Gorefest

K. Trap Jones et al.

Published by The Evil Cookie Publishing, 2025.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

GOREFEST

First edition. April 6, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 K. Trap Jones et al..

Written by K. Trap Jones et al..

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my sons

"It's art, just look at it as art. Yeah, it's disgusting, but that's never gonna happen. Monsters are never gonna come ripping out of your body."

George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher

Cannibal Corpse

FUCKIN’ MAGGOTS

Natasha Sinclair

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“You’re all fuckin’ maggots!” Paul roared, laughing his head off as he ploughed through Steve with the chainsaw. Blood splattered his already sweat and blood-drenched face. Bits of the motherfucker’s dumbstruck mug dropped into the wanting crowd. Chunks of the big man, motherfucker, how did he enjoy being center stage now?! The buzzing steel teeth cut through his skull, grinding against the bone, firing shards of cranium out into the audience like tiny bone missiles; the shrapnel of rage. He knew it would feel good, but he was utterly delirious with the buzz of taking down this shit show. This was better than metal, better than fucking.

That’s the thing with playing back in the hometown, folk anticipate that you’ll go a bit off-book and expect the performance to be unique.

Music was still blasting out into the crowd from the monster sound system—a full-on metal assault. The emphatic battering of drums continued to stir the meatbags into the frantic frenzy they had paid for, the deep bass shredding had them on puppet strings as the pit whipped around in its own euphoric hysteria. Limbs flailing, fists pumping and punching, hair and heads everywhere as they thudded their bodies around to the sound of their masters, bodily fluid lashing the hot air.

Music is god and I am the motherfuckin’ creator, Paul thought as he licked Steve’s blood from his teeth, knowing he wrote most of their best material. They would be nothing without me. Nothing! Rage coursed through him like it was a living, breathing entity, stretching out razor-sharp tendrils inside his veins, clawing through his muscle priming for the takeover, ready to burst through him—a metamorphosis of hate unleashing upon the baying crowd.

He pulled out of his bandmates head and slammed the blade back down—with a mechanical thunk that reverberated through his shoulder. The metal teeth bit through Steve’s neck and shoulder as Paul forced it through his muscle and bone diagonally cutting him out of the game, carving up his own little piggy. Paul felt it buzz right through his own body, the feverish whiplash of metal eviscerating this sell-out asshole. The broken, macabre look on that cocky bastard’s face filled him with adrenaline, like that first line of coke—he was invincible, like Ash, but way cooler. They were a bunch of fucking Deadite puppets, the lot of ‘em, “leaching motherfuckin’ bastards!” he screamed, tearing through flesh. Steve’s arm tried to grab the machine, which effortlessly ripped through his hands, which too were gifted to the swarming maggots beneath. Biggest mistake they ever made was signing with the new label, even if the rest didn’t agree.

Pulling back the buzzing blade, yanking the chain free from chewing up his old mate, the body split in two, the bottom half hit the stage with a visible thud pouring out intestines and other darkened organs—glistening in the strobe lights like writhing bloodied snakes. The dead meat resembled life. The smell of the freshly butchered was intense copper and sickly sweet, mixing with the sweat of the entire ballroom, he could taste it, then a reeking stench of shit stabbed the back of Paul’s throat. Steve had either shit himself (who wouldn’t) or his intestines had split, (probably both). The upper half fell into the bear-pit. It was a fucking gorefest and Paul was just getting started, the maggots parted as some realized, in their own little bubbles of adrenaline, that this was no stage prop. Fuck we were known for cavorting with animal corpses on stage, why not fuck up our own.

The maniacal screech of the machine in Paul’s hands was the new music he had been dreaming of. I am their master and I am wielding my motherfucking sword. He was delirious with the carnage to come.

Seething and screaming, a sea of chaos, the adoring fans. Some oblivious, some of them clearly still thinking it was some new wicked part of the show. More than just the makeup of boot polish, pigs blood and butcher shop gore. But this was no act, his last tour would be one none of these fuckers would forget. No, Paul Flint was not departing quietly while they took control of his material. Fuck no. They always fucking wanted it, blood-sucking parasites the lot of them! The rest of the band, his so-called brothers in arms, the devoted fans just couldn’t get enough.

Things hadn’t been the same since Chick died, Chick the Dick, the groupies loved it, especially the young goth chicks, big doe eyes lined in kohl, streaming, chocking on his monster dick. That beast was his party piece for as long as he could remember, even as kids in the changing room–Chick the Dick should’ve had its own locker. Good times though; make metal, fuck and party was what it was all about. Dumb motherfucker gone and partied too hard, pumped too much shit up his nose and his fucking brain burst, for once he was on his own when it happened. Paul found him flat on his back in the trashed hotel room floor, in the scud, his face blue and black mottled with veiny, bloated death. Thick foam and putrid, stale, vomit around his mouth and pooled around his face, the nose had been pissing blood, which was still partially wet. The image was sick and made for some wicked internal sleeve abstract art on a special limited run of their Corpse Grinder Orgy album. The band changed after that, and then the new label came along promising to help them clean-up their act and all manner of other corporate marketing bullshit.

Paul discarded his chainsaw and made a beeline for that fucker Ivan–his replacement–who stood watching by the side of the stage, grabbing a mic stand en-route, he walloped the gormy gobsmacked fuckwit across the face with the pole. As Ivan stumbled, trying to grapple the steel. Paul smashed the plastic base off the side of the stage wall and rammed the end through his throat. “How the vocals now, you fuckin’ imposter?! Should’ve got your own band!”

Spitting in his face, Paul turned as the ripples of screaming started to rage through the heaving maggots, as they made way for the doors. The herd realised they were barricaded in, the terror was infectious and tore through them like a belting plague, impact instant, getting down with the motherfucking sickness they created.

That’s when the sprinkler system kicked in.

From the dated, paint peeling, blue and white ballroom ceiling, the rain to kill them all began spraying, cleansing the cesspit. Naturally, like penguins, the heaving sea of black and white looked up. Within seconds the screaming intensified, faces started melting and burning, oozing off from the caustic, alkaline spray. Death camaraderie consumed the atmosphere—it was exhilarating. The squirming audience had become his own personal freak-show; clawing at their eyes and faces, ripping off their own skin down to the frying, popping muscle and shining bone, in desperation to rid themselves of the agony—it was too late. They had turned their faces to the burning rain, some with mouths open, hell corroding the oesophagus for those whose flesh simultaneously sizzled inside and out. Melting through flesh and spitting up blood like fresh bubbling magma, a torrent of human volcanoes erupting.

Along with the chunks, bodies started hitting the floor, writhing in agony—skin and flesh sizzled liquifying to a slippery macabre soup flooding the floor. Paul couldn’t believe how well this had come together, that fucked up little bitch, she actually did it. He threw back his head and roared. The stage was empty except for him and the cunts he had taken out—he really was the man, he was this band and this is how it had to end.

***

She freed his cock, easing his throbbing hard-on from between the zipper teeth of his black jeans. Shoving her trophy musician against the door, biting his lip before dropping to her knees. If I could lock a more perfect image to relive, it would be her falling ceremoniously to her knees, eyes locked on mine, licking her lips hungry to devour my cock. He thought. Lexie, my hometown bitch, ever-devoted groupie. She licked his helmet in teasing circles, massaging his balls within her soft, warm palms. Flipping his cock up, she sucked his balls rolling them around her mouth before cupping them in her hand again then licking the length of his solid shaft from the balls up. Rapidly she took him into her throat, swallowing him balls deep. He couldn’t resist then, thrusting his hips he pounded her face, making her eyeliner run, her eyes watered. Revelling in the sound of his dick hitting the back of her throat, maybe even more than fucking her face felt. Pulling out, he dragged her up to his face by her hair. “You sure you’re up for this tonight Lexie?”

“I’m up for it—” her voice was mildly timid from the facefuck, “it’ll be a real headliner, they won’t get away with doing this.”

“Fuckin’ right they won’t.” Paul kissed her hard, lifting her onto the sink in the dingy club toilet, which had barely been updated from the ‘60’s, with flaking paint the colour of Pepto-Bismol. Lexie wriggled her ass back, spreading her legs, hitching up her short PVC skirt to reveal her pussy in all its shaved glory. Putting hands over her hips, Paul thumbed her lips, prodding her soft folds with his swollen helmet.

He plunged into her cunt, stealing her breath before she started wailing like a deranged banshee as he drilled in and out of her, hard against the mirror. His balls fizzed. He loved watching himself fuck and he could see himself reflected from the row of mirrors behind them too. This was going to be the ultimate in farewell shows. Fuck the lot of them, he thought, as he pounded his favourite groupie, at least, his favourite in this city. He pounded her until the tingle deep in his nuts intensified—they tightened, almost painfully, before pouring mercilessly into her. Coming so hard, balls deep in Lexie, he thought it miraculous that the force didn’t blow the top off her head. As his dick began to shrink, she hopped off the sink, back to her knees and sucked him clean.

Tucking himself back in, “Fuck Lexie, the more I drill you, the tighter you get, how the fuck do you do that?”

“That’s a secret, baby.” She winked, then began fixing her makeup in the mirror.

“And you’re not gonna let me down?” He cocked his eyebrows towards her reflection.

“I’ll set it off when I hear it, I told you I’m in, it’s gonna be an epic show. Everyone will be talking about it. Hell! I bet there’ll even be a book.” She chuckled, “Imagine that! Hell yeah, I’m in, and you know it. Now let’s fuck some shit up.”

CUT AROUND THE ASS

Daniel J. Volpe

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Blood.

There was blood everywhere. More blood than Ryan had ever seen. The snow was stained with it, making a thick, viscous pool from where the corpse was cooling. The bullet hole steamed and oozed, as his father grabbed the body and flipped it over.

“Cut around the ass,” Jimmy said to his son, handing him a knife. “This is your first deer and the task is all yours.”

Ryan felt sick. He looked at the glassy, corpse eyes of the buck dead in the snow. Dead and he’d killed it. The eyes were the worst; lifeless and accusing. He couldn’t help think of Bambi and wondered if this deer had a family it was trying to get to when he’d shot it.

“Hey, Ry, you ok?” Jimmy asked, looking at his son, who was almost as pale as the snow. “Look, you’ve seen me do this before, right? Just cut around the asshole to start. Don’t worry, it’s just us out here. I’ll guide you through the rest.” He smiled at his son, a smile of pride and reassurance.

Ryan, still in his fugue, reached out and took the knife in his numb hand. A cold gust snapped him out of his reverie. His father had the animal’s legs pulled apart and slightly up in the air, revealing the anus. With shaking hands, Ryan plunged the knife in.

He relaxed, listening to his father’s baritone voice guiding him through the gutting process. It was over in minutes, Ryan’s hands warm with the lifeblood of the deer and a pile of steaming viscera in the snow.

“Not bad,” Jimmy said, inspecting the carcass for any left-over feces or stomach matter, of which there were none. The shattered ribs poked out from the bullet hole, but it’d been a perfect, heart and double-lung shot. The deer barely ran. “Alright,” Jimmy grabbed an antler, “let’s get this big boy back to the cabin and show your grandfather and uncle.”

Ryan, over the squeamish part of the hunt, beamed with pride. The nausea and discomfort he’d felt minutes ago was long gone. Now, he was a true hunter. He grabbed the other antler and began to drag.

***

The deer, when shot and dying, ran hard but not far. Its powerful muscles pumping, trying to get away from the monsters on two legs. Death was creeping up and the eternal cold was seeping into its bones.

As it lay dying in the snow an ancient thought went through its mind, something some would consider a prayer.

The majestic buck’s blood melted the snow, soaking into the earth below. In death he saw his ancestors...and the beast his prayers had summoned.

***

The cabin was small, especially with four of them in it. Ryan and his father had hung the buck outside, putting a ‘Y’ shaped gambrel through its back legs. They hoisted the deer up onto a frame meant for that purpose and let the rest of the blood drain out. Ryan’s buck was next to another deer, this one a doe shot by his uncle Mark.

“Damn fine deer, Ryan,” his grandfather said to him, slugging back another shot of whiskey.

“Thanks, pop,” Ryan said, sipping his water.

The cabin was old, but had been in their family for generations. Located in northern New York, just on the Canadian border, it had first been a trapper’s cabin. Now, it served as the perfect hunting cabin for a boy’s weekend.

The cabin was only one room with a loft overhead. A wood stove was the only source of heat, but it was more than enough to keep the place comfortable. It was also their only way to cook, which was fine by them. Besides, most of their food on a hunting trip was usually canned or dried. They didn’t need a fancy kitchen to be happy. A couple of old, oil lanterns and a few battery powered ones, lit the cabin.

Ryan didn’t mind the rustic feel of the cabin. He didn’t even mind sleeping on a cot. What he did mind was the outhouse.

Fifty feet or so from the cabin was the small shack that had been catching waste from his family for generations. The little wooden hut was their only choice when it came to dropping the ole deuce. Pissing would be done around the side of the cabin; no man would walk to an outhouse just to pee.

“Yeah, he’s a nice old buck,” Ryan’s uncle Mark said, sitting down next to his father. He opened a beer can and took a loud sip.

“Thanks, Uncle Mark,” Ryan said, still a little embarrassed from all the attention.

“Alright,” Jimmy said, stirring an old pot sitting on top of the wood-stove, “this chili is ready, if you boys want to eat.”

Ryan was thankful to his father for the interruption. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his grandfather or uncle, but he didn’t like the extra attention.

“Get some bowls from the shelf,” the elder of the bunch said.

Mark obliged, his stomach growling from too much beer and not enough food.

The four of them sat around a small table, eating from steaming bowls, telling inappropriate stories and talking about the next day’s hunt.

In the woods something else stirred. Something ancient and evil. Something with a craving for human flesh.

***

Ryan woke in a panic. His eyes flicked open and stomach cramped. He was going to shit his pants.

The cabin was dark, only one gas lantern had been left lit overhead. Snores, farts and gentle curses rose from the other three men in the cabin.

After dinner, they’d all played some poker, but the adults opened a bottle of cheap whiskey, which they’d promptly finished.

Ryan rolled off his cot, careful not to bump into his father’s next to him. With his butt-cheeks clenched, he threw on his boots, grabbed a jacket and flashlight and waddled to the door.

The full moon bathed the snowy landscape in silver and black. Fresh snow, the fat kind of flakes, fell silently from the sky. It was beautiful, but another urgent cramp reminded Ryan he didn’t have time to admire nature’s beauty.

The outhouse wasn’t far and he could see it from the cabin. Still, he used the flashlight to dispel any shadows lurking around. He pushed through the snow, which was just above the tops of his boots. With a sense of desperation, he pulled the door open against the rising snow and slipped into the dark outhouse.

Ryan sat on the cold seat and breathed a sigh of relief. A loud bang shook him from his bowel-emptying reverie. He stood slightly to look through the crescent shaped cut in the outhouse door. When he left, in his haste for the bowl, he must not have latched the front door, which was now banging against the side of the cabin.

“Fuck,” he said, grabbing the roll of toilet paper. He pulled up his pants and grabbed the flashlight.

Sound had an odd way of traveling in fresh snow. Anyone living in the North knew this and sometimes things didn’t sound normal. No amount of snow could disguise the sound of human screams.

A scream, the highest pitched and blood curdling sound ever, pierced the night air. The falling snow dampened, yet distorted it.

Ryan’s balls pulled up against his body as another scream and gunshot came from the cabin. The small window in the loft flashed as another shot was let off, the sound muffled from inside. Ryan walked towards the cabin, keeping the flashlight off. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and moonlight was more than enough to see. In his state of fear, his senses sharpened, everything becoming clearer. He wished it hadn’t.

The door of the cabin was off the hinges, thrown clear across the room. His father was a pulped mess of gore and jagged bones. His corpse was crumpled against the wood stove, twisted as if he was in a car accident. His head was backwards and lower jaw was ripped down, resting on his chin. The black cavern of his dead throat, still locked in its death scream, gaped in a macabre smile. His tongue was still attached at the root, but stretched to the limit. Blood slid down the middle, dripping onto the floor in a synchronized sound. White bone poked out from under the stove through a tatter of bloody clothes. The bone, indiscernible what kind, looked like a shipwreck, snapped at every angle. The stove hissed as it cooked flesh pressed against its black iron.

If Ryan hadn’t just voided his bowels and bladder, he’d surely have done so at that moment.

A shadow, blacker than hell and smelling like death, stood in front of him. It was impossibly tall, reaching up to the loft where his grandfather and uncle slept. A wet, smacking sound came from it... almost like chewing.

Ryan’s numb fingers found the switch on the flashlight. It stood nearly 8 feet tall, but the massive, black antlers sticking from its head made it even taller. The monster had an emaciated, sucked in and withered looking face, but the strength in its body was quite apparent. Its eyes were those of a Great White shark, black and soulless, not reacting to the LED light shining at it. Something crunched in the beast’s mouth; a hand... with a wide, gold ring on it. His grandfather’s hand. Blood dripped from the creature’s jaws, running down a bare torso of thin flesh and exposed ribs. It looked like roadkill and smelled even worse, but the creature was far from dead. The same couldn’t be said about Ryan’s family.

With its long arms, each finger tipped with wet claws, the creature reached back into the loft for another handful of human flesh. The beast had paid Ryan no heed, yet, as it continued its gruesome feast.

Ryan was stuck. He might as well have been glued to the floor. His body found a little more urine and released it down his leg. He didn’t notice his pants and socks soaking with the fear-induced fluid.

The flashlight was crisp and pure white, reflecting off the bloated organs the monster was shoveling into its maw. The guts popped, chunks of black, green and red dribbled from its mouth. Greedy claws reached back into the shadow of the loft and began ripping. The beast’s hands came back into the light with another grisly treat; Uncle Mark’s head. The head was torn from the shoulders, strings of tendons, windpipe and muscle hanging red, like party streamers. The monster put the top of Mark’s head in the corner of its mouth and crunched down, cracking the skull easily. It used long claws to reach past the shattered bone and scalp and plucked out pieces of brain. The wrinkled organ was pushed into the thing’s hellish mouth, squishing with each bite. A gelatinous mass of something tumbled from its jaws, leaving drops of gore as it rolled down the creature’s body. It hit the floor with a wet smack.

The sound of his relative’s entrails hitting the wooden floor, broke Ryan from his trance. A renewed vigor to live and natural fear flooded his teenage body and he turned to run. He was only a few steps into the cabin and the cold, night air called to him, offering a reprieve from the carnal house before him. Something hit him in the legs, something hard. Ryan stumbled, slid and fell face-first into the biting snow. He scrambled, trying to find purchase to stand, but tripped on the head of his uncle, which was still underfoot.

A shadow, dark and smelling like hot carrion, rose above him. Ryan looked over his shoulder and moaned.

The creature grabbed the boy, who was making a futile attempt to escape, with long arms, still wet with blood. Its unholy strength pinned him to the ground, making the next task even easier.

Ryan was cold. He looked around for solace, something to save him and his sanity. On the side of the cabin, lit by moonlight, were the two hanging deer carcasses; the doe his uncle had shot and his buck. Ryan looked at the proud king of the forest, red drops of frozen blood clinging to its brown and white fur. It had to have been a play of the light, but Ryan, in his final moments, swore the deer had a grin on its face.

Ryan’s screams tore through the night air as a claw, sharp as a razor, began to cut around his ass.

LITTLE ELVIS

Armand Rosamilia

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You know that twinge in the back of your head you get when a pretty woman walks by? I get it with the sight of power tools. Take me to a construction site and I’m going to want to pull it out and yank on it a bit.

Got caught touching Little Elvis one time at a new high-rise going up on the Lower East Side. Just going to town on myself, self pleasuring, when New York’s Finest grabbed me by the arms and dragged me off. I finished in the back of the squad car, which didn’t sit well with the Blues. They cracked me open something fierce.

That’s one of the reasons I’m now living outside of Towson in Maryland. Gotta get away from my past and create a new one. And get closer to the tools, man.

Tried to put in my resume with the factory. Figured it’d be a great place to start. Discounts on tools. I can try out the latest drills. Hammers. Saws. All of it gets me off.

You know what also gets me off big-time? Chicks into power tools, who like the feel of a new compact brushless impact driver tickling their lady-bits. While sitting on a cordless vacuum and really feeling the vibration, if you know what I mean.

Course, a woman like that is hard to come by, but I’ve been trying and searching. A buddy tells me about this intranet thing, where you go onto the computer and talk to chicks. I dunno about all that. I prefer to meet them in bars.

Walt’s Pub is right outside the gates to the factory. Within sight of the men (and, I guess, women) who work inside. Great location for me when I start working soon. I can head out during my lunch breaks if they let you. Probably not, though. Gotta imagine a few guys (and gals) lost a few fingers after a liquid lunch. Definitely will be heading to Walt’s after work each day.

I’m here now, in fact, trying to see who’s who in this joint. It’s after five and the shift just rolled out of the factory. Workers looking battered, tired and bruised  over.

Only...when I look at them, really look, I see they’re not filthy. Not tired. They’re clean. Shirts still tucked in. Work boots a tad scuffed but not too bad. They seem happy to be sharing a drink and some stories, but I’m not getting the sense they’re bitching about their jobs.

That’s a good sign. I head over to a table where five guys are sitting and laughing. I give a nod to ‘em and they nod back. I’m under-dressed for the occasion. I’d come with my dirty work boots, which I’d coated with some dirt and stained with some water from the sink. A flannel I thought made me look like I had muscles and hid my beer gut. I’d even slapped some dirt on my hands in the parking lot so I looked like a working man. No sense in putting this outfit on and them seeing no dirt under my nails.

It was the broad at the bar who caught my eye. Sorry... the redhead woman. I left my new buds, knowing I’d be sitting with ‘em in a few days, and casually strolled to the bar, giving Red my best smile. I still had most of my teeth, too. In my youth I’d been a handsome guy and I could still turn a head or two. Maybe not the ones I wanted to turn, but you get the point.

“Buy me a drink, sailor,” Red said to me, only giving me a sideways glance. She was dressed in a long blue dress, her makeup and nails done up. She looked like a girly girl, and I was hooked. I waved at the bartender to hurry up and get this fine lady a drink, and refill mine while they was at it.

“Come here often?” I asked.

She thought that was funny. I laughed with her. Not sure why, but I needed to be on the same page as Red. This was important.

