Shallow Waters

A Flash Fiction Anthology

Compiled and Edited by Joe Mynhardt

Published by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from The Darkest Depth

www.CrystallakePub.com

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Cover art: Ben Baldwin — http://www.benbaldwin.co.uk

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Welcome to another Crystal Lake Publishing creation.

Thank you for supporting independent publishing and small presses. You rock, and hopefully you’ll quickly realize why we’ve become one of the world’s leading publishers of Dark and Speculative Fiction. We have some of the world’s best fans for a reason, and hopefully we’ll be able to add you to that list really soon. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to receive three eBooks for free, as well as info on new releases, special offers, and so much more. To follow us behind the scenes while supporting independent publishing and our authors, be sure to follow us on Patreon, where you can even subscribe to all our future releases.

Welcome to Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Be sure to pre-order Vol.2

Out July 26th

Other Anthologies by

Crystal Lake Publishing

Tales from The Lake Vol.5, edited by Kenneth W. Cain

Fantastic Tales of Terror: History’s Darkest Secrets, edited by Eugene Johnson

Welcome to The Show, edited by Doug Murano and Matt Hayward

Lost Highways: Dark Fictions From the Road, edited by D. Alexander Ward

C.H.U.D. Lives! – A Tribute Anthology

Tales from The Lake Vol.4: The Horror Anthology, edited by Ben Eads

Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, edited by Doug Murano

Twice Upon an Apocalypse: Lovecraftian Fairy Tales, edited by Rachel Kenley and Scott T. Goudsward

Tales from The Lake Vol.3, edited by Monique Snyman

Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward

Tales from The Lake Vol.2, edited by Joe Mynhardt, Emma Audsley, and RJ Cavender

Children of the Grave

The Outsiders

Tales from The Lake Vol.1, edited by Joe Mynhardt

Fear the Reaper, edited by Joe Mynhardt

For the Night is Dark, edited by Ross Warren

Table of Contents

Introduction by Joe Mynhardt

“Closure on a Bed of Nails” by Chad Lutzke

“Fast Car” by Tracy Fahey

“Tears of Buddy” by Patrick R. McDonough

“Puzzle Pieces” by Armand Rosamilia

“Pretty Like Butterflies” by Tim Waggoner

“S1:E7” by Robert Ford

“Pain is Your Teacher” by Michael Harris Cohen

“Memory Lane” by Red Lagoe

“The Silence of the Sirens” by Loren Rhoads

“It’s Me Not You” by Jonathan Winn

“Sisters of Loss” by Mark Allan Gunnells

“Talisman” by Jezzy Wolfe

“The Melting of Your Gods” by Mercedes M. Yardley

“Charms” by Dino Parenti

“Not Your Average Monster” by Kenneth W. Cain

“Where the Children Run in Darkness” by Guy Medley

“Tunnels” by Tom Over

“The Truth about Dani” by Joe Mercer

“Baby Savannah” by M.J. Sydney

“Rats Scratched in the Linen Cupboard” by Dani Brown

“Raining” by John Boden

“The Death Experience” by Leigh Ann Story

Introduction

Welcome to the very first volume in Crystal Lake’s series of flash fiction anthologies.

It all started earlier this year, when I launched a flash fiction writing competition on social media. The idea was simple. I’d post a monthly challenge on social media to all authors, giving them only a few days to write a flash fiction story within the parameters of the challenge (word count, theme, or perhaps a prompt), take submissions via email, and choose only the best from those submissions. Those stories would then be posted on our Patreon page for our patrons to enjoy. I’d post one story a day, and at the end of the challenge patrons would vote for a winner. The winner would of course get a cash prize, an author spotlight on our newsletter, and publication. The winner in this specific volume was “Tunnells” by Tom Over.

Not only is it a great way to reward our patrons with even more great perks, but it constantly proves to be a great source of inspiration for authors who rise to the challenge. It also brings a lot of new traffic to our Patreon page, which is constantly improving to offer readers and/or writers great perks.

Little did we all know that the quality of stories would be so amazing that more than just the winning stories would eventually be published. What you’ll find in these anthologies are the most popular of the stories that made it to the Patreon stage.

So if you’re an author or reader, or just a fan of the genre and independent publishing, be sure to check out our tiers on Patreon. It’s a great place to go behind the scenes of the company while supporting authors, the small press, and this genre we all love so much.

For those not familiar with Patreon, it’s a monthly subscription-based site where you can follow creators in exchange for behind the scenes access, sneak peeks, and perks associated with the tier you pay for. There are a lot of amazing creators there. Just be sure to look for a tier that best fits your needs and wallet.

So welcome to Shallow Waters. Welcome to Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Joe Mynhardt

22 June, 2019

In loving memory of Frank Michaels Errington

Closure On A Bed Of Nails

Chad Lutzke

It was the only cactus that still blossomed flowers. That was the landmark, the bouquet of ghost-white petals. Without them, the cactus stood amongst the others like a field of conforming soldiers. Spiked and juniper green. At its foot, feet beneath the soil, the bones of his lover. A gentle, beautiful woman who taught him to see beauty in the most mundane of things. Even the desert. He liked to think it was her who sprouted the flowers, reminding him of the beauty still found in an empty world. Reminding him of her, of their engagement that ended early by sickness, then death.

But the flowers had long ceased serving their purpose. They were no longer a beautiful sight among the bland. Now they were a prick in his heel, a thorn in his side. A still photo of cancer that haunted him daily. That ivory blemish in a bone-dry sea. A scar outside his home, across the road, catching his eye and taking his breath. The cursed things glowed against the green-fingered sandscape.

Remember the time we…

The blank could be filled with countless memories, each of them worthy of remembrance. But when would the healing come? Where was the closure he was promised? The flowers seemed to mock him now.

She’s buried here with us. We have her now, they’d say as he left for work, as he came home.

Guilt clawed at him for his disdain toward the blooming. How could he hate the thing she’d sent in her place?

One final time the blemish caught his eye. This needed to end. The healing had to begin. He retrieved the ax, headed across the road and through the field of cacti. The sun massaged his naked back, the wind his scalp.

He had stood there more times than he cared to remember, wetting the ground with a leaking face, overtaken with grief. And here he stood again, for the last time.

“I love you too much,” he said, fingering the soft, white petals. Like baby’s hair and avian down.

The horrible beauty. The damned reminder.

He plucked a single flower from its nest, anticipating a scream. Not from her, but from himself. He placed the flower in his pocket and gripped the ax, then swung the blade at the base of the plant. And this time there was a scream. His throat burned with the shriek as he swung again and again. His screams raced across the desert, warning the tendrilled orchard that the healing must begin.

His face straining, he swung again and again. The desert ate the sound, consumed it like rainfall. Another swing and the cactus tipped. It would never give birth again.

The man dropped the ax and threw himself atop the spiny plant, its quills sinking into his flesh. A punishment for his closure. A horizontal crucifixion. He bled on the green, decorating the cactus. Christmas colors on a bed of barren earth.

As he hugged the plant, its spines digging deep, he begged for forgiveness, pleaded with her to understand. And as if an understanding had been made, it began to rain. As though God himself wept for the grieving.

A thousand stings carried the grief away and with a groan like thunder, the man rolled off his bed of nails and sobbed, the rain cooling his tiny wounds. For ten minutes it rained, washing away the sin of letting go. Then with ax in hand and a pocketful of memories, he walked home.

The box which held her ring still sat on his chest of drawers. He placed the flower in the box and closed it with a snap––a merciless loop of sound.

Deep into a drawer the box was placed, where he could be reminded by choice, not as an intruding violation on an otherwise peaceful day. It would be at his own will he would open the box and gaze at the flower, spinning the reel of memories. His choice only.

But he never looked again.

Chad Lutzke has had a few dozen stories published, and some of his books include: Of Foster Homes & Flies, Stirring the Sheets, and Skullface Boy. His work has been praised by authors Jack Ketchum, Stephen Graham Jones, James Newman, and his own mother. He can be found lurking at www.chadlutzke.com

Fast Car

Tracy Fahey

‘You’ve got a fast car…’ I half-sing at him, my voice light and mocking. I flick a quick, contemptuous glance over the dusty, battered surface of the car, its metal scored and whorled like an antique photograph of moon terrain.

His shoulders hunch and I can tell I’ve hurt him. I’m glad. It’s hot out here, that kind of sticky heat where flies buzz heavy and black in the thick air. It’s the kind of weather where your pits trickle sweat, where you suck in oven-hot air that scorches your lungs. I’ve worked a double-shift at the diner, and I’m tired. I can’t even be bothered to change out of my stained apron. The more tired I am, the more the hateful voice in my head urges me on.

‘What’s the top speed?’ I ask, feeling my mouth twist in a sneer. ‘Will it make forty?’

His face is flushed. His eyes, ashamed and angry, slide away from mine. ‘It’s fine,’ he says defensively. ‘It will be when I fix it up.’

Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s my aching calves, or maybe it’s the stupid car. Maybe it’s the defiant set of his chin, or the way he lays a protective hand on the door-handle.

‘Only an idiot like you would buy that.’ My voice is shrill. ‘Only you would attempt to get this going. Well you can take the damn thing back.’

He drives off in a spurt of exhaust smoke and a slow-rising puff of dust. My mouth sets in an ugly, downward line. I fold my arms, unforgiving. A mosquito buzzes, thin and listless in the desert air. I turn and go into the shabby little trailer, a frown tight on my forehead. I brush the floor in a series of useless, heavy strokes, pushing the dirt around slowly in cloudy heaps that smudge the air.

I’m still trying to sweep it all up when I hear the news.

#

He was driving back to the garage when he crashed. He’d been going too fast, they said. Breaking the speed limit, they said.

I hold the phone. It feels unnaturally heavy in my hand. It’s Sally from the diner. She saw it all. I sit down slowly, not even bothering to hang up the plastic receiver. I can still hear it, the faint buzz of her voice at the other end of the line. My lips move silently, uselessly. It can’t be true. He can’t be dead. I look about me. There’s a hundred things I could do. Call someone. Tidy up. Cry. But instead I do nothing. I let the day fade into dusk as I sit there, staring out the dirty window.

It’s only when the lights begin to wink on overhead that I hear it—that unmistakeable stutter and growl of that old engine.

It’s him.

I feel a surge of relief so deep it seems to come from my very bones. All I can think is I knew it wasn’t true. I’ve been sitting so long one leg has lost all feeling, but I haul myself up and limp to the door. The sound of the car grows louder and louder till I hear the squeal of brakes beside the trailer.

It’s him.

I grab the door-handle, ready to forgive, to hug, to pull him fiercely to me. But when I fling open the door, there’s no-one there. Light spills from the other trailers. There’s a hum of bluegrass music coming from the bar down the road. Crickets click in the dust. And I stand there, looking out, looking for something, for someone I’ll never see again.

#

I want to remember the good times, his crooked smile, the smell of the coffee he’d bring me in the mornings, the way he whistled when he tended the little garden in front of our trailer. But all I can see when I close my eyes is that battered hulk of a car, the sharp hurt in his eyes. The only sound I can hear is that rough cough of the engine as he drove away.

Some nights, those nights that taste like they came out of an oven, as I lie sleepless and sweating in the hot stale air, that’s all I can hear outside, over and over. The ugly sound of that car, him on his last journey, driving away from our last fight.

Tracy Fahey is an Irish horror writer. In 2017, her debut collection The Unheimlich Manoeuvre was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. She’s published in over twenty Irish, US and UK anthologies, and has written The Girl in the Fort (2017) and New Music For Old Rituals (2018).www.tracyfahey.com

Tears Of Buddy

Patrick R. McDonouge

The departure was sudden and unknown. The familiar environment was all that held his sanity. But that sanity was running thin. The mental threads were unraveling. Fraying. The joy of waiting was no more.

Buddy padded down the same old hallway. The one that ran from the front entrance to the kitchen in the rear of the house. What he saw was a well-lit home that had the same pictures hung in their same old place. What he smelt were the remnants of laundry detergent permanently imbedded in Matthew and Joseph’s clothes.

The closer Buddy got to the front door, the harder his heart pounded. It begged to be freed from its ribcage prison. Matthew and Joseph’s return was all he could think about. He yearned for that. The only thing in this entire world that he wanted was to see their faces. He missed them so much that he could jump and scream their names.

