She wore the damask face of an obelisk, albeit a pretty one. Her sharp features were accentuated by high cheekbones, crimson lips, and eyes so blue they almost looked purple. Her long hair was brunt sienna not quite brown, not quite red, yet both. It wasn’t auburn, it was a shade past it.  

She had a tall, lithe form and she stood against the counter of the gas station’s store with a Snickers clasped in her hand as if it were her only prayer. Her lips were pressed tightly together with an air of determination. He had the distinct feeling that she was not a woman to be crossed, yet he could not stop staring at her. He had never seen someone quite that beautiful before.  

She paid for her slight purchase and then walked out the door with an unknown purport. He didn’t want her to leave without getting a chance to say hello. He ran after her. “Wait, miss, did it hurt falling from heaven?” he blurted, his face reddening, as she laughed at him. 

“Wow.” 

“I’m sorry, that was pretty cheesy, wasn’t it?” 

“Just a bit,” she agreed.  

“Would you like to go out for a cup of coffee?”  

“I’d love to, but I can’t. My son has algebra homework that I have to help him with. It was nice meeting you. Maybe I’ll see you again.” 

“Maybe,” he frowned, watching her go. He felt like an idiot. Of course someone as beautiful as her would be married. With a kid? He had never been good with kids. Still, there was something about her that would make him try if given the chance. He doubted that he’d be that lucky. 

Women like that generally had no interest in men like him. Why should they? They were beautiful, and he was spectacularly average. Sure, he was cute, but that was what one wanted to be when they were six. He was well into his thirties. He had always wished he had been a pretty boy, then women like her would give him the time of day. 

It was a chance that she just used the boy as a cover to get away from him. It was her polite way of blowing him off, maybe. 

He snorted. He wouldn’t be surprised if it were. He made his way to his truck, nearly dropping his keys as she tapped him on the shoulder.  

“Hey!” 

“Hey?! Sorry, you scared me.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she laughed. “Not my intention. I just thought I’d give you my number, you’re kind of cute. My name is Janice by the way — my husband and I got divorced a year ago, pretty messy break-up, I haven’t really been looking . . .” She cut herself off. “Sorry, I’m blithering on like an idiot.” 

“Blither on all you want, I like watching your lips move,” he grinned. 

“Oh, hush you!” she laughed, playfully punching him on the arm. “If you would like to come over later, you should give me a call. I’d love to see you again . . .?” 

“Timothy.” 

“I’d love to see you again, Tim.” With that, she blew him a kiss, and drove off into her car.  

He blinked. This had to be some sort of cruel dream. He was never this lucky! Yet when he pinched himself, he found that he was awake. He grinned, he was glad that his truck had decided to kick out right there and he had gotten gas here. To be honest he rarely bought gas as this station despite it’s close locale to his home — it was generally twenty cents more expensive than the cheapest one and he was frugal. Okay, he was cheap, but money didn’t grow on trees. He did spend his hard earned cash on things that mattered, but he would rather not spend his entire live’s savings on gas if he didn’t have to.  

He flipped the keys in the ignition and drove off. He liked the way her lips had formed to say ‘Tim’. She hadn’t insisted upon calling him Timothy like his mother always did or his previous girlfriend Tamara had. He liked that.  

She was sure she was the feisty type, too, there was likely more scarlet than brown in those veins of hers.  

When he got home, he pulled the keys out of the ignition, walking to the door with an extra bounce in his step. He wrenched the mail out of the mailbox, and opened the door, letting his St. Bernard Ro out. Ro came back moments later, whining to be let in just as he was throwing dinner into the microwave. “Okay, buddy, hold on, old boy,” he muttered, opening the door. “I met a girl today, Ro, I think she could be good for us.” Ro wagged his tail. “She’s really pretty.” Ro wagged his tail and barked. “I’m not lying, she is.” Ro licked his face. He laughed. “Settle down, boy.” 

Later that night when he was watching t.v. he sat on the couch with Ro laying across his lap. He pulled out his cell and called Janice.  

Janice was elated to her from him and she gave him the directions to her house. It was all a little sudden, but he didn’t mind. He could use a distraction from his every day life. After Tamara had left him his life had been painted in varying shades of charcoal. He could use a bit of ivory to lessen out the black.  

Janice was pacing nervously when he got there. He saw her circling the floor, pacing like a dog. He wondered if there were something wrong. He knocked on the door, and saw her face light up like a Christmas tree. Maybe she was just as anxious as he was. He didn’t think that women as pretty as her got their nerves twisted in knots but evidently they did. 

“It’s so nice to see you again, Tim. My son Gabe is sleeping.” 

“Short for Gabriel?”  

“No, just Gabe,” she smiled. “I’m not particularly religious,” she explained. “I’ve never been to a church since my mother used to drag me there as a child.” 

“I see,” he said with a solemn nod. “I’m a heathen, I’ve never been.” 

She laughed. “You seem like a nice guy to me,” she winked. “Would you like something to drink?” 

“Do you have any coffee?” 

“Sure,” she smiled. “I’ll be right back, why don’t you sit down on the couch, and make yourself at home.” 

He hated when people said that. It wasn’t like anyone could. It was awkward being at someone’s house for the first time. 

He waited for what seemed ages, he wondered if Janice hadn’t fallen in the coffee pot.  

“Sorry about that,” she laughed, walking in. “Coffee maker had a mind of it’s own there, I thought it was breaking down on me.”

“Sorry you had to go through all that trouble on account of me.” 

“It was no trouble, at all,” she smiled.  

He hardly remembered falling asleep, but suddenly woke himself with a jarring nod. He blinked, looking around him. The lights were all turned out, Janice was nowhere to be found. This just struck him as very odd. He stood up from his spot on the couch, only to be thrown back down again. 

“Don’t resist, just let my mouth go where it wants to,” Janice crooned.  

He was more than happy to oblige.  

It wasn’t until something painful sung against the fabric of his throat, that he blinked. “What the hell was that?” he mumbled. 

Janice didn’t answer, she just bit down harder. 

“What the hell are you, a vampire?” he sneered. 

“Exactly,” she muttered, not removing her fangs from his throat. “Stop being such a pussy, and take the pain like a man,” she growled, kicking him hard in the crotch as he made an attempt to stand. “All men are the same. They think with the wrong head.”  

“You’re crazy.” 

“Am I? You’re the one that was going to let me a perfect stranger put my mouth where I wanted to. You’re messed up,” she informed him, slicing his abdomen open with her nails. 

He howled with pain. 

“Don’t worry, it will all be over soon.” She ripped his still beating heart out of his chest with one labored pull. She let him watch her observe it for a second before biting into it.  

He fell in a bloody heap at her feet.  

“Pathetic,” came a voice behind her. “My victim lasted longer than yours.” 

“Shut up, Gabe, before I rip your heart out, too.”

By Linda Crate

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linda-M-Crate/129813357119547

Pop. Pop. Pop.

That’s right it’s me, you found me you nasty fucker. Like what you see, don’t ya?  Come, c’mon closer, c’mon, I know you want to. Don’t be shy. Everybody wants a piece of me. But I’ve got to warn you if you think you’re one bad ass, I am twice as bad. I’m bai-yid to the bone.

If you’re looking for a story about some sad fool who finds redemption go read fucking Anne Rice, because you’re not going to find it here. There’s no redemption here.

I know right about know you’re wondering what’s going on, what the fuck did you get yourself into. Well, I’m gonna tell you, but not so fast. You know, baby, the best things come nice and slow, but yeah, not too slow, I hear you.

Right now they all think I’m dead, they think they offed, me, but you know better. There’s no killing me. I kill for the fun of it. You can’t kill someone who kills for the fun of it; all you can do is make them meaner.

