The Pets of the Missing Beast by S.T. Cartledge (Random Title 28)

Detective Snyder pulled his coat tight across his chest and cursed the bastard farmer who called him out to work so early in the morning. Actually, it was his boss who did the calling, passing on the farmer's message. The message was to be at this address within the hour or else he would be fucking fired. He had never been fucking fired before. He had come close a few times at this job. It sounded painful, and Snyder would rather not risk it. He trudged out into the frosted field, the grey snow crunching beneath his feet and forming a trail of slush puddles from his car. The farmer was waiting for him in the middle of the field, standing beside a fucking big hole.

“Wow,” Snyder said. “That's a fucking big hole.”

The dirt was scattered around the field and the hole disappeared, twisting and tunnelling into the earth. There was only a little snow inside the hole, like it had only been freshly dug.

“There's not a lot of snow down there,” he said. “It looks like a freshly dug hole. What are you doing, digging holes in your field at this hour of the morning?”

“That's the thing, man,” the farmer said. He spat tobacco on the ground. “I weren't the one what dug that hole.”

“Where does it go?” Snyder asked.

The farmer shrugged. “Don't think I know that much.” He blew his nose into a crumpled handkerchief. “What you reckon?”

“Beats me,” Snyder said. “I just thought I was going to have to check out some crop circles, or some shit.”

“Heh,” the farmer said. “Shiiiiit.”

Snyder pulled his torch out. He had one of those big heavy ones security guards carry so they can beat people with them. He jumped into the hole and sunk a few inches where he landed. There was more snow than he thought. Snow and mud, and blood and fur. Shining his torch through the hole, he saw it tunnelling down and around, the blood trailing like the beginnings of an underground river.

“There's blood down here,” Snyder called back up to the farmer.

The farmer responded with a daft “wha?”

“There's blood down here.”

“Wha?” the farmer repeated.

“Never mind,” Snyder replied.

“Oh, blood, yeah. There'll be a lot of that down there.”

Snyder froze in his steps. Not so much from the cold, but more from what the farmer said. There was most likely a monster down here killing things, and the farmer didn't seem fazed. He didn't seem remotely unsettled when Snyder arrived, now that he thought about it.

“See anything?” the farmer called out.

“Nothing yet,” Snyder said.

He followed the tunnel, the blood trail growing thicker the deeper he disappeared.

The splat-splat sound of his footsteps in the thin layer of blood coating the ground echoed through the tunnel. He paused. He could no longer hear the farmer. He could hear the deep-raspy breaths of some asthmatic creature further down.

He progressed slower, thinking of how he would need to soak his shoes in the sink when he got home. He could feel the blood seeping in and around the soles of his feet. In between his toes. The earth and blood had a pungent manure smell to them, or perhaps other smells were wafting from further down the tunnel.

The torch light strained his eyes, and he yawned wide, yearning for the coffee in his kitchen that had gone undrunk. That's when he saw the tie on the ground. And then a jacket. Shirt. Belt. Pants. Underpants. Two more ties and three shirts. Four pants and a belt. Seven shoes. A hat. A severed hand. An arm. Three feet and a full leg. Lying on the ground like a trail of breadcrumbs soaking in blood. A trail of breadcrumbs leading the opposite direction of safety.

Snyder wanted to turn back but he didn't want to return to the farmer empty-handed. He was a terrible liar, so it's not like he could make something up to keep the creep satisfied. If he turned back now he would make up some terrible story and he would tell his boss and his boss would see through his shit and Snyder would be fucking fired.

The wheezing was a lot louder now, and the blood flood was up to his ankles. He turned a corner in the tunnel and shined his light on a hulking great humanoid mole-creature. Black fur and pink eyes, squinting in the dim torchlight. It lifted its finger and made a noise through its clenched mole-teeth, “shhh.”

Snyder saw where the clothes and the limbs came from. Dragging themselves through the tunnel with the mole monster were about a dozen naked and semi-naked detectives with glazed eyes and filthy skin covered in dirt and dried blood. The mole monster gestured for the detective to follow.

Seeing the state these other men were in, Snyder had no option but to follow the beast. It grunted and grabbed his torch and smashed it broken on the wall. In the darkness the beast made sounds which could only be more digging, more tunnelling through the earth.

Snyder followed the beast in the soggy, pitch-black gloom and thought about how, when he failed to report back on the job, on top of being blind, naked, amputated, and crawling through filth, he would finally be fucking fired.

_______

S.T. Cartledge wrote a book called House Hunter. He's also written some other stuff too. There are some short stories and poetry in magazines, some flash fiction and fan fiction online somewhere too. He also has some pretty killer unpublished stuff too. Like that story with the big guy and the dead things. And that other thing with the wicked cool aliens and the weird creatures. He hopes you liked this story and that you will consider being my *ahem* HIS friend.