“I’ve never seen you around here before,” Red said. She wasn’t looking at me but she was talking to me. “This is usually the factory’s bar. Guys stroll over after work to waste their paycheck.”

I shrugged. “I’m hoping to get in soon. Got an application in. Only a matter of time.” I looked around at the rest of the patrons. “You here to pick up one of these guys? You can do better,” I said, and grinned.

Red glanced at my hands and I made sure she saw they were dirty. My plan was workin’ so far. “So... you find what you’re looking for?”

There was a pause every man knows when talking to a chick. The distant look she gets, like she’s contemplating whether or not you’re worth going through the act of getting undressed, putting his little pecker in her mouth, maybe go all the way.

“Why do you want to work at the factory?” Red asked. “It’s hard work, especially if you don’t know tools.”

I grinned. “I know tools.”

“Do you now? Prove it.” Red downed her beer. “What’s the best power saw on the market?”

I grinned. “Trick question. If you’re talking about for home use, I’d recommend the 5007MGA circular. If you’re thinking for beginners, it’d be a shop series benchtop.”

Red had a gleam in her eye I’d never seen before. “The best power drill?” She was inching closer to me now.

“I prefer the 18V XR brushless compact lithium-ion combi.” I knew it was one of the drills they made at the factory.

Red was so close to me I could smell her shampoo. Her hands touched my gut, which I sucked in but leaned forward. We was inches apart.

“Last question,” Red whispered. I was staring at her red lips so I knew what she said. “The best power hammer. You only get one answer, so make it good.”

I was trembling and so was Red. She licked her lips and pressed my knee into her crotch. She needed an answer and I needed to figure out how to get her in bed or get to the bathroom and whack it.

“I need an answer,” Red said.

I smiled. “If you want the best power hammer, you buy the biggest you can afford. That’s what I always say and it’s worked out for me so far.”

I think she came, shuddering against my knee. I definitely felt the heat.

Then she pushed away and stood, like she needed a smoke.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at nine in my office,” Red said and walked out.

I was dumbfounded for a second. I saw the guys at the table, grinning and watching me.

“Who was that?” I asked.

One of them laughed. “Your new boss. That’s Erin, and she does the hiring at the factory. I guess you got yourself a job, buddy. We’ve been trying to nail her for years.”

***

I hardly slept that night. I took care of Little Elvis thinking of Erin. Thinking of the things I’d do to her. Wondering if the carpet matched the drapes.

I was fifteen minutes early to work, downing a cup of black coffee for a nice jolt to the system. Escorted to a waiting room by an old fat chick, I fidgeted on the plastic furniture until Red came out.

Erin. Her name is Erin.

“Hi. I’m Ms. Louise. Come in and we’ll get you set up.” She turned and I followed, her red high heels leading into fishnet stockings and a short short black skirt. “Peg, no disturbances. I need to do a training session.”

Peg, the fat chick, grinned and nodded.

Erin’s office was packed with all the latest tools the company made, boxes of them covering about three-quarters of the room.

“Sit,” she said as I sat in the only chair available. As soon as I did Erin was close to me, grinning. Her lips were so full and red; redder than last night. She held my gaze and I was lost in her eyes. Such deep eyes. They’re the well of the soul or something like that.

Erin turned and walked away and I frowned. I wanted her close. I wanted to kiss her full lips. I wanted to take out Little Elvis and...

My hands were tied.

I looked down to see my hands were clamped onto the damn chair. I tried to stand and realized my ankles were held to the chair as well.

“So... you like tools?” Erin opened a box and took out a power drill. “Though technically not made in this factory, I’m partial to this baby.”

I licked my lips and felt Little Elvis swelling. “PSR 18 LI-2 ergonomic,” I whispered. “With the extra battery pack.”

Erin was on my lap now, my left leg rubbing up her skirt. She held the drill near my ear and turned it on. I closed my eyes and sighed in ecstasy.

“I knew as soon as I saw you that you were also turned on by tools,” Erin said. She put the drill near my ear and I felt it brush against my skin. I was scared but hard as a rock.

“You have no idea, Red, how turned on I am right now,” I said.

She laughed and powered off the drill. I opened my eyes to see her looking at my bulge. “Oh, I have an idea. What do you call him?”

I grinned. “Little Elvis.”

Erin chuckled, started the drill, and jammed it into my ear.

I screamed in pain as she groaned and began grinding against my crotch. I could feel her heat even as I felt like I might pass out, blood rushing from my ruined ear canal.

Red turned the drill to the left and right, taking out chunks of flesh. I could smell the blood, the sweet coppery taste imagined in my mouth. Pain was replaced by a deafening roar in my ear, an ocean of sound I knew would never go away. I might lose too much blood and die here, strapped to a chair, with Red grinding away at me, my life slowly draining away.

Little Elvis was still hard, though, and he wanted to get inside her red snapper and finish what had been started.

I thought about trying to tilt my head so the blood flowed down my chest to my crotch, a lubrication for the two of us. What could be sexier than my life force mixed with her love canal as we both erupted at the same time?

Then she was standing, adjusting her skirt and licking her lips. “That was foreplay.”

I groaned in a mix of pain and ecstasy. I’d fantasized about doin’ this to so many women in the past, had even bitten a few and accidentally stabbed one with a screwdriver once, but this was the ultimate. Even in my wildest masturbatory fantasies, where I’d slowly rip a broad in pieces, inch by inch, was it this fantastic.

To control someone with power tools and raw power.

Except she was doing it to me.

Erin had a reciprocating saw in hand, and I knew it well; a 20-volt brushless compact. Before I could comment, she’d turned it on and sliced off the fingers on my left hand.

I watched, dumbfounded, as the blood pulsed from the knuckle stumps in time with my heartbeat.

Erin placed the tool, now crimson, on her desk and spread her legs. She began to fondle herself, staring at my severed fingers in a pool of growing blood. “That’s what I’m talking about,” she muttered.

I was still hard despite the pain. Red stopped, scooped up my fingertips and grinned. She had them near her snapper now, and...

I must’ve passed out because she was slapping my face in order  to wake me.

“Here, take these pills,” Erin said, shoving a handful into my mouth. “They’ll keep you alive and awake. We’ve only just begun to have some fun, my dear.”

My ear had been bandaged as well as what was left of my hand. I was in so much pain, I fought to stay conscious.

She turned and walked to another box. “If I’d had more time to plan, I would’ve had the boys bring up a single head variable speed power hammer from the factory. Set it up in the corner and watch it do the work while I took care of myself.” When she pulled a 114GQC air hammer from the box, I smiled.

“Good choice,” I had to admit. It would drive nails with nothing more than a tap of your finger. Deep.

Erin placed the air hammer in position near my crotch, lining it up perfectly with Little Elvis. She was grinning. “This is going to hurt. A lot. I want you to stay with me, though, because you and I can have so much fun together.”

The first strike shot through my body like lightning, and my limbs struggled to stay strapped in as I shook violently. Little Elvis was pinned to the chair and covered in blood. If I moved even a tiny bit, I could feel the nail ripping it.

By the third strike she was getting off and my crotch was a bloody mess, numbness creeping into the rest of my body. I loosened my bowels.

I must have passed out as her slaps woke me up again.

“Your turn,” Erin said, shaking me and shoving pills into my mouth. “Start with a hand-held hammer on my tits first, though, if you don’t mind.”

I didn’t mind.

BLOODSOAKED SAVIOR

Wrath James White

––––––––

He breathed so deeply

of the pestilence in the air

smiling like a jack-o-lantern

a jack-ass sneering leering smile

That is how I knew

He did not value his life

That is is how I knew

he'd embrace oblivion

He already had

The death I offered

would be quicker than drowning

like Elizabeth drowned

Slowly suffocating

smothered by her own lungs

over days and weeks

The death I offered

would be quicker

than your loved ones

standing helplessly

at your death bed

like I stood at Elizabeth's

watching her gasp and wheeze

eyes full of terror and pain

begging me to take the pain away

I could take hours

take my sweet precious time

and still be more merciful

than disease

An angel of mercy

A bloodsoaked savior

I read all his posts

refusing to live in fear

to cover his smug face

to keep six feet

from moist air

aerorosolized droplets

of smothering

suffocating

coughing

wheezing

choking

organ failing

finality

That is how I knew

He did not value his life

that he'd embrace oblivion

like a coveted lover

an expensive whore

wearing pox like trophies

plague like jewelry

The death I offered

would be more merciful

even if I took hours

He walked around the store

Face bare

unasked

like the selfish people

who infected my Elizabeth

Exhaling death

wheezing

coughing

choking

smothering

death

as she'd waited on their tables

Because we couldn't afford

I could not afford

for her to quarantine

for her to stay home safe

And men like him

breathed death into her lungs

coughing

wheezing

choking

organ failing

fatality

His arrogance surrounded him

a noxious cloud

of moist air

aerosolized disease

And he breathed deep

of the pestilence around him

I watched him shop

Watched him argue with tellers

refusing to cover his face

like the customers who killed Elizabeth

breathed death into her lungs

wheezing

coughing

choking

smothering

death

“This is goddamn America!”

He bellowed

at the teller who asked him

to put on a mask

“It’s a free country!”

He shrieked

at the customer who came to her defense

A geyser of nonsense

“She’s just doing her job.”

“There’s a pandemic.”

“People are dying!”

He didn’t care

He refused

to live in fear

That’s how I knew

I knew

I knew

he would welcome me

like a bloodsoaked savior

I followed him out

into a barren night

A quiet night

A moonless

soundless

careless

cautionless

night

I followed him to his truck

festooned with flags

Black and white and blue flags

Trumped with stickers

and slogans

“Come and take it!”

“Four more years!”

“Fuck Biden!”

“Make America Great Again!”

Again?

Again?

Again?

A geyser of nonsense

I would make him a martyr

for his hopeless cause

I wore my mask

I wore my gloves

I closed the distance

I struck his stubborn head

with a rock

I kicked his hateful mouth

with a working man’s boot

Dusty and mudcrusted

A working man’s boot

I couldn't find my hammer

I hadn’t planned for this

I watched his eyes roll back

his arms flail

His mouth

His head

Red

Red

Red

My t-shirt turned red

Head wounds bleed like lies

and dogma

from the mouths of the ignorant

a geyser of nonsense

I wrapped his head

in my favorite t-shirt

my Star Wars t-shirt

that wasn't red before

and a grocery bag

that wasn't red before

I bound his limbs

with extension cords

bungee cords

a two-foot piece of twine

whatever I had in my trunk

I hadn’t planned for this

I hadn’t planned to silence

that geyser of nonsense

I put him in my trunk

I put his groceries in my trunk

I kept my mask on

I kept my gloves on

But,

I didn't keep my distance

I took him to the basement

laid him on the table

where my Elizabeth

used to do her crafts

scrapbooking

knitting

needlepoint

sewing masks

for essential workers

like her

because it was essential

that assholes

got their greasy burgers

and overpriced milkshakes

more essential

than Elizabeth’s life

I wiped away tears

as I tied him to the table

with bungee chords

and twine

and strips of fabric

and duct tape

whatever I could find

In Elizabeth's craft box

I wiped away tears

When I found

her orange handled scissors

the twenty-dollar scissors

Elizabeth’s craft scissors

The one's we'd argued about

“Why did anyone need twenty-dollar scissors?”

I needed them now

The man without the mask

squirmed and screamed

wailed and wiggled

And I reassured him

His death would be quick

Quicker than Elizabeth’s

Quicker than the

wheezing

coughing

choking

smothering

death

awaiting him

If I hadn’t saved him

I would make sure

he only suffered for hours

Not weeks

Not like Elizabeth

I would make sure

his loved ones

would never stand helpless

by his death bed

watching him gasp and wheeze

I would save him

I would save him

The first hour

I removed his smug smirk

ripping off his cheeks

and lips

like peeling a mango

wet, sticky, juicy, bloody

dripping from my fingers

And made him smile

The second hour

his smile disturbed me

annoyed me

angered me

smiling like a jack-o-lantern

a jack-ass sneering leering smile

Elizabeth hadn't been smiling

neither should he

So, I removed his teeth

dug them out

one by one

with Elizabeth’s scissors

And, knitting needles

It took work

messy bloody work

But, it was better than Elizabeth’s death

It was a mercy

The death I offered

would be quicker than drowning

like Elizabeth drowned

Slowly suffocating

smothered by her own lungs

over days and weeks

I could take hours

take my sweet precious time

And still be more merciful

than disease

An angel of mercy

A bloodsoaked savior

The third hour

I made sure

he would never reproduce

he will never reproduce

The fourth hour

The last hour

I used those twenty dollar scissors

And a claw hammer

cracked open his sternum

and removed his gray and black lungs

like removing a feotus from the womb

A cardiovascular cesarean

carbon-stained

nicotine-saturated

cancerous

lungs

It took work to get them out

messy

bloody work

He screamed

and wailed

and shrieked

against the gag

of duct-tape and fabric scraps

as I pulled

and tugged

and cut out his lungs

with the orange-handled

twenty-dollar scissors

He thrashed

convulsed

fought

and failed

and wheezed

and gurgled

and suffocated

drowned

and died

much faster than

Elizabeth had

I was his blood-soaked savior

he hadn't suffered

like Elizabeth suffered

Oh, he suffered

but not like Elizabeth had

And he kept his freedom

And his rights

to a bare face

but not to breathe

not to exhale

moist air

a noxious cloud

of aerorosolized disease

to be inhaled

by essential workers

risking death

to bring him a fucking burger

But not to breathe

not to breathe

ever

ever

Again

And no one

No one

No one

would ever tell him

to wear a goddamn mask

“This is goddamn America!”

I wiped away tears

Goddamn America.

INFLUENCERS

Donnie Goodman

––––––––

Preston is halfway through eating a large jar of creamy peanut butter when he shits himself.

It isn’t an accident.

He lays on a bare mattress, strenuously pushing and grunting as a stream of excrement fills the gray XXXL sweatpants which cling to his pale thighs. He has eaten nothing but peanut butter for 16 hours, so the resulting mess soaking through the cotton fabric is an oily, light brown ooze reeking of rotten peanuts and the decaying matter which was once caught inside the 22 foot long maze of his small intestine.

Across the room, Amy licks her lips.

A series of electronic chirps ding in the background over Preston’s efforts to empty his bowels. He looks into a small webcam which is propped up on a chair near the bed.

“Thank you for the tips, guys and dolls,” he says, giving the small lens an exaggerated thumbs up. Amy moves into the frame and takes over the show. She winks at the camera and slowly begins to pull the elastic band down from Preston’s large stomach. It takes her a few strong tugs before the right leg of the pants slide down, spilling a stream of shit into the palms of her hands. The dings emanating from the speakers of the computer crescendo into a non stop flurry of noise. Amy leans into Preston’s left leg and whispers to him, “We’re at six thousand tokens, baby.”

She finishes the process of stripping the pants from Preston’s body, her arousal peaking at the perfect time. She is no longer acting for an audience.

This is what she has been waiting for all day.

She smashes her face into Preston’s sweatpants, inhaling the odor while shoveling wads of excrement into her open mouth. She rips off her tank top and smears the fluid across her bare chest, moaning with pleasure. Sucking the film off of the fingers of her left hand, she goes to work with the right hand, rubbing the outside of her vagina. Preston stares in disbelief at the active chat room.

He whispers back to her, “Ninety thousand concurrent viewers, babe. A new record.”

She locks eyes with him, smiling in the aftermath of an earth shattering orgasm. Her normally bright pink gum line is caked with shit. Satisfied, it’s time to end the stream.

“See you all tomorrow and thank you so much for the tips lovies,” she says to the thousands of viewers watching across the world. She closes the lid of the laptop, sending it into sleep mode. There is a moment of silence before the pair bursts into a fit of simultaneous, joyous laughter.

“We’ve made it, babe,” Preston says, struggling to suspend his naked legs in the air.

“I love you so much,” Amy says, fetching a large, wet sponge from the bathroom. Like she does every night, she gets to work cleaning up his mess. It doesn’t bother her in the slightest.

She can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.

***

“Preston...Preston, wake up,” Amy says, nudging his side with the sharpest point of her elbow. The tone of an incoming Instagram video call blares throughout their one bedroom apartment. Preston’s eyes open in the middle of a loud snore. He seems annoyed by the sudden interruption of his slumber until he recognizes who is calling them.

“Holy shit, is that really...”

“It’s him, babe,” Amy says. “It’s Antoine fucking Diamond.”

Preston can’t get up from the bed, but he rolls side to side, giggling with excitement. The avatar on Amy’s phone displays an attractive, middle aged man in a black suit standing on an ornate tombstone. It continues ringing.

“Well, answer it,” Preston says. Amy looks at him and takes a deep breath. She pushes the green icon to accept the call. It takes a few seconds and then, there he is, sitting on a white leather sofa. It is 6:30 am and he is already in a tailored suit and his eyeliner is immaculate.

“Hello,” Antoine says.

“Hey Mr. Diamond,” Amy replies, looking at Preston to verify that this is really happening.

“Please, call me Antoine,” he says, sipping a tiny cup likely filled with espresso.

“Uh, yes sir, Mr. Antoine,” Preston says. The man on the phone smiles and nods his head.

“I caught your stream last night and I have to say, I am a huge fan of your work. I’ve seen plenty of acts come and go on my platform over the last few years and most of them are inauthentic cunts just wearing a mask. You can’t fake the sensibilities of the perverse. Audiences can smell the disingenuous. You two? You two are the real deal,” Antoine says, taking a long sip from the cup.

“Th... thank you Mr. Antoine,” Amy says

“Please, just Antoine,” he replies. “Look, I’m going to cut to the chase here. I have a client who I’d love for you to host on stream this evening. You are in Duluth, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Preston says.

“Perfect. My client is actually in St. Paul right now. He can be there in a few hours. DM me your address and he’ll arrive shortly before the show. He drives a red 84’ Challenger. He’s very excited to meet you. I guarantee your channel will explode after this stream. I know talent when I see it and your success is beneficial to us both. Good luck.”

And with that, Antoine Diamond disconnects from their phone.

***

They immediately DM Antoine their address and spend the rest of the day preparing for the biggest stream of their lives. This is the one. This is what will move them out of their frigid one bedroom apartment in Minnesota and into the warm hills of California.

This is what will make them famous.

Preston eats.

Amy cleans.

They post promotional photos to their social media accounts announcing a special surprise on their show and then, precisely at 7:00 pm, Antoine Diamond’s client knocks on their door.

“Babe, the chat is already going wild,” Preston says. Amy opens the door, revealing a tall, thin man decked out in cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a bolo tie. He clutches a black medicine bag in his left hand. She is immediately hit with the stench of unfiltered cigarettes.

“You must be Amy,” the man says, holding out his free hand. Amy shakes it.

“That’s right,” she says. “Come on in.”

The man enters their apartment and nods at Preston, who lays on the bare mattress in the corner of the small living room. Preston nods back. The man places his bag on a small table near the front door and loosens his tie as if to make himself at home.

“Y’all got anything to drink?” he asks. “I’ll take coffee but would prefer something strong. I must say, I am not too keen on this here climate.” He coughs a thick wad of phlegm into a red handkerchief. Amy heads over to the fridge and returns holding a beer that is closer in composition to water than actual beer.

“Afraid this is all we have at the moment...” she trails off.

“Keith,” he says with the smile of a rattlesnake. He accepts the beer and cracks it open with no delay.

“Antoine speaks very highly of you two. I’m really excited we get to collab,” he says, slurping down the beer. Amy and Preston look at each other, unsure of how to feel about Keith, Antoine Diamond’s hand picked client. At the same time, they know that this is the biggest opportunity they have ever had in their lives. They can not blow it.

“Absolutely,” Preston says while he screws the top off of a fresh jar of peanut butter. Keith giggles.

“That peanut butter must be a lifesaver. If I was going to eat some shit, I’d imagine that a scoop of peanut butter tastes a lot better coming out than a bite of steer,” he says.

Amy’s face scrunches up before Preston interjects, diffusing the tension.

“Yeah? So what’s your thing?” He asks. Keith continues laughing.

“No foreplay, huh? I like you. Straight and to the point.” Keith pours the rest of the beer down his throat, burps, and crushes the can into a flat disc. “Have y’all ever heard of apotemnophilia?” He asks them. 

“No,” they reply, in unison.

“Well, it's just a fancy word for sayin that my whole life I’ve wanted someone to cut off my arms, and my legs. I’ve spent years tryin to find a doctor who will do it for me, but they all seem to think theys work just fine,” Keith rests his back against the living room wall. “Well, one thing led to another and I found Antoine, who led me to y’all.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Amy says, confused. Keith’s eyes light up with excitement.

“I’ve got the pleasure of telling y’all that tonight, on the stream, y’all are going to cut my arms and legs off.” Amy looks over to Preston. Her hesitance might as well be dripping out of her pores.

“Consensually, of course,” Keith adds to help ease their concerns. He opens up the black medical bag and begins pulling out a combination of surgical blades, ligatures, and handsaws. Preston looks over at Amy and doesn’t need to say anything. They’re both thinking the same thing.

What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?

***

The stream has begun.

“Hey lovies, welcome back,” Amy says, hard smiling into the camera. She is front and center, just the way she likes it. Preston can be seen behind her eating from a jar of peanut butter while Keith is positioned on the right side of the frame, seated in a dining room chair. There are four leather ligatures tightly strapped to each one of his limbs. His midsection is bound to the chair with a cord of nylon rope. If he tried to get up and leave mid-stream, he would be unable to escape.

“Howdy,” he says to the webcam.

“We’ve lined up something truly special for all of you tonight, so get those tips ready” she says. She shakes the medical bag from side to side, allowing the metal instruments to clang together. It’s her way of teasing the audience. Keith coached her through every step that is about to take place. While it took time to warm up to the idea of the procedure, as soon as Amy pressed the “go live” button, her reservations disappeared. She was put on earth for this moment.

Amy opens the bag and slowly removes a long, slender blade. It is roughly two feet long and slightly serrated. She places the dull edge between her legs and licks her lips at the camera while slowly pulling it up her body. Keith can’t contain his excitement.

