They put the ad up on Craigslist.

It wasn’t done like this, not in the old days. It wasn’t always this easy.

Samantha and Valery posed in front of the camera topless, licked each others breasts, kissed flamboyantly and then picked the juiciest photo to put online.

The ad headline read: IMPREGNATE ME! FILL ME WITH YOUR SPUNK!

“That ought to get their attention,” Samantha laughed.

“Are men really this stupid?” Valery asked.

“Do you even have to ask that?” Sam said.

Then she wrote the body of the message:

My lesbian lover and I are looking to have a child. Although we need a man to impregnate me, rather than going to some sperm bank, I want to have a baby the old fashioned way. I want a real man to come inside me. As long as you are cute, clean and full of cum, I want you to come fuck me and fill me up with your hot seed. My girlfriend will be there to watch but she will not participate, I will leave the door open and a trail of candles leading into my bedroom where I will be on the bed naked with my legs spread open, waiting for you. You can fuck me as long and as hard as you like but just pump me up full of your jizz, as much as you can until it is leaking down my legs. Then you can zip up and go, we don’t expect anything from you, I just want your sperm inside me.

“Do you think most men are really comfortable with that idea?” Valery asked, “Having sex with some anonymous woman who they have never met and just impregnating her?  It just seems so weird.”

Sam smiled crookedly, “You really don’t understand men, do you?”

“Well, there is a reason I’ve been eating pussy since I was fifteen,” Valery said.

Samantha posted the ad.

“So what now?” Valery said.

“We wait.”

Valery made them some tea, five minutes later, she asked, “So how long do you think until—“

“There are already sixty two replies,” Samantha said and started to open the emails.

The first email made Samantha laugh out loud.

It read:  College graduate here, very handsome, 5’8 175lbs, very muscular and as you can see, very well endowed. I cum loads!  I could fill you up with as many babies as you want, pump my seed and then get the heck outta dodge, no strings.  Hit me up baby.

In a photo, he looked like he was at a Dave Matthews concert and was throwing out a peace sign.

Samantha and Valery looked at each other, “Definitely.”

The second candidate was a frat guy from the local University.

I’m gonna fill you up with my baby spunk baby, dump my load in your hot pussy and you’ll be pregnant before you can cum. But after I cum, I leave, no strings, no drama. I just want to cum in your hole.

The third guy was 47 and looked like he lived in his mother’s basement.

I can’t wait to cum in your sweet tight pussy and fill you up with baby jism. My offspring will bring you joy and happiness, I come from a long line of attractive people.

He looked like Skeletor with AIDS.

They laughed, “For sure!”

When they were through, they picked seven men to come over that night and come over in half hour intervals.

“You ready for this?” Samantha said.

“You know it baby,” Valery said and kissed her on the lips.

The college graduate, Bobby Something, came over around seven. He was already stroking himself through his board shorts as he walked through the door.

“Hello?” he said.

“Back here, sweetie,” Samantha said, laying on the bed, nude with her legs spread open wide. A line of candles led back to the bedroom.

“See anything you like?” she said as he stood in the doorway.

She opened her vaginal lips with her fingers.

“OH FUCK YEAH,” he said and slipped off his shorts, exposing an overeager boner. He climbed on the bed and plunged in deep. Samantha cried out, “Oh yes, fuck me, baby. Fuck me sooo hard.”

He pounded away as Valery watched from the corner in the dark, videotaping everything in green light.

“Oh, your cock is soooo big, you are ripping my tight little pussy apart,” she said, stifling a laugh.

Valery put the camera up on the stand and grabbed the butcher knife.

Slowly she crept up behind Bobby Something and drove it into his skull. Blood squirted everywhere, the walls looked like modern art.

Then Valery pulled the knife from his skull turned him over and hacked off his cock. She raised it to her lips and bit into it.

Then she handed it to Samantha who took a taste.

Bobby was screaming and breathing hard, clinging to life.

“Oh shut up,” Valery said and started to hack away at his stomach.

“He really did have great abs,” Samantha said.

Valery pulled out his intenstines and used the blood as paint and started to draw the pentagram on the wall. They threw the corpse on the side of the bed. Amidst the blood soaked sheets, they kissed and Valery went down on her.

“Okay, we have to hurry!” Samantha said.

They stripped the bed, Valery dragged the corpse into the spare bedroom and locked the door. It was filled with air freshners. Samantha flipped over the mattress and then started to put on new sheets.

“Don’t worry about it!” Valery said, “Hop in the shower and wash off before number 2 gets here.”

Five minutes later, Frat boy arrived.

He didn’t even put up a front, as soon as he stepped inside, he started to undress.

“Where’s that pussy, baby?” he said.

“Down here,” Samantha said.  Like it said in the goddamn email, she thought, walk down the fucking hall.

Frat boy was well endowed, it looked like a beer can between his legs.

“What’s that on the wall?” he said, noticing the blood pentagram in the dark, “I ain’t into no voodoo shit.”

Valery came up behind him and stuck the butcher knife in his skull, then she chopped off his penis and added it to the pile on the side of the bed. Some were so rotten and old, they looked like old fruit.

“Fuck, this is going to get annoying!” Samantha said, “I have to shower every time and change the sheets. The blood is gonna leak through no matter how many times I turn the mattress.”

“Then I will kill them as soon as they walk in the fucking door!” Valery said.

“Is this the only way?”

“This is the way it has always been done. Shiva requires seven male sacrifices for the portal to be opened.”

Valery smeared more blood on the wall.

“Only five more to go.”

It wasn’t always done like this, especially not in the old days. You usually had to get them drunk and hold a big bonfire in the woods for a black mass. The sacrifices one had to make to live for over four hundred years, Samantha thought.

Using the internet for human sacrifices wasn’t ideal but it was far more convenient.

By Daniel Gonzales
Editor, Surreal Grotesque
www.surrealgrotesque.com

Sexy Sadie

went to sleep

while visions

of the Bad Ship Lollipop danced in her head

(just like Hollywood Babylon had promised)

the reflected light. independent waves,

a violent crime moved out of her mouth.

standing between two full length mirrors facing each other

a gift of Pandora. smash the surfaces. infinite faces destroyed.

shards everywhere coated in saliva, the smell

of summer air tempting her nostrils and

the waitress served six meals beyond what was required

showing the interconnected relationship with her vagina

a steady flow of business from the journal of spasms

another chemical put on the nerves early

another chemical put on the nerves early

too late for night

too late for talk

she displayed a temporary decrease in one customer every hour

a sperm competition taking them out.

her model, she talked of her desire for

glass eyes and of clenching forms in the house of love

all her hands bled and in an instance, the police

arrested a model of female orgasms.

a nocturnal duration.

we were in the middle of  a relaxing experience,

I described a sense of pleasure – that’s

when the police department responded.

scientific literature focuses on “creepy crawler” missions;

antagonists dressed in black,

experienced by males and / or females

some of the vagina’s high concentration of nerves died.

filthy vessels such as murder, as well as the iris were to blame

in breathless wonder, lips parted with pain

several people watched her vulgar eyes glinting back like their eyes

the department store she stared at promised satiation.

when Susan Atkins was still an occupant of the Spahn movie ranch,

she was relieved to hear that at the Days Inn Motel they wanted to retch

after staring at the crimson paintings

her nipples poked out harder after her first victim was cut,

her clothes were in a soiled disarray

her offspring knelt down behind a wonderful time

police force on

press deep in

grinned a shriek

she had became a temporary disease

it required new murder, as well as

testimony concerning crimes in loving

her experiences with a mental state betrayed

the fact that she’s a moving film star

filmed in virtually uninhabitable states

watch the action

watch the action watch

a B-52 under her skirt to play with

everyday ordinary wives that burst into

flames when the home crashes down around them

an escape from normalcy by a drive over the cliff

she was intimately carried by the attacker

pushed even closer by him to a silent area where she was frightened

defined by figures outlined in repose dragging us in deep

translucent like our love

transparent as hatred

as dolls eyes follow us in pursuit.

The spectacle typically offers crime at a distant location

(murder, weakening strength; the changing structure of department stores)

a stranger had also been linked with

an obsessive-compulsive performance and she heard a few times what the camera had promised

i showed her the album of old forgotten images because

photos taken at a certain place and time frightened her so much.

another chemical put on the nerves early

By Peter Marra

http://www.angelferox.com

I ain’t got any reason to lie to you, detective.  I killed those guys.  They were my friends but it wouldn’t be right to let them carry on the way they were.  But that ain’t good enough for you, is it?  You want to know the hows and whys, right?