Where are they? When…when…WHEN will they return to me! He ran up to the door, but couldn’t open it. He never understood why that was. The door did open…sometimes. Well, it used to, anyways. Wait a minute… He could hear them on the other side! Buddy began to scratch at the door.

“Joseph! Matthew!”

The voices from the other end warranted reason for him to shout their names over and over again. It’ll help. Yea, yea! Help them come in faster!

“Matthew! Joseph!” his heart hammered against his chest.

He waited a few moments, and then the door finally began to open. His excitement was quickly washed over by sheer terror. Strangers! They looked like mutated apparitions of men. A trail of idle-motion followed their every movement. Buddy began to panic again. So, he turned and ran away. Up the steps and into Matthew and Joseph’s room. Safe spot! Safe spot!

He didn’t turn to look over his shoulder until he reached his destination. Underneath Matthew and Joseph’s bed. He watched the door. He waited…and soon, he heard the creaking floorboards. Those voices. Those strange and horrible voices were so close now.

What are they going to do to me?

“Joseph! Help! Matthew help!” he shouted. The moment the two strangers entered the room, his entire body trembled. A puddle soon formed underneath Buddy’s body, warming his belly and dampening his feet.

#

“This is stupid, Joey. I don’t want to go in.”

“That’s ‘cuz you’re chickenshit. Little chicken boy Pauly,” Joey said as he pantomimed a clucking chicken. The two boys stood in front of 33 Bird Lane. The house that was deemed haunted by the kids throughout Mays Landing.

“Shut up, Joey!” Paul said as he shoved his friend.

“I’m just kidding, man. We’ll go in together. Ok?” Paul nodded his head. The house looked innocent enough on the outside. For the last two years, it had been foreclosed. Bank owned to this day. Few seemed interested in owning it. The few that actually were interested had walked out within minutes. Most said the same thing—it’s got a bad vibe.

When they opened the front door, they were staring down the hallway that led to the kitchen. Sections of lath and plaster were spotted throughout the walls. Dust and mold clung in the air. Paul and Joey coughed after taking a few steps down the hallway. Even though it was daytime, the house was full of shadow spots. Paul stared at the only framed picture nailed to the wall. It was of two men and a dog. Even though the men showed white-toothed smiles, it gave him the creeps.

“Come on, chicken shit, let’s go upstairs!” Paul pulled his focus from the picture and back to his friend.

“Stop calling me that!” Paul said as he followed him upward. Joey simply laughed in return. “Why do people think this place is haunted anyways? The people that owned this house didn’t even die here. I remember. I saw it on the news. They were killed in Atlantic City in some freak accident.”

“Yea. That’s true. But their spirits probably returned here because it was their home.” They walked toward Joseph and Matthew’s room, stopping for a moment. “Did you hear that?”

“Yea…sounded like it was maybe coming from outside?” Paul said.

“It didn’t sound human. I mean, sort of, but not really.” they entered Matthew and Joseph’s old bedroom. They looked around a few moments without speaking. Then, Paul bent down to inspect underneath the bed.

“AH!” he screamed. It was the skeleton of a dog. The smell of old urine and shit floated up into his nostrils. It’s loose-fitted collar read a single name—Buddy. Joey asked what he saw, but Paul’s eyes and entire focus was magnetized to Buddy’s eye sockets. They were as dark as obsidian. As deep and unknown as a black hole. Yet, in the depths of those sockets, he could feel a living source—something that pulled him toward it, closer and closer with every passing second.

It was Buddy’s soul.

All Paul saw was a tunnel populated by sounds and glowing reels of memories. Memories that flashed too quickly to grasp and digest. When he reached Buddy’s soul, it fused together with his own. Becoming one. In that moment, he was overpowered by undeniable reactions: his eyes became warm and heavy, heart rate quickened, and his breath grew shallow.

“Come on, Pauly…this place really does feel creepy,” Joey urged. All Paul heard was that almost-human cry. All he felt was stark sadness. Loneliness. Abandonment. Absolute hopelessness lurked dangerously close.

Every single emotion Buddy had experienced in those last two weeks of his life, waiting for his two beloved owners to return home to offer them sloppy kisses, came flooding out in the one form Buddy was incapable of doing in his previous life.

Through tears.

Patrick R. McDonough is a New England native who currently resides in south Jersey with his wife, Tara, and pet dog and mini pig.

Puzzle Pieces

Armand Rosamilia

Yesterday the piano, buried in the living room, mocked me.

I’d been restacking the New York Times from 1982 through 1983 when I heard it, plain as day. Three feet from the cache of pink flamingos I’d rescued from behind the JC Penney store. Just to the left of the six foot stack of takeout trays I’d mean meaning to sort by color.

One thin twang of a piano string, just loud enough I heard it.

I knew it wasn’t a rat or a mouse. I had three hundred and fifty seven traps inside the house and checked them every hour on the hour.

Between counting and recounting my collection of Ziploc bags.

My ex-wife said I was a hoarder, as if she had any clue how great my work here was. As if she knew what needed to be done.

She was always cleaning up after me, trying to throw my valuable possessions away. She didn’t understand what was happening.

Life was a puzzle and I was collecting all of the important pieces. Years ago we’d gone to McDonalds and there were game pieces and a game board to win prizes. She never understood my fascination with collecting all of them, even if they were expired.

In the bathroom, underneath the neat pile of women’s bedroom slippers, was a cardboard box with all of my pieces collected so far. Thirteen thousand eight hundred and six.

This morning the piano, still underneath sixty-two boxes of expired Kraft macaroni and cheese, mocked me for the second time.

I swore it wouldn’t do it again.

Every few months the nosy neighbors would call the police because some of my collection would have to be stored outside my home for a few weeks while I reconfigured each room.

The police would talk down to me, patronize what my life’s work was, and tell me to clean up the sixteen gas masks and ninety-seven picture frames or the stack of sixty White Castle number thirteen placards. The bicycles, the tricycles and the motorcycle parts, as well.

Once, to calm down a particularly young and pushy officer of the law, I’d taken him on a tour of the house. When he saw how empty my bedroom was, my inner sanctuary, with only a box spring and mattress on the floor and nothing else, he’d smiled. Shook his head. Left without another word.

I didn’t collect junk. Only things that mattered. My only vice was the single television in the living room, perched on eight long boxes of Superman comic books, four high and two wide.

On Saturday night I’d watch John Walsh and take note of the FBI’s Most Wanted, hoping I’d seen one of them at the grocery store or the flea market. Maybe the junkyard, where my ex-wife had had her terrible accident and left me with her life insurance, the house and the savings from when her parents had died.

It allowed me to quit my job. Focus exclusively on my work and figure out the pattern.

My sole purpose in life was hidden in the patterns on the floor. In the stack of aspirin bottles, stacked six feet three inches so far, or the five hundred and eighteen packs of playing cards in another stack next to the aspirin bottles.

In the seven hundred and thirty copies of Stephen King novels. I’d never read them and I never would. Not my taste. But it is part of the puzzle.

Just now the piano mocked me again.

I carefully dug through boxes of old 45 records, mostly Elvis, and neatly folded piles of bathrobes, until I came to the piano.

Instead of growing silent, which I thought would happen, it let out another two very low noises, barely audible. I’d heard it because I was listening.

The hallway closet contained what I was looking for, so I moved items carefully like the sixty two umbrellas, still wrapped in plastic, and the three cigar Indians. The closet door opened with a groan, as if it knew what was going to happen, and I selected the perfect choice from the nineteen leaning against the closet wall.

It was the same one I’d used on my ex-wife in the junkyard when she’d mocked me for wasting my time and money on what she called junk.

Come to think of it, the piano was hers as well, a gift from her parents when we moved into the house.

I used the ax to chop into the piano, and it screamed. White and black keys shot through the air, trying to take out my eye, and the piano wire flailed, seeking to grip my hand and pull me into its bowels.

I fought the piano for what must’ve been hours, until it was no more. A pile of wooden shards and bent piano wires, crushed keys and dust.

Somehow it had gotten the best of me, though, and when the wire tightened around my neck, tied to the ax, I closed my eyes and hoped this was what it had all been for.

Armand Rosamilia writes horror, crime thriller, contemporary fiction and a bunch of other genres. He loves baseball and reading. He loves talking in third person. He’s also a podcaster with both Arm Cast Podcast and The Mando Method Podcast. He runs Project Entertainment Network. Find him on all social media. https://armandrosamilia.com

Pretty Like Butterflies

Tim Waggoner

There was a young woman who lived in a small, dull town where everything was gray. The sky was gray, no matter the season, and the streets and buildings were gray, as well. The people wore gray clothes, and even the trees and grass were a grayish sort of green. The woman grew weary of living in such a drab place, so she decided she would make a change. She began wearing bright multicolored clothes—shirts and pants, blouses and dresses, hats and scarves. Everything she wore was a riot of color. Her clothes were a message to the citizens of the town: You don’t have to live Gray. But the townsfolk only shook their heads when they saw her walk by and averted their eyes as if her colorful outfits might blind them.

Except one man. He watched her whenever she passed his house, and he always said the same four words to her.

“You’re pretty like butterflies.”

And then he would smile, displaying gray teeth.

He made her feel uncomfortable, and she didn’t like going by his house. But it was the fastest way to the shop where she worked, so she hurried on by, walking as fast as she could. But he was always there, standing in his gray-green yard, and he would speak to her in his quiet gray voice.

“You’re pretty like butterflies.”

She supposed she should be happy that at least one person in town seemed to appreciate her colorful taste in clothes. But there was something about him that made her uneasy. Even in a town filled with gray people, he was gray. Grayer than gray. His house was like a large gray smudge, and the trees in his yard resembled long sticks of gray charcoal. He was tall and lean, with pipe-cleaner arms and legs, and he wore thick-lensed glasses which made his eyes seem enormous. What little hair he had was gray, and even his skin was tinted gray, as if he suffered from ill health. And of course, his clothes were gray: shirt, tie, pants, socks, and shoes. Even his shoelaces were gray.

But what bothered her the most was the way he looked when she passed. He stared unblinking, eyes glazed over, as if he not merely admired her colors, but was hypnotized by them. And that thing he said–You’re pretty like butterflies–was so odd. She’d never seen an actual butterfly, only pictures in books, on television, and on the Internet. Why would he compare her to something he might well have never seen himself? All in all, it was most unsettling, but she told herself to forget about it. The man might be strange, but he had done nothing to make her think he was dangerous. And since she needed to walk past his house to get to work, she would just have to get used to him, whether she liked it or not.

Life went on this way for some time, the young woman walking past the strange man’s house, and the strange man telling her she looked pretty like butterflies. But one day as she was walking by his home on her way to work, the man wasn’t in his yard. The front door to his smudge of a house was open wide, and from inside, she heard him shout.

“I’m hurt! Hurt bad! Won’t someone please help me?”

She stopped, startled to hear him say something other than his usual four words. She hesitated, unsure what to do, but when the man let forth with a wordless cry of pain, she hurried across the yard and rushed through the open doorway. The poor man sounded as if he was hurt badly, and strange or not, he needed help.

Despite the door being open, it was dark inside, and she could see nothing. But her eyes quickly adjusted, and she could make out shapes on the walls. At first she thought they were sculptures of some kind, but then she realized with horror that what she was looking at was people. Men and women, young and old. Children, too. They hung limp and lifeless on the walls, impaled by long silver shafts that looked like gigantic needles. They covered every inch of the walls, were even stuck to the ceiling. And they all had one thing in common, other than the fact that they were all dead and in varying states of decomposition.

They all wore colorful clothes.

Greens, yellows, oranges, purples, blues… All the colors of the rainbow were represented, but the most common was red. There was a lot of that on the people, oh yes there was.

Now the young woman understood–far too late–why everyone in town wore gray.

The door slammed shut and she heard a familiar voice behind her.

“Do you like my collection? They’re all so pretty, aren’t they? Just like butterflies.”

A pause, and then the voice came from close to her ear.

“Just like you.”

Tim Waggoner has published nearly fifty novels and seven collections of short stories. He’s won the Bram Stoker Award and been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. He’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.

S1:E7

Robert Ford

It’s so absolutely perfect, it almost brings me to tears.

Calla lilies bookend the sides of the parlor, leading people’s eyes to the explosion of sunflowers behind the centerpiece—Will’s tiny silver-gray casket.

