by Jeff Strand
Sergei kneeled down next to Yuri and patted him on the flank.
“You’ve got yourself into a mess. Huh, boy?” he soothed the dog. “What was it? A skunk? A raccoon? You need to be careful, my boy.”
The big beast flopped his tail against the blanket and whimpered in distress. He gagged, shook his head and tried to blow air out of his nostrils.
“Are you okay, boy?” Sergei was becoming concerned. Nothing usually bothered Yuri. One time he had even been struck a glancing blow by a car and Yuri had just walked away with a bruise. The car’s door panel, on the other hand, had a dent the size of Yuri’s head in it.
Yuri began whining frantically. He stood up, walked a few steps and began retching in the middle of the concrete floor.
“That’s it, boy. We’re taking you to the doctor,” said Sergei. He walked to the stairwell and yelled up, “Sofi! Call the vet. I have to take Yuri in immediately!”
He turned back just in time to see his dog vomit up a softball-sized lump of pinkish pudding and collapse to the floor. Sergei ran to Yuri to gather him up in his arms, but once he saw what had come of Yuri’s throat, he stopped and stared.
The object seemed to be a shredded piece of one of Yuri’s internal organs. It smelled like death, and it was crawling with hundreds of grubs. Their pincers were the color of blood.
BLACKBIRD LULLABY
BY GEORGE COTRONIS
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And He asked him, “What is thy name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion: for we are many.”
—Gospel of Mark 5:9
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I’m lying in bed, alone. My arm extends over the side of the bed, wrist resting on the night table. I move my fingers and I can feel the tendons in my arm pulling them like puppets on a string. My middle and last finger are stripped of flesh down to the second knuckle, leaving the bone visible. The blackbird makes two small jumps and comes closer, disturbed by my sudden movement. I stop moving and it starts to peck at my flesh again. I watch it for a while. There is no pain. When I get bored, I shoo it away and it takes flight across the room to join its murder. His buddies are everywhere in the room, perched on furniture and lamps. They seem to be waiting for something.
The bed is full of trash, pieces of fabric and twigs, plastic bottle caps and paper. The blackbirds have turned it into a nest. I get up and find myself bleeding from several different places on my body. They’ve been eating me in my sleep again. My clothes are stained with blood and full of holes. Most of the blood is old, because I haven’t changed in a week. All my shirts have holes now.
In the bathroom, I wrap my fingers with gauze, trying to make them look even, as if there’s still meat underneath the white cloth. I consider using some antiseptic, but don’t see the point. I throw the bottle in the trash bin.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
Gaunt. Tired. Broken.
There are black circles around my eyes, my lips are dried and split, my face swollen and puffy. One of the ravens took out a small piece of flesh right under my eye. The blood runs down the side of my face, like the streak of a red tear. I wash up and put on a clean shirt. I feel almost human again. I look at my watch. I’m gonna be late.
Out on the street, people avoid me. Little girls clutch their father’s hand and hide their face. They cry. I guess the clean clothes didn’t help. Head down, hood up, I try to look more like a thug, a guy you shouldn’t mess with, instead of the monster that I really am. It seems to work better. In the subway, a blackbird finds its way to me. It watches from the seat across from me, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. No one seems to notice or care.
Me, I’m used to it. I look down my nose at it and hold its stare. Not that it gives a shit. It hops down to the floor and comes closer. It picks at my shoelaces. I look at my face in the reflection in the window. I’m bleeding again. I feel no pain in my fingers or the myriad of smaller wounds I carry, but my head is killing me. I used to wonder how I can still be alive, but these days there’s a lot of things I don’t think about. I just don’t care. The extent to which I do not care would shock you.
I get off at my stop and head for the old church up the hill. There was a fire a few years back they never repaired the building, but it is still in decent condition. You just have to get creative about entering it. Around back, where the fence put up by the city has a human-sized hole in it, I enter the churchyard. One of the doors, the one closest to the fence, is unlocked. When it’s not, they key is behind one of the loose bricks in the wall beside it.
