Magazine of the Dead

Trick with a Knife

2010-05-06T18:30:00.001-05:00

Magazine of the Dead really, really likes Trick with a Knife. It's the hot new lit blog. It's got reviews, interviews, news, opinion and other crazy stuff.

Some MotD peeps are over there. JMES Horn, Nathan Tyree, Jon Catron and more. Anyway, peep it, love it, fuck it.

2010-02-17T21:13:00.000-06:00

The new issue of Thirst for Fire has dropped into reality. Go get it. Have a look. It is jam packed with crazy, weird, beautiful imaginings from some massive talents. You should take some time to fall in love with it. It will caress you, love you back, start to grow jealous of your flirtations with other magazine and then kill you.

Get face fucked by Thirst for Fire right fucking here

I've Got a Bird

2010-02-09T17:27:00.002-06:00

“I’ve Got a Bird to Whistle and I’ve Got a Bird to Sing”
by anonymous

1.He stands. The ground beneath his feet describes a gentle, gradual slope; an easement, which moves imperceptibly downward to the place that delineates the difference between earth and road. This is the place where the dewgrass ends and pavement takes over. He tries to lift his head, to look up to the sky, but the dreadful weight of air and the ruminating thunderheads force down on him, halting any upward progress. He wants to look up so that he wont be looking forward.

2.Forward. Despite every attempt to seal his eyes, to clinch the lids and blacken the landscape he looks ever forward at the ruin before him. It never occurs to him that he could look down at the brown surface of his work boots, or at the grass that those boots are wrecking.

3.Wrecked. The Ford Taurus is resting well into the median just behind him. The front grille has become concave: bent inward. The hood has crumpled, and popped upward, opening just slightly to release tendrils of off-white steam mixed with heavy oily smoke that wends its way into the darkening sky.

4.Sky. The sky seems to be constricting around him. Now sirens are in the distance. He thinks that the air around him tastes vaguely of stale champagne. He rubs his palms against his face, and tries to remember how to breathe again.

5.Again, forward. In front of him is the ruin, the ravaged body that had been a brown haired little girl racing across the four lanes after a bright blue rubber ball that had somehow slipped away from her grasp and gone bouncing against the cold concrete. Now she was disjointed, bloody and strewn out along highway 62 like bits of a broken doll. Long black skid marks led up to the place where her little body in its flower print dress had gone airborne.

6.Somewhere near by a bird sings as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

I'm Not There

2010-02-09T17:27:00.001-06:00

I'm Not There

Reviewed by Nathan Tyree

That Bob Dylan is something of an enigma has long delighted and frustrated his fans. The fact that Dylan himself is the architect of his enigmatic status only heightens both the joy and annoyance felt by his acolytes and detractors both. Bob Dylan, nee Robert Zimmerman: Hobo; apprentice of Woody Guthrie; folk musician; cowboy; electrified rock god; Christian zealot; poet; Rimbaud wannabe; Verlaine wannabe; hipster; recluse; nerd. How much of these personae are real and how much just hype only Dylan himself knows. Now director Todd Haynes, best known for a film about ill-fated crooner Karen Carpenter and another about a fictional version of David Bowie, attempts to unmask the real Dylan by plumbing the depths of the mythical one.
I’m Not There presents a variety of characters inspired by the real Dylan and several imagined ones, including a young boy riding the rails; a folk singer; an actor and an ageing Billy the Kid. Each section of the film has a different actor portraying an alternate universe version of the film’s subject. Much has been made of Kate Blanchett’s portrayal as Jude. She serves as the film’s center, portraying the closest thing the Haynes offers to the real Dylan (whatever real may mean in this convoluted context). Blanchett transforms herself into Bob’s doppelganger. She so convincingly portrays Dylan that it becomes quite easy for the audience to forget that they are watching the woman best known for playing Queen Elizabeth. She quietly assumes his mannerisms and speech patterns to an extent that seems almost preternatural.
Christian Bale, as Jack, has the duty of book ending Dylan’s career in a manner. Jack shows us the effect of change on our hero, portraying the counterfactual Dylan through both his conversion to electricity and Jesus. These two events both sent shockwaves through the fan community, and Bale perfectly exudes the sadness and rage that Dylan must have felt. Bale is currently best known for playing Batman and a vicious serial killer in American Psycho (both characters are sociopaths of sorts) and here chooses a more subtle tone.
The late Heath Ledger plays Robbie, the actor chosen to play Jack in a biopic. Robbie is overwhelmed by sudden fame and seems to crumble under the pressure. Watching the film after Ledger’s untimely death it is impossible not to draw comparisons between the character and the actor. It becomes almost impossible to judge the performance on its own merits (Ledger’s other final role, as The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, does not suffer from the same problem, being pure fantasy). One wonders if the sadness sensed under the surface of Robbie’s bluster is truly there, or a product of the viewer’s wishes.
Marcus Carl Franklin plays Woody Guthrie, a young man riding along with hobos and playing his guitar for anyone who will listen. Here Haynes has melded the outright lies Dylan told about his youth with his love of the great American troubadour Guthrie. Franklin, though only a child, shows some real depth and grace. A short cameo by the mighty Richie Havens nearly steals Franklins portion of the film at a first approximation, but on a second viewing it becomes clear that the most fascinating scene is a quiet one with Franklin sharing a meal with a family that has taken him in for a day.
Ben Winshaw portrays Arthur Rimbaud. Arthur is being questioned. We are given to feel that his interrogators may be government agents. We are a bit like Mr. Jones: There is something (sinister) going on here, but we don’t know what it is. Winshaw’s dialogue is largely inspired by Dylan’s frequent refusal to provide his interviewers with anything like a straight answer to even the simplest question. Ben Winshaw is unknown to me, but he has the face of a slightly malnourished cherub. His look and manner are similar to Dylan’s, but in a one off sort of way. It seems, at moments, like he is mimicking Kate Blanchett’s portrayal of Dylan. Given that we notice that Arthur is clearly younger than Jude, we are led in a strange, recursive loop as we try to untangle how these characters are related and how the performances are related.
Richard Gere rounds out the cast as Billy the Kid in repose. Gere has never been much of an actor, known primarily as a pretty boy now well past his sell by date. Here he manages to stretch beyond his usual range (helped greatly by the performance of a dog, which lends pathos). Gere gives us Billy the Kid as he ages (assuming that Henry McCarty wasn’t actually gunned down by Pat Garrett), living a quiet life out of the spotlight.
Any attempt to summarize or dissect the film’s plot would be futile, as this is largely a collection of vignettes chopped up and thrown together in William S. Burroughs cut-up style to create the illusion that a real story is being told. That doesn’t really matter though, as this film is more about style than substance. Haynes shifts visual styles with each character and sometimes changes narrative style mid scene. He cross-pollinates a Cinema Verite look, with documentary inspired graininess and smashes those up against a naturalistic looking American west, then slides into the surreal before dropping to his music video roots. None of this should work. The film should obviously knock the pins out from under itself and collapse. And yet, somehow it holds up. Possibly it is just the quality of the performances given by this fascinating cast. Perhaps it is our innate fascination with the subject. Maybe it’s the incredible soundtrack blowing the best of Dylan out the speakers. Whatever it is, I’m Not There works better than it should.
Haynes doesn’t manage to untangle the mystery of Bob Dylan. In fact, we are left with less understanding of the real man. Yet, for a couple of hours we are able to vanish into Dylan’s world, a world where buckets of tears fall from the sky, and maybe we can, finally, find shelter from the storm.

13 THings

2010-02-09T17:26:00.001-06:00

Thirteen things I probably shouldn’t have said at my bail hearing
By Nathan Tyree

1. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, your honor.

2. Dogs fucked the pope. No fault of mine.

3. I did it! I kidnapped the Lindberg baby!

4. What the hell is in my pants?

5. Hey judge, didn’t you used to be in porn?

6. Dude! I am so stoned.

7. Lawyer? I don’t need no stinking lawyer.

8. If I get bail, I am so gone!

9. Just out of curiosity, does Belize have an extradition treaty with the U.S.?

10. On my planet it’s quite reasonable to dress this way in court.

11. I don’t know, but black may not be your color.

12. I will not put my pants back on!

13. Bail Schmail.

Lovesick

2009-11-14T11:21:00.000-06:00

Lovesick by Howie Good
The Poetry Press
ISBN 978-0978904166

Reviewed by Nathan Tyree

Howie Good turns words into a reciprocating saw that can be worked through your gut. He has internalized the existential horror of existence and turned it outward. In the pages of Lovesick, Good alternates between the scalpel and the three pound hammer. He slices and smashes. These poems deal with terror, love, pain, loss, regret, politics; in short, all of the terrible things that life has to offer.

Good is, I believe, a journalist. This may account for part of his style. While his work is lyrical and lovely, it also has a cold mater of fact tendency. He writes about life in a way that takes for granted that this is all terrible. As he puts it in one poem "life is a rifle butt to the face". Nothing could be more descriptive of existence, and yet noting could be more simple. It is precisely this easy turn of phrase that marks these poems.

These poems also have a knack for interesting constructions. In one instance he refers to the "extruded plastic moon". This is a blue collar phraseology that should appeal to a rather masculine audience. Such references are antithetical to the common feminine tendency of most modern poets. These are manly poems, and yet they are soft; filled with longing and regret and loss. That dichotomy is much of the power of Good's writing. He strikes a difficult balance between traditional tropes and modes and something wholly modern. I may be straying from the point, though.

Another important aspect of these poems is the often oblique allusion. Good never specifically mentions the holocaust, or South American death squads, or the mother's of the disappeared; yet they are there for full view. In these pages are all of the horrors of the twentieth century, discarded and used up.

Anyone who has followed Good's career will recognize some of these poems from varies online venues and from his chapbook Tomorrowland. This full length collection, however, offers so much more. This is an essential book. One that should be read and studied and internalized.

Stories for Abortions

2009-11-03T12:15:00.002-06:00

Magazine of the Dead: Stories for Abortions is the third anthology (read "print issue") from Magazine of the Dead. It features a lot of great writing from the last year of MotD, plus a ton of bonuses that have not been seen on the site. In these pages are fiction and poetry by Sam Pink, xTx, Nathan Tyree, Joshua Weston, James (JMES) Horn, Jon Catron, Bradley Sands, Kenji Subaki, Z. Lustig and many others. Order it here. It should also be coming to Amazon soon.

-Eds

A Deadly Thirst

2009-10-15T21:22:00.001-05:00

Thirst for Fire has a new issue, the first since 2006. It features an angry anus, some ground, nocturnal vehicular deer hunting, graves, burning, sex, death, and other fictions designed to fuck your face with a chainsaw and melt your brain. The thing is edited by Taylor Durden with help from Nathan Tyree and the direction of P.H. Madore.

Suck it, bitch.

Riley Michael Parker

2009-08-09T14:38:00.001-05:00

Recently Nathan Tyree interviewed Riley Michael Parker, the author of the amazing chapbook Our Beloved 26th. What follows is the first half of that interview:

Nathan Tyree: After reading Our Beloved 26th, the first question that comes to mind is: how long did you work in the corporate world and how badly did it scar you?

Riley Michael Parker: To tell the truth, I have never worked in an office, corporate or otherwise. OB26th has no grounding in reality - corporate men just seemed like something worth talking about. I wish I could give you something a bit more concrete about how it all came about, but it's hard to explain the genesis of my own work. I don't want to say that anything just came to me, because I was constantly making decisions, throwing away ideas and restructuring stories, but I can't exactly rationalize any of it. I just write what I feel like writing.

NT: Do you think that modern corporate culture bears a strong resemblance to the "wild west"?

RMP: I really don't know much of anything about modern corporate culture. Most of my writing is fairly minimalistic, which lends itself very well to writing about things you know nothing about. With OB26th I just wanted to write about fragile men, all of them having been pushed by society, or perhaps their fathers, into an over-romanticized male world – a place filled with hatred, and backstabbing, and oneupmanship – and then loving every minute of it. I wanted to write about men trying to live up to impossible standards – the ideals created by Hollywood and these last few generations of men – attempting to embody the modern mythology of what a man really is. Nothing is like the “wild west”. Not even the wild west. My assumption is that the corporate world is full of lonely, scared little boys who want to impress their fathers, men who long to be understood and accepted by their peers, just like the men you find in the rest of the world. A lot of these men probably don't like women, because as it seems, so few do. I think it is entirely possible that most men turn out to be assholes because they feel like that's what is expected from them. But all of that aside, I love westerns, and I love the stereotypes that they promote, never mind how fantastical all of it is. I wish that modern corporate culture closely resembled the wild west. Wouldn't that be delightful? Wouldn't you just love to see men in shirts and ties carrying revolvers, with flasks of whiskey attached to their belts, with spurs on their boots and chew in their bottom lips, the color of their ties a bold declaration of which gang they were affiliated? Yeah, well, me too.

NT: Some of the stories in your book have a strong sense of surrealism and absurdism. Do you feel that you have been influenced by those schools (on a sub note, are you at all a fan of Luis Bunel, David Lynch, Takashi Miike, David Cronenberg or others of their ilk (assuming that they can be lumped into a single group, which on second thought is a pretty shallow assumption on my part))?

RMP: I never attended college past the one lone term, nor did I partake in any kind of formal literature studies, so I can't say that I was really influenced by the schools of absurdism or surrealism, because as schools of literature, I honestly know next to nothing about them. I am simply not aware, in the academic world, which authors are categorized into those two factions. There are writers I like with a knack for surrealism, and I am influenced by them, but I am neither out to join nor start a movement of writers, but rather just to tell little stories. I think my taste for the absurd and surreal stretches back to my early childhood. I was really into horror films as a kid, and though I had a fairly clear-cut idea of what parts of them were based in reality and what parts could never really happen, in the dark of night, lying in bed, there was always a part of me that was expecting these creatures to crawl out from the VCR and into my living room, and then to either kill me or befriend me, and in a way, I was hoping for either. I didn't have a lot of friends as a kid, and a lot of things weren't exactly what you would call ideal, and so I spent a lot of time wishing that I could create my own reality from the ground up; that I could live in a place with both people and monsters, with living furniture and talking animals; a place where I could go and do and be anything I wanted. And yet despite spending so much of my energy focussing on these bizarre little worlds, I didn't want to give up on reality completely. I was very fond of adults as a child, and I envied the complexity of their lives. I longed to join them, to engage with other people on a deeper level, and to establish complicated relationships like the ones I was always seeing in movies. I knew that once I got the whole pesky childhood thing out of the way that things would become a lot more interesting, and lucky for me, they have. I think that in a lot of my writing I try to find a balance between these two things, a sort of amalgamation of the complex relationships that form between individuals and these absurd little situations that lie just beyond the boundaries of reality, these abstract ideas that I am currently, and have been since childhood, so enthralled by.

As far as the second part of your question goes, I don't really like the filmmakers you have mentioned, and have not seen a great deal of their work because of it. I think that you could make a convincing argument towards lumping those directors together, but I have a limited knowledge of them. I am more into the films of Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke, Wes Anderson, et cetera, but my favorite film is Buffalo '66 by Vincent Gallo.

NT: Which writers have had the greatest influence on you?

RMP: I would have to say Vonnegut and Brautigan, because of the way that they present their stories. I love the way that everything is so fast, so short, and so to the point. All of the chapters in their novels could stand on their own as short stories, which is something that I greatly admire. Have you read Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut? On one level it is a very simple story about a man's life, but there is so much going on in that book, so many little stories pieced together to make something so sweeping and grand. Everyone knows about Breakfast of Champions, but that novel was the first book I read that really made me feel that there were authors that wrote with me in mind. I read a lot of Stephen King as a kid, and I still like some his work, but the characters far more than the plots. He really is such a bad writer sometimes. Have you ever read Carrie? I haven't. I put it down after six pages. But if you get a chance, read Rage, the Bachman book about the school shooting, because it is nothing but character development, and it is wonderful. It was also pulled off the shelves over a decade ago, upon King's request, because of violence that keeps happening in schools. But you should try and find a used copy, because it is worth reading. My other main influence, Richard Brautigan, is someone I only discovered a few years ago, but he has had an enormous impact on me. You can tell from his novels that he had a history in poetry, because he always ignored so much of the traditional literature structure and took his stories to really interesting, and often bizarre places. Brautigan really opened my eyes to what fiction can be if you are willing to take it far enough, but more importantly, his books showed me how much can be taken away from a story and still have it work.

NT: You are currently working (we hear) on a series of stories that could be deemed horror. Is genre a concern of yours? That is, do feel constrained to remain within a single genre, or do you just write whatever you feel the need to write and say fuck what people think? Do you ever fear being pigeon-holed by what you have written in the past?

RMP: The stories I've been writing have horror themes, but they are not necessarily of the horror genre, as there is little to no suspense or tension. It's all flash fiction, so there isn't really any time to build anything up, but rather just to give the reader a glimpse into someone's life, and then to leave again. Blink in, then blink out. But the stories are all about murder and witchcraft, haunted houses and demon possession, so I tend to describe them as horror, because I don't know what else to say. You could also describe these stories as jokes that aren't jokes, because that's a lot of what I've been writing this last year and a half; little set-ups with just a sliver of a punchline that most people don't think is funny. And genre is not a concern of mine. I am interested in characters first and foremost, but also in the structure of sentences, in themes, and in ideology, and when I'm writing that's all I think about. It isn't until I am about to put something out, the few times a year that I write something that I think is worth showing people, that I consider how it might be marketed. It was in the works to have the release for the horror book (tentatively titled Witches) in a random basement, with a lot of occult paraphernalia around, and candles mounted to mason jars positioned carefully throughout the room, the jars themselves full of maggots and rotten meat, but my friends talked me out of it. Nobody but me thought the idea was all that funny. I work in film and visual art in addition to writing, and so I have this desire to give everything a very elaborate presentation, but with certain ideas it is hard to find support. Go figure.

NT: Ballard, Beckett or Burroughs? Why? Are the boys kept on a leash an explicit allusion to Waiting for Godot, or am I reading too much into that?

RMP: I haven't read a single book by any of those authors, save fifteen pages or so of Ballard's Crash, but it wasn't for me, so I put it down.

NT: How do you like your steak?

RMP: Cut thick. Pink in the middle. Served with asparagus.

NT: Do you feel the need to flee? Does it feel like life has you caged in? Why are you staying in one place so long?

RMP: I like the option to flee more than the actual fleeing. It is nice to be able to drop everything and have a two month adventure, but it isn't really a possibility for me anymore. I pay rent now, and I have a job, and I have people who rely on me to make movies, so I am more or less stuck. I was homeless for a little over a year, and so I floated around a lot, meeting people and doing a lot of writing. It was a lot of fun. My only addictions at the time were reading and coffee, both of which are socially acceptable and neither are all-consuming, so my time on the street was actually fairly pleasant, especially since I spent so few nights on the actual street. If you're going to be homeless, be charming! Make friends! Tell jokes! These days I am fairly unlikable, so I don't think I could ever travel that way again. Who would take me in, even for a night? Also, living that way is exhausting. You are the perpetual guest, and so you must always be so polite – washing dishes, keeping quiet, watching whatever your host wants to watch without complaint... It's dreadful at times. But I was able to see some wonderful cities, and meet some fascinating people, and as comfortable as I am here in Portland, there is a part of me that misses that feeling of not knowing what tomorrow brings; a part of me that wants to disappear.

NT: Do you consider yourself a satirist?

RMP: No, not really. There are satirical elements to a lot of the things I write, but I don't want to get too specific when labeling myself. I am a writer, and a filmmaker, and a visual artist, and that's about as much as I can commit to. I try not to analyze my own work, or to say it is certain things and not other things. Anyone can take from it what they will. I will admit, however, that I think everything is funny. There is nothing I can think of that I am unwilling to make fun of. In that sense, I suppose I am a satirist, if not always in my writing, then always as a person.

Thirsting for Fire

2009-07-10T18:43:00.002-05:00

After a long, sad hiatus Thirst for Fire is back and wants submissions. Check out Thirst for Fire. Read the old issues, look at the guidelines, consider sending something offensive.

Twitter 666

2009-07-01T17:58:00.002-05:00

Have you ever wondered what it was like to be an aborted fetus; a big sandwich; a Lionel Ritchie CD; a polite rapist; an ATM; a lawn gnome? Well, now you can learn. Sam Pink and Martin Wall have conceived a brilliant new journal called Twitter666. It uses Twitter feeds to explore the existence of things and people that are seen, but rarely heard.

Contributors include Bradley Sands, xTx, Chris East, Nathan Tyree, Ani Smith, D.J. Berndt, Vaughan Simons and Danny Collier.

Share in the madness of Twitter 666

Need to contact Nathan Tyree?

2009-06-28T13:01:00.000-05:00

Nathan's email account is broken. Please contact him at

mroverby08@yahoo.com as that account seems to still work.

Invasion

2009-06-23T20:32:00.002-05:00

Are you a fan of Zombies? Horror? Dark comedy? Why are we asking? There is no way you could end up here if you weren't. You know Magazine of the Dead. We're the nasty madmen of the internet. Today we want to tell you about something extraordinary. Indywood Films is producing a fascinating movie called Invasion of the Not Quite Dead. A lot of talented people are involved and you can join their ranks.

For just a few bucks you can be a producer on the film (and get a lot of cool goodies too). Don't pass up this chance at filmic immortality. MotD's own Nathan Tyree has already jumped aboard.

You should drop some coin and get involved

Straight Up Pimpin'

2009-06-12T18:29:00.001-05:00

I’m starting to get to the point where it seems to be prudent to contact publishers about Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski Fistfight in Hell. I’m not very good at that, though. What I want is for some crazy ass publisher to find me. It will not happen. But… fuck, who knows.

Are you a publisher? Do you want to start a publishing house? Would you like to get going with a book that has a tiny amount of internet buzz and is written (being written) by the biggest pimpin’ self promoting S.O.B. ever? Email me at nathanctyree@yahoo.com. Things can be arranged.

I don’t want to kill anyone, I just want to make them hurt real bad.

That’s it. My load is blown for the day. Now I need to do some real writing and then get drunk.

Love me, hate me, fight me, fuck me. Please.

Zombie Research

2009-06-05T13:05:00.001-05:00

Magazine of the Dead is highly motivated by the Zombie Research Center.

This is highly suggested material.

Come Play a Game

2009-05-26T19:02:00.001-05:00

Amazon lists a book that does not exist. It is titled None and is by an author named None. It has no description. It needs reviews. Some of us have written ours. have fun. Go write yours

The Brandon Book Crises

2009-05-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

The Brandon Book Crises
MuuMuu House
Brandon Scott Gorrell and Tao Lin

The Brandon Book Crises is an un-edited collection of gmail chat sessions, text messages and emails centering around the problems that Tao Lin and Brandon Gorrell had in dealing with the layout and design of Gorrell's upcoming poetry collection, During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present. It's just the raw data, with no tweaking (in fact they have left in tact their personal phone numbers and even log in information to their printers FTP server).

Going into this book I thought that I could view in like the running commentary on a movie. It turns out to be nothing like that. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with the poetry collection itself. The conversations are all about layout, color schemes, file types and the minutia of formatting. This should be random and unreadable. The things is, an actual narrative emerges. There is genuine tension about whether they will be able to get the book completed in a form that they can live with.

Characters emerge. Oblique references to girlfriends (and the troubles that relationships entail), unemployment, on-line feuds, and meals begin to inform the reader. Through it all Tao and Brandon seem a bit out of their depth. These are writers (very young writers at that) and not experts at graphic design or layout. Their dealings with the tech people at the printer are almost funny. You get a real sense for how young these men are (they say 'bro' a lot and worry if Blake Butler is 'on their side' and such).

The book is very post-post modern, and strange. It may help the reader to think of it as a sort of dumbed down My Dinner with Andre for twenty-somethings.

The Brandon Book Crises is not a book for a mass audience (the creators know this, they are only printing 150 copies) but it is an oddly compelling read.

Nathan Tyree

Break This Shit

2009-05-12T23:41:00.003-05:00

An interesting idea. Jon Catron wants you to break his shit. Bust it up. Smash the mirror and put your freakshow face up. Post the bloody results in the comments so we can all see how pretty your ugly gets.

