tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43441507829593849582024-02-20T06:27:00.985-06:00Fifty-Two StitchesStrange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06573868275207711252noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-71080738893370968422016-11-22T14:26:00.003-06:002016-11-22T14:26:30.986-06:00Undead... again? <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hihEhsdwiIk" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Well... should we or shouldn't we?Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-56276125154989738752010-12-26T00:01:00.001-06:002010-12-26T00:01:00.859-06:00Lil' Gigglesby Stephanie Kincaid<br /><br />Jessie didn't tell her parents that the doll frightened her. She didn't want to seem like a cowardly little baby. She even worked the doll into her toy rotation, playing with it dutifully, then putting it away with relief. This was less for her parents' benefit than for the doll's. Jessie feared that if she didn't play with the thing enough, it might become angry with her, and she didn't want to think about the possible consequences of the creepy doll's anger.<br /> <br />The doll had come with its own name--Lil' Giggles--and it was supposed to laugh when you squeezed it. Mercifully, the noisemaking mechanism had broken in shipping, so Jessie never had to hear the creepy doll giggle. Still, its lips were frozen open, its little rounded teeth bared in an eerie parody of mirth. The thing sported a sculpted tuft of bright red hair that was set back just a little too far on its high bulbous forehead. Its dull black eyes were unnaturally wide, and they rolled when Jessie moved the doll so that no matter how she held it, Lil' Giggles always seemed to be staring at her.<br /> <br />She had tried setting the doll down so that it faced away from her, but she couldn't stop stealing glances at it, fearing that its oversized head would turn itself around so those dead eyes could find her again. <br /> <br />The longer the doll lived in Jessie's room among her lovable and nonthreatening bunnies and bears, the stronger Jessie's fear grew. After a while, she found herself checking the cabinet under the bathroom sink before she used the toilet just to make sure Lil' Giggles hadn't concealed itself among the towels, waiting for a vulnerable moment. <br /> <br />She engaged in lengthy staring contests with the doll, her eyes watering as she fought to keep from blinking, certain that during the fraction of a second that her eyes were closed, the doll would move. <br /> <br />It was during one of these tests of Jessie's will that she learned the true depth of ultimate horror. She was supposed to be trying to sleep, but she had unthinkingly left Lil' Giggles too near the night light, and the blue glow lent the doll's usual pallor a deathly cast. Jessie stared at it from across the room. She felt sure that if she closed her eyes for so much as an instant, she'd feel a cold little hand touch her, and as soon as she looked, she'd see that the silently laughing doll had abandoned its seat near the night light and crawled into bed with her and …<br /> <br />“Eee-hee-hee-hee! Eee-hee-hee-hee!” A high-pitched cackle shattered Jessie's thoughts. She screamed. It had happened! Lil' Giggles had come to life and was cackling maniacally over and over again. Any moment now, it would move toward her. She prayed that Mommy and Daddy would rescue her before the doll could get her. <br /> <br />The maniacal giggles continued. Jessie shrank back into the bed. It was just the opportunity for which the advancing teddy bear had been waiting. Its tiny fangs tore into the back of her neck. Powerless to help its owner, Lil' Giggles did the only thing it could: it kept up its shrill alarm. Jessie hadn't heeded its warning, but perhaps her parents would come before it was too late.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Stephanie Kincaid is a freelance editor and writer who lives in Oklahoma. She has an MA in literature and a weakness for bad horror movies. She highly recommends being very very nice to your toys.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-7181623488211173362010-12-19T00:01:00.003-06:002010-12-19T00:01:00.301-06:00A Christmas Collectionby Harold Kempka<br /><br />Jeremy spotted the tables of knick-knacks on the front lawn of a dilapidated old house and pulled over. After spending the morning perusing garage sales anyway, he figured one more wouldn't hurt.<br /><br />He loved the rush of excitement in finding a rare piece of memorabilia someone considered an outdated piece of junk. He'd haggle, get it for next to nothing, and then sell it for a nice profit, capitalizing on other people's stupidity.<br /><br />Jeremy found a box of hand-blown Christmas ornaments that appeared hand-painted on the inside in the style of Currier and Ives, and perhaps dated back to the late 1800's. He picked it up, and breathed the Christmassy, outdoors aroma of pine needles emanating from it.<br /><br />The decorations appeared to be in good condition, except for their lost luster. Paint cracks marred the detailed images of people on sleigh rides or sitting hearthside staring outward at the ornament glass.<br /><br />His hands trembled as he carefully examined each of the fragile glass orbs. The last one's highly reflective surface made it look nearly new, and not part of the set. A faint image on the inside that resembled a countryside scene of new fallen snow illuminated by a full moon, made it look like it was an unfinished piece.<br /><br />“May I help you?” A gravelly voice from behind said.<br /><br />“Uh, yeah,” he said, nearly dropping the ornament.<br /><br />He spun around to find a hunched over, wafer thin old woman, brow furrowed and head cocked to one side staring up at him.<br /><br />“How much do you want for this mismatched set of old ornaments?”<br /><br />“Why would you want those old things?” she asked, waving her hand. “You can buy new ones for about the same amount of money.”<br /><br />“I know, but there's a nostalgic feeling about them,” he replied, fighting back a broad smile that said he was about to screw her out of them.<br /><br />She wrinkled her blood vessel road mapped nose. “How about twenty dollars?”<br /><br />“Are you serious, lady?” he said. “Look at the paint cracks, and how faded they are. Besides, they're not even a complete set.”<br /><br />“You trying to take advantage of an old lady?”<br /><br />“No ma'am. They remind me of some ornaments my grandparents put on their tree when I was a kid,” he said, fighting back a smile that said she was about to be screwed. “I really loved Christmas at their house. I'll give you five bucks. That's a buck a piece, and I'll even take the one that doesn't match the others.”<br /><br />She studied him for several seconds. “Well, it sounds like you want to relive better times. Tell you what, give me ten dollars, and it's a deal.”<br /><br />“Great,” he said.<br /><br />Jeremy hurried home, and checked the ornaments on numerous websites, but found nothing that even resembled them.<br /><br />After awhile he felt tingly, like his arms and legs had fallen asleep. Jeremy stepped away from the computer and walked around to get the circulation going. Then, he poured himself a glass of wine and sat in his easy chair with the box of ornaments.<br /><br />Jeremy re-examined each one until his eyes burned and the ornaments' images appeared blurry. The tolling Westminster chimes on the grandfather clock told him it was late.<br /><br />He gulped the remaining wine in his glass, and rested his head against the back of the chair. As he rubbed his tired eyes, little specs of light flashed behind his eyelids.<br /><br />A few hours later, he awakened shivering uncontrollable. He stood alongside a country road ankle deep in freshly fallen snow, wearing Victorian style winter clothing. It was nighttime and although there was no moon or stars, a silver sheen illuminated the wintery landscape.<br /><br />He heard some bells jingling and the “clop, clop, clop” of a horse. Jeremy waved frantically and tried to run toward a couple approaching in a horse drawn sleigh.<br /><br />“Help me, please!” he yelled, but his feet were stuck to the ground.<br /><br />The couple drove by, smiling and cuddling up to each other. They ignored him as though he didn't exist.<br /><div align="center"><br />__________</div><br />The old woman stepped from the shadows in Jeremy's living room. She held the glass ornament up to the light.<br /><br />“Ah, my collection is finally complete,” she said, admiring the silvery image of a man standing alongside a road waving to a horse-drawn sleigh.<br /><br />She set the ornament in the box and closed the cover. Jeremy stood alongside the road screaming helplessly as a shroud of sudden darkness swallowed him up. <br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> <w:word11kerningpairs/> <w:cachedcolbalance/> </w:Compatibility> 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mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p><b style="">Harold 'Hal' Kempka</b> is a former Marine and Vietnam Veteran. His short stories have been published in <i style="">Dark Valentine</i>, <i style="">Thrillers Killers and Chillers</i>, <i style="">Night to Dawn</i>, <i style="">Golden Visions</i>, <i style="">House of Horror UK</i>, <i style="">69 Flavors of Paranoia</i>, <i style="">Night to Dawn</i>, <i style="">Blood Moon Rising</i>, <i style="">The New Flesh</i>, <i style="">Sex and Murder</i>, and <i style="">Death Head Grin</i>, among others. Hal also has stories appearing in upcoming anthologies from Pill Hill Press and Blood Bound Books. He is a member of the FlashXer flash fiction workshop, and lives in Southern California. His email address is: <a href="mailto:rvnvet6667@yahoo.com" target="_blank">rvnvet6667@yahoo.com</a> </p> <a href="mailto:rvn6667@yahoo.com"></a>Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-26377460642347546552010-12-12T00:01:00.002-06:002010-12-12T00:01:01.152-06:00Maid Marionby Scott Davis<br /><br />Step/creak, step/creak, the rough wooden stairs Marion used to ascend to the sanctuary didn't make for a surprise entrance. But that was OK. Marion was resplendent in a rouched white gown, veil and bright red roses, to symbolize her true devotion. Marion felt like a princess. She was envisioning the damsels of old, strong but delicate, in children's stories. Real princesses met bad ends in French tunnels, but stark reality did not intrude on her reverie.<br /> <br />The wedding guests due to the long wait had run out of small talk and so resorted to discussing the latest news.<br /> <br />“Did you hear about planet Sargasso?”<br /> <br />“No, what?”<br /> <br />“They're going to colonize.”<br /> <br />“But, it's only water! And, the sea life is primitive. Nasty predators!”<br /> <br />A third woman chimed in: “Excuse me, but I'm with Myth Engineering, and I can tell you they are well underway. The bioengineering folks are doing recombinant DNA for the Sargasso project. I'm working with Greek mythology about Neptune to provide cultural support for the shark people.”<br /> <br />“Well, at least they didn't stray too far from Earth norms with us! We had to compensate for the lack of quality protein for fetal development here, but we aren't fish!”<br /> <br />As Marion reached the top of the stairs, all eyes turned and rose to behold her. She felt dizzy with all the attention, trying to maintain her balance in the surging sea of attention. She couldn't look down, or she would catch her legs in the hoops of her skirt, her mother had warned her. Looking left or right was disorienting, so she looked ahead, where the minister and her beloved stood waiting. A ruffling sound that she imagined was angel's wings, sounded quietly, for this was a praying church. She made it to his side.