I’ve been bad to the bone for a while now, when I was just a little doodad I collected bones, all kinds of bones, cow bones, bird bones, cat bones, dog bones. I lingered in their smooth feel and in the sultry idea that they held some poor soul together. The thought that they were once part of something living made all my joints sing. After the pop I’d hold them in my hands and I’d almost come in my pants- that blistering marrow of life.

You know bones are just the like fools they hold together; they’re strong and they’re weak at the same time. Bones break easy, in a snap. There’s nothing like the sound of the snap, the break and the pop, just like when I’m pulling one out of some suckers shoulder-the pop and the snap.

I wondered if that punk Rueben thought he was going to catch me in here. He was probably the only one who didn’t believe I was dead. That boy didn’t believe anything, which is why he always jumped the gun, but this time he was right.  But if he did come round here, I’d show him I’d pop his shoulder blade out. Snap crackle pop.

“Billy Billy, are you up? I haven’t got fucking time this morning. Get your ass out of bed or I ain’t lending you my car, you got me?”

“Shit!” My mother was at the door. I know what you’re thinking. Well, don’t because I’m still a bad ass. She kept banging. Then the door flung open. I could see the smoke fall out of her mouth like she was John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. No one takes a drag from a cigarette like my mother she looks so freakin’ bad, badder than me. So I got up, pulled my t-shirt down over my briefs. I tried to pull the door closed, but Mom was pushing against it.

I hollered, “Fuck, I’m not dressed yet, I’ll be right down.”

“You fucking better, Billy or you’re toast, and you better go to classes today. I swear this is your last chance.”

Then I could feel the door fall away in my hands. I was walking back to my bed, when I heard her knock again.

So,  I turned around. I was about to kick the damn door and then I heard her say, “I got some breakfast ready for you, hurry.”

It was a good thing she said that or I would have popped her. She was a smart Alice, watching her step like that. I love her and all but there was only so much I’d fucking take. Now, I wouldn’t really pop my mother, but you thought I might, didn’t ya? That’s because you never know what Billy is going to do.

People always talk about bones crunching but bones don’t crunch they snap and pop.

After I heard her steps fall down the stairs I opened my dresser. Hell, I didn’t care, I kept the special bones right in my top drawer. No one would ever believe this, what I had contained in this drawer, this was my prize. I picked up the jawbone and I held it held it near the window next to the dresser. The morning sun was pouring in. I should’ve feel guilt, remorse.  I felt nothing but chills. The sun blazed against the blistering marrow. My dick got hard. It can’t describe what it’s like to hold your kill in your hands, what’s inside your kill, it’s fucking insane.

I had to hurry before she came back up again. I threw a pair of jeans on. I’d shower whenever. I ran down the stairs and saw her  over the stove, cigarette dangling out of her mouth, flip-flops on her feet, house coat around her waist. I had an image of her standing over the stove the window opens and a man’s hands pushes through the glass and strangles the life out of her like she’s in a snuff film. I love the word snuff. She turned around and scooped some eggs onto a plate, cigarette still dangling out of her mouth. We didn’t say a word. We both sat down at the table and scooped the eggs into our mouths. I don’t know how she did it, but I don’t think her cigarette ever left her mouth till she finally put it out in her plate after she devoured every last drop of yellow that was on that dish.

Then she said, “Billy you can’t spend your life sleeping in your room. You can’t keep cutting classes. And for god sakes you need to find some more friends. We could use some extra hands around here.”

She took another drag from her cigarette. I didn’t even see her light the next one. She stood and she threw the dishes in the sink like they were old tires.

“Fuck, mom,” I said, “What about Reuben?”

“Reuben is a freak and when is the last time you saw Reuben? Say where has Reuben been lately?”

So I just said real quiet-like, “I’ve seen him recently, mom.” It was sort of true, like I cared about the damn truth. The truth is what you make it.

But she just cried back, “You are a liar like you’re good for nothing father. I suppose you saw him recently too.”

“Screw you, mom.” She knew I’d never seen my father. I should’ve popped her right then and there. If she wasn’t my mother I would have. At that moment I decided I had to think of more serious shit. I couldn’t keep getting sidetracked with my mom’s bullshit, or my schools bullshit, or with friend bullshit. I didn’t talk much at school anyway I just liked to watch, and wait.

She reached into her housecoat and threw the car keys on the table. “Remember no fucking around, Billy you have this car home right after school, and could you pick me up a carton of Marlboro? Tell Chester to put it on my tab.”

Then she turned around and walked out of the kitchen. The door swung behind her. I stared at the keys in my hand for a moment and thought about Reuben.

I suppose I don’t have to tell you I didn’t go anywhere near that school.

I stepped on the gas. I felt like flooring the son of a bitch, digging up some gravel, screeching like a lunatic. I tore down the road a bit. We were right off a highway. There are patches of woods all over the place near my house.  Soon I pulled over to the side of the road right near that old willow tree, the big one that always looks like it’s about to topple over.

Well, I just sat in the car and watched the sun hit the leaves. I thought about everything, and I thought about nothing. I thought about bones. I thought about school. That school was filled with bones. All kind of bones, old bones, young bones…live bones. Then I thought about Rueben. I ain’t going to tell you what I was thinking just yet. You’ll soon see.

I never did feel like talking. Not to the kids at school. They all thought they were better than me, but the thing, the one thing I was really afraid of was finding out that it was true. Sometimes I’d get confused, you know. I was naïve. I thought everyone was as honest as me, but they weren’t, they were all just lying sacks of bones, bones to play with, bones to keep.

Anyway, just beyond the tree and down aways there was a dirt road, and off to the side there was a large patch of brush between two big fucking oak trees. And between the trees, in the brush, was my latest prize. And the fucker deserved it. Remember, I told you before, he didn’t believe anything. Well let me enlighten you, I made a believer out of him.

I put the car into gear. And I slowly cruised down the road. You could hear the gravel spitting out under the rubber marking each spin of the wheels. Branches brushed against the side of the car as the wood got thicker. The sunlight clicked on and off like a shutter on an old camera. When I neared the first tree, I put the car in park.

I barely closed the door. It was so quiet. I’ve never heard such quiet, not even a god damned cricket.  I stepped through the brush. That’s when I caught the first glimpse of Reuben, his hands tied together. Ruben lying on the ground, well not lying, lying implies voluntary motion; he was fucking chained to the ground. But the first thing I saw that morning were his hands, tied, reaching like they were praying, I guess for some kind of help from somewhere, but Reuben wasn’t going to get help, not the kind of help he wanted.

I made sure he was good and secure when I tied him there. Good old Rueben’s chains were attached to a heavy block of wood I spread out on the ground the day before I lured him into the brush. I weighed that wood down with big old cinder blocks. Rueben wasn’t going anywhere. His hands were tied. His legs were tied. Hell, I would’ve tied his dick too, if I thought he could use it to run.

As I approached him I saw the sweat dripping down his neck, files buzzing round his head. But Rueben had bigger problems, because he only had one foot left. I popped his other foot yesterday, popped it, broke it, and then I fucking chopped it off. I was doing Reuben nice and slow. One day at a time. A bone a day keeps the blues away.

I just stood over him grinning for a few minutes. He must have thought I was one sick fucker, and I was, am.  I thought about tearing the tape from his mouth but I knew he was just going to whine like a little bitch after the first rip. Poor Reuben should have listened to me. It’s not like I didn’t warn him, and I didn’t warn everyone, little Rueben was special.

I knelt over him. You could hear the leaves brush away as I drew close to his left ear.

I started out in a whisper, “You didn’t believe me did you, Rueben?  What did I tell you? I told you I didn’t want to be your friend, that I didn’t want any damn friends, but you wouldn’t leave me alone. I told you I had secrets, secrets I couldn’t share with anyone. You thought I was fucking gay? Ha that is such small potatoes compared to this, ain’t it?”

Then I began to yell, “ain’t it!”