13 Perspective Breaks

Blurred eyes slide pieces of a jigsaw face into finely minced detail.
Knuckles bleed silently, white and sparkling.
The mirror screams angry words that I cannot say.
It breaks for me.
It bleeds for me.
God does not heed either of us.

Interview with Greg Santos by Nathan Tyree

2009-05-10T20:21:00.000-05:00

MotD's Nathan Tyree interviewed Greg Santos. Greg is an editor at Pax Americana, as well as being a great poet. He is Canadian, which is interesting. The following are the results of that interview.

NT: Do you feel that a poet should attempt to focus on a single theme (or set of themes) that run through their body of work and create something unified?

GS:I don’t think a poet should have to do anything. It’s up to an individual to decide whether or not they want to keep writing about a single theme or a set of themes. That being said, I get bored when I see the same thing over and over. I mean, how many times can Billy Collins keep writing the same poem about staring out a window? I love Billy Collins but the same persona can get tiring after a while. In my opinion, a great poet, or any artist, for that matter is someone who is able to adapt and change over time and build on their corpus.

NT: What sort of poetry (or which poets) have effected you the most? Would you say that your work is directly effected by a specific school (or poet) and if so, which?

GS: I’m always adding to the list. When I first moved to the US and starred studying in New York I devoured poetry by the first generation of The New York School poets. Particularly Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery. Koch’s poetry is absolutely hilarious but extremely rich. I mean, I could only read “Some General Instructions” and “The Art of Poetry” for the rest of my life and never get tired of them. I also think Koch’s book Making Your Own Days on the pleasures of reading and writing poetry is brilliant. I teach a weekly poetry workshop to 8-year old kids and his book Wishes, Lies, and Dreams on teaching children how to write poetry is my bible. As for Ashbery, I don’t always understand Ashbery’s poems but I get him, you know? I find myself thinking about his poems a lot after I read them because they make my brain feel like a Rubik’s cube. I guess some other names I’ll throw out there are James Tate, Russel Edson, Dean Young, and Mary Ruefle. Whenever I’m stuck and I’m not able to write anything, I turn to Dean Young and Mary Ruefle to get unstuck. Read Ruefle’s Indeed I Was Pleased With The World. It’ll change your life. I also really love Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry. She had a small body of work but man was it good.

NT: Has the internet (and the rise of internet publishing ) changed poetry? If so, are these changes good or bad?

GS: Absolutely. I don’t think it’s only changed poetry but the entire publishing industry in general. I like how the internet has allowed publishing to become much more democratic. Everyone, in theory, can be a published writer or editor. The internet is good for building links and it allows for poets to expose their work to a large audience at the click of a mouse. That being said, that also means there’s a lot more writing to sift through. The fun part, though, is discovering sites and online journals that have work you enjoy reading on a regular basis.

NT: Do you like editing? What is the best thing about editing a magazine? What is the worst thing?

GS: The best thing about editing a magazine? The power to rule with an iron fist, of course. Being an editor often helps me approach poets whose work I enjoy reading and admire without seeming like a weirdo. But the best feeling is receiving a submission Ben, Carter, and I end up falling in love with from someone we’ve never even heard of and sharing it with our readers. That feels pretty rad. The worst part is turning down someone’s work. It’s someone’s baby. No one wants to have their child rejected. Sometimes I really like a poem but it just doesn’t fit with the theme of an issue or there’s some other variable at play. That’s the way it goes. Though, it doesn’t make rejecting someone’s work any easier.

NT: Do you feel that your duties as an editor detract from your ability to spend the necessary time writing and submitting your own work?

GS: No way. If anything, I think editing helps me read and write better. There’s a lot of navel-gazing that goes on when you’re constantly thinking about and working on your own stuff. Editing others’ work, like teaching, gives me the opportunity to stop thinking about myself and forces me to focus on someone else for a change. And with all the crazy stuff that goes on in that noggin of mine, it’s often a very welcome change.

NT: My favorite poets are Baudelaire and Bukowski. Which do you prefer? Who is your favorite poet?

GS: I like Bukowski but in small doses. I really liked Bukowski when I was younger. It was around the same time that I was really into the Beat writers. I think I was first introduced to his writing from an anthology I seriously dog-eared when I was in my late-teens called Drinking, Smoking, and Screwing. It was hedonistic writing at its best with stories, essays, and poetry, by people like Bukowski, Spalding Gray, and Nabokov. I find a lot of Bukowski’s poetry sounds the same but maybe I’m just too old of a fart now to appreciate his writing. I don’t know. As for Baudelaire, I don’t really read a lot of him now but when I first started writing poetry seriously, I was given a copy of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal when I graduated from college by my then-girlfriend and current fiancée. Baudelaire really influenced a lot of my early writing. I remember writing a poem about a pigeon after his famous albatross one. I’ve been writing a lot of prose poems lately and I haven’t been conscious about the way Baudelaire wrote prose poems but now that I think about it, his prose poems were the first prose poems I was introduced to. That must account for something. I don’t have a favorite poet. I have favorite poets. But there isn’t any one poet that I consider to be better than anyone else.

NT: Have you ever eaten raw meat?

No. But it’s on my to-do list. The last time I was in Montreal I ate pig’s feet. That was awesome. I watch Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel all the time and lots of the stuff he eats looks absolutely nasty but now and then I’ll see something interesting and think I want to try that. For instance, in one episode he goes to Ethiopia, I think, and eats raw meat dipped in lemon juice and spices. It looked like sushi! Only bloodier.

NT: T.S. Elliot and Ezra Pound were geniuses; great poets, but on a personal level they were shits. These men allied themselves with the Fascists. Does that change the way you read their work? Should it? That is, can you disconnect the art from the artist, and should we even try?

GS: You can’t take away their contributions to English literature. When I first read Eliot’s The Wasteland it was a revelation. His use of polyphony in that poem opened up what I thought poetry could do with multiple voices. A lot of Pound’s Imagist stuff was also great. But then again they were douches. Eliot was a raging anti-semite and Pound was a fascist. I appreciate what they did for literature but it doesn’t mean I have to like them.

NT: If a stranger punched you, would you hug him?

GS: I would start with a friendly hug and then sneakily turn it into a wrestling bear hug. That’s how I roll.

NT: What is your favorite color?

Supernova. Is supernova a color?

NT: Is there anything that you would like to mention? This is your chance to pimp upcoming work, your magazine, anything. Go:

GS: Well, I just finished writing a poetry manuscript for my MFA thesis. Any takers? People can order a copy of my chapbook Oblivion Avenue from Trainwreck Press. Check out pax americana online and also order copies of our print issues. You’ll be the most popular kid in town. That or you’ll be chased by an unruly mob brandishing pitchforks but at least people will be taking an interest in you. Our next web issue is going to be guest-edited by the beautiful people who bring you New York’s Poetry Brothel. pax americana also has a short story contest in the works with a cash money prize, so keep your eyes open for that.

NT: Do you feel that poetry is more pure than prose?

GS: No, I don’t think it’s more pure or has any more truth in it that prose or any other art form. Though, I personally prefer writing poetry. I used to be all over the place. I did theater before I really got into poetry, I also wanted to be a cartoonist when I was younger, and I did publish some short stories. At one point I realized I needed to focus on one thing and poetry ended up being the art form I was most passionate about. For me it isn’t just a career. It’s a vocation.

NT: What are your thoughts on "prose poetry"?

GS: I’m a big fan. Like I mentioned earlier, I was turned onto the whole prose poem genre by Charles Baudelaire. I then discovered work by poets like James Tate, Russel Edson, Charles Simic, and so on. There’s an irreverence to the genre that I can’t get enough of. One of my favorite poetry anthologies actually is Great American Prose Poems edited by David Lehman. When I write poems, I don’t necessarily have a switch in my brain that helps me differentiate whether it’s going to be a prose poem or not. It just sort of happens. The poem decided how long its lines are going to be and if they’re going to have line breaks or not. Sometimes I write my prose poems in blocks, other times I break them up into a series of sentences because that’s how they want to be. I think it’s possible that when people encounter my prose poems, my work could be considered flash fiction or something like that but in my mind they’re always poems.

NT: Name a website that all poets should read on a regular basis?

GS: Moondoggy’s Pad and pax americana, of course. Also, Ben Mirov’s blog. Ok, that’s several. I’ll keep going. I always go on The Poetry Foundation’s website for poetry news. Some other poetry or poetry related sites I frequent are Eyewear written by Canadian expat Todd Swift, Bookninja, and HTMLGIANT. I love what Brandi Wells is doing on The Brandi Wells Review. She posts 100% of the submissions she receives. You’d think that would water down the quality of the writing but she publishes some pretty kick-ass stuff there. Paul A. Toth runs some pretty cool sites, too. He’s the editor of Hit and Run Magazine which publishes writers’ raw notes and materials as well as Sitting Pretty Magazine which displays writers’ desks and workplaces. They’ve very addictive.

NT: You're from Canada, but live in the U.S. What is the biggest difference you noticed between this country and yours?

GS: The US has less polar bears running around mauling people. I miss that about home.

NT: Are all Canadians as affable as they seem on TV?

GS: Remember Terrance and Phillip from South Park? They’re Canadian. You know how they have flapping mouths and beady little eyes? We Canadians are exactly like that. It’s almost scary how accurate the portrayal is.

NT: What are your thoughts on MFA programs? Are they really useful or just a waste of time and money?

GS: MFA programs can be expensive so it’s not for everyone but it also depends on how much you want to learn from the workshops and classes you end up taking. I went in there eager to learn from everyone around me and I think that’s a great way to approach it. I personally had an awesome time in my MFA program. I can’t believe it’s almost over. The supportive community of students and professors really made my experience something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. I would give my life for them. You’ve heard of those crazy exploding poison-tipped bullets? I would so take one of those for them.

NT: Is there anything else (anything at all) that you would like to share with the 76 people that read this site?

GS: Stay in school. Don’t do drugs. Floss every day. That’s about it. Thanks.

Contest

2009-05-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

Short Story Competition: The Twilight Zone by Jonny Kelly

Hello readers of MotD,due to the new life in literary competitions on
the internet, I've decided to start my own.
Guideline & Rules: Every short story has to be ORIGINAL, but written
like an episode of The Twilight Zone (Horror, sci-fi, twists).
Basically a weird, Serling-like, beginning, middle and end. There is
no word limit at all. You must send the story in the body of the
e-mail. You can send me as many stories as you like, as long as they
are in different e-mails.
Closing date: all entries are to be sent by the June 1st 2009.
Prize: £30 ($45) winner, you'll get it published somewhere and I'll
get it published in my e-book and you'll make a percentage of any
profits.
Submit stories to: jonathankellyoim@google

Ebay crazy sex toy cuddly stuff

2009-05-06T16:39:00.001-05:00

MotD favorite Nathan Tyree is running an ebay auction. The winner gets to be a character in his next novel. Check out the auction here

The winner gets to be a major character in a novel I will write. The winner will have to provide me with their name, a photo of themselves, a description of their personality and mannerisms, a bio (background info and such). I will write the novel and guarantee publication within one year of the end of the auction. Then they will also receive a free copy of the book.

Praise for Nathan Tyree’s Work

“[Mr. Overby is Falling] Crams more malevolent nastiness and thought-provoking misanthropy into its every word and deed that your average Bret Easton Ellis.”

-Peter Wild, Editor of Noise and The Flash

“Nathan Tyree’s “Morning in Alphabet City” takes the idea of showcasing a large collection of unrelated characters as they go about their day and presents it with as much horror and brutality as it does compassion and tenderness.”

-Joe Roche, Dogmatika

“Tyree goes right for the jugular.”

-Susie Morris, Epinions

“(At times) violent and (always) compelling, Mr. Overby is Falling is a smart, well-written book.”

-Kevin Donihe, Author of Shall We Gather at the Garden and Ocean of lard

“[Mr. Overby is Falling] will have you biting your nails.”

-Brent Powers, author of The Dog’s Tooth

“[Mr. Overby is Falling] takes a wild dark ultra-violent turn around page forty that will interest and sicken almost any reader.”

-Miele Bang

This is a once in a lifetime chance. Grab it now!

Fiction Anonymous

2009-05-05T23:15:00.001-05:00

Fiction Anonymous

by Jonny Kelley

The man who looks like Patrick Stewart is asking me personal questions.
He is tapping his knee several times.

“Repeat what I'm doing John,” he says, sounding very commanding.
“What is in your head now?”

I'm thinking of the time I was sick after sucking all the artificial
ink off a chocolate bar wrapper. But I would be foolish to say that to
Patrick Stewart.

“I'm thinking of the time the bone was sticking out my leg, they put
an orange pillow over it - the leg that is.”

He tells me to banish the thought, rip it apart in my mind. I do this
so well I fool the psychologist - what a stupid man he clearly is.
Still I hope for there to be no life on the billions of stacked universes.
There was a stupid woman who put belief in God - I killed her, I bet
she is rotting in the ground.

“Do you feel better?” asks Patrick.

“Yes,” I answer.

Interview w/ Nathan Tyree by James Horn

2009-05-02T12:22:00.001-05:00

Regular Magazine of the Dead contributor James Horn sat down with MotD Contributor and sometimes editor Nathan Tyree to discuss fiction, writing, death and other important topics. The following is a transcript of that conversation.

James Horn: So, how have you been?

Nathan Tyree: Roughly close to death, I guess. It's all up and downs but no arc. You know? How about you?

JH: Okay.

NT: You working on anything good?

JH: Right now I'm writing a story about people having sex with dead amputees. I'm reading a draft of a new book by Z. Lustig, and it's very good. Very strange. Tell me about your new book. What's it called again?

NT: Stygiophilia.

JH: What's it about?

NT: Self destruction. Sex. Self loathing. Existential dread. Underage girls. Cigarettes. Alcoholism. Everything that I have a problem with I guess. It's about enjoying a hellish existence. Maybe enjoying it too much. The main character mutilates himself and gets a sexual thrill from it. He can't maintain a relationship in a healthy way and he has terrible secrets in his past. That's all on the surface though. The subtext is the interesting part.

JH: What's the subtext?

NT: None of your fucking business.

JH: Fair enough. Let's talk about the old book, Mr. Overby is Falling.

NT: Let's talk about fetuses.

JH: Really. That book has a bit of a cult following. I know it effected me a bit. When you wrote it did you think that it would catch on the way that it has?

NT: I don't know that it has caught on. A few thousand people have bought it. Some of them liked it and mentioned it various places. I'm not Chuck Palahniuk or anything.

JH: Didn't I hear that it inspired some artist?

NT: Yeah. Teo Treloar cited it as an inspiration for his NO EXIT exhibition.

JH: How'd that make you feel?

NT: Good. The dude's work is the balls, and that he chose to claim I helped inspire it shocked me.

JH: What's this I hear about Palahniuk saying something about your work?

NT: I don't know about that.

JH: Okay. Do you consider yourself an internet writer>

NT: I don't know what that means. Do you consider yourself an internet writer?

JH: Yes.

NT: Have you ever killed anyone?

JH: I'm not answering that. What are you working on now?

NT: Mostly poetry and flash fiction. I hate that term, by the way. It sounds like something dirty. But I love writing short, forcing myself to create a full story in a short space.

JH: What are your plans for the future?

NT: I want to be a mercenary. That or a male stripper. I'm sexy, you know.

JH: This has been fun. I hope we can do it again.

NT: Me too.

Dreaming of Perfection : a novel excerpt

2009-04-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

Chapter 2

by Jonny kelly

The rain is pissing down in the wonderful Glasgow. I'm on a bus going
into town. I'm particularly annoyed as I can hear two fucking junkies
snorting cocaine on the back of the bus. I don't know if I want to
join them or kick them off the bus - I probably want to do both at the
moment. The driver is a tall, husky black fella, who seems oblivious
to Sid and Nancy snorting in the back seats. My mind seems to rest
slightly as I see my stop coming up. I stand up early, so I don't have
to hear the snorting pigs anymore. “Cheers driver,” I say extremely
politely, the driver looks at me with an awkward glare, as if I've
just raped his baby daughter with a chainsaw strapped to my dick. I
put a Metro newspaper over my head, because the rain seems to be
thumbing down nonstop. I'm not infuriating with annoyance though; I
know I've only got a two minute walk - the editor, my boss, is waiting
in a nice little café just around the corner from the bus stop.

I enter the café with a big smile on my face; there is a lovely smell
of fresh coffee, which makes me fell quite happy. I sit down on an
expensive looking black leather chair, at the table where my editor
(John) is sitting. “Have you read the Mirror today David?” John asks
me.

“No I've just read the Metro on the bus, why?”

"Well, David, there is an exclusive story in the Mirror about mass
deaths in the Orkneys."

“Mass deaths in the bloody Orkney Islands, are you having a fuckin'
laugh? Is there something in your coffee John?"

"There isn't much information in the paper, at the moment, all we
really know is that over 20 people in the Orkney islands have commited
suicide by forcing a 10 inch blade through their skull.”

"So I guess I have to go to the bloody Orkney Isles for this story
then. Scotland's answer to the fucking Wacko Disaster.”

"It might very well get bigger than that mate, who knows?"

"Fine I'll go as long as I don't end up in the Wicker man at the end.”
An oriental looking Asian girl walks over to me with a black coffee.
She has a cute little grin on her face, so I decide to grin back at
her, this makes her giggle.

I put the soaking Metro in to a bin which is at arms length from our table.
“So when will I start this investigation?”

John takes a sip of his coffee and then rests the cup on a napkin,
“hopefully you'll be able to start this weekend, we'll see what we can
do for your transportation."

I am now quite annoyed, I look at the ceiling of the café and notice
some chewing gum, this makes me even more annoyed, because it looks
like a nice little clean café.

A Headless Man Falls in Love with a Bowl of Rice

2009-04-09T09:36:00.001-05:00

A Headless Man Falls in Love with a Bowl of Rice

by Bradley Sands

The headless man is eating dinner. He feels his life is incomplete. His tears dribble out of his neck wound and his major organs rain down on a bowl of rice. If any more organs rain down on the bowl of rice, the headless man will stop feeling that his life is incomplete. He does not want this. The only way to save himself is to make his life complete in a different way. He must use a method of hunting and trapping the missing piece rather than not feeling anything at all. The headless man has determined the missing piece is an emotion. An emotion that has been reserved for a person who is not the headless man. An emotion that will fit into his soft tissue. But where will he hunt and trap this emotion? Women are repulsed by his incompleteness, men are likely to react to it with violence. He contemplates this conundrum. He stops contemplating. He looks down at the bowl of rice with longing. He looks down at the bowl of rice, regretting all the pieces he has left behind.

Bio: Bradley Sands is the author of the novel, It Came from Below the Belt, and the editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. His work has appeared in The Bizarro Starter Kit (Blue), Lamination Colony, No Colony, Opium Magazine, Robot Melon, decomP, susurrus, Thieves Jargon, and elsewhere. Visit him at www.bradleysands.com.

Underneath, A Group of Catfish Discover Existentialism

2009-04-06T11:44:00.001-05:00

Underneath, A Group of Catfish Discover Existentialism

by XtX

Paw Paw wakes up.

Paw Paw decides, ‘this is the day’.

Paw Paw still makes his breakfast, still turns the pictures facing the walls.

Paw Paw calls no one; he feels secure in this.

Paw Paw finishes his quilt made of horseshoes, hemming the sleeves with the remaining darkness from his past.

Paw Paw takes the rest of his arthritis medicine and a six pack of Coors.

Paw Paw saws off a shotgun, writes “FRIEND” in black Sharpie on the side.

Paw Paw heads out to the bridge at the mill pond.

Paw Paw thinks, this path is overgrown now.

Paw Paw remembers catching blue gill with his grandson which is a lie he tells himself

Paw Paw is terrified for a second, but the second passes and he cannot feel his hands

Paw Paw sits on the low wood railing of the bridge; he hears the rustling of birds in the brush.

Paw Paw thinks about it being his last day, for certain.

Paw Paw wraps himself in the horseshoe quilt, grabs his friend.

Paw Paw whispers please.

Paw Paw pulls the trigger.

Paw Paw falls and sinks and sinks.

Breakfast at Sedlac

2009-03-30T09:33:00.000-05:00

Breakfast at Sedlac.
By Jon Catron

Let me genuflect at your pelvis, kneeling on your spine. Venerated, your skull hangs high above, its stern, loving gaze crucifying me. Your rib cage closes about me, an iron maiden of calcium, phosphorus, sulfur, and heavy metals. I share the fate of your heart, bled out, desiccated, desecrated, consecrated in this pain. Our anatomies mingle; fluids everywhere. I drift asleep awaiting the salvation that never comes.

The Fucker Inside

2009-03-29T17:06:00.001-05:00

The Fucker Inside by S.A. Griffin
Tainted Coffee Press
ISBN 978-0-9814685-1-8

S.A. Griffin claims to not be an erotic poet. He even goes so far as to include a poem in this slim collection explaining just that point. Despite that, most of the poems in the book deal, in some way, with sex.

The opening poem "I Ate Fig Newtons Until I Puked" uses the act of gorging on a food until you can no longer stand it as metaphor for obsessive relationships and the intense sexual passion that normally occurs at the beginning of an affair. He does this with language that is often rough, and line breaks that seem almost jarring. This is strangely effective. He evokes the disjointed quality of love and sex wonderfully.

All of the poems in this slender volume are well realized, and complete. Standing above the rest though, is a piece that seems to be the center of the work, the core: "How Many Times". This poem, though short, carries real weight. I'm not one to reproduce a poem in its entirety in the context of a review, and this poem is too short to excerpt easily. It is about (on the surface) watching a woman undress, and then seeing her as the empty clothes.

Much of Griffin's work is reminiscent of Bukowski at his best. This is powerful stuff. Griffin manages well formed, insightful, intelligent poetry dealing with sexual themes, which may be the most difficult subject for the poet to face.

The Fucker Inside is a fine book.

I SAW A MAN WITH DOWN'S SYNDROME AT THE STORE AND I FELT BAD by Sam Pink

2009-03-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

I SAW A MAN WITH DOWN'S SYNDROME AT THE STORE AND I FELT BAD

by Sam Pink

Time is recurring terror.

There is no night and day there are only small naps.

There is no way to understand anything there are only nods.

There is no holding hands there is only making sure the other one doesn’t run.

There is no idea there is only saying something one of us already said but forgot about.

There are no naps there are only blinks.

There are no blinks there are only small rips in sight.

There is no fun there is only me not saying anything.

There is no floor there is only feeling like you can’t go below where you’re at.

There is no washer and dryer in my apartment building and that sucks fucking balls.

There are no fingers there are only smaller pieces of your arm.

There are no arms there is only your body trying to expand without your permission.

Being dead will be the easiest thing I do. I am not accomplishing anything; my feet are shovels.

Review: Tomorrowland

2009-03-13T12:46:00.001-05:00

Tomorrowland by Howie Good
Achilles Chapbook Series
www.dogzplot.com

I received Howie Good's chapbook Tomorrowland in the mail just a few days after my mother died in a car crash. Initially I ignored it because it did not contain any alcohol and I had no time for any object that lacked the ability to numb or kill. Eventually I picked it up thinking that it would distract me from my melancholy for a bit. After reading the first poem, "Love, Death, Etc." I flung the wee book across the room and curled myself into a ball on my couch. I was angry at Mr. Good. Solipsistically, I wanted to be the only person capable of understanding my level of pain and he had cleanly disproved that theory in a single page. Some time later I returned to the slim volume and finished it. I am glad that I did.

Good weaves poems into prose (or perhaps it is the other way around) and bends beauty until it breaks. His words describe and elicit agony and love and death (and etc.). He has captured the burning heart of god on the page.

He illuminates the human condition with simple lines like:

“Where we sleep, you know, it isn’t necessarily where we wake up, it all depends on what we dream, my dead mother for example, crisscrossed by the fence, fingers hooked through the diamond shaped links.”

or:

“Quick, send the extruded plastic moon to this address and because the ambulance driver will get lost in the maze of small, unlighted streets, send the moon out for an encore.”

or:

“not knowing what I’ll remember one day or that no one escapes the fire.”

Good plays with words the way a virtuoso plays the strings of some obscure, forgotten instrument. He understands grief and pain and how to express them fully in ways that most poets could only dream.