<br /> <br />Wow, this is really happening, thought Marion, I'm really becoming an adult. Under her mother's loving gaze Marion stood and appeared to attend to the minister's words, but her own thoughts intruded. She caught snatches. “…as our progenitors of old Earth had done before us, he will supply the seed for new life as well as the nourishment to help the child grow…”<br /> <br />She hoped her wedding gown was hiding her changes, for Marion's body was growing in its excitement. How she wanted him! She remembered what her mother taught her about sex, to let him enjoy her fully, since he would never have a time like this again.<br /> <br />Her jaw loosened, reassuring her it would detach properly as she had prepared it to do in her pre-marital exercises. She quickly closed her mandibles demurely, since the minister was finishing up.<br /> <br />“You may now kiss the groom.”<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Scott Davis has stories published at <em>NovaSciFi,</em> <em>Ray Gun Revival</em>, and <em>Sonar 4 Magazine</em>. Links are on his blog, <a href="http://universeofpossibilities.blogspot.com/">Universe of Possibilities</a>. He is of the opinion that changing the human genome will require less energy than terraforming planets. So, in the far future, we will be the aliens on other worlds. Mixing our DNA with terrestrial animals will be the safest way to adapt humans, since we know those genes work. However, such meddling will have far-reaching effects, including psychological and cultural adaptations, changes in religion and customs around procreation that may seem sacrilegious or monstrous at first blush.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-12309315739738483792010-12-05T00:01:00.000-06:002010-12-05T00:01:01.104-06:00The ListenerC.L. Scarr<br /><br />Chill winds rolled off the tundra to steal each puff of Semyon's labored breath as he clamped the heavy collar onto the bit. He and Boris stepped back from the drillstring as it started rotating. Like a dog in heat, it plunged back into the hole.<br /><br />"Do you think there's anything left?" Boris asked.<br /><br />Viktor, their boss, hawked a wad of phlegm from the back of his throat and spat onto the barren ground. "You're not paid to ask questions about the meteorite. You're paid to drill."<br /><br />They watched and waited while the drill retraced its path through the rock it had already bored. They smoked cigarettes, stamping their feet, hunching their shoulders against the cold.<br /><br />“More slurry!” Boris shouted when the drill slowed as it bit deep into undrilled rock. Semyon turned to fetch another bag and pain filled his head. Sharp shrieking noises rose from the earth with the plume of fine grey silt. Violation. Anguish. He clutched the sides of his head. Through tear-filled eyes he looked to his drill crew for confirmation. They hadn’t moved.<br /><br />It wasn’t until he sagged to his knees that the other crewmembers gathered around him. They carried him to the small tent where their six cots crowded together and laid him on his bed. As darkness battled the pain in his skull for control, voices mixed within and without. "... finally cracked", "... hearing things ...". Darkness finally won, and he slipped gratefully into its embrace.<br /><br />Semyon woke in utter darkness and tried to gauge whether the pain from earlier in the day was gone. He sensed an uncomfortable remnant of it in the back recesses of his brain, slowly drifting away from him like the resistant tendrils of a dream. Soft snoring surrounded him like a comforter, the crew resting after a hard day’s work. It would take an explosion or the morning chow bell to wake them. He sat up and found his boots, then stepped carefully outside. A vague sense of unease, a balled rock of doubt in his stomach, told him that all was not as it should be.<br /><br />He picked up the sledgehammer next to the drill rig and hefted it in his hands. The weight was comforting, solid. A voice whispered in his head, Yes.<br /><br />He turned back to the tent. Semyon tried to stop, but his body refused to obey. Sweat beaded his brow in the chill night air as he struggled to control his body’s actions without success. He watched like the passenger in the back of a car as he opened the tent flaps and secured them to let in the moonlight. He stepped inside.<br /><br />Semyon's hands gripped the sledgehammer, his knuckles white against the sun-stained brown of his skin, then his feet carried him to stand over Viktor's cot. The arms raised up and brought the hammer down with a thud and a squelch on Viktor's head. Next it was on to Boris, and Pavel and Yuri and Mikhail.<br /><br />The shaft of the hammer slipped from his grasp, sliding easily from his fingers due to the lubrication provided by blood and brain matter. Semyon stepped from the now quiet tent. He listened very hard. Over the sound of his pounding heart and panting breath came the memory song of the one trapped in the meteorite, disturbed by their drilling after so many years.<br /><br />Primitive and victorious, it rang stronger and stronger from deep within. Semyon smiled.<br /><br /><div align="center">___________</div><br /><br /><br />C. L. Scarr currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, penning short fiction across a wide variety of genres, and is also a freelance editor with credits such as the wildly popular Secret Service Agent series by Stephen Templin and the soon-to-be-released Blade Red Press Anthology, <em>Dark Pages</em> Volume 1.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-59455576250598667562010-11-28T00:01:00.000-06:002010-11-28T07:40:36.736-06:00Killing Fieldby Brad Chacos<br /><br />"He seemed like a decent enough guy," the neighbors said. Don't they always say that about killers?<br /> <br />They caught him eventually, in a sting operation. Only so many people, even hookers and junkies and street people, can be killed before Things Are Noticed. And they locked the man (if one can call him that) away for a hundred lifetimes, sentencing him to die the drawn-out gray death of boredom and certainty that his victims never had.<br /> <br />But they never found the bodies.<br /> <br />You may have noticed the field of wild roses outside of town, their petals drawn in on themselves, bright red and shivering in the autumn wind; once a month, when the moon is at its apex, they bloom in the cold, dark night, shedding dew like so many tears. And the smell... oh, the <em>smell</em>...<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Brad Chacos is hairy fellow who inspects sapphire products for aerospace and semiconductor applications by day and scribbles down semi-readable fiction by night. He has both a short story and a non-fiction article appearing in upcoming issues of Withersin magazine and has been featured on Nanoism, a Twitter-fiction site.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-51343812367949817912010-11-21T00:01:00.004-06:002010-11-21T07:58:31.095-06:00The Chronicles of Blackbriarby Michael Colangelo<br /><br />Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, St. Francis of Assisi, Joseph, the Virgin Mary. These are the gilded portraits that hang from the walls inside Nana’s little apartment on Thanksgiving Day.<br /> <br />Blackbriar the Bear, Hamstring the Rabbit, Farmer Carrion – the names of the characters in the book tucked beneath little Peter’s arm, <em>The Chronicles of Blackbriar</em>. These are his personal heroes.<br /> <br />He just wants to read his book, but this is a family get together. They’re celebrating an important, and holy, occasion. Great Grandmother sits in an armchair unblinking. The others chat and hug and drink around her. The men go out on the balcony to smoke and chat some more.<br /><br />Uncle Vince picks Peter up, grinning. He places him on his knee. Peter gets a quarter from Vince’s pocket and then he’s offered the cigar hanging from Vince’s mouth.<br /><br />The smoke makes Peter cough and he doesn’t like it. Uncle Vince just laughs and laughs. His face turns red he laughs so hard.<br /><br />He makes sure he tells Peter’s Mum and Dad that their kid likes cigars, just like he does. He makes sure to tell them that Peter is going to be just like him one day - a success.<br /><br />Later on, after they eat dinner, Peter is tired. He rubs his eyes and sits on the couch while the adults move around him chatting and smoking and drinking some more. He’s trying to read his book but it’s so late that the colors in the pictures seem to smudge and the letters look all blurry.<br /><br />The adults are ignoring him. They usually do. They’re here to talk about adult things with one another. But Uncle Vince, as always, comes to help Peter out. He sits down beside him on the couch and takes the book from his hands.<br /><br />He digs out his reading glasses and holds the cover up to the light.<br /><br />“What is this, Peter? A book about a bear?”<br /><br />He opens up the book and begins to skim through the pages. Near the end he begins to nod in understanding. His brow furrows like he’s concentrating hard.<br /><br />“Ah, so this bear. He goes to the farmer’s house for dinner? Even after his friend the rabbit warns him not to do it?”<br /><br />Peter nods. He’s read the book before. He knows the ending. The last page of the book is a full page splash of Farmer Carrion and his wife all dressed up for a night on the town. The farmer’s wife is wearing what’s left of Blackbriar like a coat.<br /><br />Uncle Vince turns serious. His face and his eyes grow very dark right before he leans over to whisper into Peter’s ear. His breath smells of strong liquor.<br /><br />“This bear, Peter. You know why the lady’s wearing him at the end, right?”<br /><br />Peter shakes his head.<br /><br />“Because this Blackbriar’s some kind of motherfucker. That’s why. Farmer Carrion, he just wants to take his wife out for dinner. Poor bastard can’t afford to buy her nice things. Who can blame a guy for wanting the bear as a coat, eh?”<br /><br />Peter shrugs and Uncle Vince gives a little laugh. Or maybe it’s a growl. Peter’s too tired. He can’t tell.<br /><br />“But the bear, he’s just looking for a free meal. Some sort of handout. ‘Don’t be a motherfucker, Blackbriar’. That’s what this rabbit is really saying. I don’t think they’re really friends. Do you?”<br /><br />Then Peter’s Mother is standing over them both. She snatches the book from his lap and takes Peter up in her arms.<br /><br />“But we were reading,” Peter protests. He curls his head against her shoulder and then falls silent.<br /><br />“We have to go, honey.” She strokes his hair and takes him away from Uncle Vince.<br /> <br />It’s later in the next year when Peter sees Uncle Vince again.<br /> <br />He’s sitting on the front lawn with his old book in front of him when his Dad pulls into the driveway. Behind him, a big black car with fins on it turns in and Uncle Vince gets out.<br /><br />He’s carrying a baseball bat. They’re not about to play any baseball.<br /><br />As Uncle Vince approaches, Dad turns to Peter and waves him off.<br /><br />“Go inside, Peter. Uncle Vince and I need to talk.”<br /><br />Peter runs inside. His mother runs outside. Peter runs upstairs and goes under the covers of his bed with his book.<br /><br />He reads for the one hundredth time about the time that Hamstring got caught in the fox trap. Blackbriar happily gnaws his rabbit friend’s leg off to free him again.