I became so excited; I felt my dick get hard again. I ripped the tape from his mouth. He winced  like a son of a bitch and then he screamed. I didn’t care. No one was going to hear him out there.

I said, “shut the fuck up Reuben.” Then I slapped him across the face, like I was a damn jailhouse screw.

His lips sort of clenched together and he cried,” I’m sorry, Billy, I’m sorry. Please just let me go!”

See what I mean by special? Most of them would tell me what a sick bastard I was but not Reuben he freakin’ apologized. Oh I knew what he was doing, I wasn’t a fool, but still it took a certain crazy to apologize in the position he found himself in. I think, Reuben was possibly crazier than yours truly. I knew his bones were going to be good, maybe the best. I brought his foot bone along to show it to him. Seeing is believing. I was going to wave it right in his sorry eyes.

I held his head and I said, “You’re not going anywhere, Rueben, sorry or not. What did I tell you? I told you to stay away from me!”

“I thought I could help you, “he sobbed out,” I just wanted to be your friend.”

“Who the fuck are you the Salvation Army? You’re just an eighteen year old punk. Oh you are going to die nice. You didn’t believe me. No matter what I said you didn’t believe me. You believe me now dontcha, Rueben?”

“Yes, Billy,” he said, and his eyes started to water like a little girl. It was making me crazy. I just wanted to pop every bone in his body right then and there. It was hot. I pulled on his hair and he began to scream. Then I dangled the foot bone before his eyes. I didn’t have a chance to clean it off real good yet. There were still some shreds of skin and blood dripping on the surface. I like to clean them off good, like my mom always says clean is mean.

Then I toyed with him a little. It’s all part of the game.

I said, smiling, “Hey Ruben how’d you like to play some football?”

I thought he was going to scream more, but he just stared at me like he was the saddest puppy in the world. I almost felt sorry for him, but his bones, the anticipation of what was to come drove any pity I was feeling into the farthest reaches of nowhere. It was fucking Miller time! This one was on me!

He cried out while his hands thrashed the chains against the wood,” if you let me go I won’t say a word, I swear, Billy.”

He didn’t understand. He thought I was worried about getting caught like this was some average crime. He didn’t get it. This was a freakin’ religious experience. This was nirvana. This was what we did. This was about the bones.

He began to thrash his hands harder against the plank. The sound of the chains sliding against the wood was making my temperature rise. I thought about Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I grabbed his hands in mine and pushed them harder against the wood. The sound of the metal was intense. He looked at me with such fear. I knew I had him then. He knew there was no going back.

He just cried “please, please, please!”

I grinned. “That’s what your best friend, Jason said please please please and now I keep his jawbone in the top drawer of my dresser. Yours is going right next to his. I’ll have a nasty pair.  I know everyone thought poor Jason got kidnapped, or ran away from home or just freaking disappeared into the ether, but you know better dontcha, Rueben?  You believe me when I say I have his jaw bone in my dresser draw, don’t ya?”

Finally, he said something normal. He swung his hands like a lunatic and he cried out “Fuck you, fuck you to hell and back you sick son of bitch!”

His red hair blazed under the sun. It was everything I wanted.

I ran my hands through his hair and whispered, “Look around you, Billy the woods are filled with my friends. I pointed toward the tree. You know who’s  buried right next to you beneath that tree, you got it, what’s left of Jason is right over there.”

That was it.  The look in his eyes said it all. He was terrified, more terrified than anyone I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of terror in the eyes, but his was the baddest.  That glorious moment had arrived. It was time to pop his jaw bone.

I grabbed the side of his head, and said, “if you have anything left to say you better say it now, because I’m taking your jawbone home with me today.”

He didn’t mouth a word. I told you he was special, but his hands; they thrashed and clawed against the wood as I placed my fingers in his mouth. I put them in and then I pulled down hard on his lower teeth. The sucker tried to bite me, but I was too quick, I got that splintery piece of wood between his uppers and lowers fast as a bullet. Then it was easy as piss. I just pulled down on that piece of wood hard hard as I could. My feet were grinding against the dirt. My whole body was in motion. Reuben was trying to move. He couldn’t go anywhere. I wondered what my mother would say if she knew. It was going to be awesome! Reuben tired to scream but his mouth was about to break.

Then, out of freakin’ nowhere I heard her, my mother hollering, “Billy Billy!”

She was standing over us. I couldn’t believe it. A cigarette dangled out of her mouth. Fire was in her eyes.

She went on, like a jack hammer. “Fuck you, Billy, just fuck you; you’ve seen Rueben recently? Really? Trying to pull fast one on me? You want some private stash or something? Forget about it .And what are you doing breaking his jawbone? What did I say before? I said we needed extra hands.”

I didn’t know what to say, I thought again about popping her. My hands were still jamming the wood down on Rueben’s jaw. He was squirming like a jellyfish. I could only imagine what was going through his head. Shit, that was enough to drive me insane. You know what got hard again.

She pulled me. She grabbed my hands and she pulled me away. The wood still stuck out of Reuben’s mouth. He peed in his pants

Then she pressed my hands against Rueben’s hands and she cried, “Like I said hands, Billy.”

Mama always gets what she wants. Someday I’ll probably pop her, though for right now, I snapped Billy’s hands back hard. He couldn’t scream, but the look in eyes said it all when the pop came. It was freakin’ brutal. I was bad to the bone. Bad to the bone.

I pulled my knife out and I began to chop his hands from his arms. I did the right one first. I did it fast, I could have ripped it off, it was so limp. My mother watched, puffing away slowly like she was at cocktail party. Rueben, he writhed like he was about to disintegrate. Tomorrow I’d be back for my lucky jawbone.

Still, my mother wouldn’t let up.

“I’ll bet you didn’t even pick up my cigarettes did you? This is going to stop, Billy. Tomorrow you’re going to class and you’re going to get your life in order, you hear me?”

She took a drag from her cigarette. The longest and coolest one I’ve ever seen. Life is crazy ain’t it? Like I told you from the start there’s no redemption here. There are just bones.

By Bruce Memblatt

The sky roared a combination of wind and thunder, coalescing into a deep, rumbling boom. Frank sneered up through the pouring rain and screamed right back.

He yanked at his ring of keys still stuck in his pocket, the jagged end of a key entangled with a stray thread, and even through the pounding rain he could hear the sound of the pocket tearing when the key finally yanked free.
By the time he could get his car door open his outfit, which happened to be one of his good suits, was quite thoroughly soaked.

To his right he glanced over at the still glowing lights coming from Mary’s living room, and if he stared long enough he could see the shadow of her moving back and forth.

Just ten minutes prior he’d been standing in that very living room. Mary had been but one in a long chain of poorly conceived relationships. The smirk she had given him when he suggested where their relationship should go was all it took to make his blood begin to burn.

Her list of reasons as to why he had been misguided in even suggesting such a thing only added additional insult at his expense.

His tires squealed before finding purchase and sending him into the darkness. Every time the anger was the same, that boiling, raw emotion that left him incapable of doing anything until it finally subsided. He knew what he wanted to do, and when he approached a car stopped at a red light he nearly hit the gas just to slam his car into the back of them and cause a little misery in someone else’s life.

Frank was, he often mused, too pragmatic for his own good, and could never ignore the future enough to truly let himself go in the moment. Even with how furious he was as his car flew over wet roads, his speed still never went above five over the speed limit.

He pulled to a stop at yet another red light. There were no cars coming from either direction, and yet the light just remained red, mocking him by the fact that he didn’t dare go before it changed.
And while he scanned the road for any other vehicle he happened to notice the old house on the corner, or more importantly, the girl ducking in the entrance.

She had looked like a teenager, her hair a dull blonde, her face too obscured for him to get a good look at her. But what he’d seen of her body, she had a good figure, and he couldn’t imagine her face was any worse.
The light had apparently turned green, and an asshole had managed to pull up behind him in order to let him know by blaring their horn. Frank felt his fingers clench on the wheel, but he drove on, making it only a block before he realized what house it was the girl had ducked into.

