The Container of Sorrows

February 21, 2017February 20, 2017 ~ Mercedes M. Yardley ~ 14 Comments

There was a girl. She sat at a white desk in a white room with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

Peter stood before her with his pockets turned out.

“I don’t have anything to give you,” he said. He spoke very quietly. Shame does that.

She didn’t move, but he thought she shook her head.

“I don’t need anything like that,” she told him. “I do not desire your buttons or baubles, although I am sure that they are quite lovely.”

He thought she smiled, but she did not actually do that, either.

“I don’t understand,” he confessed. He shifted from foot to foot. She really did smile then, but only in her eyes. He bit his lip and continued. “I thought…that you wanted something from me. In exchange for your help.”

“Oh, but I do.” Her skin was white, and her hair even whiter, but only just. When she smiled—if she smiled—her lips were disconcertingly red. The rest of the time they were only the palest of pink. He had the impression that something parasitic sucked the breath from those lips while she slept, but what could he do about it?

“Please tell me what you desire.”

“I want to be happy.”

“Then I will help you.”

She pulled a ceramic jar out of nowhere. It was the color of sky and looked cool to the touch. He flexed his fingers.

“This is the Container of Sorrows, Peter. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” He didn’t.

Her lips barely twitched but it was as if the snow melted and he tasted spring.

“This is how you will be happy. Tell me one of your sorrows. I will keep it here for you, and the burden from that particular sorrow will be no more.”

He felt stupid and stared at his shoes. They had holes in the toes.

“Do you…not wish happiness?”

Her voice was strangely brittle, as if she were trying not to cry. He was hurting her somehow, he decided, but that didn’t make any sense. He took a deep breath.

“I miss my mother,” he said, and the words fell from his mouth like vapor. The girl opened the jar, and the mist zipped inside. She closed the lid with a satisfying click.

“There,” she said, and her smile was real this time, genuine. “Don’t you feel better?”

He thought about his mother. Her warm brown hair, the apron that she used when she baked cupcakes. He thought about her more aggressively. The police telling his father that they had discovered a broken body. The funeral in a town without rain.

“I don’t feel sad,” he said in wonder, and the girl looked pleased. She kissed him, and he woke up.

Peter’s lips burned where she had touched him, and he kept his fingers pressed there for most of the day. When the boys razzed him about his poorly trimmed hair, he didn’t mind so much. When they taunted him about his mother being a whore who got what was coming to her, he was surprised to find that he didn’t care at all. He ate dinner silently and changed into his worn pajamas without being asked. He brushed his teeth and climbed into bed with an eagerness that would have been pitifully endearing if anyone had seen it.

Sleep came instantly, and there she was. She was wearing white flowers in her hair.

“Did you have those flowers yesterday?” he asked her.

Her cheeks flushed delicately. “No.”

Peter didn’t know what to say. “I had a better day at school than usual. Thank you.”

The girl again produced the smooth blue container out of thin air. “Tell me another sorrow, Peter. Tomorrow will be even better.”

“I’m tired of being called poor.”

The mist of words spiraled into the Container of Sorrows. He nodded his head once, and she nodded back in a very serious manner.

And thus it went. His sorrows disappeared. “I hate seeing dead birds. I wish that I had a friend. My father doesn’t notice me.”

The jar devoured his sorrows with an agreeable hunger. The pale girl’s lips turned up all of the time and her eyes began to sparkle. Peter grew more confident at school. He stood up straight. He looked people in the eye. He made friends.

He was almost happy.

On the last night that he went to her, something in the air had shifted. The atmosphere was holding its breath, and it was undeniable.

“Hey,” Peter said, leaning casually on the white desk. “There’s only one sorrow that I have left.”

“Only one?” asked the girl with something that sounded exquisitely close to hope. Her eyes shone. Her white hair and pink lips were glossed with fragile expectation. She produced the Container of Sorrows and carefully removed its lid. Peter’s sorrows ghosted around inside, smelling of lavender and brokenness.

“Natalia Bench never looks at me at school.”

The vaporous sorrow swirled from his lips and settled into the jar. The girl’s white fingers didn’t move, so Peter put the lid back on for her.

He smiled. “Now I’ll be brave enough to talk to her tomorrow. Thank you very much, Girl of Sorrows. I am happy.”

The girl held the jar very close, and she looked up at Peter. Her lips were pale, strawberries buried under layers of ice. He was reminded of that feeling that he had once, long ago, where he thought that something supped from her lips at night. How frightened she must be. How alone.

How silly.

“Goodbye,” he said, and kissed her cheek. Had her touch once burned? She was ice under his skin. She was a corpse. Peter turned and walked away without looking back.

There was a girl. She sat at a white desk in a white room where she wept, clutching a container full of somebody else’s sorrows.

~ Mercedes M. Yardley

Beast of Winter

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

Manitou Forest, Manitoba, Canada

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

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

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

“What’s she moaning about?”

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

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

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

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

“What is it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nothing. Not even blood.”

An animal howled from the snowy mist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What if he circles us?”

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

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

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

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

Jeb froze and pointed frantically.

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

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

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

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

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

What kind of animal can throw a grizzly?

The gunshots stopped. So did Jeb’s screams.

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

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

Kujak’s scrotum tightened when he heard crunching.

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

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

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

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

Tree limbs snapped behind him.

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

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

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

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

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

Another antler struck his door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Brian Moreland

Block

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

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

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

“Would you like a glass?” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ve interviewed a considerable number.”

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s incredible dedication.”

“I prefer to call it necessity.”

“To feed your compulsion?”

“Yes and no.”

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

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

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

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

I downed a third glass of scotch.

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

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

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

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

I set my pipe down and locked eyes with him.

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

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

“I don’t believe, I know.”