<br /><br /><br /><br />Michael Colangelo is a writer from Toronto. Visit him at <a href="http://michaelrcolangelo.blogspot.com/">http://michaelrcolangelo.blogspot.com/</a>.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-39133994401830634752010-11-14T00:01:00.002-06:002010-11-14T00:01:00.315-06:00The Insanity Vesselby Harper Hull<br /><br />Neil shook on the sofa, knees pulled up, toes curled, watching his Gran swat away imaginary insects and invisible bats across on the other side of the room. <em>She is just sick</em>, his Mom always told him, <em>just sick in the mind, no need to be frightened</em>. He was constantly frightened, though. Gran saw things all over the place that no-one else could see. Things that no-one else would ever want to see. Each evening, as his Mom made dinner in the kitchen, Neil had to sit with his Gran in the living room and keep an eye on her, just to make sure she didn't wander or fall.<br /> <br />Gran told him awful, awful things. He tried not to listen, he told himself she was <em>just sick</em>, but she frightened him none the less. She told him about the shiny white people that visited her in the night, appearing inside her frilly old-lady clothes that hung in her wardrobe, growing into them until their long, bent fingers crept from the sleeves and whispering terrible words to her with their flapping black lips and flicking blue tongues until morning came. She told him about the long, wriggling snakes with human faces and the tiny, dark, snapping creatures that slithered and ran through the patterns in the carpet and the wallpaper, surrounding her and trying to bite her. Most of all, though, she told him about the heads in the fireplace that came up in the crackling orange flames and gave her messages. Messages that never seemed to make any sense. Sometimes the messages were for other people, but those other people were always dead people. His Dad. His Granddad. The poor old blind lady who had lived next door. More than anything else she talked about, Gran's talking fire heads scared him.<br /> <br />Neil hoped that Gran would stay busy shooing away the invisible flying things all around her and not pay attention to the spitting fire tonight. <em>Remember</em>, he told himself over and over, she <em>is just a sick old lady; her brain doesn't work properly anymore</em>. He didn't mind her so much when she was just slapping thin air. It was almost funny to watch. Almost.<br /> <br />Suddenly and inevitably Gran stopped flapping around in her saggy cloth armchair and became still, focusing her watery eyes on the popping, jumping fire. Neil groaned a little and wrapped his arms around himself.<br /> <br />“Oh Neil, they're talking about you tonight! All of them are looking at you and talking.”<br /> <br />Neil forced himself to glance at the fire and, as usual, saw no speaking faces. His Gran was completely entranced in the flames, slowly nodding her head and cracking her thin, colorless lips. <em>The stupid sickness</em>, thought Neil again, <em>her mind is broken. Remember!<br /></em> <br />“They say you're a bad boy, son. They say they see you doing things that a ten year old shouldn't be doing.” Without averting her gaze, Gran feebly lifted one arm and pointed towards him, wagging one finger.<br /> <br />Neil looked back to the fire, wide-eyed. He couldn't see anything except the dancing flames and the hot, blackened wood glowing and splitting as it fuelled the tiny inferno. He knew he hadn't been a bad boy, the fire heads were lying. <em>Silly</em>, he immediately scolded himself, <em>there are no fire heads, no people in the grate it's just her sickness, remember that always!<br /></em> <br />“They say <em>they're going to get you</em> Neil. They're going to get you <em>tonight</em> when you're asleep.”<br />His Gran sounded unusually sad as she spoke. It pushed Neil past his breaking point and he jumped up and started walking towards the kitchen, to the safety of his Mom with her boiling vegetables, baking pie and roasting beef.<br /> <br />“They want you to know one last thing!” said his Gran, loudly now. “They say to tell you that I am <em>not sick</em>. They say I am <em>not sick</em> and <em>my mind is not broken</em>. Now why would they say that?”<br /> <br />Neil stopped dead in his tracks, legs like ice and face like fire, feeling his Adam's apple roll all the way down into his belly.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />Harper Hull was born and raised in Northern England and now lives in South Carolina with his Dixie wife and 4 vicious dogs. He started writing fiction in 2009 after doing it corporately for too long and has a delightful cross-section of work scheduled to appear in 2010 with hopefully more to come. His favorite authors are Ballard, Bradbury, Tartt and McCarthy. You can track Harper online at <a href="http://harperhull.weebly.com/">http://harperhull.weebly.com/</a>Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-79956391914992098812010-11-07T00:01:00.002-05:002010-11-07T00:01:00.909-05:00The Last Crunch of Autumnby Patrick Rutigliano<br /><br />Jamie Eisenberg was halfway down Crescent Avenue before the sight of his own breath stopped him cold. Jamie’s run had no real aim, only pleasure, but the weather simply wasn’t conducive to such activity.<br /><br />Halloween was two weeks past and winter was already draining the color from the landscape. The days of snow forts and sledding had yet to arrive, and as the fire on the trees dulled and littered the streets with brown, he couldn’t help but feel as though he was in the heart of something dying.<br /><br />Neither Shane nor Jacob wanted to venture from their homes that day, and now, Jamie was beginning to realize they had the right idea.<br /><br />What the hell could he do out there? Most of the neighborhood’s overripe Jack-o’-lanterns were already smashed at the bottom of the quarry, and the cold demanded heavy coats and gloves that made sports more trouble than they were worth. All he could do was walk, and already a block from his house, he would have to do exactly that.<br /><br />Turning the corner, Jamie stomped his way through a ridge of dead leaves on the side of the road. He hated them. Each footstep squelched, and not once did he hear the crunch of a proper autumn leaf. He took a moment to root through the debris with the toe of his sneaker before venturing on. Even the crickets were dormant.<br /><br />Jamie knew the storm was to blame for most of it. The winds tore nearly all the remaining foliage from the branches, and the rain permeated the soil to the point of overflow. He could almost swear he felt the asphalt yielding underfoot.<br /><br />Despite his mood, Jamie smiled as he reached Mr. Rutner’s house. The man was a neat-freak, and everything around his place looked immaculate even after the squall. He might be good for a little fun later that night if he could sneak out without waking his folks. There were still a few eggs left in his Mischief Night stash he was dying to make use of.<br /><br />Jamie was nearly beside the next yard when he noticed the mound of color earlier obscured by Mr. Rutner’s hedges. The leaf pile looked tall enough to reach his waist, and even in the shadow of the greenery, Jamie could determine the quality of the leaves--dry, bright, and ready to be crushed by a falling body.<br /><br />Jamie didn’t know why Mr. Rutner hadn’t bagged and hauled the leaves to the side of the road for pickup, but he didn’t care either. It might be a bit childish, but nobody was watching, and neither Shane nor Jacob was there to tease him.<br /><br />Jamie took one final look around to ensure his privacy and made a beeline for the pile.<br /><br />As he raced forward and leaped into the air, he got the strange impression that the mound already had an imprint at its center. It was large, child-size, and he wondered if one of his friends might be as immature as himself as he landed at its core.<br /><br />For a moment, he lay there panting. The crunch he was expecting was absent, and the leaves his hands rested on around the rim of the imprint felt harder than they should. He tried to squash one in his palm and failed, yelping instead as he felt blood trickle through the slit across his glove.<br /><br />The wound distracted him. Jamie did not notice the slight tremor in the mound until the borders were already swelling over his head. His scream was muffled as he again felt something sharp bite through his clothing. Sinking deeper into the maw of the thing, he finally heard a crunch.<br /><br /><br /><center>__________</center><br /><br /><br />Patrick Rutigliano resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his fiancée and a bloated collection of weird fiction. Since embarking on his writing career, Patrick's work has appeared in <em>History is Dead</em>, <em>Monstrous</em>, <em>Northern Haunts</em>, and <em>Shroud Magazine</em> #6. His stories are also slated to appear in numerous releases from both Library of the Living Dead Press and Library of Horror Press. Updates as to his progress and a full bibliography are available via <a href="http://www.patrickrutigliano.blogspot.com/">http://www.patrickrutigliano.blogspot.com/</a>.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-15508953717793442722010-10-31T00:01:00.001-05:002010-10-31T00:01:03.106-05:00Famous Monsters Remakeby Joe L. Murr<br /><br />The Celebrity Bimbo sneaked through the dark forest. Right on cue, the Wolfman popped out from behind a tree, a machete held high in his hairy paw. The Celebrity Bimbo assumed a fighting stance and let out a battle cry.<br /><br />“Cut! You call that a scream?” the director bawled.<br /><br />The crew cracked up. The Celebrity Bimbo gave them the stink-eye. “What’s so funny?” she said. The crew laughed twice as hard.<br /><br />The director was the only one who was not amused. Eight crappy takes of the same shot. The actress wasn’t even trying. At this rate they’d be stuck in the forest until dawn. “Honestly, was that the best you can do?” he said.<br /><br />“Alan, I feel that she wouldn’t scream.” She put her hands on her waist. “She’d fight him. Punch him right in the face.”<br /><br />He leaned back in his canvas chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s not in the script.”<br /><br />“But maybe it should be.”<br /><br />Here we go again. Time to massage the ego. He went over to her. “Everyone, take a break.”<br /><br />Alan watched enviously as the Wolfman plopped a cigarette into his maw and flicked a Zippo, careful not to set his fur on fire. It had been two years since Alan quit, but now a coffin nail would be just what the doctor ordered.<br /><br />The Celebrity Bimbo hissed, “second-hand cancer.” The Wolfman flipped her the bird.<br /><br />Alan inhaled the drifting smoke and put his arm around her. “First of all, let Wolfie say his line. And then ... look, all I’m asking you to do is scream. Just a little scream. Like this: Eeee!”<br /><br />“But, Alan, didn’t we discuss my back story?”<br /><br />Oh God had they ever. Or, rather, she had rambled on forever about how she saw the character while he nodded patiently.<br /><br />“Her father was a Marine,” she said. “He taught her how to survive.”<br /><br />“Be that as it may, in this shot she screams. Just give me one good scream. Or I’ll have to cut your big dramatic scene.”<br /><br />She stared at him, shocked. “You wouldn’t.”<br /><br />“Try me.”<br /><br />She nodded timorously.<br /><br />“And remember to let Wolfie say his line, okay?”