Here’s the thing, us street folk are desperate.  And Hank, Billy, Freddie, those guys became the embodiment of desperate.  You can’t know the meaning of that word until you’ve been in this life, watched the cold blacken your skin or had your belly try to eat its way out of you.  All we want are three square and a warm bed, but it seems like you people do everything to make sure that doesn’t happen.  We find a place we were can eek out an existence approaching human, and then badges, you, come along to rip it away.  Nevermind that we weren’t bothering a single soul.  Like when you bricked up the old steam-tunnels under downtown.  Or the camp off the river.  No one gave a damn about that place, it was overgrown trees and grass, till we set up there.  I was there when you came with your clubs and torches, put our tents to the fire.  Did the community a great service that day, didn’t you?

So, winter comes and us guys just want a half-decent meal in our stomachs, a warm place to put our heads.  But oh yeah, just get my ass to a shelter, right?  What shelter?  Developers pressured the old one to close, then before the new one can open, all the bleeding-hearts who whine and gritch and moan about charity and helping the needy turn around, crying, “Not in my neighborhood!”  Them assholes only care about folk like me when it’ll help them look good in front of their friends.  I hope their Sunday brunches at the trendy restaurants built on the grave of the old shelter helps them sleep at night.  No, I don’t.  I shouldn’t lie like that.  What I really want is for them to choke on the overpriced food.

One time, this hag is feeding pigeons and the river-gulls at the Waterfront.  I ain’t calling her a hag to disrespect her as a woman.  My parents raised me better than that.  I’m calling her a hag cause that’s what she is.  Done up real pretty, in a smart suit.  Maybe she should eat some of that make-up caking her face, then she’d be pretty on the inside too.  All I want is some change, maybe if I can get enough I can get a cheeseburger that day.  And this hag just sneers at me, all sorts of hate and disgust about her as she tells me to go away.  Ain’t that something?  This woman would rather feed a bunch of diseased birds than help out a fellow human being.  No one walks away from that not feeling less than human.

When was the last time someone looked you in the eye, detective?  Hell, it was probably right before you walked in this room, and a thousand damned times before that.  I don’t know when the last time it happened for me.  Dirt’s the only thing holding my clothes together, I haven’t a hot shower since last year and this ain’t perfume clogging up your nostrils.  I know all this.  But I am still a human being.

Not that you care.  You just want my story.

Anyways, some guys get so damned desperate for three square and a warm bed, they swing on the badges or put teeth to them.  That’ll earn you a couple of good nights.  Some of those guys win the lottery, get sent before a hard-ass judge and get put in LaGrange for a couple of years.  But others just get clubbed about the head and dumped in an alley, given the business so bad they can’t recognize themselves in the mirror.  And the real unlucky ones…well, isn’t it real funny how many homeless men end up getting pulled from the locks down river, all water-logged and fish-eaten?  Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m getting at.  Must be an epidemic of spontaneous winter time skinny-dipping, right?

Like I said, Hank, Billy, Freddie, those guys got real desperate.  And like I said, they were my friends.  In this life those are hard to come by.  Hell, it’s hard to come by someone who isn’t trying to shove his prick in your every unguarded hole, or wanting to beat you cause the drugs, drink or his own bat-shit crazy brain is telling him to.  A friend is someone who won’t run you off for trying to build a nest in the same place, who saves you a spot at their fire, and will share whatever scraps they liberated from the dumpsters that day.

Them three were those kinda guys.

I’d been stuck in the tank for three days on a P.I. charge.  You guys kicked me out at night, coldest one of the winter so far.  I’m thinking you hoped the weather’d take care of your burden.  Anyways, I find the guys at our spot, in the alley behind the…ah, hell, you know where it is, that’s where you picked me up.  And they got a weak fire going in a garbage can.  There was more dark than light in the alley that night.  Their hoods were up, I couldn’t see their faces for the shadows.  Each was cooking a skewer of meat over the fire.  Damn, it smelt so good.  Makes me want to upchuck now.

I ask them if they caught a rabbit or squirrel.  Naw, they say, better.  Then they start telling me this story.  The night I went in the tank, air got for real cold.  So, they crawl their asses down in the sewer.  That’s desperate, gents.  That kind of stink sets up residence in your nose for days, but it’s warm.  Not that night, though.  All the steaming shit in the city couldn’t hold back a cold like that.  Deeper and deeper they go, looking to get away from the chill, until they are so deep, in a place beneath the sewers.  There’s a church down there.  The Old Church they call it.  There before the white folk came here, and probably before the Natives too.  Tribes were scared of this part of Kentucky.  If I had anything to bet you, I’d wager the Old Church is a reason why.

The preacher man welcomes them, promises the guys a place safe from the worst of the snows and sun and people, where their bellies will always be filled.  And he feeds them sacraments, the sweetest meat, lets them gorge.  They all say they haven’t ate like the since before the life.  Then the preacher says they must go back to the streets, says they aren’t ready to join the Old Church, not yet.  But if they sought out the sacraments and ate of them, they soon would be.  They guys asked how he’ll know.  The preacher man says he’ll know, then he’ll come and retrieve them from the cold and the starvation and the hate, to live among his congregation until the last days.  With that, he casts them back to the terrible world above.

There are others, like us, down there.  Or they were once like us.  Street folks, mostly.  But those who heard the preacher man’s sermons in their dreams, too.  Some sewer workers who lost their way.  All are welcome.  None are turned away.  They protect one another.  And the preacher man protects them all.  Beneath our feet, there is a place of love.

The guys ask me if I want in.  Do I want to forget the feeling of a hollow belly?  Do I want a home, a real honest-to-the-gospels home?  A place where no god-damned drunk-on-money frat-boy, looking to kill so he can get a hard-on, would dare go?  Down so deep not even the badges can reach?  Of course I did!

And one of them, I can’t remember who, doesn’t matter, hands me a skewer of long, fatty meat.  The night is so dark and the meat so blackened, I can’t tell what it is.  I was slobbering the meat smelt so good.  Not that I cared.  Eat they say, take the sacrament, then preacher man’ll take you down to the Old Church too.  As I bring it up to my mouth to take a bite, I see what I am about to eat.  Hanging off the end of the skewer, a tiny, clinched fist.

Living this life, the things we see, it ain’t a wonder why half the street folk are crazy.  Like this one time, my buddy was killed in a hit-and-run, the contents of his skull emptied on the pavement.  It’s more yellow than you’d expect.

But this, I’d never seen anything like this.  I dropped the skewer and upchucked.  Out came everything from my stomach down to my toes.  And this wailing scream starts up from me.  I couldn’t help it.

The guys start shouting some nonsense about sacrilege.  And for the first time, I see their faces, the weak firelight catching them just right.  I tell you, boys, what I saw wasn’t Hank, Billy and Freddie no more.  No.  It was Desperation.  With a big “D”.  They’d gotten so desperate that it took up residence in them, had its hand up their collective asses, moving them like puppets.  Desperation has teeth like needles, and big black desolate eyes full of want.

So, I ran.  Screaming and coughing up more of my belly with each step.  What was I supposed to do?  I hid in some bushes, damn near pissing myself from fright, trying to stop myself from crying, in case they were looking for me.  I prayed for God to let the cold take me before the guys found me.  But I’m guessing they weren’t looking, after all.  If they had been, you’d be picking up the leftovers instead of having this conversation.

Daylight comes, bringing with it a bit more sense.  See, I get me a plan.  I wait outside an office building, watching the stiffs walk in, looking for the right mark.  I ain’t one bit ashamed to admit I’ve snatched a few purses in my day, so I know how to pick the right victim.  Hurried, distracted, purse held in one hand or hanging loose on one shoulder.  Low and behold, that hag I told you about, the one from the park, comes walking up, another smart suit on, yammering into her phone.  She don’t recognize me, any more than she’d recognize any of the individual pigeons or squirrels.  Why would she?  I’m just part of the urban wildlife.

It’d be a surprise if she even saw me before I knocked her down and yanked her purse.  You can charge me with battery and theft by robbery too.  Please, I’m begging you.  Charge me.