“Darlin, I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole damn life,” he says. Preston looks on with morbid curiosity. Amy is the type of person who prefers to rip the bandaid off in one pull, so she puts the blade up to Keith’s right tricep and starts cutting. All it takes is one push forward for the blade to move a quarter of an inch into the muscle of his upper arm. The ligature will prevent him from bleeding out, but a thick stream of blood squirts out from the incision point, splashing onto the floor next to where Keith sits. Keith howls, not from pain, but from sheer satisfaction.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” he says, wide eyed. He is visibly aroused. Even through his denim jeans, Preston and Amy watch as his cock stiffens.

“What the fuck?” Preston says. He was not mentally prepared to watch his wife pleasure another man. Amy continues cutting into the arm. A fold of skin opens and reminds her of what it’s like to cut into a pork tenderloin. The visible muscle and tissue quickly gives way to the white bone of Keith’s humerus. Amy is in a trance. She watches as dark blood pours from the wound. Keith screams in ecstasy. She takes the blade and begins cutting into the bicep on the opposite side of his lean arm. The two flaps of skin begin to resemble the mouth of a Venus fly trap.

“I’m...I’m gonna cum,” Keith says as Amy retrieves a stainless steel hand saw with thousands of sharp teeth from the inside of the medical bag. Preston continues to grow upset.

“Amy, stop,” he says.

His words go unheard. She is too focused on the task at hand. Amy starts sawing through the arm.  She pushes the blade back and forth like a lumberjack cutting down a fraser fir. She might as well be wearing a flannel shirt. The friction causes a burning smell to enter the air. The computer is dinging with the sound of endless tips.

Like Keith, the audience is enjoying what is taking place.

It takes longer than the incision, but eventually the bone disconnects in a wet snap that sounds like she is pulling the wing off of a rotisserie chicken. Keith explodes in a series of thunderous orgasms. Preston is so upset, he vomits. Due to his position on the mattress and the thick globs of peanut butter slowly rushing up the walls of his throat, chokes. Then, he shits his pants.

This time it is an accident.

Amy turns to Preston and snaps out of her trance.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” she asks him. Preston’s face turns blue. He can not breathe. Amy turns to rush over to Preston and accidentally disengages the ligature from Keith's upper arm. The wound opens, gushing a fountain of blood onto the floor of their apartment. The exposed red tubes of his arteries point down to the floor like strands of calamari. Amy slips on the mess, dropping his amputated arm onto the floor in a wet, plopping thud.

“Tie me off, bitch!” Keith screams, realizing that he is losing too much blood, too fast. Amy climbs on top of Prestons chest. She is too small and he is far too heavy to roll over. A thin film of vomit and peanut butter gurgles in the back of his throat. He continues to struggle to pull oxygen into his lungs.

“Baby, baby,” she says, pulling on his shirt. Keith screams. The smell of iron fills the air along with shit, cum, and peanut butter. Preston loses consciousness.

“No, no,” Amy says, scrambling to find Preston’s phone in his sweatpants.

The stream continues. The tips flow in as fast as the blood spewing from Keith’s open arteries. He tries to reach out and grab her, but he is too weak from all of the blood hemorrhaging out of his arm. Amy is about to dial 911 when she is hit in the side of her face with a chunk of splintered wood. The front door of their apartment explodes off of its hinges as 6 members of the Duluth SWAT team rush into the apartment, expecting to find a potentially hostile situation. A troll from the stream left an anonymous tip with local police.

“Help me,” Amy says as the officers surround her, assault rifles drawn. At this point, Preston is dead and Keith is unconscious. One of the officers removes their facemask and vomits onto the floor after fully taking in the site of the world's most popular web show.

They have set an all time record for concurrent streams.

The SWAT team leader brings a walkie talkie up to his mouth and radios back to their HQ.

“I have no idea who these people are or what the fuck they’re doing. Please advise.”

As the other officers push Amy down onto the mattress and ready a set of zip-ties, she responds:

“We’re influencers.”

BENEATH THE MOOR

Jonathan Butcher

––––––––

Mike stands on the remote cottage’s back lawn, inhaling the floral scent of his boss’s wife’s pussy.

To his left, Mike’s boss Howard says, “Smells wonderful, doesn’t it? That air?”

“Sure does,” Mike replies, still sniffing his fingers while feigning to scratch his lip. A slate wall separates Howard’s neat garden from the wild slopes of Bodmin Moor, spread out beneath the sagging grey sky. “Great view, too,” he adds, but the ‘view’ he’s picturing is Howard’s wife Susan’s puckered butthole, winking invitingly.

Howard surveys the rugged terrain before them. “Mist’s coming in.”

“How can you tell?” Mike asks, unmoved by the lonely expanse of British countryside.

Howard says, “If you’d grown up on the moor, you’d recognize it too. It’s like the ground is ready to give birth.”

Mike shakes his head at the meaningless comment, lost in the aroma on his hands: Susan’s good, clean, married pussy, which the bespectacled man beside him apparently hasn’t touched in over a year. He lowers his hand and turns back to Howard’s family cottage, which is the same drab color as the looming clouds. It looks unremarkable, but Susan had told Mike just how much it’s worth.

Howard adjusts his thick glasses, mashing his fingers against the already smudged lenses. “Do you really want to take a stroll?” he asks. “It’s not warm.”

“Of course, buddy,” Mike says. “Couldn’t just leave you here bored by yourself, while your woman’s in the big smoke, could I?” Susan isn’t in the city, though; she’s waiting at Mike’s apartment.

Howard screws up his face like a candy bar wrapper. “You’ve got to be careful when the fog’s rolling in.”

“I’ve got a compass on my phone, if we get lost.”

“Doesn’t always work out there.” Howard points a thumb at the red whistle hanging on a string from his neck. “If you get lost, you have to stay put and whistle, and just hope that someone hears you.”

“Blow it,” Mike says.

“No!” Howard replies, as if the suggestion is insane. “It’s only for emergencies.”

Fucking nerd, Mike thinks. No wonder he’s the one coming home late, and I’m the one coming over his wife.

The garden’s worn rear gate screeches when Mike pushes it, and clunks shut behind them as they start across the empty stretch of dreary moor.

The two men couldn’t look less alike. Mike wears a stylish, navy-blue duffle coat over his heavy-shouldered frame, looking slyly handsome despite a few bar-fight facial scars. Howard wears a garish yellow rain mac and looks like a scrawny, four-eyed alien, with flat hair pasted greasily to his scalp, and enormous ears sticking out from his head like bat wings.

“Mind out for that...” Howard says.

Mike’s walking boot plunges into a chunky turd. He forces a smile and quips, “Well that’s bullshit.”

“No, probably a horse,” Howard says. “Or maybe something larger.”

To Mike, puns are the height of wit, and having Howard ignore one makes him clench his fists as he walks.

Mike scoffs. “Something larger? ‘The Beast of Bodmin Moor’ I suppose? That story about the big cat?”

Howard nods. “Sheep sometimes get torn to pieces. People go missing out here every year.”

Mike suppresses a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll kick that pussycat’s teeth in, if it comes close. I’ll have it mewling for mercy, and ‘feline’ terrible.”

“It’s not necessarily a cat,” Howard says.

That’s another pun he missed, Mike thinks, bitterly.

Howard says, “I think it’s just the moor.”

It takes them ten minutes to mount a long, gentle hill. On the way, Mike notices an array of holes dug into the turf. Some are small, perhaps homes to rabbits, while the larger ones might be fox burrows.

By the time they reach the hill’s flat peak, Howard is wheezing.

“Want some fuel, for energy?” Mike asks. He takes a banana from his coat pocket and offers it.

Howard leans on his knees, catching his breath, and waves his hand to refuse the fruit.

“You need to do some more cardio, mate,” Mike says, barely concealing his disgust. He’d wanted Howard to take the banana, because half an hour earlier he’d used it to penetrate Susan’s anus.

“I’ve...hardly got time...for exercise,” Howard pants. “It’s alright for you—you’ve only got to work Monday to Friday. It never ends for me.”

My heart bleeds, Mike thinks.

Mike works as a team manager at Howard’s IT company. One day, a year or so back, he’d casually invited Howard for beers after work, just the two of them. Howard has the money and influence, but Mike has the confidence and good looks, and to the chagrin of Mike’s colleagues, a vague friendship had emerged between the two of them. One evening, Howard had brought his wife Susan out too, and by the end of the night, Howard had been passed out drunk in his seat, and Mike had been fingering Susan under the table.

When Howard has recovered, they descend the slope. Mike hasn’t seen any dog-walkers or hikers yet, and there seems to be nothing but granite, heather, and skeletal trees for miles. The air seems fuzzy, so maybe Howard was right about that mist. A bare-looking woodland awaits them in the distance.

“Christ, it’s grim out here,” Mike says.

“It’s stunning,” Howard says. “So romantic—the bleakness of it all.”

Mike gives him a funny look. “Bunch o’ trees and marshes?”

“There’s more here than that.”

“If I’d grown up here, the first thing I’d have done as an adult would’ve been to get away.”

“I’ll never leave,” Howard says. He glances at the ground. “I doubt I even could.”

They head across the desolate moor towards the cluster of wiry trees.

Howard says, “This place has been part of my family history for generations. It’s always been my home, and after a while you, sort of, become one with the moor. It gets inside of you.”

“Like I got inside your wife.”

“What?”

“Only kidding, boss. Come on.”

As they near the trees, Mike feels his muscles tensing. The atmosphere has become moist and smells like rotten veg, the fallen leaves having turned to slurry on the ground. There’s no one else in sight, but Mike doesn’t want to let his guard down yet. Bizarre how the moorland can be so open, yet Mike still feel as though he’s being watched.

Once they’ve slipped between the wet trunks and naked branches, Mike gains a little cover—and his confidence surges. He thinks of how Susan’s face had lit up when he’d hinted at his...unusual interests. She’d said, “I have an idea,” and so it began.

Mike stops, as if to admire the spindly trees. Wearing a broad grin, he turns to Howard. “Here’s the thing, boss: there’s no Beast of Bodmin Moor. I’m the only beast out here.”

Mike reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a hunting knife, with a sturdy blade as long as his forearm.

Howard’s face drops. “What is this?”

“It’s what you get for rubbing your riches and your woman in my face,” Mike leers. “That’s why I’ve been rubbing my face in your woman.”

Stammering, Howard says, “B... but Mike, I don’t see how...”

Mike takes two quick steps and grabs Howard by the arm.

“No, you don’t see, do you?” Mike says. “Because you’re blind.”

Mike rams the weighty knife up into Howard’s right eye socket. Howard’s glasses shoot into the air and he bleats like an injured animal. Blood gushes from the wound, splashing warm over Mike’s fingers.

“You clueless prick,” Mike says. “You remember last week, when Susan kissed you on the mouth, out-of-the-blue?” He yanks the weapon out of Howard’s face, and says, “I told her to do that, because she’d just spent 30 minutes licking my ass.”

He plunges the metal into Howard’s other eye, and Howard cries out, “Heeeeeeelp!”

Mike doesn’t care—they’re basically in the wilderness. This isn’t his first rodeo, and those he’d killed before Howard had taught him how to inflict blows with angles and depths that prolong a man’s suffering. The blade had burst both of Howard’s eyes, but the upwards trajectory, and its pulled-punch force, meant that his brain was unharmed.

Mike releases Howard, who stops wailing and staggers backwards, weeping twin rivers of oily blood. “What did you...” he starts. “Why would you...”

“I told you; because I’m a fucking beast.”

Howard raises his hands to his face, fingers trembling as they explore his gouged, empty eyeholes. He screams again, but this time his voice deepens in an unsettling way. It’s less a shriek, and more of a rich, near-operatic bellow.

Mike doesn’t like it, so he grabs a clump of Howard’s greasy hair. “You’ve got a big mouth,” he says. “But Susan says you’ve never been any good with your tongue.”

Mike jabs the knife between Howard’s lips and teeth, skewering the pink flapping muscle that lies between them. Howard’s weird baritone shouting stops, but even now, sightless and mute, he doesn’t collapse.

Murder isn’t like the movies. People rarely fall down after just one or two stab wounds.

They die messy.

“Guess you can’t shout any more,” Mike says.

Howard gurgles and moans, cheeks and chin pouring red streams.

Mike chuckles. “Lucky you brought your whistle, eh?”

Howard totters sideways, smashing his skull against the low bough of a leafless hawthorn tree.

Mike tuts. “Trying to run away. You’re gutless, boss,” he says, and delivers a deep slash to Howard’s side.

Whimpering, Howard presses a palm to his split raincoat. Moist intestines bulge through the gaps in his fingers. His knees buckle and he lands backwards on the sludgy leaves with a thud, guts oozing from his mac.

Mike crouches beside him, watching the bleeding man’s eyelids flutter over their hollowed sockets. A red bubble inflates in one of Howard’s nostrils and his lips flop open, drooling sticky gore.

“Christ, buddy,” Mike says. “You’re gaping wider than Susan does, when I blow my load over her.”

Mike reaches under Howard’s trembling body and rolls him onto his front. When Howard’s cheek is pressed against the leaves, his breath comes in rapid squelches.

“Can’t believe you don’t like my puns either, boss,” Mike says. “Let’s just try one more.”

He straddles the rear of Howard’s skinny legs, gazing at the blood-streaked yellow coat to choose the best spot to strike.

“I suppose it’s just another term for having no guts, but I’ll never waste a good pun,” Mike says. “So yeah: you’re fucking spineless.”

Gripping the knife with both hands, he drives it into his boss’s upper back, just off-centre. Blood geysers from Howard’s mouth as Mike carves the blade downwards, deep enough to scrape against the connecting points of his ribs. When the ragged incision runs all the way down to Howard’s coccyx, Mike digs the knife in sideways, prying the flesh and muscle from the bone. He slithers his hand inside, wrist-deep. Howard is silent now, probably dead, as Mike takes hold of the prickly spine and tries to haul it out into the light.

Blood-frenzy consumes whatever happens next.

When Mike’s head clears, he’s stuffing leaking body parts into a nearby animal hole. What’s left of Howard lies scattered a short walk away, the spine protruding from the decapitated, limbless torso. It points upwards, like a post-mortem boner.

Boner! Mike thinks. The puns never stop.

Mike has dragged several larger segments—the severed hands, the lower legs, the caved-in head—and is shoving them down into the darkness. He has to find three other holes to fit the rest; the moor’s orifices waiting to be filled.

Once he’s done, now painted red, Mike goes to the edge of the woodland and looks back across the moor.

A thick fog has smothered the land.

Like the half-dozen times he’d killed before, Mike relishes the soaring endorphins. He stretches his neck back and howls, “Who’s the fucking beast now?!”

He lets the adrenaline haze ebb a little, and then fingers the keys he’d removed from Howard’s trouser pockets.

Now he just wants to fuck.

When he gets back to Howard’s place—soon to be his place—he’ll use the outside tap he saw to sluice the worst of the blood down the drain. Then he’ll call Susan and suggest they take a long, celebratory shower, with plenty of time for back-scrubbing and ball-draining.

He heads into the swollen fog, picking flecks of Howard out from under his nails.

Bodmin Moor is silent as he trudges across the grass, riding the post-kill high.

When he’s at the foot of the hill they’d climbed, there’s a noise from back the way he’d come, like a whining dog or a whinnying horse.

He shivers, the blood cooling on his skin.

As he starts up the rise the sound comes again.

He shakes his head, but this time there’s no mistaking it.

Someone had blown a whistle.

“You’re out of luck, buddy,” Mike says, forcing a laugh. “There’s no one back there to help you, except one dead rich wanker.”

At the hill’s summit, everything below looks draped in smog. Mike checks his phone, but the compass’s digital arrow won’t rest in a single direction, and swings this way and that.

“Must be up too high,” he says.

He starts down the other side, thinking of that hot shower and Susan’s hot twat. Maybe she’ll let him choke her, this time. Maybe he won’t ask.

Another whistle startles him. It’s closer now but muffled, the way it might sound if it’d come from behind a door.

Or from a hole in the ground.

Mike quickens his pace. The fog has closed in, and on every side there’s nothing but grey, as thick as woodsmoke.

“Where the hell is the cottage?” he grumbles.

Maybe you ‘mist’ it! his brain replies.

“Enough puns,” he tells himself, and hurries on.

After a few minutes the ghostly shape of the cottage drifts into focus. He’s eager to get inside, but at the edge of the property a loud, shrill whistle blasts from just a few meters away.

He reaches for the gate, but then stops.

He’d felt invincible, ready to fuck the entire world. He hates himself for feeling nervous.

Gutless, he thinks. Spineless.

He scans the area. Just before the veil of fog gets too heavy to see beyond, there’s a hole in the turf.

“Must be a bird,” he says, despite never having heard a sound with such volume come from an animal. “I’m gonna make you flightless, motherfucker.”

He retrieves the knife from his inside pocket and approaches the spot. He’s not going to be spooked by a fucking crow. He crouches down with the knife held out, ready, and peers inside.

Something hurtles out and crashes into his face. White explodes across his vision and his back thumps the ground. Winded, he goes to scramble to his feet—but then his vision clears.

A fleshy, winding pole, as thick as his thigh and twice as tall as he is, has risen from the hollow. Its skin tones range from pale peach to raw pink to licorice black, and tufts of animal hair patchwork its length. Scattered eyes and mismatched mouths open and close. The tip of the freakish pillar is thrust up into the dripping neck of Howard’s eyeless, crushed head, as though fused with it.

It’s like the neck of a hydra.

A Howard-dra, Mike marvels.

The red whistle still juts from Howard’s mouth.

Mike calls out, but his burble is cut short. A form with many joints locks around his neck, tugging him back to the cold, damp floor.

Above him, the whistle drops from Howard’s lips, and in a wheezing hiss, the head says, “The moor... has always been my home.”

Something grabs Mike by the ankles, yanking his legs in separate directions with such force that his femurs dislocate. He yells in shock but his neck is noosed tightly enough to choke him. He thrashes, reaching up to grasp whatever has him ensnared.

Keeping its hold on Mike’s throat, the form grabs him back. The knife falls from his hand but he manages to turn his head.

A tangle of organic matter has clamped his wrists. It looks like the entwined limbs of deer, sheep, rabbits, and people alike, with human fingers and animal paws poking from it, at random angles.

Mike snatches a gasp of oxygen and bellows out in terror, but his voice sounds different, deeper.

Just like Howard’s had as he’d died.

Above him, Howard’s deformed head rasps, “After a while... you become one with the moor.”

And it’s right; Mike can feel something changing inside him.

The pressure on his ankles increases and rips them away from his body. Blood hoses the ground as his legs are dragged off in separate directions, vanishing into the murky fog.

“It gets inside of you.”

The ground writhes and countless smaller tendrils emerge from beneath him; stinking threads of flesh, fur, and unsheathed muscle. They worm over his face, coiling around his belly and slipping under his clothes. Then, with a bolt of pain and an eruption of blood, they tunnel into his lower parts: anus, thigh-stumps, and groin.

People and animals don’t just go missing. As Howard had said, they become one with the moor.

Gnarled feelers invade Mike’s gullet, reaching deep into him. With an agonizing lurch, his heart and lungs, stomach and viscera, are wrenched up his throat and forced out through his lips, riding a fountain of gore and gut acids. Still impossibly alive, Mike watches his organs merge with the wriggling appendages that hold him.

Howard’s hideous face dips closer, and Mike stares into the eyeless sockets of the moor’s latest addition, seconds before he becomes its next.

“You’re not the beast,” the moor croaks, through Howard’s lips. “We are.”

THE TERRIBLE TWO

Stephen Kozeniewski

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This is a true story, and those are words that are bitter for me to write, for reasons which I will shortly outline. However, it is also going to be bookended by two award-winning (yes, really) and incredibly gross made-up stories, so don’t get your panties in a bunch. You’ll still get to barf your lungs up before the end of this entry.

In 2016 I was hip-deep in the middle of a painful divorce, so the last thing I wanted to do was get on a plane for four hours and fly to Provo, Utah, a town which is best known for...I don’t know, me mentioning it in this introduction right now, I guess. Nevertheless, my friends impressed upon me that I needed to crawl out of my own asshole and attend the World Horror Convention being held there that year.

I reluctantly entered the Gross Out Contest, a venerable (by which I mean the opposite of that) tradition in the horror community. I was reluctant because although I can write an extreme horror novel, and I’m a fair public performer, the shenanigans of the Gross Out Contest are legendary. I was convinced I wouldn’t be up to snuff. But if I was ever going to escape my emotional demons, I’d have to throw caution to the wind and start doing fun and crazy things again.  Unfortunately, I vacillated so much that I ended up writing my story only the night before my flight, and barely had a chance to edit it.

The competition that night was fierce, and included Richard Wolley, Paul Genesse, Martin Berman-Gorvine, Wile E. Young, Jeff Strand... and Jack Ketchum. (Yes, that Jack Ketchum.) As what happens at the Gross Out Contest necessarily must stay at the Gross Out Contest, I will not relate any of their stories here. However, I will say that Paul and Wile E. extemporaneously created theirs onstage, and Martin typed his story during the competition, asking to go last in order to get it all together. That’s the kind of chutzpah that I was up against. When Jeff went, I was sure my goose was cooked. Half of his lines brought down the house. And the audience, of course, was mesmerized by Jack’s reading.

When it came my turn to go, I refilled my cup of bourbon from the bottle on the judges’ table, which seemed an appropriately brazen way to start, and began to recite the story you’re about to read. I realized as I did that I had one advantage, which was that in person I could pantomime all the parts of my ridiculous, faux-erotic story. And as I did so, the laughter grew more and more intense.

Each participant was stopped at the three minute mark to determine if we should be allowed to complete our five minute stories. When my pause came, the audience was riotous, although I still wasn’t sure I had clinched it, considering my competition.

To Richard went the runner up prize: a powdered donut with a bite taken out of it.

Paul came in third for his improvised work, and received a Cthulhu bumper sticker.

When they announced Jeff as second place, and handed him his fuzzy monster toy, it dawned on me that somehow, however improbably, I had won. I stepped up and received copies of Rachel Autumn Deering'’s HUSK, Brian Keene’s GHOUL, and Vince Churchill’s HYDE as my prize.

I was probably a little buzzed, but I stood up there long enough for the MC to ask if I wanted to make a speech.

“Thank you!” I said. “I have waited all my life to be told I was a better writer than Jack Ketchum, and tonight you've all made my dream come true!”

Here follows that award-winning tale...