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

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

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

There was no going back now.

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

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

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

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

“Every day.”

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

I shook my head, relighting my pipe.

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

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

“Then…then what does it do?”

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

“It makes me write.”

“It makes you write?”

“Yes. Every…day.”

“And what if you don’t?”

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

“Terrible, terrible things happen.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t understand.”

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

“And you never will.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Hunter Shea

Rebirth

January 3, 2017December 31, 2016 ~ afstewart ~ 26 Comments

Evening raindrops clung to a broken spider web, and fallen leaves held water like tiny crumbling cups. Silence draped across the forest; the animals fled at sunset when the sky shed its first tear. Even the carrion birds flew away, and the rodents scampered deep down into their holes.

The animals knew.

Like a drumbeat, the chill rain pummeled the forest earth, slapping a copper stench into the wind. The air glided with the taste of elder blood, careening, coating the tumbling raindrops as they soaked back within the dirt. The greedy soil drank of the tainted water, as it once drank the soup of decaying flesh, and the trees rattled as bones.

Somewhere, came a moan.

Beyond the eventual and gentle hush, the rain ceased, but the sky stayed black. No moon graced the shrouded firmament, and no starry luminosity scattered the inky air swallowing the trees. A fog crept like silky spiders, thick and velvet over the ground, obscuring earth and flora. Grey met black and swirled, mingling, melding in a darkling kiss.

And the night waited.

It waited in stillness, the breath of air grave and expectant with longing. It waited cold and cavernous, as if time gave this occasion pause. And then… past the midnight hour it stirred. A faint noise from beneath the onyx soil. Scrabbling, scratching, a shiver sound of creatures crawling, of fingernails groping through the dirt.

Digging upward.

The ground trembled, softly, gently, as if a lover’s touch caressed it. The wind sighed, dancing among the trees and twirling with the hoary mist. Slowly, slowly, the earth gave way, in splinters and snaps and clefts of soft loam. The soil parted, cracked, and a bony hand burrowed out from beneath the world. A sallow, deformed hand smeared in grime and filth, its reaching skeletal fingers smelling of long rotted meat and crumbled skin. Strange grunts followed, and a heaving of dirt as a shoulder bone, and then a skull, pushed from under the tomb of earth into the interim of night. It crawled forward on jointed bones, hollow eyes somehow seeing, a throat void of words somehow screaming. It dragged and squirmed and writhed, this awakened remnant of what once was human, fumbling out of the dirt and standing upright. One step, then two, a stumbling walk through the woods, towing leaf and bark along its path until it escaped the confines of the forest.

There it stopped. There it shrieked.

Loud and strident, an articulation grotesque, yet wrenching in its suffering. A ballyhoo of noise to clatter the trees and jangle the ground. To echo past all the desolate unholy, far into the dark depths of the forest and beyond.

It gave voice to its eternal pain.

A single, howling voice, offered to the night…

To be answered by a thousand snarling cries.

By a thousand sounds of scrabbling and scratching.

By a thousand things digging upward.

~ A. F. Stewart

Red and Blue

December 27, 2016December 27, 2016 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 23 Comments

I sit curled up next to the fireplace, my head resting against the surround. A goblet of heavy Merlot in my hand; heavy for its body or heavy for my longing, I cannot say. As I stare into the crackling blaze, my mind wanders. So many memories from years gone by, so much love shared here, in this very room. My soul shrieks with grief as I collapse into a ball, no longer able to hold myself upright; no longer able to stem the wracking sobs.

The fire now a blur through swollen wet eyes, my head lolls and I glance toward the tree with its twinkling lights, glittering ornaments and brightly wrapped packages tucked neatly below. You always were such a perfectionist. My eyes flutter shut as the day you dressed the tree forces itself upon my mind. You were so happy, so excited to pick the largest pine available. I recall joking that one of us would have to move out so the tree could move in. You kissed me with icy cold lips and a bright red nose. Little did I know how soon I would long to feel that frigid touch once more. Your enthusiasm knowing no bounds, you spent the entire day arranging everything just so; making sure the colorful glass baubles were placed with precision, everything to an exacting measure. I’d playfully moved a strand of tinsel while you weren’t watching, only to reenter the room moments later to find it placed back in its original position.

The gifts. Oh, how you tortured me over the gifts long before the season began. A sad smile steals across my lips as I think of the hours you spent fretting over the perfect surprise for each of our friends. As I sip from my glass, a slight chuckle escapes me only to end in a bleat of pain as I recall how you stressed over wrapping each gift in the perfect color foil. God, how you loved this day.

I think back upon the last evening I saw you. I was standing at the island between this room and the kitchen preparing dinner; you remembered one final detail you couldn’t do without. I kissed you as you bounded past me, told you not to be long and that I loved you. You grabbed your coat from the hook, turned to me with purse in hand, golden locks bouncing, and smiled before replying as you always did – not nearly the way I love you. I smiled back; you left. Two hours later, a knock sounded. I wasn’t worried, you often became infatuated with something or other and lost track of time or misplaced your keys. As I moved to open the front door, I noticed the bare flicker of red and blue light drifting in from the balcony. Seeing the officers standing at the threshold, I turned and walked to the glass, placed my forehead to it, and knew in that moment… you were gone. I woke lying upon the couch. The officers explained there’d been an accident at the corner – our corner; a young woman had been hit by a car that ran the red light. You were that young woman.

