Gregor and he stood, shifting to a wide stance with his arms raised shoulder level. A sharp ripping echoed through their empty cabin and Cassie thought how much she loathed today—this very moment—as she wrapped thick tape around the wrists and ankles of Gregor’s snowsuit. She stepped back, determined to stay strong. Will my sweet come back to me? Cassie pulled Gregor’s hat over his ears. “Better,” she whispered before kissing her love goodbye. Cassie could never watch him leave; it was too hard on her frayed nerves. And she knew the expedition in the wastes would last days and Gregor always came back to her so Cassie eased herself into bed, turned down the lights, and went to bed.

But there was something Cassie couldn’t shake and when she slipped into slumber that night a horrid image flashed her mind: only one of Gregor’s boots had been tied. Gregor tripped outside the door, falling downhill into an ugly roll that sent his body into the base of a lifeless oak. Both his hat and scarf tore from his face and the falling snow dissolved his exposed flesh to the marrow.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2018

 

Damned Words 27

~ TheDamned ~ 10 Comments


Lady of Sorrow
A.F. Stewart

She hides her face from me and weeps tears of stone, clutching the wreath she laid on my grave. A monument to her false grief and lingering guilt, forever enshrined in granite effigy. I stare at her from the shadows of the trees and laugh.

She thought to kill me.

Me, a thousand years her better in occult magic and deviltry. A poor attempt at murder and in the end she is the one entombed. Locked in her stone prison atop my empty grave.

She should have never come to the cemetery to gloat, to lay her wreath in two-faced mourning. But then, I have always laid the best traps. I savoured the priceless look on her face when she turned and saw me standing behind her, alive, and not a corpse mouldering in my grave.

That was the last thing she ever saw.

Feeding on Forever
Lee A. Forman

The sky joins my solemn carriage as it casts a shadowed brow and sheds tears in honor. But musing her smile dampens the storm. Alluring and scented with life, it led me to flavorful experiences. Never before had the inevitable deed ushered such hesitation. Despite any mourning that might follow, I drained her of animation and confined her soul to a lifeless body. Ages passed since her corpse was set beneath stone. Yet memories retain their piquancy. Every life a different taste, I savor hers the most—the rest I keep only to feed the void. As I leave for another year, my longing for her toothsome spirit has already begun.

Please Just Let Me…
Jon Olson

Chewing my lip draws blood as I stand before her grave. I fucked up. I brought the damn baby, killed it and sliced the belly open just as she prefers. Why didn’t I stay to ensure she got the nourishment? There’s no point in running or hiding. Better to stand up and take it like a man. If I show her I’m in this for the long haul, maybe she’ll… there’s no way. My quivering lip and churning stomach would betray me. Hell, I’m on the verge of tears. If only I could… oh god… she’s awake… please… please just let me…

They Don’t Visit
Christopher A. Liccardi
They had so many questions. It was incessant to the point of pissing me off. I put a stop to them. Each time, a new face and new questions. The same old shit, really.

Keeping them in the closest started to cause issues with the lady next door. She started asking questions. No good. I found a forgotten stone and a forgotten family that never visited their dead. Made sense, right?

Fill the dead places with the dead—the living don’t bother to visit often. I’ll need to find a new place soon. Because, people never stop asking questions and questions never stop getting on my fucking nerves.

This place is big though and there are a lot of people who never visit their dead. There are a lot of places to store all those questions.

A Mother’s Lament
Nina D’Arcangela

Look at them. They stand there, dullards staring upward, not an original thought in their skulls. They’re sheep, cattle, suckling piglets awaiting the slaughter. They’ve grown soft, ineffectual, flaccid – just as he did. Can you imagine allowing yourself to be dragged naked through the streets, strung upon wooden posts, stabbed without uttering a single plea? No wonder those who follow do so with vacant stare and limp aptitude. It sickens me to look upon them, reminds me of my own crushing disappointment – the mother of one so weak willed. Yet they erect this edifice, this monument to a girl named Mary and pray before her shroud covered head. That girl is long gone of this earth, as is her passive nature. Millennia now I have endured his shame, but no more. I shall quake the very ground they stand upon as they cry out to me, beg that I beseech my child forgive them.  My child died, do they not remember? They are the ilk that killed him long before he was crucified.

The Contest
Mark Steinwachs

All my work crescendos to this moment, this chilly morning. I snap three photos, his remorse seeping through the lens. The color of his skin and cloak blends into the stone he’s perched on. The wreath in his hand, one flower for each of his victims, matches too. His spidery fingers entice me through the lens, but even the most delicate fingers can pull a trigger. His fate sealed of his own volition, he spoke to none of us but followed every order we gave. I take one more photo. It’s the one. Because of him, we will both be immortalized. After ten years, I will win Death Day. My picture alongside past winners. I turn and walk toward the idling police van. Behind me, four gunshots ring out in quick succession.

Her Children
John Potts Jr

September 22nd, 1917.

The professor stopped again before sunrise. He beckoned that I come at once, that something was amiss by the gate. I held my lantern high above the fog and led the way as he followed with his cart in tow.

“There,” he said with a tremble, pointing to the Lady of the Cemetery. “She will not let me pass. Pray you can help, good sir. Pray you can persuade her to let me and mine pass.”