Inside, Meg and Jonathan are already waiting. Meg is a tall woman, thin, used to be pretty. She’s wearing a summer dress that’s two sizes larger than it should be. I suspect it used to fit her once. One of her nipples is showing but she’s too out of it to notice. Her dead eyes stare straight ahead. She doesn’t see me.
Jonathan is holding her hand. He turns his head to me when I come in, but then turns to her again. They met here two years ago. Meg is near the end now, Jonathan still going strong.
Two blackbirds fly in from the broken window and land on the rubble strewn about in the church. Most of the roof is gone, but the little corner we have set up here keeps dry even when it rains. Winters are tough; then again we rarely meet like this. Usually it’s just desperate phone calls in the middle of the night and unexpected visits. A circle of pews stands in the middle of all the trash and junk. I take my seat across from the couple and say nothing.
Welcome to Damned Anonymous. Living with things that are killing you from the inside. “Getting well—not really, we’re just dying—together.”
Our little support group. When Meg first started growing tumors that got up and walked around in the night, she figured a support group for cancer survivors wasn’t going to be that helpful. When Jonathan woke up to find himself chewing on his little daughter’s arm, Alcoholics Anonymous just wasn’t an option for him anymore.
But they tried. And in those endless support group meetings, we found each other. Maybe it was the desperation that we saw in each other’s eyes. The fear of something worse than death, which we recognized. Meg found me in a depression support group. I was saying I feel empty, numb, dead inside. After the meeting, over stale coffee and even staler donuts, she came over and said: “You’re not really afraid you’re gonna kill yourself, are you? You’re here for something else.” Maybe she saw the birds, perching on the windowsill. Maybe she noticed the bloodstains. So we started our own group. A few of us sometimes visit A.A. and groups like that. We recruit the demonically possessed.
Brennan walks in and takes me out of my little trip down memory lane. He’s looking a bit better than last time. It probably means he fed again. One of those hookers downtown didn’t wake up today and right now she’s floating in the river, face down in the water, bloated like a balloon. If she’s lucky some poor fisherman is gonna snag her in his nets and she’ll get a burial.
He looks ashamed, but in this little crowd, no one gives a fuck if he ate some girl’s heart and dumped her over the bridge. We’re too involved in our own misery. I wave to him and he sits down. The room slowly fills up with the rest of the monsters and the stench gets progressively worse. The blackbirds have flooded the church, but they’re quiet today, so I’m not gonna get in trouble with Jennifer, our group leader. Jennifer has a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, each one filed to a point. When she cries, she cries blood. A Catholic, she tried to get an exorcism a year ago. It didn’t work. I’m pretty sure she killed them, but she says she didn’t. I think I read it in the papers, two priests missing around the same time. She looks like she’s been crying.
Today, there is a new girl. Short black dress, ripped in some places and dirty with what looks to be ashes, heavy black make up, her eyes unblinking and taking in everything at once. She’s gorgeous and deep within me I feel something slither, like Leviathan at the bottom of the ocean.
Her name is Magdalene.
There’s a rat gnawing at her ank
le.
I think my heart has stopped.
•
We go around the circle, telling our story for the umpteenth time, pouring salt on our wounds again, to try and center ourselves, get in touch with the reality of our situation, understand and accept what we can’t change.
When it’s Brennan’s turn, he confirms my suspicions.
“I fed again. I couldn’t help it. I was looking at my wife and thinking about eating her heart. I had to do something.” He pauses and looks at the floor between his legs. Crocodile tears.
“I drove downtown and picked up a streetwalker. Young thing. I just picked up the first that came up to my car. I held it off until we reached the hills and then I killed her. I ate her heart and buried her up there, in the woods.”
He’s almost gone, he just doesn’t know it yet. He’s talking about this girl and crying, but I can see he’s also salivating. I see him smile when he says the word “heart.”
He breaks down and between sobs he keeps repeating “I’m so sorry … so sorry.”
Jennifer consoles him with a hug while I roll my eyes. Fucking poser.