—1—

Dildoey McDildoface:

A Poop Dildo’s Odyssey

––––––––

The evening began, as every evening did, with a condom full of watery diarrhea being frozen into a dildo.

Neil was not allowed to use his actual penis in Holly, so he kept it stapled through the foreskin to his taint with a heavy-duty industrial staple.

Neil then used Dildoey McDildoface—the name they had agreed upon for their frozen poop dildo—to ream Holly until the condom burst and semi-frozen shit the consistency of Hawaiian Shave Ice filled her vaginal orifice.

“Squish squish,” Holly said, contracting her kegels so that the brown, corny slush squeezed out of her pussyhole as though it were a Slurpee dispenser.

Streaks of red cherry flavoring flowed through the dookie sorbet, hinting at Holly’s period.

“My turn!” Neil said, eagerly yanking the industrial staple out of his grundle.

Holly took Neil's thick, throbbing penis into her mouth. Scarcely had she begun to prod it with her tongue when an eruption of warm, sticky liquid sprayed the back of her throat. Neil's uncircumcised cock deflated like a balloon and slipped, flaccid, out of her facehole.

“Wow, you were eager,” she said, swallowing what little salty fluid didn't flood out of her mouth and dribble down her chin.

“What do you mean?” Neil asked. “I'm not even hard yet.”

With a second glance at his no longer turgid member, she realized Neil's cock hadn't been thick with erection. It had been thick with a huge, pulsating boil.

Choking, she stared down at the crustifying yellow pus that she had mistaken for jizz running down her blouse. Bile boiled up from her spleen. Warm, liquidy puke sprayed out of her mouth, staining the backs of her teeth a putrescent green.

She rose, shaking, from her knees, blouse and shirt now covered with a congealing mix of her own vomit and the purulent discharge from Neil's diseased cock.

“Son of a bitch!” she shrieked.

“Hey, hey,” he said in a soothing tone, “How about if I return the favor? Will that make you feel better?”

She took his head in her hands like a basketball and slid his face the whole length down her dripping blouse so that it was coated with yellowish green grue and speckled with chunks of partially masticated carrot. She shoved his head under her blouse and pressed his nose to her clitoris.

Plunged in darkness, nostrils recoiling at the fishy stench of uncleaned vagina commingled with drying vomit, pus, menstrual blood, and turd Slush Puppy, Neil started licking. He had just made his way through the congealing crust of semi-gelatinous fluids and was about to hit skin when Holly came for the first time. He almost instantly felt a tingle in his cheeks. Then the tingle became a burn and he felt dozens of red-hot stabs of pain, like someone putting out a whole pack of cigarettes on his face at once.

As he felt the slimy undulations of dozens of tiny, vermian bodies pioneering a webway of furrows through his face, he realized that Holly’s whole crotch was riddled with worms. And now his face was, too. He tried to scream out, but Holly repeatedly slapped the back of his head with one hand and pressed his face against the city of parasites that was her genitals with the other.

The first batch of worms quickly grew bored nesting in his cheeks and began to spread down into his throat, up into his scalp, and back into sinuses. Then a new wave of immigrants, pilgrims fleeing Holly’s vomity, shit-filled, still menstruating cooter landed on the Plymouth Rock the first wormgasm had made of Neil’s cheeks. Each time Neil stopped licking, a flurry of blows rained down on his head, and each time he succeeded in his appointed task, the spasming of Holly’s orgasms flooded his face with new parasites.

Soon his nose and ears were packed with intrepid worms. His eyes disappeared with alarming speed, as the worms seemed to favor the delicate visual flesh over his other parts. And once they had made haste of his eyeballs, they began to munch on his optic nerve and from there slipped into his brainpan.

His attempts at cunnilingus became erratic, then spastic, then finally stopped altogether. When she could slap no more orgasms out of him, she dropped the eyeless corpse to the ground, watching in charmed fascination as the thousands of worms burrowed through his flesh, leaving trails like a colony of prairie dogs.

As Neil voided his bowels one last time, Holly went to fetch a condom. After a few hours in the freezer, Dildoey McDildoface would be ready for tomorrow night.

––––––––

2017 will forever be known as “The Year Without a Gross Out Contest.” Or, in all likelihood, probably not. Nevertheless, that appellation would be appropriate. However, it turned out that rumors of my having killed off the contest merely to sate my own bloated ego turned out to be partially exaggerated, because the contest returned in 2018, now under the auspices of KillerCon Austin.

Now, you read of my mighty and unlikely triumph in Utah in 2016, against both horror legends and hungry newcomers. But 2018 would prove to be a different animal entirely. In Austin I was facing down a veritable bevy of bizarros. (Flock?  Spungunion?) Now, what you have to know about bizarro authors is that they take a different attitude towards readings than we more humdrum horror types. Bizarro readings are more like performance art, and often feature props, dadaism, audience participation, and skits. In a circumstance like the Gross Out Contest, all of those things are strong advantages.

However, I don't wear those sorts of accessories well. I'm happy to do a little bit of pantomime, but for the most part I just worry about writing a really good, targeted piece and performing it well.

As the contest started, all my fears were realized. A couple of horror authors presented some strong entries, and the bizarros were even stronger. When Michael Allen Rose pulled John Wayne Communale on stage to feed him–well, I probably shouldn’t actually say what he fed him–I was sure I was toast.

Nothing else could power me through it, though, but sheer, true grit. (Yeah, you thought I wouldn't pull that old chestnut out, didn't you, John Wayne?) So, I dug down deep and gave my best rendition ever. And it tore the house down. Still, I was pretty sure I was just going to get second place. But I won! Making me a two-time Gross Out Contest winner! The winner and still champion!

Except... then came 2019. And with it, those ominous opening words to Jay Wilburn’s entry, “This is a true story.” 2020 followed, and with it came another Wilburn win. No one knows (unless it’s already happened by the time you’re reading this, I suppose) what the 2021 Gross Out Contest holds in store. But if either Jay or I win, it will mean a rare three-peat and mandatory retirement for that participant. So, stay tuned for more on that front! But in the meanwhile, you can enjoy my 2018 winning entry:

––––––––

—2—

Everybody Poops.

Especially Godzilla.

A thick, cheesy brown fog rolled into town that morning. It seemed that Godzilla had been struck by another bad bout of diarrhea.

No one knows quite why Godzilla chooses to use our rustic town as his personal restroom, but I think it’s just our geography. We live in a perfectly concave valley, almost a crater, surrounded by mountains. Basically our small town is shaped exactly like a kaiju’s toilet bowl and now Godzilla’s various bodily excretions have become an integral part of our weather patterns.

I actually don’t mind days like today, when we get a little splash of Godzilla’s colon gravy. Sometimes my seven-year-old daughter Sophie and I will sit on the deck in our rain slickers, sipping tea, watching the dogs chase each other out on the lawn, turning their coats brown.  Sometimes I joke that we have yellow labs most of the time, but chocolate labs on Taco Tuesdays. But, no, the diarrhea fog is not nearly as bad as the constipation.

Now I suppose a fancy city doctor might claim the fix for constipation is a spoonful of Metamucil, but out here in the country we know the simple ways are still the best: all you have to do is jam your thumb up in there and wiggle it around, removing each of those little Dippin Dots one at a time.

So, ‘round these parts, instead of filling up the water tower with laxatives and trying to convince Godzilla to drink, we just pay the local kids nickels to coat themselves in Vaseline, shimmy up Godzilla’s leg, and act as his thumb in the asshole, if you know what I mean.

For a while our best asshole spelunker was the epileptic kid who lives over on 7th, Timmy Mason. You can imagine what a natural advantage he had shaking those bowel movement loose, what with those fits of his. But then one day Timmy didn’t come back. Well, the truth is, he did come back, we were just never able to get him out of that giant, calcified lizard shit. We jackhammered at it for days, but had to give up. They had an empty casket at his wake, but to this day once a week like clockwork Mrs. Mason leaves a little bouquet of flowers at the foot of that big old log jam where her son still rests.

Anyhoo, that’s why I stopped letting Sophie be a brown-eye girl for nickels. Oh, don’t make that noise. I still let her have fun. Why, I remember just last May Sophie came tear-assing out of the house, crying “no school tomorrow, no school tomorrow, there’ll no be no school tomorrow ‘cause of jizz!” And, sure enough a glistening white goo coated the land. I mean, Godzilla’s still a man, you know. Before I knew it, Sophie was out in the yard making cum angels on the lawn and trying to catch falling sperm on the tip of her tongue. We even got into a jizzball fight. That little rascal hit me right in the eye. And at the end of day we built a little man with a corncob pipe and a button nose out of chunky globs of radioactive lizard semen.

Lately, though, it seems that Godzilla’s not the only kaiju who’s been getting in on the action. I thought I’d seen everything in this town, but last week when I went to go fill my swimming pool for the season, I saw that somebody had beaten me to it. Instead of water and chlorine my pool was full of thick, clotting menstrual blood. But I’ll tell you more about that in my next reading “Are you there, Godzilla? It’s me, Mothra.”

.38 SPECIAL

Amy Grech

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“Let’s play a game, Charlie,” Heather Moore whispered, her breath hot and quick in his ear. She kissed him roughly in her husband’s bed with no regrets. Charlie Dent kept Brad’s side warm whenever he went out of town and his wife craved carnal affection.

He held her tight and twirled her curly strawberry blonde hair in his fingers. “Sounds like fun. What do you have in mind?”

“You’ll see...” Heather reached over, opened the nightstand—her purple iPhone 12 mini rattled when she yanked the drawer open—and grabbed Brad’s shiny, steel blue .38 Snub Nose Smith & Wesson Revolver that matched her eyes—his spare, tucked away for safekeeping—and handed him the gun. Charlie took it without the slightest hesitation.

“Do you know how to play Russian roulette?” She ran her fingers playfully across Charlie’s hairy chest and he shivered.

“I haven’t got a clue.” He leaned over and kissed her perky breasts. “Show me. I’m eager to learn.”

“Not until you shoot your load,” Heather said, winking.

“If you insist.” He set the snub-nose revolver down on the nightstand and lay back prone on the bed.

Heather took his growing erection slowly into her mouth, swirling the head and shaft with her tongue. She cupped his balls in her hand. He grabbed her hair and tugged, urging her on. Heather felt his balls tighten when he came, sweet and warm in her mouth.

Charlie sat up, kissed her deeply and reached for the gun—an unbearable heft in his hand—struggled to hold it level.

She licked her lips. “We’ll take turns. You go first. Give the wheel a whirl. There are six chambers and only one bullet. I love those odds. Don’t you?”

“You bet. There’s nothing more exhilarating than the element of surprise. Wouldn’t you agree?” He gave it a twirl while she watched enthusiastically.

“Absolutely.” Heather clapped her hands. “Now, put the gun to your head and hold it steady while I pull the trigger. Don’t blink—one false move and I might be the last woman you ever see—you’d better savor the moment.”

“Anything for you.” Charlie drank Heather in while he honored her request. The cold, steel muzzle pinched his skin; he blinked when the hammer clicked on an empty chamber, sending a blast of compressed air straight to his temple. He sighed and handed back the gun. “Your turn. That is, if you’re feeling brave.”

“Hell, yeah.” Heather licked her lips and gave the wheel a good spin with the tip of her manicured red nail. The second it stopped, she placed the gun to her head—smack dab between her eyes for dramatic effect—Charlie placed his hand on top of hers and together they grappled for dominance. The weapon discharged during the tussle—catching him off guard—he cursed when he realized what he’d done. When the bullet pierced Heather’s forehead and burrowed into her skull, her steel blue eyes widened, full of pain and wonder. She landed flat on her back with a soft thud. Blood gushed; a rush crimson surged onto the pristine white sheets. Swift vengeance.

Charlie gawked at Heather’s ruined face—her blood and brains splattered on the bedroom wall—a murderous mosaic. The .38’s explosion echoed shrilly in his head. His hand still clutched the snub-nose revolver tightly. He screamed, tossed the smoking gun on the bed, collected his clothes, and hightailed it home.

***

Standing with his legs spread and his feet planted firmly on the smooth concrete floor of his garage, Brad Moore pressed the eerily familiar cold muzzle of his .38 Snub Nose Smith & Wesson Revolver against Charlie Dent’s forehead and grinned, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth that resembled Chiclets.

His stance, typical for a cop and expert marksman, set Charlie on edge.

“Do you know what I’ve got here, Charlie?” He cocked the gun; a nerve-wracking click echoed loudly in the small space. From the door behind him—open just a crack—a black cat wearing a bright red collar with a dented, silver bell suddenly appeared and rubbed her head against Brad’s well-worn jeans, purring loudly. He launched into an uncontrollable sneezing fit that lasted a good five minutes. Brad finally caught his breath, grabbed a wad of crumpled, slightly used tissues from the left front pocket of his jeans and blew his nose with his free hand. He shoved the sopping wad back into his pocket and brushed a tuft of loose black fur off his leg. “God damnit, Midnight...get back in the house and stay there. You insufferable bitch.” He scooped up Heather’s cat, tossed her into the kitchen and slammed the door shut. Midnight hissed and scratched from the other side.

Charlie watched the commotion with the cat then studied the weapon and couldn’t help but think of Heather’s untimely demise. “It looks like a gun,” he said matter-of-factly, calmly, not at all the way that a man staring Death in the face ought to reply. Goose bumps appeared on his smooth, tan skin, revealing his fragile state of mind. He fought a wave of nausea, hot and vile, aggravated by the strong stench of gun oil—a nauseating tang of gasoline-soaked bananas that stung his nostrils.

Brad nodded; a maniacal grin plastered on his face. “It’s that and so much more.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows, biding his time. “Could you be more specific and why are you pointing it at me?” He shifted, trying to get comfortable in a rickety, wooden chair, a bygone keepsake from happier times. Coarse ropes pinched the tender flesh of his ankles and wrists, making them throb dully. His waist had been tied to the back of the chair.

Brad laughed long and loud. “You know exactly why. Don’t play dumb with me.”

He sighed. “Honestly, I haven’t got a clue.”

A shot in the dark.

“Tell me...have you seen Heather recently?” Brad pulled the gun away long enough to polish it with his expensive button-down shirt while Charlie watched.

Charlie rolled his hazel eyes. He took a deep breath and said, “This is a small town—you never know who you might run into.”

“Wrong answer.” Brad jammed the gun against his opponent’s forehead; sweat ran down Charlie’s face in sticky torrents as he shrieked.

“Go ahead and scream. No one can hear you except me. I had my garage soundproofed so we won’t hear Jacob and his band when they jam. The neighbors tell me my son and his crew really know how to rock. Guess I’ll have to take their word for it—I never hear a peep.”

Charlie immediately stopped screaming.

“See this wheel? Round and round she goes; where she stops, nobody knows.” Brad gave it a spin; it clicked loudly and reeled before coming to a halt. “Fate can be a harsh mistress...”

He stared at the shiny, steel blue revolver, fascinated by its finality.

“Six chambers, one bullet. Looks like the odds are in your favor.” Brad held the sleek gun in his open palm for his captive audience to inspect from afar, which he reluctantly did. “The bullet’s in there, all right, but the question is where?”

Charlie studied the cold concrete beneath his feet, searching for a way out of his perilous predicament. Nothing could get him out of this bind. Unless...he glanced up at the ceiling and spied the red emergency cord—dangling like a ripcord—Charlie could use it to open the garage door manually from the inside—that is, if he can loosen the ties that bind him before his captor noticed.

Point-blank, Brad posed a question: “Did you get off playing with my gun, Charlie?” He admired his weapon of choice, compact yet potent enough to get the job done.

“We both know I shot my load,” Charlie said with a shrug.

“It’s a real kick—better than sex, get some action whenever you want—absolute  power in the palm of your hand.” Brad tightened his grip; the gun wavered. “Heather’s dead. Your prints were all over the gun, hers too. What the fuck, Charlie?!”

“I’m really sorry.” He started at his feet, admonished. “It was just an innocent game—Heather’s idea. I swear—I just played along.”

“My iPhone proves otherwise.” Brad paced back and forth.

“What in the world are you talking about?” Charlie rocked from side to side in the hot seat and felt his restraints give under the strain.

“Are you a gambling man, Charlie?”

“It’s not my thing—such a nasty habit. The stakes are too high, and I hate to lose.”

Brad laughed again, louder this time, not noticing his mark’s agitated movements. “Then why did you sleep with my wife?

Did you feel lucky, willing to risk it all for a good fuck?”

“What? I—” He stopped moving and sat bolt upright.

“Don't be shy. Clearly you weren’t with Heather.” He paused and let the facts sink in. “Now that I have your undivided attention...you know I’m a Web Programmer, right? It was pretty easy for me to install FlexiSPY on my wife’s phone that enabled me to activate the camera anytime to keep track of Heather’s whereabouts. I saw the whole thing play out on my iPhone from my I.T. conference in Vegas yesterday.”

“I call bullshit—you’re bluffing,” Charlie countered, with his best poker face.

“I caught you red-handed.” Brad pulled a Pacific Blue iPhone 12 Pro from the back pocket of his jeans, opens it with Face ID, and launches the monitoring app seamlessly. “See for yourself.”

Wary, his adversary leaned forward for a closer look and scrutinized the impossibly shiny immaculate screen. As Charlie watched, his eyes teared, blurring his vision. He struggled to focus on damning footage his rendezvous, with Heather as it played out, ending abruptly with a bang! “I’m an impulsive guy. I acted on a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time: Love.”

“Wrong, I think you mean lust—there’s a big difference. You were definitely thinking with the wrong head when you bedded Heather, my friend.” He pointed the gun at Charlie’s crotch and pocketed his phone. He expected Brad to pull the trigger, depriving him of his manhood with a single blow; Brad couldn’t, no, wouldn’t do that he wanted to make Charlie squirm. “Heather may have loved you in college, but her tastes are refined now. Why do you think she married me?”

“Because you’re a sure bet, safe and secure.”

Brad glared at Charlie. “That’s cold.”

“It’s true,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “Heather craved excitement and I knew how to pique her interest.”

Brad balled his free hand into a fist and raised the gun level with Charlie’s face. “You weren’t the first guy I caught in bed with Heather. My wife had a wandering eye, you see. I turned a blind eye to her previous transgressions, but I know you—we go way back—that changes everything.”

Charlie stared at Brad, grappling with harsh reality.

“Round and round, she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows!” Brad spun the .38’s cylinder. “Care to guess where the bullet is?”

“I’d rather not, but something tells me I don’t have a choice.” Charlie’s eyes locked on the proverbial wheel until it stopped.

The gun loomed inches from his face, compact and menacing. “You’re not a coward, are you, Charlie?”

“N-n-n-o-o-o.” He blinked, swallowed hard.

“Funny, you don’t sound too sure of yourself, and you look terrified.” Brad tossed the gun rapidly between his right hand and his left, like a live grenade. “Are you afraid to die?”

“Isn’t everybody?” Charlie’s eyes darted wildly around the remarkably tidy garage, finally setting on Brad.

He shrugged and let the .38 rest in the palm of his left hand. “I suppose, but I’m not the one staring down the barrel of a gun.”

“Let’s forget I fucked Heather, okay? Pretend it never happened. Just between you and me...for old times’ sake,” Charlie pleaded, feigning sincerity.

“Sorry, Charlie. Your half-hearted apology can’t bring Heather back. What’s done is done.” Brad spun the cylinder once more for good measure. “It’s time to pay. I mean play.”

Charlie shifted; the rope frayed at his core first then spiraled downward from his arms to his legs.

Brad fondled the revolver’s wheel, too preoccupied to notice Charlie’s regained mobility. “Roulette is the name of the game. A wheel is spun. The players put their chips down on a number. If the ball lands in the slot that contains their number, they claim the jackpot; if it doesn’t, they lose everything. It’s all or nothing—there’s no middle ground.”

“Let the chips fall where they may.” Charlie shook uncontrollably.

Brad tightened his grip on the gun until his knuckles turned white. “This isn’t Vegas. Your life is on the line; you can’t afford to lose. It’s time to try your luck, Charlie. All bets are off.” This time, he shoved the revolver’s cold muzzle against Charlie’s clammy forehead and caressed the trigger lovingly with his finger. “Is Lady Luck on your side? Only one way to know for sure.”

“Here’s hoping.” Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, steeled himself for the inevitable. In his mind appeared an image: Heather, spread eagle, naked across the bed—a pinpoint precision bullet hole smack-dab between her wide, unblinking eyes.

Brad pulled the trigger. The weapon kicked, and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber—a hallow slap—sending a blast of compressed air straight to his captive’s temple.

Charlie flinched; his eyes snapped open. “Looks like I’m luckier than I thought,” he muttered, his voice icy calm, utterly devoid of emotion.

“Too bad Heather isn’t here to see this. I think she would have enjoyed the show! Don’t you?" Brad twirled the gun between his fingers like a seasoned outlaw.

Charlie licked his parched lips. “It’s hard to say.”

“Are you telling me you don’t know what my wife likes even though you fucked her?” He folded his arms.

“That’s right.” His voice cracked under the strain.

Brad scratched his head. “Right about what? That you slept with my wife or that you don’t know how to please her?”

“Both, I suppose,” Charlie leered at him. “Don’t you want to give it a whirl? That way we’ve both got a fair shot.”

“No fucking way.” Ever the perfectionist, Brad wiped a smudge off the gun’s barrel with his shirt. “How about you take a turn for each time you slept with Heather?”

“There aren’t enough bullets for that,” he smirked.

“Cocky motherfucker. That’s exactly how this is going to play out. Two down, four to go,” Brad said. He pointed the .38 at his captor and...sneezed uncontrollably. Without giving it much thought, his hands flew up to cover his nose, in a futile attempt to quash the assault on his sinuses. The snub-nose revolver fell, bounced off Charlie’s foot; the trigger—hit at just the right angle discharged—the lone round made a beeline for Brad’s forehead. His gray, bloodshot eyes widened. A pinpoint precision hole pooling crimson formed, right between his eyes. He hit the cold concrete in a wet splat.

Charlie leapt up from the chair—the ties that bound him fell away like a house of cards. “What are the odds?” he mused. He stepped over Brad’s wrecked body, reached for the red emergency cord, and gave it a good yank, it disengaged with an abrupt bang! Charlie flinched, saw the spent .38 and relaxed. He walked over to the white, aluminum garage door speckled red and lifted the handle at the base. It groaned on its track. Charlie stepped outside into the blinding sunlight and hightailed it home...again.