<br /><br />He went back to his chair. Action--take nine. She approached the tree. The Wolfman popped into view and growled, “I’m gonna make you my bitch,” a line that made Alan die a little inside, but the studio loved it, so ...<br /><br />She gave a lackluster squeak.<br /><br />“Better,” he coaxed her. “Maybe with a bit of fear this time?”<br /><br />They took it from the top. She approached the tree, peered around and unleashed the scream of the decade. Alan grinned. Until he saw what she was seeing. A rangy beast held the Wolfman’s decapitated head in its claws. The Celebrity Bimbo fainted. And at that moment the lights went out.<br /><br />People ran screaming into the woods. Alan scrambled out of his chair, slipped and fell on the wet grass. Hairy hands clamped around his neck and hauled him up. He stared straight into the creature’s fetid maw.<br /><br />A voice as old as mountains whispered, “You know what you’ve gone and done? You’ve turned me into a joke.”<br /><br />Alan struggled and squealed in animal panic.<br /><br />“Once, we had power,” the werewolf said, eyes gleaming yellow in the inky blue darkness. “We were iconic.”<br /><br />Things shuffled from the trees, wreathed in a charnel fog.<br /><br />“Then you people started re-imagining us,” one of them hissed through a mouthful of razor fangs.<br /><br />A chorus of voices joined in:<br /><br />“Taking from us our poetry and tragedy.”<br /><br />“No more sequels. No more remakes.”<br /><br />“We’ve had enough.”<br /><br />Alan saw his line producer, or rather what was left of him, in the hands of a brute swaddled in ancient bandages. Another monster wore the makeup artist’s face as a mask.<br /><br />“It’s not my fault,” the director gibbered. “My hands are tied. Blame the studio, the writer ...”<br /><br />“We’re going for them next,” the werewolf growled.<br /><br />Red lights started blinking. Lenses came in for a closer angle. Camcorders.<br /><br />The werewolf said, “Action!”<br /> <br />The monsters fell on Alan and tore him to pieces.<br /><br />And then they set out to teach film executives the real meaning of fear. The Mummy insisted on taking the Celebrity Bimbo along, believing that he had finally found the reincarnation of his lover. She screamed all the way to Los Angeles.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Joe L. Murr has lived on every continent except Antarctica. He currently divides his time between Finland and the Netherlands. His fiction has been published or is forthcoming in <em>Dark Recesses</em>, <em>Necrotic Tissue</em>, <em>Read by Dawn I & II</em>, and other publications. Visit him online at <a href="http://joelmurr.blogspot.com/">http://joelmurr.blogspot.com</a>Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-38566683880551989412010-10-24T00:01:00.000-05:002010-10-24T00:01:00.762-05:00The Hungry Oceanby Ken Muise<br /><br />Walking along the break water, fighting the wind that tried to force her ocean-side, she counted her steps to the ladder as she had always done. When she was a girl, when she had started the counting, she could recall reaching the ladder somewhere between two hundred and fifty steps. Now, as her body had grown wearier and her steps choppier she often didn’t reach the ladder until after three-hundred steps.<br /><br />The Atlantic exploded against the large granite stones, throwing icy water shrapnel against her. She tasted the salt from the cold water on her lips. It traced its way down her shirt.<br /><br />When Steve died last year during a tuna trip she had stopped coming here, unable to bear the thought of walking this expanse without him. She always appreciated the way he would come with her on this walk. The ocean was a mundane part of his everyday life but to her it was a wondrous adventure.<br /><br />Having had no children her decision was acceptable. Being a young widow it was understandable. Having lived two excruciating years without the only thing she had ever loved made it inevitable.<br /><br />She would curse the ocean as it happened. Curse it for the suffering it had caused her husband and for the misery it had left her in. <br /><br />She made it to the ladder on step two hundred and fifteen. She was in a hurry to die.<br /><br />She climbed down, cove side, onto a piece of beach the tide was quickly consuming. Flakes of rust encrusted themselves into her palms and fingers. <br /><br />It was calm. The ocean rippled like a pond and the pleasant sound of the wet sand crackling pleased her.<br /><br />She entered the small cave where the dingy was stored hoping after all this time it was still there. She remembered the count. Six steps in and the dingy would be there in the diminishing light. <br /><br />There was no dingy.<br /><br />She walked further into the opening hoping that her age had altered her count as it usually would do on the breakwater. At ten steps in she knew she couldn’t that be far off but still no dingy.<br /><br />There was a stirring from a few feet farther in.<br /><br />She heard a thump to her left and slightly in front of her. <br /><br />She backed up slowly. <br /><br />Another thump into wet sand closer this time to her right.<br /><br />In the faint light she saw a single webbed claw of grey-green scales with talons long and yellow. She heard a low throaty growl like a lion with a mouthful of water and a single yellow eye with no pupil opened suddenly reflecting the sunlight behind her.<br /><br />The beast lunged and bit into her mid-rift, thrashing it’s head wildly, ripping her in two and throwing pieces of her out of the opening in its ferocity. <br /><br />The beast dragged the large pieces back into the cave methodically.<br /><br />The tide would wash away the blood.<br /><br />__________<br /><br /><br /><br />Ken Muise has been an active-duty Soldier for 15 years. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in <em>Flashes in the Dark</em>, <em>The Nautilus Engine</em>, <em>Hypersonic Tales</em>, <em>Full of Crow</em> and the <em>Horror House</em>. He blogs at <a href="http://www.elmuise.blogspot.com/">www.elmuise.blogspot.com</a>. When he isn't reading, writing or working he enjoys terrorizing his three daughters via Facebook.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-54778023468275084292010-10-17T00:01:00.002-05:002010-10-17T00:01:00.713-05:00Imprisonedby AJ Brown<br /><br />Dim light shone through air holes in the dungeon's ceiling. Vlad sat in one corner, the darkness concealing him from his prey. Shallow breaths billowed upward, and he shivered in the cold, clenching his teeth to keep them from clattering.<br /> <br />The roach appeared in the dusty light. Tentative steps from the shadows led to a quick dart across the room and back into darkness.<br /> <br />Vlad shifted his weight, lowering his body into a crouch. With eyes long adapted to the black of the tunnel, he followed the roach's movements toward the crumbs of molded bread lying near him.<br /> <br />Again, the roach crawled from the shadows, stopping in the center of a patch of light. It was large--a couple of inches long--its brown shell dirty; long antennae twitched, feeling its surroundings.<br /> <br />"Come," Vlad whispered, cupped and lowered his hands to mere inches above the ground. <br /> <br />The roach scurried toward him, tickled Vlad's big toe. Vlad's breath caught, skin tingled as the bug crawled beneath his hand. With a quick swipe, he scooped up the insect. It squirmed, legs tickling Vlad's palm.<br /> <br />"Little bug, I name you Matthias."<br /> <br />The roach poked its head from between Vlad's thumb and index finger. The once proud ruler laughed. "You can't escape me, Matthias. You have sinned against your king. For the crime of betrayal I sentence you to death by impalement."<br /> <br />Vlad stood and hobbled to the corner closest to one of the air holes. He lifted one of the many slivers of wood he had pulled from the giant door that kept him from escape. The roach squirmed.<br /> <br />A crooked grin split Vlad's face, and he drove the splinter into the roach's abdomen. Its legs moved fast, trying to run; antennae twitched and its cerci vibrated wildly. Vlad pushed the small stake in further. He imagined the bug screaming, begging for mercy. He chuckled in delight, his chest heaving, tingling in excitement.<br /> <br />Vlad lowered the roach he named after the ruler who imprisoned him, made a hole in the dirt and set the stake's edge into the ground. In the dim light of the dying sun, he sat, watching the bug--watching Matthias--twitch and writhe in agony. His eyes glazed over as he scanned the many insects and rats he had impaled, each one given a name of an enemy, each one having died slowly.<br /> <br />He leaned his head against the wall, eyes fixed on the dying roach, his body quaking in ecstasy.<br /> <br />Hours later sleep found him. Cradled him in her arms, he dreamt… dreamt of thousands of crying, screaming boyers and princes, women and little children, all of them on stakes, all of them sliding, sliding…<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />AJ Brown is a writer that sits in a small box with holes poked in it for air. He pens stories that have appeared in <em>SNM Horror Magazine</em>, <em>Sinister Tales</em>, <em>Allegory</em>, and <em>Liquid Imagination</em> among others. Be wary of his fiction--you've been warned.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-84039762529653531932010-10-10T00:01:00.001-05:002010-10-10T00:01:00.105-05:00Gourmandby Brad Nelson<br /><br />Most of us will eat anything; we see food, we go for it—most of us. I’m picky. I prefer certain dishes. What? You may ask. How can you be picky? I’ve seen your kind, you say. Well, so have I, and as I said, most of us will eat anything. And, frankly, I am offended, Madame. I don’t have time for your preconceived notions and prejudices. My kind? How could you be so insensitive to the feelings of others?<br /><br />I have a theory about my preferences, my snobbishness as my brethren might think of it. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t know why I like what I like. It’s more a theory of how than of why.<br /><br />You see, when The Outbreak first crossed our borders, it came from the south, crossing from Mexico into the United States in the blood of drunken state-college students, American tourists, and Mexican immigrants. Drug dealers and human smugglers also helped. The Outbreak spread to college campuses, trailer parks, ghettos, barrios, and every corner of lower- and middle-class society—and it spread like fire, cleansing the land.<br /><br />The average human being is lead by simple desires, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Have you heard of it? Physiology, safety, love, esteem, self-actualization? Any of this ring a bell? No? Anyway, you are driven by certain instinctual motivators. Once the most basic of those needs are met, such as physiological needs—breathing, food, water, sleep, homeostasis, excretion, etc.—a person may move on to the next tier, but not until the basic needs are met. Example: If your physiological needs are not met, if you do not have food, shelter, etc., you do not care about morality and creativity, which are needs at the very highest and intellectual level. Sadly, most people never attain those higher levels or even care to, which brings me to my next point.<br /><br />The majority of those initially infected were of little or no means, and of little or no intelligence. What? You wonder about the drunken college students who brought The Outbreak to college campuses? I did say they were students from state colleges. You think students of Ivy League schools are spending spring break in Mexico? Come now, Ivy League mummies and daddies can afford better than that for their little sweetums.