Yesteryear Fiction

Tales of Yesteryear

2013-03-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Yesteryear Fiction is a weekly fantasy genre magazine and part of Thunderune Publishing's free fiction lineup.

Though this magazine is currently closed to submissions, you can still read some great stories in the archives by picking an author name from the drop down menu on the right or by picking a date from the menu at the bottom of the page.

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3/6/13

2013-03-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Storm
By Christopher Grey

Her bare heels pattered through the wet wild grass as she barreled toward the entangled gateway of the Storm. Vines wrapped with undergrowth into a wall of webbed leaves growing upward like a river of foliage into the tall dew-capped canopy above.

Mother told her to stay away from the Storm, that only caravans guarded by the kings knights could pass, for there were dangers in those woods older than the trees themselves. Older than the village. Older than the kingdom. And those dangers cared not if she was a young child, cared not for her fiery nature. Cared not for anything at all, save to keep the Storm free from intruders.

But like most things, Mother was wrong. The Storm did care for her. It called her on evenings after the fires were out and the watchmen helped the pig farmers to rally their roaming livestock. It called to her on mornings when the southern mists would draw its frigid curtain from the bay. It called her in the winter, when the canopy looked more like the snow capped mountains of the eastern ridges. It called also in the summer when the only respite from the sea’s heat was beneath that ancient canopy.

But the Storm ate men. The village lost no less than fifty during the harvest alone. The king’s men ordered that the harvest trade be halted and so a seasons worth of gourds, barley and apples lay rotting in the fields.

But they didn't know the Storm like she did. She saw it in her dreams. And the people there, she called them Dandy Lions for their colors and the way they played, didn't mean to kill. That is, it wasn't in their nature, like it was with the King’s men. She never saw the tiny lords of the Storm rip open a woman's legs and use gauntlets to hold her cracked, bleeding face down as he tore his loins into her, like the Kings Men did with Mother. The Dandy Lions only loved and played. And when they saw the men, they would take their mystical fog to them. Their aromas would drive the men mad and they'd turn against one another. The Dandy Lions never killed--they let the men kill. For those aromas bring out the heart of men. The true nature of them. Is it the fault of the Storm that men know only death and murder?

On this morning, there was a decree. The watchmen told the village that the Storm would remain closed through the summer, for another a scout was lost that eve.

She knew the scout, his name was Randolf, and he was a beautiful man with crystal eyes. He had danced with her during the winter festival, and he was warm and chivalrous. Even Mother approved.

But Randolf was a man of the king. And his heart was exposed, as were all of the kings men. Yet, she couldn't believe it. Not him. Not dearest Randolf, with his tall stature and broad smile. With his polite bow and gentle kiss. Certainly not him.

So she needed to see the Dandy Lions and beg their mercy. See his safe return.

As she wiggled through the vines, the familiar damp scent of the storm cooled her senses. She tightly bound her robe and walked one bare foot in front of the other.

It took no time at all to see one. Its monarch wings flittered in the mist and so she sprinted after it. The run was long and brought her deep into the Storm before at last she arrived in a clearing with a circle of radiant mushrooms.

The Dandy Lions were there, swimming around the sleeping body of Randolf. Tiny fingers from pale bodies swarmed his naked skin.

“Please don’t—I know him.”

The voices sang in her mind as they always did, “He is not yours to save.”

“Please, I know him. He is not like the others.”

“Then you must make a trade.”

She frowned at them, feeling a cold terrible feeling in her stomach.

“I have nothing to trade.”

“It is the way it must be.”

She bit her lip and said softly, “I’ll find someone.”

“Then we shall wait.”

Running back to the village she saw the day proceed like any other. The watchmen patrolled. The farmers tended. The marketmen sold wares. Who would she choose? How was she to know who was a good man and he was a bad man?

She stood in the path to the Storm. Lost alone. Afraid.

And as the dawn air licked her face, she knew at once what she must do. Returning to the Dandy Lions she looked at her bare feet, not saying a word.

“Who did you bring?” They asked.

“Myself.”

“Child, you sacrifice yourself for this man?”

“It is not sacrifice. I know the nature of my heart.”

“Then come,” they beckoned her in haunted unity.

Without hesitation she stepped into the ring of mushrooms. At once Randolf woke and looked at her confused, disoriented.

The Dandy Lions crawled over her. She felt their tiny hands like insects envelop her skin, crawl into her dress and down her legs, into her mouth, across her cheeks, into her hair and then she slept.

When she woke she saw only flowers and the green beyond.

“Where am I?”

“You are home. And you are our mother.”

There were thousands. No, more. Each tiny body accentuated with beautiful wings and brilliant hair. She could see each and every one of them.

“Your mother?”

They said in unison, “None other can have a heart as this.”

And there she remained until one day, many kings later, when the Storm grew sick and every tree perished. And in her closing eyes she remembered her sacrifice and held no regret.

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2/27/13

2013-02-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Children of Passivity
By Ken Poyner

It is the wife’s job to replenish the monsters in the closet. Her balance is better than mine.

They get out at night and go roaming asunder like underclothes in a tornado. Mornings when we cannot get them all back in I am off running through the neighborhood in my shorts, looking for closet monsters, or even the leavings of monsters. You can track them by their scat. Or by the warmth they leave in morning air, like the impression an old fashioned fire place iron leaves in modern cloth.

I can occasionally round up one, seldom two, and the others are gone: superseded, vaporized in the early air of practicality and the silly science of ordinary sustenance.

And so the wife replenishes them. It does not matter the manner of monster. She stuffs the closet with any generic monster she can find: monsters escaped from other couples’ closets, itinerant monsters, monsters temporarily down on their luck, monsters caught unaware. She knows our tenuous humanity is the sum of our emotional fears. I think that is why I married her.

It is true, about our emotional fears. Look it up if you fail to believe me.

All day the closet monsters stay in place, playing cards or cribbage or listening to pornography on the small radio we let them keep. They gamble, tossing dice against the back wall where our dress shoes usually mingle and mate, cherishing their privacy. It is not a bad closet during the day. The door seals out all but a tinkering of light at the floor sweep, just a hint of contamination.

They know the drill. The wife and I drift into bed and, after any hair pin lustful gymnastics, pull the sheets up under our chins. We look like potatoes in aluminum foil, ready for the straggling coals that have already shot their best into the seduction of the main course. Our eyes are as wide as the headlights of container trucks: spots of reference that can both reveal and blind.

And then the tapping from the inside of the closet door begins. At first an occasional rap: and then an effervescent execution of mixed patterns, as constant as a point between two idle lines.

Usually, the wife fetches the first glass of water. Soon after, I get the second. And later it is a story, an overly drawn tale of when monsters were not relegated to the closet but had their own kingdoms and ate the bones of rivals, and trawled the night for Darwin’s rejected victims, and made blue smoke whenever they wanted to.

When stories end, even I am surprised these lustful shells can be tamed with a snack of pretzel sticks, or sour-cream-and-onion potato chips.

We do our best to be efficient keepers of monsters confined; yet, invariably, one or more slips out of the closet: distracted, one of us leaves the door ajar; or they wait for us to turn the ever glittery knob, and then as many of them flash through at the first crack of light as can crowd into line. There is no need to search for them in the over filled night. For all their mainstream ineffectiveness, being part of the night is what they are bred for, what still remains intact of their sad realms. They blend in like flies in a herd of geese migrating west: you see and hear the geese, you note that they are headed west, but you would not pick out a hitchhiking fly.

I don’t know why they want out. All of us - including the complete, emasculated tangle of them - feel better in possession of a closet full of diminished monsters. Any escape lessens us. If we cannot drag them back, the monsters themselves end up living under the Sixth Street bridge: trying to frighten bums out of a secondhand bag of fries; or spinning dark gravity behind a mother with a grocery sack, hoping for edible spillage. Now and then they apply at the relief organization and you might see a closet monster raking leaves, for not much more than the price of a lunch, outside of the girls’ winsome dorm at City College. I take them back when I can find them. I let the wife make them a good offer. We get them again to be sterile and happy, if only for just a while.

Don’t think it our charity. We at least have monsters in our closet, even if they are undeserving, boring, and taken to ambling off into the night. How many people have no monsters at all? They sleep secure in their beds, the pathetic evenness of their dreams as expected as waking the next morning, as expected as sleeping soundly the next night, as expected as the calculus of their mutually unremembered sex. Who could want that? At least for us there is hope that one day we will have a monster in the closet whose smile is just a bit more than bare testament to his mediocre disutility: that one day his escaping the closet will be no escape at all, but a method of relevance. Living in the possibility of that day makes this drudgery against ungrateful closet monsters worth every sleep abandoned minute of it, worth the investment of our effortlessly rare hope.

- - -
Ken Poyner is planning to do an e-book, “Constant Animals”, to most likely the eternal consternation of the literature illuminati. After 600+ poems and 60+ stories out there in the published world, he would like to clatter a few pans and fry a few bowling pins and perhaps neuter a brick wall, and doing an e-book might be the way to accomplish it.

2/20/13

2013-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Field of Endallah
By Josh Susie

Obsidian needed to replenish, and the need gnawed deep into her core. The sun’s rays that ran through her veins had waned and ceased to pulse. Her luminescent skin had darkened and her violet eyes had dimmed. Death would harvest her fear ridden soul by nightfall. She wasn’t ready to die.
Brushing a strand of blue hair out of her face, Obsidian peered at the gathering storm. Thunder cracked and lightning flashed in the boiling black mass that stretched beyond the horizon. Her hair billowed in the howling wind as sheets of rain soaked her. The sun was nowhere to be seen.
A rumbling growl echoed in the distance. The beasts were gaining. The creatures she had created to help save humanity had turned, and it was all her fault. They were gaining, yes, but she had neither the strength nor the will to face them.
With a deep breath, Obsidian closed her eyes. Everything stilled. Raindrops suspended midair, lighting froze spider-webbed across the sky. Exhaling, she disappeared.
In a helix of fog, she reappeared at a rippling lake. The storm still rumbled and drowned the sun. Frustrated, Obsidian breathed deep, closing her eyes. Again she was gone, leaving a swirl of dead leaves in her wake. She saw the same cloud-ridden sky atop a mountain, in a desert, and amidst a swamp. Each transfer drained her power. Each confirmed the storm’s encasement of the land.
At a river’s edge, Obsidian stood gazing at her reflection in the water. Her cheeks were hollow, eyes sunk, skin ash. Her knees quaked, muscles seared. The storm’s shadow burrowed into her blood. Death was near. With only enough energy for one more transport, Obsidian closed her eyes and thought of the Field of Endallah. It was where the gods had bestowed powers upon her, tasking her with the humanity-saving duty she had failed. If she was going to die, there seemed no better place than where she had received her power and was truly born. Then she would face the terrifying afterlife that awaited her.
A loud crack echoed in her ears and the planet’s forces tore at her skin. Obsidian fought tears of blood to keep her eyes closed. Her balance wavered. When everything calmed, she opened her bleeding eyes.
Below was the Field of Endallah, a valley blanketed with purple tulips that swayed in the breeze. The scent bit at Obsidian’s nose. She tried to grin but was too weak. As she tilted her head skyward the rain stopped. The sun fought to untangle the cloud’s web, but the obscurity was too thick.
With blurred vision, Obsidian looked back to the field of tulips and tried to capture the frail image in her mind’s eye, hoping it would soothe her in the afterlife.
With a wince, she knelt, reaching for one of the purple bulbs. Fire exploded through her muscles. Fighting the pain, she snapped the tulip from its stem. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled the flower’s mellow sweetness. It brought intoxicating childhood memories flooding into her mind. She remembered skipping down the dirt path to her home, cypresses lining each side and growing together overhead to form intricate, twisted knot work. She could still taste the saltiness of the ocean breeze on the coastal cliff where she had received her first kiss under a burnt orange and cherry blossom sky. She could even see the pulsing constellations dancing across a midsummer’s midnight sky. It was an era of innocence, freedom and beginnings. A time before she was chosen. A time before the beasts. A time before she had failed.
Obsidian opened her eyes. A dark figure drifted through the meadow. Tulip bulbs bowed to the ground as it passed. The figure dragged a scythe in one hand, grinding against the ground behind it. Obsidian glanced upward. The clouds thinned, but failed to part. The figure stalked closer. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move.
The air chilled and flowers crystallized, shattering under the scythe. Obsidian’s breath froze. Her eyes watered, but the tears iced at the corners of her eyelids. Another gnashing snarl cut through the breeze. Closing her eyes, Obsidian tried again to recall her past happiness, just one more memory before the end. Nothing came. When she opened her eyes the figure stood before her. She startled. Her breath left.
The figure was cloaked and hooded, its face hidden. It lifted the scythe and planted it next to itself. The metal was blood-rusted and nicked. She gazed deep into the hood and saw pure fright. The future: cold, violent and fierce. She knew then the world she once loved was gone forever. Happiness would never fill the land again. She saw the life that awaited her after death, a hell’s hell of burning flesh and torture. She could stay and try to fight the beasts, to try to right her wrongs, to try to bring peace and music back to the land. But Death’s premonition, hidden deep within its hood, showed the hopelessness of her desire.
A bony finger emerged from the cloak’s sleeve. Ash sifted into the air as it straightened at Obsidian.
“Choose,” boomed the voice, shattering the ice caked around Obsidian’s eyes.
Obsidian wanted desperately to help her people. To rebuild their world to what it once was. But failure would bring more pain and heartache than an eternity of slavery in the afterlife.
The beasts wailed again, shaking the ground at Obsidian’s feet. Weak, she collapsed. The thought of the end numbed her mind.
Death hefted the scythe, poised to pierce her soul.
The four-legged, wiry-haired beasts appeared in the distance, licking their lips, flesh-hungry.
Obsidian screamed a throaty, passionate, raw sound that defied everything she knew, everything she feared. For an instant, she was ready to die.
The beasts approached. The scythe dropped. The clouds parted.
And to Obsidian, the world disappeared in a burst of blinding light.

- - -
Josh Susie is a screenwriter and graduate of the American Film Institute. He has written over a dozen feature film scripts, television pilots, and short films that have received recognition from several competitions, including a Quarter Finalist placement for the Nicholl Fellowships.

2/13/13

2013-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tomb of Ashes
By Pathos