This is a wonderful and marvelous and painful book.

-Nathan Tyree

Sam Pink

2009-03-11T16:07:00.002-05:00

Nathan Tyree has interviewed Sam Pink for Bookmunch. Pink is the author of I'm Going to Clone Myself then Kill the Clone and Eat it.

Over and Out

4 Poems by Z. Lustig

2009-03-05T15:23:00.001-06:00

Four Poems by:

Z. Lustig

Dog Fathers

I ate her face
it tasted like
frozen peas
but I seemed
to enjoy it
anyway

Love Story

If I chew enough gum
then the bitch wont be\
able to catch me when
I run out back of the
shed
and fuck her sister
before she starts
to rot.

The Fight

She's dead now

The headhunter's hair

My last breath is taken by
a headhunter with the dread
gum disease known as
gingivitis. He has
golden feathers in
his redolent hair

Femme Fatale

2009-02-26T14:46:00.001-06:00

Femme Fatale

by

Herman Bloom

She turns in time to see him looking at the woman sitting sideways at the end of the bar. The woman is long, too thin, too tanned and clouded by a haze of cigarette smoke that suggests a scene from some late nineteen-forties movie where a femme fatale coaxes some slow witted man in a fedora into murdering her husband, and then leaves him to rot in prison. For his part, he is busy trying to appear as though the only interesting thing in the entire room is floating just below the surface of the scotch in his glass. He badly wants to hide the fact that he was looking at the woman perched at the end of the bar. In the last few months he has found himself looking at other women more and more; wanting them more and more; needing her less and less.

This is Not a lie

2009-02-23T13:09:00.001-06:00

This is Not a Lie
by James (JMES) Horn

I ate her face
then I took a bath in
her feet

Just some shit

2009-01-23T18:30:00.001-06:00

Hydrocephalic Ward

2008-12-28T20:49:00.001-06:00

Hydrocephalic Ward

In Hydrocephalic Ward, the new collection from Nathan Tyree, you will find robots for pedophiles, a man burning himself with cigarettes, a hospital where they keep you alive as long as you can pay, an abusive husband's grief, group sex and its effects, a suicidal philosopher, Cinderella, Quetzalcoatl, a breast feeding corpse, zombies, Elvis having a very bad day, a poker player in over his head, cannibal children, Junkies, John the Baptist, bees, drinkers and people on the edge. These are stories that both shock and move the reader. "Wow! I'm still erect" - Mitch Cullin (Tideland) "Crams more malevolent nastiness and thought-provoking misanthropy into its every word and deed that your average Bret Easton Ellis." -Peter Wild, Editor of Noise and The Flash

Stories

2008-12-27T21:11:00.001-06:00

The first anthology (read: print issue) of Magazine of the Dead is now available on the Kindle from Amazon. Magazine of the Dead: Stories for Diseased Children.

If you are one of those lucky fuckers with a Kindle, then check it out. Do it! You want to.

WBY

2008-12-27T14:21:00.003-06:00

That William Butler Yeats was a smart fucker. He was right. Things do fall apart. We live in a world of shit and decay.

I'm Your Man

2008-12-19T08:28:00.003-06:00

I'm Your Man

by Jon Catron

Bobbie looked at the mirror and applied the lipstick slowly, making a slow kissing sound toward the reflecting surface. Lipstick was always the hardest to put on, you really had to *sell* it, force people to look at your lips, make them want your lips, make your lips make *them* want you. They say that first impressions are the most lasting. If it’s done right, it’s all they need to see.

This was especially true for Bobbie, whose lips were arguably his best assets. He had little going for him beyond his full lips and demure manner; the rest was carefully crafted to conceal everything in the most alluring way. He pulled on his black “bob” wig, his personal joke, and closed his right eye to begin applying the eyelashes.

He’d begun cross dressing several years ago, but he’d nearly given up his dignity several failed relationships before that. The women and men he’d paraded into his life back then had been a panacea for the ache in his soul, but never the cure.

All of them walked away in the end. Bobbie reached over and cranked the radio volume up as an old raspy voice asked him if the Moon was too bright, or the Chains too tight. Bobbie smiled and winked at the mirror. “Please….”

Of course the smile was faked; everything about Bobbie was faked though. Everyone faked it. Everything was fake now. Roses all come from drugstores. Love songs are sung sweetly by heartless bitches. Paychecks reward those that back stab their coworkers. Churches eat the innocent.

And the chaste look for Bobbie with discreet needful glances.

Everybody knows the End is coming, but they hide in their shiny houses, shiny cars, shiny clothes, shiny lives. Everyone knows the pain is out there and everybody hides from it in their own way. Bobbie was just playing the game better than anyone else.

He slipped on his dress, letting it slide down like a cloak, hiding him from the world; from the pain. Who was anyone to judge how he hid himself? Everyone is a Liar in their heart. How many promises hung broken and abused in the world? How many people gaped in shocked betrayal at their friends, their lovers, their family?

……….how could she?

He dabbed a hanky at his eye and pursed his lips as he grabbed his purse and coat and slipped out the door.

“Maybe I’ll get a Promiser tonight…. Yeah, that would be the trick.”

Bobbie hit the bars with bashful eyes and a tight, almost inviting smile on his perfect lips. He found his lover quickly, the aging John promising sweet, sweet nothings, obviously trying a little too desperately to hide a pale band of skin on his left hand. He was charming. He was handsome. And he was *so* smooth, so faux earnest in his declarations. His words were as empty as he was, dead things vomited out of a dead mouth. He was a dead man wanting to fuck a make believe woman.

He was perfect.

The taste of Leonard’s cock still sat in Bobbie’s mouth like a diseased toad, dry and befouled. His lover was gagged and thankfully bound in the other room as Bobbie cried just a little while he rinsed his mouth in the bathroom. He didn’t dab the tears from his eyes as he slipped from the dress and stalked into the bedroom, eyes finally as cold as the heart inside his chest.

Bobbie pulled the wig from his head as Leonard stared wild eyed at him. The illusions were gone now. He’d found the ring in Leonard’s pocket, but it didn’t matter. His own member stood erect, pointing at Leonard’s horrified gaze, but that didn’t matter either.

There was nothing to hide.

There would be so much to hide.

Bobbie held up the switchblade, his dead eyes moistening in anticipation.

“Baby,” *shnickt* “I’m your man.”

The Darkness Inside

2008-12-18T15:52:00.000-06:00

The Darkness Inside is the creepy new collection from Joshua Weston. Check it out. That is an order.

Singularity

2008-12-15T12:08:00.000-06:00

James Horn (also known as JMES Horn for reasons that he refuses to explain, but that must be significant) has graced the pages of Magazine of the Dead many times. His story "Lester's Complex" is one of our all time favorites. We are pleased to announce that he has a brand new collection of short stories available from Gozu Press.

It's called Singularity (the sort of title that we assume is at least a double entendre if not a triple entendre, but again he refuses to explain this- he's a cagey fuck).

The stories in it are terrifying, disgusting, and oddly touching. We like it. You should too.

You can check it out here: Singularity

Gozu Press

2008-12-14T11:57:00.002-06:00

There is a great new publishing company out in the world. It is called Gozu Press (and yes, the MotD people are involved). So far Gozu has published Nathan Tyree and James Horn and more are coming. All Gozu books will be available through major online retailers (like Amazon and B&N) as well as through book stores.

Have a look at this Gozu Press

Zombie Lust

2008-12-13T14:23:00.000-06:00

There is a brand new zombie book out: Zombie Lust. It's worth a look.

Why So Serious?

2008-12-09T16:07:00.003-06:00

okay, yeah, we will be seeing this little bit of hollywood fluff everywhere for a week or two.

"Why So Serious?"

The marketing guys don't get it. I will tell you that now. To them, this is just a push for their material, their movie, their toys, their sleeping bag, their flamethrowers (the kids Love it).

But they won't EVER *get* it like you or I might.

They won't understand how it harkens back to the question that the Joker posses by his very existence.

"What is the Rational response to an Insane World?"

For most people, it is to Rationalize every decision, to close your eyes to the Maddening Whole and focus on the Uber-importance of the minutiae of Now.

Small stuff becomes all consuming and perspective is lost. Madness creeps in under the guise of Control and the end result is the same place we were trying desperately to avoid.

"Why So Serious?"

Why sweat the small stuff? Why focus on the Now when any other time/place likely sucks a lot less? Let loose of your 'Controls' and let impulse take over. Everything loses importance when one steps back to see the Grand Decay that will finally consume us all. If nothing has importance, why not take what you impulsively want now, and damn the consequences? And Madness sweeps in with a blinding whirl that blurs your sight and clouds your mind.

Why so serious? After all, we are all headed for the same hall in the loony bin, and if you've got to go, Go With A SMILE.

I'm In Zombie Hell

2008-12-04T14:13:00.002-06:00

http:\\www.unamerican.com.

Yeah, i forgot about this place about 6 years ago. I had something funny to say about it, but that got put on one of their bumper stickers....

check it out and go get subversive on someone's ass.

Sexual Disorders

2008-11-30T15:04:00.002-06:00

MotD's very own psychopath, Nathan Tyree, has a sick new novel out now. It's called Stygiophilia. The narrator of Stygiophilia has big problems. He may be an alcoholic, the bird-snake god Quetzalcoatl has taken up residence in his apartment, his underage girlfriend may be just using him for sex and he can’t stop mutilating himself. His real problem, though, is that he is starting to really enjoy his life. He carries with him a terrible secret and a set of even more terrible desires that lead him on a year long journey toward a stunning revelation about what it means to be human in a world where humanity is dying. Stygiophilia is sexually explicit, violent, brutal, surreal and crushingly real. Nathan Tyree is the author of the cult classic Mr. Overby is Falling, as well as King of Citizen Bands and How to Make Love Like a Zombie. His books have been read and debated on six continents.

Have a look at Stygiophilia and maybe buy a copy

Island of the Dead

2008-11-29T11:06:00.000-06:00

You can't really say that it's come full circle, because it really makes more of a lopsided Q or something. George A. Romero's second Of the Dead film, Dawn of the Dead, was released in Italy (in a slightly different cut, edited by Dario Argento) under the title Zombi. While Romero was making his sequels (Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead) the Italians started a second line of sequels (or a first, since although they were unofficial, they came first). Lucio Fulci directed Zombi 2. Now Romero is a making a currently untitled zombie movie (Island of the Dead is the working title, but may change). This new film has a synopsis that is strangely similar to Zombi 2.

Draw your own conclusions from this.

Outside the Illness

2008-11-22T12:39:00.001-06:00

November 23, 2011

I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I hate being alone.

I had to kill three today.

I was sure the street was empty before I opened the door this morning, but as I turned around to lock up I saw one of them standing in the yard next door. He was completely naked and holding the rotting remains of a squirrel, bits of its fur still clinging to his lips. As soon as he saw me, he immediately turned and began running in the other direction. This is the first time that this has happened, and I was surprised that he was fearful of me. I pulled the pistol out of my waistband and slowly began to head in his direction, curious as to where he would go.

He ducked around the corner and behind the house, so I broke into a jog in order to keep up. I didn’t want him to know I was following, so I was trying to give him some distance in case he looked back.

I reached the corner of the house, and peeked around just in time to see him head behind a house across the street, not looking back once. I began running in that direction. I had just about reached the yard when I heard a confusing series of yells that resembled no form of speech that I had ever heard. I froze dead in my tracks.

Seconds later he came running back out from around the corner, straight towards me, accompanied by two more of them, both female and both just as naked as he was. I immediately began firing at him and he dropped after a few shots. The other two did not hesitate for a moment and neither did I. I’m not sure how many shots it was later that one of the females fell. I do know that five shots went into the third, but she continued in my direction, seemingly unphased by pain or the condition of the other two. After that, I was pulling the trigger on an empty clip.

I dropped the nine and fumbled for the rifle hanging from my shoulder, but had barely gotten it past my arm when the third fell to the ground without another shot. All three were still moaning and lying in the boiling pools of their blood.

I took a few minutes to gather myself and let the adrenalin rush pass. I then pulled the hatchet loose from its belt loop and proceeded with the dismemberment, disappointed that this was to be the start of what looked to be a bright Wednesday.

That done I broke into the house, to check for supplies. This house had been better stocked then mine, and I filled my bag with all the cans it could carry (many of them beans, thankfully).

That done, I headed back to my place. I didn’t have the stomach for any more adventures, so I spent the day reading. I’m halfway through Making History by Stephen Fry now.

I wish I had a time machine.

Zombie World News

2008-11-17T12:32:00.001-06:00

Hiring Zombies

2008-11-16T13:07:00.001-06:00

Trends in zombie hiring. The disturbing trends in zombie hiring continue.

And then there's Frankenstein

Zombie Pin Ups?

2008-11-15T12:28:00.002-06:00

We've just discovered something that we really love. Since you are as sick as us, then you should love it too. Zombie Pinups

Just Some Updates

2008-11-15T10:29:00.001-06:00

There's a lot going on that we need to tell you about. MotD has just learned that there is a porn parody of Romero's Night of the Living Dead. It's called Night of the Giving Head (which wins our award for best parody title ever). We can't find much information about it yet, but when we do you will be the first to know.

In other news, our sister site, An Ordinary Year, has a new chapter on-line. For the uninitiated, An Ordinary Year is a novel in progress by MotD's own Nathan Tyree. It's a twisted little piece that develops right before your eyes, so be sure to check it out.

We've got a lot of great stuff coming soon, so stick around.

The MotD team is in love with Dexter. Serial Killers deserve more love than they get. We, being the sort of sickos we are, spend a lot of time thinking about serial killers. The real life ones (Albert Fish, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacey, Dahmer, Jones) and the fictional ones. The fictional ones are sexier. They are layered and flawed and complicated. The real ones tend to just be damaged and sexually inadequate. But then, who isn't? Never mind, though.

We are fascinated by Patrick Bateman. Aroused by Norman Bates. Puzzled by Hannibal Lecter. Giggle over Jack Overby. Dexter Morgan is just the most recent. If you haven’t met him, you should.

Finis Mort

2008-11-14T10:44:00.000-06:00

Finis Mort

Five out of Five stars

It’s not often that a movie reviewer is really surprised by what he sees on the screen. I guess that it’s totally fair to say that we are a jaded lot. Normally, even the most unexpected of movies has a familiar structure, or characters that we recognize. Fifteen minutes into most films we see the direction that the movie is headed and we begin to lean that way. Arturo Janneti’s Finis Mort manages to completely obliterate all expectations. This is Janneti’s first film, and I for one hope that we can hope to see much more from him.

The cast is almost totally unknown. Only Fred Kessler is familiar to audiences, and he appears only for a few moments of the movie. The fact that we have not seen these people before (and in some cases are guaranteed not to see them again) lends a certain quality of fascination to the film. The unfamiliarity of the faces combines with the Cinema Verite style to convince us that this is more historical document that entertainment. But, entertaining it is.

Since this film is of the sort that is likely to be seen by viewers who worry about spoilers let me give my recommendation right up front. See this film. Now that you know my suggestion, read no further if spoilers worry you.

For those who are still reading, here’s my full review:

The film opens on an indistinct, blurry image. The camera takes it’s time finding focus to finally reveal that we are looking at a gray room, wet looking all around, with a large wooden chair in the center of frame. A hooded man walks past the camera, then vanishes from sight. Off screen we can hear some muffled sounds. Maybe these are the sounds of a struggle of some sort. Perhaps we hear some moans and cries. We can’t be sure. Then the hooded man re-enters the shot. He is dragging a pretty girl (Julie Castgate) who is fighting to escape. She is wearing a sheer nightgown that barely comes o her thighs. Her hands are bound behind her back. One perfectly shaped breast finds its way free on the silken nightie. The hooded man forces her into the chair, and ties her into place. The image cuts to black

We fade in on Fred Kessler, dressed in a white lab coat setting behind a desk. He gives a monotone speech about the reality of what we are about to see. He tells us, again and again, that this is not fiction, but is rather real footage of brutal acts. He warns us not to watch. The look on his face is blank, as if he has been drugged. We know Kessler from many Z grade movies and his appearance creates the expectation of more of the same. Then we see a short title sequence.

I know that what I’m describing so far sounds like nineteen-seventies exploitation movie fare. I can’t explain why, but it doesn’t feel that way at all. Although we are only a few minutes into the program by the time the opening credits roll, it is already clear that we are in the hands of some sort of mad genius.

After the credits we can suppose that we have been dumped into a flash back. We watch a white van creeping up a quiet street at night. We see Julie Castgate (who in the credits is billed only as “Female Victim,” a decision that we may find odd) walking nervously down the sidewalk. The van comes to a sudden stop, and two men (Warren Smith and Ed Stall) jump out. They grab the female victim and drag her screaming into the van. Then the van speeds away.

By this point we in the audience are completely off balance. We can’t be sure what is going on. It is if is we are lost at sea.

Next we watch the hooded man (oddly, he is totally un-credited in the film, so we never know who the actor is) in a room with a large wooden table. The table is littered with knives and surgical instruments. He is sharpening a rather large butcher knife. This scene functions to give us our first real glimpse of what is to come. The foreshadowing is almost unbearable.

The strangest part of the film comes next. We get a strobe effect of images coming too quickly to be distinct. We can almost be sure that we have seen several dead bodies, and a girl’s screaming face. Then the screen cuts to soft black and stays that way for over a minute. Over the blackness we hear mechanical, grinding noises and indistinct dialogue. Then we fade back to the young woman in the chair. The man in the hood walks into frame and draws the blade of his knife across her face, releasing a small stream of blood and a terrified scream. The camera pushes in very tight on her eyes, which are wet and wide and filled with what looks like real fear.

Then we flash back (we guess) again. The girl is in another room, still dressed in her clothes from the street. The hooded man and the two men from the van are in the room. They strip her, and take turns raping her violently. This scene really doesn’t need any more description than that. As the scene ends we see the hooded man forcing the girl into the nightgown that we’ve seen before.

We return to the room with the chair. This is where Ms. Castgate does her best acting. She manages to portray real, paralyzing fear using mostly her eyes. At first she screams, but then the executioner (it is clear by now that that is what he is) forces a ball gag into her mouth.

He begins to cut her in delicate ways. He makes it slow; takes his time and punishes her. At the same time he is punishing the audience. We want to look away, but really cannot. Most of us (unless we are Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton) have never seen anything like this. There is a fascination that builds around this sort of brutality, an obsessive appeal that makes us watch things that we never in our public minds admit to wanting to see. Perhaps it is catharsis. Perhaps we are just sick.

By the moment when he finally cuts her throat, and ends her life, we are hoping for it. When her eyes go dead we can’t be sure if we want that light to go out to spare her more pain, or to spare us more pain, or because our reptile brains long for the butchery. Maybe we are aroused, in some inimitable way, by all of this.

When she is finally dead the hooded man unties her, lays her out on the floor and removes what’s left of her clothes. Then he does the most unexpected (and most horrible) thing. The hooded man pulls his erect penis from his pants, strokes it a moment, then mounts the corpse in the room. The credits roll over the scene of this unbearable act.

The film ends with a statement from the film makers telling us that all of what we have watched is real. We, of course, don’t believe it. At least, I didn’t the first time I saw the film. By now I know that it is true. I, like you, have read the news stories about the murder of Julie Castgate. I, like you, know that Arturo Janneti is in hiding (in South America, the FBI suggests) and not likely to be found.

And yet, even knowing what we know now, we can’t help watching. We are shocked and amazed by this wondrous document. If you are like me, you will be seeking out a bootleg VHS of this film, and making copies for your friends. You will watch it late at night at parties you have hosted for only the select few who are likely to enjoy it (and most importantly: not likely to tell anyone about it).

Janneti’s film becomes like a drug. I expect that we will see other young directors attempting to copy it soon. I for one cannot wait.

Bubba Ho-Tep

2008-11-13T13:18:00.001-06:00

Elvis traded places with an Elvis impersonator and now lives a quiet life in an East Texas nursing home surrounded by decrepit old folks. He worries about life and the meaning of it all and about that growth on his penis which may be cancer. Elvis (Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead Fame) meets up with JFK (Ossie Davis). Kennedy, it seems, had his death faked. He was then dyed black and dumped in this rest home under another name.

Bubba Hotep is the story of these two old men, and their lives in what is, for all intents and purposes, Hell. It is about there attempts to regain some of their youth, vitality and zest for life. It scrapes around the edges of being a film about aging, and about how we abuse and forget our progenitors. Then, just when you think this movie is one thing, the mummy shows up.

Bubba Hotep is an Egyptian mummy that was stolen, then washed into a creek near the nursing home where JFK and The King reside. He has come to suck old people’s souls out through their rectums. He then, apparently, poops soul debris into the visitor’s toilet (where he also scrawls graffiti in hieroglyphs).

The Potus and the King decide that they must put a stop to this dreadful creature. That’s where the comedy/horror.camp aspects really get moving. Along the way we’re given a lot of flashbacks to Elvis’ former life, and some explanation as to why he left that life.

The big question is: are these men who they think they are? The answer: it doesn’t matter. The film works (as much as it does) through the ambiguity of this point.

Despite its flaws, this movie is very entertaining. Mostly this is due to the performances by Campbell and Davis. They both play it straight. Had they gone campy, or over the top, the entire thing would have collapsed upon itself like an overcooked soufflé. Since they play it straight, we tend to believe and like the characters.

Campbell does a great job of being Elvis like, without becoming a parody of Elvis. The make-up helps with this, but really it's his voice and attitude that carry it off.

Davis doesn't play the JFK accent and mannerisms, but instead merely acts presidential. This was the perfect choice.

Now, having stated that I enjoyed the film, I can’t help thinking that it reaches too far. In fact, why is the mummy even there? Really, any adventure could have worked. Given the brilliant set up, any set of events that caused these characters to reawaken and try to live again would have made this film enjoyable (because in the end that is what the movie is about). The mummy may actually detract from the film’s ability to function well.

Oh well. It is what it is, I suppose. I recommend this movie, but would have liked to have seen what else it could have become.

Zombie Survival

2008-11-13T12:22:00.000-06:00

We know that you are just as concerned as we are about how to survive the coming Zombie Holocaust. Bone up at the Zombie Survival Wiki. All the zombie hunting skills you need can be learned there.

An Ordinary Year

2008-11-12T13:00:00.001-06:00

An Ordinary Year is a novel presented live. It is being placed on-line, chapter by chapter, as it is written and without any real editing. It should be fun to watch as it develops.

Be sure to check it out.

Magazine of the Dead: Cemetery Man

2008-11-12T01:00:00.001-06:00

Magazine of the Dead: Cemetery Man

Cemetery Man

2008-11-11T22:38:00.002-06:00

The "Zombie" genre has been around for quite some time. To be fair, "Zombie" movies are really a sub-genre, of a sub-genre. Horror is the genre, Vampires make up a sub-genre, and what is a zombie but another type of vampire? (maybe it's the other way around: what is a vampire but a sort of zombie?).

Anyway, the genre really got going with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Romero saw the zombies as a metaphor for us, and used the fright film structure to satirize American Society.

Romero took the satire even further with Dawn of the Dead, which pitted consumerist zombies against consumerist survivors in a modern shopping mall.

The Dead Series spawned a third film, Day of the Dead, and the parody Return of the Living Dead, and its sequels.

Dario Argento (who had a connection with Dawn of the Dead) made many low budget, extremely gory zombie flicks in Italy.

Along the way many films have imitated Both Romero and Argento. I contend that movies like Halloween, and Friday the 13th (and their sequels) are members of the zombie community. Think about it, undying, slow moving, implaccable, remorseless killers stagger about and hunt hapless human victims. (I suppose by my logic Jaws also fits, but perhaps that's taking it a bit far).

So, after all that build up, here's the first mention of Cemetery Man, the film I'm reviewing.

Cemetery Man is about a grave digger (Rupert Everet, of My Best Friend's Wedding) who must dispatch the dead, who tend to rise from there graves seven days after being planted. No explanation is given for this phenomenon, nor is one needed.

In the tradition of Zombie movies, the dead are re-killed by a bullet to the head; we would expect no less.