My eyes crack open seeking a red light on the tree, your tree – our tree. But instead, my sight finds the red fairy lights you used to decorate the balcony. Barely able to stand, I stumble to the sliding doors. As I fumble to open them through my tears, the Merlot in my glass pours onto the white carpet. My addled mind tells me how angry you’ll be if I don’t clean the deep burgundy spill right away; my breath hitches, another sob escapes me. Finally managing the lock, I step through onto the bitterly cold veranda. Standing at the rail, I exist in a halo of red light, my long chestnut mane whipping in the wind; the flush on my cheeks all but gone in a tinted haze. Another balcony, the one next to ours, is adorned in blue twinkling lights. I wonder why I’d not noticed it before. The blue and red lights blur together as my inebriated mind struggles to adjust. Five stories below, more lights glitter, cars rush past; the ground wears a fresh blanket of snow. I’m so tired, and the blanket seems so inviting. Please, don’t go without me – words I should have spoken that night. Letting myself lean forward, the world pitches as my mind screams for release from this sorrow, begs me to join you. I grasp the railing, sink to my knees and crawl back inside. Too much a coward to follow you; too devoted to allow your memory to die.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

The Record of Harold Snyde

December 20, 2016December 20, 2016 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 19 Comments

The black disk spun as the music enthralled its listeners. It spoke a language more beautiful than any human tongue. It sang in sweet tones of joy and cried in wails of sorrow as the symphony progressed. Like a puppet master deftly maneuvering strings, it directed bodies as they danced with grace, ever mindful of the next movement, the next step.

Only when the needle was lifted did they stop. The Victrola was the instrument, Mr. Harold Snyde, the conductor.

His guests had been invited to his home under false pretense of a dinner party; one which could be described as nothing short of an unmitigated success.

After dessert, he invited those gathered into the parlor for a musical interlude. When he placed the recording onto the spinning table and set the needle into the disc’s carved groove, they all began to dance. He knew they would. He’d tested it on his late wife prior to her passing of heart failure. An unfortunate occurrence, for her. But not for Mr. Snyde. He inherited her vast fortune, and the aforementioned record player.

When Mrs. Snyde had still been among the living, he’d found it buried deep in the attic behind old crates and piles of books no one would ever read again. He pulled it out, dusted it off, and brought it downstairs.

“What are you doing with that old thing?” she’d questioned with disdain.

“What do you mean, dear? I’m setting it up so I can listen to my records.”

“Why don’t you just buy a new one? We hardly need to reuse junk from the attic,” she’d clucked, barely disguising her distaste.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he placed a record on the player and turned it on. She began to dance, and dance, and dance; a strange expression painted on her face, as if fear struck her ill.

“I thought you hated my choice of music?” he asked her prancing form.

She didn’t reply.

“Lynn, what has gotten into you?”

Still her mouth uttered no words.

He crossed his arms and watched her sway and whirl around the room without stopping. He let it go on for some time before raising the arm off the record.

She stopped dancing and blinked a few times. “What… What just happened?”

“You were dancing! It was wonderful!”

“I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to dance. I don’t understand.”

“Let’s try it again, shall we?” Harold said, and turned the music back on.

She’d begun to raise a palm, to tell him to wait, but the music took over and sent her twirling about like a ballerina. He sat and watched in fascination from his favorite reading chair, smiling at her frame as it seemed to glide about the room as if weightless.

As she went on and on without end, he wondered how long the player would have an effect. He soon had his answer; she danced until she died several hours later.

Before the police and ambulance arrived, he dredged up old memories to proffer genuine tears. He didn’t want to appear apathetic or distracted. Tissue in hand, he wiped his eyes while the paramedics took her body away and the officers questioned him. It worked perfectly. There was no need for them to know those tears weren’t for his deceased wife, but for his beloved dog, Ralph, who’d passed when he was a boy.

Now, no one suspected a thing; not the police, nor his current guests. He presumed they all believed him in need of company. He was, after all, alone in such a large house, with a wife so recently in the ground and no children to share his grief. It had only been a week since the death of Mrs. Snyde, yet the vultures gathered had jumped at the opportunity to console the wealthy widower; the same gaggle who wouldn’t have bothered to utter his name prior to his wife’s passing.

He reveled in watching the contorted faces of his guests as they moved around the room with more grace than they ever would on their own. He wondered how long they’d last. Would they drop one by one? Would they all die around the same time? He wished he could bet on who would be the first to go, but there wasn’t anyone to take up the offer. It mattered little; he was having the time of his life. Watching those rich bitch-hogs dance uncontrollably gave him pleasure, and watching their lives give out would give him even more. They’d done him wrong and in return, he was going to do them right.

He watched Gerald, his legs bending and swaying, hips moving in sync with Barbara. The two socialite bastards had always talked behind his back. He’d seen them laughing with eyes pointed in his direction at the company Christmas party the previous year. Lynn had stood with them, probably telling them how he’d pissed his money away with a bladder full of drink.

There will be fewer attendees at the party this year, he thought with maniacal glee.

Henna and Charles, the investment dynamic-duo, or so they claimed. They looked to be the first to go. He saw their eyes droop, watched as their mouths hung open, a stream of unbecoming drool leaked freely onto each of their chins. Their arms swung loosely at their sides, propelled only by the movement of their hips, which no longer held any rhythm.

When he looked at their unsteady feet he laughed; the carpet had worn flat from the constant shuffling of their shoes. It had been Lynn’s favorite rug, worth quite a bit of money. I’d trade that floor rag for a bucket of dirt any day, he groused in his mind.

The soon to be deceased couple had lost him money time and again in fruitless endeavors. No more. That rug will be the last of your expenses.

Max still moved at a steady, upbeat pace. Mr. Snyde figured he’d be the last to drop. Max hadn’t done anything in particular to deserve such a merciless fate, he just didn’t like the mook bastard.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey and raised it to his guests. “Thank you all for coming! I’m having a wonderful time!” He laughed and sipped his drink.

