by Shock Totem
Not a shark, as I had thought. I watched him for a week, outside his offices. Even radical churches keep perfect books, and once I knew how to look, he was easy to find. Not a shark, just one from the plentitude of the human sea. A fish, caught on the hook of my mother’s beauty in the name of a bell bottomed God.
I saw the records. I know how many fish she caught. I’ve seen the beatific faces of those who might have been my brothers, my sisters. They are the miracle personified, the ever expanding loaves, growing and feeding a starving population with the love their mothers gave them. It is only I who make the demons cringe. Only I who bred true to the cold blooded side of the equation.
Not a shark. The cold limpness, then, is my truth. There will be no rite of passage into virile predation, no casting off the bonds of genetic imperative.
Waves beat against rock, begging to come up while rock crumbles down, asking no permission to enter. I, no part of either absolute, shed polyester scales and dive, daring the rocks to claim me before the sea does. Beneath the crusted foam, murky dankness claims my imagined gills, filling them with heavier pollution than cigarette smoke.
In my search for annihilation, I find at last what I forgot to look for. A half fish of a different sort, lured in by this sexless confidence that only one beyond the brink can exude. Her skin is grey, dark and firm, and in her I see what I cannot be. My own darkness rises, and the hatred in my breast lashes outward.
If not the fish my father, why not the fisher? No hook to God for me; I serve myself, a darker thing.
With mother-dull teeth, I tear grey skin. Blood hits the water, and I am the beast I wish. High, firm breasts, swimmer’s breasts, flayed by my ravaging hands and mouth. I am power, and I am lust unsatisfied, and she, with the indifference of the ocean, and the weakness of her tainted line, holds no weapon against me.
In the afterglow, I stroke her merish hide, fingers running over skin and wound alike. No accusatory slit puts lie to my satiation, and the drifting bait between my legs is no longer me.
Is it love? Her face is cool as the depths we lie in, but she doesn’t leave. Night after night, and in those dark waters it is always night, I act out my dreams of violence. If Dorian’s portrait were me, how fast it would decay. But I carry my own deeds, and I see my reflection in passing scales.
Thrashing as I do, the rocks have had their share of me. My flesh, not born to water, has swelled and taken a bloated hue. All that is nothing to the gleam of dark in my milky eyes. If evil had a body, it would be mine.
The question of fish or fisher no longer haunts as I no longer haunt ill-fitting streets. Happiness. I sigh, and embrace the scarred form I love.
Lucia Starkey keeps half her heart in California and half in Massachusetts. When she isn’t writing, she designs covers for books, and keeps a flock of dinosaurs, as permitted by local poultry ordinances. You can find other dark little stories by her in Rigor Amortis and Broken Time Blues.
ABOMINATIONS
SHE DISAPPEARED
by Ryan Bridger
Grandma was the first to suspect it.
“There’s something wrong,” she said.
“You’re fine,” my mother reassured. “Everyone forgets stuff. I do. The boys sure do.” She smiled at me in the rearview mirror. I probably smiled back.
“This is different,” Grandma said.
My mom shook her head. “You worry too much. You’re fine.”
I was small, and talks between grownups didn’t mean much to the one in the back seat. I didn’t pay attention after that.
It wasn’t long before no one argued with Grandma anymore. Something was wrong—small things at first. She’d call me by my nickname instead of my real one. She’d stare off for a while before finishing a sentence.
Then it got worse. Grandpa disappeared.
I could still see him. So could everyone else. We still talked with him every day. It was only Grandma who couldn’t see him. She’d walk past him, maybe through. Sometimes the haze lifted, and she’d notice him. “Who’s that man?” she’d ask my mother. She’d beg not to be left alone with the stranger—until he disappeared again.
After a few months, my father disappeared. Within a year, my mom and brother were gone. Grandma saw me fine. She’d talk to me. Sometimes it made sense.
Eventually she didn’t see me much anymore, either.
At school they made us fill out this stupid book, called it a journal. Sister Mary said to write whatever was bothering you inside, and that it wouldn’t be graded, unless we actually did it or not. I wrote about Grandma and how much it scared me when she tried feeding pieces of food to photographs of my brother and me, convinced that the pictures were all that were left of us, even though we were sitting right there in the same room. Sometimes she’d ask who we were. She didn’t believe our answers, got upset and called us imposters. I wrote about how embarrassing it was leaving a theater after Grandma started screaming at characters on the screen. I got the journal back on Monday, just like after every weekend. There was writing inside, in Sister Mary’s red ink. It said: “It’s Alzheimer’s, not Old Timer’s.”
My brother and I kept Grandma a secret from the others at school. Kids could say things; I thought I could hold it in well enough if someone made a joke about her, but my brother had a temper. Best to keep that part of our lives to ourselves.
Things didn’t always work out the way we planned.
One day, just as recess ended and the grades lined up, I looked down the road past the schoolyard. I saw an old woman walking aimless, and for a split second I wondered if it was Grandma.
My brother was two years ahead of me, which meant he was two lines ahead of me. He broke from line in a full sprint, ran out into the road without caring about the traffic. He held that old woman by the arms, turned her around. A man arrived on the scene, too, out of breath. It was Grandpa.
