Sex and horror go together like chocolate and the still beating heart of your enemy clutched in your hand. Still, we know from experience, that done wrong it can be as horrible as sparkling vampire Adonises. There is quite a bit of rumpy-pumpy in this story. It’s enough so that we’d classify this not only as horror but as well done erotica. When one of your main characters is the priestess of Ishtar, we would have been surprised if it hadn’t been included.

Here’s the breakdown of the plot:

In ancient Babylon, the nephilim Drimesh has lived a brutal, if ethical, life. Once pursued by the Tribe of Abraham, Drimesh has taken refuge in the great city. Living off his wealthy matrons has provided him a comfortable existence.

When he meets a Priestess of the Goddess Ishtar, his life becomes a struggle between his human desires and those of the beast that lives inside him. Will he succumb to the beast and suffer his mother’s fate, or find a way to balance the duality?

Lovers, the second volume in the Garaaga’s Children series, is steeped in the history of Hammurabi’s Babylon and the beginning of Judaism. Mixing elements of ancient history, dark fantasy and erotica, Lovers is sure to leave readers wanting more.

I’d say that’s a sound breakdown. It had us alternately gasping in horror and delight. We first experienced it aurally (don’t get excited, it has to do with ears) and you can too via Shadow Publications’ podcast. You can, in fact experience all of Mr. Cooley’s stories there, and we endorse that as well.

As mentioned in the blurb, this is part of an ongoing series. Paul has decided to fuse ancient history and horror in a way that we haven’t seen before. We’re particularly waiting for the entry known as “Interlopers”. In that one Alexander’s scouts run into crazy villagers and a creature as beautiful as it is deadly.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get some great fiction!

The tension builds as Eric discovers what his best friend’s secret is and tries to figure what to do about it. We can’t tell you much more than that except to say that our eyes tore down the screen, consuming each word like the chocolate covered morsels of dread that they were. We rushed to the keyboard and typed the preceding words to implore you to go and buy this story. At $.99 it will hardly break the bank, and it will provide you with a solid bit of weird and wild evil.

“In The Deep Dark” is a keen example of the sort of psychological horror I love. He builds good atmosphere and gets at the core of one of our primal fears. Something wicked is at the heart of the Bluestone Mine and unfortunate things follow. This is a prequel of sorts to a novel that Justin will be putting out, and I look forward to it.

Buy the story here –

The author does benefit from each story sold!

Incidental Music:
“Hell Has A Power Grid” by Braindouche!

Mentioned:
Shadow Publications/Paul Cooley
Jake Bible
Pseudopod
Joe R. Landsdale
Fiendlettes

Promo:
Geek Radio Daily

All of the sorts of stories that you’ve seen in issues of Flagship or presented to you by Pirate’s Cove are welcome here, so long as they are presented by a fun house mirror. We want stories that will give you the creeps. We want to make you run to our sister publications to find light and joy. Where they are the play ground and the open seas, we are the midnight carnival and the fetid swamp.

I’ve received a number of stories since we first flung open the cellar door. Some of them were almost right. There were issues of quality and of tone. I am hoping that the former can be fixed and that those authors will resubmit. In cases where the latter is an issue, I hope that this post will serve as clarification.

We are not necessarily, as our name might imply to some, looking for buckets of gore. Blood has its place in stories, but don’t rely on it to scare us. We want you to elicit shivers of dread, not queasiness. I was reminded recently of a story we published in issue three of Flagship called “Worse Than the Disease”, a tale set in a world overrun by zombies. The truly scary thing about that story isn’t the Zeds though. You’d need to read it to find out where the horror comes from, but I’ll give you a hint. It’s what a world like that can do to people like you and I.

I’ve pointed to them before, but since they exemplify the sort of well written horror we want here, you should also read or listen to the works of Paul Cooley and Jake Bible. I’ll add James Melzer, James Durham, and Dave Sobkowiak to the list. You can find works at their sites that are well written, inexpensive, and horrific in all the right ways. We’ve also put up one story by  Phil Rossi that fits the bill. (As a side note I’d love to hear about some ladies that write in this vein.)

So, go do your homework. Don’t send us the next Saw V or Hostel. We want The Exorcist or The Shining. And don’t be afraid to horrify us with pirates, or in space,  or in a world where Tolkien’s elves would be welcome. As I said, we’re the mirror image of our fellow FIP publications and we approve of genre mash ups.

Thank you and I hope this clears things up a little.

I’ve made no secret, Paul is one of my favorite “new” authors. It’s been a pleasure having him on the Grindstone. Tattoo is a prime example of why I enjoy his work. While I haven’t listened to or read everything he’s done, I can say that between this and Closet Treats he does psychological horror very well.