By the time he’d gone through five or six pours—he couldn’t remember how many—Max was the only one left standing. The clock read quarter of five. “Damn sun will be rising soon. We’d better call this party quits. Show yourselves out. Oh, wait… That’s right, you can’t!” He chuckled and spilled whiskey with a wavering hand. “Hurry up and die, won’t you, Max. I need rid myself of the lot of you. Can’t have you stinking up the place.”

Max’s eyes pleaded with him. Their sorrowful look begged to be released, ached to be set free.

“Can’t go back now, buddy. Sorry.”

He reached for an iron rod from the fireplace, swung it hard. Max went down like the market crash of ’29.

He lifted the needle from the record for some peace and quiet while he piled the bodies together on the rug. When he attempted to pick Max up, he heard soft grumbles emanating from the man’s throat. The blow to the back of his head hadn’t killed him. “What’s that you say? Speak up, boy!”

Mr. Snyde thought he heard a profane remark as he hoisted Max up by putting his arms under his shoulders, but the young man’s speech was still unintelligible. “What’s that now?”

“Fuck you!”

Max’s hand reached out just far enough to push the needle back onto the vinyl disc and the music started to play.

Releasing his hold on Max, Mr. Harold Snyde began to dance…

~ Lee A. Forman

Pigs

December 13, 2016December 12, 2016 ~ jonolsonauthor ~ 23 Comments

Jenkins sat in his reclining chair, extended the footrest and closed his eyes.

Sleep was something he found hard to come by. Just up the road from his trailer was Old Man Fredericks’s farm. The smells from that place were bad enough; damp hay and tons of shit lingering in the air.

Most of all, it was the noises that drove Jenkins bat shit.

Those fucking pigs were constantly grunting and squealing.

Not anymore.

His clothes, skin and hair still smelled of smoke, reminding him of camping trips to the beach with Beth when they still dated.

He grinned, replaying the image of the barn going up, the flames dancing over it, consuming the structure and its occupants.

Jenkins opened his eyes and flicked at his jeans, noting the dry blood soaked into the denim.

It had only taken one swing with the first piglet to kill, smashing it on the asphalt. The second piglet, however, was tougher. After three hard whacks against the road it still squealed, despite blood pouring from its split skull.

When he set the damn thing on the ground to finish off, the piglet tried to dart off. Jenkins snapped all four of its limbs to keep it from running away then stomped the piglets head until it caved in, leaving a mix of skin, bone, brain and snout.

It had been great.

Sleep quickly crept up on him.

My god it’s quiet.

***

Jenkins couldn’t remember a sleep as relaxing as the one he just had. Stretching, he released a big yawn. His body was relaxed, rejuvenated and-

He was in a bed.

Looking around, he quickly realized that he was no longer in his living room. Where the fuck was he? He threw the covers back and climbed out.

The king size bed dominated most of the bedroom. A white dresser stood against the wall to his right while a simple desk with a lamp on it was the left.

Jenkins headed towards the slightly ajar door, noting the light spilling in through the gap. Pulling it open he could see a spiral staircase in a dark room but at the bottom was another open door which was the source of the light.

Jenkins made his way down the staircase but when he reached the bottom step, he stopped.

There was a sound.

A familiar sound.

A pig was grunting in the next room.

Jenkins stepped off the staircase through the doorway.

He was on a balcony where an adult pig was on all fours, sniffing around the railings. Just to his right was a glass case that said Break In Case Of Fire containing a hose along with an axe.

Beyond the balcony railing was complete darkness.

The pig stopped sniffing when it noticed him and met his gaze.

If Jenkins thought the grunting and squealing was bad, what he heard next was almost too much to bear.

“Hello there,” the pig said.

Even though it spoke words, it was a poor attempt at mimicking a human, as the sound was still pig. Its voice was grotesque and terrifying.

Jenkins could not speak.

“Oh come on now, don’t be shy. Why, we’ve been neighbors for so long we’re practically best friends. My name is Howard.” The sound of the pig’s tongue rolling over its teeth as it pronounced each word made Jenkins cringe. “I’ll save you the trouble of asking. Yes, you are dreaming.”

Jenkins turned to leave but the doorway was gone, replaced by a brick wall. He reached out and tried to push the wall out of the way to no avail.

“It won’t budge,” Howard said. The voice changed, darkening. “You’re in here with us.”

Looking around frantically, Jenkins remembered the glass case. Without hesitating, he punched through the glass, grabbing the axe.

“Oh, come on now, buddy. What are you doing with that?”

Jenkins swung the axe as hard as he could, bringing the blade down on Howard’s head. The blade punched through skin and bone, before coming to a stop in the brain.

Howard screamed.

It was an awful sound, much worse than the spoken words, resembling a human wail penetrated by pig vocals. Jenkins released his grip on the axe, covering his ears.

Within seconds the screaming stopped, replaced by laughter. Howard stood up on his hind hooves and clutched his belly, gasping for breath as he laughed.

“Oh Jenkins,” Howard exclaimed as blood ran down his face. “Do you really think you can hurt us here in our own domain?”

“It’s just a dream,” Jenkins muttered. “It’s just a fucking dream.”

“Just keep telling yourself that, buddy. We all love a good laugh.” He gestured beyond the balcony railing as light slowly dawned in the darkness like the opening of a Broadway show.

There was movement but as the light grew brighter he saw them.

Pigs.

They were scurrying around back and forth on a carpeted floor that was enclosed by old wood paneled walls. Covering his nose, the air quickly became thick with the smell of pig shit and something else.

It was familiar yet he could not put his finger on it.

“What do you think?” Howard asked, the axe still embedded in his head.

Jenkins clutched his temples and shook his head. “It’s time to wake up. Wake up, Jenkins.”

“Sorry, buddy…”

“One two three WAKE UP!”

Howard’s voice darkened even more. “You’re here for the whole show.” And he laughed.