Anyways, I take the money from her purse, dump it in a garbage can.  With the money, I buy two quarts of motor oil from that gas-station on 1st and Liberty.  As luck would have it, the hag was a smoker.  No one at the gas-station was going to be asking me uncomfortable questions.

I go back to the spot, where I last saw the guys.  See, when it got real cold, like it did last night, we’d crawl in the dumpsters together to sleep.  Get that stupid look off your face.  When you’re trying not to die of the cold, people thinking you’re into funny business is the last thing you worry about.  I risked a peek in the dumpster, and they were in there.  I looked just long enough to see how bad the desperation was.  Their skin had gone a pale.  Bald patches pock-marked their beards.

I dumped in the motor oil and dropped in a match.

And here we are.

I know it sounds like a bunch of nonsense.  No way in Hell you’re going to be crawling down in the sewers looking for the Old Church and the preacher man.  An autopsy won’t be done because they’re just street folk.  No one gives a damn how they die.  There may be a baby or two missing but you’ll just dismiss that as me having heard about it on the TV or in the papers.  Right?

Right.

Thing is, I couldn’t care less if you believe my story or not.  Either way, what you are left with is the fact I killed three men.  Send me to LaGrange or put me in loony farm at Central State.  I don’t care.  Everyday now until my last, I’m getting three square and a warm bed.

By Bruce Priddy

misterpriddysmarvels.wordpress.com.

She pirouettes
adorned in a dress
of black gossamer,

Spinning with blade
in hand to music only
she hears.

Flame red hair sweeps the air,
flinging outward, as
drops of crimson
drip from the tip
to the cold hard floor;
knives held tight by
delicate fingers.

Her hands move with
the intensity of the allegro.
Alive, brisk, and deadly.

The sharpness of her tools
keep up with her demands
of dissection and delving.

The other dancers
fall before her
as if in silent repose.

Arabesque to glissade,
her strong legs coupe
across the floor,
she cuts and cuts and cuts
and does a sourbresaut
like a cat jumping
onto her final partner
in this ensemble of now
only one.

She seeks his heart
as the point punches through.
Death follows
Yet still it beats
as she holds it,
Still it beats
as she takes a bite.
Still it beats
as she rises from
her grand plie.

and takes a bow
to the crowd
from
center stage.