WINNER DIGS THE GRAVE

Jay Wilburn

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There weren’t many people left and most who were didn’t live many years even in a tribe, but they had to choose their champions, so these two would have to do.

Redd raised his hawker, a thing of welded pipes, sheet metal blades, and fishhook barbs. As perfect a weapon as was left in the world, near perfect balance, but it felt heavy in his hands today. He leaned on the brick husk that used to be a mailbox. It now served as a cooker when they had the meat, and the thing was warm under his arm for now.

Brown’s good eye rolled in its socket as he held a sabersick in each fist out at his sides. He angled them so the main blades curved in like claws. His shit didn’t look so heavy, and he offered death from two places.

“I’m gonna die today,” Redd comforted himself under his breath.

Someone hammered a blister of metal that sounded nothing like a bell, and the champions slogged toward one another in ankle deep mud. It hadn’t rained for days, but the path was gummy with more wet DNA than dirt. Crumbs of asphalt cut at their bare feet in the muck, drawing first blood and adding to the swill.

They greeted one another with metal on metal that rang truer than that shit bell. Soon jagged metal hooked flesh. Sliced. Ripped. Torn. The wounds looked surface and shallow at first, but then bled like something deeper, painting their lower halves in the same bright festive color of fresh death.

Brown circled and backed away, but Redd followed to both their peril. Brown got his piece of Redd’s flanks, and Redd opened wider a previous wound to greasy yellow fat.

They steered too close to an old chassis of a car. Wheels gone. Everything scavenged long ago except what was all rust. They drew abstract curves over the oxidized metal as the object foiled their attacks.

Shouldn’t have been a bit of glass left in the windows as the temptation to shatter the stuff over the years was too great. But Redd somehow dug some shards out of the guts of the door on another poor swing. The stuff peppered Brown’s good eye and he flinched away like stung by an extinct bee.

As Brown blinked the slivers out of his lid, Redd took advantage. His hawker tore off Brown’s left nipple. The crater left behind in wormy muscle fiber was lumpy like exposed brain. The view washed out in a raw rush of blood like a botched surgery.

Brown recovered enough to deflect the follow-up swing of the Hawker and even put Redd on his heels by twisting the hawker downward before missing Redd’s throat by inches with the back spikes of one sabersick. Gave him enough time to rub his irritated eye with the back of a filthy fist and to scratch furrows into the exposed muscle of his ruined peck.

Then, it was back to business.

They tore out petrified wood and brittle stone from the doorway to one of the ruins as they blundered inside. The hawker sheered off the last two pegs of what might have been a railing and the pieces clattered to the gritty subfloor before rolling away.

On the backswing, a sabersick hooked a chuck of old coffee table and skid that off into a forgotten corner.

A wide attack with the hawker ruptured a moldering sofa in a mushroom cloud of black mold. Redd struggled a second to free the twisted blades from the ancient furniture. The fabric fell away from the sharp sheet metal, but a flap of flesh with Brown’s erect nipple still swung from one of the points.

Brown took the moment to unzip Redd’s cheek with a curved main blade claw. Redd slobbered blood out of the new opening for his monstrous grin as he dropped to one knee. He clenched his naked jaws against the pain, and a half dozen compromised teeth crumbled into choking dust and debris. The greasy blood washed the tooth dust down Redd’s throat smooth though.

Brown would have opened an extra breathing hole with his other hand except his foot rolled out from under him on one of the railing dowls. Redd grabbed up the sheered piece of rail and stabbed it into Brown’s bicep on the way back to his feet. He felt the sharp end of the small pike grind against bone.

Brown made one effort to pull it free, but then gave up as Redd pressed the attack. Brown swung slower and lower from his spiked arm.

“Fuck me!” Redd yelled in celebration as they knocked out the rest of the decayed drywall on their way into the kitchen. The cracked marble counters held up well to the wild attacks. Better than the flesh of the champions did.

As Brown’s wounded arm dropped, Redd swung hard at the meat above one hip. The hawker stuck worse than it had in the sofa. Redd wasn’t ready to give up his other cheek for it though. He levered the handle to force Brown back into the cubby where the sink used to be, and wretched the hawker free. A dozen puncture wounds seeped green paste from the tenderized flank. The bit of fleshy nipple spun from its point like a flag in the wind.

He could only swing low from one side, so Brown’s angry retaliation sliced Redd from hip to hip across his groin. His guts settled low inside him as everything wet spilled out between his feet. His manhood hung exposed and serrated. It might not rot right off him, but it wasn’t going to do much more than hang limp and as useless as Brown’s bad eye after this.

Redd backed into the box of an old, stripped refrigerator. When he sat down on the hard-packed clay, he didn’t think his legs would do the work of standing again.

Brown smiled with what were left of his black teeth. He either winked or blinked at Redd. Hard to tell with just the one working eye, but it enraged Redd. He heaved himself up and out of the box and his thighs squeaking together from the blood flow.

Brown made to advance on Redd, but on his first step he winced and held his perforated side. He was still trapped in the narrow cubby for the sink when Redd swung into him, square and hard.

Brown threw himself backward and crashed outside through the weak slats. Everyone from two tribes scattered across the hardpan of the barrens from where they’d been watching through every window square and uneven hole they could find. As he tried to back away and regroup, Brown pulled up short in what must have been nauseating dizziness. He tried to back away again as his good eye glazed over.

One tribe cheered as the other moaned.

Redd wanted him to see it. He wanted Brown to hurt as much as Redd’s julienned cock hurt in that moment. He lifted the hawker to reel Brown in from the loop of intestine tangled in the weapon’s complex blades. Brown managed to back away, but two lines of bowel fed out with every step.

Redd didn’t pursue, satisfied to keep Brown on the line and let him unravel himself one sick purple inch of gut at a time. When Brown stayed in place trying to figure out what to do next, Redd twisted the handle of his hawker, winding Brown’s insides up like noodles on a fork.

Brown took hold of his bowels like reins and screamed as he leaned back taut. Whether it was what he’d hoped for or not, he cut himself free on the hawker. The severed rope of the intestines snaked free of Redd’s weapon, but the nipple still dangled.

As Brown flung the open bowels over his shoulder, he sprayed both tribes in half digested shit. They cried out, but didn’t back away. This was not to be missed. He wrapped up his neck like putting on an intestine scarf, moving the bowels out of his line off attack and off the ground.

Redd paced forward. Brown was going to die, but that didn’t mean Redd was going to live.

They returned to swinging and blocking like there was nothing left to lose.

The fight drifted into a ruin missing the back wall. The champions tumbled over a sturdy pool table matted black with the fluids of sacrifice and sex. They locked their teeth into one another as they fell to the concrete in each other’s embrace.

Brown whipped his head from side to side until he pulled free the top half of Redd’s sliced cheek. Wet skull, tendons, and too much visible eye were left behind.

Redd found Brown’s bad eye in his mouth. It was as hard as a fruit pit. A grey length of wasted optic nerve off the back of the hard pit of eyeball poked out the open side of Redd’s face that weeping blood and thin yellow plasma. He spit the lump back into Brown’s face along with a couple slivers of glass that somehow ended up in his mouth after the bite too.

They scramble to their feet and fought their way back outside again.

Redd took deep cuts to both thighs and screamed. He dropped his hawker and seized the bowels wrapped around Brown’s neck, twisting and constricting them tight.

Brown stabbed into Redd’s shoulders as he searched for neck and arteries but missed.

Redd limped into Brown’s chest and they crashed through another wall. The stone collapsed and they stumbled inside a third ruin. They tipped a table and scattered dry bones.

Losing his sabersicks, Brown clawed at Redd’s raw face from his back with Redd on top. He came close to robbing Redd of an eye or two.

Redd planted his feet in Brown’s chest and leaned back. Redd’s arms and legs hurt too much to pull as hard as he wanted, but he wouldn’t let go. Brown’s face turned purple, then green, then black as his hands fell away. Redd held on a while longer.

Both tribes booed the slow ending, but no one interfered with the finish. One man was carried out on the boney shoulders of lesser men while the other was dragged out by his scratched ankles.

They set Redd down on the most comfortable pile of rocks near the rising heat of the mailbox fire. They set the rusty can between his feet where he slumped, working for each pull of breath as his body stiffened.

Previous generations had said the can was full of beans, but stories outlived the tellers and the truth no longer mattered anyway. It was Redd’s can now until the next fight or until he took the deep sleep on his own.

Both tribes flayed every bit of meat and organ from Brown’s bones. They cooked him in maddening aroma and shared among themselves. Redd got the best bits on the cleanest and flattest piece of stone. He ate what he could out of respect and passed on the rest before it was cold.

Someone from the other tribe laid the hawker and both the sabersicks next to Redd. Another carried a severed length of bowel recovered from the barrens behind the first ruin to be cooked up too.

Brown was a little tougher than everyone liked, but he had a gamey flavor that brought needed strength.

As the meal drew to a close, they broke the bones for the marrow. Redd accepted the first one and sucked with greed.

They gathered the broken bones at Redd’s feet and waited. Redd drew upon his remaining strength and clawed a hole in the filthy mud. As he raked the bones into the hole, he coughed up a tooth and piled that with the rest.

Redd spotted the nipple still on his hawker and pulled it free. He dropped that into the hole, but someone snatched the raw flap away and chewed on it like jerky.

He raked mud over the bones in a thin layer to be done with the obligation and closed his eyes.

Both tribes waited for Redd’s slow finish. No one booed this time. As the day grew old and Redd did not, they laid him back gently and dragged him by his ankles toward the heat of the mailbox.

They feasted well that day.

After it was over, they argued over who was owed the hawker and the sabersicks. Things escalated, and they had to choose two more champions. The new fighters chose their weapons and squared up across from one another. The sun set as they waited for the bell.

YOU CAN’T KILL THE DEAD

Jack Bantry & Robert Essig

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Stephen was on his morning jog near the lake when he came across a fisherman struggling with his reel and rod. By the looks of it, the guy had a good one on the line, the type of catch men boasted about for years after the fishing trip.

Deviating from his jogging path Stephen went to help the man, or at the very least to watch him reel in what must have been a hell of a fish, but when he got to the water’s edge he was hit with quite a surprise, for the fisherman didn’t even have his line in the water.

The spreading patch of red on the man’s back was the first giveaway that something was wrong. Stephen stopped and took in the scene, immediately wishing he’d have continued on the path like normal. It had been one of those mornings. His girlfriend was mad at him, thinking he was flirting with some other girl on social media. His dog took a shit in the hallway, which he promptly stepped on after waking. It squished through his toes, was a bitch to clean, and you can only imagine the smell? Yeah, it was one of those mornings he figured he should have stayed in bed.

“Excuse me,” Stephen said, gaining the man’s attention.

Stephen was going to ask if the guy needed help, but just then he realized what was going on. The man had hooked himself in the back and was, well, reeling himself in. It looked painful. The blood had spread to a large red stain on the back of his white shirt that soaked into his jeans. He looked at Stephen with jaundiced eyes like membranous egg yolks, his face glistening as if he’d just dunked his head in water, but more like his flesh was melting away. He was deathly pale. Veins and capillaries stood out on his neck and forehead like a roadmap. Some of them had burst, creating purplish blowouts just below the skin.

Stephen felt almost rooted to the spot, unsure of what to do. There was something seriously wrong with this guy, not only in the skin, but the profuse sweating and wild eyes.

The fisherman gripped the rod tighter, cranking the reel, which created even more pressure, bending the pole in an arc over his head and behind him. It was then that Stephen noticed his muscles twitching. His face jumped like a junkie’s. The muscles in his arms and legs bounced like there were frogs trapped beneath the slick flesh. He pulled at the fishing rod and grunted, and then it came free. The end that had been embedded in his back flung forward, casting a chunk of red sinewy flesh.

Stephen jumped out of the way, terrified to get slapped with the man’s back flesh, or perhaps it was the hook embedded in the bloody chunk of meat that he so feared. In his quick retreat he stumbled over some detritus on the ground. Junk careless fishermen or perhaps foolish teenagers left behind with little regards to polluting this beautiful lake. At his feet were candy wrappers, a crumpled cigarette package and an empty gallon wine bottle.

When the crazed fisherman leapt forward towards Stephen, he grabbed the wine bottle and swung it at the man, cracking him across the face. It was one of the thick wine bottles that had probably been full of two-quid chuck, heavy duty enough so that even the worst wino could drop the thing on the ground and it wouldn’t shatter, just like it didn’t shatter across the fisherman’s head. What it did was leave a fucking dent!

The man reared up, sort of stumbling for balance. He paused and ran heavily trembling fingers over the concave indent in the left side of his head.

The man looked up at Stephen and croaked out one word: “You...” His mouth opened and closed like dying fish’s, but no other words would come forth.

Stephen shook his head. “I had to. You just stay back, okay? Don’t come closer or I’ll bash you again, I fucking swear I will.”

The man lunged forward again. Stephen, startled by the quick movement—this guy kind of reminded him of a zombie, and they sure didn’t move that fast in the movies—threw the wine bottle at him. His aim was off and it deflected off of the fisherman’s chest, hardly slowing his momentum. The man lunged for Stephen, grabbing his right foot. Using his left foot, Stephen gave the crazed man a swift kick to the face, busting his nose. Blood gushed from his nostrils, but he didn’t let go of Stephen’s foot. In turn Stephen kicked the man over and over until his boot tread was slipping over the blood-wet face.

Finally the man let go. Stephen moved fast, getting to his feet. He then kicked the man in the face several times full force. By the time he stepped back his boot was glossy. The man’s face was contorted. His jaw had become dislodged, several teeth now missing (one of them stuck to Stephen’s boot). The guy’s face looked like it was made of modeling clay, molded by an armature with no future in realism.

Stephen turned and ran down the water’s edge toward two fishermen he could see nearby. He hollered as he ran toward them. One guy poked up, his head shifting in a slow, stilted swagger that was far too reminiscent of the zombie Stephen had just taken down.

What the fuck is going on? Is everyone around the lake a fucking zombie?

The first one he approached was wearing a black and white Newcastle United football shirt sitting tight around his beer belly. The flesh on the man’s bald head was grey and wet. He looked seriously ill. Wasn’t any way he was coming back from this. The man stomping towards Stephen, fishing momentarily forgotten.

Stephen immediately backed away and found himself in a batch of stinging nettles at the side of the trail. Shit, fuck, fuck. Lifting his legs as high as he could and raising his arms, to avoid being stung, he also stomped about. They must have looked like a pair of stompers—it was like they were at a Madness gig.

Stephen found himself on the trail by the lake. He looked over the calm water. On the opposite shore the trees climbed up the hillside with the sun shimmering in the sky. He turned to face the oncoming zombie and stumbled into the fishermen’s seating area, crashing into and through an orange fold-up chair. It wrapped itself around his legs and Stephen fell, hitting his forehead on a tackle box. Dazed, Stephen shook himself out of it and, in a panic, got to his feet. The zombie in the football shirt stumbled around, arms thrashing—he couldn’t see the third fisherman. Stephen instantly picked up a fishing rod, resting on its V-shaped holder. Rod in hand, he whipped the approaching zombie around the side of the head, like the rod was a horsewhip. The zombie flinched and raised it hands in self-defense. Stephen whipped again and took off the end of a finger.

Fuck, shit!

The zombie, Stephen didn’t feel comfortable calling them that, stumbled forward. His head and feet didn’t seem to be in coordination. Stephen whipped again, connected with the zombie’s shoulder. The fiberglass fishing rod snapped and the top end dangled, connected only by the fishing line that looped through the rods eyelets and away to the float bobbing in the water. As the zombie tripped forward, arms outstretched towards him, Stephen raised his hand and jabbed down with the broken rod. The splintered end stabbed the oncoming zombie in the eye.

Stephen stumbled backwards, pulled the rod free of the eye socket and the eyeball popped out with it, stuck to the end of the rod. The optic nerve and attached muscles dangled like a bloody tentacle, dribbling blood down the grey-looking fleshy cheek.

The big man fell to the floor, seemingly dead.

Stephen stood holding the broken rod, with the eyeball attached.

Bloody hell!

He shook the broken rod and the eyeball shot through the air and into the water, floating there like a macabre bobber.

Stephen looked down to the heap on the floor. Stabbed in the brain!

It was now that the third zombie fisherman came into view above the nettles to Stephen’s left. The scattered seating area was in front of Stephen, with the lake to his right. The zombie came through the nettles, oblivious to their stings, stumbling like a toddler learning to walk. This guy wore a green camouflage baseball cap and a checked shirt. Stephen stepped back, standing on a discarded beer can. His knee buckled, but he remained upright.

The zombie stood still in the knee-high nettles, arms by its sides.

What the fuck was it doing?

From here, the grey flesh on the zombie’s face had a green tinge. For the first time he wondered what had caused all this? Had they already been infected when they arrived? Maybe the illness had an incubation period?

The zombie started forward. Stephen looked down at the broken fishing rod in his hand, the line still connected via the reel. He followed the line and it disappeared into the water near the bobbing eyeball. He tossed the rod toward the shore. From where he stood Stephen looked around the remains of the seating area. What was he going use now to defend himself: Fold up chairs; more fishing rods; nets; a beer cooler? He looked back towards the zombie, checking how close he was getting. It was making slow progress. Stephen flipped the lid on the cooler and inside sat 6 stubbies of Red Stripe. He picked one up. It sat nicely in the palm of his hand. Stephen looked back at the zombie, who had taken a few more steps. Stephen gripped the can, lifted it parallel with his ear and threw it at the zombie. The can whizzed over its head.

Shite!

He bent and picked out another can. Without hesitation he hurled it. The can smacked against the zombie’s chest but had little impact.

Fuck this! He was getting out of here. The cops could sort this mess out. He high-tailed it up a slight slope from the trail at the water’s edge, through the bracken, towards his house—which was some way off.

He scratched his legs running through some brambles. It was hard going. Stephen looked back over his shoulder. The zombie was following and struggling just as badly in the wild undergrowth.

This is all just crazy.

He broke through onto another trail that weaved through the trees. Stephen knew this area well. It would be quicker to follow this trail onto a wider one used by farmers and the forest rangers. On the trail he could open his legs and run. The path meandered through the trees and away from the lake. He stopped to see if that thing was still following. He couldn’t see it on the trail, but he could hear him approaching.

Fuck, what was he going to do?

Were there more cases?

Was the town infected?

Oh, man. Stephen stood with his hands on his head, trying to think.

The zombie appeared out of the trees.

Stephen turned and ran.

He climbed over a fence and took off running on a track wide enough for a quad bike. Further ahead he saw a tractor. It was crazy to think he could get in the thing and outrun the zombie, but what other option was available? Stephen approached the tractor and climbed inside the cab with the controls. He’d never driven a tractor before, but figured it couldn’t be too difficult. As luck would have it, the key was in the ignition as if someone had been using it very recently or something urgent had happened to cause them to leave the key there. Turning the key, the tractor started right up. Stephen grabbed the controls and revved the engine. The thing swung around in a perfect circle, causing Stephen to face the zombie that had been running after him, which was now very close. He panicked and hit the accelerator pedal even harder, which caused the tractor to jolt forward. That’s when Stephen noticed that the tractor was equipped with hayforks.

“Oh fuck!”

It just sort of happened. The left fork impaled the zombified man right in his chest with little effort, piercing his body and emerging from behind. It hit dead center, ripping the spine out in a spray of blood that flowed from so many torn arteries and veins dangling like wet roots around the gaping wound.

The man screamed and flung his distorted head around, to which Stephen panicked and started hitting controls within the cab of the tractor. A noise issued and the forks began to rise, lifting the zombie man up into the air. Finagling with the controls some more, Stephen stopped the forks, obscuring his view. The tractor them shifted to the side and went straight into a tree. The hit flung Stephen forward, but he used his arms to brace himself.

Lurching out of the crashed tractor, Stephen took a moment to gain his bearings. The zombie flailed around some more, dark blood raining down the hayfork like an offering to Countess Bathory, before it finally slumped over and died.

In the movies they always required head trauma to die.

Once the permutated man stopped wailing Stephen could hear a truck engine in the distance, a V8 by the sound of it. Faintly, through a copse of bushes, he could see the red outline of a pickup.

Stephen ran up to the bushes and pushed his way through them, but hesitated when he saw a man unloading barrels from the back of the truck. He was dressed in overalls and red flannel shirt, a John Deere cap black with grease on his head, a hair style poking out that was a redneck mullet refugee of the eighties. The guy was making quick work of the barrels, huffing and puffing and cursing under his breath, smoke rising from a cigarette that seemed very comfortable poking out of the side of his mouth.

“Oi!” shouted Stephen. “What are you doing there?” The zombie was momentarily forgotten.

The man put down a barrel, looked back at Stephen and cursed some more.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” shouted Stephen. The man from the red pickup was dropping the steel barrels off the back of the truck bed into the river that fed the lake.

What the fuck!

Stephen was angry.

On a close inspection there were a lot of barrels in the water, more than one pick-up truck full, and some looked old. They were rusty and the water around them looked thick with a green oily substance.

This guy was dumping waste in the river.

Red Pickup, cigarette still sticking out of his mouth—was that safe around all that waste—started to make his way up the incline. Stephen felt trepidation. He didn’t know what to do: first those zombie fishermen; now a pissed off lowlife human. Wait a minute. Red Pickup had been dumping waste in the river, and it looked like he’d been doing it for a while. The water goes downstream to the lake. The fishermen Stephen had killed resembled the Toxic Avenger. Fucking hell! Were they zombies or poisoned fishermen seeking help?

The approaching man pulled an object out of his denim pocket and flicked open a knife.

“Come here,” said Red Pickup. “You snooping bastard.”

“You fucker,” retorted Stephen. “You’re poisoning the lake.”

“What’s it to you?” He thrust the knife at Stephen’s midriff.

Stephen easily avoided it. The man then swiped sideways, again Stephen dodged backwards, but the hillside behind was steep and making it difficult to get away when walking backwards.

The man swiped again and Stephen caught hold of Red Pickup’s forearm. Stephen started to panic again. The man’s bodyweight forced Stephen onto his backside. Red Pickup pushed downwards with the knife as Stephan pushed back, trying to defend himself.