<br /><br />You’ve gone and distracted me. Where was I? Oh, yes—intelligence. The average IQ in the United States is 100, give or take. Average IQ drops exponentially based on social class, geography, race, etc; and I’d wager that the average IQ of students in state-run institutions adheres to the national average. Community college? Much, much lower. So, you see, pre-infection, the average person wasn’t very bright to begin with. And you’ve seen what The Outbreak does to the mental capacities of those it touches.<br /><br />Given that the majority of those initially infected fell into a category with a below average IQ, is it any wonder that when fulfilling their basic need, food, they eat what they see, without discrimination. With the infected, Maslow’s Hierarchy is obsolete. Food is their only need. It is no different with me. Food is still my only need, but, as I said before, I have preferences. My theory? I am getting to that, my child. Be patient.<br /><br />Pre-infection, I had an IQ of 138. That’s two points away from genius, you see. My theory is this: the effects of The Outbreak—aside from reanimation, impervious to pain, and the hunger—involve a reduction of one’s IQ by a specific percentage based on pre-infection intelligence. What? You still don’t understand? Then, here, let me show you, my dear.<br /><br />Where others would come in moaning and carrying on, mobbing you, marring your beautiful flesh with gnashing teeth and clawing nails, I will take my time enjoying the juicy portions slowly. Don’t worry. I stay above the neck; I’m old fashion that way. I will take your soft cheek first, and then your lips, your tongue. Your eyes I will slurp with abandon. Blue eyes are truly delightful. Please stop screaming, child. It does not make the pain any less. Now I will peel back your scalp, because I don’t like getting hair caught in my teeth, and crack your skull. The real treat, the one those other idiots can never stop asking for, are inside.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Brad Nelson is a former backyard samurai and blue jeans Zen master who spends most of his time now on the back porch with his pipe and a cup of coffee. He retired his sword and took up the pen after serving five years as an interrogator in the U.S. Army. Brad is also a creative writing M.F.A. candidate at National University and Chief Editor of <em>Eclectic Flash</em>, a new online literary journal. You can find <em>Eclectic Flash</em> at <a href="http://www.eclecticflash.com/">www.eclecticflash.com</a>. Brad’s literary endeavors are forthcoming from a number of online and print publications—just as soon as he can decide where to send each piece.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-1288040796133527242010-10-03T00:01:00.001-05:002010-10-03T00:01:01.110-05:00Darklingby Christopher Green<br /><br />The loss of Marion’s vision was a gradual thing. <br /><br />By degrees, the edges of her sight slipped away, the world to her left and right made into old friends she thought of occasionally but never missed. She saw her home, her husband, and, less and less, her children and their children, through a circle that grew ever tighter, like a noose.<br /><br />When she began to trade paint with nearby cars in parking lots, she left the driving behind and taught herself to take the bus. She made arrangements for the grocer to deliver the week’s groceries on Thursdays.<br /><br />This Thursday, when the doorbell rang, Marion made her way to the front of the house by touch. She brought her handbag, to pay Mr. Williams, but by the time she opened the door he’d already gone, leaving the groceries on the front step. She brought the bags inside one at a time.<br /><br />In the bottom of one, next to the milk, was the darkling. It was a spot, a smear, no more than a tear in the light, and it slid around in the vast dark corners of her vision. It went with her into the family room, watched her soaps with her, and when Stan got home smelling like beer, the darkling slipped closer to Marion, where Stan’s vision had always been weakest.<br /><br />Stan ignored them both.<br /><br />When he went to bed, the darkling had already found a little to eat, scraps, old glances and smiles and even a kiss Marion or Stan or both had let fall behind the couch. The thing was bigger, now, and bolder, and when it strayed from the corners of her sight she didn’t notice. The room had never been well lit, and the television threw flickering shadows that let the darkling, if it was quick and cunning, as all dark things are, roam the floor and find other things to eat.<br /><br />When Marion finally saw it, the darkling froze. By now, near to midnight, it knew Marion enough to call her mother, if it called her anything at all. When it crawled up beside her on the sofa, its thick hide slick with lost recollections, she lay her hand against its bulk. <br /><br />“Hello, there,” she said aloud, and the darkling quivered with joy. “What have we here?”<br /><br />The darkling had no voice.<br /><br />“A friend,” she said to herself, and pat it once or twice. “A friend at last, again.” <br /><br />The darkling fed her back a little of what it had found in the room, old Christmases and birthdays and nights she and Stan had stayed in together. She took what it offered and smiled to herself in the dance of the TV’s light. The corners of the room held nothing for her, and the darkling at her side swelled as she fed it more of her wisps and fragments. <br /><br />As it grew, the couch springs creaked like they did when Stan sat there. Marion smiled and took it by its new hand. She led it in to where Stan was sleeping. She would give it his voice, and let it remind her of the things she had let remain forgotten for far too long.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Christopher Green was born in the United States. After moving to Australia at the age of 20, he attended Clarion South and has been published in <em>Dreaming Again</em>, <em>Beneath Ceaseless Skies</em>, and <em>Abyss & Apex</em>. His work has been nominated for an Australian Shadows Award and several Aurealis Awards. When he isn’t writing, he’s thinking about writing, unless he’s talking to his wife, at which point he is most certainly listening to what she has to say. Honest. He maintains a blog at <a href="http://christophergreen.wordpress.com/">http://christophergreen.wordpress.com</a>Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-7195687207135919402010-09-26T00:01:00.004-05:002010-09-26T20:56:36.704-05:00Beside Himselfby Joe Nazare<br /><br />Forget that heals-all-wounds nonsense--time for him to expedite matters. He can't bear any longer to just let such grotesquerie be.<br /><br />So, thrumming with impatience, he extends his right index, and with his left hand picks up the smallest of the tools lying atop the butcher block. He clamps the tweezers to his blueberry-shaded nail, the concentrated bruising of his fingertip making him think of a well-fed tick squashed under a microscope slide. In its protracted death throes, the nail has pinched inward into the shape of a miniature seashell, but naturally he has no intention of holding the thing up to his ear afterward.<br /><br />Plugging the tip of his tongue into his gums, he tugs at his blighted digit. The fingernail pulls forward slightly before rebounding into place. He tries again, and again, but on the third try the tweezers slip off, etching a hairline white scratch on the nail. Frustration rattles in the base of his throat as he tosses aside the useless tool.<br /><br /><em>So close</em>. The taunting words echo in his head. He grabs the pair of slip-joint pliers and applies them to the task at hand. Like the lips of the most unyielding pistachio, the fingernail offers only a few millimeters of airspace between itself and flesh, but the pliers' bulkier pincers nonetheless manage to find a grip.<br /><br />He steels himself with a quick series of snorts, then jerks the pliers back hard as he can. A dull ache radiates down his finger and seemingly right into his forearm. The nail feels like it has grown tendrils, and for a moment he wonders if in tearing free it will yank a trail of ligaments out through his fingertip--the physical equivalent of some magician's handkerchief trick. He pulls on the nail regardless, relentless, and after several tormenting seconds finally succeeds in the extraction. The nail un-suctions itself from his fingertip and drops clattering to the butcher block.<br /><br />He pays scant attention to the pearly nub of new growth on his right index, focusing instead on the brittle relic just removed. Slit-eyed, he picks up and turns over the unfastened nail. The blue-black grue caked to its underbelly looks like what you might find inside an old tin of shoe polish.<br /><br />Another moment of intrigued scrutiny, and then he pivots and limps across the basement, into the corner occupied by the cyanotic clay effigy. This inert reflection of himself, painstakingly dusted with his own dead skin. It stands grinning at him through an imperfectly aligned set of grayed teeth. He splits his sunken mouth into a smile as he presses the fingernail into place at the tip of a crooked index. The transplant accomplished, he turns and scurries back to the butcher block.<br /><br /><em>So close</em>, he tells himself again. Spurred by the sudden, unmistakable crack of knuckles off to his left, he seizes and raises his trusty ball-peen hammer.<br /><br />And gets started on his right thumb.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />Joe Nazare holds a Ph.D. in English from New York University; his academic work focuses on the genres of science fiction and horror. He has sold stories and poems to such magazines and anthologies as <em>Shroud</em>, <em>Pseudopod</em>, <em>Harvest Hill</em>, <em>Damnation Books</em>, <em>Champagne Shivers</em>, <em>Death in</em> Common, and <em>Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes</em>.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-47943457554037295902010-09-19T00:01:00.001-05:002010-09-19T00:01:00.271-05:00Rare Steaks, Black and Blueby Rachel Green<br /><br />Luisa browsed the menu again. She'd been ecstatic last June when she'd found this exclusive little steak house tucked into an alley off Manhattan's East 67th Street. Bored with the standard fare of beef, buffalo and venison, the restaurant promised gastronomic riches. Tattooed waiters and waitresses of several nationalities catered for the high-class clientele.<br /><br />She'd picked and chosen for the first few visits. It was expensive but the rarity of springbok, kangaroo, giraffe and zebra was worth the expense. She was more methodical after that, working her way through the menu one visit at a time, every steak cook black-and-blue, just how she liked it, with sauces on the side, never on the meat.<br /><br />After thirty visits her palate was jaded and she sat at her customary booth flicking listlessly through the menu. Peter, the only waiter still working there since she'd found the place, stood poised with his pencil and pad. "I want something different," she said, "something really unusual."<br /><br />"I know just the thing," Peter said. "A chef's special, Yes?"<br /><br />She smiled and handed back the menu. "That sounds divine."<br /><br />It took a little longer to prepare but every morsel was worth the wait. Tempted as she was, she left the strip of fat and the edge of skin.<br /><br />She'd recognised the tattoo.