Everet keeps a detached, reserve about him. His reaction to the horror he encounters seems to be annoyance at all the work he has to do. The thought of a bus load of dead children doesn't shock him, or fill him with sadness, or even rage, it makes him dread all the hard work he will have to do. He is perfectly laconic, and indifferent to human suffering.

He is helped by a mute assistant (Francois Hadji-Lazaro, who was fine in City of Lost Children)

Then things start to change. He falls in love, and this being a zombie movie we can see where it's going. The moment his love appears we know that she will die, and that he may be forced to deal with the zombie she will become.

However, the film offers the possibility that she doesn't die, or that she does and the cemetery man loses his mind.

Things are complicated more by the mute assistant falling in love with the severed head of a dead girl (weird, huh? I said most people would hate this movie).

This movie treats the zombie genre like no other film has. Through attitude, and tone it transforms it. Through reaction, it transcends it. It shifts gears more quickly than a NASCAR driver on amphetamine. Like some of the best films of the french New Wave (Shoot the Piano Player, Breathless) it moves effortlessly from funny, to macabre, to sad and back around again.

Whereas Romero made zombies scary, comic, pitiful, and human, this film mostly forgets them. The zombies are much less important than our strange grave digger, and his, at times belated, reactions to them.

Cemetery Man is a strange, distant, cold movie. It inverts a well worn genre, and in the process creates something new and interesting.

The New Flesh

2008-11-11T09:49:00.004-06:00

The New Flesh: A Post-Postmodernist Review of the Mind-Body Problem as a Theme in George A. Romero’s Films Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead.

By Nathan Tyree

Philosophers have long wrestled with what has come to be known as the “Mind-Body Problem;” the question of whether we, as humans, are merely physical, material creatures or if we are possessed of some non-physical mind (soul or spirit are often used synonymously with mind). This open question has developed into one of the greatest schisms in the history of modern thought. The partisans in this battle are aligned on three sides: materialists, dualists and idealists. The eminent auteur George A. Romero has quite brilliantly aligned himself on the materialist side of this fight with the latter entries in his Dead film series. A careful watching of both Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead makes this point almost excruciatingly clear.

In this discussion the first order of business is to define the sides in the ongoing fight over the question of the soul. As was stated earlier, there are three sides: Idealism, Materialism and Dualism. We will need to explore each of them separately.

Idealism

We will look at Idealism simply so that we may dismiss it almost out of hand. The Idealist believes that there are only minds and thoughts created by minds. To make it clear, the Idealist denies that there are any material objects or physical beings in the whole of the universe. A cursory examination of the idealist philosophy reveals that it is largely absurd as well as being psychologically unsatisfying. Even if we were to ignore those two highly persuasive facts, we would still have to contend with the problem posed by temporal constancy. The idealist must believe that the chair that he sits in is not, in fact, a chair but rather merely an idea in his mind which he has mistaken for a material object in the shape of a chair. This seems barely on the outskirts of plausibility until we consider the following scenario: You enter a room and arrange the chairs in an odd configuration, then write down the precise location of each chair before exiting the room. An hour later a person that you have had no contact with then enters the room and writes down the location of each chair in the room. If the two of you come together and compare notes you will learn that you have observed the same configuration of chairs. If you have each only mistaken your own private thoughts for material objects shaped like chairs then it seems that you should observe different things. In this way Idealism knocks out its pins and collapses upon itself. It was never really taken seriously by anyone anyway and has few partisans. The other two sides in this battle have much more power behind them.

Materialism

Materialism holds that a person is an animal. We are, the materialist claims, merely material, physical beings. Nothing more and nothing less. The mind, the materialist says, is an effect of the physical brain. The materialist insists that there is no soul or spirit and that what we call ‘mind’ is merely a series of electrical and chemical reactions within that self same brain.

Dualism

The Dualist would agree with the materialist that man is a material being, a physical animal. But, the dualist claims, in addition to the physical components man also is possessed of a non-physical mind (spirit or soul works just as well here). The dualist says that it is this non-physical aspect that is responsible for consciousness, thought and our knack for ethical decision.

Those are the three sides in the mind-body discussion.

The Living Dead

George A. Romero is a film maker best known for his zombie genre movies. Romero’s Zombie films are: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. These films all take place in a universe where humanity has been over run by a plague of flesh eating zombies. These zombies are previously dead humans that have been resurrected by some process that is never explained to the audience. In each film a small band of human survivors attempt to outlast or out fight the undead cannibals that stalk them. The first two entries in the series are both extraordinary entertainment and fascinating satire but fail to reach the philosophical heights that the latter films would reach.

Day of the Dead features a zombie named Bub who is the subject of certain behavioral experiments. In the course of the film Bub demonstrates the ability to learn, to remember things from his past and to use objects (one is tempted to say tools, but that seems to miss the point of a phone in a world where there is no one left to talk to). Near the end of the film Bub even comes very close to speaking a word.

In Romero's follow up, Land of the Dead, the zombies evolve even further. In that film, the undead follow a leader, Big Daddy . Big Daddy not only displays the ability to use tools, but transmits and teaches that ability to other zombies. The film culminates with an army of the undead marching on the last human city.

What then, does all of this have to do with souls?

It seems clear that learning, memory and choices are actions of the mind . If zombies can learn, then they must have minds (again, soul works just as well). The problem this causes for Dualism should be clear:

The Dualist believes that the soul (mind) is something non-physical which leaves the body at death. The zombies have died, and when that happened, the incorporeal part of them should have fled. When their bodies were re-animated, they should have become mindless automata. The Materialist suffers no such problem. The materialist claims (as we have discussed) that the mind is just a material function of the brain. As such, the re-animated zombie still possesses its brain, and so should be capable of thought (that these abilities are somehow diminished can be explained through the decay of brain tissue).

When these facts are considered, it seems manifestly clear that Romero’s Zombie films belong to the class of philosophical literature and that they fit cleanly on the materialist side of the mind body problem.

Teh Zombie Hunterz

2008-11-11T09:09:00.002-06:00

Oh Noes! 1337speak zomgbies!

Check out another tasty find in our quest for all things that make us gore splattered and giggly.

http://www.thezombiehunters.com/

Start from the beginning, and report any infected to HALO authorities immediately.

That is all, Citizen.

Outside the Illness

2008-11-10T15:48:00.001-06:00

Outside The Illness (A Survivor’s Diary)
By David Emerson

November 21, 2011

It's fucking cold outside.

Found a new house today. It looked pretty much untouched from the street. In fact, this whole neighborhood seems to have been pretty empty when the shit hit the fan last month. I've only seen three other people within a few blocks of here, but none of them are too lively (get it?).

There's something about this house, though. It reminded me of my own home. I think it's the windows.

The doors were locked, but that wasn't much of a problem. The lock picks I nabbed last week got me in the front door. It still takes a while. Guess I need to keep practicing.

Locked the door behind me as soon as I got in (definitely not forgetting to do that again). I checked all the rooms, didn't find anyone. There's kid's toys all over the place.

Found an old leather bound journal in the upstairs bedroom, tossed into the corner of the closet. Only two entries in it, but it looks like the first several pages have been torn out. Last entry is from 8 years ago. I guess the writer decided they didn't like what they had written, tried to start over, and then gave up the endeavor altogether. I'm keeping it for when I run out of room in this notebook.
Took all the pictures down from the walls and placed them in the closet. I feel like less of an interloper when I can't see their smiling faces. I stuck a chair from the kitchen table under the front doorknob. Not sure if that's going to do anything or not, but it always seemed to help in the movies.

No guns. Cheap knives in the kitchen.

The family that lived here didn't keep too much food on hand. There were a few cans of soup (chicken noodle and New England clam chowder), vegetables (green beans and peas), and fruit (pineapple and apple pie filling) in the cabinet, but not much else. Everything in the fridge was disgusting. I did find a bottle of vodka (orange Smirnoff) in the basement freezer next to a nearly empty bottle of Jagermeister. Save for these, the freezer was empty. Ate the clam chowder, and washed it down with the vodka. Got a little drunk. It helped.

I'm going to have to forage again tomorrow, but, as I said, it's fucking cold outside.

Picked a scab on my arm and squeezed out some blood. Still okay on that front.

There's a bookshelf with a ton of books on it here, most of which I've never read. I'm thinking about picking one out and starting to read it, but it seems futile. What if I get started on a book and die before I finish it?

A new comic

2008-11-10T12:52:00.002-06:00

You know us. We like odd things. Just recently the MotD team has fallen in love with a new web comic called Parallax City. Give it a look.

Parallax City.

Dig that title.

Violet Blue

2008-11-08T13:11:00.003-06:00

Who is the Violet Blue person, and what does she know about making love like a zombie? Does she really understand How to make love like a zombie, or is it all just mental masturbation?

The world needs to know.

Dead Ellen

2008-11-08T12:30:00.000-06:00

Dead Ellen

By

James Horn

Dusty, desiccated flesh laid back
Like arms twisted
To the edge where it starts
The crack, tear pop
Taking

Taking her apart slowly
And keeping the bits
In my fridge

The psychosis you have reached is not available

2008-11-06T17:23:00.003-06:00

bzzzt
bzzzt
bzzzt

Sorry, we're dead right now.
Come back after the inaugural party.
No.. come back after we're done being Hung Over from the inaugural party...

Just kidding. But seriously, life is piling on and we're bad. Something will go up here soon.

Oh yes, my droogies, very soon.

Haiku

2008-08-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

Haiku by Jon Catron

The barrel is cold.
I shake, shudder, with delight.
The trigger pulls smooth.

Zombie Sex

2008-08-03T12:08:00.002-05:00

MotD's own Nathan Tyree has a new book (sorta) out now. How to Make Love Like a Zombie, after being quite a success as a series of Amazon E-books, is coming to print. Currently it is available here: HTMLLAZ and will soon be available at amazon, etc.

A Plug

2008-07-12T13:14:00.001-05:00

3 AM: London, New York, Paris is a brutal a beautiful collection of short fiction focused around three of the world's great cities.

Contest!

2008-07-11T00:37:00.001-05:00

Magazine of the Dead is running its first ever contest. The rules are simple: write a story inspired by this phrase:

Atomic Neologism

The story must be in some way related to that phrase (it can be quite a stretch, we’re not picky) and must contain the phrase somewhere in the text. Send the story to us. We will post all entries we receive, then our panel of gold ribbon judges will choose a winner. The author of the best story will receive a pile of loot (mostly books).

Cheers Deadites.

Judge, Jury

2008-07-09T12:43:00.002-05:00

Judge, Jury
By RJ Astruc

“Pedophile,” says the woman in the red hat.

She points at the space above Gavin’s head with a long, bony finger and curls her lip like a wolf scenting weakness. Off-balanced by the groceries in his arms, Gavin takes a step back, shrinking against the supermarket’s wall.

The woman seems amused by his fear. She’s a tiny thing, skinny and hunched, but her hatred makes her appear larger. She says the word again, louder, a rising hysteria in her voice: “Pedophile.”

Let he who hath no sins, Gavin thinks wishfully, pushing past her and on up the road. The woman is clearly no saint herself. A cluster of petty crimes buzz about her hat like tiny fireflies—a couple of shoplifting convictions, a few loitering charges, and a single break-and-entry that glows a malignant purple. Of course, in her mind these criminal infringements must all pale in comparison to his. Gavin remembers hearing that back when there were still jails, it was the pedophiles who were most likely to be killed or beaten by their fellow inmates. And most likely to find justice—or judgement—in their cells, hanging from a bed-sheet noose.

No matter what they say about the new law, not much has changed, he thinks, looking over his shoulder. The woman is still following him, still pointing, still shrieking. My own fault, Gavin chastises himself, walking faster. Should have waited a few hours until nightfall, when the rest of my kind—the eternally guilty—crawl out of the shadows to shop and feed.

“Leave me alone,” he shouts over his shoulder. “I didn’t do anything. It was years ago, Christ.”

But it’s too late. There’s other people coming, now. Unfriendly faces appear in doorways, in shop fronts, their eyes fixed on the criminal abomination that hovers above his head. They’re joining in the—the hunt, Gavin realizes, with growing horror. There’s almost twenty of them trailing him by the time he turns the corner. The charges recorded above their heads warn him that some have prior lynching convictions, have been involved in vigilante behavior, have murdered…

He starts to jog. He loses a can from his grocery bag but doesn’t stop to pick it up. Not a pedophile, he wants to say. Statutory rape. But how to explain that to the masses? Gavin searches for the right words, the case he’d put before the jury of his peers.

An adolescent mistake, your Honors. I was nineteen, she was seventeen; her parents were out; we sat on the couch; we kissed; we fumbled; it was a cold night and we were thankful for the warmth. After the court case—I pled guilty, guilty, guilty—we got back together and year later she had a child, mine; he died from leukemia at four. Klara lives in New York now, married to a painter; we trade cards and memories every Christmas...

Except the words don’t come when he opens his mouth, to shout his almost-innocence to the crowd that chases him. Because that’s the way of the new law, this new transparent justice, where the people—the masses, the mobs—take the roles of judge, jury and, when they can, executioner.

Gavin drops his bags and runs. He’s had a lot of practice.

An apology and a couple of ads.

2008-07-08T17:48:00.000-05:00

Like a father who has left his starving child to die, I have no idea how to apologize for leaving you all with no updates, no reasoning, no clue as to what's going on. We're back to breathe new life into this project, but hopefully not too late. We're down to two main editors here. It's been plain crazy for everyone involved, and this started to become less of a priority. For that I am truly sorry. On that note, I hope you forgive us and are willing to give us a second shot.

The zombie anthology, oh man where to begin. A lot of you got tired of waiting and pulled your submissions. I understand that completely. We're working very hard to finalize this project and bring it to you. Let us know if you have pulled your submission and wish to come back on board, or if you would rather not wait for us anymore. Again, I apologize and let's get this show on the road!

-Joshua Weston
Co-editor, Magazine of the Dead

Now on to some good stuff.

Steven Shrewsbury, a friend of everyone who reads or works for MoTD, has released the book HAWG through Graveside Tales. Click the cover to read more about and purchase it. The plot, as explained by the website goes a little something like this:

"Blue collar tough Andrew White knows that in the rural community of Miller’s Fork bad things are best left in the dark. He soon learns that monsters wear many shapes.

In a populace rife with of vice and deception, something has broken loose… something hidden and feral. Set free from a neighbor’s barn, a force rampages through the locality. Hungry and insatiable, the berserk wrath unleashed from Mr. Solow’s shed is holds a darker secret than anyone could imagine.

Only a factory worker, a twisted biker, an unsure sheriff, and a wounded addict stand in the way of the beast. Can they put aside their differences and defeat what lurks inside them in time to defend what they love?

Come, peer inside the souls of Miller’s Fork and see if they possess the courage to stop the primal fury that is…HAWG."

You might remember Steven from his submission "Always Faithful", published here June 5th. Steven is a very talented (and totally disturbing) writer and we at MoTD wish him nothing but the best.

Another friend to M0TD, Christopher Allan Death, has been busy over in his neck of the woods as well. He's been on this site several times and has a novella coming out and some other projects in the works. Read about him at his MySpace page.

Flowers for Lily

2007-10-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Flowers for Lily
by
Tiana Bodine

I’ve brought you flowers, Lily, like I promised; just like yesterday, and the day before, just like every day since you came here. They’re in that purple vase on the shelf by your bed, do you see? I’ve changed the water. It will keep them alive just a little longer, keep them blooming; they’re so beautiful, all of your favorite colors, do you see? Can you smell them, Lily? Something to cover that awful antiseptic smell, something to bring some color to the cold white walls. It’s funny. They’re so bright, so colorful, so soft, you forget they’re already dead—you forget the water’s just keeping them barely alive, holding them here just a little longer so you can see them. You forget that somebody went out and killed them for us.

You look so pretty, Lily, delicate and pale, not a blemish; so strange that your bruises should heal, your cuts vanish, your belly steadily swell even as the rest of you grows so thin—and still they say you won’t get better. The doctors tell me that all of these machines you’re hooked up to are the only thing keeping you alive; they tell me that your brain stopped working the night you came here, and that you’re only breathing because of the tube in your throat. They told me that if they can keep your heart beating for just a few more weeks, then the baby can be born, can be pulled out of you like plucking the ripe fruit from a tree and leaving the withered remains of the blossom behind on the branch to drop to the earth and disintegrate. They say you won’t wake up, you know, that you’re already dead. I don’t understand. You look alive to me, Lily, alive and gently blooming, so white, so pure, like the roses at our wedding.

I’m bending to kiss your forehead. I feel like Pygmalion, leaning over his alabaster bride, stony-pale flesh so supple to the touch; not alive, but I can feel your warmth, can see your soft breath rising and falling under your breasts, straining against your stomach. The machine makes a soft whirring noise with every breath it gives you; the other machines are beeping, or clicking, or making other noises like a whole flock of invisible birds was living in your room, singing to each other in their own language. There are numbers and lines and dots on the screens of some of the machines, but I don’t know what they mean. I just know that you’re hooked up to them, the way the baby is hooked up to you; they’re keeping you alive with their own mechanized umbilical cords, here cozy in the fluorescent-lighted hospital’s womb. I touch your belly with my hand, feel the soft movements of the baby inside; she’s kicking, Lily, can you feel her?

I remember when you told me she wasn’t mine. I asked you whose it was, and that’s when the tears came; they flooded out of you, the same as your words, when you told me all in one gasping breath that you’d been sleeping with one of the men you worked with, the one who always had such nice company picnics in his backyard, who I’d talked to a dozen times without realizing the truth, who you’d been with for nearly a year, and you were scared, so scared that I’d be angry with you. But I wasn’t angry, Lily, do you remember? I held you close, and told you not to be so scared; I promised I would never, ever hurt you, and I wiped the tears from your beautiful cheeks and I told you I would love the baby like it was mine. You remember that, don’t you Lily?

You said you’d never see him again. You promised me that you’d never go back; I told you we could make it work, and you promised me that we’d try. And we were trying, weren’t we Lily? Even when you started working late into the night, when you wouldn’t come home for hours, when you didn’t tell me where you were all those times—we were still trying to make it work. I was never angry with you, Lily. When you came home smelling like alcohol and another man’s cologne I knew you’d been lying to me, but still I was never angry with you; I never blamed you, Lily, not even when I lay awake next to you in bed wondering why you were falling out of love with me, wondering if he was better than me, wondering why I didn’t satisfy you.

He hasn’t visited you here, you know. Every day, I’ve brought you flowers; I’ve sat here talking to you, Lily, holding your hand like I am now, and I’ve told you that everything would be all right. He hasn’t come to see you. He hasn’t come to feel his baby growing inside of you. He walked away from the accident with a few bruises, and left you to die here; he didn’t love you, Lily, not like I do. I love you, Lily—I love you even now, when you’re so quiet, so still, when everyone tells me that you’re dead, that you’re not even inside of yourself anymore. I love you the same as I loved you when we were in college, all bashful smiles and awkward glances, and the way I loved you at our wedding, when you were a white blossom of silk and lace. I love you enough to keep you alive, the way I love the baby inside of you who I’ve never seen and who isn’t mine. He tried to take you away from me, but he couldn’t do it. I love you too much to let you go.

He tried to take you away from me, Lily.

That night, the night the hospital called me, I knew where you had been; I knew because I called all of the friends you said you were going out with, and none of them had seen you, and I knew because you left your computer on, and I read the emails you sent him—I read all of them, Lily, even the dirty ones—and I knew you wanted to leave me. You wanted to leave one night and never come back, didn’t you Lily? And that’s what you did; you left me one night, and you never saw me again, even though I came to see you every day.

What were you doing when his car swerved into the wrong lane, Lily?

When they take the baby out of you, they’ll want to take away the machines. They don’t know that she isn’t mine, you know; nobody knows but me, and you, and him; nobody else ever has to know. But I’m scared, Lily. I’m scared that since he can’t have you anymore that he’ll take away your baby, the last part of you that’s left. It would be like losing you again, and I’ve lost you too many times.

I might not be here tomorrow, Lily. I might not bring you anymore flowers.

I know where he lives, now. I remember, from all those backyard barbecues. I know his phone number, from your cell phone bill, and I know when he’ll be home, because it’s all the same hours you were gone with him. Tomorrow, I’m going to go to his house. I’m going to cut the fresh red roses from the hedge in his yard, and I’m going to tie them together with a pretty black ribbon for you, to show you when I come back, so you’ll know I did it.

I don’t want to hurt anyone, Lily, but I can’t let him take you away from me again. If the doctors are right, and you’re never going to wake up, then this baby is the only part of you left, and I promised you I’d take care of her, didn’t I? I said I’d treat her just like my own daughter, didn’t I?

No one will have to know how he died. I’ll be careful, Lily, I promise.

It can be our little secret.

You won’t tell anyone, will you Lily?

Out of My Element

2007-09-28T08:10:00.000-05:00

Out Of My Element
Brent Meske

We were both liquid. We were enveloped by the night and ourselves, and there wasn’t a goddamned other thing existing in the entire world. There was no Seoul, and no Korea, and there definitely wasn’t a dingy street lit by a couple of dim orange bulbs.

The entire place looked like Halloween, all streaked with wet black and sparkling with blues or whites from completely unknown light sources. It was hard to tell where the buildings began or ended. With the amount of alcohol in my system, it was hard to tell anything, since most of my concentration was on where to put my feet, and how to hold her body against mine in case of a sudden shift in gravity.

She was a bit of chilled perfection held against my skin. If she’d been sweating, she’d have been a chick-sicle in no time. Her black hair gleamed pumpkin in the hypnotic hum of the lights, and when her eyes finally came up to meet mine, the mischief just leaked into them like honey.

I was sweating, from the place and from the dancing. She clung onto my shirt, but it wasn’t because she wanted to get cool. She wasn’t having the most success in standing up either. We were both liquid, trying to figure out how to wobble upright like jell-o. We were both trying not to end up as ice cubes in a tray. We even managed a few steps.

The music was fucking loud. It wasn’t just loud, or deafening, it was stuff your ears for the next couple of days loud, the type of loud you couldn’t get away from, the type that made shouting distance shrink down to millimeters. I could still hear it jouncing and rumbling up from the basement club half a block away.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” I found myself saying. She nodded a little, giggled, and hiccupped. I had never heard a Korean hiccup before. Hell, I’d only seen a handful of them actually sweat, and none of them in the club we were just in. I found myself giggling like a lunatic right along with her.

“There’s that thing in the papers,” I said, which was just about as euphemistically as I could put it. She nodded at that too, her smile faltering a little.

She still hadn’t spoken, except to tell me her name, which was something like ‘Sunghee’ or maybe ‘Byunghee’. Had it been ‘Sungji”? I had felt reasonably sure of what I was doing, putting the few dance moves I possessed to this girl, while feeding her shot after shot of cheap well tequila. After the first three she seemed to forget the four other girls she was with, and the fact that my wingman Brad had already taken care of one of them for me. A couple of sixty-fifth mechanic unit fellas had been dancing up the other three when I last looked, which was good.

She extended one slim, diminutive arm and pointed down away from the main roads. Then she said something in Korean. Wonderful. This was either going to turn into me sleeping outside in a gutter in some forgotten Korean back alley after this chick ditched me, or I was going to be resting inside one of the sexiest girls I had ever happened to meet. If it were the latter, hopefully there wouldn’t be too much sleep involved.

I looked down that alley, squinted at the absolute lack of distinguishing features, and turned back to her. Korea has that look to it, that it was all built in the last thirty years, and Sesame Street was wrong: all of these things look just like the others. They’re all between four and six stories tall, with businesses all the way up. PC Rooms dominate everything, with tiny casinos, little restaurants, convenience stores, bakeries, and real estate agencies all playing second fiddle.

“Are you sure-“ was all I got out, before she skipped away. However, she still had a hold of my hand, and jerked me around until I was following her. A strong one, I thought. I was hoping the thigh muscles on this girl were anything like the ones in her arms. If this was the case, we were going to use her bed like a piece of gymnastic equipment. I could not get the term ‘uneven bars’ out of my head for some reason, and the thought made me laugh and laugh.