He took the next right and doubled back around until he was parked along a side road just a few houses down from the abandoned one on the corner.

And yes, he knew the house was abandoned. Everyone in the area knew about that house, which had become a bit of a thrill for the local teens. The place had been empty about eight years prior when Frank himself was finishing up his trek through high school.

She might’ve been the last in a larger group to pass through the door. She certainly had company of some kind in her little thrill seeking, but what if she didn’t? What if she had decided to go it alone for the bigger thrill?
And she’d been good looking from what he’d seen. She’d been the exact kind of girl Frank had always stared at from afar for so long as his life had existed.

Slowly he killed his engine and pulled himself out of the car. His clothes were already soaked so badly it didn’t really matter if they got a little worse.

Frank found himself trudging through the wet grass along the side of the road towards the old house, and then over the fence into the backyard where no one would be able to see him.

The glass on the back door was cracked in a way to allow a person to stick their hand through the hole and open the door should they be so inclined. Rather than enter he hunched down and stared through the hole into the dark kitchen. He could almost see her by the doorway, her silhouette the only thing visible to him, but that was more than enough.
She seemed to be surveying the room, her movements tense and cautious. One thing was for certain: he didn’t see anyone else with her. After about a minute she turned her head away from the room, and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.

The decision was made. It wasn’t enough to stop Frank’s heart from hammering away, nor did it stop his stomach from cramping up. Mary’s face was what made him reach through the door and click open the lock.

No one could possibly know this girl had snuck into the house, no one other then some friends of hers, and even if something did happen to her while she was hidden away from the world in this empty home, who would ever know it was Frank who had done it? The night would conceal his departure just as it had his entrance.

Floorboards creaked somewhere just around the corner of the hall. Frank glanced around but saw only darkness. He didn’t even see her silhouette as he crept down the dark hallway, only that continuous creak as feet moved slowly across the old, wooden floor.

The hall seemed to stretch on for farther than he would’ve thought, and suddenly he realized the boards had become silent. There were no footsteps anymore, just the steady drum of rain battering the roof up above. He took two more hesitant steps forward, and on the second one he felt the floor give out from under him.

A small, startled yelp was all he managed to utter before his face crash into what he knew was a step leading down. He tumbled down three more before he finally came to a finish just a few steps down from the bottom, his nose throbbing, his forehead bruised. Sharp pain pulsed through his right knee when he began to pull himself up.

For a few minutes he didn’t do anything but take up a seat on the steps and stare into the darkness of what he figured must be the basement. He found a smile creeping onto his face, and glanced around in search of the girl, not that he figured she was still anywhere near. She must’ve gone into the living room across from the hall rather than down it.
Now, after the commotion he’d raised, if she hadn’t already fled the place, she was probably running out. A short, small chuckle forced its way out of him, the laugh closer to a cry than anything else.

“You really are a fuck up,” Frank whispered to himself, and started to stand when he heard the voices.

Judging by the sound of them they were somewhere deeper within the home. There was an argument from the tones, a male and female yelling at each other, and Frank could swear it was from somewhere in the basement.

The floor at the bottom of the steps was carpeted, his eyes adjusted enough to the darkness to make out the white washed room he’d walked into, an old TV in the corner with a ratty sofa in front of it. Just a little farther in was a closed door, and behind it people were fighting.

Perhaps the girl hadn’t fled. His previous intentions weren’t what made him creep just a little closer to the door and press his ear against it.

He heard the deep thump before the girl cried out in pain. Frank pulled back from the door, cautious, his eyes darting to the stairs behind him.

As soon as he turned he heard the sound of the door behind him slamming open. His heart nearly stopped at the sound of the knob striking the drywall. He spun around to stare at the closed door, nothing different than it had been before, and yet he could hear the heavy footsteps of a large man walking across the carpet, even though Frank knew he was alone in the room.

“Can’t be,” he muttered, aware of the word already coming to him, the only word to explain the sounds.

Another scream, this one wet and throaty, nearly right next to him. He turned a full circle to take in the entire room only to confirm he was still alone. The loud thumps of someone getting hit repeatedly made Frank pull back until he realized his back was against the closed door.

The violence ended. A sick, gurgling cry silenced the rest of it. Only then did Frank notice the deep, labored breaths.
There was a single window built into the wall of the basement, located near the base of the stairs, and through it Frank could see the faint glow of a streetlight somewhere close by, along with the falling rain. And through that window a flash of lighting lit up the basement enough for Frank to see the image of a large man standing near the television in the corner, along with the body of a young girl, wet and shining in the light.

In those few seconds that the harsh glare filled the room Frank saw the man’s head turn towards him, saw the dark face taking him in, eyes nothing but black circles built into a pudgy face.

“You aren’t taking her away from me,” the man whispered, the voice not quite coming from the dark figure but from all around the room, and Frank saw the blood dripping from the man’s thick hands.

Frank tore open the door behind him and plunged into the darkness beyond. He prayed there was some other exit, something to get him away from the footsteps he could hear pounding down the hallway after him.

So far away from the window Frank’s vision dimmed, only the vague outline of walls and doors visible to him.

“Get out of my home,” the man roared, the voice coming from the ceiling, the walls, engulfing Frank like a living force.

He didn’t notice the wall marking the end of the hallway in time to stop from colliding with it. Frank managed to bring up his hands just in time, only to slam right through the thin sheet of white paper that had been put in place to hide what lay at the true end of the hallway.

This time Frank had his arms up to protect his face before he collided with the cement floor.

The vile stench forced Frank to pull back, and before he could help it he felt the stomach acid burning the back of his throat.

He had never been confronted with a stench so strong. He could almost feel it seeping into his pores, burning his eyes, soaking his clothes with filth.

There was no stopping what he knew he had to do next. Whatever had been following him was gone, Frank alone as he pulled the damp packet of matches from his pocket. The first three he tore loose were too soaked to do him any good, but the fourth sparked to life.

Lying near the wall to his left was the man he had seen only a dark visage of. A rusted shotgun remained clamped in his decaying fingers, his face lost to the shot that had ended his life.

The real sight lay on the other side of the room, where the battered, decaying corpse of a young girl had been gently put to rest in an open casket. Up above her a portrait was stuck on the wall, a painting done of a young blonde woman who Frank knew he had seen sneaking into the entrance of the house.

Years of decay and the violence of her passing removed whatever beauty had once existed in the corpse lying in the casket. At least there were no insects swarming over the corpses, which had left them sickeningly preserved for Frank to see.

Their names escaped him, but Frank still knew who they were. The man and his daughter had lived here around the time of Frank’s birth, when talk had always circulated about what the father had really been up to with the daughter he kept secreted away from the rest of the world, until the day both simply vanished, never to be seen again.
Frank had overheard from the older children at his school that most believed the two had simply left for another city, but there were other claims, such as those dealing with a night when the daughter had denied her father’s horrific advances.

And Frank himself, he briefly thought while standing in that room surrounded by the stink of death, had been intending quite a similar act when he had first entered this home.
He stumbled away from the torn wall, down the hallway, until he emerged into the room with the stairs, and the room the girl had lost her life in.

Frank couldn’t get his mind to slow until he had left through the kitchen door and back out into the cold rain. The world remained a dark blur up until Frank sat behind the wheel of his car.

He pulled his cell phone from the glove box. “You’ll call the police,” he told himself, “and tell them what you found, but you won’t say who you are. You’ll just tell them what you found.”

Yes, the idea sounded good. He’d let them know and let them remove that poor child from her improper burial. He’d let them free her from the fate something in him knew she suffered over and over again.

That was the right thing to do. Frank would do what was right. He was a good, upstanding citizen after all. He’d never broken any laws. Intentions didn’t mean anything. They didn’t say a single, goddamn thing about who he was as a person, he thought to himself. He hadn’t done anything to her.