Wendeval crept silently through the thick overgrowth toward Farlane’s cottage. Dressed in a black cloak, he felt very much like an Angel of Death visiting misfortune upon an unsuspecting victim. He couldn’t see Victor, nor the two accompanying Ash Hounds, but before concerning himself over their whereabouts, he had to permanently silence Farlane and anyone else who could bear witness to his presence.
The white walls of the cottage were hidden beneath a thick coat of ivy, as if the building had intentionally camouflaged itself to evade Wendeval’s wrath. Emerging from the surrounding foliage, Wendeval glided towards the door like a shadow shifting beneath a moving light. There was no lock on the cabin’s door to impede entry; apparently the old recluse had never thought his home would be the target of burglary.
The interior of the cottage was fairly small with only a couple of rooms, making Wendeval immediately confident that Farlane would be his only quarry for the evening. With his sword drawn and ready to taste the old man’s blood, Wendeval burst into the bedroom, sending the startled Farlane scrambling from his bed and cornering himself against a wall. He was a small raisin of a human being, clearly in no position to offer resistance.
“Who are you?” Farlane demanded.
Without a word Wendeval removed the hood of his cloak. Farlane’s eyes expanded with terror. Though there was no mirror, Wendeval knew what caused the old man to tremble speechlessly at the sight. He was no longer human, his face was a crude mockery of its previous flesh form: grey and hairless, with gaping hollows for eyes, and a texture resembling an ancient statue laced with cracks. He was incapable of expression, wearing a permanent mask of apathy and callousness.
“Y-You’re trying to resurrect the Ash King,” Farlane managed after a series of horrified gasps.
Wendeval offered no verbal response, but rather thrust his blade into the chest of the old man unceremoniously. Farlane died with a single, hushed sigh, collapsing to the floor instantly. Wendeval walked back to the entrance.
“Victor!” he called.
Soon he saw another cloaked figure led by a pair of wolf-sized, undead hounds, specially altered to pick up the scent of the Ash King’s remains.
Fifty years prior the Ash King had fallen. He was nearly impossible to kill in his demonic form, his heart the only part of him that could be completely destroyed. That feat was accomplished by his slayers, but with dark sorcery the heart could be reconstructed. So to prevent his revival, they cut his body into 150 pieces, charging different individuals with guardianship of the remains. But the Ash King’s chief sorcerer, Nilith, had created the hounds to find his body parts, and had forged the hearts of fifty unwilling participants, including Wendeval and Victor, into a powerful replacement for his lord’s. He had recaptured 148 of the Ash King’s missing members, Farlane’s piece to be the 149th. But much to Nilith’s disgust, the final piece remained elusive. Whereas the previous parts had been detected almost immediately by the sorcerer’s altered canines, that single, damnable part had yet to be located.
Led by the Ash Hounds, Wendeval and Victor found a trick panel in the floor of Farlane’s cottage, underneath which a box was buried. After prying it open the duo found a fossilized ribcage.
“Alright, that’s it,” Victor said with great satisfaction, “so that leaves.. Which part as the elusive one?”
“The liver,” Wendeval responded.
“The Ash King’s liver,” Victor repeated reverently, “okay, sheriff, let’s get this back to Nilith, I’m sure he’ll be pleased.”
Wendeval hated when his fellow Ash Knights called him “sheriff”, though as they always did he had grown tired of protesting. It was unclear to him whether the reference to his former occupation was meant as a sign of respect or mockery. After grunting in agreement he pulled his hood back over his head and the two turned to leave. The hounds did not follow.
“What the? Stupid mutts are still sniffing around that loose panel,” Victor said.
Wendeval didn’t waste time with words, he returned to the spot and reexamined the hole. Brushing more dirt aside with his hands, he soon removed another wooden box, similar to the one in which they’d discovered the ribcage. Concealed within they found the Ash King’s liver, the 150th piece.
“Well I’ll be damned!” Victor said triumphantly.
“We all will most likely,” Wendeval responded, “so Farlane was guarding two pieces. Nobody guessed that the reason we had only found 149 locations was because two of them were in the same place.”
It was almost funny. Such a plausible possibility and yet neither Nilith nor one of the fifty Ash Knights had theorized it. Thus the moment of fate appeared to be nigh for the resurrection of the Ash King, and the receipt of the promised “power” that Nilith’s captives had been guaranteed if they aided with the revival. They had little choice, their hearts at the disposal of the dark sorcerer: either they agreed to be one of his knights, or their heart was cast into a pit of fire and their soul tormented eternally. Some had become excited about the reassembly of the Ash King, even zealous, others were dejected and only followed Nilith’s orders with great reluctance. Wendeval belonged to neither camp, remaining somewhat enigmatic to his peers.
“It’s hard to believe,” Victor mused, “we can have him reborn this very night. What do you think will happen?”
Wendeval cradled the liver in his hands, staring down at it. He was silent, paying no attention to his comrade. Nilith didn’t know that the liver could be obtained that night. He was a hard man to fool, but his ignorance in this circumstance created possibilities. Beautiful possibilities.
“Return the ribcage to Nilith,” he ordered, “it would be a shame to return this final piece in such an anticlimactic fashion.”
“What? You don’t want to return the liver?” Victor said disapprovingly.
“In due time,” Wendeval said, “the hounds will rediscover it in a day or so. And don’t tell anyone about this.”
“What the hell are you going to do with it, sheriff?” Victor asked.
“This will be my final opportunity to settle an old score,” Wendeval told him as he turned to walk away.

The Tomb of Ashes had a dark and grisly history. It had been the Ash King’s underground ceremonial chamber before his demise, located on the grounds where his palace, now a smoldering ruin, once stood. Wendeval was greeted by the familiar smell of roasting flesh and earthy decay that smothered the decrepit halls of the dark labyrinth as he entered. Effigies and engravings of men silently crying out in anguish lined the walls, carved out of charred, volcanic rock. Only a true sadist could appreciate such “art”, and look upon it for an extended period of time without getting sick to his stomach.
Wendeval approached the assembly room, a spacious, spherical stadium in which a never-ending waltz of shadows fluttered beneath the dim torchlight. He had taken longer than he had expected to complete his secret errand, and as he had feared, Nilith himself awaited him suspiciously.
Most of Nilith’s leathery face was hidden beneath his long, grey dreadlocks. He wore a robe which he had decorated with strings of beads and severed human fingers, which he displayed like medals of valor. He stood tall, erect, and had an aura of madness about him that kept his associates uneasy, serving as a reminder that he was an individual capable of anything.
“Welcome back, sheriff,” Nilith’s voice sounded like a sandstorm pounding against a pane of glass, “great work recovering our lord’s ribcage. I trust the acquisition went smoothly?”
“Yes,” Wendeval responded, “there were no problems.”
“Well, then I wonder why your companion returned several hours ago and yet you are just now sneaking back in here like a rat missing its curfew.”
A rat missing its curfew? As far as Wendeval knew rats didn’t have curfews. Nilith was every bit as insane as he was dangerous.
“I got lost,” he said dryly.
“I seriously doubt that,” the sorcerer cackled, “I heard you were a good hunter during your human life, sheriff. Good hunters know how to pick up trails, and the trails left by the filthy Ash Hounds are less than subtle.”
“Farlane’s house was within a mile of my former residence,” Wendeval looked down in shame, “I-I just wanted to check on my wife and kids. Make sure they’re doing okay without me..”
“Truly touching,” Nilith snarled, “but I gave you no permission to wander about on sentimental whims when our work is so near completion! I’m warning you sheriff, stay inside the tomb until I command you otherwise. This is not the time to fall out of my favor.”
Wendeval sadly shook his head and walked away. After returning to his chamber he chuckled slightly. The old sorcerer had bought his excuse. Now all he had to do was wait. It was only a matter of time.

Three days later, the news blew through the Tomb of Ashes like a victory trumpet. Wendeval, Victor, and two other Ash Knights stood in a chamber forming an informal semicircle around a burning pyre, their only source of light and warmth. The bustle could be heard throughout the catacombs as an unordinary air of jubilance filled its dark halls. Just as the three of them excluding Wendeval had their curiosity piqued and were about to leave to find the source of the commotion, another Ash Knight burst into their room, his breathless excitement starkly betraying his cold and lifeless facial features.
“We have found it!” he announced, “the final piece of the Ash King has been located!”
“Where is it?”
“Who is guarding it?”
“Why did it take so long to-”
“It is in the clutches of Aivik, the famous arctic warrior.”
Wendeval stared at the flames swirling around the pyre. But he could feel the eyes of his companions being cast upon him as they heard the name of the final guardian. Victor stared in intense silence while the others spoke.
“Aivik.. Isn’t that the man that you hated, sheriff? The ‘hero’?”
“My sworn enemy,” Wendeval told them.
“Why was he your enemy?”
“He was a vigilante,” Wendeval explained bitterly, “I was trying to maintain order under the banner of the law. He was becoming more popular than me, people hailing him as a ‘hero’ and ‘savior’ while he went behind our backs to dish out his own brand of justice. He should have stayed in the north, there is no place for him here.”
“You’re the one who stole his mask, aren’t you?”
“His mask, I never heard about that. What happened, sheriff?”
Wendeval should have refrained from enlightening them, but he was seething with renewed rage at the thought of Aivik. He couldn’t control himself.
“He had this enchanted mask of some sort,” he said, “it was the source of his power. Some artifact forged in the Arctic. When he wore it he became nearly invincible. Unbeatable in combat. And yes. I had it stolen. But it wasn’t enough. The mask didn’t work when I wore it, it only worked for those of northern blood. That’s my theory anyways. I wanted to crush Aivik, to humiliate him. But I was never able to.”
“Stripping him of his power seems like a victory to me.”
“It wasn’t enough!” Wendeval protested, “I wanted to see him thrown into prison to rot with the rest of the criminal bile. I even got a trial arranged, but the damned magistrates suddenly grew a conscience. They just didn’t have the hearts to throw into prison someone so noble and brave. It was a joke.”
Wendeval glanced at Victor. His partner had yet to speak, but his gaze pierced Wendeval with the utmost scrutiny.
“So are you going to volunteer to go after him?” one final question from his audience, “he has the final part of the Ash King. You could be the one to relieve him of it.”
“No, absolutely not,” Wendeval said, “I will have no part in this. Nilith will send a group after the part tonight. It will be settled soon enough.”
When the others had left, Victor finally spoke, “I don’t get it sheriff. You planted the Ash King’s liver in the home of Aivik, just to let others go and find it? You could have killed him right there, really, and been done with it. Why even involve the final remain in this?”
“You don’t understand,” Wendeval replied, “it’s better this way. You’ll see.”
Nilith sent five Ash Knights and five hounds to apprehend Aivik and recover the final piece that night. Even bereft of his mask and its power, Nilith knew the arctic warrior would make a formidable opponent, and wisely sent a larger number of assassins to make sure nothing would go wrong. The other forty-five knights gathered in the assembly hall and awaited their comrades return. Each individual was engulfed in their own thoughts, fears, and anticipations, but created a mutual silence and palpable sense of impatience as they stood in introspection.
After an eternity of being left in suspense, the five Ash Hounds returned unaccompanied. Confused whispers filled the room. This could not happen.. Unless the five Ash Knights had somehow been defeated, but that simply couldn’t be. Nilith responded with a monologue of angry curses, hurling a stone at the returning canines.
“So what do we do now?” one of the Ash Knights had the boldness to ask.
“We send more of you!” Nilith snapped, “but your dying weakens the heart of our lord. I don’t want to have to delay the ceremony one second to gather more hearts! I won’t have it!”
It was then that a noticeable chill bit through the room. The Ash Knights uniformly shuddered, and Nilith looked like he had just received a haymaker to the head, his eyes stunned yet intensely angry. Through every crease and crevice in the room emerged an icy mist, which slithered along the floor and ensnared it in frost. Wendeval backed up against the far wall of the room. Showtime.
A blue flash and a clap of thunder shook the room, and into their midst appeared a white, glowing warrior. His armor shimmered like crystallized ice, his braided beard and locks of hair entangled to form a single, savage mane, and on his face he wore a decorative mask, which flowed with energy like an enchanted, frozen dynamo. Aivik had arrived.
All of the Ash Knights, save Wendeval, drew their swords and charged the intruder. The arctic warrior cut down everyone in his wake, his mighty blade dashing them to pieces, leaving them crumbling to the ground like exploding lumps of coal and reducing them to piles of dust.
“Traitor!” Nilith shouted at Wendeval, irate at his inactivity whilst the rest of the knights fell.
But it was too late for the old sorcerer. While a wily and evasive foe when fighting on his terms, Nilith was not skilled at hand to hand combat. Without a proper method of defense, he died the death of a cowering fool, caught off guard and hapless. After Nilith had fallen, Aivik approached Wendeval, who was casually leaning against a stone column, his sword untouched within his scabbard.
“And you must be my secret benefactor,” Aivik’s voice had the power of an avalanche, “Sheriff Wendeval.”
“Brilliant work, detective,” Wendeval sneered.
“Did you really think you could save yourself by returning my mask, despite setting me up as a target for your little friends?”
“On the contrary, Aivik, my time has come,” Wendeval drew his sword and half heartedly chucked it at the ground. He folded his arms submissively.
“Very noble of you, sheriff,” Aivik said, “sacrificing yourself to prevent the resurrection of the Ash King.”
“You were the only one who could stop this from happening,” Wendeval admitted, “my jealousy has gotten in the way of true justice for long enough. I had to fall this far to realize that.”
“The ironic thing about this is that if you hadn’t taken my mask to begin with, I probably would have been able to hunt down the Ash King’s court jester,” Aivik motioned to the body of Nilith, “and you would have been unharmed by this dark sorcery.”
“I certainly won’t miss your self-righteous egotism,” Wendeval sighed.
“I’m sure you won’t.”
“Just remember one thing after you slay me,” Wendeval said, “none of us will be completely free of this curse unless you destroy the Ash King’s heart. And do something with the rest of his remains so that none of this can reoccur, for heaven’s sake!”
“Don’t worry sheriff, your jurisdiction is in good hands now,” Aivik said, “consider yourself vindicated.”
“Tell my family I still love them,” Wendeval said, “and tell Magistrate Vargas he’s a jack-ass.”
With that Wendeval bowed his head and waited for the final blow. Justice had finally been served, balance reasserted. And for a man who had lived a life of corruption and envy, he couldn’t imagine dying under better circumstances.

- - -
Pathos is an aspiring fiction author who has a bizarre and romantic fascination with tragedy and despair. Pathos has previously been published once before in "Dark Gothic Resurrected" magazine.

2/6/13

2013-02-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Curious Takahashis
By David Edward Nell

Hiroshi searched all the rooms in the house in a bid to find his daughter. She was missing, hiding somewhere. Then he remembered her old refuge she would always go to during her temper tantrums. So he went to the backyard. There she was on the roof's edge, swinging her legs.

“Come down this instant,” Hiroshi demanded. “Or must I use my sling?”

“Why can't I do what I want for once?” Mori whined.

“Because I say so.”

“I'll just stay here forever, then.”

“Listen,” he tried to reason, “some day you'll understand. But this is tradition. Every member of the Takahashi clan must shed fear to become Devil King warriors. Our services are in demand from all the bureaucrats of the lands. If you want to live here, you will follow orders.” A stomp asserted how serious he was.

“As if I care. I'll go to another clan,” she said. “Maybe I'll even get a boy.”

“No, you won't.”

“The nobles can get some other fools to do their dirty work, fools like you.”

“Where'd you learn to talk like that? Don't cost the family with your selfishness.”

“What family? Mother is dead, and you know why? Because of fighting. So stupid.”

Taken aback, Hiroshi turned away to sob into his hands. Mori kept on watching him, and couldn't anymore when the guilt ate into her. She leapt off the roof to comfort him, only to be pinched by the ear.

“Ow! Why be so cold?”

“Who's the fool now?” he said, dragging her to a trek on the main road.

“I can't believe you. This is embarrassing.”

“It's even more embarrassing for my blood to be so ridiculous. Who raised this coward? I've taught you much, Mori, and you knew of this day. Stop complaining and reserve your fight for the beast.”

“I hate you,” she barked in response.

“Anger is good. Harvest this emotion for the ritual.”

“What if I die?”
“The demon's chained.”

“But still...”

“I wish you'd be braver, and quiet.”

“There are other ways to shed fear, aren't there?”

“Now you're trying to play tricks. No, young lady, it's because of the Devil King initiation, which has been enacted for ages, that the Takahashis are a special breed.”

“Like drunk Uncle Ninawa?”

“Really, you deserve a smack. And he doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, okay?”

She smiled to herself, but lost it when the end of the road was reached and they were standing at the entrance of a cave embedded at the posterior of a small mountain. Quickly, he forced her in before she could object, and Mori wasn't sure how she was able to keep walking with those jittery legs. She couldn't see anything until her father lit a torch. Afterwards, she was staring right at the demon, and it at her. The horned beast was powerless, however, lying splayed on a slab of stone.

“I'm going to die,” she moaned.

“Arm your sword,” Hiroshi said.

Mori slipped out her katana. “O-okay.”

“One clean cut,” he added.

She raised the blade in the air as her father held the demon's arm.

“Right in the middle of the wrist,” he said. “Go on.”

She let out a scream. Her eyes went wide and primal. The sword came down, cut the air, struck rock, and the demon's appendage plopped off and rolled to her feet. And her trembles turned into giggles.

“Doesn't it bleed?” she asked.
“Evil bleeds only sin.”

“Little bitch,” the demon spat and stifled a laugh, “I curse you.”

“You can't curse me, monster. I am now your king, superior to the hellborn.”

Hiroshi rubbed his daughter's scalp, beaming proudly. “I knew you could do it.”

“Thank you, Father. So sorry for rebelling.”

“Don't worry. Aren't you glad it's over?”

“Very much so, but I realize this is only the beginning of my warrior days. I have to say, I think I've fallen in love with my sword.”

“That's my Mori.”

“Ha!” the demon said. “Silly girl, you will be as much a warrior as your mother is a corpse in the grave.”

Hiroshi threw the demon a strange look, as if to reprimand him. His finger went to his lip to hush. “Ignore the idiot,” he told his daughter. When he reached out to her, she resisted, and then it was too late. She wasn't paying attention. Mori unsheathed her katana again, positioned it by her hip at the ready, and charged. The blade cleanly pierced the demon's side, and retracted as quickly as it had entered. Blood began spilling on the rock.

The demon's voice changed, became a mortal's pained howl. “Enough...enough...with this act.”

“What did you do, Mori?” Hiroshi snagged the sword from her grasp, her mouth agape.

“Brother, just tell her the truth.” The demon pulled off its face, nothing more than a mask.

Mori fell to her knees, Hiroshi as well, in defeat.

“I'm so sorry, Uncle,” she said, breaking out in tears.

“No, don't apologize. This...this is your first kill as a Devil King. I am...honored.” Uncle Ninawa went pale and lifeless, loosing his last smile. And the father and his daughter wallowed in minutes of misery, mourning, praying for forgiveness. Finally, Hiroshi got up, and he was the only one with strength that moment. He touched his brother's face, covered those stunned, dead eyes, and saw the flask of Sake hidden on the other side of the rock.

- - -
Having spent years trying to evade the Equestrian mafia, David Edward Nell now writes from a nameless hideout in Cape Town, South Africa. By night, disguised as numerous pop culture figures, he can usually be found scouring the African plains for loving. Stalk him at http://davidedwardnell.blogspot.com, but keep this a secret.