Reaching up with its hoof, Howard dislodged the axe and tossed it off of the balcony.

Jenkins realized the pigs on the floor were no longer scurrying around. Their movements were more deliberate and less animalistic and then they stopped altogether.

The room went silent.

One by one, the pigs looked up; each of them staring directly into Jenkins’ eyes. The shit smell was dissipating and the other aroma cut through, becoming more distinct. With every set of eyes on him, Jenkins recognized the smell.

Burning flesh.

All at once, the pigs began screaming.

It was deafening and even more horrific than the lone scream when he had buried the axe in Howard’s head. As he watched, the pigs’ skin began to sizzle and bubble up into blisters, roasted by invisible flames.

Their skin then began to fuse together, absorbing one another.

“Wake up… wake up…” Jenkins cried.

Howard laughed even more and flipped himself over the balcony railing. He landed on the floor below where he began to merge with the other pigs.

“What do you think, Jenkins?” Howard asked, growing in size as he assimilated the others.

Intermixed with the screaming was a wet sucking sound. Although the bodies were absorbing one another, all the pigs’ heads remained.

It was massive.

Standing before him was an ungodly being comprised of burnt and charred pigs. It stood on two legs with Howard acting as the head.

The abomination was tall enough that Howard was at Jenkins’ eye level.

“There is no waking up from this, my friend,” he roared. “You see, we’re Tormentors. We feed on the enjoyment people get out of heinous and cruel acts. By taking the forms of the tortured, we invade the dreams of the torturers exacting revenge. It’s why we exist. Or looking at it another way, it’s how we get our kicks.”

The mass raised its arms.

On the end of each one was a piglet. The one on the left had a split skull while on the right, the piglet had no head; just a gory pulp of pig flesh.

They were the ones he killed on the road.

Jenkins turned away, screaming, looking for a way out.

The mass reached over the balcony, grabbing him by the legs. It yanked hard, tripping Jenkins onto the balcony floor, then lifting him into the air upside down where it held him for a second.

“Ready?” Howard sneered.

Without waiting, the mass whipped Jenkins into the air then swung down as hard as it could.

Jenkins smacked the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. The blow knocked him senseless.

“How about another try?”

Again, Jenkins was raised into the air and struck hard against the floor. This time, pain exploded through his body as he felt his right shoulder and rib cage shatter upon impact.

He cried out, gasping for air, blood filling his mouth.

All of the pigs began to squeal with delight. The mass lifted his broken body up again but this time held him close.

“It’s been a slice, buddy, but we’ve worked up a bit of an appetite.”

The mass pressed Jenkins against its body as the many pig mouths began tearing into his flesh, ripping chunks away.

***

Jenkins opened his eyes.

He was sitting in his reclining chair in the living room of his trailer.

Just a dream.

Sighing a breath of relief, pain exploded through his body.

The entire right side screamed in agony. He could taste iron as blood filled his mouth. Looking down, his chest and stomach were torn open with his entrails slipping out onto the floor.

As he raised his head, he looked out the living room window to a face looking in at him.

It was Howard.

Grinning, Howard licked his lips and said, “Oh we’re not done yet, buddy boy. We’re called Tormentors for a reason. You don’t get to wake up from this one.”

The squeals of many pigs filled the room as one of the mass’s arms smashed through the front door, reaching toward Jenkins.

~ Jon Olson

Fairy

November 15, 2016November 13, 2016 ~ zkullis ~ 25 Comments

The deafening volume in the hallway was cut short by yet another scene of ruthlessness.

Terri was pulling a math book out of the bottom of his locker when something heavy crashed into him, driving his head into the corner of the metal enclosure. The pain ringing in his ears briefly consumed him as he collapsed to the tile floor. Not again, he pleaded inwardly as he pressed a shaky hand against his forehead to stem the flow of blood.

Regardless of the countless times something similar had happened, he was yet again flooded with humiliation, anger, and a desire to disappear; it was overwhelming. He bowed his head and turned to the side as he bit his lip in a useless attempt to hold back tears that only served to incite his tormentor.

Nothing halted the insane volume of background noise that filled a school like the promise of violence. But the silence never lasted, and his latest tormentor, one of his regulars, filled the empty space with ugly taunts.

“Hey Fairy,” Eric yelled. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my way?”

He pulled his hand away from his forehead and a stream of blood poured down his face as he glanced at the onlookers. The sight was familiar – a hungry crowd wielding phones that recorded the show in high definition. Undoubtedly, many were already thinking about the comments they would upload along with the footage.

Most people in his position would at least look at their attacker, but there was no need. It wasn’t because there was only one possible aggressor; the list of bullies was long. It was because this asshole was one of only three that called him a fairy, and Eric’s oddly high-pitched voice betrayed him immediately.

“Look at me, you sack of shit!”

Eric slammed a meaty fist into the side of Terri’s face, rocking his head side to side. Jeers and taunts erupted from the crowd as Eric’s football buddies cried out for more. Waves of darkness edged their way into the periphery of his vision, but he kept his eyes on the crowd. It was easy to gauge how bad the beating was going to be by the behavior of the audience.

The crowd was quickly getting bored; it was obvious he wasn’t going to fight back and the excitement ebbed away. The other students started to wander off. He closed his eyes, tried to stop the tears, fought the urge to pass out. He found himself wondering for the millionth time why none of the others cared, why none of them stood up for him. Even the local Emo kids shunned him. What was left of his ravaged heart ached.

“You got off easy,” Eric said as he rubbed his sore fist. “Keep quiet about this or I’ll take it to a whole other level of ugly.” The jocks walked away with their chests puffed out, almost as far as their egos, each boasting about how much they had lifted in gym class, somehow sure this equated to dick size.

