Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre

by ed. Tim W. Lieder

  But it was too late.

  Suddenly, with a noise like a snapping mousetrap, fiery pain exploded in his groin and shot through his entire body. He felt razor sharp, needle teeth digging deep into his crotch, chomping forcefully—up and down, up and down. Snakes groped helplessly between his twitching legs, trying to fight the little beast, trying to wrestle it away. When his jittering hands grasped the slimy, coarse hairs on the thing’s body—easily the size of a cat—Snakes knew it was too late; he could feel the thing’s furious head inside him, clearing a path. As terror and agony surged through him, he looked down and caught a glimpse of something that didn’t look like a rat at all.

  Stuff so goddamn hot it can burn a bitchin’ hole right through reality.

  He stopped screaming, and coldness danced over him, holding the hand of darkness.

  * * *

  The dumpster lid crashed open. Lights reached into the gruesome darkness. Nick and O’Malley peered over the edge just in time to see a thick, pink-gray tail slither like a snake into the bleeding tear as the anomaly burrowed itself deep inside the dead man.

  “Well suck me on a Saturday,” Nick said. “Did you see that little bastard go?”

  O’Malley nodded and let the dumpster lid slam shut. “He won’t be cold when the winter months roll around.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said with a chuckle. “Plenty to eat, too.” He looked up at the decrepit, abandoned buildings. “Well, it was slinking in that dumpster, waiting to eat some garbage. The way I figure, it got what it wanted.” He paused for a moment and inhaled a whiff of the sour city air. “One less criminal on the streets, one less cell to fill.”

  “Say,” O’Malley said to his partner, looking at Oscar with a famished look in his beady eyes, “you hungry?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Nick answered, licking his lips. He neared the bleeding cadaver, grinning with protruding buckteeth. The two officers hauled Oscar’s body away, their pink-gray tails shivering excitedly beneath tidy uniforms.

  Brilliant Suspension by Trina Shealy Orton

  Nameless and faceless, just a piece of meat, the man hung above a knife-sharp rocky pit. Time had stopped. When he found consciousness the first time, he had thought he still might break free but quickly surrendered hope. Opened or closed, his traitor eyes swallowed stygian night. He didn't care. He was and was not. He floated and sank.

  Water trickled over distant stone. At first, he would imagine anything to soothe his misery - cool breezes flowing over his bare flesh or water to moisten his cracked lips - but the images became torture. He gave up replaying his life. He forgot the things he should have said to make things right.

  Things scrambled in the dark under him. Their noises ricocheted in a dance of expectation. When he'd still been producing bodily waste, he heard them consuming it, and the greedy slurping sounds crashed into the crevices to grate cruelly in his ears.

  He was purified of everything, including his last supper (alcohol and nicotine), and waiting. He did not know what would happen after he died and couldn't resent those who had done this to him. If they reappeared, he might even thank them for his newfound clarity. He didn't bother to wonder where they had gone after blind-siding him outside the bar. He would never know the owner of the voice that lured him into the alley.

  He'd been tipping back a few at the local bar's happy hour. It was something he did to relax after work and to dull his bitterness. Since Lora had left him, he'd been so lonely. Desperation and need had made him follow the voice's beckoning when it had said his name; it had been the call of a siren.

  They'd carried him to this place and stripped him, tying him up like a pig bound for the spit and leaving him suspended in the chilly dark for days that bled into each other.

  He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen light; he'd been unconscious when they'd left him, taking their torches away. The stink of pitch had filled his nostrils for ages.

  He felt his bones creaking, slowly breaking through his shoulder and hip. His flesh was sloughing off in large portions from his arms and legs, his face and torso. Long, black hair had once covered his head. In spite of all this, he did not worry.

  Giddiness rose inside him, surprising him with its intensity. He tried to laugh, but after so long in silence, even those gravelly barks deafened him. His eardrums burst and oozed bright ichor, but he couldn't stop. His laughter became so loud that the air reverberated. The rocks began to vibrate, and smaller stones clattered downward. Eerie echoes bounced off the walls and back. A haunting symphony and a gout of rust-colored blood sprang from his lips.