That was all that mattered.

By Philip Roberts

http://www.philipmroberts.com

Parental Supervision

I dare you

to take one

and not the other

you know
even with one eye
I’ll see
everything you do,
every mistake
you make
and I’ll never
let you forget

do you have the balls

to just take one

can you live
with my
constant criticism,
my heated gaze
upon you
and your
inferior talents

I dare you

to take one

and leave me the other
to watch
in shame
while you ruin
the family legacy

come on son
you know
I let grandpa
keep one of his
so

can you handle
old dad
watching over your shoulder
as you stalk
your victims
my acid voice
when she almost
escapes
and laughter
so much laughter
when you can’t
get it up

its for
your own good
Junior

leave me one
so I can help you

you already
took my arms
and legs
so I can’t
steal them from you

at least
let me watch

She Took My Bones

She took the bones
from my arms
with tin snips
and a crowbar,
whiskey to
heighten her lust
but none
to numb
my pain.

She stood
in front of me
the blood
coating her face
like a child
putting on make-up
for the first time,
my skinless arms
in her grasp.

“Tell me you love me”
she whispered
while using
the bones of my hand
to jerk me off
and slicing
through my balls
with the snips.

Snorting blood
through my eyes
I growl
“You know I love you, baby”
and before
I pass out,
“but fuck you
and your foreplay.”

By Christopher Hivner
http://www.chrishivner.com

A hand was placed over his mouth and he was slobbering and breathing heavily into it. The hand was his own. Tears streamed down his face, and he tried desperately not to hyperventilate while pressed against the molding wall with water damaged floral paper, crinkling away into wrinkled sheets. The floorboards would have been nice wood about 50 years ago, now they sagged  under his weight, obviously infested with some type of parasite. But he couldn’t allow them to creak, oh god no, he couldn’t allow them to creak.

“I spy with my little eye . . . ” she sang in the gloom gray must and moth filled hallway. “Something about to die.”

**

The bar had been sparse when he arrived there earlier that night. He wanted to fuck someone. His dick was on a mission to get laid, and the nearly deserted public house caused him to swear and kick at one of the heavy wooden stools. The storm outside was keeping the good tail indoors and the roads were too treacherous to drive out to the next town to find a decent establishment. Then he saw her.

She was sitting in the bulky blue vinyl booth all alone, nursing a beer. Her honey blond hair fell sweetly over her fair flawless skin. Her barely exposed breasts might as well have had target signs painted on them, the way they peeked out of her baby pink top. He walked over and slid in across from her.

“You are way too gorgeous to be sitting alone in a bar like this on a night like this,” he smoothly interrupted her thoughts. She looked up from staring into the deep pool of amber ale and her soft gray eyes met his sharp brown ones.

“I really don’t feel like being hit on right now,” she said simply.

“Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t trying to hit on you,” he lied. “I just stopped here to wait the storm out and I saw you sitting all alone and well I’m all alone, I thought we could be alone together.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she whispered, a small smile starting to spread across her peach pouty mouth. She reached across the table and ruffled his shaggy black hair. “Are you really lonely, tiger?” she asked, in the same voice you’d use when talking to a puppy.

“Yeah, I am lonely and my name’s Brad.”

“Well, Brad, would you like to go back to my place for some tequila?”

“What about the storm?”

“Oh I live real close, we can take my truck, wouldn’t be more than 10 minutes in the rain,” she answered slyly.

“Do you live with anyone?”

“Nope,” she grinned. “I’m all by myself too.”

“Well then let’s get out of here and keep each other company in this nasty weather.” Brad’s cock started to twitch with an on coming erection at the thought of getting her out of that damp pink top and onto her warm bed, burying himself balls deep in what he imagined must be the tightest pussy this side of West Virginia.

“Ok, stud,” she laughed.

Brad realized, as they splashed through mud puddles in her black 4×4, that he hadn’t even asked for her name. Oh well, he thought and then astutely commented: “This is quite a truck for such a little girl”

“I like BIG things,” she responded suggestively.

They pulled up to a looming, decrepit farmhouse, with doors that looked as if they were barely hanging on by their rusted hinges. The roof was missing patches of shingles, and the pillars holding up the overhang of the porch seemed to be crumbling before their eyes.

“You live here?” Brad questioned ominously.

“Yep this is home,” she said proudly, as if they’d pulled up to a nice southern mansion.

She parked the truck and they ran to the front door in the pounding torrential downpour. Once inside, Brad really got a chance to grasp the reality of his situation. It smelled like mildew and decay with a potpourri overture to waft in the nostrils, leaving whoever inhaled it feeling instantly sick. There was another odor Brad couldn’t quite place, it reminded him of the time he’d accidentally left a raw rib eye wrapped in butcher paper  in his Jeep for two days. The meat had spoiled and the stench was so bad he could hardly drive the car to get it cleaned.

“The smell?” she asked, guessing from his facial contortions what he was thinking.

“It isn’t exactly pleasant . . ”

“Oh I know, I’m sorry, this place is a fixer upper. I think something might have died in the walls,” she explained. “But, I haven’t been able to find anything so!”

“Maybe you should try harder,” Brad murmured.

“Once we get a couple shots in us you won’t even be able to smell,” she crooned at him.

He almost believed her as he watched her ass shake while she sauntered off  to pour them some tequila in the kitchen.        She explicitly told him to stay put. She said the house was falling apart in some places and it would be dangerous to wander. Brad never listened to warnings like that, the fact that she’d given him one might have been the reason he slipped into the adjoining room in the first place.

To say the farmhouse was creepy would be like saying Fred Krueger had a slight skin condition. It was practically morbid with disuse and degradation. Brad noticed that he’d found himself in what was probably the living room. It was drearier there and a single lantern from the entrance hall barely illuminated the floor. He became suddenly aware that the smell was heavier in this room, it was positively putrid.

“Hey . . uh,” he again remembered that he didn’t know her name. “Hey, I think your dead animal problem is coming from this room,” he shouted at her in the kitchen, just as he glimpsed a large pile of blankets off to one corner.

“What?” she questioned back as he approached the pile and thought he saw it move a little.

He poked the blankets with the toe of his boot. There must be a mouse or something nesting in the folds, he thought. He reached out and pulled at the blanket, it had a wet sticky feel, then a giant rat scurried out of the heap. Brad started and his eyes followed the rat as it ran across the wood floor, then they turned back to the pile of blankets. Another pair of eyes stared up at him, instead of rumpled sheets. In fact, several pairs of eyes started up at him and he understood he wasn’t the only man in this house.

They were mutilated, and dead. That was about all Brad could tell in the darkness. Their faces were frozen in the fear the felt as the killing blow had been delivered. There were three of them, all shirtless, all appearing to have been thoroughly  stabbed. While he was still surveying the maniacal mess of human flesh, rotting in the corner of the girls decrepit house, something suddenly cut into his shoulder bone . He spun and tumbled backwards, reaching out to block the next flurry of downward motions with an enormous butcher’s blade. He grabbed her wrist and took her to the floor with him in his fall. She was on top, furiously waving her weapon and Brad threw her off of him and towards a brick fireplace. Her body connected with it, but, like a determined animal, she seemed unfazed and bounced back, crawling at him with her knife. Brad rolled over and kicked her in the face. He scrambled up and headed towards the entrance.

Reaching the door, he was hit with realization that ‘pouring them shots’ was code for locking him the fuck in. There was a huge chain padlock holding the front closed. After precious seconds of pulling uselessly on the door, which was sturdier than he had originally given it credit for, Brad dashed into the kitchen looking for a window. The windows were dressed with bars and the side door in the kitchen was actually made of steel. He heard her moving around the living room, taking her time now that she had him locked in and thinking like a scared rabbit. Circling back around he found a set of ancient precarious stairs and took them two at a time to a second level. He ducked into a random bedroom and pressed himself against the wall to catch his breath. He was not alone in the room.