I lifted the cloth and recoiled with detest, with loathing, at what lie beneath. He paid for the dead, that was certain, but not for her children. I walked away, back to my home, and when the sun was high in the afternoon I found the Lady of the Cemetery mourning her young once more.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2018

 

Damned Words 25

~ TheDamned ~ 13 Comments




Misapprehension
Lee A. Forman

The past withered, faded, much like the photograph Benny held. Time consumed memory, leaving only a reflection of their faces behind his eyes. He couldn’t see beyond the scowl his wife expressed. Often, he mused it was the sun in her eyes—mere speculation, as the gray expanse that once thrived with the living, now decayed with the dead. The end wiped clean all sins, but all good deeds as well; as if a switch had been flipped, those who survived born anew.

He had to relearn who he was, as did everyone else. But he never accepted the new world. The picture tethered him to what was before. It held part of him in a forgotten place of warmth and hope. But the source of those feelings remained unknown. His head ached, torn between realities, one of which he couldn’t be sure existed. For all he knew, it was a dream within a nightmare, some faculty of human survival he’d never been aware of—something to keep the soul going. He could easily have found that picture in the endless, trash-filled wasteland, and simply forgotten he never knew any of those people.

Bizarre Killings
Brian Moreland

Miami Herald, July 22, 1948: BIZARRE KILLINGS IN THE EVERGLADES

Five members of a family vacationing near Palmdale, Florida were found dead yesterday at their summer cottage. “The killings were the strangest I’ve ever seen,” reported Sheriff Nash of Glades County. “We found the parents, Thomas and Linda Copper, in their bed, buried under fifty deadly snakes. We had a helluva time getting to the bodies. Eldest son, Joshua’s corpse was in the den, lying face down in two inches of swamp water. Bites riddled his body and he was missing an arm. His brother, Will, had been dragged into the glades behind the house and partially eaten by gators. We found teenage daughter, Janine, in her wheelchair, parked at the edge of the dock. Frogs covered her body and nested in her open mouth.” Shaking his head, Sheriff Nash added, “We’re still trying to figure out why so many swamp creatures had preyed upon the Copper Family.”

The only survivor was youngest daughter, Katie Copper. Sheriff Nash found the nine-year-old girl sitting on the back porch humming to herself and petting a large python in her lap. When later asked what happened to her family, Katie looked toward the saw-grass marsh and said, “My family lives in the glades.”

I Just Don’t Know…
Jon Olson

They look so happy in the photo. Each member with different experiences, yet together they’re something more. Like a jigsaw puzzle, each member is a piece connecting to the others to create something greater than the piece itself. Is this what a family is supposed to look like? They’re with me now but no longer alive. I have them arranged in the same poses as the photo yet it is not the same. I tried to keep the cuts in their neck as small as I could. Can you call a group of corpses a family? I just don’t know…

Cute Kid
John Potts Jr

He looked to the girl outside on the swing, and then to the one in the frame. There is just no way, he thought. A chill fell upon him when he glanced once more to the two girls, like the child who witnessed the boogeyman willingly. They both wore white and had hair the color of obsidian and even twenty feet away, he noticed an eerie resemblance.

But this is at least a century old, he thought, and returned the frame back to its spot atop the dusty television stand.

The cable technician bent, grabbed his tool belt and turned, now standing eye level with a portrait hanging on a wall adjacent to the room’s exit. This one had color, mid-seventies. A nuclear family with strawberry blonde hair sprawled across a massive redwood. The little girl was there too, off to the side and never too far away.

And again, this time at a Princess Resort. She stalked the two parents with their single child, her predator-eyes fixated on prey, not family.

A Moment
Mark Steinwachs

I thrust the picture that I’ve been carrying for the last twenty years in front of me. “This. This is what humanity is supposed to be.” My voice catches as the two young men standing just inside the door of my cabin click the safeties off their rifles pointing them at me. “The world wasn’t always this way. You must believe me. The blinding light etched into this picture marked their arrival. I am the little girl in this. They tried to wipe us out. All but the ones too young to remember. You. They raised and trained you.” Tears stream down my face, my hand shaking. They fight for the enslavers. They are homo-sapiens but I do not call them human. I don’t know how many of us are still alive. I step toward them holding my picture like a priest holding a cross but this isn’t a demon I can banish. “Please. This picture. This. This is Earth. This is humanity.”

The flash from the gun reminds me of twenty years ago.

The Photo
A.F. Stewart

I remember them.

Holding the faded photo, looking at the smiling faces posing for the camera, I recalled the day. Such a close-knit family. Father and eldest son running the family business, mother and daughter running the home, the second son soon off to college.

And the little girl. Twelve, I think, in the photo. Or thirteen.

I’m not quite sure anymore.

They seem so happy, the photo makes them look happy. So ordinary.

They weren’t though. There were strange secrets. Buried secrets

Like the bodies buried under their rose garden.

The bodies of my family. Those people in the photo.

It was a late summer evening, when the Hunters came. Die witches, they yelled as they shot their guns. They screamed, foul witches, as they cut the heads off their lifeless bodies, laughed as they dragged me away shrieking. I saw, though, saw from the car where they held me, where they made me keep quiet. Saw the holes they dug and the bodies covered with dirt.

Then they took me away, tried to re-educate me.

Make me a Hunter.

They didn’t succeed.

I’m still a witch.

And I avenged my family.

Etched
Christoper A. Liccardi

Etched in eternity, the family posed in the backyard pretending nothing was wrong. With such a handsome family, what could be wrong?

Their faces belied a truth that smelled like rotting meat on a sun-beaten highway; all but one face.

The little girl sat ‘injun’ style they called it in school. All thoughts of political correctness sixty-years away.

“Wasn’t there another child, sir?” The photographer asked.