By Philip Wardlow
http://philipwardlow.com/

Humanity has fruitlessly battled many horrid, devastating diseases in its brief history. In sub-Saharan Africa many a young child have had their last moments in writhing agony as the Malaria virus ravages their already abused bodies. Mercilessly it torments them with splenomegaly and hepatomegaly a condition where the sufferers spleen and liver balloon to cartoonish proportions before the rough choke of a coma engulfs them. Their pain only ended when the rusty blade of death is finally and without hurry slipped into their emaciated ribcage.
But atrocious diseases do not only plague those unfortunate enough to be born in third-world countries. In England, one of the healthiest, socially and technologically advanced nations the world has to offer a hundred and sixty five people fell victim to the private Hell commonly known as Mad Cows disease. A fantastically nasty disease that turns ones brain into a mushy discharge that would be more easily recognized as a broth served in the many poor houses scattered throughout London only a century or two ago.
Bleak isn’t it, inoculation and cures seem pointless. Even when created and widely distributed a new strand or entirely new disease is always at the ready to claim more innocent god-fearing persons whose only crime that cost them their content lives was to be a the wrong place at the wrong time.
But for all the viruses that make the sufferer uncontrollably shit out their vital organs or bleed their vital fluids out from every possible orifice there is only one that is truly rampant and of epidemic proportions in modern societies of every country. There is only one that causes daily deaths worldwide yet shows no discernible symptoms. Cures have never been researched solely because its existence, while known and acknowledged by society, is so basic and primal; it raises no cause for concern. It is of course sexual gratification. All-encompassing sexual gratification.
Not the physical release that is the sticky substance of spent seed and its residue, which ooze from the body upon climax like pus from an infected wound. But the trombone blast in the chest area and the crashing of waves in one’s temples right at the cusp of the ear, smacking the brain, rattling at one’s timid soul. A sensation that eludes nearly all sexually active persons throughout the entirety of their lives regardless of how many partners they engaged in sexual activities with. Nor can it be effectively described by any of mans most talented writers or captured by its most expressive artists, living or dead. For this is an almost ethereal experience, a force so powerful it latches onto ones core and bends it.
No one knew this better or as bitterly as Seth Ederton. An uninformed observer couldn’t be blamed for asking why not. For Seth possessed all the crucial factors an uninformed observer would assume would be required to make it easy for him to obtain this elusive feeling.
Handsome in a presentable, strikingly masculine way, achieving the fine balance between a male model and a relatable boy-next-door type, his appearance was as chameleon-like as his sexual gratification methods and tendencies prone to change as if accompanying his shift in emotions which were highly unstable at the best of times adhering to taking his prescribed medication. Aside from boasting a face lovingly crafted by the Gods, Seth was also very wealthy. Not just a respectable wealth that would be a source of equal parts admiration and condemnation from his friends, if he had any but a vast, can light Cuban cigars with a fistful of hundred dollars kind of wealth. An affluence which he was not born into but earned himself, like a Junkie shakily shining a light over their withered arm looking for that little blue line to bliss, Seth, found a means to getting exactly what he needed and exploited it. He was a self-taught computer programmer. Internet Website Designer to be specific and an exceptional one at that, it was a pursuit he had developed a fondness for a lifetime ago during his stay in the mental institution. He had found computers and the Internet much easier to understand and obsess over rather than facing the trauma of why he was committed in the first place.
It was with all this knowledge he had so voraciously absorbed, prowling around the countless corridors that comprise Hell that is the Internet that Seth first contracted the disease of permanent insatiable hunger for sexual gratification. It was an unprecedented case beggaring belief, one so severe it was worthy of a mention on the god-awful Amazing Medical Stories that pepper the putrid salad bowl of world television. Given Seth’s horrific past it was not surprising he would be instinctively drawn to and debilitated by his need for sexual gratification. What had happened to him as a child left a large void, demanding to be filled.
He would prowl through the most dank and sexually depraved corridors, casting an ominous digital silhouette as he did so. In his youngest of sexually active years Seth was somewhat satisfied by hardcore gangbangs and the like including Bukkake.
But quicker than a drunken fart he grew weary and bored by the same clichéd scenarios carried by out the same tired-looking women. Worse Seth could no longer obtain any gratification however faint or forced. Until the slightest groan of feigned satisfaction or a thin trickle of a half-hearted climax eluded him completely. It soon reached such a concerning stage, he could no longer even sustain an erection over the stale material. His traitorous genitals would lay limp and shrunken, refusing to rise and be the vehicle for pleasure. A lesser man would’ve immediately began to panic, perhaps suicidally so but not Seth. He would not allow himself to succumb to petty misery, not when so much was at stake.
He realized the only way to tackle and hope to resolve the problem was to dive head first into the most hardcore, gruesome and sexually sickening pornography he could possibly find. Considering his remarkable skill at tweaking the tendrils that comprise the web, this provided a very large selection indeed, enough to last a hundred sex addicts for a thousand lifetimes.
He dabbled in anything and everything save anything involving minors. Focusing on one kind of filth, say a obscenely obese woman gorging herself on a King’s ransom in food then vomiting and defecating on herself, for a few weeks to a month at a time, never maintaining interest or arousal for longer than that just as suddenly as he had become infatuated with it, that sort of smut would be callously tossed into the digital ether of the rejection pile.
A runaway train, Seth barreled through literally tens of thousands of sites in a tornado frenzy, torrenting more terabytes of porn than all the other viewers in his country combined. His thirst never remotely sated, the more Seth saw, the more he craved, more than anything else in his empty and restless life. Sleep was a relic of the past or a figment of his imagination, definitely a hindrance he waged war against with opiates and energy drinks.
Pretty soon watching porn and mangling his long-suffering genitals was all that he did with his life, transforming the act into a demanding full-time job, one in which he was constantly on call and always worked graveyard shift. He wasted away as food was of no particular importance, he was a demented hermit, a terrible sight to behold yet on he went and his condition continued to worsen.
He found early on that fluids were his sexual vice. The glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel to sexual fulfillment, his own private Kingdom of Heaven.
No doubt some goatee stroking, thick glasses wearing psychologist would be able to write a whole paperweight of a doctorate on the origins of this fetish but Seth did not care in the slightest. He had his fill of shrinks trying to crack the facade and appraise his mind back at the institution, they had been of no help then and he would never trust another for the rest of his days. Their smug voices still haunted him but those years were tightly compacted into a trunk shoved deeply inside his closet of secrets in a cordoned off area in his head.
His sole reason for ongoing existence was for finding his itch and scratching it. A compulsion which he had so tirelessly worked to obtain since the tender age of fourteen and even now at the age of twenty five still eluded him.
Expanding his searching to pornography involving fluids, he began gliding through countless achieves of water sports, specifically groups of men urinating on women or vice versa. The women need not be attractive to draw his attention and not surprisingly the majority that he encountered were not. For it was the act, in all its filthy glory that resulted in his groin tighten and the faint crashing of waves in his temples pulsating from his big head to his small head in a series of intricate circuits. Sadly it was faint and always vanished as suddenly as it arrived, without the result he so desperately needed.
This constant abysmal failure brought him back to the brink of insanity that was where the memories and their vile sibling nightmares stemmed from. Each failure brought the fetus of his baby brother back imprinted on his eyelid whenever he closed it for longer than a second.
Seth had never been one to go out in the bright summer sunshine and embrace the day but he was becoming even more of a recluse, a stranded ghost in a mansion of impeccable taste and furnishing. He took to ordering all his essentials online thus preventing any human contact whatsoever, he supposed it was for the best, he had attracted a large amount of unwanted attention with his disheveled appearance whenever he ventured out – so never venturing out eliminated any danger of this.
His lover was his massive high tech computer; her breasts were the six giant monitors hovering in front of him. Their sex was the Internet and while it was long and passionate his electronic mistress would never let him properly climax. Reminding him of his dominatrix S&M days where less was better and deprived was divine, but this was not what he wanted, it was the exact opposite.
Seth kept calm though including taking his medication though he partly blamed it for his sporadic impotence. It was no use freaking out, it would only cripple his chances of striking gold, so he buckled himself in for the long haul and kept at it.
Eventually fate deemed that enough time was spent and he was rewarded for his exhaustive efforts with the liquid, that heavenly nectar that would sexually gratify him completely and utterly, without falter or failure. Finally the thing he had dedicated months of every waking minute to locate had graced his screen.
It was blood.
