by Unknown
VINCE DARCANGELO
Tommy can’t help that he was born with cheesecloth skin, knobby limbs, and that hideous, asymmetrical face. He winces at his reflection in the mirror. His mouth droops as if he’s catching flies.
Tommy Flystrip, Sam Dillard has called him since freshman year.
And sure, Tommy knows that beauty is not the summing of parts, but still he feels like a monster constructed of odd-fitting pieces. He stares at this disfigured wreck of a thing and wonders, Who could love me? Or, Who would ever touch me? which is worse, because you could love ugly. You could love it like a child. But who wanted to touch it?
Julia Dillard is nothing like her brother. She never called him Tommy Flystrip, but she is too beautiful to really love him.
Today, in front of her locker, he’d asked Julia to accompany him to see a movie. She flashed a smile, but it was the wrong kind. Her eyes avoided his and before she could respond, Sam snuck up from behind and pulled down his pants, underwear and all.
Tommy shudders, recalling the humiliation. He slams a fist into his reflection. Bright blood splatters the wall, but the ugly doesn’t go away. He digs through the broken glass for the sharpest piece. It sparkles in the dim motel light, and though beauty is not the sum of one’s individual parts, he believes that if he could fix the most offensive sections of his body he could create a more appealing whole.
I will be beautiful, Tommy says to the broken mirror.
He pierces himself with the glass and cuts. There is pain, but also a pleasant tingling in his neck and head. The bathroom darkens and swirls, and Tommy concentrates on his breathing. Then he peels back that disgusting layer of skin to see if there’s a beautiful version of himself living inside the ugly one. There isn’t, so he cuts deeper, all over. The tip of his nose plops into the sink. An acne-scarred cheek hangs like a banana peel.
For a moment, he almost forgets Julia is waiting for him in the next room.
Instead of the cinema, Tommy brought her here, to this forgotten motel far from town. Now Tommy feels sorry, because despite his efforts, he can’t make himself beautiful enough for her.
On the bed, Julia is squirming beneath her bonds. The duct tape seals her screams. Peels of flesh hang off him like a tattered suit, and Tommy Flystrip kisses her with the shredded remnants of his lips. He’ll keep the best parts for himself before taking her home. He presses the bloody glass to her face and searches for the beauty within.
Vince Darcangelo is an award-winning journalist, author and photographer. He has recently appeared in Black Ink Horror, From Shadows and Nightmares, Dark Things and Bete Noire. His work can also be found at www.vincedarcangelo.com.
AWAKE
ADAM STEHLY
The low moan of thunder in the background breaks the stillness of the night. It is followed by the distant whistle of a freight train reminding me that the world moves on and is still alive. I lie awake in bed, head swimming through a muddled, looping mess of delirium, anxiety, threat, dread and unknowing. The dog at the foot of my bed crowds me, the bristle of his fur against my skin. I turn from my wife. Glowing red numbers on the alarm clock stare at me, remind me of the finite period in which I have remaining to rest. And I wonder, what’s the point?
I hoist myself out of bed. My hip crackles as pain shoots down my leg, distorting my posture. I hobble to the bathroom, sit down to take a piss because I don’t want to turn on the light to my sensitive eyes and I don’t want to miss the toilet. I don’t flush because I don’t want to wake her up. I stand and the pain shoots through me again.
Rain begins to patter against the aluminum canopy covering the patio. It’s slow, hard and loud. Then the sky opens and rain pounds everything. Approaching thunder rumbles. Lightning hops from cloud to cloud, electrifying the sky.
I move to the sofa, turn on the TV so that it can be the voice inside my head. Carl Sagan travels through the Cosmos. I watch Voyager’s flight through the solar system as it explores the gas giants and their moons. I watch the revolving red spot of a ceaseless storm on Jupiter. How long will the storm last? Voyager moves out into space past the furthest reaches of our solar system into the void.
