Blow Up the Outside World

by Jordan Krall

  Oswald and Potter buy popcorn and candy. They walk into the bathroom. Oswald enters a stall while Potter waits by the sink. He washes his hands three times and looks at in the mirror. “Sometimes I just feel like gutter trash,” he says to his reflection.

  Then Oswald walks out holding a mess of electrical wiring, metal, multi-colored glass shards, and bits of biomechanical jetsam all fused together by a sticky substance that was not glue. He exits the bathroom and Potter says, “You didn’t wash your hands.” Oswald ignores him and continues to walk to their theatre.

  They take a seat in the back row. Both notice they have missed the opening credits for the first film. They watch a killer in black leather gloves holding a razor. The killer slashes a woman, the camera moving wildly across the nude body: blood and purple lace roughly projected onto a soda-stained movie screen.

  Potter nudges Oswald. He says, “Is that woman real? Or is she a Valdrott?”

  Oswald sticks his hand into the contraption that is on his lap. He fiddles with a few wires. “I don’t think it matters now,” he says.

  And then everything explodes… again.

  THE END

  BONUS STORIES

  (((())))

  OF MOONSHINE & CONSEQUENCES

  Jordan Krall

  Saturday Morning

  Eh, look here, son. New Jersey isn’t all Springsteen and scumbags. In my time, I’ve seen so much weird shit, you wouldn’t believe. Clay pits full of gasoline porn, factories that only make fake dog shit. But there’s other….stuff, too. I’m talking out of this world, you know? Well, there was this one time…

  I must’ve been maybe twelve, thirteen years old and was riding my bike home from school just like a lot of kids my age did because it beat taking the bus which was just a bumpy ride in a sweat box driven by a toothless slob who didn’t believe in showers.

  Anyway, on the way home I had to pass a patch of woods. It wasn’t a big forest or anything. It was really just what I said: a patch of woods in between a bar and a park. The kids called it Dot’s Woods.

  I had never seen anyone actually go into the woods. I thought it was because it was so small it didn’t have anything to interest anyone. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all.

  So there I was on my bike and as I passed Dot’s Woods, my tire blew and I found myself on my stomach with a bleeding chin. My leg hurt like hell, too. I looked over at the woods for no reason at all and saw something peeking out from behind a tree.

  I guess I would describe it as a white worm the size of a puppy. It had a handful of eyes that looked like shiny marbles. I really can’t come up with a better description than that, son. It looked like a worm puppy with marble eyes, okay?

  Of course being a boy, I was more than a bit interested in that. I’ve seen monster movies before and I’ve read those comics with all those wild creatures wreaking havoc and whatnot. I got up from the ground, wiped myself off, and walked towards the woods. The thing disappeared by the time I got to the edge of the woods. I wasn’t surprised. Most animals will run off if they see a human coming, you know.

  I won’t lie to you. I was a little bit scared, I guess. I’ve never been in the woods and for all I knew there were rabid dogs or drunken hoodlums waiting to cut some young kid up, you know. A young kid’s mind can come up with all sorts of horrors. I even thought maybe there were some perverted hobos in there who made that small patch of woods their own personal Sodom. I imagined they’d have a whole cache of petroleum jelly and sex toys and baseball cards to lure the boys in. See what I’m saying? I’m still thinking about this, as if my imagination would ever beat the real horrors in Dot’s Woods.

  That’s what I had been afraid of, those perverts. But I approached the woods anyway to see if I could catch a glimpse of whatever weird animal I saw peeking out at me. As soon as I stepped foot into the words, I knew I had made a mistake. Though it was a warm afternoon, the air inside between the trees was cold.

  I continued on and up ahead I could see the tail end of that white worm thing so I ran towards it. I know it was stupid for me to do but I was a kid and didn’t know better. And then, well, that’s when I saw them….aww shit…I’m getting tired. I’ll jaw your ear off later about this, alright?

  Saturday Night

  I’m going to tell you the rest of the story now but I’ll tell you I’ve been drinking and when I drink sometimes I spice up the story a bit so it’ll be your job to figure out what part of this is my real memory and which is just for shits and giggles, just moonshine dreams and whatnot.