Now, a lot of Korean girls have this thing about wearing short skirts with exceptionally long jackets. Whatever this one’s name was, she had that same thing going on. Aside from the knee socks and three-inch pumps (complete with little lavender bows on the backs), it looked like she wasn’t wearing anything except the coat, which stopped just below her butt. Now, it may be fashionable back in the States to have a piece of former skirt trying like hell to cover your privates, but nothing beats this look that the Korean girls do. There’s something sweet and trashy about it at the same time, like three quarters of the girls here are tramps, even if they’re wearing cartoon t-shirts or playing their PSP’s on the subway, or both for that matter.

I decided her name was Sunji, because it sounded the prettiest. Sunji and I raced down this back alley, passing a few places with their lights still on. At this hour, some people were still up and cleaning out the last of the restaurant mess from the day. Shot glasses of Soju or pint glasses of beer were still being raised to honor whatever excuse they were using to get drunk and lose their late night ramen.

We turned here, and turned there. By now I was breathing heavy, which takes a bit of work considering I run three miles a day. The place was also listing quite a bit to port, then starboard and back.

“Fuck darlin’,” I said, “slow down a bit huh?”

She stopped and pressed me up against some sort of corrugated metal wall-fence. On her tip-toes now (like she wasn’t before), she reached up and jerked on my hair, plastering her face into mine. Her tongue slid into my mouth, and it tasted how I imagine a cockroach’s asshole would taste. The taste alone got my stomach churning, but then she breathed on me, a fetid stink roiling up into my nostrils. I almost lost it right there.

If this wasn’t bad enough, her tongue slithered into my mouth almost far enough to trigger my gag reflex. I felt bile creeping up into my throat, and choked it back while her fingers dug through my hair, looking to excavate under my scalp. Christ but this girl was forward. I’d never met a Korean chick so fucking blunt. Then again I’d never met one so trashed before.

She extracted her tongue from my lower esophagus a moment later, leaving me gasping. I fell to my knees, sputtering and coughing, trying to get that taste out of my mouth. What the fuck was with this girl? I went to put a hand on my knee to stand back up, but she caught it and, laughing, hauled me to my feet.

I mean I am in the fucking army. I signed up to see the world. I’ve done tours in Europe, over near the Middle East, and now this. This was completely fucked up. I’d never met a girl would could handle more than half a dozen Tequila shots like this chick. If she were over a buck twenty I’d give a testicle away for fucking transplanting or something.

We were off again without another second. I wasn’t just breathing hard now, I was gasping, just about hyperventilating, swallowing back the stuff that threatened to make its second appearance of the night. I am not a little Korean dude, I told myself, I do not eat a cup of instant noodles, drink two bottles of Soju and lose my shit all over the pavement at five in the morning. I clapped a hand to my chest and kept myself from doing that.

It worked until she pulled me around a corner. My foot splashed into something, I stumbled, and I went down hard on my knees. My breathing steadied for a few seconds while my eyes and my brain held a meeting on whether or not they’d like to agree. When the world finally slid back into its normal position, I found myself face to face with a heap of pig’s heads. Glassy eyes and cloudy eyes regarded me there in the dark, trying to judge my predicament. I jerked my eyes away before I started giving facial expressions to their death masks. My hand had fallen into something that might have been entrails, and I jerked my hand away while trying to form a word on the subject.

That’s all it took.

Sunji let me do my business out back of a butcher’s district. Thank whatever gods there are that it was still cold enough to keep the bugs wherever the hell bugs go for the winter. I let loose a torrent of the past four hours of partying, and pre-partying. At least now, I thought, I wouldn’t be able to taste whatever it was she had going on in that mouth of hers.

That rotten meat smell, which for some god-awful reason has a sweet tinge to it, wafted out to meet me by the time I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. I found myself already standing up, and thought it was a sort of miracle at first. I wish now that I’d had a chance to look at what spilled out of me. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that I realized my little Asian powerhouse had a handful of my shirt.

My brain, I think, was addled just enough to respect that strength instead of fearing what had already happened.

“Come on,” she hissed. “We can’t be late.” Only the way she said it, and the strange exhaling sound of her voice, made the word late sound like raped. Koreans have troubles with their l’s and r’s, I thought.

“I saw that shit on the news,” I said. It wasn’t true. I had seen that on the fliers that the MPs on base had passed out. They said: don’t stay out too late. We’ve had too many AWOL guys lately. It’s not regular for this part of the world. One guy had shown up in a garbage bin, torn just about in half. It was the only evidence that those AWOL guys weren’t going to be showing up anywhere, evading the military. He’d been raped before he was finally put out of that humiliating misery. There were rumors going around that some bizarre extremist faction of the Republic of Korea military was out hitting US army dudes trying to pick up, God forbid, Korean girls.

I staggered away from the contents of my stomach with her hand in mine. Maybe my hand in hers. It only took another few seconds for her to take me into a darkened corridor. It was one of those little arcades they use to access the rest of the building that’s not shops. Or if you need to find a bathroom. You duck down one of these.

The little elevator down button glowed red when she touched it. She turned to me and smiled, then melted into me just like how this whole weird ordeal had started. It was like the tongue down my throat thing hadn’t happened at all.

Elevator lights are completely blinding at four in the morning. They slid open like the gates of heaven, whiter than a backcountry redneck at a Detroit rap battle. I winced at the pain of it, and grimaced all the way inside.

Wait, were we heading down?

I didn’t get a chance to think about it. She gripped my head and plastered her face against mine for the second time. Her tongue shot in, massaging my tonsils. I thought I’d imagined it all before, like she tasted like vomit, but that taste was back. I also thought I’d imagined gagging on her tongue, or exaggerated it or something. My eyes bulged out of my skull when it happened again. It twisted and went deeper.

I tried to pull her away. Now it was twisting and cutting into those sensitive places that never let go of the memory of choking down a horse pill. She was cutting off my air supply. I grabbed fistfuls of her hair and yanked, but she’d slid her arms around my neck now.

I was going to vomit. Fuck vomiting, she was going to kill me.

Some sort of pathetic sound came out of me, mostly from my nose, but a little from my invaded throat. I pulled at her head, and put my thumbs over her eyes, ready to push and pop those little bastards like two lidded grapes. My head was suddenly pounding full of rushing blood.

It happened then. Now, the fucked up thing is, you’re thinking: why the hell didn’t you hightail it when she freaked you out the first time? One, I was drunk, and two, I was lost. Three, it was free sex. What happened after this let me know how much I would dearly love to be dead. Okay, your stomach only has a few extremely slow-acting nerves. The esophagus is a little different. I felt something hit my esophagus, and actually smack into the bottom of my gut.

I lost it. I pressed down. Her eyelids tore under the pressure of my thumbs. She began a squeal that would have been a scream, but for the tongue she was currently killing me with. Fuck, okay, I got into this situation on tequila and stupidity, how could I get out of it?

That tongue, or whatever it was, was pulled back and her hands lost their grip on me. Instead they fell right on my wrists. She was a strong one.

She peeled my hands off her like the lid off a Tupperware container, trailing the ruins of her eyeballs with them. Then she began, against my protests, to bend my arms back to snapping positions. I did the only thing I could think of, I mashed my forehead into her nose. I felt the crunch of cartilage under the weight of my blow, and a dark swell of satisfaction within me.

The little ding sounded just in time, and the elevator doors admitted me out into one of the sub-basements of an unknown building, in a part of Seoul I’d never even visited in nightmares. Where the fuck was the stairwell? What had she dropped into my stomach? I stumbled blindly through the dark, cursing and sputtering, trying to get away from her and get my stomach to pump itself again. A shrill scream of agony and rage echoed down throughout the basement after me. I had to find stairs.

I hadn’t noticed my surroundings until I started really searching around for that stairwell. When I looked up, I almost stopped moving altogether. It looked a bit like a science lab at first. All I saw were big square tanks filled with exceptionally blue water, almost ten in all. They were set up like big columns, spaced maybe forty feet apart.

In the center of each one was a GI staring at me.

They were flailing in their tanks, and I couldn’t help but stop and gawk for a second. They weren’t hooked up to any life support, first off. It struck me, in a stage magician sort of way. How were they doing it? Shouldn’t they be a lot dead?

The last detail of my surroundings snuck up and surprised me then. I heard, and felt some movement to my right. I turned to find the floor of the place just missing. It was excavated out or never finished or whatever. Instead, there was a gaping hole filled with alien blackness.

I can’t tell you what happened exactly, because the darkness moved, it writhed, pulsed, shifted or surged or something. We’re talking you’ve never seen darkness like this. I think it had been rearing up, and it hunched in on itself, because suddenly I could see all the way across the basement to one of those famous Korean stairwell signs. These are the green ones with the little stick man dashing toward the exit. That was me.

When the darkness moved though, something happened. Whatever the fuck was sitting in my stomach, trying to eat me alive, it pulsed right along with that massive patch of living black hole. I doubled over at the electric bolts jabbing me, from stomach clear down to my nuts. I realized, now that I was staring down at the floor, at old bloodstains, that I hadn’t even had time to be properly terrified yet. The night might just be getting warmed up.

Until I was slammed into from the side. I staggered, though most of my buzz was gone. It was just from the force of the blow, which knocked me into one of the tanks. The guy inside was beating on it, trying to tell me to get a move on, trying to get me to get him out. I don’t know. All I knew was that my head had hit the glass with a whock sound, and my vision doubled for a second. Fingers twined into my hair, that whock sounded again, and everything went a nice warm black.

I woke up just about a fucking eternity ago. It was time enough to review how I got here, and discover that there’s no way out. I’m floating in a tank with a lid on it. It hasn’t taken a genius to figure out that the lid isn’t coming off without any sort of tools. I’m over my head in water. I’m not dead. There’s something in my chest, it feels full. I’m breathing water somehow. I don’t understand how. I’m one hundred percent pain. I’m blacking out again.

I’m trying to make eye contact with another one of the GI’s here. He’s screaming. I can hear him, though I don’t know how that is. He’s screaming and screaming for his mother, and that he wants to die, but that he doesn’t want to die like this. His tears have dissolved into the water of the tank. We’re both liquid. We’re not real anymore.

Red water is flowing out of my mouth and nose. Korean girls slip out of the shadows around the other guy’s tank and take the lid off. The darkness flows through the place, fucking with my perception. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

Fuck that! There’s a multi-tool attached to my key ring. Sweet salvation with a dozen attachments, complete with corkscrew!

The darkness cancels everything. I flip out the little screwdriver and start to go to work on the lid to this fucking tank. I manage to get one off, inch by inch, second by second, working furiously, cursing inside my head. One screw floats down to the bottom. Then another.

The darkness dissipates. The other GI isn’t in the tank anymore. Oh Christ. I want to throw up. I can’t. I watch that patch of raw blackness recede back to the hole in the floor. It leaves a small trail of blood behind, on the concrete floor of the basement. I can’t stop working, I know it, but I can’t stop watching.

It seems to stop somehow, to wretch and cough up something bone white. It’s small and frail, yet when it uncurls itself I see that its hair is exactly the same shade as the void from which it came.

It is a perfect replication of Sunji. Her eyes are back. She stands on shaky legs and peers up at me. She smiles.

I haven’t prayed enough lately.

How to Make Love Like a Zombie

2007-09-18T10:33:00.000-05:00

Magazine of the Dead’s own Nathan Tyree has a new novel out now. How to Make Love Like a Zombie is a fast paced adventure tale set against the back drop of a zombie plague. It follows several survivors as they travel through the country side in search of safety. Along the way they encounter mutations, dark conspiracies and zombie love.

The book is offered in serial form. It has been published as a series of Amazon Short E-Books available exclusively through amazon.com.

You can read the first section here:

How to Make Love Like a Zombie

Clarence and the Hot Dish of Doom

2007-09-14T12:25:00.001-05:00

Clarence and the Hot Dish of Doom
By Karl Wolff

“Pass the butter.”

Clarence the gas station attendant did not object to cannibalism on ethical grounds as much as a matter of personal taste. He preferred parboiled armadillo with a cannabis-psilocybin demi-glace. Just like Grandma Rasputina used to make when he lived in the laager of double-wides and mobile howitzers.

He swallowed his pride. Then he swallowed a bite of the hot dish.

“Mrs. Smythe,” He said, a smile beaming across his blood spattered maw.

“This hot dish is wonderful. Where did you get the recipe?”

Mrs. Smythe beamed at Clarence and then to Medea, her golden-haired daughter.

“Well, Clarence, I got the recipe from Mrs. Diblowitz.”

“She tastes wonderful, Mamma.” Medea swooned.

As Clarence chewed on the tender morsels of human flesh, he hoped Mrs. Diblowitz had been murdered in the traditional manner, with the blood drained and the smiley faces tattooed according to the tenets of the Scriptures of Ronnie St. James.

After dinner Clarence experienced the vague pangs of nausea, creeping up his esophagus like a resurrected corpse.

Fine time for this to happen, Clarence thought. I’m trying to make a move.

Clarence and Medea pretended watching the latest extreme sport on the giant television in the living room. The sport involved equal parts sky diving, competitive eating, and public sex. The scoring system continued to confuse Clarence.

“You see, Clarence, if the man fellates a woman, it is three points. If a man fellates another man, it’s negative two points. But only during free fall. The points are reversed during the cabbage speed eating round.” Medea explained the minutiae, but it remained over Clarence’s head.

As Medea continued the explanation, Clarence became more and more sick.
“The hell with it.” He said, clutching his stomach as he ran outside.
He flew out the door and emptied the contents of his stomach on the sun baked landscape.

Then he saw the mutants.

On the horizon, vast hordes of mutants, riding jerry-rigged Winnebagos and Escalades. They headed straight towards the laager.
“Great Jupiter’s ghost! Where did I put my bazooka?” Before he could remember where he placed his weapon, the howitzers ripped the silence with a cataclysmic boom.

Mr. Smythe, a portly fellow with a prosthetic arm and a tail, bounded out the door like a Rottweiler on angel dust.

“Take this and start firing!” He shoved a grenade launcher into Clarence’s sweaty palms. “No mutant horde is going to destroy this community of God-fearing patriotic cannibals!”

The mutant horde was hardly the Smythe’s problem. Thirty thousand miles above them, a lone Wolverton-class space cruiser hovered above the post apocalyptic Branson. Sights were aligned and photon torpedoes were loaded.

The captain of the space cruiser, a cyborg bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jesus Christ, except with hip-mounted missiles and a serious jonesing for Certs, ordered his apostolic minions to fire.
“Time to suck a Certs.” Cyborg-Christ said, popping the tiny white ovoids into his mouth.

THE OKUDA SISTERS

2007-09-11T11:28:00.001-05:00

THE OKUDA SISTERS

by Josh Hancock

“I had a heart attack, Hisa,” my sister Misato said as we sat down at the revolving bar of the sushi restaurant next to my office. Misato and I had always been close, but our busy schedules prevented us from seeing each other more than once every few months. The sudden news of her heart attack stunned me. I placed my hand upon hers and tried to meet her eyes, which appeared fragile and ashamed.

“Misato,” I said gently, “why didn’t you call me?”

“I did not want to trouble you. I know how busy your office is,” Misato said.

“Are you”—my throat suddenly dry, I struggled to find the right words—“going to be alright?”

My sister nodded. “It was a small one, the doctor said, brought on by what he called ‘vital exhaustion.’”

“Did he put you on medication?”

Misato nodded again, clearly troubled by the question.

A young sushi chef with a flattened nose and damp forehead handed us cardboard menus from behind the oval-shaped bar. With his dark eyes he looked longingly at Misato, but this did not surprise me. My sister is quite beautiful; her delicate brown eyes, smooth skin, and shiny black hair made even the most handsome men pine for her.

“I’m in shock, Misato,” I said, glancing at the menu. “Why didn’t Jou call me, at least?”

“I asked him not to.” Then, in a much softer voice, Misato said, “I don’t want to be married to Jou anymore, Hisa.”

“Why? What happened?”

Misato paused as the young sushi chef placed two small bowls of salad and miso soup on the counter in front of us. Still keeping his dark eyes on Misato, he walked to the opposite end of the bar to speak in hushed tones with one of the waiters.

Misato looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“Jou tried to kill me,” she whispered.

I gasped. “That’s not funny, Misato.”

“I’m not making a joke. My husband tried to kill me.”

I took a sip of hot tea to steady my nerves. “What did he do?”

“It all started three weeks ago when Jou did not come home at his usual time from work. He had never been late before, so I began to feel sick inside. I tried his phone, but there was no answer. It got so that I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. At around midnight I swallowed two pills just so I could fall asleep. He finally did come home, a little past two in the morning, more drunk than I have ever seen him in my life.”

“How did you know it was a little past two in the morning?” I asked.

“I think half of my body was asleep,” Misato explained, “while the other half lay awake, one eye staring at the bedside clock.”

“Did you talk to Jou that night?”

Before Misato could respond, the young chef approached and asked for our order. As the chef wrote our items on a pad of paper, plates of brightly-colored sushi circulated around the revolving bar.

“He keeps looking at us strangely,” Misato said of the chef.

“He has a crush on my baby sister,” I laughed, forgetting for a moment the seriousness that had brought us together that afternoon. “I’m sorry for laughing. Go on.”

“I pretended that I was asleep,” Misato said. “But Jou tried to…he tried to do it to me anyway. He climbed on top of me and opened my robe and that was when I smelled it for the first time.”

“Smelled what?”

“Perfume. Oakmoss and spice. I think it was Mitsouko, but I can’t be sure.”

I leaned in close to my sister, once again resting my hand on hers. “Did he…did he force himself on you?” I asked.

Misato nodded, her porcelain cheeks turning pink.

“Oh, Misato.” I put my arm around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder for a brief moment. Then the young chef delivered our food, setting our plates down with a mechanical deliberateness that unnerved me.

“Perhaps eating something will make you feel better,” I said to Misato once the young chef had left.

“Perhaps,” replied Misato, reaching for her chopsticks.

We ate quietly for several minutes, our movements nearly identical as we dined. As the lunch crowd began to pick up, more customers clamored for a seat at the revolving bar, and the restaurant grew noisy with office gossip.

“Jou’s awful behavior increased,” Misato continued. “Every night for a week, he would stumble home drunk and fling open my robe, each time more violent than the last. The smell of the perfume became a like a poison to me. After Jou would pass out, I would rush to the bathroom and wash myself at the sink. I would use an entire bar of soap in one night, but I could never rid myself entirely of the scent.”

“Was there any other evidence Jou was having an affair?” I asked.

Misato nodded. “At the start of the second week, he stopped coming home at all. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I heard creaking sounds from the other rooms, but no one was ever there. I almost called the police one night, believing there were burglars in the house. I was terrified to fall asleep. My chest began to hurt, and I was constantly breaking out in a cold sweat.”

“Did you see Jou at all during that second week?”

“No. But he left things for me to find in the house.”

“Misato, this is terrible. I am starting to feel sick.” I put down my chopsticks and tried to calm my stomach with deep breathing, but my curiosity overpowered my common sense. “What kinds of things?” I asked with some hesitation.

“Hotel receipts,” Misato said. “Dead flowers. An empty bottle of wine. And cherry stems. There were always cherry stems, scattered all over the floor.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“It was proof of his affair, I suppose. He was trying to hurt me. One morning I found a pair of women’s underpants waiting for me on the kitchen table.”

I shoved my plate away. “What could drive a man to do this?” I wondered aloud.

“You’re not married, Hisa,” Misato said quietly. “You don’t know what marriage can do to a man.”

“Don’t tell me you’re defending him!”

“No, of course not.”

Misato sipped her tea. I noticed that her fragile hands were trembling as she lifted the cup to her mouth. We were quiet for a long time then, eating lightly and watching the customers finish their meals and return to their offices.

“The nights were agony,” Misato said later. “The sickly smell of her perfume hung over me like a fog. I gathered all of the hotel receipts and dead flowers and set them on fire in a pot. I buried the cherry stems in the backyard, expecting…I don’t know what I was expecting. I hated Jou for torturing me, but I was raised to love and honor my husband. In bed I would often find myself opening my robe, waiting for Jou to come home and violate me. I…I fantasized about him forcing himself on me. I was no longer Misato Okuda. I was an animal, disgusted by my own desires.”

“I wish you had called,” I said, my eyes welling with tears. “You could have stayed with me.”

“I was too ashamed.”

“Too ashamed to tell me? Misato, I am your only sister. I would do anything for you.”

The young chef cleared our plates. His dark eyes fell upon Misato and admired her slender frame. He revolted me. Misato looked away.

“I couldn’t sleep anymore,” Misato said. “At the start of the third week I stopped going into work. I spent the day at home, pacing the house in my robe, listening for the sound of his car pulling up in the drive. I began to resemble a walking corpse. Food disgusted me. My hair turned brittle. I bathed with boiling hot water to wash her poisonous stink from my skin. My hands and arms erupted with horrible rashes and other irritations. I thought I was dying, Hisa. I could feel my heart waiting to explode.”

“Misato, I think we should talk about this somewhere else.” I motioned to the young chef, who promptly delivered our bill. The lunch crowd had thinned; most of the tables were empty and the bar was deserted.

“No. Let me finish. In the middle of the third week, I saw Jou again.”

I sighed. “What happened?”

“The only way I could sleep was to take as many pills as possible without becoming ill,” Misato said. “It was a Wednesday and I did not wake up until noon. I heard a muffled voice coming from the den, and I went to investigate. When I entered the den, I saw that the television was turned on.

“Jou was on the television screen. I thought it must have been a videotape playing in the recorder. There was a woman kneeling before him with her back to the camera. She was…performing on him and Jou was laughing, his head thrown back, his body drenched in sweat. Then he looked directly at the camera and said, ‘I hope you’re watching this, Misato.’ His opened his mouth and wagged his tongue like a lizard. There were long fingernail scratches on his chest. ‘You disgust me and you always have,’ he said.

“I stumbled out of the den and into the living room. I could feel my blood storming through my veins and my breath came in short gasps. There was an intense squeezing in my chest. Then I collapsed. I managed to crawl to the phone and call for help.”

“My god,” I said, reaching again for my sister’s hand.

“So, you see,” Misato said, “he tried to kill me.”

“Where have you been staying all this time?”

“At the Sofitel.” She opened her pocketbook and placed her credit card on top of the bill.

“No, Misato, let my office pay.”

She shook her head. “You’ve been so kind to listen to me. It’s the least I can do.”

The young chef collected the bill. As we waited for him to return, I watched the endless parade of sushi boats and bento boxes make their rounds. Misato was quiet, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes cast downward.

“Hisa,” Misato said after signing the bill and returning her credit card to her pocketbook, “I want you to know that I am honored to have you as my sister.”

“Misato, you don’t need to say anything—”

“I want to. My marriage to Jou prevented us from seeing each other, but that is over now. I have already contacted a lawyer about getting a divorce.” Misato paused, carefully brushing an eyelash from her cheek. “I want us to spend more time together from now on, Hisa.”

“I would like that.”

“Like when we were children, remember? Father always said how alike we were.”

I smiled as I recalled growing up with Misato and our parents in Okutama. As children, Misato and I shared much in common, from the way we dressed to the times of the year when we got sick.

“I love you, Misato,” I said, patting her hand.

Misato gave me a puzzled look as she stood up. She leaned into me and I felt the wisps of her silky hair brush against my cheek. I smelled her perfume for the first time that day, a modest blend of vanilla and sage.

“I know it was you,” she said.

Then she walked out of the empty restaurant.

It is impossible to describe how I felt at that moment, except to say that my mind went blank. My hands curled into fists. Misato, perfect Misato, perfect porcelain doll Misato; always besting me in one way or another. I looked up and saw the young sushi chef grinning at me, his flattened nose and oblong forehead gleaming with perspiration.

And then I saw Jou.

His head sat on one of the sushi plates circling the bar. As it rounded the corner toward me, I saw that the blood vessels in his eyes had exploded, the sockets darkened with red. The mouth was a gaping hole, the skin sallow and sunken like the face of a starved animal. It was Jou, my sister’s husband; Jou, the investment banker with perversions darker than my own; Jou, my revenge for years of jealousy and spite.

I screamed when his head floated past my chair.

The young chef threw his head back and laughed, and I knew right then that Misato had paid for more than our lunch. I felt a rush of breath escape me; my heart rose in my throat, and my entire body went slack.