The synopsis is as follows:

Scars. They remind us who we are, what we are and where we have been. But when a scar takes away your identity, what would you do to get it back? Jackson, a journalist in Houston, discovers links between several murders that have taken place in his city. His investigation draws him into the world of body art where he discovers an obsession worth killing for.

I don’t have any tattoos, myself. It’s something I’ve thought about and investigated. I’ve known a number of people who have them and one or two that have a lot of them. As such I can say that he paints a pretty good picture of what the culture is like. The main character, Jackson, is a stranger to all of it and it mystifies him, even as it does me. Watching him enter that world and the price that he pays is fascinating. The killer that he’s hunting gets very little “screen” time as we discussed on the Grindstone and that makes his appearance that much more effective. I thoroughly enjoyed, if that’s the right word, this story and can whole heartedly endorse it.

The audio from the podcast is well done and the voices that Paul does, add to the story. It’s a short work, coming in at six episodes in the twenty to thirty minute range. I believe the whole thing is about two hours long or a little less. So, I say it’s short, but that’s a feature length film.

If you like it, you may consider buying the limited edition hardcover of Fiends which includes “Canvas”, “Tattoo”, “Closet Treats”, and some bonus material. I believe it’s also coming out in paperback in the near future.

Incidental Music:
“Hell Has A Power Grid” by Braindouche!

Mentioned:
Shadow Publications/Paul Cooley
Jake Bible

Promo:
The Hidden Institute

Enjoy!

Love, hate, pain, and loss radiated from her like microwaves. Raw and unfiltered, the cast-off emotions were damaging, like ionized particles—Jonas could feel each one like a white hot poker stab to his heart, but he felt none of his own. The biological imperative for survival had a stranglehold on the very feelings that made him human. Because to feel would lead to hesitation, and just one tiny crack in his resolve…No.

The moment had arrived at last.

He focused on his fingers, splayed across the glass and glowing pink. The chamber beyond their touch pulsed with such brilliant urgency that it penetrated his flesh. Each surge of luminance was a lifetime.

Light.

And he saw his Emma, soulmate and best friend, in the depressurization chamber.

Crouching amongst heavy drilling equipment, she looked like an angel that had just landed in the wrong neighborhood.

She was naked.

Her skin was smooth, her bones and organs still on the inside, against all odds and recent ravages.

Darkness.

His own reflection in the glass was slack when it should have been wearing a mask of torment, regret, and panic.

Light.

The abomination. Anamelech, from the abyss. Hunched, with its one massive, glaring black eye full of infinite hatred. Twin fans of serrated bone rose like the wings of a beetle, covered in viscera from the purple flesh of the beast’s back.

The beast. Ejaculate from the dark side of the moon.

By will alone, Emma, sweet, lost Emma, had dragged herself into the depressurization chamber, despite the consuming presence of the beast that had claimed her flesh. And it was Emma’s unbreakable will that allowed her to close and seal the exit before Anamelech could become aware of what was happening.

All around Jonas, alarms screamed like the voices of the orbital outpost’s dead crew. Were they trying to convince him to act? Or not to act? Jonas was about to send his wife into space, and still he could not feel.

Escape.

Outbreak.

Freedom.

They all equated to doom. A voice that did not sound like his own warned from a distant place:

You’re waiting too long.

Send them into space.

The rest of the universe should have mattered more to Jonas, should have caused a greater sense of urgency, but of course it didn’t. The smeared leavings of a soul forever lost, a streaking handprint on the inside of the glass told him that nothing mattered anymore. He was the lone survivor and if he didn’t blow sweet Emma into space, a rescue team would arrive in three days, find her intact, and ferry her back to Houston. The lone survivor of a mysterious disaster and her secret passenger.

And once on humanity’s soil…

Emma’s hands slapped against the glass and Jonas did not flinch. He looked at her palm, trying not to remember how her delicate, slender fingers felt when they stroked his hair. He placed his palm against the glass. It wasn’t time to remember. It was time to pull his hand away and get to work. The hatch release, protruding from the wall dug into his waist. Not far. Drop your hand. Pull the pin. It’s that easy.

“Don’t release the hatch,” Emma pleaded, her voice sounding very much like her own through the overhead speaker grate. The beast is good at deceit.

Jonas closed his eyes, his hand fell, and his fingers wrapped around the cold emergency release.

He pulled the pin and the air temperature plummeted almost instantly, the glass frosting over and obscuring his wife’s screaming face. His feet lost contact with the deck but his mind clung to the living world for longer than it should have, allowing a glimpse of his hands, which weren’t hands at all, but fleshy hooks. The screaming continued, but it was the shared voice.