The little girl replied, choking back a smirk, “He didn’t make it.”

“Oh.” The photographer shuffled awkwardly for a moment. Death was uncommon for this city dweller.

The sitting took an hour and everyone was as still as statues the entire time, except the girl. She squirmed and fidgeted like she’d sat on an ant hill.

Afterward, she got up and walked over to the man with the fancy camera and tugged on his pant leg.

The little girl smiled up at him, sinister and dark; he was instantly terrified.

“Wanna stay for dinner?” The little girl asked, forcing a sweetness that was a pure lie on her lips.

Before the man could reply, father had driven a stake through his left eye. The little girl cheered and began to giggle.

The Fruits
Joseph A. Pinto

I’d heard of her talent. But I’d been a skeptic, a trait stuck like glue on me throughout life. Someone told me a long time ago, though, that even the most jaded of trees need time bearing the fruit.

She felt my presence, acknowledged it with a choked clearing of her throat. She pulled out an old camera. The bright pop of the flash bar momentarily stunned my sight.

One liver spotted hand tap-tapped the doily littered table before her. The other? It offered an instant film sheet to the ghosts in the air.

And the ghosts, they did appear.

In muted sepia outlines at first, solidifying slowly before my eyes. My mouth parted, astounded. “You killed all of them.” She did not pose it as a question.

“Yes.”

The seer chuckled, dry as rainless dirt. “You got a helluva lot more souls in that black heart of yours.”

I admired the family trapped within the film sheet. “Yes.” I knew my own soul had been weighed heavy of late. I knew I simply needed some releasing, some clearing of space. “Take my picture again,” I instructed the seer and watched as the fruits ripened before me.

The Suckling
Nina D’Arcangela

Taken in as a foster child; I knew nothing of my lineage. The family found me, told me I was one of them. When I was introduced to the way, I bucked; I didn’t want to believe. They showed me older images; the five of them in each, my mother the sixth—our resemblance undeniable. I could live as long as I had the strength to perform the act, thereby resetting the clock to the age of my inception.

They were jovial at first; each abided the stricture of the cycle. Soon enough, cracks in the veneer began to show. The men grew impatient, my aunties more so. They engaged in the suckling with a frequency that reset days not decades. An ugliness grew; a desire to perform the ritual without the gain of youth. It began in dark alleyways where illicit abortions took place. Once the clinics opened, there was no stopping them. Regeneration required one thing: consumption of a fetal sack with its embryo still intact within the host body. At the age of seventy-nine, the choice was once again mine; to feed and live despite the grotesque nature of the deed, or allow death its claim.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2017

 

Damned Words 24

~ TheDamned ~ 10 Comments



Unhallowed Mastication
Lee A. Forman

Succulent is the flesh, with the right tongue to sample its flavor. Lapping at pools of blood, my palate invokes pleasure beyond understanding. How beautiful its color…blackened under moonlight. Soon to gorge upon a fleshless back, I arch and look to the sky. Always watching, my Luna, the light by which I dine. But never judging, its face ever set in nihilistic expression. With love I feed, and regret I swallow, for I’ve broken the forever promise. But in my prime, with such tender meat, resistance would be futile.

My heartbeat quickens as life departs him. And a sad smile curves my lips. A reflective glow catches my eye, from the ring around his finger. What was once a black suit and white dress, now a skinless corpse and naked body. Bells ring in my ears and flower petals dance for dreams of the past.

Those things are gone. Things demeaning to my newfound nature. A lifetime of hunger now sated, fruitless ventures of decency vacated. I loved him, still do… But I played the part, never committing. I must move forward, despite any sorrow. And so I take him in, raw, fresh, and unhallowed.

The Night Prisoner
Brian Moreland

On Halloween, the moon watched as humans walked the earth wearing strange costumes. Children went from house to house, collecting treats. Adults gathered at parties and drank spirits. The lonely moon yearned to be a part of these rituals, but she was imprisoned in the night sky. Then, a miracle happened. A girl in a fairy costume held up a candy pumpkin into a moonbeam. “Would you like a treat, Moon?” The kind offering opened a hole in the night’s veil. Delighted, Moon appeared as a goddess beside the girl and ate the candy. The sky went black. The girl shrunk to a pixie. Giggling, she flew around Moon and landed on her shoulder. Moon walked through a neighborhood. Every disguised human became their costume. Masks molded into flesh. Plastic teeth formed into fangs. Vampires, clowns, witches, and creatures of all kinds began attacking one another. “Please stop them!” the fairy pleaded. Moon remembered why she had isolated herself high above their world. I’m too much for humans. Saddened, she thanked Fairy Girl for the candy, then Moon returned to her prison in the void. Below, the creatures turned back into humans; although too often, they still attacked one another.

It Is Finished
Jon Olson

My eyes find the moon, glowing amidst the dissipating storm while the clouds swirl around the lunar gem for one last caress. I hear the Feasters of Death gathering in the trees, watching and waiting with ravenous anticipation for my body to exhale its final breath. Looking at the deep slash across my abdomen, they won’t have to wait long. My fingers probe the fatal wound, touching and prodding my entrails about to spill out onto the already bloodied earth. Around me are a mix of my fallen brothers and former enemies, with eyes permanently stuck open, staring lifelessly at their final battleground. Each expression a mix of death and hope; hope that they fought valiantly enough for the gods to have taken notice. My crimson stained fingers drop to the ground, finding the hilt of my sword, assuring me I have died a warrior’s death. A final chill stabs through my body as the Feasters creep out of their hiding places and I know it is finished.