With his eyes on the knife Stephen planted his feet and pushed, one hand gripping the man’s forearm, the other pushing against his chest. Red Pickup tumbled back, tripped on some undergrowth and fell backwards. The momentum carried him downwards and he fell into the river, right into the soupy area where old rusted containers were poking out of the rushing water like submerged boulders.

He thrashed about, panicked, tried to get to his feet, but slipped and splashed back under the brackish water that began to cling to his skin with an oily sheen.

Stephen watched on, frozen in horror as Red Pickup tried again, this time successful. He wadded, stumbled about and started to clamber up out of the water. The man’s face looked luminous under the glare of the sun and the skin started to peel.

Jesus Christ, thought Stephen, mesmerized.

Red Pickup slipped on the wet grass at the river’s edge, falling back into the murky water. The river started to bubble and hiss as he clawed at the air above and cried out painfully.

He fell back, partially in the river and thrashed about. His legs and feet were submerged. The material of his denim jeans has been eaten away by the acidic waste. The flesh on his legs bubbled and erupted, melting away in a swirling pool of red. He thrashed his legs, unable to move the rest of his body. It was like a sick lesson of human anatomy. First the flesh dissolved, then the connective sinew broke down and the muscles fell of the bones like a pork roast that had been slow smoked for hours.

Stephen watched on in horror until the thrashing subsided.

Red Pickup laid still, his legs nothing but bones.

The man had got his comeuppance, now Stephen was going to head into town and hand himself in. He’d murdered three people after all.

THE CART DON’T GO THERE

Patrick C. Harrison III

––––––––

The sweeper motors by, scooping up the body and dumping it in the bin. The old hag had it coming; she’d gotten away from me once before.

I keep a clean lot, and I’m proud of that.

The bristles on the sweeper scrub up the blood. When it motors back to its designated parking spot, the asphalt where the hag fell is as clean as the day it was poured. I step back on the scooter and grab the handles and it whirs me silently back to my guard post, where I disembark and step inside to check the monitors. It was a quiet evening until the hag showed up with her groceries. I phone the salvage yard and let them know they have a four-door Buick to retrieve, and they’re welcome to the bags of vegetables and face creams and adult diapers in the trunk. Fourteen other vehicles in the lot, all parked correctly between the lines, none with their lights still on, one with a flat tire, three with their doors unlocked, and two with out-of-date registration stickers. Not bad at all.

Like anything else, being a lot monitor has its trying days. Some shifts I barely leave the guard post, only doing so to make my hourly patrol of the perimeter. Other shifts, I’ll have the sweeper cleaning up one mess after another. Weekends are typically the busiest. Saturday nights, especially. Luckily, this is Wednesday. Wednesdays are usually pretty slow.

One of the light poles at the rear of the lot is flickering. I make a note of this in my report and fill out a maintenance request. A stray dog saunters across the lot, sniffs at a couple of spots, then moves on without urinating anywhere, or worse. A station wagon trailing exhaust pulls into the lot, then pulls back out. Just turning around, I suppose. The exhaust hangs over the lot entrance for a moment before being carried away by the wind.

A young, attractive couple exits the store, each one carrying a couple of bags of groceries. They’re smiling and talking about something. My monitors don’t have sound, so I can only guess at what they’re discussing. “You’re so handsome and have nice biceps.” “Awe, thank you. You’re beautiful and have nice boobies.” Something like that. They arrive at a two-door Civic and open the doors and get in, placing their groceries in the backseat. They’re laughing now. “It’s so funny how your boobies jiggle when you sit down.” “I know, isn’t it funny how they jiggle.” They close the doors. The young man is in the driver’s seat and he rolls down the window...and spits gum onto the pavement.

I nearly fall over jumping from my seat in the guard post. Hopping onto the scooter, I flick on the blinking yellow light and lean over the handles, zooming quickly in the direction of the Civic. It’s pulling out of its parking spot and is about to drive off when I arrive in front of it, the headlights obscuring my view of the gum-spitting driver. I stop the scooter and stand there motionless, blocking the Civic from advancing further. They just sit there for a moment, probably waiting for me to move. After I don’t move the driver sticks his head out the window.

“Um, can you move please?” he says, sounding annoyed. His voice is high-pitched for a male and I find this somewhat satisfying.

I take the nightstick from my utility belt and use it to point at the wad of pink gum on the pavement where his car was a moment ago.

“What?” He doesn’t get the message. A slow learner. Perhaps his first time in my lot.

“You dropped your gum,” I say, placing a lot of emphasis on the word gum. I glare at him, wishing I could see the fear on his face beyond the headlights.

“Uh, okay,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant in front of his lady friend. “Don’t you have cleaners or something that clean that shit up?”

“Do you have someone that wipes your ass after you take a dump?” I’m still pointing with my nightstick from the scooter, scowling, but smiling a little too. I can’t help it.

“Motherfu—”

“Just pick it up, Roger,” I hear the young woman say. She’s a trifle more intelligent than her companion.

There is whispering between them, followed by a grown. Then the driver’s door opens and Mr. Biceps-Squeaky-Voice gets out. He glares at me as he walks around the car, but it’s a weak glare. He reaches down, glancing angrily at me in the process, and grabs the gum. There is a moment when I think it will tear in two and he’ll have to reach down a second time to finish the job, but it pulls loose.

“This is bullshit,” he says, walking back to his door.

“Next time I break your jaw,” I say, slapping the business end of the nightstick in my palm, “and your gum chewing days will be over.”

Mr. Biceps-Squeaky-Voice hesitates, as if he may want to quarrel.

“Get in the car, Roger,” the woman says, smartly.

He does as he’s told and I move the scooter from in front of the Civic. He gives me the middle finger as they drive past. They always do that, if their fingers aren’t broken. I go back to the guard post and check the monitors. A tow truck arrives and I point out the Buick and they load it up in record time. They drive over the curb on their way out of the lot, leaving a black tire mark on the concrete. I make a note of this in my log. Unfortunately, the curb is outside of the sweeper’s programmed cleaning territory. I’ll be sure to inform the salvage team that they have a black mark to remove next time I give them a ring.

A pickup pulls into the lot, driven by an elderly man. It pulls into a handicapped parking space, crooked, the back tire about an inch over the white line. I don’t see a handicapped sign on the license plate or hanging from the rearview. The old man is slow to get out of the truck, so I take the scooter at a leisurely pace to greet him. I stop several yards from the truck, watching him disembark, a cane in one hand. His legs are thin and feeble, the skin on his face and arms sagging. He closes the door, but not completely, and has to lean on it before it clicks into place.

“You’re over the line,” I say when he turns around and sees me there. I point at the back tire.

The old man looks at the tire dumbly, then looks at me. “Only a little,” he says, pointing at the parking flaw with a crooked finger.

“Fix it,” I say.

He sighs and coughs a wet, sickly cough and opens the driver door and climbs back in, his bones creaking. I wait, standing on the scooter, hands on my hips, as he adjusts the truck’s position. It takes an agonizingly long time. When he’s done, he gets out again, his bones once more creaking, and gives me a pathetic, wrinkled smile. He’s teetering off toward the store with his cane when I stop him.

“You don’t have a handicap indicator on your vehicle,” I say.

The old man turns slowly to face me. “It’s my son’s truck. Mine is in the shop.”

“Likely story,” I say, removing my nightstick.

“I promise you, sir,” he’s pleading now, “I have handicapped plates on my car.”

“Do you wish you were handicapped?” I step off the scooter and walk toward him, grinning.

“I am handicapped, sir. I am!”

He’s backing away from me, his bottom lip trembling, his joints creaking. He isn’t even using the cane now, the faker; he’s holding it up in some sad gesture of defense. It’s useless. I club him in the left knee and he goes down, wailing and grabbing at his shattered leg. His dentures fall loose as he screams, and I find this quite amusing. Tears fill the creases of his face.

“Now you’re handicapped,” I say. “Get the proper indicators for your vehicle.”

I take the scooter back to the guard post and watch the old man on the monitors as he drags himself to the store. It takes him about ten minutes to reach the doors. A cashier assists him into one of the motorized shopping carts. The old man will probably drive it into displays and shelving, making a complete mess of things, but that’s not my problem. I realize now that he left the headlights on the truck on. I’ll deal with that situation when he comes back out.

I hear thumping before the car even pulls into the lot. It’s probably half a mile away. By the time it reaches the lot, the windows of the guard post are rattling with the sound-polluting music and its over-emphasis on base. How could the occupants of the car—a lowriding jalopy with fancy rims—possibly be enjoying that sound? The windows of the car are tinted so dark that I can’t make out who is on the inside or how many there are. I’m pretty sure windows that dark are illegal, but this isn’t a violation I’m qualified to enforce. The obtrusive sound, however, is all me.

I ride the scooter out to where the booming vehicle has parked. Blessedly, the music stops. The driver door opens and a fella with saggy britches and a hoodie gets out, looking grimly at me as he drops his keys into his pocket and slams the door.

“What?” he says, cocking his head at me.

“Don’t play music that loud in my lot,” I say evenly.

“Go fuck yourself,” he says and turns to walk toward the store.

I was expecting this reaction, so already have my knife in hand, concealed in my jacket pocket. It has a razor sharp, six-inch blade—M390 steel, the best. I’ve practiced my craft and am quick and accurate when I move. My hand whips out, the blade gleaming in the glow of streetlight, and brings the knife down hard and fast, slicing the punks left ear off. It falls to the pavement amongst spewing blood, and he screams, backing away from me, bumping into his shitty car, getting blood everywhere. I grab him by the chin, holding his head still as he screams, his rancid spittle spraying my face. I slice off his other ear.

“No more loud music,” I say, unsure if he can hear me now.

I let go of him and he staggers away, crying and screaming, blood dripping from both sides of his head. He’s creating quite a mess on the asphalt. It takes him entirely too long to reach the store, as young as he is. As he disappears beyond the automatic doors, I use the remote to call the sweeper into action. It scrubs out the blood and deposits the ears into its bin. There is still blood on the guy’s car and I watch it closely to make sure it dries before dripping onto the asphalt.

Back at the guard post I watch the monitors. The dog walks back through, sniffing around. I consider pulling out the rifle and picking him off before he has a chance to piss on the pavement, but I resist. It’s only a matter of time. The guy with the flat tire comes out of the store, notices the flat tire, and bangs his fist on the hood of the car. He throws his bag of groceries into the car, then pulls out his cellphone and calls someone as he walks back into the store. A teenage boy walks through the lot, looking at his phone the whole time, never once glancing up to see where he is going. I’m shocked when he makes it to the other side of the lot without crashing into a vehicle or two. I’m also slightly disappointed he doesn’t spit or toss some trash on the pavement. Teenagers are the most fun, but I don’t make a move without proper cause.

A middle-aged woman exits the store with a shopping cart full of groceries. She has headphones in her ears and appears to be singing to herself. She arrives at a faded maroon minivan and opens the back hatch and begins filling it with her potato chips and frozen pizza and cokes and other junk food. A jumbo-sized package of toilet paper is among her purchases. Amazingly, everything fits. She closes the back hatch, then pushes the shopping cart...to the side...into another parking space...and leaves it there.

She fucking leaves it there.

This is a capital offense in my lot.

The second capital offense of the night.

Bitch.

I can’t get on my scooter fast enough. The scooter’s top speed is nine miles-per-hour, and it seems to take forever for me to reach the cart-leaving bitch. She’s climbing into the van when I finally get there, trying to close the door, her oversized mom jeans slinking down as she gets in, exposing her ass crack.

“Hey!” I yell, just before her door closes.

Seated, she turns and looks at me, one hand on the key in the ignition, the other on the door. She wears thick glasses and her hair is frazzled. Her sweatshirt proclaims she’s the world’s greatest aunt. The faux leather purse slung over her shoulder is big enough to carry the gear for an entire little league soccer team.

“The cart don’t go there,” I say, nodding at her abandoned shopping cart. The sight of it parked illegally disgusts me.

“Oh,” she says, as if this is news to her. She looks sadly at the cart, probably thinking what a great burden it is to have to move it an extra thirty feet to its proper receptacle.

She sighs and gets out of the van, slamming the door. I disembark from the scooter, glaring at her with my arms crossed as she walks slowly to the cart, shaking her head. She grabs it and pushes it toward the receptacle, still shaking her head, mumbling. The cart’s front right wheel is spinning erratically; I’ll need to make a note and contact maintenance. The woman shoves the cart into the receptacle, where it makes a great deal of noise banging against the bars. She walks back toward her van, head down, ignoring me.

“Excuse me,” I say.

She stops and looks at me. Her face is blank, emotionless.

“I’m sure you know the punishment for leaving a shopping cart in a parking space,” I say as I remove the katana from the scabbard across my back. “Kneel.”

“I don’t think I will,” she says, placing her hands on her hips. This happens occasionally, where lot violators refuse to accept their fate. I’m prepared.

“So be it.” I hold the katana before me with two hands, smiling at her. If she tries to run, I’ll catch her—three or four steps at most—then slice her open, spilling her insides, then lopping off her wretched head.

The woman reaches into her oversized purse and comes out with a double-bladed hatchet, like a battle axe but smaller. This is an unexpected development. At times, I have to quarrel with a lot violator, but they’re usually hot-headed young men, not middle-aged women. And they never have their own weapon. She drops her purse to the pavement and levels her stare at me.

“Let’s do this, buddy,” she says, an odd confidence in her voice.

I charge, gritting my teeth, bringing the katana over my head. To my shock, the woman also charges, bringing the hatchet up. Our weapons swing down and collide with a metallic boom, sparks exploding between them.

“You’re dead, bitch!” I yell, swinging the katana like a baseball bat, aiming for her neck. She ducks out of the way and swings the axe in an uppercut fashion, narrowly missing my chin.

“I’m not dead until you’ve ripped my fucking heart out!” she screams.

I swipe at her from the other direction, the katana’s blade grazing her right arm, causing her sweatshirt to instantly start turning read there. Her axe comes around again, tearing open my jacket but just missing the flesh of my abdomen. I swing again and open up a wound on her cheek, and then inflict a deep cut on her thigh. The woman stumbles backward, blood pouring down her mom jeans. She’s weakening, and I swing at her neck, but the axe blade deflects my blow. I’m driven off balance by her defensive move, and I teeter to the right and fall to my knees, having to release my grip on the katana with one hand to keep from falling flat out. I quickly get a foot under me and begin to stand, when I see streetlight reflecting off the descending axe blade.

It comes down on my left ankle with crushing force, and I hear the bones snap as pain explodes up my leg. I scream, falling forward, and look at my left foot—it’s no longer attached to my leg. Bright red blood spurts from the stump, defiling the asphalt. Tears stream down my face and I realize the katana is no longer in my hand. The woman stands over me, the hatchet held high. She brings it down on my right arm, cutting cleanly through at the elbow, and my face hits the pavement. I can smell the cleaning products used by the sweeper.

“Please, please stop,” I say, rolling over, holding up my remaining hand.

The woman chops that hand off too. Blood sprays across my face. She stands over me, smiling triumphantly, the axe propped on her shoulder.

“I leave my shopping cart wherever I damn well please,” she says.

She brings the hatchet over her head and swings it down one last time.

INFESTED

Lucas Milliron

––––––––

Jim stammered through the dive bar towards the bathroom, covering his left eye to keep from seeing double. He knew he should have stopped after his fourth Fire Ball...or the was it the Jager shots that did him in? It didn’t matter. Not like his “wife” was gonna me home when he got there. His lunch was crawling its way back up his esophagus with a vengeance. He put his hand over his mouth, forgetting about the cloth face-mask he was wearing.

After three and a half steps, Jim stopped and puked. Nachos and buffalo sauce spewed from his mouth and nose, soaking into the fabric pressed tight against his face. Chunks tangled in his mustache and beard, stinking of faux cheese and corn chips. When he finished, his mask hung from his ears like a loaded, shitty diaper. He pealed it off his mouth and held it in his hand, feeling its heft.

“Calling you an Uber,” Peggy cackled behind the bar. “Rachelle! Get us an Uber!”

Peggy was a pear shaped woman with wiry grey hair like a an old English Sheepdog. Her eyes were hidden behind the glare of her coke bottle thick eyeglasses. Her face mask was pulled down under her chin, a cigarette pinched between her lips. She wore a faded graphic t-shirt with timber wolves and blue jeans.

“What’s so funny?” Jim coughed, afraid any sudden movement might dislodge more barf from his gut.

“Tonight’s Rachelle’s night to mop the floors!” Peggy slapped her knee.

“What!?” Rachelle yelled from the other end of the bar.

Rachelle was half Peggy’s age, but smoking and drinking young left her looking much older. Her arms were covered with black and white tattoos of cartoon characters Jim didn’t recognize. She wore a Rugrats shirt, plaid miniskirt, and a black cloth face-mask with white cat whiskers.

“I’m fine!” Jim climbed back into a barstool, still holding the mess.

“Like shit you’re fine!” Peggy crossed her arms and looked him square in the eye. “Look at ya! Still holding that mask full a puke. Garbage can’s right next to ya!”

“It’s been a shit week,” Jim shook his head, but stopped as he started losing balance again.

“The shittiest year on record,” Peggy nodded.

“Divorce papers.” Kim nodded.

“Ouch.” Peggy clicked her teeth.

“All I want outta life is to die happy!”

“Now that’s asking a bit much!” Peggy chuckled, then raised a concerned eyebrow. “You gonna be ok?”

“Yeah.” Jim rubbed his nose. “I think I better get home.”

“Rachelle! That Uber on its way?”

“Two minutes!” Rachelle waved her phone.

“I’ll be alright.” Jim slid off the stool and onto his feet.

“You think I’m just gonna let you leave like that?”

“Now Peggy, I don’t wanna get all violent.”

“Violent?” Peggy crossed her arms and turned her hip towards him, revealing a holstered pistol. “Number one, what the hell is wrong with you? Number two, you ain’t gonna do shit without your damn credit card and car keys locked in my cash register.”

“It’s ok,” Jim reached in his back pocket and pulled out an extra set of car keys. “Boy scouts codes and prepared and shits.”

“Don’t be a fucking moron,” Peggy glared at Jim. “Rachelle!”

“Come on Jim,” Rachelle rushed over. “Uber driver gonna be here any minute.”

“I’ll just wait in my car.”

“Jim,” Rachelle went to grab him.

Jim turned and slammed his vomitous face mask into Rachelle face like a cream pie. The slop was in her eyes, nose and mouth. She burped and gagged, choking as she screamed in disgust. Jim’s eyes widened, not sure if he’d even meant to do that. Everyone was staring at him. He could feel their eyes like mosquito bites. Jim backed away towards the door. When he bumped it, he bolted out into the hot and humid night.

Jim hopped in his truck, an old red and white 90’s Ford F250, and sped outta the parking lot. He glanced in his review mirror, expecting a posy of rednecks to be on his ass. When he didn’t, he adjusted himself in his seat, turned on the radio to the only rock station(a bullshit alternative station called the Shark), and prepared for the trip home.

Jim lived out in the Acreage. It was a long way from anything other than everglades and pine forests. The nearest Walmart was a three hour drive south from his place. He figured a two hour drive at least. Less than an hour driving, Jim’s eyes felt leaden. The glare of the street lights were like sparklers. He felt his eyes crossing. He covered his left eye again, steadying his double vision. More than once his truck drifted over the paving markers, jarring the truck with its loud vibrations and jolting him awake.

Jim jerked the wheel, trying to drive between the lines. The roads were long, dark, and dull. On either side of the road was pine tree forest or sugar cane crops. It wasn’t long before Jim started dozing again. He awoke to the sound of air horns and screeching tires. By the time he opened his eyes, it was too late.

Jims Ford t-boned a panel truck making an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road. The panel truck tipped over like a dead cow, the Ford coming to rest on top of it. Without his seatbelt, Jim was ejected from the cab. His face shattered through the windshield, imbedding shards of glass into his cheeks, forehead and jaw.

Jim hit the ground yards from the crash. His face was a broken mess, while the dirt road sandblasted his chin, chest, thighs and crotch. The last thing he remembered before passing out was the taste of dirt and blood.

Yuri climbed out of the panel trucks cabin through the broken windshield. He wore a black hoody, ski mask, and military style boots. His Kevlar vest did little to cushion the impact with the door. Yuri felt woozy, but he had to check the cargo. He leaned against the roof for support as he made his way to the back of the truck. He jaw dropped when he saw the broken gate and missing cargo.

Yuri shouted in Russian to his partner, Kieran, then stopped when something stab him in the kidney. Cold numbness rushed from his wound throughout his body. His legs went limp and he collapsed on the ground. He tried to roll over, but the toxins trapped his mind inside a body so useless he couldn’t even blink.

Yuri watched as Kieran climbed out of the truck. He rushed towards Yuri, but was tackled. It happened so fast, it was difficult to make out what was happening. Something was on top of Kieran. It was metallic green, the size of a Borzoi dog, and moved on six legs. On its back were orange and blue iridescent wings. It was a giant wasp; the cargo they’d been tasked to steal.

Kieran shouted as he wrestled the insect. It chirped and shrieked in a high octave that split Yuri’s ear drums. Kieran managed to kick it off him. The bug fell over, but was on its feet and back on top of Kieran before he could sit up. It raised its abdomen revealing a long stinger, still glistening with Yuri’s blood, then stabbed Kieran’s gut. Yuri was screaming inside. Glands around the base of the wasp’s stinger throbbed as it pumped venom into his comrades body. Kieran’s screams tapered as the numbing agent stole his bodily functions.

With a sloppy wet smack, it plucked its stinger from Kieran’s stomach. His skin broke out into hives. Blood trickled from his nose, eyes, and ears as his face swelled like a balloon. In seconds, he was in full body anaphylactic shock. Kieran began to convulse. With a loud pop, his face exploded. Yuri felt bits of skull and brain like chewed spit on his face.

The wasp shrilled with delight before scuttling back to Yuri. Helpless, he watched as it felt his face and neck with grotesque mouth parts. It’s hard exoskeleton scratched his soft skin with hairs like a steel wool. The sharp smell of piss on its breath made his nose bleed.

The wasp bit into the side of Yuri’s forehead. Though there was no pain, the sensation was a fevered nightmare. He could hear his skull crunch, feel the vibrations like a cold shudder down his spin. Yuri felt light headed and hollow, like having a cavity filled under heavy anesthetic. His body spasmed as the wasp gorged itself on a grey matter.