1/30/13

2013-01-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

Amongst The Lilies
By Susan Dale

Onwards, he moved while staying beside the river. The river seemed a magnet of life; ever drawing other lives to it. Yet shaky from observing and listening to the firefights, the river was David’s comfort; also his sorrow, ‘all those deaths, so much suffering.’
Letting go of his controls, he was following time to wherever it would take him. Now into gray moments that emptied into a thin blue before sunrise, and the sun-struck impulses of a new day. Birds soared around a mountain pass; an ascending sun caught the pale feathers beneath their wings. It caught too the undersides of tree’ leaves and the silvery currents of a mountain stream. Winds picking up loose soil, whirled it through the air in pastel dances; all part of a new morning.
‘Morning celebrations, like streamers in the winds.’ His spirits rose to fly with the silver streaks around him. Entering his world then, voices of innocence; children’s voices singing songs of peace. He followed the songs to see a parade of children marching on a mountain path; the mountain being bathed in the fires of a rising sun. Wearing white clothes and flower necklaces, the young marchers carried lit candles and moved to follow one in unison.
David‘s heart skipped beats. He thought, ‘doves of peace, and I so yearn for peace.’
Hurriedly, hopefully he ran towards the parade of children. He called out for them to wait. “Wait, wait, wait” from one mountain to another.
But before he could join up with the young pilgrims, they circled a pass that took them south and out of sight. Already, the fires of sun-rise were dimming into glowing embers. Winds whooshed from around the mountain to carry off the last traces of sunrise dragging his feet when he heard an exuberant waterfall splashing down the mountain; its liquid song washed away his disappointment.
He looked to see the river waters changing courses. ‘taking another trip; this time beneath the earth to become an underground river.’
The chameleon river traveled underground for over a mile before it reappeared above the ground; this time as a thin stream. Sunrays falling into the stream colored the waters apricot. His eyes settled on the waxy lilies floating back and forth in the sunny stream. He watched them drift through the waters, and he drifted with them even when he saw his wife, Rita, floating amongst them.
‘Like Ophelia with water lilies surrounding her,’ was his first thought; matter-of-fact and instantaneous___ before the agony of he and Rita hit him full-force in the gut. He jumped in the stream to follow her. Behind her heavy hair; remembering it falling to wrap around her shoulders, falling to wrap around the two of them in the throes of love.
‘But if she is floating downstream, why is her face being mirrored back to me in the waters? Her face; that wonderful face of old masters’ beauty; Botticelli features, crimsons touching her cheekbones. Eyes of Renoir’s blue-green. An elegant face; a face contradictory with the sensuality of her thick mouth, the cleft in her chin.
And all of that beauty maimed by the scorn flashing in her eyes for most everyone, but me. For me there was adoration that later turned to desperation. Pleas in her voice when she was telling me she was pregnant. Voice catching on her words; soft, quick words. She kept losing the words, tripping over them. So very difficult for Rita to ask without saying the words ’help me.’
She didn’t know how to ask; no practice. Asking wasn’t part of her. She had everything she could want and so much more … unbelievable beauty, the prestige and wealth of being the only child of a renowned heart surgeon. An abundance of good fortune, hers from birth. She got what she wanted simply by desiring it.
Moreover, Josh would have gone to the ends of the earth for her, and gone in chains. However, she didn’t want Josh. She wanted me. I didn’t want any of it except her adoration and the lovemaking. What resulted from our passionate intimacies, I surely did not want. Not the baby: not a wedding ring. Commitment? Sticky; scary to me. My family, my security gone when I was yet a boy. Stuck in a trailer with my stepmother and her brood. Closed in, could not escape the walls of Karen’s shoddy life. The twins continually whining, Rick’s adolescent moods. Running to get away. Staying away whenever I could manage it, so that when Rita told me that she was pregnant, I fought like a wild thing the together-ness for which she was yearning. What my life had been up to then decreed that I would be unable to face commitment.’
He felt a pang in his heart; it hurt to accept the truths of who he was. ‘And this is what I live with: Incapable of commitment, I am incomplete. Can never be complete. Abandoned Rita, as my mother and father abandoned me by their’ dying. And isn’t that the way it works; the gene pool and/or the biblical scourge? The sins of the father pass from one generation to the next.’
Rita amongst the water lilies, in a dream state floating down the stream of memories, swaying amongst lily’ leaves. Downstream, an eidolon of bright colors. Versus, the lonely colors of his life. Mirrored back to him in the glassy waters colors darkened with regrets; shadowed with his shadowy life. Colors blurred, flying by in the currents. Always on the run, hanging on to no one. Rushing along. No commitments to nobody. Colors solitary, sinking with sadness; going down, drifting away. Pink and yellow, white too, the water lilies floating Rita along.
Slowly did he lift his head. More slowly did he step out of the river narrowed into a stream of memories. ‘I meet tomorrows here, but couldn’t change melting arvin’s intentions. Can‘t change a moment of my past with Rita.’
Sighing his soul back inside his body, he slumped his shoulders around his chest. He shaded his eyes to look off into the distance and see what lie ahead. ‘I already know the terrible miles behind me.
Ahead, the stream wanders into channels that close off, one after the other, to form small peninsulas. The waters alter the shapes of the land; therefore, determine the way creatures of the earth will travel
them.’
Circling the peninsulas, David followed the stream. Above him birds singing slow songs telling of a sultry afternoon. Ahead of him the currents came together to curl into spunky waters that foamed and babbled, as they rushed around the walls of a crumbling temple. In front of the temple the waters came together to rest quietly in a round basin where stood a holy man having his feet bathed. Loin-clothed, with a stringy body of blue veins, the man stood mesmerized with eyes closed in prayer. His palms he turned outward to the sun in a fixing of his soul to the light of the heavens.
His prayers carried beyond the basin; David felt them reaching inside his being to give him new courage to face old dreads. He jumped back in the memory-laden steam to finish off the tragedy of he and Rita. Shadows were lengthening and widening to wrap up these sad moments.
Mirrored in the waters, her advanced pregnancy; weighted, engulfed in hormones. She was saying, “If you could stay as a special forces’ instructor in the states … “
Words carried in the back of his head, carried from upstream to be with him now. Words foaming over the hard rocks of his determination. Coming up against a stubborn shake of his head. Stopping her cold.
She went on, regardless, giving him another chance he didn‘t take.
thinnest of voices; sounding as though she had rehearsed it.
“We?”
“Me and the baby … I mean when the baby is born. Ah, ah, the baby; yours, err, ours.“
And his reply to her expression of wanting him, needing him- “You’ve taken everything else, Rita. Now you want to interfere with my career?”
The waters lie motionless in shock; an ice cold current ran through them and over his feet and legs. Shivering, he remembered, ‘after my words, she rushed off. Left her pride behind her. Tripped over her last hope. Running in an slow way; intentions stronger than body; one body carrying two. Out the door. Into her car. The jag squealing down the street to the stop sign she didn’t heed … to gone forever. Gone with our unborn son.’
Above David, litanies of bird song. Inside, a requiem of Rita; a dirge played back to him in the liquid verses of the stream; the stream foaming with the soldier’s tears; with Rita’s tears. ‘Enough tears, enough sorrow for the waters to flow through me eternally.’
And in the slow cosmic rhythms of high noon, the waters began closing off. But David wasn’t watching the landscape changing courses. He was deep down in remembering; so wishing that he could go back but for a moment or two and change his words to his wife, which would have changed her rush out the door. Thereby change the accident at the stop light.
‘It’s like an anchor in the stream holding me to the moments. But I cannot change one iota of one moment. Rita is gone. But not gone, that grim time I so regret. Worse than losing Melissa, White Horse, and scout patrol; losing Rita is the most difficult for me to carry because it was, it is I who am responsible.’
All of it done now; the entire scenario: the waters running clear. Nothing, on one looking up at him. Rita downstream, lost amongst the lilies. ‘Enough of the stream of memories; way more than enough.‘
Stepping out of the stream and walking along, he felt the land beneath his feet turn gritty. He changed courses__ from looking inward__ to looking outward; outward and down to stone-filled grounds waving with clusters of mountain poppies. The poppies waltzing with tall grasses blushing pink.
He realized that now he was leaving the wet lands behind. ‘These poppies and grasses are the vegetation that grows where lands are dry.’
Onwards he trod: past barren mountains and their striated peaks. The mountains, three of them, rose in a triangle; the mountain furthest back was deeply fissured with dark stone faces that grimaced down at him. And as he walked, he was within a silence so vast, so complete, he could hear the heartbeat of the universe; he heard it beating heavy. A universal heart; its arteries filled with the troubles of humankind. His heart and the heart of the universe beating together in a rhythm traveling from there to here, and back again.

- - -
Susan’s poems and fiction are on Eastown Fiction, Ken *Again, Hackwriters, Yesteryear Fiction, Feathered Flounder, and Penwood Review. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan.

1/23/13

2013-01-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

Midnight
By Samantha Seto

The clock strikes twelve,
voice soaked in red wine from the ball,
I walk under a wide-stretched bridge.

Avenues of trees made of diamonds,
evil spirits haunt me, hidden shadows.
Halfway through, I step out of my glass slipper.

Forbidden majesty, powerful realm of king and queen.
Smoke clouds the drawbridge, circling the castle,
over the moats, light travels sideways.

Tired, I throw myself to the ground.
Curled up, bent next to a stone under cracking twigs.
The sky as obdurately black and blank as hate,
lavish party dress turns into grayish-brown beaten, morbid rags.

Grasp fabric around myself, eyes bewildered,
magical dust escapes, mirror of dreadful screams.
Hysteria whispers, end of the world.

One story disheartening, under a spell.
Fooled by an evil stepmother,
Never discover my true love, star-crossed life.

- - -
Samantha Seto is a writer. She has been published in various anthologies including Ceremony, The Screech Owl, Coffee Table Poetry, Carcinogenic Poetry, and Black Magnolias Journal. Samantha studies creative writing.

1/16/12

2013-01-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

Order and Chaos
By David Edward Nell

The showroom was a musical nicotine smog--crowded, uproarious, drunk faces aplenty, the usual smart rigmarol of servers and diners. Per today's theme, all attending were to be clothed in green and brandishing ethnic lilts. Except for the Fairbourne twins, whose tailcoats never left their proper backs; and, after all, this world was their concoction. They were at their regular corner seats inside a regular creation of theirs, observing the karaoke failures on-stage and basking in the fiery blush of a lamp. A shy fellow with giant spectacles was whispering a folk song into a banana, struggling to keep up with a director at his fore flitting cards with lyrics.

The twins brought the last of their mash to swollen lips.

“Meal-wise, passable. Slightly better than I anticipated,” Opie announced and leaned back, deflating gas. Regan acknowledged with a proud nod. “But, to be honest, I'm not keen at all on these botchulisms of yours. Frankly, you've failed again.”

“Oh, come on,” Regan said. “Don't you find a bit of humor in these hopeful catastrophes? Why can't I just have a bit of fun once in a while?”

“It's nonsense, all of it. A concert of anarchy better suited for the deaf and blind.” Opie waved away a nearby harp-twiddling jester, and said under his breath, “My ears now suffer, thanks to you, twit.”

Regan threw his handkerchief down. “Well, I'm glad. I did this on purpose.”

“Doubtful, since you're always one to talk out your arse. I mean, what is that?” Opie pointed towards a passer-by whose head was a wrinkled foot. Behind him, at the bar, a bear on a stool was slowly drinking its own urine, and a crowd was gathered around making bets on the intake rate. “Random forgeries serving no purpose, is all they are,” Opie said.

“It's funny!” Regan tried to reason. “Adds color to an otherwise dreary fabric. Unlike your so-called great works, mine aren't shallow and destructive and, and...giant reptiles--what a ridiculous concept.”

“How dare you. That was my finest.”

“Yes, and then they died off, didn't they?”

“The masters took well to it.”

“At the time.”

Opie scoffed.

“You know I have nothing to prove to you.”

Opie wrung an incredulous smile. “So you really, really think you're ready, brother Regan?”
“I've always been ready.”

“Ready for a role requiring certain accuracy, measure, thought? In your jolly state?

“Don't be so unfair. This is nothing, just a good time. What you need is to lighten up, have another drink.”

“Sod off, rainbow monkey.” A passing waiter threw Opie a suspicious look.

“Oh, brother, you never cease to bore or belittle. For once, can't you just enjoy my pleasantries?” Regan said.

“When you grow up, maybe. Take this seriously or I won't let you do the atmospheric repairs.”

“Fine. At least share one more drink with me.”

“Fine,” Opie agreed.

Regan's frantic semaphore caught the flickering eye of a waitress. She side-glided through the congestion, signaled for another round, and started doing an upside-down dance on the counter while the bear guffawed. Then she climbed off in the same position and brought drinks on her soles. “Here you boys go,” she said, her voice delightfully baritone.

Opie had his round, but the stinging blaze set him to grimace. “I regret whetting. This is ridiculous. What did you put in this hell?”

“Clear fountain water, nothing more.” Regan then nudged Opie. “You'll find this next performance endearing, I'm sure.”

The jester returned with a bow by their seats, and rattled off a poem about the intemperate.

“Wretched cretin. That's it.” Opie stood up. “You're making a fool of me now, Regan.”

“Not so, I swear.”

“Well, it's time to leave, anyway. Had enough of this, and we're behind schedule. Next time we break bread, it's under my supervision.” Opie clinked his glass and announced to all in the quietening room, “I'm afraid we must depart you.”

The people began crying, yowling at the top of their lungs, and then their very existence flickered away like some strange illusion. And, once again, the twins remained alone, standing in whiteness.

“You spoil everything,” Regan told Opie, to no response. They clapped their hands to create a doorway, and passed through, into space, finding themselves in a transparent elevator overlooking Earth.

“Now, I hope you know what you're doing,” Opie said.

Regan danced his hands in the air. “Of course. Stop doubting me and watch me work magic.”

Opie held him back. “Wait. You know, this is a big job, and I believe big jobs are for adults.”

“I am an adult, fool!”

“No, you're not!”

“Yes, I am!”

A bout of hand slapping ensued. Opie won with a poke to the eye and a pinch of the groin. “Let me do it, or else,” he warned. Next he cast a spell, “Cobras and cats, peanuts in hats.”

In the blink of an eye, the earth disappeared.

“Look at what you did,” Regan chortled.

“Oh, dear.” Opie covered his mouth.

“And you say I'm the blunderer.”

“You better not tell anyone.”

“Only if you let me do the next one.”

“I--”

“Shake on it.” Regan forced his palm against Opie's. “Another drink is due, I think.”

“I think so, too,” Opie remarked.

- - -
Having spent years trying to evade the Equestrian mafia, David Edward Nell now writes from a nameless hideout in Cape Town, South Africa. By night, disguised as numerous pop culture figures, he can usually be found scouring the African plains for loving. Stalk him at http://davidedwardnell.blogspot.com, but keep this a secret.

1/9/13

2013-01-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Wrong Number
By Chris Sharp

We Egyptian royals are ruthless gamblers, and we always have been. So there as little else going on in the palace conference rooms but odds-making talk once Pharaoh had challenged Prince Moses to a duel.

Let me go back a bit.

Prince Moses – that is, former Prince Moses before he became a new modern man of this new world – was driving Pharaoh to frenzy with his sudden agendas. For some reason, Moses now wanted to take the entire society of the local bricklayers out of Egypt and have them establish a new Jewish nation in the East.

To make everything more complicated, Moses announced he was Jewish himself to his cousin Pharaoh and added that he was also now a Zionist, even though Moses could hardly speak six words in Hebrew. His supposed older Jewish brother Aaron had to act as his translator to all the Hebrew people who were now caught between two heavy-handed royals.

I understand these developments are a tad difficult to appreciate in our court. They were very hard for Pharaoh to follow as well. In fact, Pharaoh was so baffled by all this drama that he overlooked killing Moses on the spot.

But we must consider that Moses almost to the very end was considered family among the Egyptian titular heads. Trying to cope with as much bad news possible in the poor little head of Pharaoh, the king just broke out into creating this duel instead of really thinking about it.

Typically, the proposed duel was full of Pharaoh’s characteristic indirectness.

Of course, in this particular court, it was more fashionable for Egyptian men to use passive-aggressiveness to gain objectives, and Pharaoh’s reaction to the bellicose Moses was indirect and passive aggressive to the hilt.

First, Pharaoh stipulated that the duel must be fought by proxy. Pharaoh’s magicians would fight the duel for him, so that there would be no chance of Pharaoh getting personally injured.

Thereupon Moses chose Aaron to be his proxy fighting the magicians.

But Pharaoh wasn’t the only one who wanted this duel done by proxy. The magicians insisted they wanted others to fight in their stead as well. They proposed the duel be fought by their pet snakes, and that of course came across as being so mean.