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />Rachel Green is a forty-something writer from Derbyshire, England. She lives with her two partners and three dogs. She was the regional winner of the Undiscovered Authors 2007 and her novel <em>An Ungodly Child</em> was published in 2008. When not writing, Rachel walks her three dogs, potters in the garden and drinks copious amounts of tea. Her website <a href="http://www.leatherdyke.co.uk/">www.leatherdyke.co.uk</a> acts as a portal to her daily-updated blogsStrange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-49204323291149420892010-09-12T00:01:00.001-05:002010-09-12T00:01:01.381-05:00Flash Cards for the Blindby Kurt Newton<br /><br />These are not your average 4x6s. Instead of an equation on one side, a solution on the other, these thin rectangles are virtually featureless. They look more like opaque panes of glass...without the sharp edges, of course. That would be cruel.<br /><br />(You fidget slightly. I know the feeling. Trust is a difficult commodity nowadays...rare in its purest form.)<br /><br />"Then how do they work?"<br /><br />(Your eyes stare past me. Though blind, they appear eager, open to new experiences.)<br /><br />Well, they work the way a window works, only instead of using the sensory organ designed for sight, it uses something much more intimate: touch. It is the reason I am wearing these specially designed gloves. Just the slightest skin-to-surface contact induces a chemical transference that affects the region of the brain responsible for perception. Touching <em>is</em> seeing.<br /><br />"What will I see?"<br /><br />(A smile graces the corner of your mouth. It informs me I have chosen well.)<br /><br />Ah, that's the beauty. It is entirely up to you. The mystics say if you stare at your reflection long enough your true essence will eventually reveal itself. Perhaps you will see your own death. Perhaps you will witness the torture of the innocent, or the savagery of nature, or the oppressive immensity of the universe. Perhaps you will be whisked away to a place unknown, a place forbidden, a place where your darkest fears dwell. A place where truth lies bound and screaming.<br /><br />(You swallow your last naïve notion. Your fingers tremble as I place the first card in your hands.)<br /><br />"And my blindness will be cured by doing this?"<br /><br />Yes. But you will wish it hadn't.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />Kurt Newton lives as a recluse in the woods of northeast Connecticut. He has been spotted on his plot of land harvesting grubs from rotted logs, setting tripwires for small animals and drinking from fresh water streams. He uses wood pulp and dried viscera to make the paper on which he writes his stories. He drives a black Ford Focus.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-11057381696182916642010-09-05T00:01:00.001-05:002010-09-05T00:01:01.265-05:00Un Ultimo Hombre Loboby Adam Blomquist<br /><br />“Action,” yelled the fat man standing behind the camera.<br /><br />Maria, the gorgeous Italian, pushed the intricate Gothic candelabra into Molina’s face.<br /><br />“Closer,” said the director.<br /><br />Molina frothed at the mouth and growled at the young actress. The film was a period piece so Maria wore a corset that threatened to suffocate her with her own cleavage. She backed Molina as far into the corner as he could go. The film was shooting on location in an ancient castle on the coast of Portugal, and the stone wall felt pleasantly cool against Molina’s back.<br /><br />“Closer, try to burn him,” cried the director.<br /><br />Molina stayed in character even though he could now smell burnt hair. The prosthetic fur on his face was beginning to go up in flames.<br /><br />“Cut, cut,” he slapped the cameraman on the shoulder. “Molina, what the hell are you doing? Where is the anguish we discussed? I expected more from the supposed master of monsters,” Marques wagged a dark stubby finger in Molina’s face who allowed himself to stay a bit in character and bared his fangs at the director.<br /><br />“I’m sorry, it’s your film, we’ll do it again,” Molina said with no sincerity in his voice.<br /><br />“Forget it, we’re losing daylight as it is,” Marques said. Why the director was shooting a scene with a werewolf that needed daylight was beyond Molina, and he laughed at the director’s ignorance. Marques did not take notice and turned his attention to the girl.<br /><br />“And you, where is your fire? Where,” Marques asked. Molina couldn’t help but scoff at the pomposity in his voice. The director was wasting his time anyway. The girl spoke absolutely no Spanish and her translator had failed to show up to work today.<br /><br />In fact, much of the crew had quit in recent days. Molina looked around the set and took a quick roll call. Inside the chamber there were only the two actors, the cameraman, Marques and a production assistant who had been promoted to a soundman for the day.<br /><br />“Don’t yell at her, she’s doing the best she can,” Molina’s public persona was that of the perfect gentleman, and he had attained that persona by actually being a perfect gentleman. Maria had no idea what the two Spanish men were arguing about, but she knew that Molina was on her side. He gave her a wink and watched her blush.<br /><br />“Grazie,” she said.<br /><br />Marques looked over at the impromptu soundman, who was leaning on the boom microphone as a cane. The director started histrionically pulling at his balding scalp and cursing under his breath. In his excitement he yelled that the day was wrapped and then stormed off the set.<br /><br />The remaining crew members began to strike all the equipment and pack it back in the truck for the night. Molina went back to his trailer and began to gingerly remove his makeup. He needed the makeup artist in order to apply it but he had mastered the art of taking the pieces off himself without damaging them. It was a lengthy process and he began to let his mind wander to Maria.<br /><br />He then took out the fake dentures and his mind turned to that toad of a director. Dusk was finally complete and he could see the full moon outside his trailer window. He ran his tongue over his teeth. The actor laughed to himself as his real fangs started to elongate and sharpen. Hair began to sprout on his arms. <em>I think it’s time for Marques to retire, we don’t need him. And anyway, I’ve always wanted to direct,</em> he thought to himself. <em>Maybe I’ll try some Italian for dessert. </em><br /><em></em><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />Adam Blomquist was raised on a steady diet of candy corn, rock 'n roll, classic literature and horror movies. This mix severely warped his brain. He currently attends Boston University where he studies English and Film. You can find his blog and more of his work at <a href="http://www.brain-tremors.com/">www.brain-tremors.com</a> and in the pages of <em>Shroud Magazine</em> issue #7.Strange Publicationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08748617083792274343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-24187802354835439842010-08-29T00:01:00.002-05:002010-08-29T00:01:00.705-05:00Milk of the Goddessby Brendan P. Myers<br /><br />I was six weeks into a yearlong contract for American Oil, working a desert outpost south of the border. At night, I went to Pablocito's and drank pulque, the milky liquor favored by the locals.<br /><br />The girl was seventeen and slinging drinks, with only the barest hint of Indian in her milky complexion. She smiled shyly while fending off the drunken advances of my boorish colleagues.<br /><br />When Larsen reached out to grope her, she flashed a look my way. Filled with liquid courage, I walked over and popped him one. After that, drinks were on the house.<br /><br />Later, we walked the dusty streets of town. In the shadow of the lecheria, I took her in my arms and then took her to my hotel. It was her first time.<br /><br />Her name was Mayauel, named after the milk tree Goddess, the Goddess of pulque and childbirth, the foundation of all life. In bed, she whispered reverently of the Goddess's four hundred breasts that suckled her human offspring. I grabbed her playfully and said two were enough.<br /><br />We met furtively, exchanging glances in the bar, later sneaking off to my hotel. I knew she was falling in love. I didn't know what love was. And then it happened.<br /><br />She said she was with child. I got angry and said it wasn't mine. I called her a whore and stormed off.<br /><br />I moved to a rooming house close to the worksite. But every night, after closing my eyes, I saw her face. Her stare grew harsher with each passing day. I kept my eyes open most nights.<br /><br />They sent me into town one day for a delivery. Avoiding once familiar streets, I snuck in the back way and heard music playing. Sad music. At the end of a darkened alley, I saw a procession. Hysterical women dressed in black. Pablocito crying. An open casket on the back of a wagon. I caught a glimpse of her face and ran.<br /><br />I hitched as far away as I could, but there was no escaping her. In one sleepy town, I saw a mural of a many-breasted woman in peach garment, with white fringe and flame colored hair. She was seated on a throne of a turtle and a snake, holding out a bowl filled with a milky substance.<br /><br />The Goddess. Mayauel.<br /><br />I staggered toward the center of town and saw a church. I knew then I needed forgiveness.<br /><br />Inside, blinding sunlight streamed through stained glass, turning the holy chamber orange and red and yellow. Halfway to the altar, I collapsed and prostrated myself before God.<br />Begging forgiveness, I crawled down the aisle, finally raising my head toward the marble pulpit and whitewashed stone of delicately carved archways and saw then I wasn't alone.<br /><br />It was Mayauel. My Mayauel.<br /><br />Twenty-feet tall and growing taller by the second.<br /><br />Sunlight set her hair aflame. Sitting astride the pulpit, she wore a peach dress with white fringe. But this Mayauel did not offer sustenance. Instead, I watched as she poured a bowl filled with the milk of human kindness onto the floor, where it pooled like a sea of bitter tears. For me, there would be no forgiveness.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br /><br />Brendan P. Myers stories have appeared in such publications as the <em>Northern Haunts</em> anthology from Shroud Publishing and <em>Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror</em> from Stygian Publications. He can be found online at <a href="http://bpmyers.blogspot.com/">http://bpmyers.blogspot.com</a>Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-83027440473304693632010-08-22T00:01:00.002-05:002010-08-22T00:01:01.303-05:00Jeff Newman's Headachesby Alan Baxter<br /><br />The only interesting thing about Jeff Newman was his headaches. Never a particularly social animal, Jeff lived alone in a small apartment in a grubby city. He worked for a nondescript company doing largely irrelevant administrative roles and took his pay home every month to spend on DVDs, video games and take away food. He was boring. But he did get such headaches.