Visually, it’s stunning. I’ve always been gifted with visualizing an idea, a concept, a…plan. But this exceeds my expectations, and if I’m to be honest with myself, that is exceptionally difficult. High expectations are part of the woman I am—for those around me, as well as myself.

But it’s more than a visual thing. The syrupy smell of the lilies, combined with the mixture of perfumes from the crowd is almost narcotic. I feel like I’m swimming in ocean tides, swaying along with some larger force.

Someone’s hand against my elbow, their touch gentle, as if they don’t want to break me.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

Before I turn, I recognize the voice—Margot. Two doors down from me, she’s the perfect soccer mom with her sparkling minivan and landscaped yellow roses. Her eyes are glassy—not crying, but considering it.

I let her hug me, one arm around my waist and the other higher, a hand on the back of my neck, pulling me closer. Her hair smells of lilac. No. Honeysuckle maybe.

I put exactly the amount of loose-limbed effort into my response. It feels good, this embrace. She hangs on for a moment, and then a slightly tighter squeeze before she lets go. Her hands slide down to hold mine. Her fingers feel cold and too thin.

“It’s a stupid thing to ask, but…how are you holding up?” Her question seems sincere, which almost catches me off guard. I hadn’t expected empathy. Hadn’t expected Margot to take time from yoga classes and play dates.

I let my appropriately vacant eyes stare. Not at her. Through her. That’s the right expression. I should know—I’ve worn it for months at the doctor’s offices. “It’s…it’s not a blessing, but Will is…” I measure my exhale in controlled doses. “He’s not hurting anymore.”

Margot’s face scrunches up. Is that the phrase that’ll tip her over to tears?

No. She straightens and tries to be strong for me.

I consider ratcheting the moment up a notch and telling her I’m pregnant again—had been for the last few months—to see if I can break her. But I don’t. I’ll save that news to enjoy later. Watching Margot hear that Will was going to be a big brother would be an exquisite thing to witness.

She squeezes my hands and nods a pained expression. We both don’t know what to say. “If you need…anything at all.”

I hear Stephen’s voice from the other side of the room. He’s nodding solemnly to two men in dark suits and dark ties.

It angers me he gets this attention. This sympathy.

He has no idea of the planning this took. The research. The goddamn control it took to administer things slowly and make Will’s sickness look natural.

Stephen had been to the doctor’s office, what, three times during all of this? Four at most? Work in Boston. Chicago. New York. Work. Work. Work.

Father Mitchell pauses in front of Stephen and I see the priest speak in a low tone before continuing to the front of the room to stand before the podium.

It’s a cue for people to take their seats. Stephen unbuttons his suit and clears his throat as he sits down next to me. The lines around his red-rimmed eyes are deeper today. He holds my hand.

We made love last night for the first time in two months. I know I manipulated him into it, but so what? I was in the living room watching myself in the mirror as I cried. He heard me and came in to take me in his arms. That turned to kissing and then… We made love right there on the living room floor.

We made love silently. Slow and passionate and…it was everything I wanted. Stephen slid his hands down my bare outer thighs and I felt the sting at his touch, enough to make me hiss an inhale.

He thought it was pleasure.

I don’t know where the marks on my body came from. Outer thighs. Lower stomach. Rows of angry red lines. Scratches from little fingers. Could be from anything. I could have hurt myself and not realized it. I’ve been distracted with planning.

The mark on my stomach though…

I took a photo of it and sat on the toilet for a long while as I studied the image. It’s undeniable. Teeth marks from a small mouth. A child’s mouth.

I shake away the thoughts and give Stephen a quick forced smile and let it fade just as fast. This is the start of something good for us. A clean slate.

I squeeze Stephen’s hand and he squeezes back.

I hear the banjo. Father Mitchell is gone from the podium and I hadn’t realized he had even finished speaking. The Rainbow Connection—Will’s favorite song—plays from speakers in the corners of the room. How many times had he watched The Muppets DVD?

Season One, Episode Seven is where Kermit unleashed his song The Rainbow Connection upon the world.

Sniffling sounds rippled through the audience. This song was breaking people in half, priming them for afterward. The denouement, where everyone focuses their attention on me. The love. The attention. The outpouring of sympathy washing over me like warm rain.

I close my eyes and think of Will singing. I give the feeling a mental push and the tears scald my cheeks.

The song ends and people stand in the heavy silence. Stephen pulls me close, though I turn my face so my tears don’t dry on his suit. He clears his throat and stands.

Now, I’ll walk to the casket. Let myself crumble. Let people lift me up again.

There is a sensation inside me like ripples in a small pond. I’m only a few months into the pregnancy, but nevertheless, the feeling is there.

I rest a hand against my lower stomach, and feel the bitemark sting as the fabric slides across it.

Something inside me moves. Dying to get out.

Robert Ford is the author of the novels The Compound, A Penny for Your Thoughts (with Matt Hayward), Rattlesnake Kisses (with John Boden) and many short stories and novellas. You can find out more about what he’s up to by visiting robertfordauthor.com

Pain Is Your Teacher

Michael Harris Cohen

Alexander,

Thank you for waiting till I left to read this. I’m sure you’re livid. I’m sure you want to tear these words in two. Please don’t.

As I write this I imagine how our last meeting will go. You’ll call me a “crazy bitch” as you sign the divorce papers. You’ll clench the pen like a dagger. Your fury will stink the air like vinegar.

Was it like that? Did you notice how I’m not scared of you anymore? I’m stronger than I was. I had a good teacher.

Do these letters blur, Alex? Can you read this?

The chemist said you might not be able to by now. Is there a peculiar sensation in your belly? The chemist described the onset as “thistles scaling one’s guts.” Is that accurate?

Your now-ex-wife, the “crazy bitch,” poisoned your scotch for our last toast. Cheers.

Indeed, I thought I might be crazy when I first had this idea. I thought I could never poison anyone. Never. Even if he’s a fat-faced sadist who capsized my life, who drained my last drib of self-worth, I could never do that. Not to another person.

Then I realized: you’re not a person. Not even close.

Have you called 911? Go ahead. There’s no antidote. The chemist was adamant: “This opens a door one can’t return through.” He’s a poet. And a maker of death in tiny bottles.

But you’re not going to die. The chemist promised. Not unless you take your own life. “Some will, some won’t, some do, some don’t” the chemist said. He sang, actually.

“Pain is a teacher.” Isn’t that what you said? When you broke my nose?

It grows in you. It’s a blend of things, gympie gympie most of all. A funny name, yes it is. Others call it the “suicide plant.” Its sting can last two years. People kill themselves because of it. They say it’s like an acid burn and electrocution combined. Is that accurate, Alex?

I might go to jail but I’m free. Your pain taught me well.

Pain is your teacher now.

Always,

Your Crazy-Bitch-Ex-Wife

Michael Harris Cohen’s writing has won several awards and been published in, among other places, Conjunctions, Catapult’s Tiny Crimes, Pseudopod, F(r)iction, The Dark Magazine, and Fanzine. He lives with his wife and daughters in Sofia, and teaches Creative Writing and Literature at the American University in Bulgaria. Read more at Michaelharriscohen.com

Memory Lane

Red Lagoe

A baby’s laugh played on repeat when Victor pressed the button. She giggled, then rocketed to a high pitched coo, and back down to a stuttering laugh—like a song. A recording of Hayden’s voice was locked into the yellow cover of a photo album, pages empty beyond eleven months.

Victor pressed the button again. Giggle-coo-laugh.

Again...

Around the edge of the plastic button, years of wear rubbed the cover bare.

He sipped from a mug and wished it were gin, but he gave that up years ago, right after he lost her to that damn drunk driver.

Victor pressed it again, but the recording slowed.

Again. It deepened and dragged. The giggle-coo saddened into a slow, manly drawl, and then the battery quit for good.

He pressed it again. Nothing.

Again... Silence.

A desperate finger pressed harder and harder, but Hayden couldn’t talk to him anymore.

Victor rocked, head clamped between his hands, squeezing tufts of hair through his fingers.

“Victor,” his wife Elena’s voice rang. “Take these. It’ll help.” She pushed two small pills in front of him.

He swatted them away and they flung to the floor.

“Victor!”

He folded over in his chair and crumpled to the floor under the table, with Hayden’s photo album against his chest.

“I need her back,” he whispered. “Please. I need to hear her voice. Please. Please...”

He swayed in the painful silence.

Hidden beneath the draped shelter of a tablecloth, Victor prayed. “I’ll give anything,” he whispered, “just to hear her voice.”

Guttural moans of despair spilled from his core. Saliva strung between his lips. Victor begged for help from Heaven, or from Hell, or from whomever would listen.

Something nudged his knee, and when he opened his eyes, a girl, no more than ten years old, pushed a blue photo album, much like his own, into his leg.

Victor scrambled backward up against the table leg, but she tilted her head and smiled.

“You can hear her laugh again if you take this.” Her scrawny arms swam in a gray jersey as she held the album out for Victor.

He hesitated. “Who are you?” Her eyes were like Elena’s—warm and kind, heavy lashes.

“Press the button,” she said.

Victor reached for the book and pushed on the round plastic button.

Giggle-coo-laugh.

His shoulders relaxed with the glorious sound of Hayden’s laugh.

As Victor tried to grab it, the young girl pulled it back. “This photo album is not just what was, but it’s also what could have been.”

“What do you mean?”

She opened the book.

Twelve Months: A birthday photo shoot with a big number one. Balloons. A picture of his daughter with cake and frosting smeared all over her face.

Victor’s weeping turned to laughter. “There’s another button,” he said.

The girl in the gray jersey nodded with a grin. “Press it.”

I yuv you, Dada.—the recording played.

Breath stole, Victor gaped at the impossible. He reached to turn the page, but the girl pulled the book away.

“There’s a price,” she said.

What price would he have to pay for such a gift? “Is it...my soul?” he asked.

“Don’t be silly,” she laughed. “You’ll know the price when the time comes.”

“Anything. I don’t care.” He grabbed at the book and the girl released it to him.

He flipped to the next page.

Two Years Old: Hayden wore a yellow raincoat, toddling through the zoo.

Victor released an ecstatic breath and smiled, but when he looked up, the young girl in gray was gone.

Next, a picture of her riding a carnival ride—a big blue turtle—and next to it, a button.

Weeeee! This is fun! Her laugh intoxicating.

Victor turned to the next page. Blank.

The next—blank.

Another page with nothing in it.

“What the hell?” Victor snapped. He turned blank pages until finally a photo.

Seven Years Old: A Halloween Costume—face painted green. A button.

Why can’t you go trick-or-treating with me, Daddy?

“I wish I could,” Victor whispered.

Then let’s go.

“I can’t” he cried.

You’re always gone.

“Why?” he asked.

Mom says it’s because you drink too much. She responded.

Silence followed. He tried pressing it again. Why can’t you go trick or treating with me daddy?

Victor turned the page.

Ten Years Old. She’s in a gray jersey—kind, warm eyes like her mother’s. The girl who was under the table minutes ago smiles in a school photo. Beneath, an obituary.

And a button.

I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Dad.

No you’re not fine.

Then the sound of a revving engine. Peeling tires. Screaming. A squeal. Crash—metal on metal.

He bursts from under the table. The illusion of his home and wife peeled away to bright white walls. Nurses, patients. Surrounded by figures in blue scrubs, Victor thrashed as they restrained him.

The drunken, faded memory of strapping his eleven-month-old-daughter into the car seat.

A prick in his left arm, and his vision blurred.

#

“Good morning, Victor,” Elena’s voice woke him, but it was not her. A nurse stood beside him. “Take these. It’ll make you feel better.” She set a cup of pills on his bed stand.

He swallowed them and picked up the yellow photo album. “Where’s the blue album?”

“You only have that one, far as I know,” the nurse said as she left the room.

Victor opened the album and flipped through all of Hayden’s baby photos, right up until eleven months. Then nothing.

He closed the book and pressed the button on the outside cover—it worked, but the message changed.

I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Dad.

He pressed it again, I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Dad.

With each push of the button, his precious Hayden’s voice spoke to him.

I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Dad.

Again...

Again...

Red Lagoe grew up on 80s horror and carried her paranoia of slashers and sewer creatures into adulthood. She never investigates the noise outside and never enters the creepy house. This is how she survives and is able to write dark fiction. Find more of Red’s work at www.redlagoe.com.