I watched over my shoulder as the sisters lead my class back into the building. “Bye, Grandma,” I whispered. I don’t think the kids heard me.
Eventually an evening came when all the grownups came over to the house. They didn’t stay long. Mom told us they were off to visit Grandma, but someone would be over soon to watch us. Everyone left. Someone else arrived. She took me and my brother for ice cream. No one talked very much.
A few hours later we were dropped back off at home; everyone was already gathered in the kitchen. Whatever conversation had been going on stuttered and choked silent at the sight of us.
“Do the boys know?” Grandpa asked.
They told us Grandma died.
A few days passed; then twenty years. No one really talked about Grandma much. It was like this secret we shared, or a war we’d fought and lost and tried burying.
One night I was up having beers with my uncle. He told me the biggest regret of his life was that he didn’t hold his mother’s hand while she died.
I’ve thought about that a lot.
Years later, on a trip back to the town where Grandma died, my brother said that in all the times he’d gone back to that place he’d never visited her grave. On the drive home we passed by the cemetery. I offered to stop if he wanted me to.
He shook his head, looked away, then asked whether I thought Grandma disappeared, or if she had been right and it was the rest of us who vanished so long ago.
Behind us, the cemetery faded from view.
I didn’t have an answer for him.
Ryan Bridger’s carefree existence took a drastic turn during his twenties upon reading in a book that all the dinosaurs were dead. He made an oath that day, to fill the world with happy stories where nothing bad ever happens to anyone. He failed miserably. These days, you can see what he’s up to at www.bewarethebears.com.
STRANGE GOODS
& OTHER ODDITIES
Pretty Little Dead Things, by Gary McMahon; Angry Robot Books, 2010; 416 pgs.
I would like to start and say I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of “series” novels. I have too short of an
attention span to commit to that sort of thing, usually. I would now like to thank—and damn—Gary McMahon for making me eat those words.
I have recently read the two books comprising his Thomas Usher series, and can only hope for more. With a series, character is key, and Gary gives us some incredible examples.
In the first of the pair, Pretty Little Dead Things, we meet Thomas Usher, a broken man reeling from the loss of his wife and daughter. He survives the accident that claimed his family with a gift—or a curse depending on your perception. He can see the recently deceased, and it ain’t pretty. Trying to remain on the periphery of society, he does odd psychic investigative work and crosses paths with some seedy and unpleasant people. He wears a uniform of tattoos: a list of names of the dead he feels he has failed.
When he lands a job trying to find the culprit behind the strange murder of a gangster’s daughter, it changes him forever.
His gift proves to be his strongest weapon and weakest link, as he walks the blurred line between our world and a much darker fringe dimension, where evils, both human and cosmic are on his tail, and where things are decidedly not as they seem.
–John Boden
Dead Bad Things, by Gary McMahon; Angry Robot Books, 2011; 400 pgs.
Dead Bad Things picks up months after the Pretty Little Dead Things conclusion, and cleverly features sideline characters from that first novel, bringing them forward for deeper scrutiny.
Our reluctant hero begins this chapter of the series in a London slum, waking up to the ringing of the telephone in a haunted house. A robotic voice directs him and starts him on a sloping path of horrific crimes and disturbing visions. Someone is killing children, drilling holes into their heads. People are not as they seem. Usher will discover many things along the way, nasty vile things.
Now, I gave away very little, because to do so would be a blasphemy. You must read McMahon’s engaging words, his descriptive flair for painting dreary and haunting visions behind our eyes. His rundown neighborhoods and scumbag dives are so repulsive, I felt the fleas crawling on my skin. The baddies are really bad and the good guys are sometimes bad as well. Nothing ever is really what you think it is; and when you think you’ve got it sussed, you’re wrong. I love that.
I was at work, on lunch break, when I was finishing this book. A kid asked me what it was about, and as I started explaining his eyes began to glaze. I knew I was losing him, so I said, “It’s like an unholy cocktail of The Sixth Sense, Memento, and Wire in the Blood...with an ounce of Hellraiser.” I got the impression that was lost on him as well. Sigh...
–John Boden
Blood and Silver, by James R. Tuck; Kensington Books, 2012; 305 pgs.
When I received Blood and Silver, by James R. Tuck, for review, I was pretty pumped to start reading it. As a fan of fantastic fiction and 80s action movies, I thought this particular novel was a can’t-miss. I mean, hell, it starred a gruff, strong male lead in the mode of the best of the Commando-type flicks, and that same leading man happened to deal with the supernatural as well. How could it go wrong?
Turns out there were many ways.
Blood and Silver is the story of Deacon Chalk, the aforementioned tough-guy who happens to fight monsters. Being the second book in a series (and I personally haven’t read the first installment), I was happy to see there was plenty of exposition as to what happened before the beginning of this volume. The only problem is that the back story happens to be far more interesting than what occurs in the current tome.