Across the floor from him lay another corpse, its face turned towards him. The mouth was gaping open, or what would have been a mouth, the lips were cut away and the slits at the corners laid it open like grotesque jack-o-lantern. There was nothing where they eyes had been, there was no nose to speak of. It was a pumpkin head of a man, carved like an autumn squash. His torso had been split and he oozed rotting organs onto the floor. How many guys has this bitch killed, he thought in panic. Then he heard the stairs and he began to cry.

She was in the hallway singing, and he was in this bedroom trying to be silent and think through the terror haze. The windows up here had bars on them as well. She went silent for a moment, she hadn’t reached his room yet. Her steps were pacing, a big cat in cage waiting to be fed. I could try to take her by force, he thought, but his body stayed put as he cowered.

“I spy with my little eye, something about to die,” she screamed in the hallway.

He shivered in his corner against the wall, then he heard it, in the closet across the room. The door creaking open and a whisper emerging from its depths.

“I spy with my little eye something about to die,” it groaned and pushed the door open further.

She emerged in a white nightgown with black tangled hair en mass around her face, a face that was covered by a porcelain mask. She was army crawling towards him with a knife in her hand, whispering the same phrase over and over. Brad’s fear of the creature on the ground surpassed that of the murderous banshee in the hallway and he jumped to his feet and bolted out the door of the room and right into a long butcher’s knife to the belly.

“I spy with my little eye, something that’s about to die,” she smiled at him. “All this for pussy?”

She dug the blade in deeper, like the dick he wanted to shove in her wet hole. She pulled up, cutting the middle of him open, letting the maroon life gush out while he died at the end of her phallic symbol. She pushed him back, peeling him off the knife with a sickening suction, and walked into the room to find her sister still sitting on the ground, sniffing around the other dead boy. The blond girl laughed and looked back at the body of her victim.

“I spy with my little eye, another predictable guy.”

By Emily Smith-Miller

HELP SUPPORT CARNAGE’S OWN GILL HOFFS AND THE LOST CHILDREN! PUT AN END TO CHILD ABUSE!

http://the-lost-children.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-children-charity-anthology-now.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Lost-Children-A-Charity-Anthology/288186467872433

(Medium Close-up)

 The straight razor had three nicks in its blade. Maxine was upset by this, because it was her favorite razor and it hadn’t found a true purpose. True, she bought the razor 10 years ago, but she kept it stored in the top bureau drawer in her bedroom until it was needed. The only use it received was when she would gently remove it from its silk bag and admire the virgin steel and tortoise shell handle. Sometimes she would taste it very gently with her tongue, and then delicately polish away the saliva residue with the chamois she also kept in the same bureau drawer. Other times she would gently scrape it across her tongue to remove the thin layer of white coating that we all possess. The scraping sound as it dragged across her tongue could be heard only in her ears and nowhere else. It caused great pleasure inside her.

 “Soon. Very soon. Is she really going out with him?”

 Maxine looked in the mirror as she posed with the razor. She used it to trim some of the mahogany hair that fell across her brow. The blade reflected her pale pale skin in a manner that she considered quite stylish. She held it at a certain angle so she could study her eyes – the bluish purple color sometimes troubled her. Behind her she could see the old Roman Catholic Church across the street through her open window. The church hadn’t seen a congregation in years. A tree branch was growing out of the bell tower. The smell of stale eucharists made her gag. She gently folded the blade while still obsessing about the nicks. Maybe there was a way to fix it. Licking her lips, she placed the blade back in the bag, put the bag in the bureau drawer and gently closed the drawer.

 Passing by the mirror again she stopped and looked at her hair once more. Her overgrown shag was looking messy even with the trim she had just given her bangs. She was getting tired of the white skunk streak towards the front of her hairdo that nature had given her. Taking the black rattail comb she always carried in her back pants pocket she attempted to rearrange her hairstyle, but was dissatisfied with the results. Sooner or later she would have to leave the room and get a cut and dye-job. She put the comb in her back pocket and felt nauseous thinking of facing the hair stylist. There was always scissors and Clairol.

It was bedtime. She jumped on her twin bed, lay on her back and crossed her arms. Maxine never used sheets or blankets – she didn’t like the way they felt on her narcotized skin. “Perhaps to be colorblind… I need to look at the pictures.” She walked across the room and took a seat in front of the small table which held her laptop. As the machine started up she picked at the skin on her left wrist and followed the trail of tiny punctures up her arm. She usually covered the marks with makeup, but today she had forgotten. As usual, the website images of  plastic surgery procedures thrilled her, but after a few minutes, she grew bored and went back to bed leaving the laptop still powered on.

 As she lay there she thought and as she thought she undulated to rhythms only her and the church could taste.

Vision Voice Sound.

Time was zero. Sleep.

She awoke at 2 am.

Itch. Itch.

(Overhead shot).

La La La. Distant music through reverb.

She arose and unsteadily walked to the bureau, opened the first drawer, and took out the red box that was always right next to her razor. The room was warm but she was cold. Seated at the table, Maxine opened the box and removed the hypo. It was a glass syringe – very difficult to get nowadays. She had it because her parents worked in a hospital many years ago and they would steal supplies now and again. The last time she visited them she had palmed it and never came back.   Ten years ago. Gone.

Maxine got up, went to the sink, opened the medicine cabinet directly above and removed a spoon and a bottle of powder. After making the solution she went back to the table, filled up the syringe, and tied her left arm off with a ratty leather lace she had used for years. The obligations of ritual made her secure. When the vein was properly distended, she rammed the needle in and pulled the plunger back. The red velvet blossomed into the water and she pushed the plunger in pulled the plunger back out for a total of seven times had been reached. Always seven times. A black bang woosh rushed to her forehead when she released the tie-off. Another day without guilt.

When the first wave had subsided and all materials were put away she walked to the window and stared at the church across the street. Next door to the church was a rectory that was condemned by New York City many years ago. Looking through the rectory’s second floor window was a nude woman inserting two fingers into her vagina and then bringing them up to her mouth for a quick taste. After awhile the woman placed something in her mouth that looked fleshy to Maxine, but it might have been the solution in her veins distorting her vision. A timeless vision that was latching onto them was confusing and tight like the leather windows inside her head.

“I have to investigate.” Maxine threw cold water on her face, didn’t bother to dry it and rushed out the door. “It’s the middle of the night, shouldn’t be many people around. Why am I so horny? Fuck me.” She was in the hall but had to run back inside the apartment to get the razor since she always traveled with it. She also fixed her hair up a bit with the rattail. “Never know who you will meet.”

(Tracking shot)

When outside, she crossed the street to the rectory and stood right beneath the window: the woman was still there. Maxine could see that she was quite plain looking, yet arousing in a way that couldn’t be defined. She was quite evidently an albino, her yellow eyes burned holes in the night and were brighter than the sodium glare from the streetlight cut into the sky.

The owl that was perched on the top of the church cross collapsed and fell several stories down, down ending with a splat on the pavement. The blood and brains went squiggly between the cracks in the sidewalk and bunched up among the aggregate. A flat scene turned sideways.

The woman looked down at her, and then pointed to the church next door, as if to say that Maxine should go inside. Taking the cue, Maxine walked up the crumbling stone steps. Surprised that the door was open, she walked inside. The church was mostly dark except for one bare light bulb that was hanging on a frayed cord from the ceiling  in the vestibule. Looking beyond the entrance she could see that the main room was pitch black, but to her right she could hear scratching noises. She walked toward the noises and as she walked, she saw a faint stream of light appear from underneath an oak door. A light had been switched on and the door swung open. The woman was there full length, naked, negating all color and holding a chalice. She turned the chalice upside down to indicate it was empty, then sadly shook her head. “No more. No More.”