The voice and the rage of the beast.

Anamelech.

I was having dinner with an old friend earlier tonight. Lucy and I have known one another for years, and have the rock solid bond of people who survived puberty together. She was my first true love and whilst I wasn’t hers, we stayed close. She views me as a brother and I view her as a goddess and somehow we muddle through. The arrangement is simple; every six months we go out for dinner and catch up on who’s married, who’s divorced, who’s fat, who’s bald and who’s gay.

Lucy was great company, as usual. She’s witty, self-deprecating and frighteningly intelligent. She was also wildly eccentric and had been prone, in our younger years, to near criminal acts in order to relieve her boredom. It was Lucy who was chased over the roof of our school by the headmaster when, in the summer holidays, she decided to go climbing. It was Lucy who to this day has a straight, two inch scar running down the centre of her forehead from when she fell through a window doing the same thing later that year. And it was Lucy who had once stood up to a school bully by keying his dad’s car. Thirteen times.

Which is why it was so odd when she jumped at my mobile phone. Not just in that surprised way either, but she went white as a sheet and looked at it for a second with absolute terror. This woman, this beautiful, wild young woman whom I’d spent much of my life lusting after from afar was scared of my Nokia 2310.

Of course, she tried to laugh it off at first, but I was persistent. There was a brittle look to her eyes, and she refused to meet my gaze until I asked her outright why the hell she was scared of my phone. She looked me straight in the eyes and I swear if she hadn’t looked so frightened I would have laughed.

“I thought it was for me.”

It came spilling out after that. It seems that a few months prior to us meeting up again, Lucy and a couple of friends had been text freaks. They messaged one another everywhere they went, kept up to date on the latest phones and competed to see who could get the best mobile, the most free minutes. I told her that the Japanese have a term, ‘Oya Yubi Sedai’, for people who loved their phones that much. She told me I needed to get out more and laughed, the sound a little too hollow and a little too high.

As it turns out, they got talking one night and began to wonder idly about who had the next number “up.” If Lucy’s number was 769594 then who had 595? Or 593 for that matter? They were drunk and bored and so they started ringing their nearly numbers.

Most of course, were either not in use or had their voice mails on. They left pleasant, drunk messages about how they were “exploring” the phone lines. This carried on for quite a while, until they hit a number that Lucy couldn’t quite remember. They rung it and a recorded voice on the other end said:

“You are forbidden to use this number. Please disconnect immediately.”

Lucy being Lucy, this was like a red rag to a bull. She put the number on redial and sat there for at least an hour, screaming with vodka fuelled laughter as the number rang over and over and over again. She went home and thought nothing more of it.

On the way to work that morning, every phone box rang as she passed.

At work, her office phone rang once an hour, every hour for precisely thirty seconds. There was the sound of her own laughter from the previous night, recorded on the other end.

Her mobile no longer needed recharging, and there were ten text messages waiting for her. When she opened them, they all said the same thing.

WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?

She changed her number, contacted the authorities and was politely but firmly told that there was no record of any of the phone calls, she received, anywhere in the system. She’d thrown away the first mobile by this point and couldn’t remember the number she’d called. Reluctantly, the police agreed to put a monitor on the line and a week later, when no calls had been received, they took it away again.

The calls started again, the next day. She changed phones again, moved and stopped talking to her phone friends. They, she said, had the same look she did. The look of someone being toyed with. Someone being hunted.

After two months, the calls stopped. By this time Lucy had used all her sick time from work and was on a final written warning for her behaviour. Despite this, she refused to be defeated and set about rebuilding her life. She’d almost managed it when, four months later, she met me and my phone.

I asked her who she thought the number was and she said that a friend of hers had some suspicions. He thought it could be a government number, the sort of thing that only a few people in the country should ever ring. Alternately, it was a phone company employee who happened to be a psycho. Or, and she smiled despite herself at this, it was a haunted line. We laughed, and I paid the bill and went home, alone. As I always did with Lucy.

When I got there, there was a text message on my mobile. It was the call that had sparked the conversation in the first place, the one I’d ignored when Lucy had looked so terrified.

The message is simple and very short, but I’ve been reading it over and over for the last twenty minutes.

STAY AWAY FROM HER.

The caller withheld their number

picture by http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisdlugosz/

Incidental Music:
“Hell Has A Power Grid” by Braindouche!

Mentioned:
Shadow Publications
Jake Bible’s March 1st Kindle Rush
Power in the Blood
Dragon Moon Press

Promo:
Jake Bible’s Kindle Rush