It led Aaron to assign his own pet snake to do his own fighting for him.

We found an old skinny handicapper named Shemar who would take our bets for us over this competition, but Shemar claimed the proxy conditions of the duel were so confusing he would need much more than his usual fee to unravel it all.

“You mean you want me to make odds on snakes that are really taking the place of magicians, who are in their turn taking the place of our Pharaoh?”

“It’s simply a third-party duel, that’s all,” I told Shemar, because I wanted just to simplify everything for the old man.

Still, Shemar demanded five times his usual fee before he went into his room and drew up odds.

He came out an hour later, creating 15-1 odds in favor of the magicians’ snakes. We demanded to know why he spent so little time on his odds after we paid him so much money.

“You paid me for my knowledge base,” Shemar explained. “I happen to know Pharaoh had 15 magicians in his court, and each magician has one magic snake. Aaron had only one Hebrew snake. That’s 15 to one right off the top.”

Since the snakes in the duel were so non-stop magical, they arrived at the great event in the form of canes carried by their masters. The canes carried by the magicians were immensely popular and received a roaring ovation on the palace grounds.

“The royal magicians are now going to throw their canes into the pit, and the canes will turn into snakes,” announced the court troubadour. The cheers of the crowd followed instantly.

The magicians in highly decorated robes brought their gold-inlaid and diamond-studded canes to the pit, where they dropped them and the canes turned into glittering pythons.

“Those pythons are hideous,” said Shemar. “I would make it 50 to one in favor of the magicians.”

“Too late now, Shemar,” I reminded him. “The battle is already starting.”

“Now Aaron will bring his Hebrew snake to the pit,” announced the troubadour.

The crowd roared laughing. Aaron responded to the laughter by bowing to Pharaoh and then to the Egyptian audience.

Then Aaron picked up a crooked pole. It wasn’t even a cane. It looked like it had been washed up on the beach, and it was about 10 feet high.

“This is my one snake,” said Aaron, when the troubadour stopped him on the way to the pit. “Very intelligent. He grew up in a Hebrew family.”

The crowd exploded into bigger laughs. Pharaoh motioned for the duel to continue. The crowd kept laughing even as Aaron dropped his pole into the pit. Immediately the pole turned into a snake that was ten times bigger than all the other snakes put together. In a few seconds, it had swallowed whole five of the magicians’ snakes.

“Shemar, this is hardly playing fair, using that monster for this bet,” I said. “We demand our bets back. For all the money we pay you, what are you giving us back?”

Shemar stretched out his hands as far as he could to show he didn’t have a coin on him to pay any bet back.

“You said yourself it was too late to change bets, because the competition had already begun. I have already invested my money.”

“Shemar.”

“The bet is over. See, everyone is leaving.”

“Shemar.”

“What?”

“You gave us the wrong number.”

- - -
Chris Sharp has numbers of flash-fiction short stories in Linguistic Erosion, Yesteryear Fiction, Weirdyear, and Daily Love as well as longer fiction listed by Google under “Chris Sharp short stories.” His book “Dangerous Learning” is being distributed by Barnes & Noble.

1/2/13

2013-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Timer
By Lucy Montague Moffatt

Ok watch this…Did you see it? No you didn’t see anything, did you? Watch carefully this time…See anything? No? Will I tell you what I’m doing? Ok, come closer. I’m time travelling. I am going back into the past. That’s why you can’t see anything different when I do it. I can see you. It’s like going into a tunnel of slow motion, I go in and everything becomes quiet and murky. I can press rewind on life and move through the tape like a space man walking on the moon.

I can only go back a few seconds, so far. But I’ve been practicing. I first went back in time when I was eight. I was sitting in class watching my teacher when suddenly everything stopped and went into reverse. It was only for a spilt second, then everything went back to normal. I knew at once what had happened. I had time travelled! Only for a few seconds but that didn’t matter, I had the power! Finally I knew what my purpose in life was.

Since then I have been trying to harness my powers. It’s very difficult, working with time, as you can probably imagine. It’s so unpredictable and invisible that trying to control it can be a bitch. I can only control it sometimes, but I know I will be able to properly one day. I just need to practice more.

It can happen at any time. I could be in a lift or at a party or on the toilet, when suddenly I get this hot feeling right in the pit of my stomach. The heat moves up my body, through my arms and into my brain and then I am floating. I enter the tunnel of time and there’s nothing I can do about it. A few seconds later I’m back to where I was before, just a few seconds behind.

Once, I tried so hard to control it that I passed out. All the blood rushed to my head and I nearly popped a vein. I hit the floor with a bang and when I woke up I really thought I’d gone right back in time, back to the stone age. But I was just in my back garden, lying beside a tree. That was really disappointing for me.

I haven’t told many people about my power yet, I want to try to get to going back in minutes before I do, not that anyone will believe me when I do manage to do it. I’ve talked to some people on the internet about it and some say they can do it too. One guy even claimed he’s gone back to Roman times and was Julius Caesar’s advisor. He says next time he goes back he’s going to stop his getting stabbed. But that’s bullshit. I don’t believe a word of it. He’s just looking for attention. But my powers are real.

There, I just did it again! Did you see it?

- - -
Lucy Montague-Moffatt is a 23 year old writer, comedian and student from Dublin. Her work has featured in Wordlegs Presents: 30 under 30, wordlegs.ie, The Bohemyth and the recently published short story collection 30 under 30. She was a winner of the Fishamble: Tiny Plays competition and is writing the first year play for Inchicore College Dublin for a second year in a row.

12/26/12

2012-12-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

Ewan Dools
By Beth J. Whiting

“I have to be partners with Ewan?” the pretty blonde said.
Her teacher Mrs. Brown said yes.
Ewan Dools was a strange boy. He wore glasses and had bad posture. It was sixth grade. He always sat alone on recess crocheting. The blonde whose name was Natalie knew her grandmother did it. But how many boys crocheted?
“I want to be with my friend Eva. We already have ideas for what to do with the book.”
“Someone has to be with Ewan.”
Natalie was about to say that Ewan could just be by himself. He always was. But that would sound kind of mean.
“Fine.”
Natalie sat by Ewan.
“What are you making anyway?”
“Amigurumi.”
“I never heard of it.”
“It's a Japanese crochet toy. I have several of them at home.”
She laughed, “Do you have many dolls at home?”
“Actually I do.”
She meant it as a joke. The fact that he said it so simply was weird.
She changed the subject.
“We have to do a book report on Summer of my German Soldier. We will make the project at my house.”
“I'd rather do it at my house.”
“Your house?”
It was bad enough being with this boy but to go to his house.
“Fine,” she relented again.

Natalie told herself it was a one time thing. She could handle it.
She had seen the Dools house her whole life. It had a ripped screen door. Anyone could walk in. But nobody did it. It was an ugly dirty looking house. It was faded yellow. The mother was a waif who worked at a bread store downtown. The father left a few years again.
Natalie was afraid to knock on the screen door, afraid that she would break it.
So she yelled, “Ewan.”
He came to the door.
The mother had a huge smile on her face, like this was a groundbreaking ceremony.
“I have carrot cake and punch on the table just in case you want some.”
“Thanks,” Natalie said.
The place was surrounded by pictures of Ewan and his mother.
Natalie got a slice out of courtesy.
Then Ewan said, “Let's go to my room.”
She didn't know what to except. It wasn't what she pictured though.

Natalie saw toys made out of felt. There were the crocheted toys. There were miniature sets along with the toys. There was a beach, beach sand and a mini umbrella. There was a park. There were toys gathered around both places.
“You made this?” said Natalie.
“Yes. All the sets and all the toys are made by me.”
“What for?”
“My own little land.”
She laughed, “You mean you still play with toys?”
“Yes.”
“Every creature is made by me. When I make a new toy it's a new friend.”
She should have laughed. Instead she was silent.
He quickly said, “So we should get to the report about Summer of my German Soldier.”

He said that he didn't care for the book that it was girly. Natalie said it was romantic.
When Natalie suggested he make toys for the characters he looked at her aghast.
“I make toys for myself. I'm not making them for a school project.”
“But you do them so well.”
In the end they went with a poster which Natalie thought was boring. It was what she always did. But he could have used his talents otherwise.
Ewan said that he would need another day to work on the poster. She agreed to it.

When Natalie went to school, her friends asked her how it was like to go to Ewan's house.
She felt like making fun of him. They knew he made toys. But did they know he played with them?
Instead she said, “It was fine.”

They did the presentation on Summer of my German Soldier.
Natalie and he took turns, “Summer of my German Soldier is about a Jewish girl who hides a German POW.”

Natalie was glad that the project was done. The next assignment came up with The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The teacher put them together again.
Natalie was furious.
The teacher took her aside and told her, “You were nice enough to do it once. Ewan was less nervous than usual when he presented. You make a good partner for him.”
Natalie didn't like that it sounded permanent.

The mother was thrilled to have her again. This time she didn't have cake though.
This time Ewan budged and he made an amigurumi of a fox. They decorated a shoebox.
Only when it was done, Ewan asked, “Would you like to stay and play with me?”
Natalie stood there silent. Her friends would never find out. It wouldn't hurt.

“Why do you make your toys?” Natalie asked.
“I'm too poor to get my own. Besides there's more love put into it.”
He went to two characters a crocheted beaver with big black eyes and a redheaded boy with a buck tooth. He was made out of felt.
Who are they?”
“They're Beav and Chuck. They sell masking tape on the beach.”
She burst out laughing.
“That's an awful idea. Why don't they sell something that people would eat like popcorn?”
“Actually they both came up with the idea. They were competition to each other before they became friends. They don't actually make that much money.”
“So how do they survive?”
“They live on the beach.”

He took her to two huge pigs, that looked at least two foot tall. One of their ears was flappy. These weren't homemade. So they were obviously bought as a gift.
“These are my favorite Blobsie and Flipsie. They are in love.”
“But they look exactly the same.”
They had big beady eyes.
“They met on the kindergarten playground. Their parents had them tested to see if they were related. They weren't. Their parents banned them from seeing each other. When that happened they ran away together and worked at a freak show.”
“What was their act?”
“Just being themselves.”

Natalie was amused walking away although she still thought of him as weird.
The teacher ended up giving them a B on that assignment.

By the third presentation, Natalie considered him a friend, although she wouldn't have advertised that to the whole school.
Then Ewan asked something daring.
“Would you like to stay at my house for a Friday night?”
Natalie's friends didn't have anything prepared. So she had no plans. She reluctantly said yes.

He had all the stuffed animals ready.
He introduced her to a number of characters that night. One of them was a pig with a voice that squealed. The girl was named Heavenly. She had a nose that looked like a bottle cap. Other than that she was a beautiful pig. Her husband was a black panther who was miserable all the time.
She bugged him constantly.
“Why are you so miserable?”
Heavenly also loved bunnies and unicorns. She kept bugging her husband for one. Her husband stayed quiet while she rambled on and on.
Natalie asked, “How do these characters come to you?”
“I don't know. I see a character. Already I can guess their personality. Usually it comes from the expression on their face.”
“Can I play with the toys too?”
“Of course.”
Natalie never thought that she would play with toys again. But his were fun.
She met a pleasant looking pig named Oinker who had an unusual voice. It sounded German, kind of Scottish. This looked like he bought it for a buck at a dollar store. It was a plastic green pig.
He kept coming out with all of the toys. She didn't know how to keep track of them. But something told her that she would be coming again.

“You stayed the night over at Ewan's?”
Her friends were astonished that she spent a day with him.
“He's ok,” she muttered.
“That Mrs. Evans should have never paired you two together.”
“It's ok. I really don't mind.”
“We're worried about you.”

When Natalie came over to Ewan's the next time he had Blobsie and Flipsie hug her as she came near the door. She smiled.
“I want you to meet someone special.”
He brought over an ugly small looking pig.
“What is it named?”
“Yoda.”
She laughed. It did have large ears.
“Yoda is a girl. She's very lazy. She sleeps over 16 hours a day. She's friends with Oinker. Yoda is kind of sarcastic.”
“How often do you play with your stuffed animals?”
“All the time.”
“Does your mom know about the toys?”
“Yes she does. They talk to her too.”
“Your mother doesn't mind.”
“No she likes them. My mom doesn't like the fact that they call her Nancy though.”
“Why is that?”
“They're not her mother.”
“But it's your mom.”
“When I'm in character I don't feel like myself. I didn't do it intentionally. My mom called me out on it after I had been doing it a couple of months.”
“They'll call me Natalie right?”
“Yes.”

The next time Natalie walked into the room he had Blobsie say, “Hi Natalie.”
Natalie smiled.
When Ewan suggested they get to their new assignment, Natalie looked oddly at him.
“I thought that we were going to play with the toys.”
“You would rather play with the toys.”
Natalie didn't actually play. She just sat and listened to him talk about them.

“Yoda went to work once for a harsh woman named Lamarr. She had a class on being lazy. Only she slept during the class so often people wanted a refund. But Lamarr told them that you couldn't complain. The teacher instructed the subject quite well.”
“What else can you tell me about Yoda?”
“Her father Hector has supported her her whole life. Except for the three months that she worked for Lamarr, Yoda has been supported by her father her whole life. He wrote this pretentious book I the Harvard Busy Bee. It's bought by college students for class. They complain all right. It's made him a fortune though. He himself can't even get through the thing.”
“Where's Hector?”
A pig with a huge belly and tired eyes showed himself.
“Hector is married to a girl that is half his age Corday. I named her after the French hero. Corday is a war nut. They met in service while Hector was a cook in the military. He served the soldiers bad food. The cooks kept all the good food for themselves.”
“Where's Corday?”
A tiny little pig showed up.
“You're saying that this pig works in the military.”
“She's fiercer than she looks.”

Natalie helped make a set for Ewan. He made a house for Yoda out of popsicle sticks. Natalie seemed enthused about it.

Natalie met a purple hippo the next day called Chump. He had a flat body. He was Oinker's husband. He was a notorious food critic. He gave bad reviews to most restaurants. His wife however gave good reviews to all the restaurants.
People called her the nice one.
Natalie watched him play fascinated by the interaction he had with all of the characters.

Natalie was at home once and she heard a squeak that sounded kind of like Blobsie. She got afraid.

She came to Ewan about this, “I thought that she was alive yesterday. It's so silly.”
“No, it's not. After so much interaction they do come alive. I forgot to tell you that.”
He brought Blobsie towards her. Suddenly an arm came alive and the other one then the gigantic pig walked towards them and said, “Hi guys.”
Sure enough Blobsie was alive.
Ewan asked, “Will you tell me about your carnival past?”
Blobsie shook her head a huge no.
That made sense since their carnival life was very dramatic.
He asked them about Octopussy.
“Oh he was so mean.”
Octopussy was originally named Octopus and he was an octopus/half man. Only Blobsie and Flipsie named him after the James Bond movie and it stuck.
He super glued their toilet seats in response.
“It hurt so much,” Blobsie moaned.
Natalie and Ewan ended up playing for hours.
There was such delight in Natalie's face.

Natalie spent the next day at lunch with Ewan. When Natalie came back to class, she ran into her girlfriends. They seemed angry.
“It's one thing to go Ewan's home. It's another to sit by him at the lunch table. You have to choose.”
Natalie liked Ewan but she didn't want to spend the rest of school sitting only with him on recess. She had to choose.

Natalie ended up going to his house the next night. She knew what she was doing was wrong. At the end of their session, Ewan went to go to the bathroom. Natalie stole some of the toys in her backpack. They wouldn't shut up but she was able to get them out of the house.
When Natalie took them to her house, they wouldn't speak to her.
“You're not Ewan,” they said. They were quite stubborn.
Natalie thought that with time they would budge.

Natalie spent the next two days not speaking to Ewan, sitting with the girls for lunch.
Then on a Friday afternoon during school he had a fight with her right in the middle of class.
“I can't believe you stole them. And you thought I wouldn't notice. I made them. They're mine. I can't believe you ran off with them.”
The teacher seemed annoyed by the interruption.
The teacher went to Natalie, “If what he says is true, return the items to Ewan.”
“I can't here.”
Natalie ended it at that.

Ewan went to Natalie's home.
It was the first time he had ever been inside her house. Her house was nicer, better furniture, cleaner. Her room looked like a traditional girl's room at first with some boy singers on the wall. Then he noticed some art work of the toys around the room.
She cried, “I never really had an imagination before.”
He collected the toys.
They hugged Ewan at their return.
“You know what you did was wrong.”
She nodded.
“They're not really your imagination. They're mine.”
“Can't we share?”
“You can hang around your friends but you can't see me as second string. I don't deserve that.”
She nodded.
He had Yoda hug her.

- - -
Beth J. Whiting was born in 1983 to a large family of brainy eccentrics. At eight years old she developed a love of books through the works of Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis. Beth has struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since her teenage years, and uses writing to express, imagine, and create. She currently lives with her artistic twin sister in a tiny apartment in Mesa, Arizona.