Children of Frost
John Potts Jr

The woman heard a whimper. She turned and peered to her rear. Nothing, not a soul. Her pace quickened.

There it was again, only closer. This time the sound was a wail. Must be an animal, she thought, maybe a stray cat. Dense brush lined the walkway on her right and to her left, leafless oak and red maple stood guard above a sharp embankment. Her breath listed upward, fogging her glasses. She wiped the moisture off her lenses and noticed a small boy crouching near a tree ahead.

“You poor thing,” the woman gasped.

She rushed to him, knelt and took off her jacket, wrapping the boy snug. His skin was the color of bone. The boy hugged into her and the woman smelt something vile, something rotten. She hushed the boy, told him that everything would be alright and that she would take care of him.

The boy replied, “I know.” Jagged teeth ripped through the woman’s sweater, and into her stomach. She twisted away but the boy sunk his bite in deeper.

Then the children crawled from the embankment. They pounced, tearing and gnashing and feasting on her life under the moon above.

Final Moon
Mark Steinwachs

The clouds break and expose a perfect moon. I will myself to hear howls in the distance that don’t exist. It would be far too cliché to meet my maker under a full moon ripped apart by a creature of fantasy. No, my time ends at the hands of the noxious, silent death that has overrun Earth.

Leaning against a tree, my ankle throbs, purple and swollen. Why did I even run? I’m too average to be one of the survivors. Making it this far was more luck than skill, right place right time kind of thing.

The stench of death assaults me before I hear their shuffle through the leaves. My finger slides over the trigger of the pistol I learned to use not long ago.

I see one, then another, and more beyond them. They know I’m here through glazed over eyes. I point my gun at the first one and hear others close in around me. There are far too many, I put my gun down, why fight the thing I will become.

My death will be like my life, another one amongst the masses.

Moonlight Sacrifices
A.F. Stewart

My fellow initiates—my sisters—smile at me, but I hear their whispers.

“The moon rising ceremony is tonight. They’ll come for her.”

They avoid looking at me, but I know the pity in their eyes. Mine reflected such emotions once. For the previous girl chosen in the sacrificial rites.

It is the risk, coming to the temple, the unspoken fear. The first night after they marked me, I wept myself into sleep. Then the Goddess came to me in my fitful dreams. She granted me strength, showed me the path. Tonight I walk it willingly.

After midnight I am escorted to the woodland dais by the priests. I am nervous, but I know my duty. As I kneel before the altar, I slip the knife from beneath my robes. For my duty is not to their God. I do the bidding of my Goddess.

They never see their deaths coming.

I look down on the last priest, bloodied knife raised. “The goddess is coming, defiler. She will no longer tolerate her daughters’ blood spilled in the name of your Death God. She is coming and you will all die.”

I bring down the knife and paint the moonlight red.

Cold, So Cold
Joseph A. Pinto

I knew what they were.  Recognized them beyond all deception.

No one listened.  Madman, they labeled me, and spat upon my shoes.  Still, I had grown used to such treatment, outcast that I had become.  Driven away from my family, my community, from the very fabric of lives I believed once to be an intricate part.  Such a sad, sad unravelling of threads.

When they perished, I shed no tears.  I carried no guilt upon my shoulders.

The cities have long since fallen.  Crystallized, one and all; come upon by translucent mercenaries of death.  Humanity had its chance.  All that was required, a simple heed of my warning.

The eternal frost is here.  Forever reaching with bitter fingers; the brooks, the rivers, the vast oceans, all set upon in hibernal oneness.  Now the mountains, the woods.  Yes, I see them for what they are.  Alive in gleaming beads of ice.  Maturing rapidly, these denizens of glacier delirium.

From white flakes they first fluttered, but no one believed.

Whoever remains huddled and void of warmth beneath this moon surely cannot deny it now…

Night’s Scape
Nina D’Arcangela

Lying in the wet grass, blood sputters from my chilling lips; my left arm is without feeling. I turn my head in fevered panic looking for the creature that attacked me. I hear its harsh breathing, but can see nothing of it. My right hand scours the earth; a fistful of entrails the only reward. My eyes drift shut.

The snort of its rotting breath on my forehead jolts me awake; terror rips through my body. I know death is near, but I struggle to flee nonetheless. Its maw clamps around my skull, the moon-lit field roughs against my back as it drags me towards the tree-shadowed edge; I see my lower half lying still upon the green expanse. My mind screams, my eyes turn upward of their own volition. Above me, the naked grey abomination releases its grip on my head; a glob of putrescent gelatinous spittle rains from its cracked lip. It snorts once more before ripping my chest open with a single swipe. Delicately, with a surgeon’s precision, it sniffs and picks among my organs. As I expel a scream that sounds of a whimper, I hear it snuffling and lapping as it gorges upon my innards.

Mother Knows Best
Christopher A. Liccardi

As she drove the knife in, Stephanie thought it was enough moonlight to see by; enough for this sacrifice. She felt the resistance give way.

A dull knife is a fool’s mistake, her mother had lectured. These were her mother’s tools and she had always kept them sharpened. God, the woman never stopped talking about the craft. If it wasn’t about the tools, it was the chanting or the posture. Stephanie stopped listening long ago, but some things had stuck, like this spell.

It’s not a spell dear, it’s a ritual. How she hated to be corrected all the time.

The figure lying on the alter twitched when she opened the skull. Stephanie stopped to check the restraints. It wouldn’t do to have her flailing in the middle. Her mother would have scowled at that too.