The chair underneath me wobbled. I fell backward, crashing to the floor.

The young chef continued to laugh as I pawed at my chest.

Misato and I were sisters, after all, with much in common.

Last Full Show

2007-09-10T10:55:00.001-05:00

Last Full Show
by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

On the sign,
Large crimson neon tubes
Spell THEATER
But the first letter T.
One E, and the R
Have burned out.

HATE is all that remains.

The posters and
The ticket vendor with
Yellow teeth and foul breath
Beckon.

Masked murderers,
Demon spawns, scream queens,
And mental asylum escapees…
Flooded in darkness,
Even the narrowest of minds
Can imagine the sticky floor
Coated in gore;
The anxious audience,
A devoted crowd
Of exquisite corpses.

The film rolls.
A Nobody’s Suicide.
Cheers and applause
For your acting debut
And the drama of your tale.

A Winter War

2007-08-18T12:42:00.001-05:00

A Winter War
By Matt Shaner

The therapist said I need this journal. She says it will help me to process the events of so many years ago. She says it will help me regain my memory and sanity. She has not seen my sights though. She does not understand the feeling of death. She has no concept of dedication and country. I write this for myself and my family. They need to know our story. They need to see why their grandfather is in this home and why he will never leave.
We were drafted late in the second Great War and arrived on the southern coast of Italy at the end of summer. The landing ships pulled into an ancient harbor and we disembarked to empty buildings. Intelligence reports indicated we would face minimal resistance until we were well into our northward march. The missions were simple, land at the heel of the boot and eliminate the Germans from the entire thing. After four years, set sail for home. I left behind a wife and two daughters.

The late afternoon sun cut some heat away as we organized for the march. It took time to ready the vehicles. I stood with four other guys next to an old fish market building. The waves lapped against our ships. The salt smell danced in the air and it felt good to start a war in paradise. As we were to leave, we heard a rustling in the building. Our Sergeant, Taylor Smithson, drew his service pistol and opened the door. He jumped when an elderly woman fell into his arms. He pulled her outside and laid her onto the sand. She looked into his eyes. We stood in a circle. Someone ran for a medic. She raised her hand and touched the Sergeant’s face. She spoke in an Italian variant. Before a translator arrived, her head fell limp. We placed her on the side of the building and moved on, no time or energy to dig a grave.

We marched through lowlands and hills. We examined villages, wreckage of houses and lives. We were welcomed in some and despised in others. We fought and I killed. The feeling of power intoxicated and invigorated. We were soldiers. We were legally able to eliminate life from the earth. We knew the enemy. They were no better then objects. I thought of my family and I did not care about theirs.

The first sign of luck, if you want to call it that, arrived in the second battle against resistance fighters. We were stopped at a field edge with two towns on either side. The leaders examined the options. They decided to use the towns for cover. Before we moved, our Sergeant spoke up. He stood in the meeting area with a vacant look in his eyes.

“Use the field,” he said. The responses came swift.

“You’re crazy.”

“We’ll be target practice.”

“It’s suicide.”

He spoke directly to the commanding officer. They had gone through basic training together.

“Trust me. We need to use the field.” The officer accented to his friend and we marched straight through.

The bombs fell to our left and right. Bullets whizzed over our heads, some finding ground and others finding the chests of men. The sky had grayed and a stiff wind pushed the gun smoke into the air. The towns on our sides were on fire and totally destroyed. Their people who decided to stay met their deaths in the attack. We watched from our positions and kept the advance.

After the enemy attacks faded, we moved in and cleared their stronghold. We stood on the battlefield, looking at the destruction. The field shone brighter then the towns. My hands burnt against the heat of my guns. We kept our northward march. I went instep with the Sergeant.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“The old woman,” he said.

The seasons changed with our progress. Snow started to fall and we passed roads flanked with frozen bodies. The snow itself was equal parts white and red. The land soaked up the blood regardless of which side we were on. The beauty of the country stood against the destruction. We met more resistance and our numbers succeeded in securing our advance. This is where I first noticed the strange happenings.

They extended further then good guesses in battle. Enemy bombs from above would fail to detonate. Bullets flew over our heads and around our positions. Our guns found no need to reload. Wounds, as the medics were treating them, closed and healed. We walked those months losing no one from our troop. We advanced into the northern sections of the country in December.

Snows fell for a week straight, hampering our efforts. We changed to camouflage whites that burned the eye in the morning sun. Soldiers, half frozen, lined the paths. One night, outside during a smoke break, a guy spoke up.

“Anyone know the date?” Most heads shook. Finally a person responded after consulting their journal.

“December 24th.”

“Wow. Well, merry Christmas early then,” he said. We laughed. That night we fought off a small attack and did not sleep.

The next day, Christmas, we marched onto the ruins of an old bombed out church. The snow had tapered to a few white dots in the sky. We walked in through the entrance. The roof of the chapel was open to the weather. Wooden pews splintered and some withstood the assault. Those open to the elements started to rot from the moisture. A grouping of birds fluttered away at our presence. The Sergeant walked up to the Alter.

“We camp here tonight. Let’s take a break from the weather.” The men cheered. We spread out over the area.

I used my grenade belt as a pillow. A few small fires were started and contained on the stone floor. A soldier took a piece of the splintered pew wood and lit candles on the Alter. Men found a bed where they could. Some slept in the confessional, others on the remaining pews. The stone floor felt like Heaven against the cold ground outside. Around midnight, the scout officer sounded an alarm. We jerked awake, grabbed our weapons, and ran outside.

The snow had stopped. A German contingent advanced up the road to our surprise. We were sure the holiday would prevent any action and we were wrong. The first volley of rifle fire took out the man to my left. He fell, a hole in his chest. He was talking to me and then he was gone. We took up defensive positions in the ruins. This is where things started to happen.

My position flanked the entrance. An organ, with destroyed pipes sounded a mournful note and we all turned. The crucifixion, large and gold, seemed to vibrate above us. The Christ, his head pierced, opened his eyes and two rivulets of blood ran down his cheeks. The rifle fire kept coming. We had no time to watch.

The contingent of soldiers was still advancing. We stopped them at the “driveway” of the church. A grenade took down the right side of the building. We swore this would be the end. I pictured my family and wondered if they enjoyed their dinner. They started to advance past the drive and to our forces. From his cover, our Sergeant stood. He pulled out his handgun and before he could fire, two large figures appeared next to him in white.
The figures extended wings that blocked the building and our troops. The bullets bounced off their wings. They pulled swords from their belts. The night lit up like a noon sky. The organ note pounded in my ears. The Christ’s blood tears now flowed in a small river to the floor. With two swipes of their weapons, they cut down the opposing soldiers. Their vehicles exploded. The bodies fell to the ground. We stopped and stood in silence. After the action, they withdrew their swords. The wings folded. They vanished and the sky went dark.

I slept in the ruins that night with a new peace.

I know what we saw. I know they investigated the area and found no wreckage of a church. I know something else though. We all survived and completed our mission. We returned here and continued our family lives. We have a reunion every year to catch up and the story is always told. I keep a piece of wood in my pocket, not larger then a postage stamp, from those pews and I twist it in my fingers now. That is my story whether they like it or not. I hear them in the hall, talking. They debate my will and my existence. They discuss funeral arrangements. They demand money for grandchildren who never come and visit. They do not know that, in these dark times, I am comforted by my memories. I return to the church. I kneel and touch the blood. I cross myself and fall prostrate to the floor, ready for the next battle, whenever it may come.

Remorse

2007-07-10T11:02:00.000-05:00

Remorse
by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

A voice beckons
Deep within the well,
Where ten years today,
Little Angela fell.

Amidst the tall grass,
Above a building breeze,
Remorse’s heavy load,
Drops me to my knees.

A little child’s voice
Unforgiving, yet hushed;
Do you remember, Papa?
This is where you pushed.

Announcement: KGB Bar

2007-07-05T12:40:00.001-05:00

On July 22 from 7-9 pm there will be a reading in conjunction with the release of The Flash (Social Disease Press ISBN 978-0955282935 Edited by Peter Wild, a contributor to MotD). This reading will be held at The KGB Bar in New York City.

Info about those reading:

Andrew Lewis Conn is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, P (SoftSkull, 2003). Following a starred review in Kirkus, P was chosen as one of the summer's best books by The Austin Chronicle, Nerve, The Oregonian, Salon, and Time Out New York, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Village Voice and The Austin Chronicle. P was translated into Greek by Electra Publishing and into Portuguese for publication in Brazil by Editora W11.

Conn's other writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Film Comment, Time Out New York, and The Believer. He has been a resident at the Ledig House International Writers' Colony and Yaddo.

Nic Kelman is the author of the international bestselling novel, Girls, published by Little, Brown and Co. as well as Video Game Art, an art history of video games published by Assouline. His writing and photography have appeared, among other places, in Elle, Glamour, The Village Voice, and Black Book, as well as various anthologies. He holds a B.S. from MIT and an M.F.A. from Brown University.

Nathan Tyree is a writer from Kansas. His fiction and poetry has appeared in places like Edifice Wrecked; decomP; The Beat; Doorknobs and Body Paint; Flesh and Blood; Problem Child; Dogmatika; The Shallow End; Lightning Journal; Journal of Modern Post and too many others to list. In addition to The Flash his work has been anthologized in 3AM: London, New York, Paris (Social Disease Press); The Empty Page (Serpent’s Tail); Pleasant Dreams (Serpent’s Tail); What Goes on (Serpent’s Tail); Project Contagion (3Pitt Publications) and others. Nathan is the author of Mr. Overby is Falling. He has never mastered the oboe.

Jackie Corley was born in 1982. She developed Word Riot in March 2002 with the help of Paula Anderson. Word Riot Press, an independent publishing press, evolved out of the magazine in January 2003. Jackie's writing has appeared on-line at MobyLives.com, 3AM Magazine and SerialText and in print in BOOM! For Real and Consumed: Women on Excess (So New Media).

Admission to this event is free. All are invited. If you are (or will be) in the NYC area, drop in.

Miss Shen

2007-06-27T08:30:00.001-05:00

Miss Shen
by
RJ Astruc

“Hello ma’am,” the official says, “I’m here to inform you that your invincibility has expired.”

Miss Shen opens the door another fraction of an inch and peers fearfully up at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your invincibility, ma’am,” says the official. “Surely you remember? You were injected as a child as part of the AIU government trial. A very successful trial, too – a shame that the product will never reach the commercial markets. But I suppose you couldn’t really have everyone in the country being invincible, it wouldn’t be practical…”

Miss Shen can’t remember the invincibility. But she vaguely remembers the tests: the pinch of the needle, the smiling faces of the nurses, the starched white beds and the shiny silver machines that monitored her vital signs. The questions her parents refused to answer. Invincibility? She smiles nervously.

The official rustles paperwork. “Boy, I envy you,” he says, offering her a clipboard and a pen. “You must have been a real hellion in your youth! No worries, no cares, no fears. Can you initial here and here? And sign on the dotted line.”

Miss Shen takes the clipboard in trembling hands. She remembers only a youth of nervous inadequacy: of poor school marks, of sporting failures, of friendless nights sitting in front of the television listening to her parents fight. She remembers turning down offers of parties (there might be a fight) and travel (I’m scared of flying). She remembers a school boy with a knife behind the bleachers who told her to take off all her clothes and lie still, Nina, lie still so you don’t get hurt.

“Thanks, ma’am,” says the official cheerfully. “Hey, you must have some stories, right? I had a chance to speak to a few other AIU-trial subjects – and wow! One guy said he swum with sharks in Australia, and two of the girls climbed Mount Everest together. Stood above the clouds and saw the sun set at their feet, they said. What a life, I said – what a wonderful life!”

Miss Shen signs her name on the dotted line. She remembers faking a leg-cramp to avoid the embarrassment of school sport. She remembers telling her first – her only – boyfriend that she couldn’t do that, because she was scared of disease. She remembers refusing to wear high heels in case she fell. She remembers avoiding sugars and processed foods, she remembers reading the backs of labels. She remembers a man who followed her home and she had to keep walking, walking, walking, running, sobbing, tight-chested, clutching her purse…

She hands back the clipboard saying, “I don’t have any stories.”
He thinks she’s bluffing. “Surely you must. I mean you were invincible for thirty years… you must have done something!”

“No one told me,” she says.

The official stares. “You’re serious,” he says. “Wow, I’m sorry.” His face is red and flushed. “Invincible for thirty years and you never noticed. Well, I guess it’s not that bad. You never really missed anything.”

Invincibility, she thinks. A life lived. She smiles to alleviate his discomfort. “Thank you for coming,” she says, and closes the door.

Miss Shen stands by the window and watches the official walk down the pavement, shaking his head. On the coffee table behind her there are bills to be paid and a light bulb to be replaced; there is her mother to call and the tea to brew; she has laundry to wash and the newspaper crossword to complete...

Weeping, Miss Shen returns to her life.

Zombies II

2007-06-25T08:30:00.000-05:00

Zombies II: Inhuman
by Eric S. Brown
Naked Snake Press

The shelves of bookstores (and the virtual shelves of Amazon) are these days filled with books that in some way or another brush up against the zombie genre. Horror in general has had a big resurgence in recent years; zombies have been a big part of that surge. For fans this is a mixed bag: it's been great to see so many zombies around; but most of those books have been disappointing. Zombies II: Inhuman by Eric S. Brown is an exception. This little book delivers.

Brown has become known in recent years for crafting zombie stories that terrify and surprise. His fans anticipate each new publication. Those fans will not be disappointed by Zombies II.

This small collection contains eight powerful, well written stories that each offer up something totally unique. Brown has given us well structured stories built on round, complete characters. His dialogue is always believable and never sinks to the level of overblown exposition that plagues so many writers in this genre. These are stories that, did they not happen to feature zombies, would be at home in the better literary publications. But, they do contain zombies- and that is kind of the point.

Beyond zombies, what is this book about? These stories are connected. They take place in a world over run by zombies (of course), but there is another thread that runs through them. This also happens to be a world in which some rare people have super powers. Brown gives us humans with super speed, and super strength, and various other comic book powers. He makes these mutants our heroes and lets us enjoy as they do battle with undead flesh eaters. We also get to see the reaction of normal people to these super-humans. You can guess that it probably isn’t a pleasant reaction.

All the way through Brown manages to entertain. Zombies II: Inhuman is a great little book. It’s a must read for any zombie fan.

The only real complaint I can Level against this book is: it’s too damn short. Brown hooks us, and leaves us wanting more.

you can pre-order the book at: www.nakedsnakepress.com

Nathan Tyree

Distortion

2007-06-19T09:18:00.001-05:00

Distortion: A Short Story
By Will Clements

There he lay, in a large nook in the side of a rocky hill structure, in the middle of what was once a spectacularly beautiful forest. There was room enough for him to lay comfortably with two people on either side. Those two people were his world, his real world, outside the chaotic and hopeless one. These two were the loves of his life.

On his right was a beautiful young woman with long, red hair. Her smile alone, wrapped up in that gorgeous face of hers, was enough to lighten and brighten this world. She was perfect in every way, his dream woman. She lay with her head on his chest and her right hand resting on his stomach. Her warmth, her womanly scent, was enchanting, exotic, and aromatic.

On his left was a young man or a younger man rather for he was a young man himself at age twenty. The boy was about nine or ten; he hadn't asked. He had short, blond hair and cool, green eyes. Though small, he was a tough and strong lad with courage, chivalry, but most importantly, love to give. This man was his adopted father, and he was the man's adopted son. The boy lay with his head on the man's shoulder and his small body curled up against him.

The man loved the boy as his son, and the woman as his wife, even though there were no longer laws to regulate this nor a government to approve it. There they lay, sheltered from the ashen snow and the merciless chill of the wind, snuggled up against one, partially out of warmth but mostly out of the love of being close with one another.

You wouldn't let me give up, the woman said.

I still won't.

You told me that I was too beautiful to die.

You are. But there is more to it than that. We have to carry on because of hope, hope and love.

Is there any hope?

Always.

He felt the woman's body melt into his own and the warmth between, as if possible, increase twofold. The man tightened his grip around her, held her close. He did the same for the boy. Never finding it easy to fall asleep even when extremely exhausted, the man stared at the rocky roof of the nook and thought about nothing. He was finally content, in such a simple surrounding, and didn't worry about anything for once.

The boy spoke up. When you found me, you saved me.

I did.

You said you didn't do it because you felt sorry for me but because it was your fate.

And I stand by it.

Why did you save me?

To anyone else, you would have been a burden, another mouth to feed. But to me, you were hope. I was becoming so desperate, so lonely, that I was ready to give up. Then you came along and gave me hope. I finally had something to live for. Your hope spread from me to her and now we are all alive.

We're alive because you saved us.

Yes. But you saved me.

Content with that answer, the boy snuggled against the man's left side once again. When the boy's breathing became soft and steady, the man found himself drifting off to sleep. But before he did, he felt a weight disappear from either side of him and an emptiness flood into his mind. He clenched his eyes tightly then blinked away a few, cold tears. They streaked down his face, running away from him like the manifestations he had just interacted with.

The cold, isolation of this world weighed heavily upon him. Either side of him was empty, either arm wrapped around nothingness. He hugged his arms to his chest and wept profusely. It was cold and he was alone.

Always Faithful

2007-06-05T12:44:00.000-05:00

Always Faithful
By Steven L. Shrewsbury

“Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.”
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Timon of Athens
1605

“You must believe me, sir that I am the lord of the dark realms of hideous vanity. I come from beyond the gates of rusted blood. My home is over the surging river Styx and my love is to torment those lost forever.”

The Marine counselor rubbed a rough hand over his sharp, tight cut hair and sighed. “Private Berry, I believe that you have a problem, but nothing my psyche couch can cure.”

The youthful Marine sat forward on the couch and exclaimed, “But you must believe me, Captain Marten. I am demon!”

Marten glowered at him and shot back, “You are demon? If you’re in possession of anything it’s lousy grammar. Why are you a demon? Because you feel scared sleeping in barracks that once housed the Waffen SS? Get a grip, Marine! You aren’t the only one to sleep there since the occupation began.”

Private Berry’s eyes stared at the forearm of the counselor, bearing the Corps logo and a few other tiny tattoos. “But after I visited the ruins of Ravensbruck…”

The Captain stood up and drilled his fists down, nearly toppling the tiny lamp on the desk. “Get your head out of your ass, marine! I didn’t come to Germany to nursemaid little boys who smoke too much Afghan hash.” The Marten then pointed at the emblem on his forearm and barked, “Do your duty, Marine!”

Berry stood up straight, but his bottom lip quivered. “How can I convince you that I am demon--Amazarak?”

Grinding his teeth, the Captain roared, “Being a non-conformist and wetting the bed is no proof of demon possession. Besides, you exhibit none of the silly things associated with OBSESSION behavior. No marks, no speaking in other languages…” Captain Marten pointed his finger in the private’s face quickly, “…and don’t start to try German on me!”

Private Berry turned about, touched the door and looked back. He glared at the Captain, pulled out a short, curved blade and then closed the door.

*****

When the frantic secretary called the MP’s after she heard the screams, it was no time before the door was broken down to Captain Marten’s office. Crudely, they found Captain Marten laid out inside, his legs up on the couch, his arms spread out on the floor, his throat ripped out and his belly flailed open. A mound of intestines almost rivaling the torso of the dead counselor lay heaped on the tan carpet beside him.

The lead MP, gun drawn, felt his gut flip over as he beheld Private Berry trying to wrap a slippery piece of material over the tiny lampshade on the desk. The flaring eyes of the Private locked on him as he turned the crude lampshade addition toward the MP and said, “You see? Another language my ass!”

The MP swallowed as he gawked at the lamp and read the words, “SEMPER FI.”

Zombie Anthology Update

2007-06-05T12:08:00.000-05:00

The submission call for the zombie anthology is now over. We're in the process of editing and compiling the stories now.

We're still working on the third regular issue of Magazine Of The Dead as well, as soon as we get a few more submissions for that, it will be ready for purchase.

We'll let you know more about these projects as time goes on.

Magazine Of The Dead Sells Out.

2007-06-05T10:12:00.000-05:00

We at Magazine Of The Dead realize that putting our name out in the public is the best way to make this little project grow into more than just a few guys tossing words back and forth. Therefore, we are proud to announce that we now dwell among the teeny boppers and child molesters of America.

You can now view our Myspace page and become our "friend" here. Keep in mind, of course, that it is a work in progress.

NEWS: Prospero Leaves Island. Burns all his books.

2007-06-01T09:40:00.000-05:00

Wake up time children. Art is destruction, destruction of complacency, destruction of the Normal, destruction of the rigid mind set. Destruction can be art, Violence shocks us from our safe places and forces to stare at terrible reality. We are 'safe' in this violence while we read it on black and white pages that are separated from us.

We, here at Magazine of the Dead, understand that. We know the power of Art and how 26 simple characters can create, or destroy, whole worlds for us. So, when Prospero's Bookstore decided that they would burn books to protest the continual decline of the state of American Literacy, we were both appalled, and appreciative of the message. But unlike Shakespear's Prospero, we are not yet done with our Art.

Go Forth. Get a book. Read it. Pass it On.

Magazine Of The Dead

Tears down Cold Faces

2007-05-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

Tears down Cold Faces
By Christopher Allan Death

Everything is dark.

I can hear dirt falling over my head. It sounds like a million angry bees, fluttering back and forth in the pitch black void above me. They shudder and heave across the coffin lid, streaking the expensive mahogany finish and wedging into the engraved silver plaque. It says Ronald T. Thurston, 1956-2007.

That was my name once. Before I invited that damned woman into my life; before I opened up my arms and my bank account and my heart; before that damned woman took everything I had and shoved a meat cleaver through my chest.

That was before I met Katherine Von Saint.

Ever since I saw her that fateful autumn day, I knew she was trouble. Her gorgeous auburn eyes and supple Hungarian skin made my young American heart skip a beat. But I had no idea what she intended to do with it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that all Hungarian women are evil money laundering she devils; just the ones that wear glossy lipstick and bat their huge, sultry eyes.

However, that is not where my story begins. The events leading to my bloody fate started to unravel when I set foot into that damned country. The country where the sun rises into a blood red sky and the darkness embraces the landscape like a long lost lover; the country called Transylvania.

Now I must warn you. This story is not for the faint of heart. If you detest sad stories, please read no further. I’m afraid that my life contains very few happy moments after this point. But I digress.

The date was October 17, 1985 when I set sail from my native land. I was nineteen years old, with an unquenchable thirst for adventure. And like most audacious young men, I suspected that fate would lead me beyond the shores of North America.

Unfortunately I was correct.

With nothing but the clothes on my back and a thirst for salty sea air, I snuck aboard the USS Widget, a freighter bound for foreign soil. Little did I know the ship’s ultimate destination. Or the terror I would encounter once it had arrived.
The captain was a swarthy man named Jeremiah Cutter, whose bad temper was matched only by his mouthful of bad teeth. I will never forget the day when he found me below deck, feasting on his rations and fresh water supply. The lashings were endless.

Fortunately I managed to jump ship once we reached port. I was sick of eating moldy bread and drinking filthy water. That was my first taste of sea life and I never wanted to go back. The relentless sun and salty ocean waves had turned my skin into rawhide.

I spent the next two days wandering through the coastal towns, hitching rides from strangers and making acquaintances with the locals. I knew that I was somewhere around Bucharest, but that was the extent of my knowledge.

The foliage grew tall and thick as I ventured further inland. Trees thrust through the forest floor, threading their mossy arms heavenward like long-lost souls. Vines curled around hulking limbs. And the sounds of wildlife buzzed around me like a chorus of a thousand voices.

"What is this place?" I asked one of the village elders. He merely shook his head and affixed his gleaming yellow eyes into the distance.

"You stand in devil territory," he said. But when I tried questioning him further, he only uttered one word: "Transylvania."

Now there is one thing you must understand. Transylvania is not a mythical place where vampires roam the twilight and feed off wary villagers. It is a serene country with beautiful sights and ancient castles. A far cry from the bleak countryside portrayed in modern Hollywood monster movies.

Nevertheless, it took me several days to comprehend what the old villager meant. He was not talking about the country at all, but rather what I would discover inside it.