12/19/12

2012-12-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Last Rites
By Gary Hewitt

The corpse was an easy target. Thomas yanked the leggings past his victim’s ankles and eased them away from the compliant body. He cast them into a pile before opening the man’s leather jerkin. Thomas discovered a gold chain upon a ruddy neck. The necklace passed over the head despite the width of the dead soldier’s huge head.
Thomas grabbed the ankles and turned the body over. His hands pulled away the ugly undergarments and revealed a generous portion of masculinity. He eased out a dagger eager for employment.
“You know what to do.”
Thomas reached down to the genitalia before parting them from an unresisting foe. He turned the sexless body onto the front before removing his longsword. He needed two strokes to part head from corpse.
“Stick him with the rest.”
Thomas pulled the body to a long trench filled with tar, oil and scores of mutilated victims. The corpse landed atop of a young boy. He skewered Henry’s head onto a pole and thrust the macabre totem into the ground.
“Remember Thomas, never lose in war. Vae Victus.”
His commander dropped a torch into the trench. Thomas prayed he would never hear the words from his enemy.

- - -
Gary Hewitt is a writer who lives in a small village in Kent in the UK. He has had several stories and poems published including editions of M-Brane, Linguistic Erosion and Morpheus Tales. His style does tend to be dark and is rather unique. He is a member of the Hazlitt Arts Writers’ Group.

12/12/12

2012-12-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Holder Of My Heart
By Linda M. Crate

You are sweeter than chocolate that melts
on my tongue; you summon forth such joy
that not even the thickest drought of life
could draw out of my veins, you are the
elixir of life whispering its shadows across
the back of each of my smiles - you spun
me a web of possibilities to climb and my
butterfly wings beat with the quickest blur
a hummingbird's heartbeat leaping into my throat -
for you are the one that makes my heart sing,
and you're the only place that's ever felt like home.

- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native currently migrated to Maine. She has a degree in English-Literature and her poetry and short stories have appeared in many publications the latest of which include: Birds Eye reView, Mirror Dance, Blue & Yellow Dog, Crisis Chronicles Online Library, Super Flash Fiction, and Dead Snakes.

12/5/12

2012-12-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

THE CAT'S PRIVATE EYE
By Mark Slade

THIS IS DEDICATED TO THE GREAT ARTIST MOEBIUS(JEAN GIRAUD RIP 1938-2012)

"Johnny zero," The cat said, licking his black paws, and sneering. "We have you cornered. there is no way out."

It was true. They had my back up against a brick wall down a lonely alley. There must've been about fifty of those fuckers and all of them were at the whim of their master, Mr Lim. He was an old foe of mine back in the days at college when he could change into human form any time the wind blew.
Those were different times: The poets studied rules of verse and the ladies rolled their eyes--
wait a minute; that's Lou Reed talking. Sometimes his spirit invades my mind. It's hard to control, like turrets. Any ways, I hadn't become a floating head in a spirit cabinet yet. We had a lot of classes together. We became friends. He confessed to me in secret he was man that could change into a cat, and a couple of homosexual encounters. All he had to do was swallow a pill each month and his human form was easy to retain. By accident one drunken night, I spoon fed a monkey that was passed out in my dorm room(the drunken monkey is a long story).
Years later, after my own freak spiritual accident with Houdini's spirit cabinet, I met Mr. Lim at a Celtics game. Talk about uncomfortable.

And here we are.

"What do you want, Mr. Lim?" His friends came closer to me. The wheels on my cabinet were stuck in a groove in the pavement. They kept turning and turning.

"I know you are a private eye," He said, cleaning his ears with his paws now. "I need you to find someone. her name is Colletta Bare. Pinky! Show the floating head her picture." he ordered a tabby to approach me.
The cat took both paws and slid them into his mouth, pulled his jaws open. His head split like a ripe melon. A piece of paper fell out to the pavement. In the picture was a blonde with fat red cheeks and large blue eyes.

"I want you to find her and bring her to my castle. i believe you know the address. I've taken the liberty of paying your debts and buying you a subscription to Highlights children magazine," the black cat hissed.

Damn. I forgot i confessed to him my love for Richard Scary stories.

"And if I refuse your offer?" I asked, smiling.

"My friends will use their claws to scoop out your eyeballs and pour catnip in your empty eye sockets."

PART TWO:THE BLOND HANDJOB

The address Mr. Lim had given me took me to a shady hotel located in the basement of a morgue. I was in the morgue and a cabinet opened. A man with skin the color of chalk asked if I was looking for COCO Lounge. I said I was and he pressed a button on a table beside the cabinets containing fresh bodies ready for their funerals. A door opened and my wheels rolled me inside a dark room. I had to roll down three side streets to get to the morgue. Funny how cab drivers will not pick up a floating head in a spirit cabinet.

There was a huge neon sign above a revolving door telling me where I was. A gorrilla doorman asked for the floor I was looking for. I said, “Third floor, number 24.”

He laughed, pulled a lever, “Going down!”

The floor underneath me caved in. I was falling, my head often coming out of spirit cabinet. Finally I landed in a hot bath house in a pile of towels. A fat hairy man stood naked before me.

“Do you mind putting me back in my cabinet, friend?” Begrudgingly, he placed me inside my cabinet and I was on my way after he gave me a push down that long hallway. As I sped by a line of doors, I kept track of the apt. numbers. At the end of the hallway was number 24.

“To hell with knocking,” I told myself and rammed the door. The door splintered into a thousand pieces.

On the sofa lay the blond with large rosy cheeks, pointing a cannon in my direction. It was Colleta Bare. She wore a low-cut green, sequined dress. Around her neck was a necklace attached to an eye.

“I knew Mr. Lim would send an errand boy over soon.” Colleta smiled the most malicious smile I'd ever seen.

“I don't know what your talking about, lady, I do a job for money...or in this case, cause I've been threatened. Not because I'm an errand boy.”

“If he pays you, in some form, you are his errand boy.”

“No...” I thought a moment. Damn it, she had me! “Yes. Alright! I'm here to bring you to him and don't give me anymore lip or I'll have to use force.”

“What in God's name could a floating head use as force when I'm holding a gun?”

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Spirits were awakened. They swarmed all around Colleta. She screamed as one spirit took the gun from her hands. They had her by the arms, as she swore revenge against me and those who opposed her.

Out of no where, a hand smacked me across the head. The spirits disappeared. I realized that hand wasn't attached to a body. A rogue agent of the body politic.

“Thank you, Calvin,” Colleta said to the hand.

“It was...my pleasure,” The hand wheezed, coughed.

She walked over to a window, opened it. In the black void I could hear the hustle and bustle of the street down below, wherever below was!

“Calvin, push the errand boy to the window. I will make sure he falls out!”

PART THREE: COMA CITY

I fell through the dark void wondering if I should have called that dumb black cat, Mr. Lim's bluff. He'd threatened my life if I didn't take the job of bringing to him a woman Colleta Bare, who incidentally, pushed me out of a window. I was falling fast, just head and my spirit cabinet had already hit it's mark down below. I was wondering when this day would be over, so I can go home, enjoy an issue Highlights magazine and a can of Schlitz.

Just as I was fretting, I too hit my mark. Tearing through three ceilings. The last was a bar, filled with the strangest people I'd ever seen. Siamese twins, people with toasters for heads. Four legged strippers dancing around spiderwebs. A guy with his dog attached together by an umbilical cord. And the Frankenstein monster serving at the bar.

Of course where I landed, didn't make me any more normal. It seemed I, Johnny Zero, had landed on a headless body. Now I'm stuck. He sure was happy. His hands kept feeling me up. He was sitting at the bar, pouring beer in my mouth, turning a matchbook over and over in his hands. COMA CITY, it stated on the cover.

I was drunk. I was pissed. And I was worried about my spirit cabinet. I turned to the man attached to his dog , “Where the fuck is my spirits?”

The dog laughed, smacked his knee. “That was the best joke I have ever heard, buddy.”

I snarled at him. “Sometimes the kind of people in these places, make me sick.”

The man and his dog pulled out a knife.

I smiled. “Hey, you wouldn't cut a floating head, would you?”

They lunged at me with both knives. Suddenly, a hand smacked one blade out of the man's hand and in an instant later gave the dog two right crosses. The man and his dog whimpered and and ran out the bar with their tails between their legs.

I knew that hand. He helped Colleta throw me and my spirit cabinet out the window.

“I would thank you, but your the reason I'm here---remember you tossed out a window.”

“I'm afraid you have me mixed up. Sounds like my brother, Calvin"a left hand! Open windows are his forte.”

PART FOUR: A CURSE IN HIS PANTS

His name was Roberte and his left handed brother was the bastard that helped push me out of a window. Mind you, at that time I was just head in a spirit cabinet. My spirit cabinet is lost, maybe even destroyed. When I fell through that dark void, I had no idea I would land on someone else body body in a bar in a city called Coma.

I realize why the city is called Coma. Apparently all the inhabitants are deep in sleep. I noticed this when Roberte, a hand without a body, like his brother, took me to the city streets looking for my spirit cabinet.

“Was it always like this?” I asked, my body clutching him close to my chest. The fingers on Roberte moved restlessly.

“As far as I can remember. Although I suffer a lot of blackouts. A malady I have for the loss of my body.”

“How did you get here?”

“That's funny you ask. My brother and I were fighting over a blond. They threw me out of a window.”

Suddenly, I felt a jolt. My spirit cabinet was close. The spirits were out of the box, I could feel it. I told Roberte. We were in front of a disco, and the beats were louder and louder. My eardrums were bleeding. Roberte jumped out of the grip my body had on him. He ran into the disco, lost in the crowd jumping up down in unison.

I followed, calling his name, until I saw Robete sitting at table with a Siamese redhead. She had my cabinet beside her and all of my spirits were dancing around her, enjoying the music.

“These are the Fowler sisters,” Roberte said.

“Hello,” they both said. They were beautiful, both of them, sharing the same body dressed in tank top and mini skirt; and sharing the same tattoos from head to toe.

“They've agreed to sell me your spirit cabinet.” Roberte said, chuckling.

“But it's mine not yours to sell,” I said with sharp tongue.

“Who cares? Your getting it back. But you have something the sisters want.”

“What's that?” I yelled over the loud music.

The Siamese twins stood, walked toward me. They knelt, unzipped my fly. A hand reached inside and produced a long mechanical machine with button that lit up. At the end of this machine was a glass jar filled with stardust. The sisters looked up at me and smiled. Their fingers danced across the colored buttons and a window opened. Their faces were littered with sparkling stardust.

In mere moments, all of their tattoos had disappeared.

They stood, wiped stardust from their lips and kissed me. They tasted like sour apple gum.

“The cabinet,” they both said sitting back down. “And the spirits are yours.”

PART FIVE: A PARAGRAPH ABOUT A DEAD HAND

I'd just recovered my spirit cabinet at a disco thanks to a redheaded Siamese twin and removed my head from the body I had been apart of for last two days. It felt right being inside my spirit cabinet. Just as I was getting comfortable being a floating head inside my cabinet, I saw Coletta Bare sitting at a table across the room.

Now was the time not to let her get the edge on me nor Calvin the hand without a body that was her assistant the brother of Roberte another hand without a body. I summoned all of my spirits and sent them to the table. Coletta was bound by the spirits in a trance levitated in a thought bubble. Just then a knife whizzed by my head and stuck firmly into a post in the disco. A gun shot rang out and I saw Calvin lying on the table bleeding from a wound in the palm below his digits. Smoke from the barrel of a gun held by Roberte.

“Life's a bitch” Roberte said. “Then you die.”

With that statement, I called upon the spirit world to transport Roberte, Coletta, and I back to the real world to see Mr. Lim.

PART SIX: THE EYE

That was a first. I've never been able to transport exactly I want to. We were in Mr. Lim's living room obviously in the middle of feeding time. His Butler a chimp with a voice box, was serving Mr. Lim and all of his fifty cronies, tuna casserole. The smell made me want to puke. Being a floating head in a spirit cabinet may not be the best plan, having to float in my own sick.

“Oh, great!” The Butler moaned. “More guests! I only have two hands and these hands can't make another casserole any time soon!”

“Shut it, Binky. They aren't eating. Now go fetch me my whiskey sour, like a good boy.” Lim demanded. Binky scowled at Lim and gave him a Zelig heil. Lim rolled his eyes.

“A chimp as a butler, very strange,” Roberte said, resting on the sofa, two of Lim's kitty comrades sniffed his digits.

“As if you should talk. You're a hand without an arm or a body, for that matter. Okay, Johnny, I see you've brought me the package. Now cut the psychic line and ease her down in front of me.” The black cat said, wiped some tuna from the sleeve of his smoking jacket.

“As you wish, Mr. Lim,” I commanded my spirits to perform that act and Coletta lay gently on the floor.

She woke, still groggy, murmuring about Calvin. Mr. Lim ran up to her and snatched the necklace from around her neck. He held it up, the milky eyeball shimmering in the lights.

“At last,” Mr. Lim exclaimed and promptly bit into the eye, chewing it carefully. Coletta screamed, reached out for the necklace. It was too late, Mr. Lim had swallowed the last bits.

“You monster,” She sobbed. “It was all I had left of my Father before you caused the accident!”

“He was working on a lovely potion to help me become human again,” Lim explained.

“The last drop of potion survived as it splattered in his eye. Delicious.”

In mere moments, Mr. Lim had a violent change to his body. He had become human..only in body, though. His cat head survived, as did a tail.

We couldn't help but laugh, all of us, even his cat friends.

Mr. Lim sighed as he caught his visage in a mirror across the room.

“Oh, shit,” He said. “Oh, well. You can't have everything,” Mr. Lim drank his whiskey sour.

“Very Tacky,” Binky remarked and rolled his eyes.

- - -
I have stories in Burial day, Blood moon rising, The stray branch and Electric chair podcast.
I live in Williamsburg, VA with my wife and daughter.

11/28/12

2012-11-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

A Tale of Bugs
By Joel Zartman

Something was wrong with Christine’s plant.

“Maybe you overwatered it,” Joe suggested.

“No . . . I mean—I always water it but there’s no water in the bottom, see?”

Joe peered at the clear plastic dish in which the plant sat; it was absolutely dry.

“Sometimes the soil still retains the moisture,” he said. But it was evident he no longer believed his own theory, and he departed in search of some popcorn.

After he left, Christine cut a piece from the plant and put it on the desk. She had noticed several black spots on it and when she put the plant on the desk, the spots began to scurry away.

“Bugs!” she said, bending down to peer at them. She got her glasses and looked at the evidence moving away over the desk, then peered at the plant. The plant was infested.

Joe saw her throwing out all the cuttings from the plant. “What was it?”

“It was full of bugs.”

“Where did all the bugs come from?” Joe asked.

“Maybe from Chad. The plant was fine until I got some soil from Chad,” she said.

But Chad’s plants were fine, thriving even.

“Maybe they’re carriers,” Joe said. (He was something of a plant-conspiracy theorist, unfortunately.) Christine eyed him and then went back to her desk.

“Watch out for the bugs,” Joe said to Kevin. Kevin was returning from another cigarette break.

“What bugs?”

“Christine has bugs in her plant.”

“What?”

“They could be crawling over. Nobody knows where they came from.” This last was another manifestation of the profoundly conspiracy theory-warped soul of Joe, and he was pleased to see it appeared to have an effect on Kevin. “Yes,” Joe said, darkly, “kind of unsettling, isn’t it?”

Kevin went over to see about the plant.

“You had bugs in your plant?”

“Yeah. Hopefully they’re all in the trash now.”

“You threw them in the trash?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

“Whul . . .”

Christine eyed Kevin. He was not, it must be said, behaving in ways that anybody, even somebody who knew him, might find usual. He was sort of hopping from one foot to the other, but very gradually, looking uneasy.

“Whul . . .” he repeated, “can I have your trash? I can just switch it with mine.”

“Yeah,” Christine said, swiveling around again. “I don’t want it.”

It was not the habit of Christine to switch her trash with other persons in this easy manner, as if persons were continually clamoring for the privilege. But this was Kevin—and she had her methods.

When after a few minutes she activated the elaborate spying apparatus that she had put in place in order to cope with Kevin, she saw he was hunched over the trash can doing something. After a while it became evident to Christine that Kevin was trying to put the bugs into a glass jar.

Christine sat back and pondered: Why was Kevin trying to salvage the bugs? Was it some lame practical joke of his to put them in other people’s plants? Perhaps he had expected another reaction; maybe her action had been so decisive it had ruined the effect of the joke and he was going to try again. No, she thought, there was more to it than that.

Just then Joe came around, and Christine had to hide the spying equipment surreptitiously, which she barely accomplished.

Joe leaned in, conspiratorially, and whispered, “He’s salvaging the bugs.”