Stephanie recalled the chant her mother taught her; the rhythm and the words came effortlessly. Stephanie plunged the knife in to each eye socket and flicked out the globes. This time, the woman did more than twitch. She guessed what ritual it was.

 Soon enough I’ll be the witch, this will be my coven to rule, Stephanie thought as she kissed her mother’s forehead.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2017

 

What Love Will Do

~ John Potts Jr ~ 13 Comments

The Beast wanted me to bring the bodies in through the front door. On a subconscious level, I always knew why, but my mind wouldn’t wrap itself around the thought. I knew my wife didn’t want to see it; she wanted nothing to do with the Beast.

“Can’t help it,” the body inside the contractor bag quivered as I dragged it across the carpet. “Just part of the gig, babe.”

Julia’s routine had become as systematic as mine: an immediate retreat to whatever room was closest while my stupid jokes fell on deaf ears. I guess I couldn’t blame her.

Over the years, the bodies thudded down into the Beast’s lair step-by-step as our marriage devolved into a nightmare. We bickered, spat at one another, even when the Beast wasn’t around.

She waited for me on the porch one night. I could tell she was pissed without even getting out of the truck.

I rolled down the passenger window, told her that I loved her and that she looked pretty in the moonlight.

She shut me right down. “Yeah, you know you messed up,” she sneered while walking to the door.

“Baby, we’ve been over this a hundred times—”

“We haven’t been over shit. Here’s the new rule, my rule: you bring them poor souls down through the bulkhead from now on or you and that Beast will have to shack up elsewhere.”

Before I could reply, she slammed the door, threw the locks, and turned out the lights.

To my left, the darkness growled.

I opened the cab door and stepped out; the Beast slunk near me, nearly on top of me.

I turned toward the Beast just as the creeping shadows enveloped me. It was a sudden weight of pure evil that suffocated my very existence. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel, couldn’t think. For a moment, I was nothing.

Then I was alone again, standing outside my basement, stunned by the Beast’s unimaginable power. I thought to myself, after all these years, the Beast finally offered me a glimpse of its true nature. I suppose it was good timing. The drifter—the one I picked up that night outside Pittsburgh—put up a hell of a fight and my knee was aching like all hell.

But in the end, just like the rest, he folded. Not without offering the usual pathetic promises; he swore to tell no one if I let him go, begged for safe release, chortled on about having children at home. Then he pissed himself. Now that was a surprise. That level of terror was usually reserved for the Beast.

I swung the metal doors of the bulkhead open, walked back to the truck and dragged the asshole out. That oh-so-familiar thrum buzzed deep inside me; the pain in my leg and fists dissipated. I felt strong, strong and young again when I tossed the squirming body down the concrete steps.

Sometimes they cried out for their mother or father, or even their god. Sometimes they sniveled incoherently. Other times, they just shut up and died. This one hollered like a banshee. The Beast pulsed with excitement and a brilliant fervor rushed through my body.

There’s never a sensation of pain as the Beast rips from my core. I have yet to experience any awareness of my false-skin being shredded to ribbons. That’s when I’m my true self; the one Julia calls the Beast. She’s seen it only once or twice, but has never talked about it.

I’ve tried to pry it out of her. I pushed so hard one time that she took off for her sister’s place in Maine. Before she left, she told me that if I wanted to know what the Beast looked like, I should look in the mirror.

Once I was down in the basement with my latest capture, the Beast took center stage as I watched from behind dulled curtains. Quite the performance. I only remember bits and pieces of the brutal acts. It’s the mess after the standing ovation that sticks with me.

I’m damn sure my steel-toed boots busted every inch of the man’s body. That’s how the Beast likes his meals: tenderized to a pulp.

Once the ruckus ended, Julia came down and offered to mop up; she told me to go upstairs and take a shower. I slunk past, covered in blood and guts, exhausted and naked.

“You still mad?” I muttered.

“I’ll get over it. And so will you.” She shook her head, “Almost forty years of being stuck with you and that Beast. I didn’t think it would take me this long to figure it out, but I have.”

“Figure what out?” I asked.

She glanced at me and stretched her muscles like a feral cat before nodding toward the stairs.

As I was standing in the steaming water, it dawned on me.

The Beast wanted me to bring the bodies through the front door, right through the middle of my life, not to shame me, but to show me.

I am the Beast.

And the Beast is all of us.

~ John Potts Jr

© Copyright John Potts Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Damned Words 23

~ TheDamned ~ 11 Comments

Ghosts of Judgement Bridge
Brian Moreland

Every October we relive the nightmare. The townsfolk march my three sisters and I to Judgment Bridge. Our hands bound behind our backs, we stand facing the fates of sinners. The angry mob chants, “Suffer the wicked!” Jabbing pitchforks force us to climb onto the rusted railing. Looking down, my sisters and I teeter over roaring river rapids. The hangman places nooses around our necks. Before he reaches Charlotte, she jumps and plunges into the rushing waters. Beside me, Gwen and Sylvie cry. We hold hands as we leap. The ropes snap our necks. We hang forever beside our parents.

Departing Obstruction
Lee A. Forman

Legends spoken in elder tongues told of the barrier. The forbidden land existed beyond. Kell desired secrets, discoveries, things unknown. To touch, feel, see…he’d return a hero. They’d sing of his journey for ages. Knowledge of the world gone would be his to tell. Whatever horrors lied ahead, he’d conquer. He inched with fear over rushing water. But his legs weakened as he reached the midpoint; body thinned, skin withered. The air smelled of death. He tried to withdraw but the barrier obstructed return. A throaty howl escaped unheard, as ravenous beasts of ebon flesh appeared from behind the trees…

Honor
Mark Steinwachs

I place my hands on the bridge and lay down, nestling my head into the rounded gap of steel.