The Silence Of The Sirens

Loren Rhoads

Throughout her time in Prague, Alondra had contemplated a visit to Kafka’s grave. He understood futility like no one else. She came out of the subway station to find herself across the street from a towering white gate. She gathered the fur coat more closely around herself and trudged across the slush-piled street.

She thought she had the graveyard to herself. Many of the stones were polished black marble, engraved with the blessing hands or the Star of David. Too many of them bore birthdates followed by a hyphen and then the names Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen.

As Alondra kicked through the crystallized snowdrifts, her thoughts circled back to Victor in England. Tears prickled her eyes. She wiped them away before they froze and blinded her.

For forty days, she had not interacted with another human being. Abstaining from sex had been easy in this city where she knew no one but her landlord and the thief who’d procured the equipment for her Work. Perhaps that was where the fault lay: her failure had been insufficient bribery to purchase Emperor Rudolf’s treasures to stock her lab. The taint of theft could have corrupted her results. She could blame her desperation and haste that the universal solvent had not transmuted.

If John Dee’s furnace in the collection of the British Museum had been reparable, she wouldn’t have sunk to theft. If she’d had any options at all…but Victor’s life was almost over. Time was too short for anything but desperate measures.

She gazed at Kafka’s pink granite obelisk. Buried with his mother and hated father: how that must rankle in whatever afterlife the author had flown to. She wondered if she was doomed to be buried alongside her own blood kin.

Somewhere in the winter graveyard, a man shouted. “Kam jdete?”

Alondra turned. An elderly man shuffled through the snow toward her. She realized he must have shouted at her several times.

“Are you crazy?” he demanded in Czech. That much she understood. Her landlord often screamed it through her locked door.

She wondered where Victor’s grave would be, who would chase her away from it.

The graveyard’s caretaker harangued her, shivering and rubbing his hands. Eventually, Alondra grasped that he meant it was too cold for any sane person to wander the graveyard. He paused, clearly expecting an apology Alondra opened her mouth, but her voice—after forty days of silence—refused to oblige. Even if she’d spoken his language, there was no arguing with Czechs. She gestured she was mute.

Disgusted, the caretaker shook his head and waved her toward the exit. He had clearly decided she was deaf, too.

Pain blossomed in her chest, jagged and cold. Suddenly, she had to run. Encumbered by the heavy fur coat, Alondra bolted out of the cemetery, away from the dead, dodging traffic as she crossed the road, fleeing down into the metro station. She paid her fare and found herself, swaying, on the edge of the platform, breathing the sharp scent of electricity and steel.

People stared at her—the crazed redhead in the expensive fur coat. In the Malá Strana, below the old castle, women were wealthy and fashionable. They looked at her coat with measuring eyes, craving their own. Out here in the suburbs, the coat represented blessings that the fall of Communism never bestowed. Alondra wondered if someone would stop her from jumping if only to salvage her coat.

A light appeared in the tunnel, stabbing through the shadows as it grew nearer. To her own surprise, Alondra stepped away from the platform’s edge and watched the train arrive. She could not kill herself. Her death would hasten Victor’s, take away a pillar that supported his will to live. As long as he knew she existed somewhere in the world, he wouldn’t give up. She wouldn’t destroy him by hurtling herself prematurely into the maw of death.

After he was gone…well, she made herself no promises.

Loren Rhoads’ Alondra stories have appeared in the books Best New Horror #27, Strange California, Fright Mare: Women Write Horror, Sins of the Sirens, The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One, and nEvermore: Tales of Murder, Mystery, and the Macabre. They're collected in kindle format on Amazon. Learn more at lorenrhoads.com.

It’s Me, Not You

Jonathan Winn

His fentanyl dreams thick, her beloved slept.

Hours ago, they’d met. Tousled hair, lop-sided grin, his greasy paws clutching a wrench, he’d poked his head into her driver’s side window. “A squeak, huh,” he repeated as she sipped her morning double shot raspberry mocha. By lunch, here, in the house they now shared, his calloused palms smearing her dimpled flesh black, she’d given herself to him. By dinner, his eyes closing half-way through the mashed potatoes, she knew he was The One.

By nightfall she was hoisting her snoring Goliath, his muscled limbs heavy and useless, up eleven stairs to the attic.

Now she sat near, watching him.

They’d left before, the other Ones. Half a dozen, at least. Or so it seemed. Disappearing before she woke or slipping out the door while she showered, the scribbled apologies propped on her pillow as soothing as alcohol on an open cut. The lie of those inevitable four words—”It’s me, not you”—soon sharpening the dull ache of perpetual abandonment into a bone-white blade of dangerous calm.

But this beloved—locked behind the thick bars of a Rottweiler-tough kennel, arms duct-taped to his sides, his mouth silenced, his thighs webbed tight with a second roll of metallic gray—would stay.

That band of gold taunting her from his left hand would not.

But despite the tugging and pulling, twisting and nudging, the ring wouldn’t budge. The metal too small or his finger too thick, this single-paycheck remnant of his past mocked her with its stubborn refusal to yield.

Until it did. Clattering to the floor, her gardening shears slicing flesh and cracking bone, it surrendered as her Adonis dreamt. Then, moving quick, a red-hot iron cauterizing the seeping torrent into blackened calm, she swaddled the orphaned knuckle in gauze.

And, just like that, her beloved was no longer betrothed.

She stretched. Dawn crept ‘round the heavy drapes, the dark giving way to a soft, dusty glow. He’d be waking soon.

She was ready.

Earlier, while the stars still shone, while he still slept and bled and dreamt, and his bandage was still the panicked shout of bright red and not the harmless Pepto-pink it’d become, she’d ducked downstairs to slip into one of her wedding day-white dresses. The first thing he’d see in this, his new life, would be of her in innocent, virginal white on their wedding day.

And soon, kneeling before him, his one and only, a woman no longer wandering life as a desperate, hopeless spinster but as someone loved and adored and desired, they’d begin again. She’d learn his favorite foods. His favorite music. She’d be his heart, his soul, his voice. His whole, wide world. In time, she’d learn his most basic needs and most private desires.

She’d learn his last name.

Their days would be spent together, she decided, the lock unlocked and the door of the kennel creaking open, her hands coaxing the battered work boots from her sleeping Adonis’ large feet.

He’d never slip out when she was in the shower. Or tip-toe through starlight to escape. That she was sure of. It’d be impossible. “We’re soul mates,” she said, the words the barest of whispers as she rolled the socks down his calves and over his heels.

“Twin flames.” She reached behind for the knife. His bare foot rested in front of her, the sweaty sole nestled against her knee. “We’re destined.” The blade rested on his ankle.

His eyes were open now. He blinked slow, once, twice, his mind, his body, his thoughts, reason, fear still lost in an opioid haze. She smiled, shushing him quiet and still.

“With you, I’ll never be alone,” she then said as his eyes closed and the first cut sliced deep.

Jonathan Winn is a screenwriter and author of almost a dozen books including Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read…powerful and jarring,” Cemetery Dance), Martuk…the Holy (A Highlight of the Year, 2012 Papyrus Independent Fiction Awards) and The Martuk Series, Vol. 1, A Collection of Short Fiction.

Sisters Of Loss

Mark Allan Gunnells

Sandra and I have been friends since kindergarten. Back then we used to have tea parties with our stuffed animals and dollies, or pretend we were princesses waiting for our princes to ride up on white horses and take us away. By the time we were in middle school, we were calling one another “sister” because we felt closer than any blood relation.

We always asked for the same gifts for Christmas, but since my family had considerably less money than hers, that meant she kept her requests much more reasonable than need be. If her parents surprised her with something extravagant, she would refuse to play with it or even break it on purpose just so we would stay on even ground.

Sandra was always smarter than me, and in our senior year she got into Northwestern University. She chose not to go because the only school I’d been accepted to was a small college the next town over. We went together, took teaching jobs at the same elementary school after graduation. We were so close we earned the collective nickname “the Siamese Sisters” since we seemed to be conjoined.

We even got married within the same year, Sandra in early April to Bob and me mid-October to Frank. I found out shortly thereafter that I couldn’t have children, and Sandra made the choice not to have any herself. She didn’t want to take the journey of motherhood if I couldn’t take the same journey.

I recognized just how much Sandra sacrificed for me, so that we could be together and that our lives would stay on the same path. It was incredibly selfless of her, but she didn’t seem to see it that way. She said it was just what sisters did for one another. They shared everything, both the joy and the pain. I repeatedly vowed to repay her someday though she said it wasn’t necessary.

And then Sandra’s husband died a month ago. I have tried to be there for her, to comfort her, but for the first time in our lives, she has pulled away from me, withdrawing into her own sense of grief and loss. That grief built a wall between us I couldn’t seem to breach, and it was lonely on my side of that wall all alone.

I have come to realize that the reason I can’t help Sandra through this is because for the first time since we met, there is something we can’t share. I can sympathize but I can’t really understand the loss she feels because it is a pain I’ve never actually experienced. The only way I can comfort her is to turn my sympathy into actual understanding.

It’s a sacrifice, I realize, but after all Sandra has sacrificed for me, it’s the least I can do. And that’s why I’ve tied you to the bed, Frank, and that’s why I have this knife. I want you to understand why I’m doing this. It’s nothing personal against you, but Sandra is my sister and I have to do this for her. Once you are gone, I’ll be able to share her loss.

And sisters share everything.

Mark Allan Gunnells loves to tell stories. He has since he was a kid, penning one-page tales that were Twilight Zone knockoffs. He likes to think he has gotten a little better since then. He loves reader feedback, and above all he loves telling stories.

Talisman

Jezzy Wolfe

Inside the lacquer box, situated on a velvet placard, sat a pendant the color of polished ruby. A swirl of grey dust bisected the teardrop shaped stone. Platinum silver jacketed the charm and lassoed it to its heavy silver chain. She ran a finger across the satin smooth jewel.

“Hello, Mom.”

The moment she long anticipated arrived, and with it, the realization that her life, going forward, would mean returning to the world missing an important piece of herself. This new version of forever terrified her. For two months she hid, using the accepted excuse to avoid both work and social invitations. She promised herself, and everyone else, that she would return once all the loose ends were tied.

This represented her final loose end.

Mallory ordered the necklace from a company that specialized in turning small samples of cremains into one-of-a-kind jewelry. The simulated rhinestone matched the cloisonné rose patterns on the urn that held the rest of her mom’s body. She closed her eyes and pictured her mom in her favorite red dress…the reason she selected that particular urn, and that exact pendant.

Once she put the necklace on, she would never take it off again. It was the promise she made that day in the ICU, as her mom laid unconscious and dying. A promise to always keep her close. The necklace was long enough to suspend the stone over Mallory’s heart—it didn’t get much closer than that.

With anxious fingers, Mallory opened the clasp and slipped the chain around her neck. The pendant dangled at her chest, just left of where her heart panic pounded against her sternum. She could see the charm jump with each palpitation.

She slid her hand beneath it, the bauble ice cold against her skin. Closing her fingers around the stone, she squeezed.

Her mom lay a foot from her face, eyes half open, lax mouth spilling a stream of bile as her soul slipped free. An unearthly rattle escaped her chest as it heaved one last time, a tired death nell which expelled a gob of blood that splattered her chin and neck. Mallory jumped, reaching forward to wipe the offensive spittle away. Her mom disappeared.

Alone, Mallory blinked. Her sparse room looked exactly as it did before. The pendant seemed to pulse against her. She gripped it again.

Her mother appeared, still spitting bile, this time lifting a twisted arm towards her. She could read the condemnation in her mother’s jaundiced eyes. She released the necklace with a cry.

In tears she called her aunt, recounting the bizarre vision. “She blames me. She knows it’s my fault,” she sobbed into the phone.

Her aunt’s gentle voice calmed her. “What happened was not your fault. You could not have known. You were a good daughter, and your mom loved you.”

Mallory recalled the argument they had the last time she saw her mother. She didn’t mean what she said...she never did...but her mom knew how to push her buttons. She left that day without saying goodbye. The next time she saw her, tubes were shoved through her mother’s nose and down her throat, keeping her alive as her brain decided if it would recover from the many strokes that ravaged it.

Mallory prayed for a miracle. She begged for a second chance.

Each time, the answer was no.