I fall asleep but only for a few minutes–a blank spot in my memory. I twitch awake again and know that I cannot be greater than the sum of my parts. And I know that I will die. I abandon hope of sleep. I sit up and push myself from the sofa, shuffle back to the bedroom and slink into bed. I am not cold but draw the cover over me as I rest my head. I kick at the dog and he scoots away. Next to me, she sleeps like a peaceful bundled babe. I brush my fingers over her cold, drying skin, and I pray for the day that I’m as unfeeling and dead as her.
Adam Stehly lives in Wisconsin with his wife, two stepsons, four cats and dog. Moving up from Florida, he’s convinced himself that the winters aren’t so bad after all. He also has a penchant for brewing and drinking beer. He has a B.A. in English from Penn State and has been passionate about horror fiction, movies and comics since adolescence.
LEAVES
R. F. MARAZAS
“Witch . . .” He whispered under his breath. He had to return to the city, get away from this backwoods prison, away from her. He’d endured the long summer unable to concentrate, write, do anything. Her damned rituals and chantings; the eerie silences that followed . . . his nerves were rubbed raw with them, sanity fraying.
Leaves fell in profusion, raining against the cottage roof, their furtive, spidery rustling keeping him from dreams. Another night was approaching; her night of nights, Halloween. He wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t endure another day.
Calliope sat in her battered rocker, dressed in black, eyes turned inward. He stood before her, trembling in terror and determination.
“We’re finished, you hear me? I’m leaving. Maybe your damn fantasies will keep you warm at night.”
“Goodbye then,” she said.
He had to put down a suitcase to open the door. Frustrated now, he yanked it open. Wind gusted, flinging a single dead leaf into his face. He raged, crumbling the leaf, flinging it to the floor.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
He laughed, striding to his car. The gloomy day was still. He crammed his luggage into the back seat and started the car. In his rear view mirror, he saw Calliope in the doorway, raising her arms as if conducting an orchestra. He laughed again, wheels spitting gravel as he screeched from the driveway.
On the rutted road leading out, the wind picked up suddenly, roaring around the car. Ground-scattered leaves rose in monstrous waves. As he gaped in astonishment, stomping the brake, they crashed down. His windshield shattered, the engine sputtering, dying. He shoved the door open. Mounds of leaves surrounded the car. He stood and stared in dumb disbelief. His tires were flat, leaves embedded in the rubber, driven into pockmarked dents on the hood and roof.
The wind waned. Leaves stirred at his ankles, lifting in the breeze to hang poised in the air. Thousands, tens of thousands, skittered along the ground from all directions, massing as they drew closer, closer . . .
He ran. The wind roared again, hurling leaves at his back. He ducked, covering his head with his hands, running faster. Through a haze of tears, he saw Calliope still standing in the doorway, arms raised, fingers dancing in the air. Then the wind found him, chaos sweeping him up, swallowing him whole. Serrated leaves slashed at him, tearing his clothes, ripping his exposed skin. He batted at them, arms pin-wheeling. His eyes . . . he couldn’t see! The cottage and Calliope were gone. He zigzagged crazily, stumbling away from the door toward the unseen ditch at the back of the property.
His foot flailed in empty air, plunging him into the ditch. Leaves rose and poured, covering him. The wind’s howl, sick and ragged like that of a starving wolf, rose in concert with the crunching leaves to stifle his screams.
Calliope lowered her arms. The wind died.
“Shouldn’t have done it.” She slammed the door.
R.F. Marazas won first place in the Dahlonega Literary Festival 2007
Novel Contest, for his novel Dimensions In Ego, and has published short fiction in seven Anthologies and on-line venues.
INSTINCT
SUZIE LOCKHART
Zenia woke to sunbeams cutting through cracks in the boards nailed to the windows. The brilliant rays illuminated the dust, and, just looking at them, made her sneeze. She rubbed her eyes to clear away sleep, and rolled onto her side.
An excruciating pain shot through her left arm. In order to keep from crying out, she bit down on her bottom lip until she drew blood. The coppery flavor actually tasted good on her tongue, as she licked it across the open wound.