  So I followed that white worm thing into the center of that little patch of woods, you remember? Dot’s Woods. Then as soon as I was just about to step on it, I fell down again, goddamn it. My leg was already hurt from falling off my bike and now it hurt even more. My face was right in the mossy dirt and that’s when I heard them.

  They were whispering really fast, almost as if they were arguing about something. I remember thinking it was a bunch of hobo perverts arguing over who was going to have at me first. It terrified me but, goddamn, it turned out to be worse than perverts.

  I struggled up to my feet and started to run out the other side of the woods but something, I’m guessing the worm thing, slithered into my path and I fell again, goddamn it. Can you believe that? Three times in ten minutes. I was pissed more than hurt, you know. I looked back and the white worm thing was standing up. It had arms and legs now. Behind it stood several things just similar to it but some looked more like giant crabs than worms. Maybe not crabs, though, now that I think about it. More like crickets. I don’t know. Maybe like albino centipedes or something. I don’t know, goddamn it. But they were there nonetheless, just looking at me, staring at me like I was the goddamn freak.

  I know what you’re thinking, that maybe it was just a bunch of kids wearing costumes or something and trying to scare the shit out of me but even as a kid I could tell the difference between a costume and the real thing. This was the real thing, goddamn it.

  They started walking closer to me and….well, I’m getting tired. I need another drink. We’ll finish this later, son.

  Sunday Morning

  Shit, what time is it? You got some nerve waking me up this early, you know, goddamn it. Moonshine does a hell of a job on the head. Yeah, I was drinking more shine last night. You’d be surprised the quality of shine you can get in Jersey. There are plenty of stills up there in the clay pits right behind Kennedy Park. You know the place? Where they found all that gasoline porn. Did I tell you about that? Shouldn’t go back there, you know. Some shit back there, like in Dot’s Woods, like I was talking about, things you shouldn’t be seeing like ugly white worm puppy centipedes and those, well, those flashing things that fly up out of the clay and into the sky just like…

  Wait, I didn’t tell you about the flashing things, yet? Shit, well, I told you I saw those things in Dot’s Woods and well, they walked away from me but something made me follow them. Stupid, I know, but sometimes a boy doesn’t do the smartest thing.

  So I follow them and I’m staring at the back of the white worm puppy’s body and see a tail wagging there and it looks like it has eyes on it and it’s staring at me, you know, and I’m staring right back at it like we were having one of those staring contests. I’m staring at it and before I know it I’m sticking that thing in my mouth.

  It tasted like cold, metallic seafood if that makes any sense to you and I remember that thing just doing down my throat and my stomach felt like it was getting tickled, you know…from the inside. At that point I didn’t know where the hell I was. I wasn’t in the woods anymore, that much I knew, because all around me was the whitest walls I’ve ever seen and glass shapes hanging in midair. There was a buzzing like the sound of an electric razor and when I heard it I thought maybe I was in my parent’s bathroom or something and maybe I was dreaming, maybe I fell asleep on the floor after being sick. I thought maybe the razor was my dad’s razor. No such luck, though. I mean, it wasn’t a dream and it w
asn’t my dad’s razor.

  I’m sort of embarrassed to say but after a while of having that white worm puppy’s tail in me, I started to shit myself something fierce. I’m talking loads of shit just shooting out of my ass. The funny thing was it was cold. Shit’s supposed to be warm, right? I remember wondering about that. It was like I was shitting ice cream or something.

  Then there was the whispering again. They sounded really mad like maybe I wasn’t sucking on that tail the right way and it got really weird because I started getting worried and felt like I had to do a better job for them, whoever they were.

  So…well, I’ll finish this up later. I gotta take a shit.

  Sunday Night

  There I was, the white walls making me feel dizzy but comfortable and the buzzing and whispering turning my brain all inside out. I felt drunk, really, drunk but totally focused on doing a good job on that tail. After what seemed like maybe two hours, the tail slipped out of my mouth and I was face first on the moldy ground again. The white walls were gone and so were the glass shapes and the buzzing and whispering. I was back in the goddamn woods.