She stayed with her mom after that, hoping she would wake long enough to at least talk to her. Mallory needed to apologize, to tell her mom she loved her. To tell her she didn’t mean to cause her mom’s strokes. Even though the doctor insisted it had nothing to do with her. Even though her aunt said it wasn’t her fault.

Mallory knew. She killed her mom. She broke her heart. She abandoned her. Certainly, her mom could never forgive her for that.

She wrapped her hand around the pendant and sunk onto the sofa. Her mom appeared once more, face now bloated and gray, bloody tears seeping from the corners of her eyes and pooling in the creases around her mouth. Her eyes slid sideways, locking on hers, and a garbled sound came from her throat. “You...”

Mallory gasped, released the pendant, and her mom disappeared.

She waited a few minutes before wrapping her hand around the necklace. This time, her mom sat upright, face splotchy with ash colored veins, her once sapphire eyes washed grey, her hair matted and falling out in patches. “You came back.”

Mallory swallowed, wincing at the sting in her raw throat, and said, “I am sorry. I should never have left you.”

Her mom smiled, her mouth crumbling away as if she’d been sculpted from sand. “Now you never will.”

She released the pendant and mother vanished.

Tears seared her cheeks as she choked on sobs that shook her body. She knew she would never forgive herself for not being there the day her mom stroked out. Remorse squeezed her throat with an invisible fist as she remembered her face the day they fought, and then the day she died. Helpless, frail, on the verge of becoming a memory…Mallory made her bargains with God, but her mom never opened her eyes again.

She expelled every tear she had, before wiping her face on her sleeve and taking a deep breath. With a gentle hand, she palmed the pendant.

Her mom sat turned towards her. This time, she looked different. She wore her favorite red dress. Her eyes were the vibrant sapphires of her youth.

Mallory missed seeing them.

“I will never leave you again, Mom.”

Jezzy Wolfe was a founding member of the horror website Choate Road, and co-host for the internet radio show The Funky Werepig. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in various online zines, print publications, and anthologies. She can be found in Virginia Beach, editing her first novel.

The Melting Of Your Gods

Mercedes M. Yardley

They burned my church to the ground.

It’s funny that a night so frigidly cold could be engulfed in such an otherworldly heat. I thought my face would blister, thought my skin would char and my hair singe off. The heat rolled in waves, the opposite of the cooling sea, an anti-ocean. Flames are hungry, and they stuff precious things down their gullets. The floors I helped shine every Saturday morning. The heavy wooden pews. I thought of the framed pictures of Christ on the walls, painted and matted and hung with such care. That face I loved, those hands already marked with suffering long before this. His skin was accelerants and oils but I tried not to think of the “O” His holy mouth would form as He burned.

Gods are not meant to melt.

I thought fires were supposed to smell good like camping trips. Like wood and ingenuity and the good things of the earth. Campfires smell wholesome. But this wasn’t that. This smelled like melting carpet and electrical wires. The furnace that worked better after a good kick in the morning. The lights in the special room for nursing mothers or little ones who needed a break from the hours of talking.

It smelled like malice. The crackling was louder than anything I had ever heard, and I have heard bones break and people die.

“Behold the fury of God!” the man next to me shouted. His face was lit by flames, eyes wide. He was full of eyeshine and had a black hole of a mouth. “The Spirit of God like a fire is burning!” He started to sing a hymn, looking around like he expected everyone to join in and become a bedraggled choir in our robes and nightclothes. But we weren’t angels. We don’t know how to sing praises on cue.

If we sing louder, he said, maybe God would hear us. If we sing louder, perhaps we’ll achieve a miracle. The earth will swallow up the flames and punish the sinner who threw ravenous fire on our roof.

That wasn’t the thing to say. It wasn’t right. I wanted to contest it, correct it somehow, but when I opened my mouth, there was only a long, keening wail.

Me or the sirens. Maybe both. Firemen pushed us away. They wore masks and I realized the air was ash, that I was breathing in Hell and coating my lungs. My eyes burned terribly, horrifically, but not as fiercely as the building did.

Water can’t quench hellfire. Hoses can’t extinguish abhorrence. The smoke blocked out the moon and the only light was twisting, consuming, orange and murderous.

“Look,” I wanted to say. The fire was sentient and I needed to reason with it. “I’ve been here before. My temple was burned down years ago. My family murdered. They hid in wells and sheds and out in the fields. My mothers were raped and saw the snouts of rifles sticking between the wooden slats of the walls. My children were shot in the head and left unburied. We gathered up what we could carry and trekked across the plains, like wounded criminals, leaving our dead frozen in the snow because the ground was too hard to bury them. We found a place that nobody wanted where we could be alone, and we built a church.”

The fire rumbled.

“This isn’t supposed to happen again.”

The fire growled.

I watched, watched, watched the mighty white steeple fall.

Mercedes M. Yardley is a dark fantasist who wears poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of Pretty Little Dead Girls, Beautiful Sorrows, and the Bram Stoker Award-winning Little Dead Red. You can reach her at www.mercedesmyardley.com.

Charms

Dino Parenti

When I was five, Mom started buying lockets by the handful.

The interest emerged suddenly like the very colds, ankle sprains, and mind furies that laid her up in bed for weeks at a time during that period, but while on the mend, she’d twirl on a silk shawl, don her Audrey Hepburn shades, and we’d hit the flea markets and antique shops. It was on those many weekend sojourns while Dad was on a haul that Mom bartered for lockets of pewter and brass, and I’d glimpse the grins and purpose she seldom unleashed within the house.

#

One summer, after one of her extended recoveries that yielded a limp she never truly bested, we went on the first of several trips to the national parks all over the state.

During our hikes she’d pick a tree, usually a gnarled oak far from the trails, and dangled one of her many lockets from a low branch before photographing it. With a secondhand Leica, she embarked on her next hobby, beginning with snaps of Dad. I suspected it as practice—getting her errors out of the way with him before making me her subject. But that never happened, and I never saw Dad’s shots. Not for a long time, anyway.

#

But Mom got good. Good enough that a patron arranged for her to show in a downtown gallery. Her pictures of trees holding tiny hidden pictures.

Reflecting the lockets, her photos were displayed as pairs, one image the mirror of the other. Their only difference, how Mom developed them—one slightly over-exposed, one under-exposed. Private dialogues in greys and light, and for years Mom smelled perpetually of fixative and developer.

#

When I started junior high, with Mom rarely home due to her blooming career, I took up photography myself, albeit with a Polaroid I’d bought without telling anyone.

I also didn’t disclose how all the same propensities for illness and ungainliness that had wracked her years earlier had begun visiting me, as well. Photography soon became my rebuttal to these ailments in the same way I suppose it was for Mom, but I never dared show her my work. Mom was succeeding and drifting from Dad, and he had taken to scoffing her expression while warning me against mine, and his slow-drip censures wrung me of pride towards my own shots, and I kept them all to myself.

#

When cancer came swinging for Mom after she’d divorced Dad and I started college, she didn’t divulge it initially, but I assumed something was off. As with her art, she preferred inference over declaration.

Soon thereafter, she took another trip, albeit alone, as it was finals month and I couldn’t join her. Upon returning three weeks later, the cancer had effectively walloped her. Rounds of chemo and radiation later went all for naught, and she took to nursing her pain in private until, shriveled and curled in a swaddle of hot, damp flannel, she passed one April morning gazing at the bur oaks outside her bedroom.

Before dying, she confided where she’d stored all those many lockets. That on that last trip, she’d recovered every single piece and stowed them in a box in the garage.

#

A month before Mom’s death, Dad announced he was getting remarried.

While I was shocked by the news, Mom always knew in her private, wrinkled-brow way that he would marry again before she would, though I never understood her conviction. Mom was pretty and bright and dressed like Hollywood royalty, while Dad was a bland Princeton MBA’er, milking whatever gravitas that bought.

None of Mom’s creativity, soul, or charisma, which I suspected he always knew all-to-well.

#

Just as he’d done with Mom, Dad married his new bride on a crisp November in a wooded glen.

Behind the altar, hundreds of lockets dangled from the trees like Christmas garlands.

People gasped at the ethereal sight, assuming one of the groomsmen or bridesmaids snuck out the night before and arranged the surprise.

I’d been invited, of course, but played indisposed due to work commitments abroad. I watched the awe from afar, disguised as a server, wanting to smile but lacking the muscle to, and soon the wedding commenced.

During dinner, envelopes on each table were opened. Thank-yous to the guests and blessing to take one locket home as a memento.

It was just after dessert that one of the bride’s aunts screamed as if black widows had started raining on her head in the shower.

She’d opened a locket, the one I’d left low-hanging. Even at a distance, as her husband ran to her, I saw her fumble Mom’s mummified toe. The one Dad had taken one day over a disagreement over drapes.

Within the locket Mom had placed the pinky on his smiling face. On the other side, her own bruised, battered visage stared back.

Such contrast lived in all the lockets: his smirk beside her wreckage, sometimes cradling a broken tooth, sometimes a shorn fingernail, sometimes a torn earing.

And in some of the higher pendants, his face next to my body. My bruised thighs and welted back.

Soon ladders appeared. The younger men began pulling down lockets while the elders cordoned away the women and children to spare them the horror. And Dad, alternately sniveling and barking blame into the trees, stalked the altar while his new bride gawked into nothing.

I took up a plate and began cleaning it of cake.

Dino Parenti is a writer of dark, speculative fiction. He is the winner of the first annual Lascaux Review flash fiction contest and is featured in other award-winning anthologies. His short-fiction collection, Dead Reckoning and Other Stories, came out in 2018. He lives in Los Angeles. He can be found at www.dino-parenti.com

Not Your Average Monster

Kenneth W. Cain

I am man. A monster. Everyone says so—social media, TV, my family. This is what I tell myself while I get ready for work. I only see an innocent man staring back from the mirror. But I know the truth; there’s a monster inside all right.

This flesh is just a coat. A disguise. Part of a charade to hide what I really am. That’s why I cut it away. It came easier than I thought it would. A snip here, a tug there, my costume falling to the tiled floor. Already I see it, that monster everyone’s been telling me about for so long now. Its bony grin, laughing at me for taking so long to discover its hiding place. Those thin meaty lips curled back in a wicked snarl, so full of anger and hatred. Eyes wide, the monster sees me, too; it identifies with me.

As if I would ever kill or maim or hurt anyone. I’m more like a deer, gracefully moving through a wooded expanse, pausing when startled, just trying to survive. I’ve never attacked anyone, save for twisting my antlers about in defense now and then. But that’s only an instinctual reaction. Once, I even let someone beat me until I could no longer feel the blows. I’m tough like that, able to take abuse and get on with my life. A person in my shoes has to learn how to do that.

The monster, on the other hand, relishes in that pain. It wallows in my sorrow, content with my depression. And I am unhappy most of the time. I struggle to see how anyone can be truly content in this life. Worse yet, the monster’s glad I’m like this after all these years, because it makes me vulnerable. Susceptible to suggestion. Controllable.

“Kill her,” the monster says.

It’s talking about the woman lying in the bathtub. She’s handcuffed to the faucet, duct tape over her mouth, whimpering. Staring up at me with those familiar eyes, I’m sure she hates me. But I can’t kill her, not yet; maybe not ever. And the monster knows that, he does.

It occurs to me for the first time, I’ve referred to it as a he. That concerns me, as if some wire came loose inside, a short circuit. It’s like I’m broken, a complex jigsaw puzzle with a few key pieces out of the millions missing, so that no one can ever fully put me back together again.

The woman is still looking at me, scrutinizing me. She’s shivering. I have no idea how she ended up here, but I’m beginning to think there’s more to this monster thing than I initially believed.

I try empathy. “If I let you go—”

Hope fills her face, but it was wrong to even suggest it. I can’t let her go.

No, that’s not it. I don’t want to let her go. She’s part of me. Always will be.

Knowing I can’t do what he wants, the monster will surely hurt me. I’ll just stand there and take it, like I have so many times before in my life. But I’m no more afraid of the monster than I am anyone that’s tried to hurt me. And believe me, many have tried. Too many to count. People I didn’t even know as well as those I trusted.

It’s funny how that works, trust; how a person can see you one way, then something happens that changes their entire perception. It’s like me being broken somehow ruined them, too. Like I’m to blame for everyone’s unhappiness.

“Hey,” Charles says, “you okay, Enrique?”