Details can be spared but needless to say when a soul as corrupted as Seth’s first discovers something sexual or otherwise that fascinates them, they test their limits. Seth certainly tested his, browsing through some sites that could be classified as authentic snuff films. Some material repulsed him, most did not, but this intrepid trawling through the sites finally put a name to what he sought. Vampirism. Blood had been the canvas but vampirism had been the painting, which had been taking a shapeless form in his head tightening inexorably around his brain, defining itself through his imagination, beckoning from beyond the computer monitor and at that precise moment Seth had never been happier.
Then reality set in and Seth realized how absurd he was to let such senseless joy blind him. He was only at the beginning of his epic journey and such naivety would be a disservice to finally getting what he craved more than life itself.
Seth collected his thoughts after a particularly brutal masturbating session, planning how to proceed. The fundamental aspect of which was women. He needed beautiful women to engage in carnal acts with. For although with some of his other, sexual fetishes where the women participating need not be attractive in order for him to take pleasure, Vampirism was a different story altogether. For Seth and his Vampirism it was crucial women were as physically appealing as possible to truly get the most out of it. Though not in the traditional style as society has grown accustomed to with every glossy advert over the past few decades. The modelling world was all high cheekbones and skeletal frames with eyes as dead and soulless as a child’s stuffed toy. For Seth his perfect partner needed to be as angelic and sweet-looking as possible, a girl next door type but stunning in an undeniable way an individual that exuded beauty as if it were perfume emanating from her pores.
Vampirism. His fantasies were taking shape and clarity in his imagination, he felt like the ancient indigenous tribes that consumed peyote in the desert setting in an attempt to learn their purpose in life from a divine source. The desert was his equally isolated mansion, the Peyote was the Internet and the hallucinations were actually his fantasies flowing from the deepest, darkest pockets of his mind. He was the master of his destiny sure he had some niggling doubts but what pioneer could honestly claim they had not. He was whole again or rather yet to be whole pending finding a suitable partner. In the meantime his many fantasies kept bubbling to the surface, crying out to be carried out in the real world.
One of his favorites involved him descending upon some blonde big bosomed beauty in a darkened area somewhere. He would melt from the shadows, blocking her path and cross over to her as if floating on feet made of fog. She would gasp and her lip would quiver but her eyes would implore him to make haste. They would embrace and she would stare with her wild blue eyes darting around admiring the Hunter that had captured her and claimed her as his own.
Her perfume, a cheap flower number tinged with just the right amount of fear would invade his nostrils, more intoxicating than any liquor Seth kept in his well-stocked cabinet and to then give her the Vampires kiss. To not taste at first but feel the sticky heat of blood first on his lips and then slowly down into his belly and then the taste would slowly follow. A coppery taste sweetened by her pretty soul and at that very moment when her blood was mixed with his own he would enter her, wetness upon moistness, resulting in a whole atom bomb of a climax, the likes of which he had only dared to picture in his wildest dreams and even then only fleetingly. In that single act the pair of them would be bound together for all eternity and no amount of memories or nightmares could taint his existence again.
The sky was the limit; well actually there was no limit. Seth had always nurtured his imagination, for it was what kept him relatively sane after he discovered the photos that had been the cause of his mental breakdown. His imagination had grown into an out of control entity as a result, one that thanked its owner by turning him into a genius. But they were each other’s worst influence and right now they were conspiring together to make fantasies. It was a vicious cycle, reducing Seth to a sweaty bag of bones with sunken eyes and a temperament to match.
Yet the rushing of fantasies kept coming unbidden and Seth was happy to forego whatever slivers of sleep he allowed himself to give them audience. Seth relented, surrendering control to these gruesome impulses and desires as they popped into his head. Each more vivid and salivating inducing than the last.
Such as the Feast which was Seth’s initial fantasy on a grand scale. Where he would lead a group of true believer Vampires to an isolated location and they would hunt and prey upon each other as nature intended. Those afflicted with a faint heart need not apply this event would only be for true Vampires who survived on the blood sucked from the bodies of their victims and they would look to him as their unquestioned leader.
One must admire Seth’s tenacity with his pursuits however it did little to actually make such grandiose plans come to fruition. Finding a willing beautiful woman to perform actual acts of Vampirism was substantially more difficult than finding one willing to dress up in a naughty nurse outfit, or climb into an ill-fitting French maid outfit.
Of course, but those kind are a dime a dozen, I need a real woman. Damaged goods with a history of mental disorders, just like me. Then sparks will fly, this is how it was meant to be. With new found energy Seth returned once again to his beloved computer and the Internet his faith in them unshakeable, their devotion to the cause unquestionable. Seth had the presence of mind to accept that his current physical condition was unacceptable; he could not be expected to charm women if he looked like a meth-addicted vagrant so he vowed to shave off his unkempt beard and resume a strict training regime naturally between sessions on the computer.
With his physical and mental health markedly improved Seth found many networking sites for supposed Vampires. Over the course of the next few days they flocked to him without any real effort on his part as if the powers of the galaxy wanted him to succeed. Despite his enthusiasm Seth was still reluctant to engage in conversations in open chat rooms with other members, as he was deathly worried that many of these so-called Vampires were little more than attention seekers.
He could picture them in perfect clarity, ugly and boring charlatans in the extreme that had only gravitated towards Vampirism as a last resort because they were shunned by the rest of society. He couldn’t bear the thought of arranging to meet a prospective partner only to have her freak out at the all-important moment. Consent was crucial, he would never force himself on a woman he hated those that bullied and abused women with every fiber of his being and would rather kill himself than cause any female the slightest discomfort. So his selection and weeding process was grueling and mind-numbing but he persisted nevertheless.
Through message boards on the many sites Seth visited he discovered several questionable ‘clubs’ in his city. His skepticism was intact and as potent as always so for an age he ignored the invitations but as he happened across more and more there seemed to be a constant trend and matching in descriptions.
Although the clubs were scattered all over town from the affluent areas to those predominately occupied by industrial sites they were all basically the same. Missing were the regular fixtures attributed to night clubs, flashing neon lights out the front and a gorilla security guard jockeying a non-existent guest list and a vicious gleam in his eye. Far from it. Indistinguishable from the front, just a large heavy-looking door which you would rap on with your knuckles and wait until a slate was replaced with a pair of stern eyes staring at your fiercely at which point one would whisper a password obtained from the message board posting on the relevant websites. Oftentimes a hefty fee was charged just for the privilege of being told the password but it didn’t end there. Sometimes entry was only granted after performing an act of faith; one night required him to drain a glass of blood passed through a small latch. It could have been laced with AIDS for all Seth knew but he gulped it down without a moment’s hesitation anyway, that was the nature of the Vampire world he had so utterly immersed himself in.
The clubs interiors were mainly gritty industrial setups, Seth guessed many were old abattoirs or at least decked out to look as such. Complete with hanging rusty hooks, or flaked bloodstains on cracked white porcelain floors with lots of comfortable plush chairs and sofas thrown into the mix for good measure. Lighting was even poorer than average nightclubs allowing for patrons to recline in the shadows and observe those mingling around unnoticed before deciding to approach them. Women paced around restlessly or hung together in small groups in the more brightly-lit spaces, most were prey eager to be plucked but there as distinct number of predator women as well, hanging in the shadows and biding their time. Seth paid them no heed, he was after a worthy partner and armed with solid confidence he approached whoever he fancied on a whim.
Sadly most of the women he struck up conversations with were unsuitable for a varying degree of reasons. Primarily it was their looks or lack thereof, which made him decide against inviting them back to his humble abode for a little private feasting he was superficial and powerless to resist because that was what his fantasies and their fulfillment required. Also many of the girls he chatted to gave responses both verbal and physical to his carefully worded and expertly timed questions which he knew meant they were unsuitable.
Even with knowing them for only a night and introducing themselves with obviously fake names he could tell they were not hardcore mere timid lambs masquerading around in wolf-skins. There was a clear anxiousness that was etched into their features and exhaled with each breath like on a frosty morning. A poorly masked desperation to say the right thing as if seeking some petty approval from a paternal-like figure all the signs were there, painfully obvious to a bind man.
The way they lit cigarettes with trembling hands and subconsciously toyed with jet black or platinum blonde hair as a safeguard informed Seth they would never go through with the feasting when it finally came time.
You poor silly girl, why are you going through this charade? Why not accept who you are and be done with it, leave this place and never like back.
Seth felt only pity for these confused specimens he came into contact with. It made him think of how incredible and life changing it would be when he inevitably met that special lady that would gladly let him feast on her. The scope of how much they would enrich one another’s lives would be unfathomable.