  As I got up I heard a sound like a bunch of electronic insects and I looked up and saw something right above the trees, like a big metal dome or something. Then it was gone.

  Now, that’s the last time I saw anything like that in Dot’s Woods but a few weeks later, a few of the other boys found the body of that white worm puppy. They showed it to me and it looked bigger than I had remembered. Of course I didn’t tell them I saw it already. Anyway, they took it to one of their older brothers. You might know him though he’s an old man now. The name’s Old Eddie Lee. You know him? He actually has a few moonshine stills up in the clay pits.

  So as far as I know Old Eddie’s family still has the body of that white worm puppy. What they’re doing with it, I don’t know. I mean, what can they do with it? I heard a rumor about some videos they were making with it, stuff they sold through the mail to perverts but I don’t know about that. I’m no pervert.

  Well, that’s my story. All this talking is making me thirsty. I got to go get some more shine. You want to try some? I know you’re a bit young but…you’ve got to start sometime. What’s the worst that can happen?

  HOW MUCH IS SHE?

  Ash Lomen

  "How m-m-much, like, is she?"

  Granwell asked in a shaky voice, viewing the shivering naked young woman with wide eyes kneeling before him in a transparent hovertube. Her modesty was long gone, slaughtered along with her innocence. She barely attempted to conceal her breasts before the two visitors, one of them probably the first human face she had seen in ages.

  "A million. Exactly," said the Valdrott, its form hideous beyond description... it was a swelling mass of perversity-made-flesh.

  "My G-God, that's all… I mean …look, I c-can't… fuckin' do this," Granwell stammered.

  "God doesn't exist and you humans have been keeping slaves for millennia."

  "We've stopped. We've e-evolved."

  "Bullshit… as you so often like to say. Slavery is still very common on earth… your Global Capitalism simply froths at the mouth for it. It just goes under a different name." The Valdrott's English was perfect, without any discernable accent, even puckered out of its anus-like mouth.

  "One million," it continued, "I'll even throw in her mother for free."

  The mother. Granwell's perversion went into overdrive.

  "D-D-Deal,” Granwell managed to choke out.

  Later, Granwell realized how strange the idea of handing over a leather briefcase of Global Credits to an otherworldly alien was…. but he didn't ask questions. The Valdrott had always provided him the same courtesy.

  …

  After the human male had departed with his two new slaves, the females just happy to be together once again, having no idea of their new master's perverse intentions, the Valdrott disposed of the briefcase in the incinerator and began to make notes on the study it had just conducted.

  BODIES DOMES LIGHTS

  Jordan Krall

  Collapsing solar lodges in his lungs: they pop, then implode, then explode, and paint the black mist sky with pale dots. Roars of engines and the pitter-patter of miniscule experiments glistening in universal afterbirth of foreign galaxies.

  His whole body is a black hole.

  He stumbles through town, a beatnik sleazoid/paranoid/schizoid writer all mixed up on pills and other chemicals he found in the pocket of a thrift store army jacket. Notebooks full of abduction stories: in between the accounts there are blurry photographs of UFOs attached crudely with Scotch tape. In his head, he imagines red city walls and sparkling subatomic glamour. It points him in the direction of Newark. He fights the urge to buy a bottle of cheap vodka and a suit to be buried in. The thrift store had some cheap suits. Ugly and old, sure, but cheap.

  He ribs sing like tuning forks. His organs pulsate and purge. His brain bubbles like melting cheese. He stumbles along the streets, spitting and babbling into the solar anus that has appeared in his soft white underbelly.

  Those fucking things changed him. Those things made him into a wanderer and now he hasn’t got a home.

  He looks up and thinks: there’s my home.

  But the stars blink with obscenities. They want no part of him. Not anymore.

  A silver disc appears near the moon. It scraps the lunar surface and spreads dust into the air. He chokes. He feels it all and knows it’s worse than the pills and the chemicals and the long nights of shooting up and fucking off.

  The lunar dust fills his lungs and recharges the microscopic battery. His whole body is ultra-alive with pain and newborn nerve endings.