I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on Katherine. She was walking down a cobblestone street with a designer purse slung over her shoulder. She looked at me with those seductive auburn eyes and immediately I was in love.

Looking back on that day, I wish I had never seen her beautiful face. I wish I had never taken her hand and asked her name. But above all, I wish I had never placed my heart in her hands.

You see, not all women from Transylvania are vampires, but some are equally heartless and bloodthirsty. I learned that lesson the hard way.

She told me that she loved me. She wrapped her arms around me and made me feel like I was special. But she was merely a demon in disguise. And once she held my heart in her hands … she crushed it.

I can still feel the meat cleaver in my chest. The cold steel rends through my fragile flesh, severing muscle tissue and releasing a fountain of blood down my abdomen and thighs. It is sticky and warm and strangely exhilarating.

The next thing I know, I am eclipsed in darkness. I can hear the reverend speaking nearby, but his voice is muffled. The sound of people crying intermingles with his dry discourse.

The funeral service ends. I am enfolded within the sheltering arms of silence. Only the darkness can mend my broken heart. I am all alone.

Some people think that dead bodies cannot feel. They think that death is the final blow. But they are wrong. Even death cannot dull the throb of a broken heart. Some types of pain follow men into the grave itself.

Maybe you don’t believe me. Maybe you are sitting in your luxurious suburban home, watching the clouds float past and laughing at my misfortune. But it doesn’t matter. One day you will learn the truth. Until then, I will be quietly languishing in my grave. And shedding a tear for the love I lost.

THE END

Daddy Man, Silly Man, God Man and Me

2007-05-16T12:20:00.000-05:00

Daddy Man, Silly Man, God Man and Me
by Terry Doss

That copper pot been in the kitchen, long as I
'member. It always bubblin' and hissin'. Sometime I
run a toy car on a makin' believe road in the kitchen.
Daddy Man told me stay away. That pot'll burn you, he
say. I keep away. It keep on bubblin' and hissin'.

Over in the corner sit the man Daddy Man brung home. He
play makin' believe with me too. Sometime he run the
car in what he call the "sittee." When I ask Daddy Man
what the "sittee" be, he told me it just silly makin'
believe. I think maybe that right. I seen that man
lookin' silly at me, like I look at bugs in the
kitchen, when I squish them.

Come up supper time, Daddy Man holler for me. Go fetch
wood he say. I go out back to the wood pile. I fetch
in one, and two, and three pieces sometime. Stack it
to the mark on the wall that Daddy Man made. Silly Man
got his supper then. My bowl at the table too. Daddy
like to eat out the front door. He like to look at
the moon. Silly Man don't even finish his bowl. I
finish what he don't eat. Daddy Man don' t like us to
waste.

I wash the supper bowls and go say my amens. Ask
God Man to bless Daddy Man and me. Ask him to bless that
Silly Man too. Ask him maybe someday let me see the
"sittee." I tell him I saw him in the sky today,
making a deep shwoosh. Amen.

I climb in my blanket and stay quiet. Daddy Man come
in the house, all heavy boots on the wood floor. He
go and check my cleanin' in the kitchen. He talk with
the Silly Man a bit. Heavy boots on the wood floor
again. Daddy Man sit in his chair and look at the special
book. I look at it sometime, but I'm not s'posed to.
It has one, and two, and three and four ladies in it,
not with any clothes. I wonder if one maybe Momma
Lady.

That night I dream 'bout God Man in the sky, all
silver and poopin' clouds. He come down in a big
shoosh and I climb on his shiny back. He fly me off
to the "sittee" and Momma Lady be standin' not with
any clothes on. Silly Man be holdin' her hand. I
wave and smile all teeth on the back of God Man. God
Man tell me not to feel better than anyone, just 'cuz
I fly off on his back. That what they call pride. I
look back to Momma Lady and Silly Man got his hand on
her milk sacks. Like I do with the goat sometime, he
squeeze a bit and aim the milk in his mouth. God Man
throw me off and I hit the wood floor next to my bed.
I climb back into bed and sleep 'til the sun start up
in the sky.

Daddy Man makin' eggs an biscuits. He tell me Silly
Man don't want any today and I eat his. I eat 'til I
am full as a dog tick. Daddy Man don't like us to waste.

I clean the breakfast dishes and Daddy Man, he go out
in the wood, checkin' the loop lines. Silly Man ask
me if I want to see the "sittee" with him. I ask him
how he gettin' to the "sittee" an he tell me he got a
car. He say he and me can go in it. I laugh at his
silly talk. I tell him I can get to the "sittee" on
the back of God Man, and if he can hold on tight,
maybe he can go on the back of God Man too. I tell
him we can go to see Momma Lady and he can squeeze
milk out of Momma Lady's milk sacks. Silly Man get
all quiet, and look at the floor. I think maybe he
miss his Momma Lady. I miss my Momma Lady too.

After cleanin' the kitchen, I go out to the field
past the creek and find a patch of clover. I rip up
big handfulls of it and make a basket out of my shirt
to hold it. I pull enough so it start to fall out the
side of the shirt, and start for the house. I hear
God Man swhooshin' in the clouds, but I don't see him.
I whoop and holler to him, but he don't slow down. I
carry the clover back to the house.

The bunnies hop to the back of the cage when I push
the clover in. They eat and I put their poop in a
bucket with the shovel. Daddy Man tell me to spread the
poop far out and not in one place. He tell me the
bunny poop be hot and can burn the plants. I let the
poop cool down before I throw it out in the woods.

The bunnies eat clover from my hand sometime.
Sometime, Daddy Man have me hold the bunny to keep it calm
before he hit it with a hammer. Excited bunnies taste
sour he tell me. It make me sad a little, but it
better than when Daddy Man grab them by the ears and whop
them. They scream when he grab them. They scream,
and scream, and then whack, they are quiet, and they
kick their bunny feet for the last time I s'pose.
Bunny meat taste good. Like chicken.

Afternoon time and Daddy Man come back from the wood.
He ain't got nothin' from the loop lines. He tell me
to go inside and play with Silly Man.

I go in the kitchen and there sit Silly Man. He
been sleeping all day. I shake him awake and ask him
to tell me about "sittee" again. He say that "sittee"
have light all the time, not just in the day. I ask
him if he 'member his Momma Lady, and he 'member her
for me. He 'member her rockin' him for sleep, and
cookin'.

Daddy Man come in from outside while I play with
Silly Man and whop! Silly Man kick his feet for the
last time I s'pose. I hear God man swooshin' outside,
and inside that copper pot keep bubblin' and hissin'.

Ten Questions for Eric S. Brown

2007-05-10T11:29:00.000-05:00

Magazine of the Dead's own Nathan Tyree has Interviewed Zombie Master Eric. S. Brown. MotD presents this interview for your erudition and pleasure.

Ten Questions for Eric S. Brown.

Eric S. Brown is a 32 year old author living in North Carolina with his wife and son. Some of his books include the zombie novel/novellas The Queen, Cobble, and The Wave. Some of his chapbooks include Zombies: The War Stories, As We All Breakdown, Still Dead, and Viruses and Vamps. His latest book, Zombies II: Inhuman will be out in June, 2007 from Naked Snake Books. For those interested in checking out his work, his books can be found on www.amazon.com, www.nakedsnakepress.com, www.shocklines.com, and www.fictionwise.com

NT:How did you come to focus on the zombie sub-genre?

Eric: I just have always loved zombies since the first time I saw Dawn of the Dead. When I started writing, my first story not only that I wrote but that I sold was a zombie tale. Since then they have just kind of stuck with me. I write more zombie stuff than anything else and zombies are what I am known for most in my career.

NT:Do you feel that the zombie genre offers greater opportunity for social satire, philosophical musing and political statement than other forms of horror?

Eric: YES! Take one look at George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and you can see all those things in it. I try to have a message in my tales sometimes too but honestly I write out of a love of the zombie genre than anything else.

NT: What work within the zombie genre (be it novel, short story, film, image, etc) has most influenced your work?

Eric: The Rising by Brian Keene. That book not only made zombies cool again but it opened the door to much less traditional takes on the living dead in fiction.

NT: Zombie fiction (as well as horror in general) is making a real comeback these days. Do you believe that there is a political aspect to this? That is, is it true that as a society we turn to the frightening and the terrible in times of political or economic insecurity? If so, why?

Eric: Though many would disagree, I think so. I think we want to escape into a fantasy world rather than deal with the problems in our own real world and zombie tales despite their end of the world storylines often are filled with hope and if nothing else at least try to remind the reader why it’s important to try to stay alive.

NT: Other than yourself, who is the best writer working in this field?

Eric: There are a ton of great writers out there today. Brian Keene is certainly the one that has caused the most change but I think I would say David Moody. He’s a writer who’s not scared to take chances and his work is so character driven you can’t help but be amazed at his talent after reading Autumn. Travis Adkins, I think, is certainly one of the younger, newer authors to watch. He has great potential.

NT: To be effective does a zombie tale have to contain a extreme gore? Can the same effect be gained through other means, and if it could would it be as good?

Eric: Readers do expect some gore or it wouldn’t be a zombie tale but certainly books like David Moody’s Autumn come across as powerful and moving without focusing on that aspect of the genre. Gore isn’t needed but it shouldn’t be completely left out either.

NT: What’s the most important thing you’ve ever put off or ignored to write?

Eric: I have always wanted to do a super-hero type comic book since comics are my other real passion in life aside from zombies, my wife, and my son. It’s something I have thought about my whole life but have yet to really try to do it.

NT: What’s your favorite book (zombie or non-zombie)?

Eric: The Legion of Super-heroes and The Fantastic Four are my favorite comics and I also have a love for the old Weird War Tales books that DC did in the 70s but as to a novel I would likely say Hyperion by Dan Simmons or The Rising by Brian Keene. However the all time greatest ever zombie book to me would certainly be The Book of the Dead anthology.

NT: What’s your advice for someone trying to break in to the zombie fiction market?

Eric: As a person who was writing and selling zombie tales before they were cool again I know how hard it can be. I think the most important things are just to write a lot, develop a body of work, and keep sending it out to publishers. If you really want to make it, you can.

NT: Are zombies real?

Eric: That depends on what you mean by that statement. I think Romero type zombies certainly could be someday with the way science continues to advance but if you’re talking Haitian type creatures then certainly just as seen in The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Finding Peace

2007-04-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Finding Peace
By Jon Catron

Carl stood in the cooling midnight air of the woods by the lake. It was always so peaceful here, so serene, so free of the constant struggle back in the City. Somewhere in the distance, some nocturnal creature that Carl, city boy that he was, couldn’t identify called out to its mate or family or whatever. Honestly, Carl was ignorant about such things, but wasn’t about to let his ignorance of such small details spoil his brief getaway. He took a few lazy steps down the path toward the lake, letting the dense summer foliage brush against him. It was nothing like the forcible press of bodies that is ever-present in the city. Sometimes, Carl regretted his decision to stay in the city. He could have come out here into the “wilderness” but he was a city boy, and didn’t think he could go for very long apart from his beloved hustle and bustle.

If Carl were being completely honest with himself, there was a slight thrill to coming out to the lake. There were persistent stories and rumors about throwback quasi-religious cults performing monstrous and unspeakable acts on the occasional straggler out in the hills north of the lake. But even with his own small thrill at the potential for danger and wildness, Carl would be one of the first to discredit such silliness. The whole idea was preposterous. Those sorts of things didn’t happen anymore, too much had changed in the world. He would laugh at the very notion, if he could somehow find mirth after everything that had happened.

The Crisis, as everyone liked to call it, had changed so much in so many unexpected ways. But they had survived, and began to thrive, to truly live again. It changed Carl. He never smiled anymore. He never laughed. Not after what happened. But he still liked to come out to the lake and relax, and try to forget.

Memories from that time were still hazy, as if it had all been one horrible, arduous nightmare. Carl could remember very little after that horrid afternoon aside from the smoke and fire and the press of bodies, pain and relief as he realized he was alive and had, miraculously, survived. But from time to time, something, or someone, would remind Carl of that look on Bob’s face as they separated and a tear would roll from Carl’s remaining good eye.

Sometimes Carl had to wonder if any of the other survivors felt like he did. He had to wonder if any of them felt the loss as keenly as he did. Oh sure, some had lost much more, both in physical capabilities and emotional damage. But Carl had to wonder occasionally if they felt how deep the Change really went.

Occasionally, on a still night, he would sit in his dingy little apartment (It wasn’t really his apartment; the duplex he’d lived in had been burned down along with over half of the city.) and stare down at the bodies still decaying in the street. He would wonder why he wasn’t among them. What made him so special that he got to live? Why were any of them still around? Most of the time, Carl was just like the others; barely alive, barely mobile automatons, hardly at all distinct from the corpses still laying in the street, washing away little by little with each new downpour.

Carl slowly made his way from the cabin toward the lakeshore, lost in these inner reflections. He was not usually given to deep contemplations, but they came to him unbidden more and more lately. Perhaps that is how they got so close, so very close without him noticing.

The sound of a foot rustling through the underbrush finally gave them away. Carl’s eye snapped open wide and he turned his head as the wind change and gave him a whiff of their overpowering stench.

He turned and tried to run, but he couldn’t keep his footing in the brush choked slopes leading toward the lake. So instead he took several swings at his attackers, even as he stumbled, but his lack of footing sent his strikes wild. And then he saw Bob.

He wanted to deny it, he wanted to not believe it, but it was Bob’s face, Bob’s eyes hard and cold, staring back at him, intent on his destruction. That more than anything dropped Carl’s world out from under him. He turned again to try to run, but they were on him before he could take more than a single step. They jumped on him from behind, pinning him to the ground, tearing at his limbs, screaming at each other like wild animals. Despite having his head held down in a pile of wet and moldy leaves and fescue, Carl screamed as they tore first his legs, and then arms, loose from his body. Despite the pain, the shock, the soul crushing betrayal, Carl continued struggling, even as he saw Bob kneel next to him, machete in hand…

*****

“Easy, easy there…” Bob said, trying to calm his team. “One mostly intact zombie head, just like the doctor ordered.”

Bob held Carl’s decaying head aloft just a bit, examining it with a concerned eye.

“You think he’ll really get us a cure, Bob?”

“Vaccine, Ted, not a cure…” Bob chided with irritation obvious in his voice.

“There ain’t no cure for this…” He said, motioning to Carl’s body simply. “but this.” He finished, raising the severed head level to Ted’s eyes.

“Now bag up the other parts and clean up this mess. Can’t take the chance that the wildlife gets inta this. An’ don’t get none in your mouths.”

Bob stood up and considered the decaying visage of his once best friend. “Goddamnit Carl…” He sighed and carefully placed his gruesome prize in a thick, ice filled polyethylene bag, and held it tenderly in his arms. “Well I guess ya might just save me after all… ya cocksure sombitch.” Bob sniffled slightly, but wisely resisted the temptation to wipe the tear from his eye.

Bob stood on the path down to the lake by Carl’s old fishing cabin, soaking up the cool night air. Before, it had always been so peaceful here, so serene, so free of the struggle and grind back in the City. But now, it was a battleground. Now, it was the front line of humanity’s constant struggle for survival in a world gone mad.

But soon, soon, Bob consoled his conscience, it would be Carl’s final resting place.

“Soon you’ll have Peace, old buddy…”

The Curious Life of James Taylor

2007-04-19T15:01:00.000-05:00

The Curious Life of James Taylor
by Christopher Allan Death

A dark figure splashed through knee-high water and stumbled over large jagged rocks, fleeing further and further into the perilous mountain terrain. He tripped several times, falling face first into the subzero mountain river. Each time he stood up cursing and shivering just to fall once more. But he pressed forward. Not even hell itself could stop his fanatical excursion into the untamed Colorado wilderness.

Two cold silver eyes glared through the darkness ahead, and the man stopped quickly. For a moment he was worried that he had unwittingly stumbled upon a hungry brown bear searching for food, but then he realized it was only a jackrabbit. The wild hare sensed his presence and quickly disappeared into the thorny undergrowth.

The man watched his furry little friend recede into the darkness and quietly reflected upon his own position. Like the jackrabbit, he too was running for his life. Except this time the predator was not a normal human being. No. The thing that pursued him was something else entirely: something born from the very depth of Hades.

Clambering out of the icy cold water, the man knelt behind a thick pine tree and let the silence descend. Almost immediately he could hear splashes echo across the river behind him. An unnatural odor intermingled with the scent of fresh pine trees and newborn sapling, slithering through the deep nightfall and violating his nostrils. He knew the odor before it ever reached his olfactory lobe.

It was the scent of charred flesh.

The man released a terrified breath and scurried further into the forest. He could feel serrated undergrowth and fallen branches bite into his bare legs as he tore through the darkness, thundering past ancient oak trees and colliding into fallen logs. Every breath he took felt like scissors cutting erratic patterns across his lungs, leaving him breathless and sore. But he knew that he couldn't turn around. If he stopped, that thing would catch up to him.

He couldn't let that happen.

Suddenly the bushes behind him crackled. The man stopped dead in his tracks and became still as a deer caught in the headlights. He could hear something approaching through the trees, moving deftly through the tall foliage. He knew that the creature was close because he could smell the sickening odor and hear the twigs snap underfoot.
He turned around and saw a huge oddly shaped figure loping through the twilight. It might have been a giant orangutan, if not for the abnormally large head and thick human-like legs.

The man released a silent scream and dove into the bushes. He had been running from that thing for almost his entire life. Only now the creature had become more ferocious and bloodthirsty than ever before. That was what finally drove him into the harsh Rocky Mountain wilderness.

Ever since he was a baby, his parents knew that James Taylor was a very special child. But it wasn't until his fifteenth birthday that they realized exactly how special.
Unlike most American children born every 0.5 seconds, James developed a rare mental disease called Psychotic Schizophrenia. Since there was no known cure for his condition, his parents raised him just like any other red-blooded American boy. They brought him to the park and enrolled him in various daycare centers to encourage social interaction.
Unfortunately James never really found his niche in high school. Due to his quiet nature and erratic schizophrenia attacks, he never made many friends. The friends he did make soon abandoned him after they discovered his psychological stigma.

When James left for Boston to pursue his interest in culinary arts, his parents stood behind him one hundred percent. They thought that his time away from home would open up new horizons for the young bachelor, but they had no idea what lay ahead.
At first James loved his culinary school. He made several friends who shared his affinity for cooking, and even found himself a steady girlfriend. Except that was before his first major psychological breakdown. And that was before the monster climbed into his mind.
The scent of burning and putrefied flesh was stronger now. James could almost taste the vile stench on his tongue and feel it slither down his throat. It made him sick. He felt warm stomach bile lurch into his mouth.

Streams of silvery moonlight filtered down from the dark canopy and fell across the hideous monster. He could see every disturbing feature clearly beneath the huge waxing moon. The creature was like a disease, infecting every cell and nerve ending inside James' body.

"Just leave me alone!" he shouted.

The creature seemed to crack an awful grin and lumbered forward once more. Its stiff, knotted toes crushed branches and insects alike beneath its monstrous weight.
James unleashed a breathless shriek and skittered into the thick foliage. He tried to tell himself that the creature was just a figment of his imagination, but something inside him refused to submit.

No matter what happens, just keep running.

Rocks and twigs snapped underfoot as he thundered through the labyrinth of trees. Every once in awhile he would slop to catch his breath and position himself among the rugged Colorado wilderness. He hoped that the creature would become lost among the countless oaks and dark ravines, but it always remained just a few steps behind him.
Suddenly James noticed a light up ahead. He scrambled toward the light with catlike dexterity and only stopped when he was too tired to go further. He could see a hunting lodge through the thick foliage, perched atop a small grassy knoll. Hunters had probably constructed the little cottage for shelter during the cold winter months.

James felt a thrill of excitement course through his veins. If there was electricity in the little lodge, that meant there might be people too. And people could help defend him from the creature!

James still remembered the first time he came face-to-face with his nightmare. The date was January 6, shortly after Christmas break. James came home from College to spend the holidays with his family when disaster struck. Someone snuck into the house during the night and killed his beloved parents. The emotional trauma that followed sent James into a complete psychological breakdown.

Shortly after he returned to college, the nightmares began. James woke up in a cold sweat almost every night with visions of some horrible monster burned into his brain. Even in his dreams he could smell the odor of decay and feel its putrefied presence. It was almost like his subconscious mind was caught in a horrible schizophrenic attack, replaying the nightmare over and over every night.

About three days later the beast emerged from his dreams. He saw it when he went for a walk around the lake. He saw it when he drove to the supermarket, and he saw it standing in the shadows when he went to sleep each night. He saw it everywhere. That was why he decided to run away.

The bushes behind James shuttered. Before he could react, a giant arm reached through the darkness and slammed into his chest. He grunted and felt himself vault into the air. When he landed, sharp barbs pricked into his delicate white flesh. But that was the least of his problems.

James leapt to his feet just as the creature lumbered into view. A deep, throaty cackle followed him into the darkness. But he kept running. He ran until his lungs burned like fire and then he ran further. He kept running until the little hunting lodge burst into view and he could feel the door beneath his slick, sweaty palms.

"Is anyone there?" he gasped, slamming his fists repeatedly on the door post. "Please let me in! Can anyone hear me?"

James turned around and peered into the murky foliage. The forest had become completely quiet. He could no longer hear the chirping of crickets or smell the putrid burning odor. So he knew something was wrong.

"Can anybody hear me?"

The silence remained undisturbed.

James swallowed hard and tried the doorknob. The door swung back easily, revealing a warm interior with several modern appliances. He mentally noted the simmering coffeepot and conventional oven, preheated to a balmy 500 degrees. That meant he was not alone in the rugged Colorado wilderness.

James heard the door open behind him. He turned around, hoping to find several robust hunters wearing camouflage slickers inside the door. Instead he found a massive dark figure blocking the exit. He screamed and stumbled against the far wall.
"What, what do you want from me?"

The creature grinned and maneuvered its enormous bulk through the small doorway. Bits of forest debris and dust scattered across the wooden floor, following the creature into the cabin.

"Please, stay away from me!" James choked, fighting back fear that bubbled up from the pit of his stomach. He could see the creature more clearly now, beneath the bright industrial neon lights. It had grown even more hideous than he remembered.

"Why are you following me? Why?"

The creature twisted its red frosting lips into a fractured smile. Its black chocolate eyes glimmered beneath a mop of greasy licorice hair.

"Revenge!" it muttered in broken English.

James felt his entire body twitch with fear. His face turned deathly white. Some sort of malicious intelligence reflected in its cold ebony eyes. Right away he knew that he wouldn't survive this encounter.

"Why did you kill your parents, James?"

"I didn't kill my parents! They were killed when a burglar broke into their house at night!"

"You did kill your parents, James. And you baked their bodies into gingerbread cookies so they wouldn't be found."

"That's a lie! I would never kill my parents."

The giant gingerbread monster took one menacing step forward. Crumbs flaked off its knotted toes and scattered across the floor. A flicker of anger crossed the creature's face.

"Don't deny your guilt, James Taylor. I was there that night when you snuck into their house and gutted them mercilessly. I was there when you ground their bones into dust and baked their remains into gingerbread cookies! Don't deny your guilt anymore."

James slumped helplessly to the floor. He was crying freely. Big salty tears spilled down his cheeks and landed softly on his trembling hands. He knew that the gingerbread man was telling the truth. He could remember what happened that night on Christmas Day when his parents lay asleep in their beds. Everything returned to him in a flood of guilt.

"Who are you?" he sniffled.

"I am your conscience, James. I was watching that night when they told you to withdraw from the culinary school because they were worried about your mental health. When you refused, they said they would stop paying your tuition. Then you killed them. You killed them in cold blood." The gingerbread man flexed his stubby fingers. "Now I'm going to kill you."

James fell to his knees and begged for mercy. He promised that he would return to the city and take responsibility for his crime. But it was too late. The gingerbread man closed his fingers around James' throat and hoisted him into the air.

***

A few days later the little cabin door opened once again. Except this time three burly hunters stepped into the cozy interior. They set their rifles by the door and started peeling off their camouflage slickers.

