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…”
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The Curious Life of James Taylor
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.
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.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Zombie Anthology
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.
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
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
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
Thursday, April 5, 2007
The Customer Is Always Psychotic
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Stories for Replicants
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
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
Friday, March 30, 2007
Jesse Garon
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.
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
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..."
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..."
Monday, March 26, 2007
The Lek
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.
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.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Wretched
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.
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.
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