  He explodes into pieces of flesh/metal/celestial junk. His last remaining bits of consciousness hope his remains will be ingested by all his fellow beatnik sleazoid/paranoid/schizoid writers.

  He wants to give a good trip. He wants to be forever.

  At least the pain is over.

  A TINY WAR

  Ash Lomen

  Two men faced each other in the center of an ornate metal ring.

  One was big, white, dumb and bald.

  The other was short, stocky, brilliant and black with long dreadlocks that hung past his knees.

  Despite all outside appearances, the two men were brothers. They had both watched in chains as the big blue eyed mother they shared was torn apart in the cruel gears of some Valdrott steam machine just days before their minds were sufficiently warped, pumped, and prepared for the gas.

  Hundreds of cramped and creeping spectators surrounded the ring in a living, purple-black mass of phallic eyes, malformed tentacles, and other writhing, groping, oddly malformed limbs. A musky chemical smell like stale semen seeped through their alien pores as the tension built.

  The big white man looked down to his brother, “I love you, Charlie.”

  Charlie never had the time to respond. The gas was soundlessly released.

  The white man dove into his brother before he could even think about his first move. He picked Charlie up and slammed him down upon the cold metal floor with a sound like a sledgehammer meeting a side of frozen beef. Charlie attempted to roll and minimize the assault to his spine while simultaneously locking his ankles around his brother’s midsection, taking the giant down with him, on top of him.

  The big man continued his assault, pummeling Charlie’s head against the floor. As Charlie’s face slowly begin to dissolve into pulp beneath his brother’s heavy fists, the smaller, beaten man shifted his mass, and in a flurry of unseen movement it was now Charlie atop and then behind his brother…..ebony arms locked around his thick neck, bleeding crimson upon his pale face.

  And just like that..it was over, the snapping of the bigger man’s neck punctuating the lustful hiss of the Valdrott mob.

  Charlie dropped to his knees and draped himself across his brother’s naked, lifeless body.

  It was then that the assembled Valdrott were informed over the mothership’s telepathic communic
ation system that males with darker skin pigmentation, such as those descended from Middle Eastern, Latin, Asian, or African stock, had become resistant to the effects of the Valdrott gas due to an unknown genetic anomaly.

  The circle of Valdrott erupted in a burst of maniacal, alien laughter.

  Charlie, now prone over his dead brother, let loose a bloody sob.

  FREAK FUCKER

  (white god/white subway)

  Jordan Krall

  Bulbous heads expanding into weaponry. Celestial bones bleached into oblivion, pick-pocketing solar systems. Picking up teeth that have been lodged in the sidewalk cracks. Some blue-breasted cunt is selling crack and she tells me to shut my fucking mouth. I tell her to shut hers first or I’ll fist-fuck her esophagus until it’s hamburger for the wild boys. She smirks, burps, and walks away.

  I’ve installed listening devices in those buildings over there-there-and-there. I’ve even installed them in the junk-blobs and now they’re paranoid wrecks, not knowing who the hell is listening in on their shadowy deals of chemical transformations.

  Making my way down the street, bumping into pimps, rat-addicts, and suicide queens. Fuck this shit, right? It’s not like I ain’t got nowhere else to go. I’ve got hidden apartments and tree houses and caves and shit all over the place. I’ve even got a farm in New Jersey just in case. And a hole in the clay pits, too.

  I sneak into the backroom of a skin flick shop and watch some perverts jacking off over a donkey flick. The animal looks pretty pleased with itself while it sodomizes a pair of emaciated twins who look at least fifty-years old. Their teeth grind deeply into ugly totem poles that look like blue-veined rockets. Shit, the stuff people will do for food, for fame, for everything fucking thing their childhood didn’t give them.

  Some of the bulbous heads wear masks. They twinkle like stars through a whiskey glass. My head fires up and prepares for battle. Spent a lot of my days building junkyard bombs, blowing up idiot real estate gods, facilitating the abductions according to theories I found scratched on restroom stalls. Intergalactic sigils drawn in spit and feces. Helium and methane gas whispering my name through the vents that are twisted like metal vines.