He sat for a minute and waited for the hallway to clear before he slowly picked up his backpack. He would have given anything for a sympathetic ear, or a caring shoulder, but he knew reality was nothing like the Lifetime Channel. It would be a mistake to think he would get support or comfort anywhere, not even at home.

His father always insisted the beatings were his own fault for being a pansy that didn’t understand how the system worked. Dad frequently told him that his life would be punctuated by failure and misery, and the rotten bastard was right so far.

He started to walk, unsure of where he was headed, knowing it didn’t really matter. For too many years he planted hopes, wishes, and dreams in his conscious mind like a starving farmer plants the last of his seeds. He watered them with desperation, fertilized them with as much bullshit as he could muster, but the field of his soul was still a desolate, ugly place. Why? The truth was simple. Hope was snake oil. Wishes? Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which fills up first. Dreams? Those were the equivalent of a carrot on a stick held in front of a mule headed to the glue factory.

There was no such thing as good in this world. It was as mythological as a unicorn, just more useless. Since there was no good, there could be no evil. There were only varying levels of pain and anguish that were blissfully interrupted by the oblivion of sleep. He frequently dreamt of sleeping eternally, wishing for nothingness to absorb his worthless existence.

In the end, it all came back to the same question. Would he be perceived as selfish? Perhaps, but nobody cared enough to notice, much less think about him if he were gone. It was time.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out the knife. His throat felt tight, and as his resolve strengthened, tears of a different kind slipped from his eyes and mixed with the drying blood on his cheek. He knew better than to think this was a form of happiness, that shit didn’t exist. This was relief. Yes, it was time indeed.

He dropped the pack and made his way to the auditorium. The assembly was probably under way by now. He had wanted to do this in private, but something deep inside urged him to do it in front of a crowd.

“I’ll give them something to post,” he whispered as he opened the back door to the stage. The darkness calmed him. He took off his shirt, then his shoes. He parted the closed curtain with the knife, and stepped into the blinding light on stage.

At first, all he heard was a booming voice echoing through the speaker system, but then came the hushed whisper from hundreds of students. His eyes had begun to adjust to the light when he heard Eric’s telltale voice shout out.

“Look! It’s Terri the Fairy!”

Laughter filled the vast space. One last tear fell; it went unnoticed by the crowd. The laughter continued until a cheerleader in the front row screamed something about him having a knife. Her scream was followed by a few more, but the hushed awe from most of the students was enough to encourage him.

Terri pressed the sharp edge of the knife deep into his left wrist and slowly drew it upward until it reached the inner part of his elbow. Bright blood flowed from the gaping wound; his bright eyes stared out over the sea of confused faces. He took the blade and pushed it into his shoulder until it hit bone, then cut downward through his chest until the blade was sunk deep into his abdomen. Blood started to pool around him, its darkness reached outward.

The spectators, usually keen on gore, were at a loss for words. Some screamed, some retched, but all remained in their place as a new reality debuted before their eyes. Terri started to feel weak as his heart quickly pumped blood from his body, he also felt peace deep within. Peace and something else–something less kind.

Terri sensed movement at his core. It was growing at an incredible rate, but it felt neither foreign nor strange. The growth pressed against organs and caused him to purge the contents of his stomach, as well as his bowels and bladder. He dropped the knife as the change touched his consciousness.

The continued growth started to bulge against his skin, press against his extremities; it fed on him internally. Eldritch bones and musculature sprouted painfully as Terri grew. Tentacles dug their way out the sides of his face; they tore at his flesh to birth the otherworldly being within.

Students woke from their stupor and fled; they trampled one another in blind terror. Terri’s conscious melded with that of the Other, and he gloried in his becoming. He also hungered. Nearly ten feet tall and growing quickly, he reached out for the nourishment that floundered nearby.

Clawed hands covered in a new and loathsome skin plucked the writhing teens from the floor, piled them within reach of the tentacles. He smelled their fear and knew true ecstasy. The tentacles grabbed the students and stuffed them into his now colossal maw; one, two, three at a time. Their screams mixed with the sound of crunching bone. It was musical perfection.

His growth had just started, fed by dozens of the two-legged cattle he’d already consumed, but he found it difficult to move within the confines of the auditorium. He emerged from the remains of the building as it seemingly shrunk beneath his reckless growth.

Terri gave corrupt birth to the profane, was one in heinous thought with the abyss, and demanded eternal retribution. Words poured from his mouth with blasphemous splendor and filled the air with dread.

“Wgah’nagl fltagn.”

Arcane incantations of power echoed across the doomed city as he opened the way for many more of his kind. Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep moved through monstrous dimensions beyond time and entered a world that would soon know despair. Oblivion was not his to experience, but his to create.

~ Zack Kullis

Scampi

November 8, 2016November 4, 2016 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 20 Comments

“Is this love real?” she asks.

Sitting on a bench near the other end of the room, her words are unmistakable, magnified by the reverence and strange acoustics of the museum. He turns from the glass case filled with the desiccated husks of seahorses to look at her. Her hair is down, her glasses bright. She’s wearing the coat he bought her last winter. It’s not quite winter yet but the evenings are getting cooler. It is evening now. At least, it must be. They’ve been in here for a hundred years already, it seems.

“Obviously,” he replies. “Duh. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

At the sound of his voice, she looks up. “Not you, silly.” She raises the paper cup to her mouth and sips. “Arabica. Instant pick-me-up.”

“I’m an instant pick-you-up.”

“You’re fast, I’ll give you that.”

“Hey.”

With a lingering glance at the contents of the cabinet, he walks the short distance to where she’s sitting. She pretends not to watch him as he approaches but he sees her peek sideways. She taps the cup as he takes a seat next to her, her short nails making a hollow sound against the cheap Styrofoam.