Jim was coming too when he heard the first scream. He thought he was dreaming. Especially when he saw the dog sized bug cradling him in its arms. It turned him over onto his stomach, gently placing him on the grass. There was a sharp pain at the base of his neck. It was a quick pinch, but the euphoria that followed was unlike any recreational drug he’d ever experience. His mind was swimming in a warm soup of color.

The orange sodium lights felt like honey across his cold skin. Stars peeking through the tree line twinkled like glitter across a black canvas. There were other colors, unnatural and strange, but beautiful in the way they evolved, changing like the skin of a cuddle fish he once saw on a nature show. Jim’s scrotum tightened as he dumped loads of seed in his underwear. He curled his toes, squeezed his fingers, but the pleasure would not subdue. It was like the one time he came in Rachelle’s mouth, but she on kept sucking until she’d slurped out his soul.

The green bug tugged his arm, helping him to his feet. Jim grumbled, but the insect was persistent. He gave in and stood up. It felt as if the world was plunged underwater. His movements were sluggish, and the sounds of night thumped in his heads and chest. The bug grabbed his hand with its mouth parts, far more gentle than he’d expected, then led him into the back of the overturned panel truck.

Jim followed, quiet as a lamb. He wasn’t afraid. His mind was clouded with technicolor euphoria. The truck was full of strange medical instruments and jars that stank of pickle juice. The crash tossed everything everywhere like a tornado. The wasp sat him down behind an overturned medical table. Jim felt the bug roll him over on his stomach. He was all smiles and broken glass, his face sticky with gore.

The wasp felt Jim’s thumb with its mandibles. It bit clean through the bone, swallowing the digit whole before pressing its mouth to the bleeding wound. Jim squirmed a moment, feeling a strange pinch that ended with a hollowed out feeling. The wasp tugged at his shirt. Jim wanted to swat it away, but his arms were jelly. There was a prickling feeling, like laying on a bed of nails. It was a kind of pressure pushing against the small of his back, ribs, and neck.

While Jim laid down on his belly, stoned on the wasps venom, the insect slashed his back with a clawed toe. It pressed its abdomen to the wounds and laid a single egg in each. Satisfied with it’s work, the wasp retreated, leaving Jim face down, drooling in the back of the truck.

The next morning came with blistering heat and humidity. Jim’s entire body itched. His mouth felt sticky with blood dried into a past. He spat chunks of blackish red against the wall. With the wasps venom still coursing through his veins, the sense of euphoria flooded his mind, now more an orgasmic after glow.

Jim crawled out the back of the truck and looked himself over in the daylight. His clothes where a bloody mess. He held up his hands and noticed something was different. He counted his fingers, and when he finished at 9, realized he was missing a thumb. Then he saw the corpses laying by the wreckage. One looked as if he’d been sucking on a handful of M80 firecrackers before they blew off his face. Bits of skull and teeth were imbedded in the truck tire next to the bloody stump where his head attached to his neck.

The other corpse laid on its stomach, the corner of its forehead chewed out like the top of a Styrofoam coffee cup. Jim couldn’t help himself. He crouched on all fours, picked up a stick by the body, and poked it inside the side the hole, lifting the head. It was lighter than he’d expected. Inside was completely empty.

Jim flinched as something tickled his back. He dropped his stick and tried to scratch the spot, but his fingers couldn’t reach. His skin was crawling, burning as if someone spilled bacon grease on him. He threw off his shirt. Pink grubs the size of baby kittens wriggled inside his wounds. Puss and black sludge oozed from the gashes, stinking of maggots.

Unaware of his infestation, Jim flung himself into the gravel on his back. The grubs burrowed deeper into his swollen flesh. Jims euphoria was a hallow memory. He writhed on the ground, digging his body against the jagged rocks, cussing and screaming at the top of his lungs. His heart jackhammered in his chest.

Jim shot to his feet, his back sticky with blood, puss, and dirt. The world grew hotter and brighter by the second. He looked up, half expecting to see a giant kid holding a magnified glass over him like burning ants. The sky was a wash of white, the sun a yellow smear in his blurred vision.

Jim looked away, looked again at the bodies strewn out across the side of the road. So much red across the shimmering grey asphalt. He heard something a rustling on the truck behind him. Jim turned, his face glistening with sweat, glass, and matted blood. There it was standing on the hood of his truck, the wasp. It was the size of a Great Dane, with a metallic green body and blue-orange iridescent wings.

It couldn’t be real, had to be some drunken stupor. The wasp gave an ear splitting shriek. Jim turned tail and ran. He didn’t care that his left ankle twisted at a 90 degree angle, or that his right arm dangled out of its socket. All he could think about was clearing as much space between him and it.

The wasp never gave chance. Jim continued his trek down the empty highway. Sunlight reflecting off the glass in his face stung his eyes as it peaked behind the tree line. He didn’t feel it, or the growing larva. Jim burped, his breath stinking of maggots and acrid stomach juices. There was a hard pressure digging into his kidneys, and his bowels ached like a massive shit.

Hours passed. Jim kept going, even as his body began to break down. His shirt was stifling, so he ripped it off and tossed it onto the ground. His back was infested. Swollen tissue puckered into vaginal slits along the back of his neck, ribcage, and kidneys.  His every movement pulled the lips wider, exposing the pinkish-yellow bodies of wasp larva feasting on Jim’s organs. Blood vessels around the wounds throbbed black and purple. Hives peppered his entire body, along with green pustules and red blisters. His mind was a fog.

In the distance, Jim saw a large cellphone tower sticking out of the forest. He needed to climb, needed to escape. Jim picked up the pace, blood and fluids spilling behind him like a snail trail. For a second, he thought his pounding heart would break a rib. He clawed the blistering hives covering his arms and neck as he ran. The larva pushed their asses out of their burrows and shat globs of white and black snot rockets down his back. Their meals expelled, the larva burrowed deeper inside his body.

Jim reached the tower and began to climb. He no longer remembered the giant wasp, the car crash, or the bodies. He’d forgotten about the bar and his wife. All he knew is that he needed to reach the top, needed to escape something terrible.

The larva curled into themselves, secreting an opaque slim like a hagfish that oozed into his blood stream. Jim was half way up the tower when he felt a new rush of dopamine. His hands quivered as he grasped the ladder. He felt his cock harden, spilling more seed down his leg. The larva’s slime hardened into a silken cocoon, pressing into Jim’s organs. It was hard to breath, as if something inside was pressing against his lungs. He kept going.

Jim climbed all the way up to the antenna with the flickering red light. He grabbed the cold metal rod with his good arm, still smiles and glass. A few miles ahead, Jim could see the city of Wellington. It was beautifully lit with sulfur lamps, traffic signals, and homes flickering on like candles in the setting sun.

As the larva devoured him from the inside out, Jim smiled. A breeze kissed his face like angels breath. The night was crisp, his body kept warm with wasp venom and hormones. The lights began to dwindle, the sky grew dark, and a cold washed over him. Nothing mattered, certainly not his ex-wife or the bar. He never felt happier.

Jim’s body clung to the antenna. His skin was waxen, the blood drained from his complexion. Something moved beneath his surface. Mandibles the size of grill tongs chewed out of his stomach, neck and chest. From the husk of Jim’s dead body emerged three full grown wasps. They crawled over his corpse will little regard, shaking off the bits of blood and gore, flapping their wings to dry them in the morning sun. They watched the city of Wellington through compound eyes and thought one thing... food.

THE NEGATIVE ONE

Wesley Southard

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Like every weekday afternoon, Carmen rode the public bus on her way home from work. Her stomach growled audibly.

She was very hungry.

Bored from staring at the built-up gunk on the flooring, Carmen eyed the other two passengers. To her far left, sitting on the opposite side, was a young black man. Hood over his head, his eyes were closed, and his head was bobbing, as she assumed he had in a pair of ear buds. To her immediate right, two feet away, was an old, bearded white man dressed in weathered, moldy rags. His dead, glazed-over eyes gazed out the window as he continuously nursed a can of Yuengling. Two more empty containers rolled on the bench next to her. Neither were paying Carmen any mind.

This would be all too easy.

Taking an empty can, Carmen quickly lobbed it at the young man. The moment it struck him in the head, he sat up straight and pulled out his headphones. “Yo, what the fuck?”

Carmen whipped her head back and forth, her mouth wide with shock. “Wow! What a dick, right?”

Growling, the young black kid stomped past her. He kicked the other man hard in the shin. “Yo, motherfucker!”

The old man yelped, snapping out of his stupor. “Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb, cracka! Why you throwin’ shit? You lookin’ for a throwdown?”

“W-what?”

The kid smacked the can from the man’s hand. “Don’t play dumb with me, bitch!”

“Hey!” the bus driver yelled. “Calm down right now!”

Yes, Carmen thought. Yes...

The old man crossed his arms and narrowed his bloodshot eyes. “Get the fuck away from me, you little bit―”

Before the man could finish his slur, the kid lashed out like a snake and struck him across the cheek. A loud ooof and the old man folded, collapsing to the grime-covered floor. Growling a curse, the kid dropped to one knee and, with both fists, proceeded to flatten the old man’s nose and cheeks.

Instead of moving away, Carmen scooted closer to the fight.

Closer to the food.

It only took a few moments, but within the violent scuffle a small spray of glowing red dust immediately rose into the air and drifted her way. She closed her eyes as they converged with her skin and absorbed into her body, steadily filling her belly. When blood burst from the old man’s nostrils, the red dust grew brighter and flew quicker, satiating her hunger.

The bus driver floored the break. “That’s it! Everyone off―now!”

Carmen gathered her purse and stepped around brawling couple. The door whisked open, and she hopped down the steps onto the street. Inside, the fight was still raging. That was okay. She’d had enough to eat for today.

***

Carmen had no need to take public transit to and from work. She made more than enough to pay for a cab or ride share. Hell, she could even afford a brand new car, paid full in cash. But that would ultimately defeat the purpose.

How else would she feed?

It was near dusk, and the streets were alive with din―sirens, screams, gun shots. Nearly five hundred people killed yearly. Over two thousand filled with bullets. Anger. Hatred. Pride. Negativity.

Philadelphia: The City of Brotherly Hate. The perfect feeding ground.

It only took a little bit each day, but that was all she needed daily to survive.

Carmen had no idea who or what she actually was. She certainly wasn’t a vampire, as there was no need to suck blood. In fact, she couldn’t actually hurt anyone. Sure, she could instigate, but something uncanny prevented her from laying a hand on anyone in order to feed. Most of the time that worked out fine. A fist fight here, a little screaming or a shoving match there, and that was enough. She was certainly no glutton.

She kept to herself as she walked the last few blocks to her south Philly apartment. She had no memory of how long she’d lived there...or why. In fact, she knew so little about herself in general. What was she? Where did she come from? How did she get there? She supposed at the end of the day, when her head hit the pillow and her hunger was sated, what did it really matter? Work, eat, sleep, repeat.

When she approached the front of her building, she overheard yelling. Curious, she took the side alley between that and the business next door and strolled toward the commotion. Droplets of red dust immediately hit her.

“What do you mean you can’t pay?” A massive man held a shotgun at a vagrant, who was cowering against the brick wall behind him. “I told you the last time you couldn’t stiff me no more, Rocky!”

The homeless man, Rocky, held his hands up in the air, shaking uncontrollably. “I-I-I don’t have anything right now, Buck! Honest!”

Carmen crept closer, absorbing the negativity. She didn’t exactly need it, but it wasn’t a bad desert.

“Liar!” Buck growled. “I saw you yesterday paper-sacking a fifth of hooch! How’d you pay for that, asshole?”

Rocky sighed. “How do you think? I sucked off Mitchy for it―same as last time!”

His bearded face red with anger, Buck pumped the shotgun and lifted to Rocky’s head. “Suck on this, you worthless bum.”

Before Rocky or Carmen could react, the weapon erupted, and moment later so did Rocky’s head. The man’s cranium exploded in a gout of blood and brains, each splattering the brick wall in a dark red splash. Rocky’s shuddering hands felt around the ragged, gushing stump of his neck before his body collapsed and went still.

Carmen, too, dropped to her knees, but for a very different reason. Normally, the negative energy would pepper her like grains of sand. This time, the violence so extreme and sudden, the dust developed into a tidal wave of nourishment. The moment it hit her, she fell to her back and let it wash over her. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. It bored into her skin, filling her stomach like those Thanksgiving dinners her co-workers raved about. It even woke her sex, which she never had use for. The sensation was indescribable. Remarkable.

Noteworthy.

Buck saw her and approached, his gun pointing down. “You say anything, bitch, and I’ll end you, too.” When she didn’t respond, he spat on her and took off down the alley.

Craving more, Carmen crawled over to Rocky’s headless body and the pooling blood beneath him. The red surge was gone, but the immense hunger remained, ruling her actions like a feening addict. She inhaled his blackened neck stump, marveled at the bits of pinkish brain as they dripped down the wall. The smells...the sights...the emotions. It was almost too much to handle...yet she didn’t want to let it go. Her hands covered in warm blood, she vigorously rubbed herself through her jeans, moaning louder than the oncoming sirens.

***

As she lay in bed that night, her mind soared. Nothing had ever felt like that, had ever completed her. Now that she’d felt it, Carmen knew she could never let it go. She closed her eyes and smiled. It would be so easy.

This was Philadelphia, after all.

***

Carmen could have easily gotten carried away―go big or go home―but she decided to start small. To be smart. Start local. South Philly was not exactly the nicest place to reside, but what the hell did she care? All she had to do was feed, go to work, pay her bills, and keep up some normal appearance to not arise any suspicion. It provided her with all the negativity she could ever ask for. But what she found was there was so much more to be had. Yelling and fist fights were one thing. Blood and viscera―those were the Powerball Jackpot of feasts.

It took her a lifetime to discover this banquet. Bib around her neck, she intended to never leave the dinner table.

On weekends she would visit her local Bed, Bath, and Beyond and purchase nearly every set of kitchen blades they had stocked. She would then place them around her neighborhood and the surrounding blocks, hoping for the best. Some days were better than others. She would stalk the alleys, waiting for something to transpire. Sometimes she got lucky and would spot the occasional stabbing or disemboweling in the act, when the negativity and red was at its paramount, but more often than not her stainless steel apple seeds would wind up stolen. As frustrating as it was, she got very little from knife wounds. Sure, that initial wave was blissful, but it never gave her that newfound umph she craved.

She would have to get creative.

***

Since she had a perfectly clean background, Carmen was able to purchase as many firearms as she desired (God bless America!), often in bulk. Week after week, she would take her collection of pistols and walk down to the area of Tioga-Nicetown, where brutal gun violence was a way of life, and drop off full boxes on sidewalks and park benches. It didn’t take long before air filled with the stench of cordite. A grin on her lips, she would relish the floods of red.

One young man had taken a bullet to his chin, wiping it completely off his face. After the coast was clear, drunk on indulgence, she laid next to him on the pavement as the life bled from his body. Carmen nuzzled him, rubbing her cheeks against his newly opened mouth, and then used the remains of his tongue to rub against her sex. She kept his severed muscle inside her for nearly a week after.

In another incident, she darted toward multiple gunshots and found a middle-aged woman whose stomach had taken the brunt of several close range shots. Her midsection had been blown wide open, and the woman wailed as she struggled to keep her raw insides from slipping out. Carmen knelt beside her as the red filled her stomach to a harmonious bloat. When the woman finally died, Carmen drug her patulous corpse to a dumpster. There, she further opened her stomach and slipped her entire head inside the cavity. Her head resting within the woman’s hollowed ribcage, Carmen fisted her own vagina and anus until she passed out from exhaustion.

It was the best sleep she’d ever had.

***

Her senses were devastated, ruined, and so were her inhibitions. As she laid on her couch, rubbing her large, swollen belly, she knew she was losing her grip. She was aiding and abetting murder for selfish indulgence, and on a nearly daily basis. Today may have been the worst yet.

There had been an Eagles football game, and when Carmen saw they were losing to Dallas by a large sum, she hurried down to the stadium and placed guns and knives amongst the parking lot. It wasn’t long before fans in green and blue jerseys were screaming their way out of the building. When they discovered their new toys, words furiously turned to actions.

The parking lot converted into an ocean of red, and Carmen was thrilled to be without a boat. She had writhed on the asphalt, howling in ecstasy as her stomach swelled and her sex detonated. But it was short lived. Police were plentiful, and the violence ended all too quickly. Carmen was fortunate to have escaped before being seen. The whole thing, incredible as it was, made her realize it couldn’t continue. She would have to quit―to be quenched with minor scraps and nothing more.

Outside her window, two homeless men screamed at one another, and a moment later a glass bottle smashed.

Carmen grinned.

Maybe she wasn’t done quite yet.

***

“W-where are w-we?”

From inside the glass booth, behind a locked door, Carmen observed as a dozen filthy bums awoke from their chloroform naps. They stood on shaking legs, their mouths wide with fright, eyes frantically searching for a way out. Outside her booth, the men and women were confined to a white, windowless room. The only exit was right behind Carmen. The abandoned warehouse was so easy to find, it was laughable.

Her whole body buzzed with anticipation.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Carmen called. She had to wait a few moments as they screamed at her before continuing. “I’m not going to repeat myself, so listen up! You’ve all been chosen to participate in a special tournament. How very lucky of you all!”

“A tournament?” a toothless woman cried. “What is this? Let us out!”

The rest echoed her sentiment, screaming and crying to be freed.

Carmen spoke over them. “Yes, a tournament! And there’s a prize...one hundred thousand dollars!”

That immediately shut them up.

She lifted an open briefcase and showed them the neat stacks of green bills inside. “But only one of you get this. The catch is...it’s going to the last one standing.”

They glanced at one another, shocked.

Carmen pointed behind them. “Inside that box you’ll find all manner of instruments to aide you in becoming champion. Last one alive gets the money and the key to leave.”

Their immense fear was palpable.

She leaned forward. “Go!”

It took several moments of hesitation before an old black man dove for the box and extracted a wooden bat. In a blink, he swung it and struck another man in the face. Blood exploded from his nose and flew across the room.

“Money’s mine, assholes!”

The room erupted in chaos. While ducking the man’s swinging bat, the remaining vagrants scrambled for the box and found their own means to an end. A small woman dressed in a garbage bag swung a dull butchers knife and struck a man in the shoulder, exposing the yellow fat and pink, glistening muscle beneath. Bright blood bloomed across the floor. An Asian man drew a golf club and struck another man in the legs, shattering his kneecaps like glass. Two women fought over a long screwdriver. The smaller of the two wrenched it away and repeatedly jabbed the taller one in her breasts. In the far corner, an elderly man used a hard rubber mallet to pulp a younger man’s face as he straddled him on the floor. He continued to pound until he hit the floor beneath.

Blood flew. Screams soared. Anger pulsed.

Carmen couldn’t handle it.

She bellowed her pleasure as the red stuffed her body. She allowed it to consume and saturate her very soul. A supreme feast, if there ever was one. Opening the door, she stripped bare and collapsed to the blood soaked floor, enabling the madness to envelop her. The carnage swelled, as did her stomach, as both grew by the second. Above, blunt objects were replaced by sharp edges as the remaining few traded jabs and wounds. Carmen used their severed body parts to stuff into her mouth and sex, wanting every inch of her insides filled. She came hard, harder than she ever before, and nearly passed out. She wept with joy.

Soon the screams died, and the room grew silent. Only the elderly black man was left, gore splattered and panting. “Money...key...”

Her stomach the size a beach ball, Carmen lifted her arm and pointed to the booth.

The man left quickly, leaving her beaming, blood-soaked form behind.

***

Miserable, Carmen stumbled home, nearly dragging her feet along the sidewalk. She held her stomach as it bounced with her steps. It was after midnight and no one would see her blood-covered form as she made her way home.

It was everything she’d ever hoped for and so much more. She didn’t think she could hold much more and that was fine. This was absolutely the last time. She couldn’t go on like this, so having such an epic conclusion to her gorging saga was something she would not soon forget. Maybe one day, in another city, she could try again. Maybe...

She turned down the alley and shuffled toward the front door. A massive shape stepped out from the dark and shoved her to the ground. The barrel of a shotgun was thrusted into her face.

“Where are they, bitch?”

She immediately recognized Buck, the drug dealer who had blown off Rocky’s head. “Who? What are you talking about?”

“Manny, Constance, Jupiter, Granny B! Who do you think?”

“The bums?” she asked, grinning.

“Yeah, bitch! My goddamn clients!”

Red dusted off him and hit her stomach. Carmen shuddered painfully. She pointed to the blood on her face and shirt. “Say hello. They’re all here.”

His neck bulged with fury. “You goddamn psycho! You killed them? All of them? Do you know how much money you just stole from me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Carmen couldn’t stop him. As he raged and struck her with his gun, her belly reacted, bulging bigger and bigger. Her shirt stretched and ripped as it ballooned and grew twice its size. The red blinded her, and soon it would be her undoing.

Buck pumped the gun and aimed, but he wasn’t quick enough.

Before she could stop him, Carmen’s stomach exploded on its own. A massive wave of red dust exited. Like a swarm of bees, it buzzed and whirled around his body, overtaking him. Inside the crimson tornado, Buck spun and screamed. Soon, a quivering mass of loose innards was all that was left as they dropped and splat on the asphalt.

Fading quick, Carmen watched as the swirling red slowed and began to form the framework of a body. Arms and legs, a head and breasts. When the red dissipated completely, the silhouette of a woman stood silently in the dark.

A woman who looked just like Carmen.

Her carbon copy stared at her blankly for several long minutes before sauntering away without a word.

Carmen closed her eyes, content. She hoped her copy was hungry. There was plenty of negativity out there for everyone.

About the Authors / Editor

Sorted by ALPHA

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Amy Grech has sold over 100 stories to various anthologies and magazines including: A New York State of Fright, Apex Magazine, Dead Harvest, Flashes of Hope, Gorefest, Hell’s Heart, Hell’s Highway, Hell’s Mall, Needle Magazine, Punk Noir Magazine, Scare You To Sleep, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, Tales from The Lake Vol. 3, The One That Got Away, Thriller Magazine, and many others.

She is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers who lives in New York.