The first man stopped just inside the door, twitching his thick handlebar mustache.
"Dammit Mitch, you forgot to shut down the generator! Now thanks to your damn carelessness, we're low on power."

"Sorry John," the man called Mitch replied meekly. "With all the excitement I just forgot."

"What's that smell?" the third man ventured.

"Seems like something's cooking," Mitch replied.

John whiffed the air.

"Smells more like burning to me."

"That's odd."

John patted across the hardwood floor. The oven was turned up to BOIL, and he could see something large smashed inside. The other hunters stood back cautiously. He pulled back the oven door and a massive cloud of rancid black smoke billowed into the room.

"What in God's name?"

John choked back smoke and stumbled away from the oven. Inside lay a charred body, bony fingers stretched feebly toward the hunters. Every hair on his body had been scorched off, and the place where his eyes should have been were hollow black sockets. His skin was brown and leathery.

"And what's this all over the floor?" Mitch whined.

John turned around and saw the trail of crumbs leading to the oven. It looked like little pieces of gingerbread cookie.

Zombie Anthology

2007-04-06T11:17:00.001-05:00

Magazine of the Dead is planning an anthology of zombie stories. We need your zombie stories. The guidelines are simple: stories should be no longer than 10,000 words. They should contain at least 1 zombie. They should be well written.

This will be a paperback book. The plan is to split proceeds with the contributors (after we have recouped our exspenses).

Send submissions to: magazineofthedead@yahoo.com
Put the word “Zombie” in the subject line.

The Man Who Ate Flesh

2007-04-06T08:24:00.001-05:00

The Man who ate Flesh
By
David Nordahl

In the town of Thor’s Peaks there lived an old man that no one dared go near. He’d killed others and everyone knew that, even the sheriff. The people also knew that if they kept their distance they’d all be safe. Over the course of the years there was an uneasy truce between the man and the town. The truce was they wouldn’t interfere with what he needed to do and he wouldn’t go after any of them. That was until the day I decided to break the truce.

I can’t recall how the idea first popped into my head. I’m sure it started one night when I was at Lindee’s and after one to many I decided to do something about him. At first my bar buddies could talk me out of it usually with the promise of another round. After awhile the thought wouldn’t go away. Why should this man be allowed to keep going on killing these people. Don’t these people have families? Just because everyone else is afraid of him why should I be? I’ve lived a lot of places and never saw anything as silly as a whole town afraid of one old man.

Eventually it got so bad that the thoughts were with me when I got up and when I went to bed drunk or sober. I almost brunt my face off twice at work because I was thinking about him instead of what I was welding. Do you know what it’s like to have a thought in your head and not be able to get it out? Let me tell you I can now relate to most of the people in the asylum. People told me that I was nuts but unless I did something I would’ve been driven insane.

A few nights later after I made my choice, I won’t bore you with the details of the 3 a.m. decision making process. I was at the door of the man no one would even push out of the way of an on coming bus. A sip of whisky from my flask for courage and I banged on his door.

No Answer.

I banged again louder this time.

No answer.

This time I hit the door with all my might. Being a steel worker I had pretty good upper body strength the door started to rattle at the hinges. Finally after a few minutes the door creaked open.

I kicked the door open and I charged in.

The house had no working lights (a switch by the door proved that) the only light source came from the living room. I didn’t really care about being quiet. I was there to end it once and for all. I reached the living room when everything changed.
Instead of seeing a demented lunatic feasting on flesh and rubbing blood all over himself I found a very old and sickly looking man crying in a chair. He looked up at me with red eyes.

“Have you come to kill me?”

I nodded yes

“Then make it quick, I’ve lived like this for over thirty years. I can’t stand seeing all their faces when I go to sleep”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out my switchblade. The blade opened with that trademark sound. I walked up the old man and put the blade to his throat. His eyes pleaded with me to end it for him but at that moment I lost my nerve. I wanted to ask him why he did these things. Before I could his hand clasped mine and the knife slid across his throat. If I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have believed that a person would or could kill themselves like that.

Blood first spewed on my face and then gushed on the floor. I wiped my face with the white handkerchief that I keep in my back pock. I wiped the blade, closed the knife and put it back in my pocket. I covered the old man’s face with the blood stained handkerchief. I really don’t think too many people will cry for him.

The deed done I went home and was fast asleep a little before four. The next morning I went to work, only one person mentioned the old man. Same at the bar most of the people had a sense of relief that the old man was dead. It was funny but it looked like some of the old timers started to stare at me with looks of dread on their faces. I guess some of them probably knew him before he went completely nuts. That night I had the worst dream of my life I had a vision of a red mist that hung over my head. I couldn’t make out any shapes. It started to swirl faster and faster until it formed a doughnut. In a voice that can’t possibly be part of anything in Heaven or Earth the red mist says “Flesh”. The doughnut turns into a cyclone and enters my stomach. That’s when I wake up.

I wake up dripping sweat and all I can think of is one of my bar buddies big meaty arms.

The End

The Customer Is Always Psychotic

2007-04-05T11:52:00.000-05:00

The Customer Is Always Psychotic
By Joshua Weston

Breanna tightened her scrunchie around her ponytail and picked up the tray of food. Her scowl of disparagement and depression was wiped away with the swinging of the door, and she was out of the kitchen and into the dining area. Her smile was fake, but the customers couldn’t tell that. She walked over to the corner table with the steak and fries, and placed them in front of the man sitting there with a smile and a nod. “Is there anything else I can get you sir?” The silent shake of his head told her all she needed to know. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, just let me know.” She began to walk away.

“Hey, um… Breanna?”

She turned around, flashing that beautiful façade of a smile. “Yes sir?”

He arose from the table and a conniving grin appeared on his face. “Actually, there is something you can do for me.”

She cocked her head confusingly and reluctantly responded, “Y-yes, what is it?”

She hardly had the sentence out when he was upon her with a steak knife, stabbing at her body with great force and vehemence. A cackling sound emitted from his lips as he plunged the knife deep into her soft flesh. Even after she was dead, he still stabbed and stabbed.

By now the entire restaurant had erupted into the sounds of horrific screams and chairs being tossed to the side for a quick escape. One man sat in a booth, his work shirt covered in sauce and ketchup. As he rose, the knife wielding murderer noticed his nametag; his name was Frank.

Frank approached; a heroic inspiration about him. “Boy, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Frank was an impressively sized man, so he felt talking down to this asshole was not below him. “What’s your name, psycho?”

His eyes were glazed, narrow, and had an intent stare in them. “My name is John,” he said, with a slight tone of vilification. “And you’re in my way.” With that, he slid the knife in between his lips, wiping the memory of Breanna from the knife. The knife was not satisfied. It wanted more.

A patron took a wrong turn and ran too close to John, making that the last mistake he would make. John guided the hungry blade through the eye socket and straight to the brain of the poor soul, killing him instantly, then shoved him to the ground. He then raised his eyes to Frank. “Bring it, cocksucker.”

Frank began to run at John, but didn’t expect the pistol in John’s belt. Two bullets to the head dropped him and ended his life. There weren’t a lot of people left in the restaurant, but ones who were continued to be subjected to torture and death…

****
“Sir!”

John shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. “Uh, nothing; I’m fine. Thank you, Breanna.” He smiled nervously, and started to cut his steak. Breanna turned and walked away, passed through the door to the kitchen, and rolled her eyes.

John continued to eat, savoring every bite of the perfectly grilled steak. The fries were dipped into steak sauce; he enjoyed them that way. His meal was devoured quickly, and he finished it up with the rest of his soda.

He stood in the middle of the destruction, laughing wildly out loud, awaiting the inevitable firefight with the police. Everyone he could possibly hurt would feel the torture and pain he felt in himself. He ran out into the haze of red and blue lights, gun blazing…

He left a tip of four dollars on the table, and went to the counter to pay for his ticket. Then John stepped out into the sunlight, staring across the street at the convenience store. He wondered how many people were in there that would succumb to his murderous rampage.

That and he had a craving for a donut.

Stories for Replicants

2007-04-04T11:25:00.000-05:00

The new print anthology from MotD is out now.
The second anthology from Magazine of the Dead. Stories for Replicants contains all of the recent stories from MotD, plus several new stories that have not appeared on line. It features work by: Darran Anderson, Peter Wild, Harold Wilson, Christopher Allan Death, Norman A. Rubin, James Horn, Aurelio Rico Lopez III, Edward Rodosek, Terry Doss, James Riser, Nathan Tyree, Joey Ketcham, and a classic reprint from E.A. Poe.

See it here: http://www.lulu.com/content/777237

Jesse Garon

2007-03-30T10:39:00.000-05:00

Jesse Garon.

By Darran Anderson

They buried him in a shoebox a stone's throw from the shotgun shack. But some things don't leave so easily. Floating above the Tupelo bed, it coiled its umbilical cord tight round its infant brother, anchored itself to life. And it floated there, listening. And at night when the child slept, it feed and grew, planted seeds, suggestions. And sometimes, without knowing it, he, Elvis Aaron, listened.

The rest is well known. He called himself the Hillbilly Cat, laid down a record as a present for his mama, before long it was white jumpsuits and karate, emptying his rifle into swimming pools filled with light bulbs. All along he was plagued by strange compulsions, incompleteness, a hunger he couldn't satisfy. It was still there in the last days, bedridden and corseted, strung out on uppers and downers, slumped on the tiles of the ensuite bathroom. The face of Jesus on the floor

"That's alright mama, that's alright with me," harks from a busted up old turntable, still singing decades after they checked out, locked together spinning in some black orbit. But he forgives his brother. They're kin after all.

PF-FIS

2007-03-30T08:18:00.000-05:00

PF-FIS

By
Terry Doss

"we came in," thinks Manuel as a he ducks a wild
swing.

"Careful with that axe, Eugene"

Eugene looks up from the skittering corpse and
points at Manuel, "One of these days, I'm going to cut
you into little pieces."

Manuel smiles, but it's not a funny joke. Rule 3
is all too real. Chance is all that separates him
from the body on the floor.

Eugene is a big old boy, and he is busy
emphatically bludgeoning the brain mass of the Charlie
on the floor. It helps if he imagines circuitry
breaking, like you'd expect from a bad science fiction
story. Eugene fills in the sound effects.

"Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow."

The body is no longer moving and Mrs. Clegg no
longer wants to tell the two of them about her
husband.

Manuel gives Mrs. Clegg a brief eulogy, "Life is a
short, warm moment, and death is a long cold rest,"
then spits on the Charlie she had become.

Eugene wipes his axe blade on the denim skirt the
corpse wears. Manuel pulls out a bottle and takes a
long slow pull. Mrs. Clegg no longer wants to tell
the two of them about her husband. All three have the
scent of gingerbread on their breath.

She couldn't afford to be disconnected so she had
been going to the charlie support group for the last
two years. That's where she had met Manuel and
Eugene. The support group focuses on the positive
aspects of being a charlie, but if any of them could
afford it, they would have their terminals capped.

Rule 2 in the support group is to remember; to
remember why they had become charlies and to encourage
them to use their skills while they can. Mrs. Clegg
had become a charlie for the recipes, so it wasn't odd
for her to come into the meeting with a new treat
every night. Manuel had become a charlie for the
porn.

Tonight Mrs. Clegg had come in with, "Lots of
gingerbread men. Take a couple if you wish." She had
never before used this particular gingerbread recipe.

Rule 1: Every moment is unique. The first sign of
a charlie going capital is repetition. It could start
with a jingle, a slogan, or a repetitive motion.
Because of this, the majority of coping techniques
deal with avoiding repetitions by constantly thinking
about what makes each instant in time unique from all
others. Tonight, for Mrs. Clegg, the gingerbread
recipe had been unique.

After the meeting Manuel and Eugene escorted her
home. As they walked, she told them about her
husband.

"Corporal Clegg had a medal too"

Manuel said, "Mrs. Clegg, you must be proud of him.

Mrs. Clegg noddded and changed the subject:
"Summer evenin' birds are calling."

The two men agreed that the summer birds were
indeed calling.

"Corporal Clegg had a medal too"

Eugene and Manuel both gave a quick look to each
other. Mrs. Clegg didn't seem to notice.

Dropping back a step, Eugene said, "Mrs. Clegg, you
must be proud of him.

"His boots were very clean," she said, and her face
fractured in a way that reminded Manuel of Geurnica.
A shocked face, displayed at unnatural angles. Eugene
smashed her face away for three minutes. Mrs. Clegg
no longer wants to tell the two of them about her
husband.

Manuel takes another tug from the bottle. "If I
were alone, I would cry."

"Pass the tequila, Manuel."

Manuel says, "I've had enough for one day," as he
hands Eugene the bottle, but in his mind he clearly
hears, "If you can hear this whispering you are
dying."

Manuel thinks, "The lunatic is in my head," but he
hears himself say, "I've had enough for one day."
Manuel tries to scream, "There's someone in my head
but it's not me. "

Eugene hears Manuel say, "I've had enough for one
day."

Manuel hears the bottle of tequila crack as it hits
the floor.

Eugene hears the scrape of his axe as he lifts it
from the pavement.

Eugene hears himself saying, "Flicker, flicker,
flicker blam. Pow, pow," but his mind is whispering,
"Isn't this where..."

The Lek

2007-03-26T08:40:00.000-05:00

The Lek
by Peter Wild

There is a sound and - before she even considers it, before she even brings herself to wonder what it could be or represent - she hears Carl, Carl who is not here, Carl who has gone. Before she so much as wakes to the situation, there is a question, in her mind, voiced by her (What's that?) and Carl's response (It's Superman, reading a book). It isn't until the riffling sound, as of pages being turned at speed, recurs that she shakes herself out of it or at least shakes her head and sits forward in her seat.

Elaine is sitting, with her legs folded beneath her, in the corner of the living room, hunched, clinging, into one side of the sofa as if pushed there by a crowd, as if forced to accommodate many others, despite the fact that the room is empty of anyone, save her. A quarter-filled glass of red wine (to be drank on the recommendation of her doctor to offset a painful trigeminal neuralgia), balanced on the chair arm, supported by the fingers of her left hand laced around the base and the stem, lurches violently to the left as she gets to her feet. And there is the sound again - a purring shudder, a feathery hiss in the baby monitor. She stands there, looking at the baby monitor on the mantlepiece, specifically the parabola of lights, the Nike swoosh that travels through green to red, with her glass of wine in one hand (now held around the belly of the glass) and her book in the other, glass high, book low, waiting and wondering. Is it a sound, she wonders, or a fault? Elaine knows that these machines, the baby monitoring paraphernalia, are given to faults, random sounds, aural scree that could be anything but are more often than not nothing. Four months of starting at the slightest sound have fostered a resistance in her to charge upstairs at the least prompting.

She stands there, tensing, her shoulders and her neck tight in anticipation of the sound and its repetition. But it doesn't come. There is nothing, not even breathing, to disturb the supposed calm. Elaine sighs or huffs or makes a sound that suggests to anyone listening that, although, yes, she is going to go upstairs to check on the baby, she doesn't really want to and feels mildly put out at the obligations of motherhood. It isn't a true sound - Elaine could happily stand and watch her baby sleep for a lifetime or longer - but its utterance reassures her in some way, makes her feel like a modern, independent woman who can raise a child whilst at the same time cossetting her alone-time, the life of her mind. And so, resting her wine glass on the mantle over the hearth besides the baby monitor and casually flinging her now-closed book on to the sofa in the bottomy warmth of the space she had left, Elaine crosses the room to the stairs and starts up, thinking, briefly, as she passes the photograph of their wedding, nailed, alongside half a dozen others, along the wall that leads from hallway to bathroom, of Carl.

It wasn't surprising that Carl's reaction was the first thing she thought of. She knew Carl - or rather felt she knew Carl - better than she knew herself. A year or so earlier, when their marriage was losing its footing, she had learned the meaning of a word - a word she had managed to travel twenty eight years without having heard before: propinquity. She told Carl. Propinquity. The marriage of minds. She told Carl she'd learned a word, thought it was beautiful, liked the way it felt upon her tongue. In the midst of overseeing a leveraged management buy-out, Carl could not have been said to have paid her his full attention. That was what the baby was about. Leastways from Carl's point of view. She needed distraction, he felt. Was becoming slightly dotty. This dottiness was only compounded in his view when Elaine took to saying the word propinquity at all hours of the day and night as if to illustrate the joy she took in their own marriage of minds. Whenever they talked or appeared to enjoy each other's company, Elaine would - Carl felt - spoil the moment by saying, Propinquity, as if it proved everything that needed proving. But all it served to do was push him away. Even Elaine, prone as she was to deceiving herself in matters of the heart, could see that she had, at least in part, made her bed. They had been so happy - she paused on the stairs to level the frame despite the fact that it was not at all skewed - that day at the South College Street Registry Office. So happy.

Elaine allowed herself a smile and felt strengthened somewhat inside to learn that already she could look back on times when they had been happy. She turned inwardly, intent on climbing the stairs, mapping out the familiar path taken twenty three dozen times a night, and stopped upon hearing the sound again. It wasn't like the pages of a book turned at speed, it was more like - the tabs young boys attached to the back wheels of their bikes in summertime in order to - what? She didn't know. The sound that those boys made as they cycled up and down the street, though. That was what it sounded like from the stairs. But there was more to it. A warmth, an urgency, a life. The sound had life, as if it was generated by something alive. She swallowed and moved more quickly, albeit still quietly, up the stairs to the mezzanine where she turned sharply to the left and followed the upper hallway to the end of the landing where she paused and ever so softly eased the door open. A crack. A crack was all. She eased the door open and cautiously edged her head into the gap to be greeted at once by everything that was dark and familiar: the fitted wardrobes (a gift from her brother-in-law, as was, Steven, the joiner, the spare-time joiner, with a flair for interior design), the rug Carl rescued from a Turkish bazaar on their honeymoon, the super kingsize bed Carl had insisted on (he couldn't sleep, he'd told her, if he couldn't spread out like a starfish baking in the sun) and there, the cot, on the left hand side, her side. She liked to sleep with her hand awkwardly caught between the bars, near without quite touching her son, Edmund. All was as it should be, she thought. She could hear the baby's gentle breath, the in, the gulf of silence, the out, the in, the gulf of silence, the out. The time she had spent in this doorway listening out, sometimes anxiously listening out, for the rise and fall, the hook and catch of his breath. What could -?

And then she saw it and, even as she fussily rebuked herself for missing that which was in plain sight, her stomach shrank and her eyes grew wide and the taste of already-drunk wine rose in her throat. She thought she was going to be sick. There was a bird in the cot alongside her sleeping son. She thought it was a bird. It had two feet. Or not feet. A bird didn't have feet. What did a bird have? She couldn't think. There was a bird. She could hardly get further than that. There was a bird and the bird was moving, calmly, royally, at its own speed, from one end of the cot, from her son's sleeping head, to the other, to his feet, to passed his feet, where there was only the space he would grow into - at which point the bird turned, heading back, repeating the process or gesture or whatever it was, like a guard, like a trooping guard. She was terrified. Nauseous. Her first instinct - to get her son away from the bird - was followed by a more rational restraint (because the bird could do a lot of harm in the time it took her to travel across the bedroom, from the door to the cot). She had to be careful. She was terrified and she wanted to vomit right where she was, on the carpet - but she didn't because she couldn't because she knew that she had to get closer and see if she was mistaken (could it be a toy of some kind thrown into deranged relief by the play of light and dark from the streetlight outside?). She had to be mistaken. Even as she watched the bird plod from one end of the cot to the other, even as she knew, indefatigably, that there was a bird, a strangely elongated bird, right there in the cot beside her son - even as she knew this for the fact that it was - she denied it. It couldn't be a bird. Not really. It couldn't be a bird. Even though she knew it was.

She took a step into the room and in doing so allowed a degree more light inside as the door drew wide. The bird jerked its head in her direction and then rose up, somehow, hopping rather than flapping its wings (if it had wings) - and Elaine stopped in her tracks. The bird faced her (and she knew, as she looked, that it couldn't see her, that as she looked at the bird, the bird was looking at either wall) - but somehow it knew enough to face her, in a way that she would understand. The two of them stood, obliquely facing one another (Elaine had time to wonder what kind of a bird it was, it had the manner of a quail but it was much, much bigger, an armspan, she imagined, from beak to tail feather) each taking a measure of the other. The bird lowered its head and Elaine started - she started to wonder whether the bird was harmless, irrespective of however it had made its way into her bedroom and into the cot - as the bird transformed, so it appeared, before her very eyes.

A cone of feathers rose up, cobra-like, about the bird's head, forming a tube that reached a foot or more into the space that separated them. Elaine's breath caught. She raised a hand as if to protect herself. The bird seemed to lean toward her, ever more closely, and the cone of feathers rippled or shuddered alarmingly, at her. She took a step backwards and then another step backwards and then she closed the door to the bedroom shut, its feeble click serving to soundtrack her dash along the length of the landing and into the bathroom, that other sound - the awful shivering made by the bird and its cone of feathers - trailing her like a phantasm, raising the skin on her arms and her neck and once more turning her stomach, over and about, like a hapless dinghy caught out in a storm at sea.

The bathroom offered scant comfort. Her mind and her heart were racing. She knew (she did) that she couldn't leave her son alone in there with a bird. It was insane. How did a bird -? But there wasn't time. She was frightened. She was frightened but she had to act. This was about more than herself. This was a test of her motherhood. Even here, though, in the astringent calm of her bathroom, the bird could be heard. Rippling. The awfulness of her situation gripped her, the fear. That awful rippling. It was like the imagined movement of insects crawling beneath her skin, hard and oily cockroaches competing for space in her stomach cavity. She placed her hands upon the sink and looked at the woman whose face stared out from the mirrored cabinets. What were her options? She could call Carl? He'd instructed her not to call. Not for a little while. Surely this was an emergency? It wasn't like a spider in the bath. This was an emergency. But what if he arrived, sweating and uncomfortable from (wherever it was he was and whatever it was he was doing) only to find that the bird was a product of her imagination? What if he arrived and saw the red wine and her pale, stretched features and imagined her - what? drunk? irresponsible? What if he threatened to take Edmund away from her? Edmund was all she had. She couldn't risk calling Carl. Not yet, at any rate. Not until she was sure. (Again, though, her mind swung, how sure did she have to be? She had seen the bird with her own eyes. She had seen it and so belief, whether the bird was real or not, didn't come into it. She'd either seen a bird or she was insane and was seeing birds, threatening birds, where birds were not...)

She couldn't call Carl. She was alone. She had no-one to turn to and nobody could help her. It was up to her. Whatever it was she was going to do (and, even as she made her way out of the bathroom and along the hall to the bedroom with fear, lodged, coiled, in her belly and her heart, stuttering, tap dancing in her chest, she didn't know what it was she would do, had no clue, was blank, terrified thoughtless), she knew only that it was down to her and her alone.

*

By the next morning, such fears seemed quaint, antique. Upon waking, the image of her, treading, daunted, along the hallway to the bedroom door, like a Victorian aunt holding the trembling wick of a candle in a saucer more formally reserved for tea, seemed utterly ridiculous. Last night was a world away. Waking, she was a different woman. If only Carl - Carl, who had left her in the midst of post-natal depression as a result of the fact that he had needs, needs she was not able, in her current state to address - if only Carl could see her now. With a bird nestled like a lover beneath her naked arm and many others shuffling about the bedroom and, indeed, the rest of the house (if the information she'd been given was correct), suddenly, anything and everything seemed possible.

The loss of her son, all that the birds demanded, seemed a small price to pay.

Wretched

2007-03-22T08:40:00.001-05:00

Wretched
by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

Miserable, I am
Wandering among tombstones,
Surrounded by countless names
Of people I have
Never met.

Miserable, I am
Missing the Old Days
When men fled in my wake
And women trembled in prayer
Holding fast to their
Dear children.

Miserable, I am
Gazing at the horizon,
Night sky aglow
With towering buildings and neon billboards,

My kind replaced by new monsters
Corporate moguls,
Corrupt politicians,
Child-abusing holymen.
I do not belong here.
I should have died with
My brethren who met
Their demise at the tip
Of a hunter's wooden stake.

Gone are the hunters,
And I am destined to meet an end
Unworthy of my kind,
Watching helplessly as
My body crumbles into ash
To rejoin Mother Earth.