Meg is too out of it to share today. Jonathan says he’s okay, he’s controlling the cravings. I’m trying not to fall asleep. I’m waiting to hear her story. I think I know what she’s going to say, but I want to hear her voice.
She will say:
“One day I saw them watching me on the street. I saw them again the very next day and the day after that. They watched from the alleys and under cars and from the roofs of buildings. They followed me around, they came into my house, they watched me sleep. No matter what I did, they found a way in, they killed themselves in their attempts to come to me, and in the end, they always found me. There was no way to stop them. No poison or weapon would keep them away. So, they became a part of me. They live with me. They are everywhere, always. I have no friends, because the last time I went for a cup of coffee, the little freaks attacked the waiter and I had to run out of the place with them after me, always after me. They are eating me alive.”
Me, blackbirds.
Her, rats.
We have so much in common.
•
After sharing I walk up to her and say, “Nice dress.”
She turns around and gives me the once-over. She seems unimpressed.
“Nice scabs.” She smirks, but doesn’t turn away.
“There’s a rat trying to climb up your dress.” I smile.
She looks down and then catches herself.
“Made you look,” I say.
“Funny,” she says, angry but laughing.
“Do you want to go someplace?” I ask.
“I don’t really go out in public.” She motions with her head towards the two rats gnawing on donuts on the table. “But you could come to my place.”
A blackbird lands on my shoulder, tries to pluck out my eye. I slap it and it flies away, back up to the rafters.
“Where do you live?”
“Parkside,” she says.
“Too far. Too many birds out there. How about my place?” I ask.
She agrees to come to my apartment tomorrow, to see my record collection. She’s into The Smiths but who the fuck cares; we both know she doesn’t give a shit about my records or anything else in my shitty apartment. Except me. She wants me.
On the subway ride home, I feel almost human again. I’d celebrate, but I haven’t eaten or had a drink in weeks. I go home and I sleep on my bed made out of blood and black feathers.
•
She’s at my place exactly on time. I put on a relatively clean shirt, my skin itchy all over from the feathers and the bird shit that’s been irritating it. I open the door. She’s cute in her flower pattern dress, with fresh little wounds at the top of her breasts. A bit of her scalp is missing over her left ear and she uses a flower to hide it.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
She walks into my apartment, which is covered in black feathers and dirt, birds taking flight with every step she takes. I feel like a teenager. A teenager slowly turning into something else, but still. Nervous.
I drop the The Smiths record on her lap. She pretends to be interested for a bit but ultimately discards it on the coffee table. She pats the place beside her on the couch, and I obey.
“How are you doing with them?” I ask.
“Okay. I think I’m getting close.”
I nod. I’ve felt the same lately. There will be a tipping point and then, the transformation will be complete. Our demons will consume us.
“You?” She picks at a scab on her knee. It’s cute.
I shrug. “Who knows? I don’t think about it,” I lie.
I get up and bring out the wine and the glasses. She looks excited. We finish the bottle off in half an hour flat and when we’re done with the boring chit chat, we make out on the couch. Our wounds open and we bleed into each other, feathers and coarse brown hair sticking to our bodies. It’s painful and awkward and sometimes I feel like I will faint from the blood loss, but there are moments when I forget that my body is rotting and my heart is dead and hell is waiting for me.
We stumble to the bedroom and fuck in a drunken stupor, with the rats and the blackbirds watching.
•
I wake up and I feel empty, hollow. I reach into my chest and I touch a crow nesting there. Its coat is slick with my blood but it’s not afraid. It feels safe inside of me. I feel safe too.
She’s still here, her arm resting on my chest. A rat is peeking from under her dress. I wake her with a kiss and her little rat teeth gnaw at my lips. She draws blood and immediately I’m hard. I climb on top of her and then we are one, and the blackbirds and the rats are clawing and biting, and we flow into one another, and as monsters we are reborn.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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JACK BANTRY is the editor of Splatterpunk Zine. His debut novel, The Lucky Ones Died First, will be published this summer by Deadite Press. He works as a postman and resides in a small town at the edge of the North York Moors.