I see him standing in the doorway behind me, those brilliant blue eyes showing how worried he is.

“Uh huh.”

“It’s just,” he comes closer, “you were staring at yourself in the mirror again.”

“Was I?”

He comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist, and squeezes. “Is it her again?”

“Yes.” I feel relieved just admitting the truth. “It’s just that, I’m not that person anymore. But she haunts me, you know.”

“Why’s that, you think?”

“I’m not sure.”

Charles hums. “Maybe there doesn’t need to be a reason.”

“I think she sees me as a monster. Like everyone else does.”

He kisses my cheek. “Honey, you’re not a monster.”

“Aren’t I?”

“No. Of course, not.”

“If you saw her the way I do, you’d think differently.”

“What are you saying? That you see bad things?”

“No.” I’m shaking my head. “I see what I’ve done to her.”

“Enrique, stop. You’re right here. She’s still right here.”

For a moment, I consider his words, that he’s right. Maybe that’s why I see her so often.

“Besides,” Charles says, “we’re all monsters.”

And he’s right to a degree. Maybe different sorts of monsters, but monsters all the same. Animals at the very least, scavenging, killing each other, feasting on flesh. A bitter truth, but the life of a monster is full of such truths.

Kenneth W. Cain is the author of four novels, four short story collections, four novellas, several children’s books, and editor for three anthologies. Cain resides in Chester County, Pennsylvania with his wife and two children.

Where The Children Run In Darkness

Guy Medley

Do you hear that? Do you? Whispers in the darkness as I lay constantly immersed in a raging void of…what? Desire? Regret? Fear? These things that imprison me daily. Yet, I can walk free at will any time I so desire. Stroll right out through that reinforced steel door that only opens from the inside. Free to live out my destiny among the mortal swine that surround me, however damned vile its course may run.

But, I must stay strong, resist, remain self-entombed. The world is already dreadfully full of terror and pain, suffering enough, to want more unleashed upon it.

The whispers. They torment me every waking moment. They call incessantly for a release that only I can deliver. And, admittedly, my flesh tingles at the thought of mapping quivering bodies with my honed cutlery, a cartographer working a living canvas of nerve and blood and scream, carving into it intricate routes, boulevards and highways that snake and sprawl and run deep.

How much longer can I contain these urges, keep the whispers at bay? Resist these dark visions of…release? I fear not much longer. The solitude, depravity, it eats at me. Always at swim in this desolate blackness, alone but for the fluttering flesh and drying charred bones I have brought here, ravaged far beyond companionship and understanding.

These walls are strong, for now. The door even stronger, its locks securely engaged. For now. It is the man…the thing, that locks himself away behind these fortifications that is weak. That is crumbling.

They’ve tried to get in, the doctors and shrinks, the pill-pushers, people who claim to care and have the answers; the cure. They’ve tried violating my sanctuary, to pry open, bust down that heavy steel door that keeps them out, and pull me screaming from my only safe place and into the corrupting light of day. But, I’ve buried myself so very deep. Too deep for them to reach with their books and pills and tweed sweater vests.

I can feel the darkness in this dead place, like fly shells floating about in the murk, tickling my flesh. Urging an itch that won’t be scratched away. Like so many squirming, chittering night bugs worming their way into my consciousness. Laying their foul eggs.

What are the darkest depths a man can sink into before he loses sight of the things in life that matter? Before a raw rage assumes control and wreaks havoc on all? I have no idea. The pressure in my cell is growing immense. I think, this must be what it feels like to lay at the bottom of a great sea, the world’s waters piled on top of me.

And the whispering howls on in anguish. There is no release in here.

What malignant fiend has wrapped its gnarled fingers around my thoughts and conspired to cast them to such deplorable depths? The question haunts my days and my sleepless nights equally. And all the while the whispers have grown so constant. So loud. But they aren’t enough to banish the loneliness in here. Not completely.

One more day…another week…a year…how long? Sooner or later these walls will surely fold, buckle in on themselves, crumble. That steadfast and heavy door will unhinge. I’ll unhinge.

Whispers. Whispers. Whispers.

Can you feel me now, sliding in next to you, my anxious breath on your lovely neck? I think you can. I can feel you trembling as my fingers run down your back like spider legs. Maybe, oh just maybe, you’ve been locked away in here, in my dark little safe room, with me all along. Waiting, biding your time. For that release only I can provide. A sweet, silent mutilation.

What…what is that incessant noise that dares penetrate my solitude, my darkness? I must unfortunately see to it. Reluctantly I am forced to turn the great wheel of the steel door, its gears and levers grinding as the bolts retract within. Light seeps around its edges like an eclipse, and then explodes blinding whiteness inward as the door opens wider.

The piercing noise.

The bell.

Ah yes, the bell.

Recess has ended.

The giant door swings shut, not entirely of its own volition, its massive locks engaging, its darkness closed behind me, no way to open from the outside. I am done with hiding away in the darkness of that room. Perhaps there is never a tomorrow. Was never going to be one. But, there is still today.

My eyes snap open to blinding yellow light buzzing down from florescent tubes, loud adolescent voices echoing down hallways, doors being opened and closed. I throw my feet off the desk where they have been resting, straighten my crumpled tie, paint a trusting Mr. Blackwell smile upon my face.

Soon the children will be pouring in, filing to their desks, slack-mouthed and wide-eyed, not so eager for the day’s lessons. Oh, but today…today I have something special planned for the class, and I’m quite certain we’ll all find it most…interesting.

Guy Medley enjoys writing dark horror fiction for the amusement of his friends and family. He resides in the solitude of California’s Mojave Desert, where the extreme heat has, undoubtedly, affected his mind.

Tunnels

Tom Over

The experiments began by accident. Or rather, following an event that was out of his control. This was after his mother had passed away, and he now lived alone in the house. He spent his time indoors, didn’t go outside much, rarely mixed with other people. He’d worked at a supermarket while his mother was alive, yet now that he had been left his inheritance he saw little point in working at all.

The occasions he did go outside were to buy groceries; it was during one such trip that the event occurred. He’d been returning home from shopping when he noticed two unsavoury looking characters approaching him. Both wore hoodies and skulked in a manner that was unnatural. It wasn’t until he jammed his hand in his pocket that he realised it still contained his mother’s gold pendant, a chipped heirloom he’d been examining earlier and forgotten to put back in its box. He seized the antique and with scarcely a thought shoved it into his mouth. It scratched on the way down, but he was glad of his quick resolve because the pair had indeed planned to rob him. They made off with his wallet, but he didn’t care. The most valuable possession was beyond their reach.

He waited to pass the pendant. When it emerged days later something wasn’t quite right. After cleaning it up his suspicion was confirmed, the pendant was no longer cracked like it had been. Not only was it somehow restored, but it gleamed flawlessly like the day it was made. He remained dumbfounded for many hours, unable to believe his eyes. He inspected the pendant with a magnifying glass, but could not rationalise what had happened. He wondered if his mother was somehow watching, puzzling over this too, or trying to communicate the answer. On her death bed she’d ruminated deliriously about the light at the end of tunnels and whether she herself would experience it. Now scrutinising this impossible object, he contemplated whether his dead mother had attained that luminosity, and with it some unknowable cosmic influence.

He needed to know if it had been a freak occurrence, or some replicable phenomenon. Something that could be tested, measured. The first trial he reasoned to keep simple. He fasted all morning and in the afternoon he swallowed a penny. It was an old coin, scuffed and darkened with age. Before he placed it on his tongue he recorded the coin’s date, imperfections and colour tone. Within days he passed the coin, but before even washing it he identified the change. The sheen of the penny was startling, its glossy surface so pristine as to appear newly minted. He supposed his insides may have cleaned it, stomach acids possibly dissolving its crust. But that didn’t explain its condition—of the nicks and scratches he’d documented not one remained. Despite predicting this outcome he was no less bemused by it. He noted his findings and decided to sleep on the result. He ate a minimal supper in preparation for the next trial.

When he had risen he went about looking for digestible objects. Not finding anything in the lounge he perused his mother’s dresser, reaching past the urn to look inside her jewellery chest. In it he found a small crystal egg which contained her wedding ring. He unscrewed the egg at its middle and pocketed the ring, which was missing two of its gemstones. When he had five precious objects in varying states of disrepair, he lined them up on the dining table. Sitting down with a glass of water and his log book he set about recording the defects of each. When he was satisfied, he took a preliminary sip of water and commenced the experiment.

After a couple days four items had emerged. All were in immaculate condition, each a dissident of entropy. The fifth, his mother’s ring, hadn’t appeared. He’d planned to sell the restored goods, but a new compulsion gripped him. He went out into the grounds of the house and approached a tree where he knew there to be a nest.

Returning to the house with his hands cupped in a ball, he went straight to his mother’s bedroom. Eventually he came downstairs and arranged some things on the dining table. He seated himself and regarded each in turn; his log book, a shot glass of olive oil, and his mother’s crystal egg with a starling chick nestled inside it. After recording the data, he downed the oil and then inserted the ovoid capsule into his throat.

When the egg came out, it was not without a struggle. He took laxatives and rocked on the toilet for half a day. Once it emerged nothing about what he saw made sense. He shook the egg, rattling the smaller egg that was inside it. He pored over his findings. After much analysis he arrived at a profound conclusion. He fasted for a day in preparation for his final experiment.

The next morning no artefacts were laid before him, only a solitary glass of water. He unscrewed the cap of his mother’s urn and emptied it into the liquid. Swilling the solution around the glass he let it dissolve and then drank, slaking his ultimate curiosity.

A week passed and nothing happened, so he returned to his studies. Whilst preparing a meal he felt a sharp bowel movement so rushed to the bathroom. As he went to sit down his abdomen bucked and he crumpled to the floor. He writhed in agony, clutching his torso, and howled as a jet of black blood sprayed across the tiles. His whole body jerked with violent convulsions. A sickening tear filled the room and he glanced down between his legs. His vision swam, but he remained conscious long enough to see a human hand erupt out of his body. It clenched and flexed, slick with viscera. A ring glinted wetly on the hand’s third finger, all of the gemstones now present.

Tom Over is a writer of dark fiction living in Manchester, UK. He grew up loving horror and has been suckling on the gnarled teat of weird literature ever since he was knee high to a Mugwump. His work has featured at CLASH Media, Aphotic Realm and Horror Sleaze Trash.

The Truth About Dani

Joe Mercer

Teeth.

I can’t stop thinking about teeth and how if my little girl had any left in her mouth, I wouldn’t be here, standing behind wire-laced glass, sweating through my shirt, shaking from the black cold that’s settled in my bones.

I lie to myself.

That thing laying on the slab, baking beneath hot lights, can’t be a child.

Not my child.

The glass between us is smudged with tears and snot and fingerprints. Dani doesn’t have fingerprints. The tips of her fingers have been chewed down to the bone. It is the only thing I see when I close my eyes.

Bone, washed clean.

Too white.

I imagine swirls of her blood disappearing down a mortician’s drain.

Gone forever.

Not that she’ll be needing it. Not anymore.

The cat-piss stench of ammonia cannot hide the sharp, biting smells of things long buried. Wetness and rot. Back-of-the-refrigerator odors that make me forget about Dani’s strawberry shampoo, her vanilla body spray. I try hard to find those smells but know they’ve been washed down the drain with her blood.

A hand finds my shoulder.

I don’t immediately look the detective’s way. I’m afraid if I take my eyes off Dani before I wake from this nightmare, men dressed in green scrubs will come and wheel her away.

And that’ll be it.

I’ll never see her again.

There’d be no open casket. Not enough of her face left for that.

I press a fist against my mouth. I smell coconut and mint. Dani’s hand soap. She loved anything that made her smell and feel pretty.

The detective offers me a pained smile. It’s practiced, but not hallow. Nothing destroys emergency responders like the death of a child. It’s the fuel that feeds the fire of PTSD. He is tall and black, late forties. He tells me he has children. Three boys. Tells me he’s sorry. Tells me he can’t imagine.

His words die there.

Has he stopped talking or have I stopped listening?

It’s time.

I turn from the window.

Turn from Dani.

#

I step through the hospital’s sliding doors, out into the cold.

The evening is dull.

Lifeless.

Just like Dani.