By Samuel Elliott
http://www.facebook.com/samuelelliottauthor
https://www.createspace.com/4129954
http://www.amazon.com/The-SISTERS-SATAN-Sam-Elliott/dp/1481967738/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1360593649&sr=8-9&keywords=satan%27s+sisters

They strung up my three cohorts by their necks from a thick beam in their cathedral. A thousand white and red candles from a massive black iron chandelier lit the cold, dark interior, flickering flames of light against the stained glass saints who hallowed the slaughter.
The bodies of men, women and children lay scattered and heaped, blades of blood slashed across their naked flesh like zebra stripes. The pews cracked and crumbled beneath their weight. A pyramid of half-decomposed heads with maggots and flies for hair stood by the altar. Flesh-cleaned skulls lay strewn, some cracked like antediluvian eggs, others with their jaws crushed to powder, teeth thrown like nuggets of salt. On each skull was painted, with a finger heavy with jeweled rings, an ocher cross. Small statues of saviors were flecked with old brown blood. The smells of shit and piss soaked into the three-hundred-year old wood.
Scimitar blades were attached to twenty-foot-long poles for them to reach high into the airy bodies of my accursed brethren. The red-robed priests, their faces veiled with satin and lace, long ebony rosaries dangling down their torsos to their knees, raised their pikes and slashed at the bodies above. The blades hacked open sinew and muscle, mangled the innards until the steel-slashed organs – intestines, stomach, ovaries, uterus, liver –fell in a wet slap to the mosaic tile floor. Threads of blood streamed in lines from the bodies to their eviscerated flesh below their swaying feet.
It was with this action that I saw that the feminine member of my three cohorts had been with my child. The little blood-white worm twitched on the stone floor, mewled softly from its lipless rictus of a mouth, and sank down its tiny head to sleep forever, nestled in its mother’s bowels.
My heart no longer existed, therefore, it could not break.
The hanging and disembowelment of my magi was to torture me. I was their leader. The priests wanted me to confess, so I gladly did, but they wanted more. I was to be a warning to others of our kind, I suppose. Frankly, one never knows what these holy Knights of the Inquisition truly want.
I worship Satan. Find him a more grounded god than any Christ. He is an entity with predictable purpose and single-minded intent. There are so many versions – interpretations and revisions – of the Christ that one can only be confused by what the Holy One wants from his Flock.
They found me and my coven worshiping our god at midnight in the forests outside Madrid. Perhaps we should have moved farther, across a border or near the sea, but their reach extends across the continent. Religion is no freedom except for them. They’ve expelled, or butchered, the Jews and Mohammedans, so why we Satanists should receive protection is madness to think. (Ah, we all make the simplest mistakes which cause the most complex annihilation!) They kill all who differ, even those of their own members who vary slightly in the interpretation of their scriptures. There are priest’s heads also in that pyramid by the altar.
Our religion – which it is, as legitimate as any other – requires the worship of our god be done in full nudity of both genders. We praise the human form instead of scourging it with reeds and hair shirts. We rejoice in life, therefore we copulate with all of our members. The act of the fuck is hallowed, as uncriminal an act as lacing one’s corset or feasting on venison. What foolish philosophy would impart shame in the act of clothing oneself, or seeing to one’s gastronomic needs? We find this – them, their religion – to be utterly ridiculous. And yet we do not foist our beliefs on them with torture. We perform violence only to protect ourselves and our god. As they do. But they do more. They hunt. They torment to convert, and they butcher those who refuse to renege their god.
Like me and my cohorts. But we expect this from them. They worship a bloody cannibalistic god, so one cannot expect them to relinquish their appetite for flesh. Mere words of my own prejudice? Or facts gleaned from my eye’s witness? Four of them raped a five-year-old Jewess child on the catafalque until she bled to death from her wounds, commanding her the entire time to renounce her false idol god. They wiped their cocks on their robes, then knelt to give thanks for the blessing they had received, claiming to do their lord’s work.
I lay now on the catafalque, the virgin’s shit and piss and blood beneath me. I watch their torture in fascination. I scream and wail as they wish, as my body directs, but try to keep quiet and still to observe their techniques.
I am bound by wrists and ankles, a rope around my neck bends back my head over the stone edge of this death altar.
A small blade etched with the cross of their savior is held in the shaking hand of their oldest bishop. He slices the first line from the hollow of my throat to my navel, then passes the consecrated knife to a disciple-in-training. A deep enough cut to bleed and separate the skin, but too shallow to kill.
“Do you renounce Satan and his teachings?”
After a scream dries in my throat, I answer, “Satan is more merciful than all of your gods!”
“There is only one God!” the novice disciple, a boy of sixteen, growls in my face. Onions and semen on his breath. The old bishop has passed the knife to him, to train him in the art of Christian conversion. “One-in-Three, the Holy Trinity, rules all! Bow before Christ and your death will be quick.”
“I will sodomize your Christ when I meet him in Hell!” I yell back at the fresh-faced, pretty youth.
A bolus of phlegm shot from my lips to blind his eye. He wrenched back the rope around my neck. My tongue jutted from my mouth. Felt my cock stiffen. He interpreted it as lust, salivated a pearl at the corner of his young mouth, gripped my testicles in his claw, dug his red-painted fingernails into the soft skin.
“Even in death, your Satan fuels you with his deranged lust!” the disciple growled, his bulbous eyes staring into mine, spittle on his cracked white lips. “You also confess to being a sodomite?”
“Do you?” I spat back. “How many men and boys has your cock sheathed?”
A crack of his fist against my jaw. His teeth bit into a flap of my chest’s flayed flesh, and he tore it back to hear me scream. I obliged.
“I’m sure you’ve enjoyed all the tortuous displays since your capture. Perhaps you would’ve made a great priest.”
“I am a great priest,” I retorted, “but not one of your mad god.”
“Only the ways of men are mad,” the youth said. He has studied well, and been wholly indoctrinated. A good boy. “God is sanity enforced.”
I grew bored of him. I relaxed my body to let the torture proceed. His words haunted my thoughts. There was a truth in them that grew. As he cut and tore at my limbs, pulling apart muscle and sinew, possibly to see the pieces of flesh that made up a heathen like me, I was brought to a wondrous revelation.
Christ was Satan! In fact, worse than any demon. His earthly kingdom set up to last centuries, to butcher the freedoms of humanity. Did not Christ himself avow to be the enemy of the world? Did not his Saint Paul travel the world to convert the heathen – first with words, then with the sword? A truly benevolent god would not enforce his philosophies on the unbeliever. Did not his Saint Peter deny him thrice, and was given the Holy Roman Empire as his reward? The Jews have no missionaries or evangelists. Only a Christian god – worse than the bloodiest Roman Caesar – could create an empire of blood-lust such as the one that spread its tendrils from Rome to the pagan world.
Christ was Satan. But he needed to call himself a corporeal god, a prophet of peace, in order to be worshiped by the masses. Few populist movements that eventually call themselves religions would be created around an avowed demon. How would you convert a nation to the worship of Satan without calling down fire and brimstone on your head from other god-fearing nations?
Only a great lie can create a great religion. I wept at the brilliance of it all!
If I was to choose a god of apocalypse, I needed to convert to Christ. “I convert!” I cried, my strained voice echoing around the stone walls of the cathedral. “Hail Christ – Lord of this Heathen Earth!”
The disciple’s blade halted for a moment. His face moved to mine, a smile of black teeth. “Well done. Jesus will accept you into His heavenly kingdom!”
For shame…I renounced my peaceful god on a bed of torture. Not to save me from the exquisite pain, but because I saw the truth of the world around me. The history handed down since Man first looked to the skies and proclaimed the existence of a deity was one prolonged blasphemy. Nothing would change, I feared, due to my conversion.
The Satanic Christians were a mighty empire – now with Rome defeated and converted – which would rule for millennia. A great reign that would outlast all other kingdoms – for those were merely headed by mortals, whereas the Christians were guided by the loving hand of an invisible god.
Jesus was god – and Satan was an excuse. A scapegoat on which to blame the sins of the holy. I saw it all clearly before my head was severed to join the apex of the hollow-eyed pyramid.
My ghost watches from the black chandelier, nestled amongst the candle light. The red priests usher new heathen in daily; I taste their fear, inhale their screams, am given vision by their blood. If only they could understand the blessing of the Christ, as I did at the end. I pray for their epiphany.
The ghosts of Christ grow in number, have become an army to usher the unconverted into the only heaven any human being can expect.
We wait for them all.