<br /><br />He could tell when a headache was coming on. He would start to feel nauseous, the back of his neck would tighten up and get hot. He would feel as though his right shoulder was hitched up a couple of inches and he couldn’t relax it, almost as if the base of his skull was trying to suck the rest of him up into his brain pan. Then the eye thing would start. Initially a kind of dull pinch behind his right eyebrow, it would grow until it felt like a sickening bruise all around his eye and he’d get a grabbing, stabbing compression, as if his brain had grown a hand, taken hold of his eyeball and started to squeeze. That was when he had to shut everything off. He would go into his bedroom, draw the curtains, turn off the light and lie in swimming, excruciating darkness, unable to rest, simply enduring. Eventually the vomiting would start, great deep heaves from the depths of his gut. Gasping, eye-watering retches until he brought up nothing but gobs of yellow bile and finally collapsed, exhausted, into blank, black sleep, not dreaming or stirring.<br /><br />When he woke the headache would be gone, his brain releasing its hold on his eye, and he would feel purged. Weak, wobbly, trembling with the slightest effort. He would give anything to be rid of the headaches.<br /><br /><center>__________</center><br /><br />‘It’s stress, Jeff. The tension builds up and causes the headache. We’ve discussed this before.’<br /><br />Jeff shook his head, looking at his doctor with disdain. ‘It’s not stress. I’m not a stressed person.’<br /><br />The doctor smiled. ‘Everyone has stress. How often is it happening?’<br /><br />‘It used to be only once or twice a year at most. Now it seems like it’s happening every few weeks. I can’t handle it.’<br /><br />‘I’m going to prescribe you something to help you relax.’ The doctor held up a placatory hand at Jeff’s expression. ‘Process of elimination.’<br /><br />Jeff shook his head but sat quietly while the doctor wrote the prescription. He passed the pharmacy on his way home and took a pill as soon as he got in. By seven pm his brain had a hold on his eyeball and he squirmed and thrashed on his sweat soaked sheets, cursing the doctor with every heartbeat that pulsed lightning through his head.<br /><br /><center>__________</center><br /><br />‘I’m sorry, you can’t see Doctor Steed.’ The receptionist’s eyes were puffy and red. ‘He... he’s not available.’<br /><br />Jeff frowned. ‘When will he be available?’<br /><br />‘I’m afraid he won’t be. He...’ The receptionist trailed off into sobs.<br /><br />A female doctor appeared. She patted the receptionist’s shoulder. ‘Go home, Jennifer. It’s too much to ask you to work today.’<br /><br />Jennifer hurried from her desk, grabbing bag and coat as she scurried, snivelling, for the door. The female doctor turned to Jeff. ‘I’m sorry. Dr Steed was killed last night. Home invasion. I’d be happy to see you if it’s urgent.’<br /><br />‘No. No, nothing urgent.’ Jeff stared at the doctor for a moment then turned to leave. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added over his shoulder as he reached the door. The female doctor nodded once, lips pursed.<br /><br /><center>__________</center><br /><br />Jeff sat on the bus staring at trees whipping past. How many people did he know that had died? It seemed uncanny that so many people he was acquainted with had met strange, grim ends. His doctor killed in a home invasion, his last boss murdered while jogging at night, that stuck up bitch at the video store killed in a botched robbery... Jeff’s heart began to hammer as a hot fist pushed its way up his throat. His mouth popped open as he gasped for air. But he’d had so many more headaches than that...<br /><br />‘Strangers are just as sweet.’<br /><br />Jeff whimpered, stiffening on the rough fabric seat of the bus. ‘What the fuck...?’<br /><br />‘Took you long enough to realise. But there’s nothing you can do.’ The voice was high and sharp, laced with malice, echoing through his mind. Each word was punctuated by the sensation of a tiny hand flexing its grip on Jeff’s right eyeball.<br /><br /><center>__________</center><br /><br /><br />Alan Baxter is an author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. Read his short stories, novella and novel extracts at his website - <a href="http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/">www.alanbaxteronline.com</a> - and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-61937204874496233122010-08-15T00:01:00.001-05:002010-08-15T00:01:01.061-05:00The Wind Whispers My Nameby Jameson T. Caine<br /><br />At night the wind calls to me, whispering my name. I lie in bed, eyes closed, desperate for the solace of sleep, but it eludes me. As I drift away into fitful slumber, the soft sound of the breeze brushing against my window stirs me from my repose, my name carried to me through the surrounding darkness.<br /><br />It speaks with <em>her</em> voice.<br /><br />I do not look, afraid of what I might see...or what I might not see. It couldn’t be her, not after all this time. Not after that last, horrible night. To find her standing there now beyond the frail glass would surely drive me insane, yet the thought of throwing aside the curtains and seeing nothing frightens me even more.<br /><br />I recall her final words, spoken in anger, defiance and finally, hatred. The way her pleas and denials became an antagonistic admission of truth, her fury boiling over, transforming once beautiful features into the menacing snarl of a stranger. The elegant face I knew so well now a terrifying visage of rage and malevolence. Forever will I remember the look those icy eyes had cast my way seconds before the light within them was extinguished forever.<br /><br />Or not.<br /><br />Had she somehow survived? I took such care in disposing of the gun and locating a suitably remote place to bury her horrid remains. She was dead, I’d made sure of it. In all the intervening years, I have had no cause to doubt the outcome of that night. Still, after three sleepless nights haunted by the sound of her voice upon the wind, I had to be sure.<br /><br />I came to the ancestral cabin in which we spent that fateful evening, high atop a bluff overlooking the restless sea. By day I searched the nearby woods, looking for her final resting place. But time wasn’t kind to the land or to my memories. I could not find her.<br /><br />Can the vow made before her death be coming true? Could she even now be drawing upon dark, arcane forces to enact the promised revenge from somewhere beyond the realm of the living? I push aside such thoughts as fanciful imaginings, but when darkness engulfs the land and the wind rises, I think differently. I recall the unholy things she did and the lives ended through her deeds; all performed under the watchful eyes of the one whom she called Teacher. How could I <em>not</em> put an end to such evil when I finally learned of it?<br /><br />Night has come again. I huddle inside, a fading fire my only source of warmth and illumination. The wind rises and falls outside, her voice a whisper and then a shattering scream. I dare not look through the window, for I know the only thing I will find is my end.<br /><br />I cover my ears but the shrieking gale cannot be denied. I scream, desperate to drown out her mournful cry with the ragged sound of my own voice, but my tortured howls cannot overcome the intensity of that ghastly lamentation. The wind has become <em>her</em> voice, throwing my own name back at me in accusation and anger.<br /><br />I hurl the door open, determined to heave myself from the cliff to the cold waters below. I stagger towards the edge, my fear of death at war with my desire for this madness to end. It’s then that I see her, standing a few feet from the ledge, waiting.<br /><br />The one whom she’d called Teacher.<br /><br />Teacher looks at me, eyes dark and penetrating. “You will replace the servant you took from me,” she says.<br /><br />And I know that I will. Her voice is commanding, insidious. I must not disobey. I eye the nearby ledge, but the wind keeps me from jumping, blowing in off the sea and forcing me back, preventing my demise at my own hand. It pushes me forward into the embrace of the soulless thing before me and I scream with unbridled terror when I peer into those dark eyes, seeing the fate awaiting me.<br /><br />Taunting and cruel, the wind laughs at me in <em>her</em> voice, the one I killed that night so many years ago. The one whose face I still see when I look in the mirror.<br /><br />The one whom I called twin sister.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Jameson T. Caine has at one time or another worked as a carpenter, meat cutter, shipping clerk, forklift operator, assembly line worker, long haul truck driver and minister. Currently he drives a tanker truck by day and calls himself a writer by night, the latter fueled by a steady diet of soda and salty snacks. He has numerous stories appearing online and in print. He lives in Northern California with his wife and two dogs. Visit him online at <a href="http://jamesontcaine.blogspot.com/">http://jamesontcaine.blogspot.com/</a>Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-8662515925563938702010-08-08T00:01:00.003-05:002010-08-08T10:35:23.831-05:00Aftertasteby Karen Schindler<br /><br />She was exquisite.<br /><br />Her naked body seemed to pulse and thrum as he circled her, snapping image after image, the afterglow of her pale form burning into his retinas. His mind reeled as he captured her likeness. He’d never worked with someone who looked so luminous through the lens.<br /><br />He kept snapping and circling and circling and snapping convinced that he could see heat rolling off her in waves. He could feel her energy feeding his as he revolved closer and closer. When they came face to face for the last time she widened her eyes and made a sound that was as close to a groan as he could bear and remain upright.<br /><br />He felt a jolt of something run top to bottom through his nerve endings. He wanted to reach for her but he couldn’t stop snapping images. He couldn’t tear his face away from the camera.<br /><br />Mesmerized, he watched as her left hand reached out to caress the long shaft of the telephoto lens. Her right beckoned with a delicate finger.<br /><br />He leaned toward her, her face getting larger in the viewer until it filled every corner of his vision and his mind. She tipped her head, licked her lips and parted her mouth into an inviting O.<br /><br />He felt himself drawn into and through the prisms of the camera, out the lens and into her mouth.<br /><br />As his body crumbled away she gently placed the camera onto the floor. She licked a finger and delicately sampled the pile of dust that had been a man moments before.<br /><br />She smiled, languidly stretched and savored the memory card melting on her tongue just as a devout Catholic savors a holy communion wafer.<br /><br />She could feel his juices mingling with hers, feel his hot blood soaring in her veins. He had been a good one. Young, vital, full of sexual power. He should last her for at least a month.<br /><br />The happy accident of a wave depositing her into a time plane that sported photographers on every corner and the internet to help her find them made it so easy. She hardly even had to hunt.<br /><br />The only downside was the memory cards.<br /><br />She just couldn’t get used to the digital aftertaste.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Karen Schindler writes even when she's not writing. A lover of words her whole life, she is amazed and awed when she can string them together in a way that touches another soul. You can visit her at <a href="http://miscellaneousyammering.blogspot.com/">Miscellaneous Yammering </a>where you'll find fact, fiction, sillyness and lots of descripitons of weird things that happen in Ohio.