  The shifting crevices shook free the hooks that held his ropes, and he fell quickly. The shock of his limbs flopping and his skeletal fingers failing to find purchase silenced him. He waited for the impact.

  Inches before impaling himself on the rocks of the pit, light began to seep through his skin in bursts of energy that grew brighter, pushing him back up. He levitated. He could see his surroundings, a tiny man-made cavern, before his eyes were incinerated.

  His luminescence turned his body white-hot. The last of his flesh blasted clear of bone and exposed muscle that became ragged strips before melting away. His viscera and blood rained down to coat the scrambling things.

  And then - Oblivion.

  When consciousness returned a lifetime later, he rediscovered his eyes. A soft light barely made its way to the walls, but he could see that he was still inside the cavern. Rather than being bound like before, he now floated feet-first over the abyss. His own body provided the illumination.

  Slowly he lifted a hand, experiencing no pain even after his long confinement. His body was again flesh, but instead of his usual solid mocha, he was a perfect golden translucence threaded with pale blue strands. The strands moved when he wiggled his fingers. Verdigris blue currents flashed up and down his limbs at regular intervals.

  He figured it was a dying illusion. The breeze caressed his thighs when there had been no breeze, his lost hair now tickled the small of his back, and the once dry tongue now moist... all figments of his imagination, a desire to make Will be Truth.

  He ran a hand over his chest, shivering at the freedom. He closed his eyes and threw his head back, hair rustling, and began to take one step forward...

  A muffled whisper of sound brought him back to reality. With a snap of his head, he sought the source of disturbance. He saw Them waiting before him and knew this was no dream. He was new flesh. One stepped forward, a vaguely familiar female avatar. She was like him but gifted with silver flesh. Wispy, tattered wings floated absently out from her back.

  The others in the waiting cluster presented a variety of different colors. All had the same fragile-looking wings as her.

  With a start, he noticed his own wings. He idly thought of wrapping them around himself, and they fluttered forward gently in compliance. He accepted that he'd been hand-picked.

  "Welcome," the female said, in a hushed voice. Something clicked in his brain at the sound. The smile playing about on her lips teased him. She opened her opalescent arms to him, and he recognized why she was so familiar. Hers was the voice in the alley.

  "Welcome home Chan."

  Blue Elephants by Jenifer Jourdanne

  Parrots

  One of the reasons I love L.A. - you’re driving down Santa Monica Blvd and it’s just lovely, little old women taking their tiny dogs out for walks, gay men coming home from the gym, people in cafes lounging about...and then, bam, you cross onto the wrong side and it’s like that school where Joe Clark had to bring his megaphone. I like that. If I had kids I would drop them off there and tell them to go play Charlie’s Angels.

  But I don’t have kids, so instead: Parrot Prison What else can I legally lock up if it misbehaves without someone making me out to be Mommy Dearest? Her cage is huge. It has more toys in it than the playpen of a infertile couple’s adopted Romanian baby. Yet, she spends no time in this cage except for sleeping. I am not very good at setting rules. I am a pushover parrot mother. I c
ook her food and she has multiple play gyms. I even attended a fairplex bird show, aptly named The Bird Mart, to find new toys. Yes, that is the sad individual I have become. That person you see in pet stores reading the content label of bird food? Hi, that’s me now. I am 3 aisles away from buying wild bird seed in a housedress. Perhaps this is why I do not have children. If I did, you would find me with 30 kids, making them dinner, coaching their soccer games -- I would forget who I was and then you’d find me and a cart living on Santa Monica Blvd, while John Walsh profiles a lost woman accused of putting her children in an unused parrot cage and running off with a guy from Chuck E Cheese who was found in a hotel beat with a Blahnik heel, circa Spring 2002.