There’s only one of us in the family each generation and as is tradition, I don’t know who follows me. My time is over and only they choose whether to reveal themselves. I will be their first hit as my uncle was mine.

“Thank you,” says a sweet female voice, one I’ve known since she was born. “Your place of honor awaits.”

In the silent morning the click of the safety sounds as loud as the gunshot that will soon follow.

Safe
Christopher A. Liccardi

Rusted girders ached under her weight. Centuries passed since anyone ventured out on that bridge. The deepest spot was nearly the length across to the other side; the free side.

She struggled, just a few hundred feet from where she could be safe from all the torment and ridicule. It wouldn’t be long before she could get away from the prying eyes always staring, the disdain she’d had to endure for years.

As she reached that spot, the one you couldn’t see from the deck, she dropped his mostly dead body in without so much as a single glance down.

Crossing
Veronica Magenta Nero

Each time I cross cold shivers overcome me. Here you leapt into the brown waters below, your body never found. With toes curling the edge I imagine the impact, the smack against the rippling surface, hard and sharp like plunging into glass. Water is a cruel and hungry force, capable of painfully wringing the very last gasp of air from tired lungs. I strain my ears against the rush and gurgle of the river, listening, waiting, sometimes your voice rises like a dark bubble from the muddy depths. It breaks before I can make out what you want to say.

Where will you go, Josie May?
John Potts Jr

Back in ’63 the widow Josie May lost her two boys to napalm. Her grief was persistent, heavy. One evening Josie plunged head-first to the shallow creek below Mason Bridge. She suffered a death worse than her sons and the locals coined that spot Widow’s Sorrow ever since.

Those who shared Josie’s pain found a similar fate; some took the dive, some didn’t. But the town never mentioned that when they shut the bridge down for good. Old Josie though, she’s clinging on, and the kids nowadays say Widow’s Sorrow isn’t half as scary as it was made to be.

Just Cut Deep
Jon Olson

You’re holding that razor, comforting and warm. Everything will be better on the other side. Trust me. The pain and anguish you feel now will be but a memory. Don’t you see? Your life’s journey has brought you here. All that is left now is to cross over, the final hurdle represented by this bridge. There is but a simple toll. Just cut deep. That’s all you have to do. Don’t be alarmed by what’s on the other side. It will look bleak only if you want it to. There’s much more so embrace the razor’s cold bite and cross…

Awakened
Joseph A. Pinto

From beneath the bridge, I hear the breaths; a horrid rasping, laden with congestion and rage. Warned I was not to cross this way for what awaits, the rumors told, was of no natural origin.  The sun slowly withdraws from the land as the breaths rise and fall, everywhere and nowhere at once.

Turtle-like, my head withdraws deep into the hollow of my overcoat, bones rattling within my shell.  I should have taken heed, but like all else in my life, it is too late.

Yes, I hear the breaths from a beast awakened, rising and falling with my own.

Ghost Train
A.F. Stewart

The deputy stared at the human-shaped soot stain indelibly smeared into the surface of the rusted bridge. Nearby lay a ratty wallet. “Another one, Clem?”

The sheriff snorted. “Of course, Willie. Full moon last night. Another fool got an eternal ticket on our Ghost Train. It’s a spectral menace. Even ripping up the tracks in ’56 didn’t help.” He bent and examined the wallet. “Shit. It’s Darren’s. You’d think he’d know better.”

“Poor Darren.” Willie shook his head, but inwardly smiled.

He got what he deserved. Best sound in the world listening to him scream over that phantom train whistle.

Mother’s Rage
Nina D’Arcangela

Mother’s milk spills upon all. The transformation– beautiful; horrifically brutal. As she nourishes, she destroys. Silvering, drying, cupping with the wick of her dew.  Molecular bonds shift as she bathes all with rage and gentle tears from above. She corrodes, taints; amends. The surface awash in pained agony transforms to a visage her eye finds most appealing. Underneath, sweet symphony of destruction plays to a finely tuned ear. Warping, twisting, undulating; becoming. Corrosion, chaos, lack of conformity brings justice to the wracked and malformed. Her torrent soothes the hardest with passage of time; her gentle stroke cripples that unnaturally wrought.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2017
Image © Copyright Dark Angel Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Damned Words 22

~ TheDamned ~ 13 Comments

The Forever Burden
Lee A. Forman

Only at night could the tower be seen—a spectral fortress alive in darkness. Under the sun the site was an open field, but when the moon rose from its resting place, the stone went up as far as any lantern could illuminate. It seemed to touch the stars. They gathered there each midnight to offer their sorrows to the Lord. He who would cast vengeful death upon them from above. One living soul for one living day. The bargain had been set for as long as any could remember. An unending deal with an unseen God. Their forever burden…

Torches
Veronica Magenta Nero

I silence my jagged breath and press myself flat against the cold stones. They chant my name as they jostle flaming torches in the night, boots stomping, their malicious song churns in my stomach. When I close my eyes I see your throat, split open and seeping black red, your fingers trembling at the wound as your life leaked away and soaked into the earth.

They are close, they will soon capture me, a mad woman unwed, a murderous whore. I will gladly confess my crime, without guilt or regret, and for that they will torture me all the more.