Maxine removed the razor from her back pocket and slowly sliced her left wrist, but not deeply. When she was finished she took a moment to lick the blade clean. She walked over to the woman and bled into the chalice. The woman smiled and drank deeply from the cup. Maxine smiled back and started to gently comb the woman’s hair with her beloved rattail. Maxine was still bleeding, so the woman ripped off a piece of Maxine’s t-shirt and gently made a tourniquet above the cut on the wrist; Maxine then went back to re-arranging the hairdo. “I should have gone to beauty school.”

As the albino woman drank they both realized it was time for a change. Maxine took the razor, placed it under her own chin and started to cut the skin. It stung at first – electric frizz sting- then the salty pain stopped. She slowly dragged the blade around her face, pausing only once, until it had come full circle stopping under her chin again. She motioned to the woman to help. The albino understood, took the razor and gently flayed the skin, severing purple muscle and connective tissue. She tenderly lifted off Maxine’s face and placed it over her own. Finally sated, the woman found words of gratitude.

“I love you.” She said. “Your eyes are a lovely violet – just like Liz Taylor. They make me so wet.”

Maxine laughed because she was touched and because her face looked stunning on her new friend and she also loved the contrast of her olive skin in comparison to the rest of  her companion’s skin.

It was now 4 am. The albino motioned for her to come further into the room. The room was nicely furnished with an old couch, a couple of chairs, and a small table. On the table was a purple lava lamp. Bubbles slowly floated in thick goo. A film was being projected without sound on one wall. Maxine couldn’t make out the film because blood was running into her eyes. She sat down on the couch and cried, the tears burning her newly exposed skin. The woman sat down next to her and gently pushed her head down into her lap and petted Maxine’s forehead as they both wept.

“I need another shot.”

“No more shots. Sleep while I sing. You’re my baby-baby.”

(Slowly pull back. Monotone albino songs as Maxine fades). 

They both shuddered about the erotic theory of relativity.

La La La.

By Peter Marra

www.angelferox.com

“Okay, I’m ready for bass.” The sound guy’s voice rang out through the stage right monitor.

Jason tentatively rode the B-string of his B.C. Rich Vortex 5-string, occasional hammering  directly on a fret and producing a sour note. He felt Daniel’s subtle glare as he stumbled through the check. It was obvious Jason wasn’t the best bass player, and he was quite aware of the fact, thus it was only natural that he hated sound checking. Misanthropy was his way of connecting with the kind of music and themes that piqued his interest, not his way of gaining anyone’s attention.

“Alright… Center guitar?”

Daniel broke into the intro of Slayer’s “Raining Blood”, much to the approval of the 30 or so metal-heads who had assembled around the small stage of The Liar’s Club. The crowd was way more modest than what Daniel had hoped for. As he wrapped up his check, the thought of it being the final turnout almost made his blood boil.

With a less subtle glare than before, Daniel turned to Jason. “I thought you got rid of all those fliers? Where the hell is everybody?”

“I did get rid of them.” Jason shrugged. “At least there’s some people here.”

“Right…” Daniel sneered and spat on the stage floor. He checked his mic once more then sat his guitar aside.

After their lead guitarist Derek checked his ESP 7-string, the sound guy’s voice rang out once more. “Okay, that’s good… Whenever you’re ready.”

It was time.

The lights dimmed in front of the stage and a curious half-moaning, half-screeching sound interposed with a tribal rhythm began to creep out of the front-of-house speakers. Their intro track was just long enough for them to all assemble on stage and don their instruments, where Daniel then rang out a low B-chord from his old, beat-up Jackson King V.

“We are Misanthropy from Tampa, Florida!” Daniel growled in the lowest, most sinister tone he could summon. “This first song is called ‘Laid To Waste’”.

Their opener was fast-paced and got to the point immediately. While Misanthropy did their best to thrash around and whip the small crowd into a frenzy, their efforts went for the most part unrewarded. A few of their fellow school mates halfheartedly bumped into each other in an effort to share in their friends’ enthusiasm, though most simply stood back from the stage and periodically bobbed their heads. As the band’s thirty-minute set wore on, their enthusiasm waned and the crowd, in turn, sat like statues with folded arms.

After their sixth song, the sound guy’s voice came through the monitor wedges. “You got one more song.”

Daniel wiped the sweat-soaked hair from his face and grabbed the mic stand. “Alright this is our last song. This one is called ‘By Demons Be Driven’… Thank you Liar’s Club!”

After a four-bar guitar intro, the band unleashed a barrage of blast-beat, drop-tune fueled mayhem. Daniel whipped his long hair around in a circle, headbanging viciously, while Jason and Derek swayed about and stared intently at their fingers moving like frantic spider legs up and down the frets. As the opening transitioned to the verse, Daniel strode forward and hunched in front of the mic.

“Stoke the flames of demonation… The vilest beast in all creation… Wrought in sin and born of fire… Do the deeds which I desire…” He roared in a guttural onslaught, as the song dropped into a stomping, half-time pre-chorus.

The words of his mother suddenly echoed in Daniel’s head. Promise him you won’t speak any of this nonsense, he thought.

The burden weighed on him more than he expected it to; it disrupted his focus and caused him to hit a cringe-worthy note that was nowhere near the key of the song. Daniel spat in disgust as he recovered from the gaffe. He belted out the chorus, forsaking any second thoughts.

“You are the Crown Prince of Inequity… Master of Wickedness I evoke thee… Vos dico vestri nomen vocare… Dicam nomini tuo Beliiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaal!!!!! ”

As Derek launched into the guitar solo, Daniel retreated to his cabinet where he had a small fan plugged in. The lights on stage were practically baking the young foursome, and it was beginning to take its toll. He trudged through the instrumental section, taking the much needed opportunity away from the mic to cool off. When the second verse approached, Daniel turned around to head back to the mic. He wouldn’t make it in time, however; he stood, instead, frozen in a mixed state of shock and awe.

The crowd had erupted into a hurricane of utter chaos. Bodies flew across the floor with no regard for life and limb, slamming into whatever they could and stomping on whatever they knocked down. One unfortunate boy jumped onto another’s back in an attempt to crowd-surf, but when a human wrecking-ball crashed into his would-be launcher, the boy plummeted ear-first onto the concrete. Daniel looked on while the boy blanched in shock at the sight of blood dripping from the side of his head.

Daniel stood there nearly motionless – fumbling through his parts without even screaming the second verse. The band broke into one last half-time riff, turning the pit into a violent sea of fists and elbows, before ringing out the final note. Daniel had planned a parting line in his head but was too lost in the anarchy in front of him. A serious brawl had broken out, and the door man was rushing over to break it up.

The band tore their gear down without incident, looking disheveled and out of sorts. After the gear was unloaded and set to the side, Daniel approached the bar to get some water. It didn’t take long for Jason to find him there, nearly shaking from the experience.

“Dude, we killed!” Jason said.

“That was incredible.” The words flew out of Daniel, soft and hurried. “It was like, man, they just flipped shit all at once. They felt… something; they felt -”

“… your energy,” a voice said to their right.

The man at the end of the bar was older and slightly out of place amidst the heavy metal patrons. He got up from his stool and approached the two boys. “They felt your energy, and it moved them. Things got kinda…” the corner of his mouth twitched, “… crazy, but that’s how kids are nowadays, right?”

Jason glanced at his vocalist, unsure of what to say. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Forgive me,” the man said, pulling a business card from his pocket. “My name’s Bill Isle. I’m with Six-Eight Management. I’m sorry Eirik couldn’t make it out.”

The look Daniel shot Jason said one thing and one thing only to him: Oh my God. This is Rites of Evocation’s manager.

“Oh it’s okay, we understand.” Daniel took the card and stared at it in mild disbelief before pocketing it. He kept his hand in the pocket, fingering the sharp edge of the card.