Deacon protects a were-dog under attack from a were-lion, and all hell breaks loose. Turns out there’s this huge underground society of were-everythings, and the balance is being thrown off by certain factions that want to do away with the traditional predator/prey scenario that has been adhered to for decades.
I would go deeper into the plot, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t really go any deeper. What ends up following is our buff hero fighting all sorts of beasties and protecting his conveniently bodacious female counterparts. What sounds like an interesting premise on the surface turns out to be anything but—the characters have pretty much no depth (other than the main character, but even he just so), and even those were-things who wish for peace end up being predictable douchebags come the end, anyway. It’s almost as if, in this world Tuck has created, the only noble beings are muscular bald vigilantes and young, busty ladies.
And that’s a problem. The clichés regarding women are egregious, as everyone is pretty much presented as a stripper with a heart of gold. And in matters of race it isn’t much better. The darker the skin, the more evil or irresponsible the character. The only minority in the book who possesses any redeeming quality is a young girl with a crackhead mother, yet even that seems to be saying, Look what they become when they grow up. It’s strange, and honestly a little offensive.
The other big problem this book suffers from is absurdity. We go from one outlandish were-creature to the next: were-lions, were-dogs, were-spiders, were-rabbits, were-gorillas, even were-sharks and a freaking were-Tyrannosaurus Rex. After a while, it became almost like a game of Mad Libs, with the author trying to outdo himself with each subsequent scene. Add onto that dialogue that is far beyond shaky—characters speak in this odd stilted way, broken up randomly with slang—and it becomes more a farce than a serious book with serious issues.
Which is really a shame, because I get the feeling that the author actually has something to say, if only he could step outside of his personal fantasies and wish fulfillment to tell it. The idea of Deacon Chalk is pretty unique even though the archetype has become popular over the years. He just doesn’t get the chance to shine, because the book only exists to make the main character look badass…and in doing so, accomplishes anything but.
–Robert J. Duperre
Dangers Untold, Edited by Jennifer Brozek; Alliteration Ink, 2012; 350 pgs.
The Horror Society is an online Facebook group where like-minded writers, artists, editors and other professionals meet to discuss their love of all things horror (not to be confused with the horror news website of the same name). Dangers Untold is an anthology conceived by Scott Goriscak and edited by Jennifer Brozek. This anthology does not contain the usual monsters; rather, the editor wanted unusual monsters and situations, and the contributing authors delivered.
The anthology starts with a great story, “Haunted,” by Erik Scott de Bie. A man sees his life in mental snapshots, conversations and interactions burned into his brain. He cannot escape them, or edit them; he constantly relives every embarrassment, every mistake he’s made. When his girlfriend tells him something he knows he’ll never be able to forget, he takes care of the newly-made memory in a horrific way.
If you’re afraid of flying, that fear will be reinforced big-time when you read Jason V Brock’s “Black Box.” Remember the episode of The Twilight Zone that featured William Shatner as an airplane passenger who saw a gremlin on the wing? In “Black Box,” that was based on a true story—and it’s happening again.
You wouldn’t think that cute and cuddly stuffed animals could be creepy, but you’d be wrong. In “Innards,” by Erik Gustafson, a little girl discovers that her toy animals come to life—but not in the cute, Disney kind of way. These plushy animals have TEETH.
The last story, “Man with a Canvas Bag,” by Gary Braunbeck, is gut-wrenching, especially if you’re a parent. I can’t really tell much without giving a lot away, so I’ll just say that this story is the best one in a book of great tales. It’s obvious what’s going to happen, but you’re powerless not to read it because it’s so gripping. Fantastic story.
Dangers Untold is one of the best anthologies I’ve read this year, put out by a little group a lot of people haven’t heard of yet. If you love anthologies as much as I do, this is one you definitely need to add to your collection.
–Sheri White
Art Is the Devil, by John Skipp; Fungasm Press, 2012; Digital
I will start with an admission—and, yes, I have
made it before, numerous times: I am a rabid John Skipp fanboy.
That is not to say that I wholeheartedly love everything he has ever churned out. There are a few things that, while I enjoyed them, I was not giddy with psychotic frenzy upon completion; but those few are outnumbered by the face-ripping brilliance of works like The Bridge and Jake’s Wake.
But let’s get on to Art Is the Devil, Skipp’s newest story, which is currently available only in the newfangled Kindle format from his Fungasm Press imprint.
This is satire, folks. High caliber, funny-as-a-rubber-crutch, hit-the-mark satire. In Art Is the Devil, Skipp points a bloody finger at the art snobs, the celebrities, the sycophants, and pretty much most of the Hollywood coolios. It begins with two pretty—and could-be obnoxious—chicks standing outside the Hyaena Art Gallery in Burbank, California, after viewing Winning: The Charlie Sheen Exhibit, dedicated to Charlie Sheen and his very public “breakdown.”
Plans for the rest of the night change, however, after a chance encounter with an odd little man gets the girls an invite to his “true art” exhibit later that night. From there, things get really whacked out. Really.
As you’d expect from Skipp, Art Is the Devil is rife with witty commentary, buckets of gore, a cameo by the Devil (who we all know), and a liberal dose of ridiculous logic.