Christine affected surprise. “He’s what?”

“Kevin is salvaging the bugs. He’s taking them out of the trash and putting them in a glass jar.”

“What for?”

“Nothing good,” Joe said grimly.

“What can he use the bugs for, though?” Christine insisted.

“Bring ROD to its knees at last,” Joe said after a pause. (ROD: Radiotron Ontological Devices, their employers.)

Christine rolled her eyes and swiveled back toward her computer.

A few hours later Joe surprised Kevin in one of the conference rooms. Joe thought he had a meeting but there was, of course, no actual meeting. It happened to Joe a lot. Anyway, Kevin was in the far side of the room, singing softly and holding the glass jar.

Joe stared at Kevin who hadn’t noticed and had gone on crooning, bent over the jar. Joe hesitated, then he stepped back and closed the door softly. He looked all around: of course, there were surveillance cameras everywhere, but that’s why Joe had bought a mail order Detect-O-Blast, a device which completely obliterated the presence of the wearer from any means of electronic surveillance for only $99.99, batteries not included. Ever since he had gotten it, Joe had become very uneasy about non-electronic means of surveillance.

But he ought to be safe at this point. So he went back to his desk to think.

Fraud Owl—the seemingly innocuous plastic mascot of the fraud department, however, was watching. And Fraud Owl relayed the information to his Masters, who in turn alerted Kevin.

“Whul,” Kevin said, looking up from the jar, “do I have to kill him now?”

Joe had always been uneasy about Fraud Owl, perched as it was in a privileged place and glaring out over the fraud room. The eyes seemed to bore into him regardless of the direction in which they pointed. Joe’s Detect-O-Blast had a button which could be pressed to send a self-destruct signal to any device of electronic surveillance. It was a patented invention which did not require that the electronic device be equipped with any built in self-destructor; it simply sent the signal which operated in the complicated circuitry of the device to make it realize that spying on other people was something only low down scum-suckers did, and after that the device sent back increasingly ambiguous data and eventually had to be replaced. Joe often wondered where these devices went when they were discarded.

In the fraud room though, Joe had to be careful where he aimed the device; they had already lost two valuable employees . . . though there was no danger that it would affect regular employees since their brains were not, actually, more complicated than the circuitry in surveillance apparatuses.

Kevin’s Masters were all in the jar, moving in the movements with which a hive mentality achieves its thinking. Finally a decision was reached and Kevin was informed of his course of action, to which he of course mindlessly agreed.

When Kevin got back to his desk and surreptitiously activated the surveillance apparatus with which he observed Joe, he saw that Joe was dismantling something on his desk. He turned up the audio to hear Joe’s muttering.

“Ah,” Joe was muttering between clenched teeth, as usual, “here it is: ‘Made . . . in Alpha Centauri’?”

Kevin saw as Joe looked up from his work, no surprise on his features, but a look of complete understanding mingled with grim satisfaction.

“Aliens,” Joe muttered, his teeth clenched and his eyes narrowed. “I should have known it.” He ran a hand through his hair and muttered, “I wonder how long they’ve been watching me and if they also work for the US government?”

Kevin had managed to see what it was Joe was working on. The Fraud Owl! A preprogrammed response hardwired—with no little difficulty—into Kevin’s brain fired.

All this time Christine, who had noticed that Kevin was back, had been using her surveillance mechanisms to spy on Kevin. As she watched, she saw a look of complete evil cross his face. She was not sure what was happening, but whatever Kevin was about to do had to be stopped: it could not be good. All her instincts cried against it. She reached for the pot in which the plant had been and in one swift movement dumped the whole thing on Kevin’s head, and jammed the pot down.

But it was the soil in which his Masters were nourished, and from it Kevin drew strength like he daily did from a grilled chicken burrito with two packages of mild sauce. Realizing she had made a mistake, Christine sat back down at her computer and began to type frantically, with deadly accuracy. Soon she was into the special management section of the bowels of the ROD intranet, then she had hacked her way up to a Vice-presidential level of access, and then she was into HR and had pulled up Kevin’s records. It wanted a password . . .

“Help!” Joe cried.

H-E-L-P, she typed . . . and the thing was hacked.

Other sounds of distress came from Joe’s cubicle. Christine had no time to loose, not even to put on her glasses! She peered at the screen and found the boxes. She unchecked Full Time and checked Temp and then hit Enter.

Not a moment too soon! Kevin had swelled to unimaginable proportions and was about to break Joe in half over the wall of his own cubicle, but then his status changed and the power drained out of him like a punctured basketball. His Masters, of course, would not work with a temp.

Joe was saved . . . and, strangely, so was Fraud Owl. Soon it was found on its old perch, and nobody thought anything about it.

Joe, of course, insisted on having his cubicle moved even though for all practical purposes, Kevin was the safest guy in the department. Kevin was a bit unhappy about being a temp again—which was how he had started—but he knew it was for his own protection and it was far better than being in the power of evil, alien plant-bugs; though at times, he had to admit, he missed it.

“But why,” Kevin asked some time later, “were the bugs in Christine’s plant?”

“Maybe they knew it was good soil?” Christine offered.

“How much did you pay for it?” Joe asked.

“Like, two bucks.”

“Wow,” Kevin said: he was always looking for deals in potting soil. “Where’d it come from?”

“I’m not sure where it actually came from,” Christine said. “It was a weird place I found it at. I was going there to recycle some surveillance equipment that had suddenly quit working and I found they also sold potting soil.”

The Joe of some hours ago would have detected the link to the aliens: recycled surveillance equipment + random potting soil = MAJOR CONSPIRACY. As it was, Joe was unfazed. Already, unbeknownst to him he was as much in the power of the aliens as Chad was, as most of the department was, even as Christine was, as everybody except in fact for Kevin was . . .

- - -
Joel Zartman lives and works in Columbus, OH.

11/21/12

2012-11-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

Suspended Idiosyncrasies
By Peter Baltensperger

The mountains loomed high above the valley, massive rock formations sculpted into a non-descript sky, gray clouds. Far below, a wide river sliced the valley in half, amalgamating tributaries of glacial water and alpine rain to take them to a distant ocean, shrinking distances into moments, flashes of thoughts. Marek cowered under the weight of the mountains, clinging to dreams of summits and escapes, triumph and release among the ever-shifting vicissitudes of his tableau, but the burden never lessened, the river never changed.

The gray clouds gradually morphed into black omens, driven from horizon to horizon by a high wind, but there was no rain. He was crouched on his hands and knees on the shore of the quiet lake half-way up the mountain, gathering stones and arranging them carefully into patterns to try and derive some meaning from their existence, find some credibility in their arrangements. He counted them methodically so as not to lose track of his questions, entangle himself in their multiplicity. He had done the same thing many times before, and he knew what he wanted to do, even though some of the stones always rolled out of his hands, refusing to yield their secrets, their innate connections to the essence of his mind.

At times, he felt as if the weight on his shoulders diminished when he counted the stones, but it was always back as soon as he sorted them into his insignificant configurations and tried to read into them what wasn’t there. At times, he was ready to despair in his never-ending search for answers, but the lake invariably drew him to its shore. It was better when the sky was clear and the wet stones glistened in the sun. It was the clouds that made everything more difficult, obscuring his vision as they did.

He was just fitting the final stones into his new arrangement when a beautiful woman came wading out of the lake, gathering vague threads of redemption from among the darkening clouds. She brought them ashore and spread them out beside his stones, then crouched down with him and wove them into intricate swatches of colorful material. With nimble fingers, she placed them into a cryptic order, matching size with size, color with color, and pointed at the overall design.

“See?” the woman said

“I don’t understand,” Marek said.

“I will show you,” the woman said.

She took him by the hand and led him into the lake. When they reached the middle of the lake, she grabbed his hand tightly and pulled him under the surface. He gasped in desperation to fill his lungs with a last breath of air, then gave himself over to the irresistible pull. They dove deeper and deeper until they came to a cave filled with glittering crystals and he realized that he was able to breathe again. He looked around in wonder, trying to comprehend the significance of her lair without coming to any conclusions.

“See?” the woman said.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

The woman reached out with her hand and covered his eyes, plunging him into an immense darkness of silence and confusion. He thought he could feel the sharp crystals puncturing his skin, but there was no pain, nor any kind of revelation. It was as if he had become trapped in an incomprehensible prison without windows, a nightmare of inscrutable shadows in non-existent corners. His mind was reeling with the mystery of her appearance, his ears deafened from the hollow silence of the cave. Yet he kept trying to peer into the darkness for a final answer, a redeeming word, his eyes burning with the futility of his search.

The next thing he knew, he was floating down the turbulent river towards the village, grasping at insignificant phantoms, apparitions, trying to keep afloat. A heavy rain was pounding the river, his body, his face, until he could barely see anything anymore. With his last ounce of passion, he clawed his way across the current and slung himself up on the shore. He collapsed in the rain on the grassy bank, panting and gasping for breath, his spinning mind wondering what happened to the mountain, to the lake.

- - -
Peter Baltensperger is a Canadian writer of Swiss origin and the author of ten books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. His work has appeared in print and on-line in several hundred publications around the world.

11/14/12

2012-11-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Storm
By TRS

He came to me when I had left myself.
Confident, reassured, obese and with a protrusion on his head.
He saw through me and saw me through
Like a captain steering ship in a relentless

Dangerous storm.
He brought me light, without my leaving the cave.
Atlantis.
But what about this world?
Without him I don’t know which is real.

- - -
I am an India based documentary filmmaker who has recently taken to poetry.

11/7/12

2012-11-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Dream Keeper
By Rohini Gupta

Ria had entered dark dreams before but rarely this terrible. The darkness blinded her for a moment and a thunderous animal roar deafened her. She jumped, hitting a stone wall behind her.

Calm down, she told herself, trying to still her pounding heart, I am a dream keeper. I am trained for this. There is no dream I can’t handle.

She could see a little now. She was standing in a narrow stone corridor with no end. She looked down it on both sides to see who was making such a dark dream and then she saw the dreamer, running towards her, screaming.

She had not expected this – a young woman, barely out of her teens, running desperately, arms flailing, her dark hair and her lacy white nightgown streaming behind her.

She was not alone. Her screams mingled with the roars of the monster which pursued her, a dark formless thing, made of bloated shadows, which stretched out a long, clawed hand to grasp the trailing edge of lace.

Just great, Ria thought as they passed, why do I always get the monsters?

She waited, knowing that nightmares repeat. The next time the dreamer ran past Ria stepped in her way.

Tactic one - communicate.

“Wait,” Ria called to her, “Listen to me, and don’t be afraid. This is just a dream.”

The dreamer did not notice. Her screams had turned into a thin, penetrating wail which hurt the ears. Combined with the monster’s insane roaring it was deafening. Ria understood why so many old, sick people or very young children were waking up shaking and white with fear.

The terrible dream had no ending. The monster never reached, the dreamer never stopped running, and night after night the screaming chase was on.

Ria sighed. She had to make her presence known in this endless loop.

Tactic two – break the pattern.

She called light and the darkness vanished. The stone corridor went with it, revealing the dreamer; stick thin, shocked, standing like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I am here to help you,” Ria said.

The dreamer cried out, shifting in her bed, outraged at the changes.

Darkness fell again. The monster howled.

“Stop this nonsense at once,” Ria snapped, losing her temper, bringing back the light. “Can’t you understand? Your monster is bleeding into the dreams of others and it has to stop.”

The dreamer gasped at the anger in her voice.

“Now, you,” Ria said strongly, “You have to stop creating monsters.”

“I am so afraid,” the dreamer said.

“You are running mad and this can’t go on, do you hear me? You have to face your fears.”

Tactic three – demonstrate control.

“It’s all in the mind,” Ria said. “You can change your dream and your life too. Watch and I will show you how to control your dream. Sunlight. Dancing.”

The forest faded into a sunny clearing and music and laughter filled the bright golden air. Dancers whirled and leaped upon the emerald grass, singing. Come and join us, they called.

“See? Now you try it,” Ria said.

But the world was turning dark again and monsters appeared among the dancers. The dreamer began to run once more down her endless, dark corridor, wailing as she went.

That had not worked. Very well, Ria thought. Tactic four, take away control.

On the next pass, she turned the monster into a kitten.

The roaring died out and silence fell.

The dreamer stopped, bewildered, and turned.

A small, grey kitten with sea green eyes batted at the end of her trailing nightgown. Meeooow?

There, Ria thought, let’s see what you make of that, your ravening beast is the cutest kitten.

The dreamer saw the kitten and started to back away. The kitten leaped towards her, the dreamer fell backwards, squealed, scrambled up and began to run.

“It’s just a kitten,” Ria called, but the dreamer was stumbling, groping, panicked out of her mind.

Just my luck, Ria thought, I get someone who is more afraid of a kitten than all the nightmare monsters.

She followed her into a forest of gnarled trunks and creeping shadows. The dreamer lay crouched against a tree trembling and sobbing in fear. Ria approached her cautiously.

She shrank, “Don’t hurt me. Please, don’t hurt me.”

Ria saw that she had been hurt badly, many times, in the world outside dreams. There were scars on her body and on her soul and pain everywhere.

Ria said gently, “I want to help you. If you just listen to me I can teach you how to live so that no one will ever hurt you again.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I can’t. Your emotions are too strong. Must you always have monsters?”

“There are always monsters.” She shivered and clutched onto herself tight. She looked behind Ria and her eyes widened in terror. She flattened herself against the tree, whimpering, “No, please, no, please.”

Ria turned expecting another towering monster but it was only the playful kitten leaping agilely over the roots, pausing to bat at a dry leaf. Its purring shook the forest.

“What on earth am I going to do with you?” Ria said. “I want to help you deal with your miserable life, and I can’t let you harass others either.”

The forest faded and the stone corridor emerged again. Ria watched helplessly as the dreamer ran, wailing, down its endless length.

This time, Ria sighed and let her go.

-----

On her way back, she checked the dreams of old, sick people and children. They were waking smiling and happy.

“Is the problem over?” her teacher asked.

“She just won’t listen. I will have to go back and keep talking to her.”

“And the nightmares?”

Ria laughed, “That, I solved. She will find it hard to keep them going with this monster. Even better, most people don’t seem to mind being pursued relentlessly by a cute, purring, fluffy, grey kitten.”

- - -
I am a writer from Mumbai, India. I have published non fiction and poetry books, written articles for newspapers and magazines and am now writing fiction. My stories have been published by Every Day Fiction and some Indian websites.

10/31/12

2012-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

A Pale Green Blade
By William Maier

The whetstone followed the steel edge with a hiss, paused briefly, and then lifted back towards the hilt to start its journey anew. The rhythm of the gritty hiss lent an almost musical quality to the air. It was a methodical process; it was a process which had become ritual. A thousand times the hand had held the stone, and thousands of times more the stone had ridden the steel. It was a simple act, in which Ryl Lorme had always taken pleasure. To whet an ensorcelled blade was unnecessary, yet the serenity it brought was useful, particularly so of late.

A troubled mind was not something that Ryl was accustomed to, and he did not plan on keeping its acquaintance long. Such things spelled doom for men like him: men that were in the employ of the High Marshal. The position was for life; it served as a reward for excessive skill, or punishment for serious crime. In Ryl’s case both applied. The Marshal’s men did not retire, rather they were retired; this was a fact he was intimately familiar with, being the preferred instrument of retirement. Being the best had afforded him an extended life expectancy, though someday, without doubt, the crown’s dirty little secrets would need to be scrubbed clean. Who would they send? Garbow? Terne? The Marshal was no fool, he would send both. It would be a close thing, but in the end he would need to send more, and he certainly would. If you knew where to find a man you could kill him, and the Marshal always knew where to look. And therein lay the source of his current discontent.

How long had it been since he closed the door to foolish hopes of anything but a blade in the back, or a flask of tainted ale, as an end to his story? But now, he could hear memories long put to rest, like kenneled dogs-- scratching at first, but now clawing-- behind the door, refusing to be ignored. And perhaps their diligence paid off, for at that moment he was struck with a recollection of youth: the fancy of someday leaving these highlands to pursue a career as a treasure-seeking pirate, though he had never seen the sea. There was a fair-haired girl as well, the cobbler’s daughter, whose mere presence would weaken his knees. A pungent odor of the past flared his nostrils; it was the smell of onions on his mother’s dirt-stained hands, the only thing that would grow in their wretched little garden. The door had been breached. And only with a great flexing of his mental muscles did Ryl manage to seal it again, but not before the damage was done. For the first time in thousands, the hand betrayed the ritual; the whetstone fell from loose fingers to thud on the ground.

Ryl stared at the stone a moment before reaching down to pluck it from the grass and slip it into the small satchel on his belt. He looked at his sword, giving some regard to the pale green blade before sliding it into the baldric about his shoulder. His trance was broken, the ritual was over. He rose from the rock that served as his seat; he stretched his back, rolled his shoulders, and strode out toward the trail. As he went, he thought about a certain boy: a boy called Rat-face.