  I have actually dragged friends to The Bird Mart. This is how you know you have good friends; if they will accompany you to a hobby, pet or computer show. I went to a computer show once. A man waved and screamed HEY YOU and I had visions of some man I told to fuck off in an IM coming to get me, because I suffer from hubris. He probably just wanted to sell me something. I can admit that now.

  Bird Shows are very scary. Imagine Star Trek people with birds. For one day they traded in their pointy ears for bird jewelry and airbrushed bird shirts. I love my parrot, but I do not love the Bird Mart. I don’t love anything that ends in Mart. You can never expect anything good from such a place. First, you have to park too far away. I had to ride a tram that said on the top EVERYBODYS

  BIRDMART. I felt like I was in the Doo-Daa Parade and as the tram crossed the real street on the way to the sad bird mart, we all said in unison, "I hope no one we know sees us!"

  Once inside, I spent 10 hours talking to a man about feeding your bird LIVE SPROUTS. He was worse than the Juiceman. I now sprout her extra food every morning because I am scared of him. He lectured me about the importance of live sprouts or my bird would die an early death. He stood there jumping around and shouting "BUT BIRDS SEE, THEY NEED LIVING FOOD TO SURVIVE!!". So I make them and she hates them. If she could talk, she would have said: "Where are my strawberries you bitch?"

  Next to him were two women who sew and sell Cozy Hut Tents for your bird to sleep in. What an untapped gold mine venture. Anyone who can be told a bird will sleep in one of these things at night like a good little camper is as naive....as me. I was walking by laughing at the American Flag and Peter Rabbit print tents; then I saw a leopard print one and became one of those dorks who own a bird cozy hut tent. I like to think since I was raised in a cult that I am easily brainwashed. At first I thought it was a fine idea, I mean who wants to sleep on a perch? Don’t your feet hurt? When I showed it to my parrot, if she could talk yet, I assure you she was saying "Hey moron, I perch to sleep, what the hell were you thinking? Wait a minute. Were you at the bird show? So my new owner is a dork, this is fabulous." My bird thought I was trying to send her home to Jesus. Those were some smart sewing women. They even had a photo album full of people’s birds who just loved their cozy huts. I know damn well now that everyone put super glue on their birds feet in order to obtain photographs of a bird anywhere *near* a bird cozy hut.

  I also went to Babies R Us and bought her baby toys she can push the buttons on for stimulation. So in the morning she gets bored waiting for us to talk to her and she starts pushing them and from the next room you hear GREEN BUG. YELLOW DUCK. PEEKABOO. I saw a lot of people buying baby clothes in Babies R US because that is what you are supposed to do there, not shop for your bird. I pity Babies R Us if I ever get a monkey. My sister was buying baby clothes there, and I said "Yea, they’re cute and then someone sticks them on a baby and ruins them!" Did you know there are crickets in Babies R Us?

  In L.A. this pet mania goes one step further. I was at the vet a few months back when a man came in with his dog. He was old hippie guy with a tie-dyed shirt. His dog had cancer and they discussed how the dog developed cancer because he internalized all his anger from his divorce. His chakras were blocked and his aura was cloudy. So between the chemo and the group visualization, they have things under control. And the others are nodding and saying "I have heard this works wonders. I have books about it." A woman got up and hugged him. He was trying to visualize white healing light for my pet. I wonder if that happens in Iowa or Alabama.

  I now have one monstrous cage outfitted with all a bird wants but a bird that never uses it. So if any of you live in L.A., have misbehaving children and a dream to detain your rotten kids, let me know. I will remove all the toys and we can play JAIL. I am sure someone has an extra prison uniform, although I prefer those old striped versions to the new day-glo orange pantsuits. It’s that little hat at the top of the striped versions that does it for me. It’s very Hamburglar. Then we can release them in L.A. and hunt them down with a helicopter.

  The Single Persons Seat or I ain’t bringin in the dishes

  Perceptions are based upon my own family, please ignore me because your own group of family may not be this retarded. You yourself may have changed the course of married person history when you refused to clear a plate. God bless you.