By Rob Bliss

i’ll live like a criminal although i’ve done no crime
black dope swirl / the bodies were found

people say she has the anatomy
of a mass murderer’s car
sizzling curves / smooth blood taste
referenced in many more lives before
we rode a train moving fast / described as spree killers
we’re committed, it’s clearly seen.

she’d do anything to hurt her relatives / suspicious

cops discovered the house and turned.
they were stabbed multiple times in film / shot and killed.

later we lived in that house.
those were moments you never forget.

her actual involvement in the states of ecstasy
explains who was and who was dating.
the gun is a magic wand, it makes
the annoying disappear.
she has a pop-culture sensibility.
she shot point blank.
some events portrayed by climaxing actors that evening:
“touch it she said”
the walls started vibrating
“see… it moves”
it was crawling like a paralytic baby / no progression
voided space

appearance in the background of the girl spree killer –
that woman who murdered a high school dropout.
she was married so she can hide
so she can get lost dreams fused with love and throw them outside
it was a distinctive time

a fallen classic in the bedroom
a numbness of existence
a written killer explained this plot as the film ran on.

a cause of hell for her
a husband gets cold having a limb cut

five beaver books were
found later in a re-enactment
feel the love of the pain lusters

she ate her spouse
in a stew of bones, fat, and planetary tattoos
emotion melded backwards to a point.
splice the vows surgically

boiled fleshy serenade slaughter

insane labored breathing
the touch of shallow cold sweaty breasts
no milk

baby
baby
the children gave her up to
walk acrid streets with
whispering toys for
company
mommy dreams of mommy

transient like love
clear like a touch
dead doll eyes followed me around
a corpse defined by white chalk arrows draw her in

wait for the screaming
a final test
dancing in front of crucifixes
a captive audience listening to scratchy lp’s on a close n’ play
disgusted children walk slowly back from school
afraid to go home
the late afternoon smells funny to them
asthmatic affections jacked up by ephedrine
the sodium lamps buzz on
as the sidewalk extrudes hands
that grab her feet.

By Peter Marra
http://www.angelferox.com

September 19, 1948

Nights with a blood moon the baby wouldn’t sleep at all. These nights I would get up in a trance fresh out of rem sleep and creep to his room in just a night gown. The winter air would bite at the tops of my feet and when I finally reached his crib side, his eyes glistened up at me in the blood moon light. These were the only nights he threw his fits. I would cradle him in my arms and walk to the window to see how bright the moon had cast its red glare across the tops of the frozen corn stalks. Strange to me such a farm crop could sparkle like red diamonds in a blood moon light out here in the middle of nowhere, if only their value really were that of diamonds. It could get us both off of this farm forever.
“God dammit woman! If you don’t shut that thing up, I’ll come shut BOTH of you the hell up!” My eyes squeezed themselves shut expecting a belt to the head but it was just a bark this time. A bark that was much worse than his bite but it came from afar. It would take him 6 minutes to get through the hall to the staircase up the stairs down the hall and finally to the babies room depending on how many beers he had had. If he had had more, it could take even longer for him to get to me.
That “thing” was his child too. The only “thing” in this old house was that thing yelling at me. That thing that tortures me daily and that thing that has kept me trapped on this farm for far too long. Anger and alcohol had mustered up a small frame of adrenaline to get him off his ass and up the stairs to attack me and his child. Adrenaline took my hand and helped me out the window with my baby in my arms. I sat my butt on the sill and swung my legs out into the bitter cold, wincing with from the iced rooftop on my feet. I lowered my butt down on top of the slanted roof and sat down. I clutched my crying baby to my chest as hard as I could without hurting him and sat indian style and away we went. Flying like the wind down the ice-slicked slanted roof and THUD! We landed in the snow safely. The second we landed is the second I leaped to my feet and ran the opposite direction of the window. As drunk as his eyes may have been, I couldn’t let him see my trail. I ran to the road where there wouldn’t be snow tracks, given we had some small traffic that day and it hadn’t been coming down hard or for long. I ran until my feet I couldn’t feel my feet anymore and stopped myself before I collapsed in the road. I gazed in front me as the blood red moon’s incandescence glimmered around a small cabin, pumping steam out of its chimney. My baby still cried. I staggered up the driveway with violet feet.
I threw myself and my crying child into the door with dead weight and slid down it into a sitting up position, staring at the grey clouds with gleaming stars poking through them. My limp head fell back against the door causing another knock on it. A blanket of warmth covered my baby and I when the door flew open and I fell into the doorway.
“Oh my! Oh my Lord! What do we have here?! My goodness my lady get in here! Come on let’s get you…” the woman had her hands under my armpits as she pulled my limp body next to the fire. “Oh your poor child! Let me just..” my eyes opened to a slit as she shut the door on the fierce winter blast.
“Please, my baby needs food, my husband..he..has..he has been..”
“He has been beating you for the last, what? 10 years? Keeping you trapped on this farm?” The woman’s wrinkly face stared down us. As she finished my sentence my eyes were like a deer caught in a spotlight.
“How did you..” My mouth hung open.
“Know?” She asked eerily. “I’ve known young lady. I’ve been expecting you. You see your husband and I keep two homes out here in this country. We have this little cabin in case you escaped, and that big old farmhouse where we’ll be raising your son!” The last thing I felt was the knife slice across my neck. My skin filleted open and the warm blood washed over me while my baby continued to cry.
By Cristina Jones