The sunset is muddy and tired, like it’s not even trying. The greasy windows of the Throwback Diner catch my eye. They shimmer dirty ginger, stiff pink. I remind myself I haven’t eaten in days, but the rank stench of more dead things does nothing to entice me inside.

Instead I pull my collar tight against my jaw, bury my hands in my pockets, and walk.

I can feel the downtown decaying around me. Brick by brick. Decades of neglect. Places easily forgotten. Once-neat pockets of tidy shops and restaurants are now low-rent discount stores. No amount of juice bars or organic eateries or art galleries could ever save this place from itself.

For a brief moment I consider returning to the hospital, where I left my daughter on a slab. My car is parked underground, costing me nine bucks an hour.

We’re sorry for your loss, sir. That’ll be twenty-seven dollars.

I press into the cold, the wind off the bay thrusting against me. Walk. Walk until I see a familiar steeple rising from a knot of twisted branches in the distance.

It draws me to it.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church welcomes me with a sloppy hug. Too warm. Too stale. I enter the nave through a set of frosted-glass doors and the ceiling leaps from my shoulders but fails to take the heat with it.

My wary gaze falls upon the baptism basin. I turn toward it.

Catholic guilt, I suppose.

I haven’t been in a church since Dani received her First Communion seven years ago, yet I go through the practiced motions of marking myself as a Christian.

And I see her on the opposite side of the vast space, her head bowed, negotiating a rosary. I watch, fascinated, but numb, like I’m not really here.

Does she know?

Her right thumb moves on to the next prayer bead, freezes. She lifts her head.

Turning my back to her, I slide into the nearest pew. It is just as unforgiving as I remember.

I think of Dani, prone on that metal slab, and see the remains of her face, washed clean, her blood circling the drain.

I lift my gaze, look at my wife.

Her head is bowed again, tears in her eyes.

As the knife slips from my pocket, I wonder what it’s like to lose everything.

Joe Mercer has been an award-winning journalist, art director, public relations consultant, and published author. When not writing horror he pays the bills as the head graphic designer for an upper-tier municipality.

Baby Savannah

M.J. Sydney

Lillian rummaged through the remains, searching for any salvageable memory. As she shuffled her way through the charred remnants of her life, there was only one thing she wanted–Savannah’s porcelain doll. The one she had custom made for her baby’s first birthday. The dollmaker created it to look just like Savannah–the shape of her face, her eyes, her tiny little fingers, her baby fine hair on top of her perfectly round head.

Every night since Savannah’s first birthday, the porcelain doll lay propped on the nightstand near the crib, but it wasn’t there now. Lillian searched what was left of the baby’s room, which wasn’t much. She pulled Savannah’s favorite blanket out from under the melted mattress, shaking off pieces of splintered railing. She clutched it to her chest and buried her face in the once soft, pink fleece. Closing her eyes, the blanket smothering her face, she took a deep breath. If she concentrated long enough and shut out the rest of her thoughts, the sweet milky baby smell combined with rosemary scented baby shampoo replaced the smell of melted plastic, burnt wood, and mildew. Lillian inhaled Savannah’s scent and took herself back three months. Back to Savannah. Back to Tom. Back to that night.

Lillian and Tom had left Savannah with a babysitter for the first time. They both agreed it was best to wait until she was at least a year old before leaving her with someone else, and the agency wouldn’t send a sitter for infants. Toddlers had to be at least two years old and weaned off breast milk, according to the agency’s representative. As new parents, they weren’t comfortable leaving Savannah with an untrained teenager and family wasn’t an option. Tom’s family lived east in Vermont and Lillian’s mother wanted nothing to do with her.

After two years, it was time. Lillian and Tom planned a romantic dinner at La Palapa, where they had their first date. If all was well with Savannah, a movie afterwards. Lillian called home every fifteen minutes throughout dinner. Everything was fine, the sitter told her. Savannah was sound asleep in her room.

The movie started and Lillian set her cell phone to vibrate. Lillian and Tom focused on being with each other, enjoying the movie and being alone together for the first time in two years. On the way home, Lillian tried to call the house but there was no answer. She tried three more times and assumed the sitter had fallen asleep…but something in her gut told her that wasn’t the case.

Tom made the left turn onto Jaden Avenue. An ambulance, two fire trucks, another emergency response unit and several police cars littered the private road. Neighbors stood outside in their front yards, some huddled together whispering amongst themselves in the middle of the smoke-filled street. Tom and Lillian stopped their car four houses down from their own. The yellow tape and barricade of police cars wouldn’t let them go any farther.

Before Tom killed the engine, Lillian threw open the car door and ran through the barricade. She almost made it to the driveway before two officers grabbed her and dragged her back. She didn’t hear anything other than her own screams after the officer said, “There’s been an explosion.”

Lillian couldn’t remember the details of what happened that night or in the weeks and months that followed. She only knew that Savannah was gone, the explosion came from the baby’s room, Tom had disappeared, and she had spent three months at Eastern State. During her residency at the state hospital, she heard so many stories and rumors about that night that she didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. They told her she went into a rampage the night of the fire. Some thought she killed Tom. Others say Tom planned the whole thing and ran off with the babysitter. Someone suggested aliens and she’s pretty sure there was mention of a demonic possession.

Doctor Parker said she wasn’t able to accept the loss of Savannah and went mad but, with his help, she was now able to cope and could leave the hospital. He warned her about returning to the house too soon. You’re not ready, he told her. Lillian disagreed. She had to find Savannah’s doll. The doll. The smell of melted plastic, burnt wood and mildew brought her back to the present. She dropped the charred blanket to the floor and continued searching.

A familiar, whispering cry came from the other room. Savannah always made that sound when she was waking up from a nap. It was a soft, peaceful, cooing cry as if she were waking from a happy dream. Lillian followed the sound of Savannah’s waking cries into the master bedroom. Lillian’s bedroom, the bedroom she’d shared with Tom, suffered the least amount of damage.

The door dangled from its hinges and black soot covered the walls. Mildew grew on the carpet and up the bedpost. The sheets and comforter lay straightened and folded down on one side, just the way Lillian had made them every morning. Just the way they were when she lay there with Savannah, waiting for her to fall asleep. And there was Savannah’s porcelain doll resting silently in the center of the comforter.

Her perfect little head nestled softly on the snow-white pillow with the lace trim Grammy made for Lillian on her first birthday, which was passed on to Savannah the day she was born. Her tiny porcelain fingers curled up, posed sweetly next to her mouth as she lay on her side.

“My sweet baby,” Lillian whispered to herself, smiling, as she moved toward the doll with its bright green eyes staring up at her.

Lillian lay down and cradled the shattered remnants of Savannah, singing her to sleep, just as she had every night.

Her fingers caressed Savannah’s baby fine hair as she gently kissed her soft, warm cheek. “Shh. You’re safe now. Mommy’s here.”

M.J. Sydney is an all-things weird and twisted, horror-thriller-chiller writer living with a vampire, a werewolf, a Mogwai and various fairies, gnomes and woodland creatures in the Pacific Northwest.

Visit www.TheCrowsInMyAttic.com

Rats Scratched In The Linen Cupboard

Dani Brown

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. Waiting for a nurse to come in the morning and let them out. The corridor glowed with the strange buzz of fluorescent lights on their last hour.

Children slept in beds, waiting for death to take them in the night, waiting to be allowed home with medicine and instructions to follow to stay alive. Marcy’s boots dropped dirt on the dusty tiles and her zippers sang with the Song of Death. A bucket of slime spread tendrils of rotten decay up the walls. No nurses lurked in the station. No new admissions in the middle of the night.

Eggs suspended in slime caught the light of the dying fluorescents. Each one fertilised with a baby with bright blue eyes and tentacles in place of limbs. Marcy’s boots picked them up and carried them a few paces before they squashed in a repeat of where she had been only four seconds before.

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard and climbed Marcy’s boots to perch on her shoulder. She opened the door and stepped out onto the dimly lit corridor. The bucket of slime tipped over. The floor decayed. A baby with tentacles instead of limbs and Donnie’s bright blue eyes screamed at her. A rat bit her finger and pulled a waxed black thread holding her hand together.

The Tentacle Queen stepped out from the shadows, her form concealed behind latex. The monster projected onto the walls. She held a stopwatch.

“Time’s up.”

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. Marcy’s legs swelled together. Her shaking hand pulled the door open leaving behind a layer of skin. A child’s long forgotten doll stared at her with its cotton insides leaking into the puddle of slime. Marcy pulled the door shut. Tears cut down her cheeks flaying the skin.

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. Marcy’s tears dragged off chunks of flesh. Her hands rested in a pile of dead flies. She lifted them to feel the wall to the door handle, dragging waxed black threads with her movement. The flies buzzed into life.

She opened the door and stepped into the dusty corridor. The fluorescents gave a final high pitch hum and flicker. Strange pink light cut across the floor, distorted through the dirty windows. Her swollen thighs protested with each step forward. Fluids leaked from vagina to anus and saturated her trousers. Each echo of her footsteps brought fresh pain. She couldn’t go forward.

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. Dead flies waited on the floor. Donnie’s face shimmered from a photograph hanging from the shelf, hidden behind a filter and photomanipulation. Her thigh split open, spilling more fluid into her trousers. She grabbed the door handle and let the flies and rats out ahead of her. She didn’t make it any further.

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. Faint pink light highlighted the slime oozing under the door. Marcy pushed herself to her elbows and rolled over. She reached high, tearing her seams, to open the door and drag herself into the corridor.

Children cowered behind the closed doors lining the wall opposite the dirty windows. The forgotten doll lies with its insides dissolved in slime. Kord stepped before her, arms pointed to the sky. Powered by a jet, baby. A cassette tape rewound. Powered by a jet, baby. The rats urged Marcy through. Only a hologram projected onto bottled fog and distorted by pink lights through the dirty windows. Dead flies on the floor buzzed to life as she pulled herself along the dust.

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. Marcy’s head banged in a 56 second drum loop caught on repeat. Kord pounded behind the rotten wood. Flies buzzed into life and rats opened the door. Kord was gone. Marcy dragged herself along the corridor.

The sound of children’s laughter bounced off the crumbling walls and plaster fell from the ceiling. She raised her hands to shield her pounding head. Honey with a taint oozed down the walls and swallowed the puddles of slime. Urged forward by the rats. Their fur eaten by moths.

A toddler with tentacles instead of limbs and Donnie’s bright blue eyes dropped a contact lens in Marcy’s path and screamed until it passed out beneath the pink lights distorted through the dirty windows. Marcy manoeuvred her body around the tentacles with protests from her swollen legs. She left a trail of fluids behind. A feast for the flies. Sharp pains gripped her shoulder blades.

Rats scratched in the linen cupboard. The door ajar with Marcy’s hand blocking the way. A puddle of her own fluids showed her reflection. Deformed wings stood out from her shoulders. She flapped but couldn’t fly without feathers.

“Sir says you need to get up now and move to the end of the corridor.”

A child slapped her with a tentacle. Donnie’s picture stolen and printed from social media landed in front of her face as the child faded away. Marcy dragged herself along the floor lubricated by her own fluids.

A door opened. A teenage girl lingered in a doorframe. Hooks instead of hands caught the distorted pink light. Donnie’s same blue eyes, enhanced with contacts, stared at her. The door for next room opened on another teenage girl with hooks for hands. Her shaking dislodged dust and plaster. Marcy raised her hand and the ceiling oozed with honey, picking up the taint from the corridor and neon light.

The rats pulled her when she couldn’t drag herself any further, cutting a fresh path in the dust with her fluids. Forever watched by the two teenage girls with hooks instead of hands. They stepped into the corridor and held each other as Marcy opened the door.

Dirt fell onto the dusty tiles from beneath the Forest of the Dead. Marcy touched it with her fingers held together by waxed black threads and it began to sing. The only way out was up. She would have to dig.

Suitably labelled “The Queen of Filth”, extremist author Dani Brown’s style of dark and twisted writing and deeply disturbing stories has amassed a worrying sized cult following featuring horrifying tales such as “56 Seconds”, “Sparky the Spunky Robot” and the hugely popular “Ketamine Addicted Pandas.”

Raining

John Boden

Gram was awake when we got there. She smiled a lop-sided smile and tried to talk but it was hard to decipher and she grew quickly frustrated. We did a lot of smiling and nodding and squeezing her hand gently to let her know we understood.