You can connect with Amy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amy_grech or visit her website: https://www.crimsonscreams.com.

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Armand Rosamilia is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida, where he writes when he’s not sleeping. He’s happily married to a woman who helps his career and is supportive, which is all he ever wanted in life...

He’s written over 150 stories that are currently available, including horror, zombies, contemporary fiction, thrillers and more. His goal is to write a good story and not worry about genre labels. He not only runs two successful podcasts...Arm Cast Podcast—interviewing fellow authors as well as filmmakers, musicians, etc. The Mando Method Podcast with co-host Chuck Buda―talking about writing and publishing. But he owns the network they’re on, too! Project Entertainment Network. He also loves to talk in third person...because he’s really that cool.

You can find him at https://armandrosamilia.com for not only his latest releases but interviews and guest posts with other authors he likes!

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Daniel J. Volpe is an author of extreme horror and splatterpunk. His love for horror started at a young age when his grandfather unwittingly rented him, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Daniel has published with D&T publishing, Potter’s Grove and self-published.

He can be found on Facebook @ Daniel Volpe, Instagram @ dj_volpe_horror and Twitter @DJVolpeHorror

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Donnie Goodman is a reader, writer, and collector of horror fiction. When he is not out in the wild, searching for Paperbacks From Hell in Central Virginia, he is likely reading, writing, or playing video games.

His first collection, The Razorblades in My Head, is available on Amazon. He also has some short stories coming soon from various publishers in the horror community.

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Jack Bantry is the editor of Splatterpunk Zine.

He resides in a small town at the edge of the North York Moors.

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Jay Wilburn is a Splatterpunk Award nominated author with work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He has back-to-back gross out contest wins from Killercon.

He streams his writing live on Twitch at Twitch.tv/JayWilburn a few days a week. Drop by and let him tell you a story.

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Jonathan Butcher is a British horror author whose debut novella was What Good Girls Do. He continues to build a catalogue of horror shorts, anthologies, novellas, and a novel entitled The Children at the Bottom of the Gardden.

He'll soon finish writing a short novel about poop-related extreme violence. Things are going to get messy.

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K. Trap Jones is a 5-time  Splatterpunk Award nominated author / editor of horror novels / anthologies and a decade’s worth of short stories.

His novel, The Big Bad was nominated for the 2018 Splatterpunk Award. His novel, The Sinner won the 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award. Other novels include: The Drunken Exorcist, The Charm Hunter, The Harvester, The King’s Ox, One Bad Fur Day and the upcoming splatter western, The Bounty on Jed and Nugget.

He is the owner of The Evil Cookie Publishing and is the Co-Founder of The Splatter Club. As a product of the ‘80s, he likes his movies bloody and his music heavy.

Trap can be found lurking around Tampa, FL.

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Lucas Milliron has been through some shit. Haven’t we all? The difference isn’t really the baggage, but how we carry it with us.

He was born and raised a native to Florida, the oldest of  three siblings to a loving mother and father.

Lucas still resides in in South Florida with his wife.

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From the heart of Scotland, Natasha Sinclair has independently published, compiled and edited collections, and contributed to several anthologies. She supports other creatives by proofreading, editing, and creating promotional material via Word Refinery, linked on her site, Clan Witch & Word Refinery.

Her writing is often woven with horror, sex and psychological elements. She is opposed to the almost incessant human desire to label and box off art. Art is unrestrained freedom.

Out-with writing and editing, she’s an avid gig-goer, reader, vegan, home-educating, nature-loving, adopter of wonky animals.

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Patrick C. Harrison III (PC3, if you prefer) is the author of A Savage Breed, Inferno Bound and the Hell Hounds, 5 Tales That Will Land You in Hell, 5 Tales of Tantalizing Terror, Visceral: Collected Flesh (with Christine Morgan), and Cerberus Rising (with Chris Miller and M. Ennenbach); and his works can be found in numerous anthologies.

PC3 is also the co-owner (with Jarod Barbee) and editor-in-chief of Death’s Head Press, a Texas-based publisher of dark fiction.Follow PC3’s website/blog pc3horror.com for frequent horror movie reviews and updates on forthcoming fiction.

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Robert Essig is the author of over a dozen books including Stronger Than Hate, Death Obsessed, and Shallow Graves (with Jack Bantry).

He has published well over 100 short stories, most recently in Double Barrel Vol. 3 and Welcome to the Splatter Club.

He is the editor of the anthology Chew on This! Robert lives with his family in East Tennessee.

Find out what he's been up to at robertessig.blogspot.com

––––––––

Science fiction and horror author Stephen Kozeniewski is a two-time winner of the World Horror Gross Out Contest.

His published novels include the Splatterpunk Award-nominated The Hematophages and its Indie Horror Book Award-nominated prequel Skinwrapper.

Wesley Southard is the Splatterpunk Award-Winning author of One for the Road, Cruel Summer, Resisting Madness, The Final Gate, and many more.

He lives with his wife and their animals in South Central Pennsylvania.

––––––––

Wrath James White is a former World Class Heavyweight Kickboxer, a professional Kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts trainer, distance runner, performance artist, and former street brawler, who is now known for creating some of the most disturbing works of fiction in print.

Wrath is the author of such extreme horror classics as The Resurrectionist (now a major motion picture titled “Come Back To Me”) Succulent Prey, and it's sequel Prey Drive, Horrible Gods, Yaccub’s Curse, 400 Days of Oppression, Sacrifice, Voracious, To the Death, The Reaper, Skinzz, Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town, The Book of a Thousand Sins, His Pain, Population Zero and many others. He is the co-author of Teratologist co-written with the king of extreme horror, Edward Lee, Something Terrible co-written with his son Sultan Z. White, Orgy of Souls co-written with Maurice Broaddus, Hero and The Killings both co-written with J.F. Gonzalez, Poisoning Eros co-written with Monica J. O'Rourke, among others.

Wrath lives and works in Austin, Texas.

\m/

Thanks for reading!

You’re still here?

It’s all over, so it’s  time to leave... what?

You want more?!?

Ok, ok, here’s another one...

GRUDGE PIPES

K. Trap Jones

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“You have to be mindful of the esophagus. If it breaks, the whole damn thing turns to shit,” Pop explained, pushing up his spectacles.

“The skin isn’t stretching,” I said, trying to be careful not to cause a tear.

“Slow down then. There’s plenty of room if you do it right. Remember, short downward strokes.”

“But, he keeps looking at me.”

“Yeah, they tend to do that. Don’t let him get inside your head. The key is to stay focused.”

Growing up, I was always intrigued by my grandfather’s basement. Forbidden to even touch the door, I was fascinated with the hidden sanctuary every time we visited. Isolated in the northern Georgia woods, there wasn’t much to do once the sun went down. Exploratory was in my genes, but the closest I ever got to the basement was with my ear pressed against the wooden door trying to listen.

“Is there any way to close his eyes?” I said, pausing.

“He’ll pass out eventually, but if it makes you feel better, you can use sunglasses,” Pop replied, scavenging through the workbench.

The sounds of the small PVC pipe sliding between the skin and throat was mind numbing. With every inch achieved, the man convulsed, forcing me to stop. Falling victim to frustration, I became irritated and quickened the pace. The skin of the neck gripped the pipe, pulling his lower jaw and cheek down. A moan of discomfort leaked from his mouth as his teeth clamored.

“It’s not a race,” Pop said, grabbing my wrist. “The art is in the preparation. The project is not about killing. Keep your mind straight and eyes focused on the end game.”

With a deep breath, I tried my best to block out the man’s involuntary movements even as his trembling knee kept colliding with mine. I sought the distraction of a leaky faucet in order to silence the constant gurgling and wheezing. Pop controlled the syphon hose to make sure he didn’t drown from his throat filling up with blood.

“It’s about the satisfaction. I’m seeking prolonged contentment; the realization that the project works when I awake each morning.”

“Have any died?”

“Oh, goodness yes. These are not meant for longevity. A person cannot survive long under these conditions. Much like everything else, they can break down over time. I do my best to keep them alive as much as possible.”

“What about during this stage?”

“More so then. In the early days, I failed left and right. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I skewered them right through the heart before, but practice makes perfect and perfect makes greatness.”

My arm shivered from the cold as I leaned back to stretch.

“You’ll get used to the chill; cuts down on the smell. Your grandmother hates it when a breeze of decay filters into the kitchen surpassing the aroma of her pies. She’ll badger me for days. That’s why quality assurance is a must. Two, three times a day, I need to check in on them. Once one dies, there isn’t much time to spare before decomposition kicks in. If I miss on that, she’ll be on my ass until every ounce of rot is removed from the air. That’s why I use all these scented warming things. Just drop one of these blocks of wax in and we’re good for a couple of days. Comes in all kinds of scents, too,” he explained, pointing to several of the tables.

Leaning back to take a break, I stared at the numerous framed Employee of the Month awards decorating the basement wall. He always told me stories of the prison. My mother hated when she would catch him telling me about the prisoners who filled its cell blocks, but I sat there wide eyed and fascinated. The best ones involved death row, but often gave me nightmares for weeks.

“How long you been there?” I said, wiping my brow.

“Going on forty years, I believe,” he replied, taking a sip of coffee.

“Jesus, if people pass five years at my company they get a party. What’s the secret?”

“High turnover rate. You’d be surprised how quickly you can become a valuable employee if you just deal with the shit no one else wants to do.”

After a deep breath and not really wanting to continue, I proceeded with the downward pressure of the pipe causing the man to violently shake. His head shifted, knocking off the sunglasses. The bloodstained eyes focused on me. His fingers gripped my pant leg as I let go of the pipe.

“I can’t do it,” I announced, trying to subdue my trembling hands.

“Yes, you can. Don’t forget what this asshole did,” Pop replied, patting me on the back. “Take another breather then finish up.”

My breath frosted immediately as I walked around the basement. The projects were everywhere; aligning every wall. There must have been about ten or so, all kneeling down staring upwards. Small ceramic bowls rested perfectly on their faces with the lips suctioning against the hardened material. My attention was drawn towards one in particular as I saw his tongue breaking the seal, licking the ceramic. Connected with pipes, the bowls flowed into the center joint leading down into a main drain. Each of their lungs produced a small sound which filtered up through the pipes, providing condensation in the inner bowls. Sometimes in unison, the noises created a low hum within the basement. They were perfectly groomed with shaven heads and no facial hair. Positioned like gargoyles, they were all dressed in the same attire including matching grey sweatpants and sweatshirt. Cut through the fabric were holes just wide enough to allow the pipes to exit their backs. The wound was precise and cleansed without a speck of blood staining the sweatshirt. Checking the pulse of one of them, Pop kneeled down with a clipboard and made notes.

“He’s a trooper. Heart rate stable. I’ll give him a little more secret sauce,” he said, checking the alignment of the path.

“What’s in that stuff?”

“M and M’s─moonshine and morphine,” he responded with a smile. “You ready to continue?”

“I’m going to need a few more shots myself,” I replied, reaching for my mason jar.

I had to give it to Pop, he brewed one hell of a drink. I was half a jar in and started to become numb to the fact I was skewering a living person. A deep breath allowed the next few gulps to set in before I picked up the scalpel. Kneeling down, I squatted down behind the man. The smell was god awful as I realized he had shit himself.

“Don’t worry about that. Once everything is done, we’ll polish him up, get rid of anything unsanitary before we clothe him and move into position,” Pop stated.

With the lower back exposed, I made a small incision between the spine and kidney. The pain forced him to pivot prompting me to fall back.

“Listen, I’ve been there. I understand, but trust me when I tell you that the outcome relieves every ounce of doubt. Overseeing a completed project is the best feeling in the world. The fulfillment of it working to perfection is the end all be all. You will sleep well tonight.”

Like filleting a fish, the scalpel sliced the skin with ease as I followed the lines drawn out for me. My hands shook as I cut the flesh. Like removing the top from a carved pumpkin, the circular section pulled away exposing the inner side of the back.

“Excellent,” Pop said, standing over my shoulder and retrieving the piece of flesh. “Good precision, stayed between the lines. Not bad, not bad at all for your first time. I’ll get the joint. Next, you got to get in there and find the pipe and hope the alignment is on point.”

I was hesitant to insert even one fingertip inside the body. Rubbing my temple with a heavy dose of what the fuck am I doing rattling around in my skull. I utilized the time it took for Pop to find the joint piece by trying to come up with something to get me out of doing the next task, but I couldn’t come up with anything as he smiled walking back towards me.

“This one should work,” he said.

“The anger has left me,” I said with swelled eyes, not really sure how it would be taken.

“You cannot allow remorse to control the mind. There is no room for pity within the projects; it’s not about forgiveness. You hold tightly to what happened and never forget. Your remembrance of him must not alter even after it is complete,” Pop said with a stern voice.

***

I remembered the asshole. He showed no remorse towards us at the prison yesterday. I was ecstatic when Pop first said I could tag along with him as he needed to pick up his toolbox from work. Anxiousness suffocated my thoughts as we drove up to the gate. As if I was living out the folklore of my youth, I couldn’t stop smiling as I gazed upon the moss covered stone building. The early morning fog had a grip on the structure, hiding the upper floors. Walking through the guard station, the lobby and numerous long hallways were quiet, but I didn’t care. Just being on the premises was the best thing I experienced all year.

Down to the cellar we went, passing scarred walls littered with small doors. The combination of dust and moist air wreaked havoc with my allergies causing me to sneeze. The quiet was immediately butchered with the loud banging behind the doors and screaming funneling through the cracks. The chaos startled me as I quickened my pace.

“Ignore them. I call them the Forsaken,” Pop explained. “Too far gone. It’s better this way.”

The rattling of his large key ring stood no chance against the mayhem of the hallway as he stood in front of a door. The sporadic sounds intensified and it seemed to take forever for Pop to find the key. Once the door opened, I was more than happy to be out of the hallway. Walking inside, a workspace greeted us with various tools decorating the walls.

“Just need to grab my toolbox and we’ll be on our way,” he said.

“There you are, old timer,” a voice sounded from behind us.

A younger man about my age was standing in the doorway.

“Just picking up some tools,” Pop said.

“Unless I’m mistaken, those tools belong to the prison. Taking them off property would be considered stealing,” he replied with a strong attitude.

“Working on a project at home is all. Like I always do. Even before you were born,” Pop said with his back turned.

“I’m not sure how you’ve lasted this long, old man. The quality of your work is shit.”

I stood there wide eyed as the man was clearly upset.

“And who the fuck is this?”

“My grandson.”

“And you are?” I said, starting to get annoyed.

“They hired another handyman, but he’s still on probation,” Pop explained calmly.

“Probation’s almost up and then I’ll be this fossil’s replacement,” he answered, gesturing towards Pop.

“What the fuck did you say?” I said, bowing up.

He stepped closer, grabbing my jacket to pull me in. My hand slid across a table, grabbing a screwdriver.

“Listen, fucktard. Next time, you and cocoon here decide to take a tour, make sure it’s on my day off.”

“It’s ok, it’s ok. We should’ve come earlier,” Pop said, grabbing my arm.

“Damn right,” the man said before pushing me away.

After spitting on the floor, the man walked out of the room. He could be heard banging on the doors in the hallway, screaming back at those locked inside.

I was fired up, but Pop was calm as could be.

“What the fuck was that all about?” I said, seeing red.

“You know how new hires can be. They start off all nice and all, but then they take a sharp left and fall victim to power and pride.”

“Still, you have seniority over that asshole. He can’t just walk over you like that.”

“Controlling anger is a powerful asset,” he said, trying to calm me. “Sometimes the best method involves a plan instead of quick action.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Leaning against the table, I could tell something else was on his mind.

“I think it’s time I let you in.”

“On what?”

“On my hobby?”

The next morning back at the cabin, he handed me a bucket and lead me down into the basement. I’m not going to lie, I was excited. After all the years of wonderment, I was finally going beyond the door. The stench got ahold of my senses first. My throat clenched not wanting to taste the essence. Numerous fluorescent lights came on in a pattern, destroying the dense darkness.

“This is my hobby; these are my projects,” Pop said, gesturing towards the walls where several people were crouched down.

I immediately puked into the bucket.

“Get it all out, the shock will pass,” he said, rubbing my back.

“Are they‒are they alive?” I quickly stuttered.

“Yes.”

“What is this?”

“They are the people who have wronged me.”

“What?”

“Grudges; some people discard them, some dwell within them. For me, I hold on to them dearly,” he said, walking over to one of the men. “This one here was my supervisor; he gave me a bad review with no bonus. That one over there broke my employee of the month streak when he was hired. And this one complained to the warden regarding my work.”

“Are they all employees of the prison?” I said, spitting excess bile.

“Not necessarily. This one almost hit your grandmother with a car. He didn’t even get out to see if she was alright.” Pop explained, checking the pulse of a man.

“I don’t understand. What do you do with them?” I said, keeping the bucket close.

“I collect them; I collect grudges. That is, until they pass and are replaced.”

“Why?”

“To piss down the throats of my enemies. It humbles me; it keeps me sane, plus keeps the turnover rate at work consistent.”

The pipes, the alignments, I understand it all, but the environment still had me puking up another round.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“It’s a lot to take in, I know. I saw your anger today. You reminded me of me at your age. I was once like you; exploding without a proper plan of action with eyes coated in red. A victim to anger where rationality scampers away like prey. It took me a long time to come to grips with my anger, but I have become a better person for it. Over the years, I have realized that anger is useless without a method of controlling it. The emotion is wasted within the heat of the moment and forgotten about the following day. Harnessing the intensity, capturing the increased anxiety was what set me free. Yesterday, I saw the similar spike in you; the knee jerk reaction causing you to snatch the screwdriver. He would’ve won if you allowed your blind rising anger to take the wheel. Instead, cooler heads always prevail in times of turmoil. Calmness is the main ingredient missing within angry people and that’s why they never win.”

On the floor laid the man from the prison. His arms and legs were bound. My anger crept back up my spine. My lip curled in disgust as I found comfort with him lying helpless before me.

“It’s all about satisfying the grudge,” Pop said.

***

After slowing my heart rate, I sank my fingers into the back. The inner flesh was warm and moist. A sloshing sound emitted as his rib cage contracted under the pressure. With my index finger, I felt the outer rim of the vertical pipe as Pop handed me the joint. Adjusting the pipe by shifting it towards the spine, I remembered the anger from the prison. Seeing Pop helpless at the hands of the bully and the total lack of respect the man showed both of us once again boiled my veins. I grinned when he flinched from the pain.

“You’re almost there. Mind your placement; alignment is important at this point. Make sure to shift the kidney over slightly to allow enough room for the joint,” Pop explained, looking over my shoulder.

I was wrist deep holding onto the pipe, but it slipped each time I pulled. Peering through the wound, it was difficult to determine if the whiteness was from the pipe or a section of the ribcage. With my thumb, I rimmed the edge in a clockwise motion in order to keep my bearing on placement. Pop swabbed the inside of the joint section with plumber’s putty and handed it to me. My chin rested on the man’s bare back as I relied on my hands to finish the connection. Closing my eyes, I could sense the two pieces colliding with one another.

“Get a good seal,” Pop stated.

Blindly trying to connect the two sections, a grin stretched across my face as I felt the joint piece accept the other. With only leverage to provide pressure with my forearms, I rotated the joint back and forth to achieve a tighter fit.

“I think I got it,” I said, holding up my bloody hands.

“Excellent work,” Pop said. “Let’s hook him up to the main drain.”

Pop already had a large section of pipe aligned on the floor and ready by the time I needed it. I felt it; the sense of accomplishment once the project was done. I took another deep breath, not out of frustration or remorse, but out of satisfaction. My anger for the man was still there, but I did my best to control the spikes in level.

“Shall we test it out to see if it works,” Pop said with a smile.

“Absolutely,” I replied.

With Pop standing over a project and I in front of mine, we both unzipped.

“This one here pulled a knife on me outside a bar. I told him I only had five dollars, but he still wanted it,” Pop explained while pissing down the man’s throat.

Staring into the man’s eyes, I couldn’t start.

“Stage fright,” Pop said. “It happens to me every now and then. Best to relive the events before starting. Tends to help with the flow.”

I could hear Pop’s urine draining through the pipe as he spoke. The sound of the dripping didn’t help much either. I felt like I was at a concert standing around an open trough alongside five drunken guys. At first, it was difficult to get passed the unnatural sensation of pissing down someone’s throat. I had to block it all out; the shifting muscles, the rattling chains and the frosty breaths funneling up through the pipes caressing my nuts in an unbelievable creepy fashion. I sealed my eyes tight and ignored it all. Once I started, I couldn’t help but smile. After I had a steady flow, I opened my eyes and looked down into the throat of my enemy. I felt serenity and was no longer angry; I was content.

“What’s that over there?” I said, noticing a tarp covering a large object.

“Ah, that’s my next project in the works. Don’t get me wrong, urinals are great and all, but I wanted to push my creativity further. Trying to think outside the box. A few weeks back, some asshole got my anger flowing real good when he parked in the handicap spot without needing it. After I asked him nicely to move, he became irate and dented my hood with his fist. Well, I’m certainly not immune to a spike in anger every now and then, so I threatened to shit down his neck. Afterwards, the idea got me thinking.”

“You’ll need wider pipes,” I replied.

“I’m glad this happened,” Pop said, shaking off. “Your grandmother said we needed to bond more.”

Did you love Gorefest? Then you should read Counting Bodies Like Sheep by K. Trap Jones et al.!

**2022 SPLATTERPUNK AWARD NOMINATED**

COUNTING BODIES LIKE SHEEP18 authors tread through the muck and mud to add their own stories to the every-growing meat-pile of carnage and chaotic aftermath when bad decisions come full-circle. COUNTING BODIES LIKE SHEEP is the fourth extreme horror anthology from The Evil Cookie Publishing. Pushing the limits with fast-paced, high-gore elements and plots, this anthology holds no punches and blurs the line between sanity and insanity. FEATURING ALL NEW STORIES BY:- Edward Lee & Roman Neznayu- Stephen Kozeniewski- Gerard Houarner- Armand Rosamilia- Christine Morton- Robert Essig- Lucas Milliron- Dustin LaValley & Daniel J. Volpe- Jeremy Megargee- Sarah Budd- Bridgett Nelson- Richard Dansky- Josh Davis- Mike James Davis- Trevor Newton

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