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-29298068802854291902010-08-01T00:01:00.002-05:002010-08-01T00:01:00.156-05:00The Wrong Thing to Sayby Jonathan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Pinnock</span><br /><br />Father <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Skerritt</span> was enjoying his first solo exorcism. The young girl was writhing about on the bed with considerable energy, and it took both her parents to hold her down. She was blaspheming away like a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Clydeside</span> stevedore and producing some spectacular projectile vomit. And it might have been a trick of the light, but he was convinced that her head had rotated a full 360° at one point. This was the full Monty.<br /><br />And yet, in the middle of it all, he was calm. He felt serene. He had a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">hotline</span> to the Boss, and he was ready to make the connection.<br /><br />“In the name of the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, release this poor girl from her travails—”<br /><br />“Fuck you bastard!” said the ten-year-old girl.<br /><br />“—go now and leave her in peace—”<br /><br />“Fuck you!”<br /><br />“—depart from this world into the shadows—”<br /><br />And then it happened. The girl gave one final contortion and began to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">hemorrhage</span>. As she shrieked in agony, her belly was torn open and a revolting reptile poked its head out. With a malevolent squawk, the beast forced the rest of its body through and hurtled out of the room.<br /><br />When reflecting on it later, it struck Father <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Skerritt</span> that “Whoa, mash-up!” was probably an inappropriate thing to say at this point. But he still <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">couldn</span>’t help thinking that it was massively cool.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Jonathan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Pinnock</span> was born in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Bedfordshire</span>, England, and - despite having so far visited over forty other countries - has failed to relocate any further away than the next-door county of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Hertfordshire</span>. He is married with two children, several cats and a 1961 Ami Continental jukebox. His work has won several prizes, and he has been published in such diverse publications as <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Litro</span></em>, <em>Every Day Fiction</em> and <em>Necrotic Tissue</em>. His unimaginatively-titled yet moderately interesting website is at <a href="http://www.jonathanpinnock.com/">http://www.jonathanpinnock.com/</a>, and you can follow him on Twitter as @<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">jonpinnock</span>.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-2763592856215557422010-07-25T00:01:00.002-05:002010-07-25T00:01:00.972-05:00The Farmer's DaughterHe kept her heart in his hands when it wasn’t in the barn, and he made her dance for him when he held it to remind him of what he’d lost.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br />He liked being a farmer. It was an old trade, an inevitable transition for someone who is endless. You can’t make your way through life with magic alone, after all. Magic was too conspicuous, too unexplainable. Farming was not. Farming was idyllic.<br /><br />His wife, the last of dozens, eventually left. He forced her out finally, and he sealed any possibility of her return with a binding spell. It was an unfortunate consequence, but a necessary one should the little girl be raised as one who is endless. This was all before the little girl was old enough to remember. So that made it good.<br /><br />The little girl loved to dance around the farmhouse. It was the only trace of her mother that remained.<br /><br />He loved her more than the world since the day she was born. They were inseparable.<br /><br />She was his first – a funny thought, given the fact that he was two centuries old and well able.<br /><br />He raised her himself. He bore her proud upon his shoulders when they rode into town. She learned her way about the farm at a very young age. She loved her father more than anything else that could possibly exist in her little world.<br /><br />They were alone together and very happy.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Inevitably, she turned fourteen.<br /><br />And she met a boy.<br /><br />She told him that she had fallen in love. He told her that, in time, she would come to find the notion of love ridiculous. Their kind did not fall in love with strangers.<br /><br />She told him that she did not believe in being endless. There was only now. He forbade her from such blasphemy.<br /><br />She stopped talking to him about the boy.<br /><br />Life went on, but quieter. There was no more music. She told him that she had forgotten how to dance.<br /><br />She didn’t sit with him on the porch in the late afternoons as she had always done. She grew nervous around him at the supper table. He sensed that she had begun to wander away in her soul.<br /><br /><center>__________</center><br /><br />One morning, he woke early to bail the hay.<br /><br />He found them in the barn. He found her naked with straw in her hair, curled up fast asleep in the arms of the boy that she thought she loved.<br /><br />He snapped and before he knew it, a good bit of his old self made things known within the world again.<br /><br />He snapped his fingers and her heart exploded from her chest into his hands before she had time to wake. The boy saw the blood pour from the wound in her breast and screamed like a little boy does until he made a sign in the air and closed the boy’s throat from the inside. He lifted the boy from the ground and threw him so hard that it sent him through the roof into the sky so far up that the boy’s people never found the body.<br /><br />The girl eventually opened her eyes. They were milky white and sightless. She stared after her own beating heart in his hands, and she followed it stumbling back into the house.<br /><br />Inside the house he wept for her. He sat in his chair in the dark before dawn and whispered for her to dance and she did, twirling naked around him through the shadows, the gaping hole in her chest empty and throbbing black blood, until the sun began to rise and he felt like things were right again.<br /><br />In the early hours, he locked her and her heart in separate corners of the barn and went about his chores.<br /><br />When the sun fell, so did his heart, so he drew hers out again. She followed.<br />Things went on this way for many, many nights, until he eventually died of a broken heart. She took her heart back from him but the damage was done, so she held it in her hands and she stumbled as she wandered away from him for the last time.<br /><br />She met a violent end, finally, at the hands of those who do not know magic and are afraid of things they cannot explain—an unfortunate ending to an endless tale.<br /><br /><br /><center>__________<br /></center><br />Jeremy Kelly is a writer who lives in Decatur, Georgia. He's currently writing his first novel. Find out more about him at <a href="http://jointhebirdies.blogspot.com/">http://jointhebirdies.blogspot.com/</a>.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4344150782959384958.post-1185542840723098202010-07-18T00:01:00.004-05:002010-07-18T00:01:00.494-05:00Handoverby Brendan Carson<br /><br />I come into the ER, wet from rain. Bulmer looks up. “The late Doctor Robinson,” he says.<br /><br />“Sorry,” I say. “You seen Donna? She didn’t come home”<br /><br />“She was around,” Bulmer gestures vaguely. “It’s been busy.” Bulmer turns to the interns. “Doctor Robinson is senior on the morning shift. Run everything past her. She has a particular liking for the mad, the malodorous and the malingering.”<br /><br />I grin and shake my head. “Who’ve we got?”<br /><br />It’s first shift for the new interns, and night shift in Emergency can be hell. Sometimes I think I should have done Psych like Donna. She’s on one night in twenty, I’m one night in four. It’s hard to keep a relationship going. The screen is full. It’s been a busy night. Bulmer starts handover.<br /><br />“Cubicle one is a sixty two year old man, viral pneumonia, stable on four litres oxygen…”<br /><br />The new interns scribble copious notes, the others jot a word or two. The litany rolls on. Bulmer hands over the unstable cases himself, lets the interns (nervous, occasionally stammering) do the others. I smile, thank them, try to sound less impatient than I am. The last intern is squat, muscular, a thin film of sweat over his face. For a moment he seems oddly familiar. His lab coat hides his name-tag.<br /><br />"Cubicle forty,” he starts, “is a thirty two year old man, detained under the mental health act as a danger to himself or others, with a long history of a schizophreniform illness. Since his early teens he -…,”<br /><br />Bulmer looks up, irritated.<br /><br />“We’ll see him first,” I say. “Tell me as you walk over there.”<br /><br />Away from the other doctors he seems more nervous, more sweaty. He checks his notes as he walks. “Classic erotomanic psychosis, resistant to diagnosis and therapy, delusions about his female neighbours spying on him, inserting erotic thoughts into his head, she’s the one to blame for all his symptoms. Previous diagnoses paranoid subtype--,”<br /><br />“In emerge,” I say, “we don’t care about all that developmental history stuff, how his mom molested him with a carrot or whatever.”<br /><br />He looks surprised. “But what-- ,”<br /><br />“It’s all about problem solving.”<br /><br />He nods, like he understands. We reach the secure cubicle. I swipe my card, “So, briefly, what are we doing with him?”<br /><br />“He’s for psych review today,” says the intern.<br /><br />I shake my head. Psych are meant to review all emergency patients on day of admission. They act like seeing patients will kill them. I can say that because I live with one.<br /><br />Inside the room is silent, simple. The thick door hisses shut behind us. No windows, a single light. A low stimulus environment keeps things quiet for all of us. The patient is a shape beneath the blankets.<br /><br />“Medically stable?” I say over my shoulder. The intern is doing something with the keypad.<br /><br />“Medically, he’s very strong.”<br /><br />I glance over at him. It’s a strange thing to say. The patient hasn’t moved. The intern steps forward.<br /><br />"Here" he grins. "I'll introduce you."<br /><br />He reaches past me. He twitches the blanket away.<br /><br />I stare. It's not a patient, it's Donna, and she's dead. My heart thumps in my chest, I feel like I’m going to be sick. I turn. I’m shaking so I can hardly stand.<br /><br />Behind him, I see the keypad, hanging by a flex.<br /><br />"She got me in a lot of trouble," says the new doctor. Now I remember his face, dark and suspicious, his door closing as we opened ours, across the apartment hallway. "But you won't, will you?"<br /><br />And then I see the blood beneath his fingernails.<br /><br /><div align="center">__________</div><br /><br />Brendan David Carson is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror. He has been published in Aurealis, Year's Best Australian Science Fiction and a number of other magazines. His blog is at <a href="http://brendandcarsonsfiction.blogspot.com/">http://brendandcarsonsfiction.blogspot.com/</a>, he went to Clarion South 2009 and he is facebookable.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com3