  Bless the men who clear plates and bless the women who refuse to pick them up. Bless those Greek people who break them under their feet when they dance. I would bless the Jewish people, but basically you only break one glass and it’s at a wedding and we are not going to applaud the fact you step on glass, unless you do it without the aid of shoes or socks in which case….I am going to call Ripley’s or The Jim Rose Freak Circus because you may have abilities he could use.

  I have figured out why married people get gifts. But really, what do single people get? Nothing. We don’t get a party. We should though, do you people have any idea how much we saved you?

  - engagement party

  - wedding shower

  - wedding present

  - the baby shower

  - birth of said baby

  - anniversary

  Damn it, you owe us like $2000 in cash. Not to mention the food we save you when we come over with one tiny friend or a guy who refuses to eat your cooking. Okay, so he or she did drink all your alcohol, but comp us dammit, we’re single.

  And we screw up your seating arrangement. We love that. Sometimes we bring three people just to mess with your heads. Screw up your napkin rings - don’t look now - the single person stole your napkin ring. We know your trick, you try to put us in that one extra chair like in a bad scene from the Peter Sellers movie The Party. This chair is a foot smaller or has a wobbly leg. You even try to put us closest to the door, or in a corner like Domino’s family. But they only put her there because she is the only one who fits. It’s a really tiny corner. You can’t even see her from the end of the table; just the top of her head like a Peanuts character or a platinum Chia pet.

  We also tell your kids the truth about everything when you sit us too close to the kiddy table. This is why they hate you after dinner. I have found that conversation, although cramped for the legs, is much better at the kiddy table. If this got out, there would be no one left at the adult table. You cannot compete with “I saw a 2 hundred pound caterpillar eating a kid in my yard” All you have is “So, it looks like rain tonight Bob.’ You all suck. You are no Algonquin Round Table. Your kids are over there talking about world politics.

  Kid: “Hey, this kid at school is named Ashley so we beat him up”

  Me: “Why?”

  Kid looking at me like I am a complete moron: “Because

  his name is Ashley and he’s a BOY.”

  Somewhere at a table across town you can be sure,

  Ashley’s mom is clearing plates.

  The kids’ table is equal opportunity. Where else can

  you be 5’9” and drive, yet have a kid ask you “so what

  grade are you in?”

  “5th….I’m in 5th, it’s such a bitch.” You say with a

  straight face. This is followed by sympathetic nodding

  from real life 5th graders.

  The mothers and wives at these parties - who clear

  the tables and the
n retire to the kitchen to do the dishes

  and leave the men "out there talking.” - who are these

  women and why do I wish their heads would explode?

  Women like that are the reason I hate having my hair done.

  Stepford Wife Pod People. All sitting around dreaming

  about the plates. God help me if I ever get up and clear

  plates with you. When does this hit you? It’s like being 12

  and wondering when you are going to get your period, Oh

  my god, is it going to happen when I am wearing white

  pants? Wrap a sweater around your waist and no one will

  notice.

  I am not saying that all married women or any sort

  of women are like this. I have many times picked up a

  boyfriends plate, but never because I felt part of the female

  “Hi we represent the Plate Picker Uppers League”

  population. Screw you. I would just leave his plate sitting

  there to make a point. But here is what I have witnessed in

  certain household parties. When you bring a boyfriend,

  they don’t expect you to clear plates. It’s like the wedding ceremony has it in the fine print: “You will be expected to clear tables.” Maybe this is why married people get gifts. They are paying you for the services you will perform in

  the future.

  But if you witness the clearing of the plates, you

  have to see it’s a finely executed ballet choreography. Or

  water aerobics. It’s like the wave.. but longer. It starts with

  one woman. She gets up to clear her husband’s plates, and

  if by cue, the next wife sees her and she is up, followed by

  the next. She doesn’t want to seem like she didn’t think of it

  first. But for the men, it’s a spy move. They very carefully

  look at one another and then perform an almost

  imperceptible head gesture that is too fast for the human

  eye to catch to tell the other men to run, run for the living

  room. This is followed by each man escaping in sync to his