Gram didn’t raise us but she came damn close. She was a pillar of our childhood. There through all the good and bad. A warm embrace when things were rough and a stern scolding when it was needed. Always was how long she was meant to be there for us. Always was a promise written on tissue paper in the rain.

The clock moves slow, the second hand somehow in sync with her snores. I watch her sleep. The left side of her face slouched and drooping like melting wax. She looks peaceful even with all the screaming in my head. Those lips that usually kissed my cheek when she’d leave, too moistly, now dry and brittle looking. The wine-colored bruise on her arm where the IV worked. Her ragged breathing and the smell of sweat and cleaner and long ago cigarettes. I bite my lip hard enough to bleed, swallow the blood as though it were a wish.

The door opens and in comes Roscoe, bringing with him the fresh smell of smoke. He attempts a smile for me but it is stillborn. I throw my arms around him and we hug a long, long minute. “So hard,” he speaks or maybe whispers into my ear.

I think I say I know but I’m not sure. We sit there and watch her sleep. “She’ll be in later tonight. Her plane comes in after lunch.” It is my voice. Chalky and crumbling.

Roscoe nods. “That’s who she’s waiting for.” It’s my turn to nod and we sit there for fifteen more minutes that blow by like years. I’m smiling. “She’s the only grandchild who hasn’t been yet.” Roscoe laughs, not at anything funny but it’s the only noise he can make that doesn’t become sobs. It’s almost three.

Roscoe stands and turns on the television. He puts on Guiding Light, her favorite soap opera, and bends to kiss her sleeping brow. “Love you, Gram.”

I give her my kiss and wrap my arms around her head. I cry into her neck a minute or two and then stand and step to where my brother waits. “You gonna say goodbye?” he mumbles to me.

I shake my head and we leave the room along with one of the sweetest things our lives would ever know.

It was raining outside. Sometimes I think it’s never stopped.

John Boden lives a stone’s throw from Three Mile Island with his wonderful wife and sons.

A baker, he spends his off time writing, working for Shock Totem Publications or watching M*A*S*H. He likes Diet Pepsi, has ferocious sideburns, loves heavy metal and old country music, shoofly pie and westerns.

The Death Experience

L.A. Story

Her eyes held the most notable change since her Death Experience.

Ben noticed immediately.

Jessica had died two weeks ago. He would have come sooner, but he had not known she’d braved The Death Experience until someone told him.

What the hell? How had others known before him?

Ben tried not to let it bother him, but it hurt. She used to tell him everything, but she had drifted away over the past year like some unmoored boat while he’d been distracted by the next adventure.

He approached the booth where she waited inside the little diner. It was cold and raining outside. The windows around the dining area were slightly fogged. It was a perfect day to talk about dying.

Ben approached as if she were a deer that would startle and bolt. He didn’t know why he felt that way. After all, she had agreed to meet him.

She looked up from her coffee. Their eyes locked, hers as gray as the morning.

She was changed, profoundly so.

She had always been a high energy person, twitchy, but also bubbly and outgoing. Now, there was a calm that wasn’t present before. He couldn’t quite name exactly what else was different.

He slid into the opposite side of the booth. They stared at each other. A couple of moments slipped by like pickpockets.

He reached out and was glad when she laid a cool hand in his palm. They squeezed fingers briefly before she removed her hand.

After the waitress brought Ben’s coffee, Jessica said, “I can’t tell you anything about the experience.”

He looked up from stirring sugar into his coffee. “I heard the non-disclosure is pretty harsh.”

Her eyes flared. “No, I mean those of us who made it back literally can’t talk about it. It causes seizures. No one knows why.”

“Do you think the doctors at MorsTech implanted something while you were…dead?”

She studied him again with those gorgeous, serene eyes. “Not the doctors. Something…else. I can’t tell you about The Other Side. It’s forbidden.”

“By whom?”

She just shrugged and took a sip of coffee. Those eyes. They made him want to grab her and run away from her at the same time.

“I hear you’re going to do it, too,” she said.

“My appointment is in two days. I can’t have you experiencing something I haven’t,” he said, his lips quirked at the corners. “We have climbed mountains, bungee-jumped, and parachuted together. We made love at high elevations and in shark-infested waters. We’re adrenaline junkies. This Death Experience is now a thing…I can’t resist.”

“I wish you would,” she murmured. “I think you have a chance at surviving this, but I really wish you would take a pass.”

Abruptly, she added, “Don’t you know the reason why I did all those things with you? I was in love with you.”

He was stunned. “Wait. What? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Again, she shrugged. “Things are different for me now.”

He didn’t know what to say about the love so he switched back to death. “I wish you could help me prepare.”

She let out a gentle laugh. “There’s nothing that would prepare you.”

“Do you regret doing it?”

Her eyes slid toward the window. “No. I don’t regret it.”

Eventually, he walked her out of the diner. They embraced, but there was a chasm between them now. Just before parting ways, she reached out and grabbed his hand. She leaned into him and whispered into his ear, “Hebrews 9:27.”

Afterward, she gasped and twitched slightly as if she had been jolted. She shook it off and walked away.

#

The night before his Death Experience, Ben stopped in a bookstore and found a bible.

He looked up Hebrews 9:27.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”

#

Ben certainly found the thrill of facing fear at MorsTech.

He had to strip and put on a hospital gown. They brought him to an operating room and put him on a table. The sheets were cold and a pad was placed under his ass. He was told death can cause a loss of control of one’s bodily functions.

He was hooked up to monitors. An IV was plugged into his arm.

A doctor examined him under a harsh light and explained the procedure. He would be administered a mild sedative. His body temperature would be dropped until his heart stopped. His blood and body would be kept chemically cooled until he had been dead for 30 minutes. After which, he would be warmed and resuscitated. There was a minor risk of neurological issues and of course the possibility they would not be able to bring him back.

“Ready for the greatest adventure a human can have?” asked the doctor as he injected an icy chemical. Ben gasped. The blanket covering him gradually cooled. He would have panicked if not for the sedative.

It was too late to back out. The darkness claimed him too quickly.

#

Ben awoke screaming. He grabbed the doctor’s lapels.

“Why didn’t you tell me? It’s too much…it’s…oh, why didn’t you tell me?”

#

Ben made his way to Jessica’s apartment after he was released.

He knocked with a shaky hand.

When she opened the door, their eyes met.

She reached out, took his hand and drew him inside.

He broke down and she embraced him while he sobbed like a child against her shoulder.

“Now, you know,” she whispered as she stroked his hair.

He realized now his eyes must look like hers. He knew what made her so different than she was before.

Her eyes were ancient, having seen everything from the birth of time.

L.A. Story is a professional, independent author, having published five novels under the River Oaks Press imprint. She was recently honored as a 2019 Darrell Award Finalist. She is a naturalized Mississippian who lives in an enchanted forest. For more information, visit her website at: www.lastorywriter.com.

THE END?

Not quite...

Be sure to pre-order Vol.2 – out July 26th

Or dive into more Tales from the Darkest Depths:

Novels:

Beatrice Beecham’s Ship of Shadows: A Supernatural Adventure/Mystery Novel by Dave Jeffery

The Mourner’s Cradle: A Widow’s Journey by Tommy B. Smith

House of Sighs (with sequel novella) by Aaron Dries

Beyond Night by Eric S. Brown and Steven L. Shrewsbury

The Third Twin: A Dark Psychological Thriller by Darren Speegle

Aletheia: A Supernatural Thriller by J.S. Breukelaar

Beatrice Beecham’s Cryptic Crypt: A Supernatural Adventure/Mystery Novel by Dave Jeffery

Where the Dead Go to Die by Mark Allan Gunnells and Aaron Dries

Sarah Killian: Serial Killer (For Hire!) by Mark Sheldon

The Final Cut by Jasper Bark

Blackwater Val by William Gorman

Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy by Mercedes M. Yardley

Nameless: The Darkness Comes by Mercedes M. Yardley

Novellas:

A Season in Hell by Kenneth W. Cain

Quiet Places: A Novella of Cosmic Folk Horror by Jasper Bark

The Final Reconciliation by Todd Keisling

Run to Ground by Jasper Bark

Devourer of Souls by Kevin Lucia

Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love by Mercedes M. Yardley

Wind Chill by Patrick Rutigliano

Little Dead Red by Mercedes M. Yardley

Sleeper(s) by Paul Kane

Stuck On You by Jasper Bark

Anthologies:

Tales from The Lake Vol.5, edited by Kenneth W. Cain

Fantastic Tales of Terror: History’s Darkest Secrets, edited by Eugene Johnson

Welcome to The Show, edited by Doug Murano

Lost Highways: Dark Fictions From the Road, edited by D. Alexander Ward

C.H.U.D. Lives! – A Tribute Anthology

Tales from The Lake Vol.4: The Horror Anthology, edited by Ben Eads

Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, edited by Doug Murano

Twice Upon an Apocalypse: Lovecraftian Fairy Tales, edited by Rachel Kenley and Scott T. Goudsward

Tales from The Lake Vol.3, edited by Monique Snyman

Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward

Tales from The Lake Vol.2, edited by Joe Mynhardt, Emma Audsley, and RJ Cavender

Children of the Grave

The Outsiders

Tales from The Lake Vol.1, edited by Joe Mynhardt

Fear the Reaper, edited by Joe Mynhardt

For the Night is Dark, edited by Ross Warren

Short story collections:

Book Haven and Other Curiosities by Mark Allan Gunnells

Darker Days by Kenneth W. Cain

Dead Reckoning and Other Stories by Dino Parenti

Things You Need by Kevin Lucia

Frozen Shadows and Other Chilling Stories by Gene O’Neill

Varying Distances by Darren Speegle

The Ghost Club: Newly Found Tales of Victorian Terror by William Meikle

Ugly Little Things: Collected Horrors by Todd Keisling

Whispered Echoes by Paul F. Olson

Embers: A Collection of Dark Fiction by Kenneth W. Cain

Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest, by Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier

Tribulations by Richard Thomas

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast by Jonathan Winn

Flowers in a Dumpster by Mark Allan Gunnells

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel by Taylor Grant

Through a Mirror, Darkly by Kevin Lucia

Things Slip Through by Kevin Lucia

Where You Live by Gary McMahon

Tricks, Mischief and Mayhem by Daniel I. Russell

Samurai and Other Stories by William Meikle

Stuck On You and Other Prime Cuts by Jasper Bark

If you’ve ever thought of becoming an author, we’d also like to recommend these non-fiction titles:

It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life, edited by Eugene Johnson and Joe Mynhardt

The Dead Stage: The Journey from Page to Stage by Dan Weatherer

Where Nightmares Come From: The Art of Storytelling in the Horror Genre, edited by Joe Mynhardt and Eugene Johnson

Horror 101: The Way Forward, edited by Joe Mynhardt and Emma Audsley

Horror 201: The Silver Scream Vol.1 and Vol.2, edited by Joe Mynhardt and Emma Audsley

Modern Mythmakers: 35 interviews with Horror and Science Fiction Writers and Filmmakers by Michael McCarty

Writers On Writing: An Author’s Guide Volumes 1,2,3, and 4, edited by Joe Mynhardt. Now also available in a Kindle and paperback omnibus.

Or check out other Crystal Lake Publishing books for more Tales from the Darkest Depths.

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With unmatched success since 2012, Crystal Lake Publishing has quickly become one of the world’s leading indie publishers of Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense books with a Dark Fiction edge.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Closure On A Bed Of NailsChad Lutzke

Fast CarTracy Fahey

Tears Of BuddyPatrick R. McDonouge

Puzzle PiecesArmand Rosamilia

Pretty Like ButterfliesTim Waggoner

S1:E7Robert Ford

Pain Is Your TeacherMichael Harris Cohen

Memory LaneRed Lagoe

The Silence Of The SirensLoren Rhoads

It’s Me, Not YouJonathan Winn

Sisters Of LossMark Allan Gunnells

TalismanJezzy Wolfe

The Melting Of Your GodsMercedes M. Yardley

CharmsDino Parenti

Not Your Average MonsterKenneth W. Cain

Where The Children Run In DarknessGuy Medley

TunnelsTom Over

The Truth About DaniJoe Mercer

Baby SavannahM.J. Sydney

Rats Scratched In The Linen CupboardDani Brown

RainingJohn Boden

The Death ExperienceL.A. Story

THE END?