She glanced around to be certain everyone else was asleep. They were spread out all over the wood floor, but no one else was awake. Yet.
Slowly, she rolled up her sleeve to check the scratch. Green ooze seeped from it. She grabbed a strip of cloth from her backpack and wrapped it tightly around her arm, and then slid her sleeve back down to conceal the wound.
Her survival instinct was already kicking in. She knew she should wake Carson up and ask him to shoot her, while she still could be easily killed. But she knew she wouldn’t.
She leaned against the cold brick wall, trying to think, but her ability to reason was quickly abandoning her. She looked around at the dozen or so people who had become her family during their fight for survival. What would happen to them, if she didn’t get the hell out of here?
For some, it would be the same thing that was happening to her right now.
For others . . .
Her gut clenched, the revolting, burning need already settling in the pit of her stomach. The air even smelled different, savory, evoking childhood memories of roasting hot dogs over a campfire, with her parents.
That was before the world had changed. Before the biological weapon, developed overseas, had accidentally been let loose. Before it had spread at an unbelievable rate, changing people into monsters that fed off of everyone.
And they were not easily killed once the transformation was complete.
Zenia felt saliva escape through her lips, and she coughed.
“Are you okay?” Tina, her sister, murmured.
Zenia kept her voice low. “Just go. It’s daylight now. Get to a safe place before dark.” Her emotions were quickly dissolving.
Tina–the only thing she had left.
Zenia clung desperately to her last shred of humanity.
Her sister looked into her red-rimmed eyes and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Everyone woke up, and the room exploded into mass mayhem.
Unable to fight it any longer, Zenia snatched one of the men with her newfound strength. She sank her teeth into his flesh, feeling a distant satisfaction as she watched Tina run out into the daylight.
Then, her humanity disappeared forever.
Suzie Lockhart is a 45-year-old, who aspires to write books for young adults with her 19-year-old son, Bruce. They are currently collaborating on their debut novel. She married her college sweetheart, and they reside in Pennsylvania with their four children. Her hobbies include art and jewelry design.
EVERY FIBER
PEGGY MCFARLAND
John tapped the bedroom door. After months of pursuit, Penelope had finally invited him to her chambers. He wiped his sweaty palms against his thighs before responding to her husky come in.
A gossamer sheet hinted at propriety; bare arms and legs glowed in candlelight. Lust propelled him to the bed. “I’ve waited so long.”
The perspiration sheen belied Penelope’s coquettish smile. He kissed her forehead, marveled at her translucent skin, her fluttering eyelashes, her shallow breaths.
Her nipples hardened under his gliding hand. Soft lips brushed his earlobe as her fingers unbuttoned his shirt, traced the line of hair from his chest to his navel.
“A seam,” she whispered, “holding you together.”
She scratched his sternum. He yelped, sure she drew blood, but her probing tongue distracted him. His cry shifted to a moan.
Hungry for what his fingers already sampled, John tugged at the fabric shrouding her body. He wanted to touch skin to skin, but she gripped the sheet’s edge. Her body trembled.
“Tell me how much you want me.” She licked his chest.
John couldn’t concentrate. He stammered, “You . . . don’t . . . know.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you—what should I say?”
“With every fiber of your being?”
“With every fiber of my being.”
She tightened her hug. “I need you.”
“I’m yours.”
She shifted. John found himself flipped, Penelope on top, her thighs like vice-grips immobilizing his hips. Her gaze mesmerized him. Lethargy seeped into his body. Her hair snapped the air, a thousand whips cracking before each lashed John, securing his ankles, his wrists, his body immobile.
She extended one sharp fingernail, punctured the hollow of his throat. He gasped, screamed at the next tugging sensation. Something jerked free from deep in his gut.
“The first fiber of your being,” she said, showing John a long, iridescent string. Blood droplets spattered his face as the end dangled and danced. She deftly wound it into a neat coil, laid it by his side.
“You complete me,” she whispered.
