She's Lost Control

  “I’ve come,” Warren said, brandishing his ultra-watt smile, “to take my two runaways home.”

  “We are home,” she said. Little O grabbed Odessa’s hand. For protection or comfort, Odessa could not be sure.

  “Now, now, baby doll, don’t be silly. You belong with me in the city. We’re a family.”

  Shadows—two, four, seven—circled overhead. Warren did not notice, but Odessa did. Buzzy had friends.

  “Why did you make Mom stop singing?”

  “I did no such thing. Why, my dear wife, would you tell our daughter such a malicious lie?”

  “She didn’t have to,” Little O said, her palm growing damp in Odessa’s. But her posture stayed straight, her tone true.

  “You turned her against me?” Warren asked, his raising his arm, aiming the gun.

  Odessa and Little O stood—no scream, no flinch. Perhaps they were too tired yet.

  The vultures swooped lower, wings cutting the air. A horde of voiceless creatures, the only witnesses of what would certainly be death. Odessa wondered what those vultures would give for a syrinx, for a song.

  Maude had taught her the old tune long ago, when Odessa was a hatchling, nights in bed to soothe her. “Sleepsong”; how long had it been since she’d hummed the melody?

  Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby . . .

  Little O, though Odessa hadn’t taught her this one, joined. And I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll sing you tomorrow . . . The vultures dropped closer. Odessa felt their air on her face.

  Warren wrinkled his nose. “Please,” he said. “Spare me.”

  But they kept singing. May there always be angels to watch over you . . . Odessa’s chest surged. For a moment, she felt safe.

  She didn’t hear the shot until after the vulture had knocked her and Little O down. Chin scraping the sand, wind knocked from her. Little O whimpered, but did not relinquish the tune.

  Then Warren, through the dust, wobbling upright, “What the fu—?”

  The dust cleared, and Odessa saw the Colt, lying on the ground. She crawled toward it.

  “Now, Odessa—” Warren said, sidling forward. “Don’t get too big for your—”

  But one of the vultures—was it Buzzy?—blocked him, bobbing its menacing head, backing Warren from Odessa. Odessa grabbed the gun, scrabbled backward.

  A hiss. Several hisses as the vultures landed in a circle, closing off Odessa and Little O. The heft of the Colt surprised her, always had. She knew what she had to do but she did not know if she could do it. Little O sang on, Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay . . .

  “Please,” Warren rasped, stumbling toward them, trying to maneuver around Buzzy, clutching his left arm, his chest. “Help me.” Odessa had never seen him so desperate. Maybe she’d misunderstood him, maybe—

  Buzzy stayed put, even as Warren’s face blotched scarlet, as his breathing faltered in wet gasps.

  Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay

  Loo-li, lai-lay . . .

  Little O’s dirge faded as Warren collapsed, not without some grace, onto the dusty earth.

  The vultures parted, spread their wings, and alighted. Buzzy stayed, just out of range, surveying. Finger on the trigger, Odessa pointed a shaky hand at Warren. She took a few steps forward, circled Warren’s body, tried to gauge his breath. Not trusting her vision, she inched forward and nudged his foot with her toes. Nothing. Was it a trick? She hesitated. His leg. Nothing. His hip—nothing, already the weight of breathlessness upon him. She resisted the urge to kick him in the ribs, to scream obscenities, to bash the gun upon his thick skull, to sob. None of it necessary. Little O came forward, put her arms around her mother. Buzzy issued a soft grunt. “Thank you,” Little O said, solemn now, aware. The whoosh of wings as Buzzy returned to the sky.

  Odessa tucked the gun into her waistband, said, “That was your final lesson. You’re ready for the stage.” Her daughter smiled—the fates, called upon, had answered—relief as palpable as the heat rising off the pale landscape. Odessa rushed for the adobe. She did not want Little O to see her cry.

  Besides, someone had to call the police. And hide the gun.

  ***

  The squad cars and ambulance arrived, did their business, departed with signatures and the body. The death certificate would say Heart Attack, not atypical for a man of Warren’s demeanor. Later, Zee and Maude pulled in, Zee cursing the dumb goon who, once Warren’s signal went slack, fled the apartment fast as you could say Roadrunner.