A Letter from Captain William Brumley, 47th Border Guard
Brian Moreland

General McHenry,

A new enemy has invaded our territory. Each night campfires appear outside our post. Growls echo from the woods. Twelve of my recon soldiers failed to return. During the day, all we’ve found is an abandoned camp with bloody bones, skulls on pikes. Last night, I ventured close enough to see our tormentors are feral savages cloaked in fur. Formidable beasts with snouts and tusks, archaic weapons. They greatly outnumber us. We are down to four men. We fear for our lives. Please send an army to Fort Danebury, before the Boar People eat the rest of us.

Awoken Me
Jon Olson

Something has changed. It is not time. My metamorphosis is not yet complete. So what has awoken me? My dark world is no longer silent or still. Echoes bounce off the ancient walls as the sounds of the living harass the dead. My joints are stiff as I emerge from my cocoon, creeping along brick foundations built by those from long ago. Up ahead I see a tiny flicker of flame dancing seductively within the confines of a lantern. Pausing, I lick the air and immediately become ravenous for the sweet yet bitter taste of humans. Let the feast begin…

The Mob Laments
John Potts Jr

“What have we done?”

The farmer collapsed. His splintered pitchfork drops and he whimpered a dull, throaty wallop. The priest lowered with lantern and blood-stained cross. “It needed to be done, for it was the will of the—”

“Damn you,” a gargantuan sort of man reached down and snatched the priest off the ground with ease. “No God would demand the death of children.”

A wiry woman pressed forward. Her eyes burned like the woeful flames set before.

“The only monster here is you,” she spat.

Her dagger glistened by moonlight above and the mob circled, still hungry for more.

Penance
Mark Steinwachs

Chained against the wall, the moonlight bathed me. I watched them set up camp then closed my eyes. There was nothing I could have done for my son. His neck was ripped open before I could knock the beast from him. My silver combat knife sunk in, but its teeth and claws inflicted irreversible damage to me. We all knew my final outcome. My eyes popped open and I cried out. It had begun. Vomit spewed from me as I watched my body begin to change. They’re going to sacrifice me for my meat and fur. Penance for my failure.

Offerings in the Dark
A.F. Stewart

A scattering of flower petals covered the ground outside the entrance and etched symbols of protection decorated its stone archway. The people of the town considered the edifice a shrine.
A place of the dead.
Others considered it a pilgrimage.
A few steps inside, tucked in an alcove, the lanterns burned, their flickering light a monument. The faithful came each year; the fortunate said prayers and left. The rest, well…
A few more feet into the shadows and you’d find their bones. The strewn remnants of pilgrims sacrificed to the dark.
You’d also find the creature that ate those fools.

Vivisepulture
Joseph A. Pinto

Spade kisses earth; it begins.

No rites, no rituals. That privilege is lost, stripped like the clothes from your back. No box, no shroud. Nothing but a crude, dank hole.

The melody of cloven earth lulls you; your muscles grow slack against your binds. The chasm claims you; dirt now cast, one with your skin. No use in struggling, you retreat within your mind; you are a master at escape. Ignorant, they are, to the knowledge you have buried yourself within yourself so many, many times before.

How little they know you were born only to die, to rise again.

Cortege
Hunter Shea

I stood beside the crypt, quivering. The crisp autumn air numbed my toes.
“See, I told you,” Rebecca hissed.
I clamped a hand over her mouth.
The procession of glowing orbs marched in front of us, making nary a sound. These were not fairies. Fairies didn’t smell of fruiting bodies. Pain and rancor emanated from the flickering lights, not magic and wonder.
I wanted to run home, but I daren’t alert them to our presence.
The burning dead went on and on, seemingly without end.
Rebecca sniffled heavily against my wet palm.
The cortege stopped.
Turned our way.
God, no!

Twelve Chalices
Nina D’Arcangela

Light flickers in darkest woods, twelve flames do bob and weave. Silent as bare breath trees stand, necropolis whispers her fury. Hidden thou must remain, dangers warned ye did not heed. Voices lift on autumn breeze, and to vain ears do carry. They sing of love, they sing of life, they croon of lust and need. A rustle sounds behind squirreled niche, flesh quivers with fear profound. Claws rasp along age’ed stone, all stills on stroke of three. Ritual fulfilled as hot blood flows, twelve chalices drench in greed. Of this night I do profess, birthed to no other deed.

Custom
Christopher A. Liccardi

The merlin radiated the heat with spite. It was this place, these people it resented. The land passed that hatred on to the stone. It wanted nothing more than to drink, soak up the liquid that would flow like wine.

The revelers were dancing around the fire, as was their custom. The guests were tied to the ground by the necks, as was theirs. The axes sharpened with the bones of the previous gathering.

It was time to do what they came here for. Feed the land on the blood of the unwilling, unwitting and refresh the spirit once again.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author
and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2017
Image © Copyright Dark Angel Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Cleaning House

~ John Potts Jr ~ 28 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes sir,” she huffed.

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

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

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

“If you say so, boss.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sounds good, boss.”

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

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

“Really? Let me find my wallet.”

“It’s on me, least I can do.”

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

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

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

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

~ John Potts Jr

© Copyright 2017 John Potts Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Damned Words 21

~ TheDamned ~ 12 Comments

Three
Hunter Shea

An unfettered caress. A sigh against your breast. I burn inside when I’m in your presence, the flame of my lust pressed against your cold indifference. Does it bother you when I touch you there? Oh no, you always liked that. Ah, but the sweet, supple beauty entangled in your arms, that is where our joined path diverged.