“I’ve missed you,” he says.

“From the other side of the room?”

“If you’d just think about moving in…”

She taps faster, then stops altogether. The silence is sudden and alarming. He hadn’t realised how big the room was, how empty. They haven’t seen anyone else in probably ten minutes. He wonders how much longer they have to spend here.

“What were you looking at over there,” she asks, “in the cabinet?”

He catches her peering his way again, decides to play her at her own game. The rows of cases in front of them are too far away and the objects inside too small for him to make them out. He finds himself studying the ceiling. “Why do you ask, when you already know?”

“You were looking at the seahorses,” she tells him.

“Yes.”

“How did they look?”

“Like they’d crumble to dust if you touched them.”

“Don’t touch them. Anything else?”

From where he is sitting the exhibits are tiny flecks, almost invisible on the glass shelf. He recalls them, their withered tails, needlepoint snouts, eyes like used cigarette cherries, ashen and black. Beside him, she shifts, her hand finding one of his knees; he realises she’s watching him.

“Thirsty,” he says.

She stares at him a second longer, then laughs. He loves her smile and her face when she laughs. There isn’t much poetic going on his head but he knows what he loves and that is it. Smiling back at her, he buries his head into her shoulder.

“You’re an idiot,” she says.

“Can we go soon?” Muffled by her coat, his voice is small and thick.

“Had enough of me already?”

He wraps his arms around her but does not remove his face from her neck. She smells of perfume – he couldn’t say which – and still a little salty, from the beach yesterday. He loves the beach, almost as much as he loves her. Yesterday had been a good day.

“This place creeps me out.”

“I think it’s romantic.”

“What’s romantic about shrivelled-up fish? I swear I feel like I’m hanging out inside a shipwreck.”

“Come on, seriously?”

He shakes his head, some of her hair falling across the back of his neck.

“The memories,” she says. “The feeling attached to the objects. The objects themselves, so small, so fragile. Your delicate seahorses. The secrets. The stories.”

“Which stories?”

He feels her set the paper cup down before she moves, her weight shifting underneath him. She leans carefully to one side and stands, lifting him with her. She is not strong enough to carry him and yet she moves him with the lightest suggestion.

Taking his hand, she leads him to one of the cabinets. Like the others, it is made of glass. Like the others, a spotlight shines down over it. It is a bright, impersonal space, considering the nature of the objects housed within. He almost thinks he understands what she means.

“Is this love real?” she breathes. He follows her pointed finger to a small item just below head-height. It is a ring. At least, it used to be. The years do not appear to have been kind to it, battering the metal, creating pocks and eroding away much of what might once have been a design. It is crusty and matte and covered in tiny discs, almost like it has been carved out of rock.

“Why does it look like that?”

“It’s a tentacle. Crafted in the likeness of one, anyway. No one knows where it’s from. There was a theory, but that’s just another name for a story, and there are already lots of those.”

He is watching the ring and the reflection of her face around it. She is still smiling, her glasses bright. The eyes behind them brighter. He doesn’t know what she is talking about but he loves that smile. He gives her hand a squeeze; she squeezes back.

“Where did they find it?”

“Washed up, technically, 1973. Inside a shark’s guts. The gulls were pulling ropes for their morning feast and some children spotted it, still red, still wet, sticking out the sand.”

She looks as beautiful with her glasses on as she does without. When she leans forwards, like she does now, her hair falls around her face. It is shoulder-length hair, dark but with red undertones, caught in the right light. With her free hand, she tucks a stray strand quickly behind one ear.

“Some say it was made by primitive island people. This story goes, they worshipped the sea, and the things that lived in it, so they carved jewellery that resembled them. Seeing the ring now, I can believe that. I can see the waves in its grooves, the strength in its shape, the beauty in its suckered likeness. I can see something divine in the brine and the blood and the cut of coral.”

“You really love this stuff, don’t you?”

She leans in closer and he moves with her. His face inches towards the glass, the coarse sea smell filling his nose again, and for a moment he too finds himself staring at the ring. He slides deeper, its grasp tightening, feels a hand through his hair, the suggestion of darkness filled with pale shapes and submarine depths. He realises he is breathing heavily.

“What happened to the island people?”

“No one knows, but I have a theory, professor.” She winks at him, and he feels himself stirring. Here, of all places, in this wreck of a museum! “I think they died. Thousands of years ago, swept away by a storm. The sea they worshipped gave them life, then just as quickly it took it away. Now that’s love.”

He stands there for several minutes while she admires the exhibit. His breathing steadies. His arm finds her waist and she stirs slightly, but no more. He wishes she looked at him the same way she does those antiques. He knows she’s interested. No, it’s more than that. She loves him. He’s certain. She just won’t admit it. He doesn’t know what that means.

“Come on, it’s getting cold and the table’s booked for eight.”

“It is getting cold, isn’t it? Did you see that?”

He looks over her shoulder as he helps her to button up. Sometime between sitting at the bench and checking out the display, the lights in the hallway have gone out. He hopes they haven’t been locked in. He hasn’t seen any staff but assumes they’d check every room first.

“Almost done. See what?”

“There.” She squints behind her glasses, then stiffens. He feels her tense bodily in his hands. “There.”

This time he sees it. A single light, hovering about head-height in the dark. It flickers intermittently, soft, dull pulses that fill him with a sense of contentment. It has to be a torch.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

The hallway swallows his words. He stares harder, wishes his eyes would adjust faster, but the flashes are playing games with his sight.

“Stop.”

He hears her behind him, throws an arm out protectively. “Stay back.”

The light is weak but there is something satisfying about its rhythm and the vague illumination it casts.

“I said stop!”