  Zee pointed upward without looking, “Smart bastards, those vultures. Can smell a stiff for miles.”

  “Poor Buzzy,” Little O said. She’d attached herself like Velcro to Odessa. “All that work and no payoff.”

  Zee raised an eyebrow at Odessa, but Odessa ignored him.

  “Shall we?” Maude asked. The driver they’d hired waited, smoking, kicking the sand. Her parents had never liked nature—too many variables.

  “We’ll stay on a while,” Odessa said. Little O’s posture relaxed. “We have—some things to consider.”

  Maude exchanged a look with Zee and then each stepped forward to kiss their daughter, their granddaughter. Odessa felt the loose boniness of their shoulders. Old now, comforted.

  Buzzy hovered, monitoring. Odessa loved the bird’s sharp, bright face, her unapologetic occupation of charnel ground. Odessa’d never been a cardinal, brilliant and pleasing though they were.

  Little O waved till the dust consumed the car, and Odessa headed inside to dig up her old address book, ring Andy. Certainly Vegas had room for another comeback. She could see the dazzling reviews, shows sold out as soon as the box office opened, she and Little O decked in scarlet lipstick and black feather-dresses—the whole world enchanted by the mother-daughter duo who sang as though their lives depended on it.

  EFFECTIVE WAYS TO DRY-ERASE

  Alex McKelley

  After it happened I chopped off six inches of my long blonde hair

  Dyed it pink

  Said the pink was an accident

  I winged my eyeliner and caked on berry red lipstick

  Chugged whiskey and Sprite

  Chugged amber Woodchuck cider from the deli downstairs

  Chugged anything offered

  Slammed every kitchen cupboard in my mom’s house

  Screamed your name into my high school bedroom

  Dyed my hair red

  Wondered what it’d be like to hang myself from the closet

  Wondered what it’d be like to hang myself from the stars

  Threw up in my dorm room

  Flirted with every boy I saw

  Fell at every party

  I shattered the stained glass mirror of myself

  Danced in the living room

  After it happened I stopped wishing on dandelions

  Stopped reading books

  Started spelling my own name in my alphabet soup

  Cried into my winter coat

  Ate dinner alone in the basement of a Wendy’s

  Fantasized about getting mugged on the corner of the street

  After it happened I threw myself down the garbage shoot in our living room

  Ripped yearbook photos from my spine

  Built a collage, a mosaic of flowers and bones

  Rode the elevator up and down

  Begged my teachers to stop questioning my tear-stained pillow and the way my veins quivered

  The way my voice shook

  After it happened

  An earthquake erupted under my skin

  I stood still

  Closed my eyes

  Reached for every hand around

  Met myself halfway

  Dove into the bathtub

  Filled it with my spit

  Shouted at the trees in Central Park

  Sewed a quilt of all my flaws

  Set it ablaze in the parking garage across the street

  Buried me softly

  Wrapped me up warm

  After it happened

/>   I awoke on a stainless steel road

  I found myself gone

  I found myself shivering

  Wrapped her in my arms

  Built sandcastles with her hair

  Built a moat around her lungs

  Sang her a sonnet

  Showed her the way home

  I WAS A FOX

  Laura Beth Johnson

  I was a fox when he undressed me

  I was a dove he coaxed out of flight

  I was a hare with my nervous laughter

  I was a snake when I said not tonight

  I was a doe when he approached me

  I was a dog he trained to lie down

  I was a possum with my stillness

  I was an ant when pinned to the ground

  I was a seal when he noticed weight gain

  I was a cat he jolted from sleep

  I was an ox with my head drooping

  I was an albatross when in his keep

  I was a wasp when he slapped me

  I was a crocodile striking back

  I was a raven with my shrieking

  I was a bear when I broke from his grasp

  I am a woman all the time now, a woman no more and no less

  a woman hungry and healing, a woman worthy of breath

  I am a woman when I speak loudly and when I feel fear

  a woman when making love, a woman when women are near

  I am a woman of my own relief, I belong to myself

  I am a woman, a woman and nothing else

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Diana Braskich is a 34-year-old mother, student, bank teller, and aspiring writer from North Idaho. She is a sexual assault survivor, and she hopes to one day use her pen to advocate for women and children who have yet to find their voice. She has previously been published in The Coeur d’Alene Press, Live Well CDA, and Idaho Magazine.