John wrenched his gaze from her stare. The sheet molded against her form, even though both her hands were busy looping long, glowing strands. What he thought was a gossamer covering he now saw as tattered. Candlelight flickered through threadbare fabric.
He saw no torso. No breasts, no stomach, no hips. No tissue, no organs. No heart. Air shimmered between the legs straddling his body and her hovering shoulders. He screamed, but heard nothing. She’d taken his vocal cords.
She touched a fiber end to where her non-existent crotch rested on John’s pubic bone. Her fingers flew, connecting long filaments from the top of her thighs to her shoulders, manipulating a vertical warp. A fingernail sliced the hair-seam from his sternum to his pubic bone. John’s screams echoed in his mind as Penelope tugged more fibers from his body, weaving the extracted strands into the horizontal weft.
Her body emerged, pale iridescent skin filling her blank spaces. John felt himself unravel. As sensation ceased, Penelope appeared radiant and whole.
Peggy McFarland writes mostly speculative fiction. Her stories have appeared at Shroud Magazine, Golden Visions Magazine, Silverthought, Trembles, Cannoli Pie and the forthcoming Dead Calm: Crime Stories by New England Writers, available Winter 2011. When not writing, she manages a restaurant, and sometimes gets to see her family.
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
LORI MICHELLE
Alice looked around nervously as she clutched her keys in her hand. This neighborhood had always been a little seedy and lately there had been a lot of disappearances. She looked at her car; it was about a block away. There were a considerable number of parked cars for such a vacated area. She heard footsteps and glanced over her shoulder; nothing more than a few leaves scuttling in the wind. A chill went through her, causing her to pull her coat tightly around her, resolutely putting one step in front of the other.
The sun seemed to be going down faster than she anticipated. She wouldn’t normally be here but had overheard a job lead earlier and hurried toward the site. Evidently, it turned out to be a dead end; the building boarded up and abandoned.
“Allliiiccceee.” The wind seemed to be calling her name.
Her head shot up in panic . . . but there was no one around; not even the normal city vagrants. She resisted the urge to run to her car, telling herself that it was all in her mind.
Alice found herself wondering where everyone had gone. She was surprised that none of the empty buildings housed any squatters. She experienced a brief flash of the hordes of zombie-vampires in I Am Legend, and thought of what would happen if she was surrounded by similar creatures. She giggled at the ridiculous thought and continued to her car. A rumble went through the street like a small earthquake,
and Alice wondered if there was a thunderstorm coming.
She looked again at her vehicle a block away. Alice halted, eyeing the distance incredulously. She had gotten no closer to the car than she had been five minutes earlier. How could that be? She looked at the building next to her realizing that it was different than the one she had started from. The buildings appeared to be closing in on her.
“Allliiiccceee, we’ve been waiting.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She sensed she was being watched, refusing to open her eyes lest her imagination become a reality. After a while, she finally found the courage to open them, relieved to find no one waiting around to eat her brains. She looked at the building next to her again, and it seemed as if she were closer to it than before. Again, she glanced over her shoulders and it still seemed like the buildings were consuming her space. She closed her eyes again. A warm breath hit her neck and she cringed.
Forcing herself to face her fears, Alice opened her eyes to see that the buildings were bending over her in a surreal death gaze. She watched as they leaned closer down to her with their fiercely red malevolent eyes. The building next to her opened up its doors and swallowed her whole.
Once again, the neighborhood had found peace.
Lori Michelle was born in Los Angeles where she was trained to be a ballerina. After injuring herself, she turned her creative efforts elsewhere. Now she resides in San Antonio and is the mother of two, a bookkeeper/IT tech for a real estate company, a dance studio owner, and a graphic designer (www.lmbgraphics.com).
THE UNWRAPPING
CARRIE ANNE MARTIN
Moments of the past, once exquisitely captured on camera . . . fading. Lies, vanishing.
Part of my brain had begun to throb, gaining momentum with every stark flashback. I hugged my glass of wine as I had once clung to the comfort of my covers against the dark shadows of night.