Rat-face was the apprentice at the smithy, the same smithy that outfitted the Marshal’s men with their legendary swords. The uniqueness of these swords was the green hue of the steel, presumably, from the enchantments weaved inside them. Ryl had quite literally bled for the right to wield his blade; the blood provided the essence which bound him to the sword. It was impossible for Ryl to lose the sword; how could one lose their very essence? Of course, the sword would always reveal its wielder as well. A very convenient detail, if you happened to be the Marshal. As for the boy, Rat-face, he was a fool; he was a great admirer of Ryl and those of like repute. Yet even fools have their uses, and Rat-face had served as a competent informer for Ryl. Two nights past, Rat-face spent a week’s wages keeping Ryl’s cup filled at the tavern. His attempt to impress Ryl resulted only in his own inebriation. And thus, it was a loose-lipped, rat-faced, fool of a boy, who had set the gears of Ryl’s thoughts in motion.

Rat-face claimed to have information: Ryl’s time had come. The trouble with Rat-face was he had also spoken of carnivorous unicorns and a three-legged goat that could predict the weather. Ryl had considered snapping the boy’s neck and leaving him at the bottom of some stairway-- in another time, a younger Ryl would have done just so-- but after weighing the odds of Rat-face remembering what he said, or to whom he said it, Ryl chose differently. What did the words of a drunken fool matter anyway? Not much. And Ryl could have left it at that-- except there was Verno.

Verno was the proprietor of The Gut Hook, a favored watering hole of the Marshal’s men. Besides being the proud owner of the establishment, he was also Ryl’s most reliable informant. He had been dropping hints to Ryl lately, ones that were safe, but hints Ryl would catch. Last time Ryl had seen Verno, he had handed him silver for the night’s ale, then turned to leave.

“Watch yourself out there, Ryl,” Verno had said cheerily. The words had caused Ryl to pause, so slightly no one would’ve noticed. He had known Verno for years, and never in all those years had Verno said such a thing. Ryl had understood.

Ryl stood between the wagon ruts, staring south down the trail; it was only seconds before he picked up the movement of his companion amongst the tree line. A grin curled his lips. Lenk was a difficult sight to miss, even at this distance. It was not his stature that gave away his identity-- though he was long and lithe, which made him seem taller than his average height-- but rather his obnoxious choice of attire. His affinity for the dramatic was apparent in his black ornate armor, purple plumed helm, and jewel-encrusted scabbard. He was young and unscarred, barely twenty, but quick and skilled with the blade. The old crew-- had there been any left-- would have hated him. They would have thought him soft, but they would have been mistaken. Ryl knew there was a lean-muscled stoutness under the fancy garb. He had a long way to go, but the potential was there. And for this reason, Ryl not only tolerated Lenk, he liked him. It was no surprise they had given him to Ryl. He had to start building a new crew; there were too many retirees out there feeding the maggots, due in no small part to Ryl himself.

The fact he had just covered a half league at a quick pace did little to labor Lenk’s breath, or dampen his spirit. He removed his helm, approaching Ryl with his usual smirk. Ryl, half a head taller, and wearing a tarnished chain hauberk missing several links, stood in stark contrast to his youthful counterpart. Lenk looked more ready to attend a royal ball than to deal with the task at hand. The thought gave Ryl a smirk of his own.

“An escort of only four, two on the coach, one being the driver, of course,” Lenk said, seemingly pleased with his report.

“So six, or is it four?”

“Aye, just two lances and a couple hired swords.”

“You mentioned two on the coach, that’s six, and that’s not counting the job inside the coach. Over compensate, it will serve you well. Details are important. I’ve seen better men than you die on their first job,” Ryl said, finishing with a lie.

“Right, six then plus the job in the coach,” Lenk paused to feign stupidity, “I believe is seven.”

Ryl sighed, “Did you see inside the coach? Or do you simply assume it seats only one? What about sorcery? Please tell me you checked.”

“Hmm, guess I hadn’t considered everything, first time out and all. But, rest assured no mages. I had my hand on the entire time,” he said patting the pommel of his sword, “it never hummed so much as a tickle.”

“Well, some good news at least. No magic.”

“You know, I thought you said that stuff was useless against these blades.”

“Defensive wards and the like, aye, you’ll slice right through. Other spells, offensive types-- fireballs, earth demons, and what have you-- not so much,” Ryl said. He failed to mention there hadn’t been a mage capable of such spells in a hundred years.

“Then I guess that is good news,” Lenk said, touching the pommel once again. The smirk was fading away now. He anxiously shifted from one foot to the other then turned to face back down the trail. There was a moment of silence-- somewhat remarkable for Lenk-- before he spoke again.

“Who do you suppose it is?”

“An unfortunate soul,” Ryl steadied his gaze on his companion,” Don’t muddy your mind with those questions, Lenk. The answers never change the outcome. Besides, you wouldn’t want to know, though you think you do. Less is best, and you’ll just have to trust me on that.” I sure as hell ought to know, he thought.

“How soon till they cross the west road?”

“I’d say they’ve passed it by now. Best go secure the horses, Lenk. Then get your butt back here.”

“I thought maybe we’d be setting a block, tree in the road, or something of the sort,” Lenk said.

Ryl laughed, looking around at the out-cropping of rock to one side of the trail, and the trees to the other. “No, they’ll find it difficult enough to turn around a coach here, if they’re stupid enough to try. It’s a good spot. We’ll be the tree in the road. Relax, my friend, and hurry the hell up with the horses.”

He noticed Lenk raise a quizzical brow before turning to jog up the trail, purple plume bouncing in his wake. My friend? Where did that come from? “He, who thinks and talks the fool, dies the fool.” Had someone said that? Well if not, someone should have. He had felt a dark portent growing about him ever since Rat-face and Verno had planted that seed: his time had come. He wasn’t an old man, not yet anyhow. There were still a few years before he had to truly worry about things. And when the time to worry did come? Well, he was surely no less deserving than those before him.

The lances rode in front of the approaching carriage, with the pair of mercenaries bringing up the rear. As the lances reined their mounts to a halt in front of the two men, Ryl sensed, more than saw, Lenk’s hand creep toward the grip of his blade.

“Careful now,” Ryl whispered to his companion. Lenk stood close to his left side, where he could nearly feel the hammer of the young man’s heart. He remembered the sensation, the rush of adrenaline pushing you to the edge of frenzy. A valuable tool when controlled, but it took time to master. Nice and easy kid, he thought, taking a step forward.

A tall, thick-shouldered man, with a thin dark mustache, came around the coach and dismounted his horse. His dark beady eyes, set deep under a large sloping forehead, seemed to scrutinize Ryl and Lenk. Whatever Tall and Thick saw, it apparently bolstered his confidence. When he spoke, his chin jutted out in theatrical mockery. “What have us here, scoundrels and rogues? It would seem apparent you wish to be trampled beneath us, or maybe you’re simply too slow-witted to clear off the road. May I at least inquire who delays the niece of the Duchess of Treze? I would like to send word of their demise to their families when we reach our destination. Go ahead, you first scoundrel,” he said, poking a finger at Ryl, “then the troubadour, or is he only a jester?” There was a ripple of nervous laughter amongst the lances and the other swordsman. The coachmen, looking terrified, fumbled for their own blades. Tall and Thick crossed his arms, a grotesque smile splitting his face, and waited for his answer.

He who thinks and talks the fool…

It seemed the crown’s interests now stretched as far south as Treze, Ryl thought, noting the heavy scale of the lances and swordsmen-- typical of the region. He gave a brief glance to the coachmen. They were not soldiers, but soft men in everyday garb with faces now turned ashen. For the merest of moments, he felt something akin to pity for them. The feeling quickly forgotten, Ryl gave his best version of a charming smile.

“It would be less than polite to deny anything to such an amicable lot as yours, so I shall answer your question.” He swept an arm toward Lenk, “This young…jester, was it? Anyhow, this is Lenk. And indeed he shall perform for you today, as a jester does, though today he shall not play the part of a fool, as it’s apparent you’ve laid claim to that role. Instead he will be a killer.” Whispers rippled between the guards as Lenk gave a grand bow, his purple plume nearly touching the ground. Ryl was really quite impressed. “As for me,” he slowly drew the jade-colored blade from the baldric, “I am Ryl Lorme, scoundrel, rogue, and much worse.”

Just as Ryl finished speaking, the driver of the coach suddenly stood-- a whimpering sound escaping his throat-- and sprang from the carriage. He landed with a thud, tumbling several feet before managing to scramble to his feet, at which point he broke into a run, heading the direction from which they came.

“Well, I think my reputation precedes me. Perhaps the rest of you would like to follow the coachman’s lead,” Ryl said, no longer wearing the false smile. And then it began, just as he knew it would.

Thick and Tall’s face contorted with hatred as he charged forward. “Murdering scum! I’ll--,” his final threat was soundless, spraying forth in a crimson mist. The big mercenary pitched forward as Ryl yanked the blade from his throat, quickly stepping inside the wild thrust of a lance. A jab to the mount’s flank reared the horse, sending the rider flopping to the ground. Incredibly, he landed in a sitting position with a dazed look upon his face; the expression lasted only an instant before being removed by a downward hack from Ryl’s sword. He spun away from the faceless man, and saw the other rider raise his lance. It was pointed at Lenk, who was busy with his own fight.

Ryl didn’t hesitate. He leapt forward, meeting the rider before he could skewer Lenk, and plunged his blade deep into the man’s left armpit. The force of the blow punched the sword point out above the right shoulder. Now embedded, the blade was nearly torn from his grip as the man slid to the ground to rest between the splayed legs of his faceless comrade. Ryl looked up to see Lenk running toward him; his sword was stained with mercenary blood. He attempted to tug free his own sword just as a white hot pain stung the left side of his head. Managing to spin around, he saw the coachman, the one who had not ran away. His eyes were wide and wild; a short bladed weapon trembled in his grip. He attempted another attack--a pathetic lunge-- at Ryl, as he did Lenk flashed past, burying his sword in the man’s chest.

The two men stood surveying the surroundings. The only sound was of the fleeing horses, their pounding hooves fading down the trail. Ryl bent down and picked something up when Lenk spoke.

“I should tease you about forgetting how to count, but sincerely I am in awe. I had heard the stories-- but you know how stories are. Gods, you are as fast as they say-- forgive my doubts,” he said moving to Ryl’s side to examine the wound. “You’re bleeding quite badly. Hurt much?”

“My head, or the fact you doubted my legend? No, it’s only a scratch and I’ve bled worse, much worse.” Ryl said. He gave a close look to the grisly hunk of flesh he had picked from the ground-- what had been the better part of his left ear-- then simply tossed it aside. “Damn shame though.”

“It will only add to the mystique of Ryl Lorme,” Lenk said laughing. He placed his hand on Ryl’s shoulder with a sudden look of seriousness, “I believe you saved me the discomfort of being impaled, and for that I am more than grateful. I won’t soon forget it.” There was a lack of sarcasm in his last words, unusual for Lenk. It made Ryl wince.

Shit, don’t go starting to trust people kid, especially not people like me, Ryl thought. He nodded toward the carriage, “You’ve got a job to finish. Can’t hold your hand the whole way, that’s the order, it’s how it works. You up for finishing this so we can go get stinking drunk?”

“Aye, I am,” his tone was grave. He turned and slowly walked toward the carriage.

Ryl watched him go. How does a kid like Lenk get stuck in this shitty game? Something screamed in his head to stop him, to just tell him that if he finished this job, his life was finished with it. There would always be another job, till someday, he became someone else’s job. In the end his bust would never be placed on a mantle, and no tapestry depicting his heroics would ever be hung. He would be a killer and a slave, nothing more. Tell him.

“Lenk,” Ryl was startled by the sound of his own voice.

Lenk had reached the carriage, his hand already on the door lever. He turned, “Last bit of advice?”

Ryl held the young man’s eyes for a brief time. It was time enough to curse himself for his own wretchedness. “Nothing, just wanted to let you know I’m buying tonight.” And that I’m a damn coward.

“And I’ll hold you to that,” said Lenk, turning back to the carriage.

Ryl watched Lenk grasp the door lever again, his sword at the ready, another life about to be owned by the Marshal. He watched as Lenk opened the door, seeming to freeze for a long moment, then relax his posture, lowering his blade and turning again to Ryl. There was a look of confusion on his face. “A child,” he barely whispered. And it was just then that Ryl caught the glint of thin cruel steel darting out, like a shiny snake’s tongue, from the dark confines of the coach. He knew that glint of steel had served its purpose-- even before Lenk raised a mailed hand to his throat, before he fell to his knees, and before great gouts of blood spilled through his fingers-- Ryl had known. He did not cry out, or run to his fallen companion. Instead, he paused for an instant, closing his eyes while his mind strangled the rise of an alien emotion. His eyes opened and he wrenched his blade from the dead rider and strode toward the carriage.

Inside he found a young girl, a fair-haired girl. Though not beautiful, she was pretty in a certain way: a way that seemed to encourage the dogs of memory to take up scratching at the door again. He growled, giving a heavy mental boot to the door. Shut the hell up! And he was relieved when they obliged.

The girl was shaking; she held a long thin-bladed dagger, the end slick with Lenk’s blood. Then, thinking of Lenk, he understood: Lenk had not yet become one of the Marshal’s men. He had seen a frightened child, and it mattered to him. It had never mattered to Ryl. Lenk’s reluctance was why he died here today. Maybe it was better this way; he had died with a soul, something Ryl had surrendered long ago. The girl flinched, but didn’t attack when he reached in and took the dagger from her hand. He reflected on his situation, on the girl, and on Lenk. Finally, he let out a sigh, looking at the child who had saved Lenk’s soul. If only he had found his own salvation so long ago. But he was a murderer; he was a tool of the crown and nothing more. These thoughts made him smile bitterly as he spoke, “Girl, I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

After riding south a few leagues past the west road, Ryl slid from his mount to stand at another crossroad. The coach driver, who had fled, only made a league before Ryl rode up on him. On his knees, he had begged and pleaded, as though Ryl were some twisted god about to pass judgment. But Ryl had only instructed him to return to the carriage, where he would find the girl waiting. He was to make haste back to Treze and inform the Duchess of the High Marshal’s treachery. Before the man went, Ryl asked for his weapon. With an odd look, he had handed over his short blade, turned, and started jogging back up the road. It was that weapon which Ryl now held in his hands, standing at the crossroads.

It was really no more than a long knife, better for whittling sticks than flesh. The blade was perfectly unremarkable: grey iron, with a tattered leather grip. He secured it in his belt, and removed the baldric about his shoulder. He let the leather belt and scabbard fall to the ground as he drew the pale green blade. He examined it, as he had countless times before. This sword-- always keen, perfectly attuned to the wielder-- somehow served as a beacon of sorts. It had been his yoke, and he would always be bound to it. Strange, it seemed heavier now, and maybe slightly darker. The Marshal always knows where to look. Ryl realized that Rat-face may have been right; he also realized he no longer cared either way. And with that liberating discovery, he drove the sword into the very center of the crossroad.

Ryl Lorme stood at the center of the crossroads, now marked by a sword with a pale green blade. The road south continued to Treze; the roads north, and west, he was leaving behind. His service to the crown had never taken him far down the eastern road, but he knew where it led. He mounted his horse, thinking of the hundreds of leagues between him and the harbor cities of the coast. The Marshal would come for him eventually, but in the meantime he would head east, toward a new life. A life as a pirate perhaps, though he had never seen the sea.

- - -
I am 42 years old and earn my living as a printer. I have finally quit thinking about writing and am now doing it. I live in Wisconsin with my wife and three daughters.

10/24/12

2012-10-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

Barth & Belle
By Jordaine Givens

He had not personally known Belle for an extensive phase of time, although, laying eyes on her as the ship docked in Port Salum of Italia one month from that day swung his passion to favor the youthful girl. She was a pure brunette with layered hair that seemed to fall into each individual hair’s place across the side of her soft, welcoming face. She was desired by the most strapping and agile men on the ship, perfectly replicating the plot of a fairytale. Bartholomew was not brawny nor was he the most agile on the ship of men. Bartholomew has never prevailed in anything, although; the young man was the most handsome of them all. He also has never felt the enticing touch of love or the sting of realizing when to fall out of love. He has never fallen for anyone, but the sight of Belle constantly taunted his thoughts. Barth knew the consequences of falling for someone and the results of Belle falling for him. The result would not be promising.
Barth knew that he could feel the perplexing thoughts he contained and never react on them. For Barth was not a romantic man. He was born and raised without knowing the intense throbbing in the gut over a young woman. Taking a woman down to the shoreline and speaking about nonsense for hours was foreign behavior. Gazing into a woman’s eyes until the brink of laughter seemed unreachable to Barth. Subtle flirtation would never leave his actions. Belle could mean nothing to Barth or everything, and separation would be futile.
Belle sought the attention of the Captain, for she not only enjoyed alluring powerful individuals, she increasingly developed a lust of crushing their hearts. She seemed to find the feel of watching as an individual would break down and weep for hours over losing someone as divine as her stimulating.