  Amanda Crum is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in publications such as The Bluegrass Accolade and Dark Eclipse and in several anthologies, including Beyond The Hill and Two Eyes Open. Her first chapbook of horror-inspired poetry, The Madness In Our Marrow, was shortlisted for a Bram Stoker Award nomination in 2015. She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband and two children.

  Holly Diaz’s short horror pieces have appeared in Sirens Call, Danse Macabre’s online literary magazine, and Horror Tree’s Trembling with Fear. She also manages author and independent retail accounts for Penguin Random House.

  Rachel Graf Evans is a writer and theatre artist based in Atlanta, GA, where she serves as the Dramatists Guild Young Ambassador for Atlanta and the Alliance Theatre’s Literary Intern. RGE is a proud member of Working Title Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. 2016-2017 Horizon Theatre Company Playwright Apprentice. Stay tuned at www.rachelgrafevans.com.

  Theresa Gaffney is a writer, reader, television-watcher, and preliminary member of Book Twitter living in Astoria, NY. She tweets about her period @_gaffknee.

  Emma Hines is an 18-year-old senior in high school, planning on pursuing a university degree that will support her goal of becoming a professional writer. Along with many other short stories, she has written a book, and hopes to be published. Other selections of Emma’s short stories have been chosen for YuGen, Cold Creek Review, AHF Magazine, and Down in the Dirt Magazine, among others. She has an author page at https://emfleuve.wordpress.com/.

  KT Jayne is just a little autistic zombie girl living in the backwoods of Indiana anxiously awaiting the zombie apocalypse. In the meantime, she supplements her diet by eating small children.

  Laura Beth Johnson is an award-winning poet and singer-songwriter. In 2017, she was honored with the Lucy Monro Brooker Poetry Award by University of Indianapolis for a piece titled “Crazy and Special”. The poem appears on an album of original music Johnson independently released in May of 2016 under the moniker, “Sorrow Estate”. The album has been described as, “poetic lyrics and haunting melodies meandering through a unique blend of folk, rock, and jazz.” Johnson won Eden Café’s “Songwriter” and “Vocalist” categories in their 2017 Songwriter Competition. Johnson’s poems have been published in Babblings of the Irrational, Etchings Magazine, and The Lanthorn. Laura holds a bachelor’s in writing from Houghton College.

  Hannah Litvin is a writer and former Texan living in Philadelphia. Her poetry has appeared in Bitterzoet, The Violet Hour, and Summertide Magazine. In 2018, she won a Vaclav Havel Scholarship in fiction to attend the Prague Summer Writers Program for their 25th Anniversary Workshop. She runs a calendar and resource hub for Philadelphia writers at www.phillylitspace.com.

  L.L. Madrid lives in Tucson. She has an affinity for desert creatures and other feral things. L.L. is the 2017 recipient of the Luminaire Award for best prose. When she’s not writing, she edits a peculiar little journal called Speculative 66. Links to L.L. Madrid’s works can be found at http://llmadrid.weebly.com/.

  J.A.W. McCarthy goes by Jen when she is not writing. She lives with her husband and assistant cat in Seattle, Washington, where she needs music as much as her laptop to get the words out. Her work has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Unfading Daydream, A Murder of Storytellers’ anthology The Misbehaving Dead, and Ink Stains.

  Katy McCarthy is an artist, filmmaker and writer based in Brooklyn, NY and Austin, Texas. She is currently teaching in the College of Fine Arts and University of Texas, Austin.