I still hear your pained refusals, wild jealousy and bleating about love lost. You never understood my love had grown twofold. If only you had said yes, you would feel my hardness. Now who is harder? Are you quivering in your encasement?

Wrath
Brian Moreland

For thousands of years, the lovers had stood frozen in their last embrace. A resting post for countless birds. An enigma to Greeks and tourists who passed through Athens’s ruins. When the Gorgon’s curse finally lifted, the statues’ stone flesh cracked and crumbled, freeing the punished immortals. Euryale and Belen hugged tighter and kissed. The longing in their hearts burned hotter, turned to fury. Euryale’s head erupted into a mane of writhing snakes. Belen’s eyes filled with fire. Seeking vengeance, the Gorgon and demon left the ruins in search of Euryale’s sister, Stheno. The bitch would suffer for cursing them.

Marble
Joseph A. Pinto

Lover yearns, yet the passion remains frozen. Lover craves, yet the need goes unfulfilled. Blind for so long, lover ignores the fragments of self left abandoned atop the floor. It serves lover right.

Now lover searches for truth where all flows smooth and cold. And the eyes that hold lover gaze like still, distant moons. How slick the irony under lover’s needy fingers. For all lover has sought now captured by the deft hand of another. An ache left to harden as lover grows old with time. A masterpiece by love’s standard, yet for all appearances left to stand unwhole.

A Work of Endearment
Lee A. Forman

Her beauty embellishes all my eyes can witness; the world glimmers even in the dark of a moonless night. With a voice that put songbirds to shame, she’d captivated me with only words. I could never let her go. Not in life—or death. As I stare into her eyes, layer after layer crafts the perfection we’ll share once we depart. A tear rolls down her cheek and rests where the white plaster has already dried. Soon the artist I hired will finish his work, encasing us in eternity. We’ll be cast together, molded into forever, never to be apart.

A Toast to Finality
John Potts Jr.

“My sweet,” Elizabeth gazed to Lawrence, swooning with eyes pitted in aged decay. “This starry night witnessed our enemies anguish; to bathe in those screams fluttered my undead heart like our love’s first kiss so long, long ago. Blood rained from our horde, soaking earth with entrails so crimson that the Sun itself will only find jealousy on the coming morn. And the fires! We danced as one, consuming with restless hunger that rose to the hymn of our retribution.”

Life embraced death and chalice drained to the backdrop of scorched lands, warming from afar the finality of reaped vindication.

Eternal
A.F. Stewart

Without end, I gaze upon the face of my death. That perfect face of alabaster marble. How did she taint the spell? How did she curse me? It should have worked, I should have won my immortality. She tricked me. Locked us forever in this embrace of stone.

I tried to warn him. Tried to take back what he stole. The urn was never to be opened, never to leave the temple. Why did he betray me? Why? He destroyed everything. Now I must spend eternity staring at the man who condemned our world to the Fate of Living Stone.

Human
Jon Olson

What is this thing? This monstrosity latching onto my arm and shoulder. It is so vile, wretched, and pathetic. Eyes embedded in a completely formed face stare at me; full of life and emotion. The warm flesh against my skin makes me shudder. Whoever would have expected to come across such a creature? Surely not me or my forebears. Although, I recall something mentioned by the Old Ones. Once there was a creation… no, an abomination. Left to their own free will, they destroyed themselves. This thing gazing at me cannot be one of them. It cannot be a human…

Fire Stone
Nina D’Arcangela

In your eyes, I watch a universe ignite, I see the molten glow; I feel its blaze encompass all. I watch the birth of a new awareness, the awakening of cruel indulgence; one in which brutality, suffering, and eventual indifference will serve far better than kind gentility. Your veneer smooth, your tone unblemished; your surface nearly opalescent, yet I know the fierceness that rages below rends innumerable fractures that will reveal fissures of choice not circumstance. A tragedy that will split the world in two.

Guttering now, the light surrenders. I stare into a vast emptiness as your eyes cool.

Immortal Love
Mark Steinwachs

They wanted to be together, their love for the ages. Athanasios promised he could help. By the time the couple realized what was going on, it was too late. The elixir to help them relax rendered their limbs useless, allowing the artist to move them into position. “Gaze upon each other, this pose is for eternity,” Athanasios said as he painted them with his unique blend of alabaster, making sure to cover every inch of them.

***

“This statue is called Immortal Love, by master Greek sculptor Athanasios,” the museum guide said. “He is well known for his incredibly life-like carvings.”

Pact
Veronica Magenta Nero

She placed the intricate glass bottle in my hands, her cool fingers curling over my own. Her head tipped back, offering a mouth to kiss, seducing me into complacency. A kiss to seal the deal. That’s when I poured it in. The elixir slipped down her pearly throat, poisoning her with her own magic.

We had made a pact but I backed out. I never wanted to be like her – perfect in every visible way, of timeless beauty, immortal. I want to age and die. Each hard earned wrinkle building in number and depth, until my body resembles a nest.

A Whole New Meaning
Christopher A. Liccardi

The rule was simple; unbreakable. These two, the latest two, had broken that rule. Something else was simple, the punishment. Here, stoning had a whole new meaning. The couple was washed, cleaned of all their sins. They were posed for the village to see and they were cast in stone; alive. The offending parts were snapped or chiseled off, mechanical castration for both parties. Then, the crowd watched until the moaning stopped. Sometimes, that took days. Most of them thought death was caused by starvation. I know better; I swung the hammer.

They have one rule here and its unbreakable…

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