Dear Belle,
Yesterday was yet another day of suffering. I’m beginning to feel what my father once spoke of when I was only a child. “Deckhands, according to unspoken code, do not acknowledge the sentiment they undergo during a venture out on sea”. And yet, as I ponder my thoughts, I discover what I once believed a privateer could not feel: melancholy. I haven’t spoken of it to you; partially from the sickness and partially from these thoughts. I’m beginning to believe that I am growing a dependency of some sort for spending time with you.
I felt it again. That pain. That aching. I’m hurt. I’ve realized I am no longer needed in this world. It hurts. I’m not sure if it’s you, or the struggle. I do not matter to you, do I?
Belle, my father has never taught me something unnecessary to survival out on sea, so initially the feeling of love is mystifying. The way you spoke to me reinsured me the way a mother prattles a child. When you told me you cared for me, I instantaneously felt something similar to discovering an unknown phenomenon. Belle, I kn-

Uproar shakes the Johnston Voyager as Bartholomew Jensen writes to the lovely Belle Whither. The cheers of relieved crew members destroy Barth’s concentration on the letter. He exits his desk and wanders onto the deck of the ship.
“What has happened?” Barth questions a fellow crewmate.
“We have left the dock of Port Salum and have begun to depart for home my comrade! Rejoice!” the crewmate exclaims.
Barth does not speak, but runs to the edge of the deck. He watches as he sees the port grow farther from the ship. Barth suddenly sprints to his desk and grabs the letter in progress for the beloved Belle. He places the letter in a mail canister the crew took from a local pub during dock. Running back to the deck, curious crewmates give confused glares towards Barth. Shouts shake the Voyager as Barth clears the side of the boat and enters the sea. He swims with canister and letter for a mile until he once again reaches the dock of Port Salum. Being lifted by dock workers, Barth struggles as he attempts to reach Belle. He examines his surroundings and watches as she enters a home parallel to the pub.
As he approaches the window of the home exhausted and panting, he watches Belle stripping down from her floral print dress stained from wine of a previous night. She slides her undergarments from her body onto the ground and removes the tie from her flowing, brunette hair. For a moment, Belle glances towards Barth in the window then turns to another door in the house. From the window, a man lay in the sheets of a bed and beckons for Belle. She slowly fades out of Barth’s vision, consciousness, and heart as she enters the sheets.

- - -

10/17/12

2012-10-17T00:00:00.008-07:00

Borderland
By Michelle Kopp

Within the Borderland, she lingers among tombstones.

Through opaque greyness cast over the glittering vibrancy beyond the edge, children’s swings begin to calm in the bleakness of autumn breezes; amber leaves rustle through the grasses before snowfalls blankets feathery-light upon them. Through the cold winter, they decay beneath the footfalls of children, to be forgotten with the cherry-blossom spring.

But within the desolation of the Borderland, voices whisper the hushed moments before death; it is wasteland playgrounds of forgotten childhoods and scarlet fever; it is speckles of blood soaking through shrouds above cracked, thin lips as mothers weep in white mantles; it is evening’s sunlight descending through the cemetery.

A rusted bench of rotted wood guards the child’s slumber beyond the gauzy edges of the Borderland. Her daughter rests in the earth compressed beneath many cold winters reborn as spring maidens, beneath those springtime maidens aged to withering winter crones.

Rotten wood splinters in her translucent skin as she sits. The mourning cry of a songbird mingles with the crackling of a crow and she falls to her knees; she sets black feathers of remembrance over the resting grave as silent tears glisten in her eyes. Forgotten in the soil, a mouldy child’s corn dolly with one buttoned eye missing, a broken statue of a woman with faery wings. A small weed grows through holes chipped in stone, clinging to sunlight and water droplets falling from ice-jade eyes.

Soft whispers of a child’s laughter -- her child’s melodic laughter as she hides among the brambles. ‘Mommy . . . Mommy . . .’ wafting through the winds of memory, a small tug on her dirty apron at the harvest festival, flour-covered hands and faces. Her muddy hand leaving imprints on the mattress, on the clean clothes drying on the line in the waning sunlight.

Trapped within the desolate winter of the Borderland, she has drifted through the tombstones -- through those of the darkest granite honoured with fresh flowers in pastel pink and white, with toy tractors and harvesters, with plastic dollies in cotton clothing -- endlessly through those with newly-packed soil and with squeaking gophers playing amongst the souls of light-hearted children.

Their laughter breaks her heart and she continues to kneel at the neglected grave -- once loved, once remembered -- the wisps of her hand slipping through last autumn’s leaves collected against the side of a broken seraph.

The words craved in gravestone, faded through lonely years: sleep, my little one; sleep.

- - -
Michelle Kopp currently resides in Saskatchewan, Canada where she is a full-time graduate student at the University of Saskatchewan, and part-time writer. Her work has recently appeared in the Diverse Arts Project.

10/10/12

2012-10-10T00:00:00.008-07:00

The Oath
By James R Waggoner

Bodies trimmed in blood filled every nook and cranny of the fired village. Remains of homes, barns and livestock still glowed a ruddy blush when he stepped out of the thinning layer of smoke and gave himself a congratulatory nod. Horses with red speckled men thundered by as they left the carnage they created while their leader breathed in the sooty air. He held up the severed head of Menon Allar to his face and broke out in a raucous laugh.

Calbar Mal Aryans was no man to ignite in anger, for his temper and cruelty were already legendary within the Pict clans. This day culminated the argument began by Menon Allar in the last gathering of chiefs. Menon accused him of raping many of his women while they held a truce, and went so far as to strike the elder Calbar in protest and challenge. Seeing the angry glare in the high chiefs eyes however, the other chiefs turned their backs to Menon, removing themselves from the responsibility of decision.

Squatting behind a still burning pile of timbers that once was his home, a red haired boy glared out at the man holding his fathers head. He welled with rage and utter hate in that instant, and spoke an oath to the dread god Belatu. He promised the god of war a soul, a wretched soul he said. The soul of the warrior Calbar.

Five years had passed since the boy spoke the oath, and in the meantime, Calbar had risen from high chief to absolute leader of the Pictish Nation. His craving for battle and murder served him well in removing the other clan chiefs, for the five years after the death of Menon were forever known as the Scarlet Years. Calbar’s name became synonymous with fear, doom, and death.

As Calbar sat atop the clans as supreme chief, a name constantly crossed his ears from the north. A man called Bloody Red was carving his own brutal path through the Pictish world with vicious intent. He was a tall, well-muscled man who was said to come from the mainlands of the east. It was there he honed his dreadful skills with the tribes of the horn and earned his terrible moniker.

At first Calbar thought nothing of the tales, but as the stories came more frequently, he began to take notice. His heart pumped as he thought of the day he would meet the warrior, for no other could match the vile nature of his own mind he thought, and that pleased him greatly. Calbar thought of the destruction he and this Bloody Red would rain down on the world; the thought of kingship entered his head. He would rule with an absolute iron fist, and the man called Bloody Red would be his death angel. Calbar knew that his days of riding into battle and whipping his ax around were slowly coming to an end, and the news of the destructor in the north was a tantalizing way to keep what he murdered for.

Six years after Menon had been decapitated, Calbar and his army met the advancing horde of the Bloody Red on the plain of Dekmar. It was the flattest plot of ground in all the Pict nations and extremely suitable for open combat, for there were no trees or natural fortifications around for miles.

The two leaders met under the banner of talks, as was custom before blood flowed. Calbar was in a jovial mood, because he thought this man was as he was, and would join with him in his plot to rule. He was innately wrong.

As the parties stopped and the spokesman for Calbar began to speak, the red-haired man called Bloody Red brained him to his teeth with a mace. Spattered with brain and bone Calbar was shocked at his attack, and before he moved, the other two men of his entourage were chopped down. For the first time in his life, Calbar Mal Aryans fled from a fight.

Bloody Red watched with a snarl.

“For the life of my clan and of my father, I will shove my fist down your throat and rip out your heart, Calbar! I have come for one thing, your head!” shouted the wild haired man.

Reining in his mount, Calbar instantly knew who the Northerner was. The man was none other than Vogel, son of Menon Allar. Pushing away his nerves, he turned for the youth with a roar and held his ax high. Vogel bolted from his men with a howl, heeling his horse into a fierce gallop. They met with a clang, and Calbar was on the ground with blood streaming down his face.

Vogel was off and running towards the elder Pict instantly. His blue war paint caused even the fierce Calbar to flinch, and he was thrown back from a weighty punch. Wild eyes led the Bloody Red’s attacks; Calbar could barely defend against the strength of the young man. His thrusts were easily swatted away, and his heavy drops of sword missed their mark entirely. Vogel was toying with him.

“I swore to Belatu that I would give him a contemptible soul, Old Man. Today I give it to him!” screamed Vogel.

Calbar had no words. He was so unprepared for the fight that he almost couldn’t think. He dropped to his knees a moment later and tossed his ax away. He removed his helm and threw it aside in defeat.

“Then fulfill your oath!” he growled.

Vogel was lost to rage and revenge, and stepped forward swinging wildly. Ducking in a blink and releasing his sword, Calbar rolled, stood, and removed Bloody Red’s head as he staggered by off balance. Calbar stood wobbly from his many wounds, glaring at the body of Vogel.

He raised the severed head of Vogel Allar to his face and broke out in a raucous laugh.

- - -
I have been writing seriously for the last five years after an injury at work gave me the time to get going. I write mostly fantasy and dark fantasy with an occasional stab at Sci-Fi. In my short career, I've written two novels that I hope to publish, and a host of short stories and flash fiction.

10/3/12

2012-10-03T00:00:00.002-07:00

The Onlookers
By R.G. Summers

The Onlookers were just a part of life for the people of Oakham, Massachusetts. The community had accepted them, for they had always been present and it seemed as though they always would be. No one knew what the Onlookers were, though sometimes the people would discuss the Onlookers as people might discuss the weather or the local sports team. Oakham was a remote town in a rural area though with a moderate climate, so they didn’t have much weather and they certainly didn’t have a sports team.

Just about the only conclusion the community had reached about the Onlookers was that they weren’t ghosts. No one had ever seen an Onlooker that resembled a deceased person, nor did they reflect the normal human range of emotions. Their faces were always blank, save for a look of mild curiosity or confusion they displayed when watching the residents. Somewhat transparent and muted in color, they did resemble ghosts.

They passed through doors and walls and all tangible things; they came and went at will. For generations they had peaceably haunted the houses and streets of Oakham. The community that had grown up with them always tolerated, and sometimes ignored, their presence. It wasn’t that hard—the Onlookers ignored each other too. They were mute, made little motion, and never interacted with any other creature. Though solitary beings, they were drawn to the spectacle of human interaction and were always watching.

The Onlookers stood in nurseries and watched mothers put their babies to sleep. They loomed beside bus stops to see children board school buses in the morning. They followed teenage couples to otherwise secluded locations and skeptically observed them kiss. Sometimes they slunk into houses to witness married couples fight. There was nothing they didn’t seem to take an interest in and there was no way to keep them out. However, they did nothing and told no one. Their secrets safe and their lives—for all intents and purposes—private, the residents were apathetic to the Onlookers’ presence.

Life in the tiny town of Oakham probably would have continued like this, if Wyatt Murphy hadn’t been born.

His deafness was identified early on in his childhood, and he could not be taught how to speak. Despite this handicap, Wyatt was dearly loved by his parents and they were resolved to find a way to communicate with their only son. His mother began learning and teaching her boy sign language immediately. However, this interaction drew an uncommonly large crowd of Onlookers. The Murphys found that at any given time there was a disproportionate number of Onlookers in various rooms of their house, milling around and waiting to watch Wyatt and his mother.

The neighbors began to talk. They discussed the Murphys and their Onlookers as one might discuss a recent windstorm or a local sports team losing a championship. Nobody knew what to make of it, and everybody found it somewhat unsettling.

Then, one day, the Onlookers left the Murphy house and went back to watching everyone else. The peace of mind that was provided by this return to normalcy was short-lived. The Onlookers watched. And then they talked. They spoke only to each other with their hands in an eerie and indecipherable sign language of their own design. Ever the same in every other respect, it drew heads to see one Onlooker intently, but inexpressively, conversing with another. Everyone knew what the Onlookers were talking about. They had nothing else to discuss but their single mutual interest: the interactions between the Oakham residents.

The people would see Onlookers pointing them out and groups of Onlookers staring at them. Suddenly the people were aware whenever an Onlooker was watching them.

The Oakham residents grew uneasy. No one could bear to speak or act freely when they knew whatever they did would be related to a whole community of Onlookers. People didn’t want to be seen fighting or kissing, boarding busses or putting babies to sleep. No one wanted their lives to be the focus and discussion of the Onlookers.

Some people left Oakham, moving away from the ghostly observers as the Murphy family did, but most of the community stayed. They became subdued and static though. Whenever Onlookers were present people would refrain from speaking or doing anything but the most routine and ordinary of every day tasks. If they could afford to do so, people would sit still in their bedrooms and living rooms, waiting for the dreaded creatures to leave and haunt someone else.

Eventually, the Onlookers did leave. They faded away one by one during dark nights. They passed through living room walls one last time. When they went outside, they didn’t come back. The paranoia had been instilled in the community though, and all the adults found it impossible to shake the feeling that they were being watched. Though the children quickly rebounded from the peculiar incident, their parents seemed shaken by the experience.

Over the years Oakham became a very quiet place. People took solitude where they could find it, and refrained from much social interaction for fear that it would bring the Onlookers back. Though the children in time grew into adulthood and continued to live in their homey community, the older generation found a very different fate.

They grew quiet until they were silent. They were static until they grew motionless. They refused to live, and thus began to fade away. Transparency found them slowly, so no one really noticed the transition. The muted colors set in gradually, so no one realized that they were becoming Onlookers until the deed had already transpired, and by that time it was too late to repent the reclusive nature they had adopted. The residents regretted their transformation though, and became fixated with human interactions that were part of the life they had forfeited. Once again, the Onlookers became a part of life for the people of Oakham, Massachusetts.

- - -
R.G. Summers lives in Seattle, more or less, and has great hopes for the future. They mostly including being able to pay the rent by writing, and someday even owning a crock-pot. Her science-fiction novel, Conscious, is now available.

9/26/12

2012-09-26T00:00:00.005-07:00

Do You Believe?
By Bob Skoggins

“I don’t believe in magic,” I told the magician. I was eight years old. He was eighty. He smiled.
“No?” he said. His accent was thick. He lifted a card. It changed colors before my eyes. I walked away.
My father died that day. We were in a car wreck on the way home back from the fair. I remember the magician more than the hospital. I don’t remember Dad dying at all. They said we held hands as he passed away.
My mother was at home. She was sick with pneumonia. She was devastated when she found out. I was devastated.

I saw the magician at the funeral. He tried to cheer me up, but he couldn’t. I said, “How did you know my dad?”
He said, “I didn’t.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I believe in magic.”
I didn’t know what he meant. Ten years later I saw him. He was in the crowd at my graduation. He shook my hand afterward. I smiled and nodded. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I pretended like I didn’t know him. As I walked away, he laughed and said, “Still believe?”
I smiled and shook my head. He was ninety then. I was eighteen.

Ten more years passed. I was getting married. As I stood in the aisle, I saw him in the back. I didn’t invite him. Rachel didn’t invite him. No one in the family knew him. What was he doing here?
As we greeted the people coming out of the church, he patted my back. He was a hundred then. He looked the same. I had thinning hair, a beard, and a scar on my cheek from a skiing accident two years earlier. “Believe?” he asked.
I laughed. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“What is your name?”
“My name doesn’t matter,” he said.

Fifteen years passed and I became curious about him. One day he popped in my head and wouldn’t leave. What ever happened to that old magician? Surely he was dead. What became of him?
I asked my wife. She didn’t remember him.

Our son died that year. A freak accident. He was eleven years old.

The man was at the funeral. I asked him how old he was. He said, “Do you believe in magic?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe in magic. I never will.”
He smiled.

Five more years passed and my wife died. Breast cancer. I had no one in my life. I went to a therapist. I wasn’t eating.
One day I walked in and the therapist told me someone had come in to see me. It was the man. “Do you believe?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “It doesn’t matter! Leave me alone.”
He left.

My mother died the next year. I walked out on the ledge. I jumped. It was too much.

They said I landed just right. I didn’t die. I broke eighteen bones and busted my spleen. My right side was paralyzed. The man walked in. He said, “Do you believe?”
I said, “I believe.”
And he left.

- - -