Mr Johnson closed the front door behind himself and stepped onto the garden path, while slipping his hands into his woolen gloves.
Upon completing this little, familiar task, his eyes quickly ran a lap of his small yet neat and tidy garden, his eyes came to a stop upon the now blooming daffodils, which were housed within the otherwise empty, earthen border which clung tightly onto the four sides of his even manicured lawn.
He smiled in admiration at the perfectly formed yellow petals which framed each of the tiny orange trumpets and also at the almost too perfect, succulent green stems, he then took a deep breath of the refreshing spring air and stepped forward towards the garden gate.
As he walked along the pavement, the birds singing merrily in the hedgerow across the road distracted him from his thoughts and to show his appreciation he joined them, with an ever so slightly out of tune, whistled melody.
He gave a smile and waved his right hand as he passed by No 5, to Mrs Thomas, who had just greeted him in the same fashion from her living room, where she was patiently cleaning the inside of her windows. Mr Johnson could not help but chuckle to himself as he saw a mound of net curtains draped over her left shoulder.
As he carried on up the road, he thought back to the previous Christmas, when he had been invited by the Thomas’s to call over for an hour on the Boxing Day evening. He had sat there with an ashtray gripped firmly in one hand, while a cigar-a gift from Mr Thomas-quickly smoked away its short life in his other hand. My, but he had been too scared to drop even a smidgen of ash upon Mrs Thomas’s carpet, she was after all, so very house-proud, yet what excellent company they had both been. He made a mental note to invite them both over for drinks sometime later in the week, then he stepped into the park.
The path through the park curved slightly to the left, as Mr Johnson traversed its rough, gravel surface he looked about himself.
The park was practically empty, save for a man-whom he did not recognize-and a small liver and white spaniel dog. He watched them as he walked, the man threw a pinkish ball which the spaniel ran after with abundant enthusiasm, usually catching the ball in its jaws after the fourth or fifth bounce, then with a happy trot, brought its prize proudly to its masters feet, where the energetic activity repeated itself over and over again, much to the dogs enjoyment.
Upon reaching the other side of the park, Mr Johnson crossed the slightly busy street and walked into his local newsagents.
“Good morning Mr Johnson!” called the shopkeeper as Mr Johnson approached the counter.
“Good morning to you Fred!” replied Mr Johnson with the content smile of someone meeting a favorable and constant acquaintance.
“The weather’s brightening up lovely, isn’t it?” yawned Fred as he dug under his counter for Mr Johnson’s daily paper.
“It certainly is, I think I just might go for a nice walk down by the river after lunch and feed those ever hungry ducks!” replied Mr Johnson as he pulled free his wallet from the inside pocket of his coat.
“Oh, and I’ll have 20 Woodbines, please Fred!” added Mr Johnson almost as an afterthought.
“Certainly sir!” answered Fred with a smile.
After the money and change had passed across the counter, they both wished each other a pleasant day and Mr Johnson left the shop.
He crossed the still slightly busy street and proceeded in through the gates of the park, but after four or five paces through the park gate Mr Johnson was suddenly overcome by a sneezing fit. After sneezing fifteen to twenty times, Mr Johnson decided that he had better sit down for a while to recover, so he started off towards the nearest bench, stopping every other step to once again sneeze.
He sat down upon the bench, placed an elbow on each knee, put his forehead upon his arms and let his eyes rest on the floor between his shoes.
The sneezing became more violent-not because he had sat down, for as soon as he had noticed the change, he had sat up, sat back, stood up but to no avail, so he had returned to his former position upon the bench-now some phlegm and other assorted unpleasantness started to run out of his nose.
He reached into his coat pocket for his handkerchief but was dismayed to discover that he had unfortunately neglected to bring it along.
There is nothing that I can do but sit here and wait for this annoying episode to pass, he mused miserably to himself.
There was soon quite a large puddle of slime between his shoes-which he had had to move further away from each other-and the jerking movements which the sneezing sent through him were getting more and more ferocious.
Soon his face started to ache with the strain and a tension was building at the back of his head. He was then consumed in a gigantic convulsion, his head flew up and back, then forward again, there was a painful ripping sensation in his face, followed by a slapping sound, as he this time coughed and vomited onto the floor.
He had kept his eyes closed tight during this last blast from the strange malady which had a hold of him and continued to keep them closed for a few moments longer as he tried to regain some posture.
He then realized that he had stopped sneezing, the tension at the back of his head was gone but the edges of his face-around his ears and jaw-were burning something awful, plus all the front of his face was now completely numb.
Well, at least all of that sneezing has stopped, he thought to himself as he opened his eyes. He nearly screamed, fear gripped him in a stranglehold, for there on the floor, in the middle of the puddle of mucus was a small pile of skin, flesh and blood.
Mr Johnson’s hands shot directly up to his face, where to his horror, he realized that his nose was no longer there. All that remained in its place was a long thin strip of bone, then one of his fingers brushed across his teeth, he lifted his head and felt the rest of his face with his trembling hands. His lips were also missing, along with chunks of flesh and skin from his chin and both of his cheeks. He now understood what the burning sensation around the edges of his face was, it was where the flesh had stopped falling away.
He felt like jumping up onto his feet and running, panic was soaring through his body at an intense speed such as he had never felt before, but he did not get up and run, he just sat there in the same position, staring down at the mess below him.
He could not make out any of his features within the puddle, his nose was not visible, neither were his lips, just clumps and lumps of flesh, pink and jelly like, almost like pork fat. There were also strips and patches of greyish white skin, as he watched, the blood started to run away from the pile of face flesh in trickles, through and over the many cracks and crevices in the path. It was almost as if the blood was as disgusted with the whole sickening affair as Mr Johnson was himself and was quickly leaving.
Mr Johnson was suddenly brought back to reality-from the self-consuming horror of his predicament-by a light panting sound approaching. He froze upon the bench, head lowered and thought to himself, I must not be seen like this, whatever happens, I must not be seen like this.
From his hunched up position, he soon saw the spotted muzzle of a dog approaching him directly from the front. Mr Johnson tried to say, Go Away! to the dog but he was unable to speak, he tried to force himself but the best that he could come out with was a stifled groan.
Upon hearing this the dog stopped in its tracks, did a half circle away from the bench, turned back around to face Mr Johnson, cocked its head inquisitively, then approached once more.
The dog came to a stop about two feet away from the bench, leaned forward and sniffed towards the mess at Mr Johnson’s feet, then lifted its head and started whimpering.
Mr Johnson was in complete and utter despair, he was unsure of what to do, although he quickly realized that he must somehow get rid of the dog, for what if the dog came and started lapping up his exiled face, as disgusting as the thought was, it was a strong possibility, for dogs will eat raw meat and that is exactly what Mr Johnson’s face had become.
He was getting more and more anxious, the longer the dog stayed where it was, this was his face upon the floor and no matter how hopeless any thought to a solution to his problem was, and he must still try to protect all which lay upon the floor before him. He kicked out his right foot and gave the dog a low growl, the dog paced back a few feet and stopped again, why won’t you just go away? Screamed Mr Johnson inside his mind.
“Lady, come on lady, fetch girl, good girl, go on fetch, that’s it!” hollered a voice from a distance somewhere off behind the dog.
The dog quickly disappeared, Mr Johnson reassured by the sound of distance in the man’s voice, slowly lifted his head until he could view the person whom he had just heard calling the dog. It was the same man and spaniel who Mr Johnson had observed in the park when he had first passed through on his way to the newsagents. Luckily the man was too far away to notice anything wrong at the bench, so Mr Johnson followed him and the dog with his eyes, his head still half lowered but watching all the same.
The dog and master were making their way quickly to a side entrance of the park, within the next minute or so they would have passed through it, Mr Johnson let out a sigh of relief.
He was now coming out of his state of shock, his face-or lack of it-was still numb but he was slowly becoming aware of the everyday sounds around him. He could hear the birds singing and chirping in the trees which were dotted around the park and he could also hear the traffic driving along the street off to his right.
I must try and do something, he thought to himself at last, I must somehow get medical help, he no longer wanted to remain unseen by passers-by, so he raised his head, straightened his back and looked about himself.
He could see no one in the park, the dog and master had by now completely disappeared through the park gate, he knew from his attempt at shouting at the dog that his voice was not working properly, so he quickly ruled out the possibility of calling for help to the near by street. He thought of waving his arms to attract attention to himself but refrained from using such drastic gesturing on account of the fact that the people who were walking to and fro along the street seemed to take no interest in looking into the park.
He sat there hopeless, he did not want to just get up and walk away from the bench, for he did not want to leave the small pile of facial debris unattended because another dog could come along and besides he could see some carrion crows in a distant horse chestnut tree. He could not let the mess upon the floor be tampered with until he found out whether any of it could be saved and somehow put back onto his face.
He shuddered as thoughts of the crows pecking at the puddle flew through his mind, he blinked his eyes several times and cringed until the unpleasant visions had finally disappeared.
He glanced down at his trousers, which were covered in blood, although they merely looked wet because they were of a dark colour to begin with. He reached his left hand up to his face again, it was still numb but there was no blood flowing, it was in fact soaked in blood yet it was not spurting out as it had been when the incident had first happened.
Just then he heard footsteps approaching him along the path to the left, he quickly glanced in that direction and saw a figure, at a short distance, coming towards him.
He recognized the figure and heaved a sigh of relief, it was Mrs Trump, the old midwife who lived a couple of doors away from his own house, no doubt she was on her way to the newsagents to collect her daily newspaper and to play those scratch cards which she was so fond of.
He immediately felt a rush of relief run through him, for Mrs Trump had been a midwife, she must surely be used to seeing blood and other messy bits, in fact Mr Johnson reasoned to himself-while waiting eagerly for her to draw nearer-that his case would in all possibility not even shock her very much, after all she must have seen far worse things in her time than what he was about to present her with.
A tear ran from one of his eyes, he would be saved, Mrs Trump would go and call for medical help, then return and do what she could for him, while they both waited for the ambulance to arrive.
When Mrs Trump had approached to about ten feet away, Mr Johnson stood up and took a step towards her, while holding both of his arms out before him, imploringly.
She stopped dead in her tracks for a moment, then advanced forwards with a noticeable uncertainty to her walk. When she was within about four or five paces from Mr Johnson she once again stood still but this time it had nothing to do with uncertainty, this time she looked afraid.
She dropped her handbag and flung both hands up to the left side of her chest, the color quickly left her face and she was sweating profusely while making strange choking and gurgling sounds.
Mr Johnson approached her just at the same moment as she dropped heavily onto her knees and rolled over onto her side. What on earth is going on, thought Mr Johnson to himself, he had expected the meeting to start off on a dramatic note but he had not been prepared for this.
Then it suddenly dawned upon him, Mrs Trump had retired from midwifery early because of heart problems, she must be having a heart attack he realized in disbelief.
He wanted to do something for her but he just couldn’t think of what to do, he ran back and fore from Mrs Trump to the bench several times trying to form a logical solution to this predicament, yet he could not, the longer he stayed here the more terrified he became. He stopped once more by Mrs Trump’s motionless body and saw that she had now stopped breathing, poor old Mrs Trump, he could now no longer do anything for her even if he were capable.
Every instinct in his body was screaming for him to flee, no good could come of him staying here, for the next person to walk through the park would discover Mrs Trump’s body and raise the alarm. When the people came running and saw Mrs Trump and then Mr Johnson’s face they would simply not understand what had happened and Mr Johnson could not possibly explain to them, for the bottom half of his face had fallen off and he could not speak.
He decided that the only sensible thing that he could do would be to try and get home, so he ran back to the bench, took the newspaper from his pocket and opened it to the middle pages. He laid the newspaper down upon the path a few inches away from the pile of slimy flesh and with his gloved fingers started to shovel the mess onto the paper. He had to stop on a few occasions because when he stuck his fingers into the bloody pile steam rose up out of its depth and wafted into his eyes and mouth, the taste which came with it was horrendous and each time his hand made contact with the flesh he felt his stomach rise up to his throat.
Eventually he completed his task, all that could be seen upon the floor was blood, puss and phlegm. He carefully wrapped up the slightly warm parcel and put it into his coat pocket, he gave a last glance at Mrs Trump’s prostrate body and then set off in the same direction that she had appeared from.
He traveled at an unsteady jog, although he kept straying to the right and had to keep turning back onto the path, he looked a bit like a drunk running to catch the off-license before it closed. His eyes scanned from left to right as he travelled in this uncertain fashion, looking for any signs of movement up ahead, he saw none, luckily no one had entered the park since Mrs Trump.
He could now see the park gate up ahead and as he pushed towards it he started to feel little tingles in his jaw. It would seem that the numbness which had been holding his face captive was slowly releasing its grip upon the prisoner. He panicked even more, for he knew that if he did not receive medical help soon all feeling would return to his face and he would be able to do nothing but roll around in agony.
At last he reached the park gate and grabbed violently onto the flaking black paint, which lay apathetically upon its cold metal, he waited until his breathing had slowed down, then walked through the gates and turned right towards his road.
He kept his head lowered as he walked, with his hands held above his eyes, as if he were trying to view something from afar. Every time that a vehicle drove past, he turned to his side, away from the road, and pretended to look about on the floor for something lost. Within a couple of minutes he had reached the first house in his row, he was nearly home, just ten houses to pass by and then he would be safe. To him each house was a dreadful event waiting to happen, when each house was behind him he whispered Amen inside his head.
As he passed by No 8 he could not believe his luck, there were no people walking upon the road and only three cars had passed him.
Unfortunately for Mr Johnson, his luck took a turn for the worse as he passed by No 6 and approached No 5, for there stood Mrs Thomas. She had obviously just finished cleaning the outside of her downstairs windows and was folding up a small aluminium stepladder.
“Hello, again Mr Johnson!” she called half over one shoulder as she turned to face him properly.
There was a scream, followed by a metal clattering sound as she dropped the stepladder.
Mr Johnson did not pause for a moment but rushed with more speed until he was at last at his own garden gate, he pushed himself through it, leaving it to swing as it wished behind him.
He pulled out his keys as he raced up the garden path, stumbling off and treading onto the daffodils as he went.
He reached the front door, put his key into the lock, pushed and opened the door in one swoop, pulled his keys free and slammed the door behind himself.
He entered the living room and went to the easy chair by the window, pulled the now soaking wet newspaper parcel from his pocket and placed it carefully upon the windowsill next to the telephone.
He ripped off his coat clumsily and flung it down upon the carpet, picked up the telephone handset, placed it down upon the windowsill next to the parcel and dialed 999.
He then sat down upon the easy chair to wait, he knew that the operator would send someone straight out to investigate even if he did not speak, for it was the emergency number and it was their policy.
As Mr Johnson sat in the easy chair, looking out of the window onto the road, he saw a crowd of spectators gathering by his garden wall. Mrs Thomas was right at the front of this gathering, pointing at Mr Johnson’s house and yelling hysterically for some of the people-some of which were fellow neighbors-to go and break down his door.
Luckily before Mrs Thomas’s request could be carried out, there came the sound of sirens and soon one police car followed by an ambulance pulled up outside the house.
As Mr Johnson sat in his easy chair, watching the police and ambulance men exit their vehicles, he made a mental note not to invite the Thomas’s over for drinks after all, then silently and at last, almost peacefully, Mr Johnson fell unconscious.

By Paul Tristram

My Frankenstein night light glows
feebly from across the room;
not enough, not nearly enough
to hold it back.

My mother is a fool.

Enfolded in white linen sheets,
I’m tucked into a darkness that
smothers me tighter than this
mere covering ever could.

He will come as he comes every night I tell her.

Mother fears for me; for she sees
the look in my face as I describe
what it looks like when it comes to visit.

Ruby red eyes set in a sunken hallowed form.
Slim slit of a smile cutting a grin
in leathery skin of the blackest cast.

Scritch…Scritch
Its jagged nails caress
the door frame of my closet from within.

It wants in.
It beckons me over from my bed.
It cajoles with its scratching;
like a morse code of bleakness and remorse.

It simply wants…a friend.
The journey has been long in its travels
through the night just to arrive at my closet door.

All good children deserve its visit…
All good children should taste of its
delicious fear it instills.

I open the door to my closet and greet my nighttime
friend with my own devilish grin.

It has only been a day, but their taste
has already passed from my lips and tongue.

I find I want more,
the more I travel the dark ways with him,
for I have come accustomed to the taste of
all the good little children.

By Philip Wardlow

http://philipwardlow.com/