  Jessica McHugh is a novelist and internationally produced playwright running amok in the fields of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and wherever else her peculiar mind leads. She’s had twenty-one books published in nine years, including her bizarro romp, The Green Kangaroos, her Post Mortem Press bestseller, Rabbits in the Garden, and her YA series, The Darla Decker Diaries. More information on her published and forthcoming fiction can be found at JessicaMcHughBooks.com.

  Alex McKelley is a poet based out of Brooklyn, New York. She has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pen and has had poems published both online and in print over the past decade. All of her work comes directly from journal entries; they are each messy and dreamy and gritty and personal in their own way.

  Jacquelyn Mitchard is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels for adults, seven novels for teenagers, and five children’s books. These include The Deep End of the Ocean, the inaugural selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. With more than 2 million books in print worldwide, in 31 languages, she has won or been nominated for or the winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, the Bram Stoker Award, and others, and is a professor of Creative Writing at Miami University of Ohio. Her articles frequently appear in O Magazine, Harpers, and Readers Digest, and her novels, essays, and short stories have been widely anthologized. Mitchard grew up in Chicago and now lives on Cape Cod with her family.

  Amirah Mohiddin, born in Birmingham, U.K., is an MA Creative Writing student. She is a fantasy, speculative fiction, and magical realist writer of short stories and novels.

  Rachel Anne Parsons is an Appalachian writer and poet, currently located in Olive Hill, Kentucky. She identifies as bisexual, and much of her work focuses on the experience of growing up queer in rural Appalachia. She is the daughter of musicians and farmers, and she raises rabbits and goats. She is interested in mythology, and it is a theme present in much of her writing. She is also a person with anxiety and depression and often writes about mental health, and especially mental health in Appalachia. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in creative writing.

  Cynthia (Cina) Pelayo is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, and Poems of My Night.

  Laurel Radzieski’s debut poetry collection, Red Mother, published by NYQ Books in 2018, is a love story told from the perspective of a parasite. She earned her MFA at Goddard College and she is a poetry editor for Clockhouse. Laurel’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Down the Dog Hole, Really System, The Golden Key, and other publications, and her poetry has been featured on the Farm/Art DTour in La Rue, Wisconsin.
She can be found online at www.laurelradzieski.com.

  Sara Rauch’s debut story collection, What Shines from It, will be published this year. Her prose has appeared in apt, Hobart, Gravel, Split Lip, So to Speak, and more. She lives with her family in Easthampton, Massachusetts. www.sararauch.com / Twitter: @sararauch.

  Michelle Sikorski is a fiction writer and barista who has lived former lives as a magazine editor and content marketer. She has a BA in Journalism from University of Cincinnati. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

  Lucy A. Snyder is a five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning writer who is author of a dozen books and about 100 published short stories. Lucy’s fiction has been translated into French, Russian, Italian, Czech, Spanish, and Japanese editions. Her work has appeared in publications such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, and Best Horror of the Year. She has a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College and is faculty in Seton Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction. You can learn more about her at www.lucysnyder.com, and you can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.

  Monet Sutch is a 25-year-old college student living in Portland, Oregon. Writing and literature have been sources of sanctuary and safety for Monet since she was a child. Her work focuses on family, identity, recollection of trauma through different lenses, and using curiosity as a necessary tool to approach all things existential, ethereal, and human.

  Madeline Ticknor graduated from Lewis & Clark college with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. She is now in the process of applying for an MFA in poetry and creative writing. Her work has been published in feminist publications like Susie Magazine, based in Brooklyn.

  Uvika Wahi works and lives in Portugal.

  Sydney J. Watson is a sixteen-year-old, AFAB, pansexual, and genderfluid (primarily female—preferring female pronouns as well) student stuck in rural Missouri. She has been creating stories for as long as she could comprehend words and dictate them to my mother, and, over a decade later, has just finished the first draft of her first novel and is in the process of revising it. She has several other horror stories and one . . . fantasy? Romance? She is also developing several video games and am interested in writing, directing, and acting in horror movies. Her poetry has appeared in The Paragon Journal’s special issue “The Seven Forbidden Words,” which was created in protest of the “language style restrictions” on the CDC and has been sent directly to the President, Vice President, and several other high-ranking officials.