Gradually the light grows fiercer. Shadows squirm across the boards and up the walls. He smells the sea, gently at first, then the sudden rush of damp and decay. It had not smelled so strongly at the beach yesterday, amid the rock pools with the crabs. Already that seems like a lifetime ago.

It occurs to him that he is standing in the hallway. Her hand finds his, and he realises she is by his side. The light is right in front of them. It is not a torch; the thought is laughable now. It hangs in the air, swaying slightly, dimming, then glowing brightly. This close, he sees himself in its gelatinous mass, distorted but hand-in-hand with her. It has always been her. It is everything he could have wanted to see.

The light flickers, fading before their eyes. The darkness rushes in, then wavers again. His stomach turns at the smell, his trainer slipping on something wet. He could reach out and touch the light, if he wanted. It would be the easiest thing.

The orb begins to glow again, brightening, filling his eyes, and for the first time he sees behind it into the rubbery lips, the rows of teeth, the vast mouth that contains them.

As the light dulls, the mouth gapes open, wider, wider than he could have ever imagined.

Still smiling, he extends his hand into the darkness.

~ Thomas Brown

Damned Words 19

November 1, 2016March 7, 2018 ~ TheDamned ~ 13 Comments

Chlorophyll
Joseph A. Pinto

Yes, your prize, your trophy, your prop for the world to behold. Framed by unflinching eyes, supported by hands unshaken. So vivid, your portrayal. Like the seasons, your dichotomy appreciated only by a clear lens and a distorted view. Yet the approaching tempest goes unnoticed; still the limbs go ravaged. Revel in the fall, revel in the winds that blow. Landscapes resculpted, reimagined by the inevitable. Yes, revel in the lie, for beneath the illusion, the splendor, remains a truth you cannot speak: you have broken the chlorophyll down. Life you present, while around you death rejoices all the while.

The Autumn Quietus
Lee A. Forman

The fresh, healthy colors turned, became the tones of decay. Dillon breathed deep the scent of rot with a complacent grin. He looked up at the trees, watched quietus sway in the cool breeze. He reveled in his hedonistic ritual; a yearly affair passed down through generations. Nothing gave him more pleasure. Harvesting the heads was a task he relished, but watching the skin turn from its once healthy pigment to greenish-blue—that gave him true joy. He sat and watched as leaves fell, waiting for the heads to follow. Human hair only held for so long after death’s claim.

These Eyes
Nina D’Arcangela

I stand in place riddled with unbridled terror; it quakes my bones as I gaze out upon this gentle glade. Think me a fool for my fear? I imagine you do. Through my shutter you are gifted a calm that races my blood, hear the soothing lap at water’s edge that I am deaf to, see beauty trapped in hues I cannot allow to blind these eyes. The serenity of yawning fall holds no sway over me, for though we view the same painted landscape, you see only what is captured, whereas I hear what rustles the brush behind me.

Long Gone
Craig McGray

It’s been so long since the rains poured down. My memory struggles to recall images from the past that are long gone from reality. The vivid bursts of color that once covered the landscape have become nothing more than bland blacks and grays. The lakes are now dried and shriveled like an old man’s face. We did this to ourselves but were too fucking stupid to do anything about it. Politicians gave us only twisted lies and half-truths and before we knew it, it was too late. May God help us all, at least the few of us that remain.

The Lake
Veronica Magenta Nero

Many have given their lives to cleanse the lake. Our children, our elderly mothers and fathers, their faces frozen with fear and sorrow, never looking back as they walk into the oil slick swamp. They waddled in knee deep, then waist deep, then they were whisked away underneath, the foul water bubbling over them. We had stripped all life from the earth and now we pay with our blood and bone. The lake turns golden, an expanse of light, the water fresh and clean, sustaining us for a while until it begins to darken and fester once more, demanding another.

Don’t You See?
Jon Olson

You must be out of your minds! We left our home because of drought. This place is no different! How do you expect us to survive? Farm it? The ground lacks nutrients, nothing grows. Eat from the trees? They are bare. Fish from the lake? It’s lifeless. Yet you want to settle here? Trying to make this work is a death sentence. No, I have not lost my senses. It’s you who are crazy for believing him! We must keep moving on… then follow him, you blind fools, follow him to your death. Don’t you see? We won’t survive here.

Autumnal Hunger
Zack Kullis

Biting wind stirred the sweet scent of autumn’s decay and ruffled its time-worn cloak. The old post creaked with his surprising heft as his black eyes, hidden underneath the straw-like hair, watched the approaching couple.

He dropped from his perch and knocked them both to the ground. The ancient being grabbed each by an ankle and started towards the hills. Their shrill cries were musical; a symphony of dread that pleased him. He would eat them both, every bit, and sleep until next autumn’s equinox brought the sound of falling leaves and bid his eternal hunger be sated yet again.

‘Squatch
Thomas Brown

This is his country: acres of primordial forest spanning the hilltops. Time has no meaning here, marked by nothing except the changing seasons and, sometimes, the intruders who cross his invisible border. It is autumn now. He smells it in the air: rich, rank. Feels it under the pads of his feet: slippery, cold. Deadwood cracks. The camp is up ahead. Mud finds the underside of his fingernails, mixes with the blood that sometimes matts his fur and clots between his teeth. He moves heavily, hunts quickly, leaves no survivors. This is his country and here his appetite is law.

The Painter
Christopher A. Liccardi

They saw the golds and reds and smelled the season in all its glory. I saw crimson and grey matter and smelled the gore; a photo negative of what everyone else witnessed.

Paint in blood; that is what I do. I painted the scene in the blood of those who came to ask me about my work. It wasn’t a needless act, no. Never think it. It was one of serenity. I took the canvas around me and colored it with the life’s blood of those who came to meet me. My next victim approached with a smile, unknowing, unsuspecting.