“I’ll be frank with you – you’re band is a little… green, shall we say. But you have potential, and you can clearly stir a crowd.” Mr. Isle flashed a demure grin.

Jason tentatively nodded, letting his silence do the speaking. He felt a strong tugging inside that told him to speak his mind but kept it subdued. Daniel, however, was less inclined.

“Yeah, I mean, we’re kinda new on the scene right now. We play a lot of shows though and people always go nuts like that.” Daniel tossed his black hair back. “It’s all about aggression, dominance; if someone gets hurt, that’s their problem. You gotta kill or be killed.”

Jason eyed his vocalist while Mr. Isle chuckled, noting Daniel’s unusually aggressive behavior. He felt a sickly tingle wash over his body. “I’m going to load my bass rig,” he said.

“Hold on,” Mr. Isle said, reaching out for him. His touch was warm and clammy. “I’d like to discuss the future of Misanthropy; to discuss your goals and whether I can be of service.”

“Absolutely,” Daniel replied. “We’ll go get the other guys and -”

“Hey,” Jason interrupted. “Excuse us for a moment.” He pulled Daniel aside. “I don’t know about this guy. I think we should research his agency before we talk to him.”

“How can talking hurt? Besides he knows Eirik – he’s obviously legit. You go be a pussy and do your research, I’m gonna be getting us signed.”

Jason felt that sickly tingle hasten into a wave of nausea. The urge to get out, and quick, was overwhelming. Loading the bass rig would have to wait. His house wasn’t far, and if he was getting ill anywhere, it would be there.

He flew home where he then retched without mercy. There hadn’t been much food in his gut; the soupy bile that lined his stomach was foul and acidic coming up. Jason heaved till there was nothing left, tore off his shirt, and staggered down the hall to his room, wondering what could have made his innards erupt that unexpectedly. His only wish was to dive head-first into bed, but there were more pressing matters.

Jason booted his laptop and fired up Google. He typed in “68 Management” and hit enter. Nothing of interest appeared. Jason cleared the text box, typed “Bill Isle”, and hit enter. No dice.

“This guy’s nobody.” He spoke aloud to himself.

Something came over Jason and prodded him to keep digging. Maybe it was the tingling feeling that had surfaced before and was now slowly creeping up his extremities. He highlighted the name and stared at it intently. His head was throbbing from the dry-heaves, but somehow he figured that combining the two terms would maybe yield a result. Jason searched once more, typing in “Bill Isle 68”. He hit the enter key.

The first line under the text box – right above the results – seemed to snatch the breath right out of his lungs.

Did you mean: Belial 68th?

Jason didn’t need to read any of the articles. He knew that Belial, one of four crown princes of Hell, was the 68th demon of the Lesser Key of Soloman and a wicked deceiver of men. Jason also knew the story of…

Oh God, no… I don’t want to die.

… the mage of Goetia that was tempted by Belial…

“Nobody, you say?” Daniel said from the shadows of the hallway. “You are wrong, my friend. Very wrong.” He slid under the doorway, cradling a long kitchen knife against his inner arm.

…The mage was told he could be risen to the pinnacle of wizardry in exchange for both his allegiance to Belial and the blood of… of…

… of a sacrifice.

Daniel lunged forward, flashing the knife in a sweeping, reverse-grip arc. He was a mere three inches away from slicing Jason’s throat open and would have done just that if not for catching the side of a practice amp. His sheer momentum sent the two of them to the floor in a tangled mess, with Daniel’s forehead butting Jason’s left eye as they hit the ground. Jason’s vision suffered an explosion of tiny lights, buzzing and dancing around like fire-flies.

Almost immediately after, he felt the cool, sharp steel of Daniel’s blade slice through the flesh of his stomach. The knife slowly twisted, cutting upward into Jason’s entrails and causing his body to spasm wildly. The sting of the initial puncture was nothing in comparison to the sensation of razor-sharp steel exploring his intestines. He would’ve wailed and pleaded in agony had he any manner of voice to do so.

“Accipe sacrificium Princeps Inferni. Accipe sacrificium consummat et voluntatem meam.” The words poured from Daniel’s mouth with a seductive rhythm. They strangely eased Jason’s struggle, and  almost allowed him to fade away completely. Almost, until he saw the familiar card that had slipped out of Daniel’s pocket.

A passage from his very first occult text leaped into his mind: The influence of the evoked can be banished when the medium of that influence is breached by a soul who is immune to the sway of the evoked.

Daniel withdrew the knife, and blood oozed freely from Jason’s carved-up belly. The blade painted a dark red sweep across his body; his tormentor stopping the blade tip as it reached Jason’s heaving chest. Jason plucked the business card from the floor next to him. He ripped it in half as Daniel poised to plunge the knife downward.

All at once, the dark lifelessness in Daniel’s eyes began to brighten. His hand trembled and eventually dropped the knife, as consciousness crashed down upon him. Jason’s bleeding, and soon-to-be lifeless body laid before him.

“Ohhhh, oh God… oh God…”

“God? … God isn’t here, boy.” Belial’s voice whispered behind him.

Daniel felt the demon’s hot breath on his neck. He dared not turned around. He didn’t have to; his eye caught the creature’s reflection in Jason’s dresser mirror. The once groomed visage of Bill Isle now sat perched behind him –  a vile, grizzly abomination with bulging bug-eyes and scaly flesh.

Please let me die here – while I have the strength… Daniel prayed to himself.

Belial smirked at him in the mirror.

“It’s not your time,” the demon whispered. He drew Daniel in close with a coarsely scaled hand. “There are more lessons in misanthropy for you yet.”

By Nicholas Cooke

They slid the tray under the door with nothing upon it but lizards and gizzards — raw. They never came in. They were afraid to look at you. It was a comfortable distance to be separated — from them — from the hazy remembrance of what you once were. 

Pressed against the dark and the cold, you often pretended you were sitting in a theater, miles away from yourself. The plot of this danse macabre served no purpose other than to ridicule the random cruelty and suffering you had once called a life.  

There’s nothing left for you now. Nothing left but decades of emptiness.

You can hear the wind, the morning chill still clinging to its breath as it beckons you to the pyre, on this, an uneasy dawn. You ate the salamanders, fiery red, and you can feel them now crawling through your veins as you watch the listless shadows on the avenue swell to an orchestral mass. The moon is still full and bright and hateful in the sky as you look out towards your destiny through iron bars and sweating stone. 

They are all there — the faces of the damned — staring back at you through the dimly lit eyes of the thousand lives you had long left behind. You wonder how many will weep for you in the hours you’ve left them. Not many, you imagine. You know them all too well. Their names are writ in blood on your heart and on your soul. They think they’ll be rid of you when you’re nothing but dust and ash. They think death can stop you, but it won’t. You’ll come for them eventually, all of them, before the breaking dawn.  Their little trinkets won’t save them. They know the truth, as close to the truth as they could ever get, clutching their superstitions tightly to their chests. You remember the last. The sheets, wrinkled, when she left her mark upon them, when she gasped into the cotton fibers for last time before her eyes went dead from the shame. The loss was always painful for you. You wanted her, for a time, and she wanted you, or rather, she wanted an idea she had of you. She said she wanted it. Said she wasn’t afraid. Said you were her dark angel and that she wanted to be devoured by the night. She was a child, her frailty concealed behind pouty red lips and fingernails painted black, but you weren’t bitter, even if her eagerness was disappointing. You told her it would end soon, that the shine would fade. Then you watched as the rain fell upon the moonlit blue-black of her skin, watched her feeble pride betray her, again, and then harder, and then again. She begged you to spare her body, but you wouldn’t. She was too needy. She’d never survive eternity. None of them could. Now the city of Athens burns in your dreams, a waking dream made heavy by the rusted iron clasped to your bruised ankles and wrists. 

You only ever bled them a little. What crime was there in that?

By Cheryl Anne Gardner

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