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THE BEHRG is the author of dark literary works ranging from screenplays to ‘to-do’ lists. His debut novel, Housebroken, was a First-Round Kindle Scout Selection, and semi-finalist in the 2015 Kindle Book Awards. He has had several short stories published in both print and digital anthologies and is the author of The Creation Series, with books two and three scheduled for a 2016 release. His ‘to-do’ list should be completed by 2017 … (though his wife is hoping for a little sooner). Discover why he writes as “The Behrg” at his website: TheBehrg.com
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ADAM CESARE is a New Yorker who lives in Philadelphia. His books include Mercy House, Video Night, The Summer Job, and Tribesmen. His work has been praised by Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Publishers Weekly, Bloody Disgusting, and more. His titles have appeared on “Year’s Best” lists from outlets like Complex and FearNet. He writes a monthly column for Cemetery Dance Online.
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GEORGE CONTRONIS lives in the wilderness of Northern Sweden. He makes a living designing book covers. He sometimes writes. His stories have appeared in XIII, Big Pulp and Vignettes from the End of the World.
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CLARE de LUNE, also known as Clare Castleberry, is a librarian who writes weird stuff: erotica, horror, sci-fi, transgressive and bizarro fiction. When she's not traveling to strange lands, she lives with her beloved boyfriend and cat in New Orleans. Clare has been published in The Big Book of Bizarro Anthology, Necronomicum Magazine and with Zombiegasm Press and is a member of the Horror Writers Association.
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SCOTT EMERSON: Perhaps best known for his blog 365 Days of the Dead (in which he watched and reviewed a zombie movie every day for a year), Scott Emerson has recently appeared in the anthologies Destroy All Robots, Diner Stories: Off the Menu, Westward Hoes, and The Big Book of Bizarro. Currently he serves as facilitator for Morgantown Poets.
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ROBERT ESSIG began writing as
a result of his fascination with everything horror—books, magazines, movies, etc. He is the author of the novels People of the Ethereal Realm and Through the In Between, Hell Awaits. He has published over 40 short stories and two novellas. Robert lives in Southern California with his wife and son. Find out what he’s been up to at robertessig.blogspot.com
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MICHAEL PAUL GONZALEZ is the author of the novels Angel Falls and Miss Massacre’s Guide To Murder And Vengeance. A member of the Horror Writers Association, his short stories have appeared in print and online, including Gothic Fantasy: Chilling Horror Stories, 18 Wheels of Horror, the Booked Podcast Anthology, HeavyMetal.com, and the Appalachian Undead Anthology. He resides in Los Angeles, a place full of wonders and monsters far stranger than any that live in the imagination. You can visit him online at MichaelPaulGonzalez.com
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ADAM HOWE writes the twisted fiction your mother warned you about. A British writer of fiction and screenplays, he lives in Greater London with his partner and their hellhound, Gino. Writing as Garrett Addams, his short story "Jumper" was chosen by Stephen King as the winner of the On Writing contest, and published in the paperback/Kindle editions of SK's book; he was also granted an audience with The King, where they mostly discussed slow vs. fast zombies. His fiction has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Thuglit, The Horror Library, Mythic Delirium, Plan B Magazine, and One Buck Horror. He is the author of two collections, Black Cat Mojo and Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, plus the eBook single, Gator Bait. Future works include Tijuana Donkey Showdown, One Tough Bastard, and a crime/horror collaboration with Adam Tribesmen Cesare.
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MP JOHNSON is the Wonderland Book Award-winning author of Dungeons & Drag Queens. His most recent books include Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill! and Sick Pack. He is the creator of Freak Tension zine, a B-movie extra and an amateur drag queen AKA Maddy Manslaughter. Learn more at www.freaktension.com.
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PETE KAHLE is the author of the award-winning scifi/horror epic The Specimen. In April 2015, he founded Bloodshot Books, a small press dedicated to cross-genre fiction that mixes the best of horror, science fiction, mystery and thrillers. In October of that year, the anthology Not Your Average Monster was unleashed to universally excellent reviews. Volume 2 was released five months later to equally positive accolades.