Trade in the Monster by Dustin Reade (Random Title 24)

At dusk, the ocean of bile churned and burbled. The pallbearers milled about in the thousands, waiting to carry the carcasses to the bile’s edge. Whipping tentacles with purple tops and pinkish-white suckered bottoms thrashed a little ways from the shoreline, waiting to drag the corpses to the pit of the stomach to be digested, the beast’s first official meal this quarter. Ahmed leaned over his gyro stall and whispered conspiratorially in my ear, “one day we will be the unlucky ones, eh?”

    I turned and caught his eye. His face was lean and tough, with smooth lips like the lips of a penis stretched from the base of one cheek to the other. I never liked him. Something about him always made me feel dirty, diseased, as though he carried a virus in his eyes that could pass from person to person with nothing more than a wink. I shrugged, tossed the bag of dead rats on the counter, and said in a plaintive voice, “not today, Ahmed. Can we hurry this along? I have to be back at The Colon in a few minutes.”

    “Good work in The Colon?”

    “Fine,” I said. “Seriously, how long does it take to cut a hunk of lamb and put it in a pita?”

    Ahmed handed me the gyro and gathered up the rats. With one look inside the bag, he nodded his head and clucked his tongue.

    “Amazing,” he said. “How these little creatures manage to survive without being digested…it is truly remarkable.”

    “They’re too small,” I told him, taking a big bite of the gyro. “The monster doesn’t even know they’re in here, I bet. When it swallowed the world, I doubt it realized there were this many creatures on it. You read the paper the other day? Some scientist near The Spleen discovered the remains of three or four other planets, near the outer anus. There were all of these half-digested alien corpses, crumbled buildings, all kinds of things. The Monster has been at this a while, and I doubt it even realizes the magnitude of what it destroys.”

    I took a deep breath, just kind of staring off into space, and said, “It just kind of eats, you know?”

    “Like you, no?” Ahmed said, chuckling under his breath as he tucked the rats into the safe beneath the register.

    I threw the empty gyro wrapper in the trash and walked back to work.

    Near the bile’s edge, I watched a young boy drag a deer into the churning ocean. I wondered who in his family he was protecting. The tentacles had been creeping further inland, taking the elderly from their beds. The Monster is always getting hungrier. For the most part we can keep it placated with the dead, or with rats and animals, but The Monster must forever eat, forever be digesting something. They figured it out a while ago. The Monster is biologically immortal, like a hydra. It is an alien, a planet-eating demon of unimaginable size. Apparently, it just roams about in space, eating whatever it comes across, including planets, and the tentacle-bacteria in its stomach pick the planet clean of life forms, then pushes the detritus out The Colon.

    One hundred years ago, it swallowed the Earth. Terra. Home. It took some time, but we eventually figured out a way to keep The Monster fed without having tentacles randomly pluck us from our beds. Animals, old people, and most of all the dead became its food. Money soon became useless; as did anything you couldn’t toss to the tentacles should they come for you in the night. They seemed to know the difference between organic and non-organic matter. Scientists thought it might have something to do with sensors in their suckers, but know one really knows for sure. So, we began trading in little lives for our own. That is why I fought so hard to get a job in The Colon. All of the bio-runoff, all of the human waste and leftover body parts meant one thing: rats. You can get almost anything with a bag of rats.

    I clocked in and got to work. My desk faced a wide picture window overlooking the river of digested elements. There were no tentacles in The Colon, another perk of the job. There was a knock at the door and a moment later, Jeb, my coworker, walked in. He was chewing furiously on his bottom lip, rubbing his hands together.

    “I did it,” he said. “It’s done.”

    “Are you sure?”

    “Yes,” he nodded furiously. “Completely sure, I managed to secure two pressurized suits from a half-digested NASA vessel that came through the other day. I guess that means Cape Canaveral is gone, along with most of the east coast.”

    “I guess so,” I said.

    “Anyway, that is it, finished. The bulk of the boat has been finished for a while, and I managed to scrounge up a few more oxygen tanks. With the suits, we should be set.”

    “When do you we leave?” I asked.

    “Whenever,” Jeb said. “Tomorrow morning, tonight, it doesn’t matter.”

    “How about now?”

    Jeb looked at me. I could see the terror in his eyes, and the thin layer of excitement just beneath.

    “Are you serious?”

    “Dead serious,” I nodded.

    “Right,” Jeb said quickly. “But what do we give in our place? The ship weighs about two-thousand pounds, and that is all accounted for, but with the two of us inside, that’s what, three hundred pounds of unaccounted weight? The workers in The Outer Anus will notice. We’ll have to trade something, make a swap.”

    “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “Give me a little time. We’ll meet at the docks in two hours.”

    Ahmed was still at the gyro stall when I reached it. He was just closing up, humming some ancient song to himself. I tapped him on the back, and he spun around, surprised. He smiled when he saw me.

    “My friend!” he said happily. “Back for more gyros? You have that many rats? Well, I am sorry, but I am all closed up for the day.”

    “I’m not hungry,” I said. “I need your help. The Colon Police discovered my rats. They want to have me arrested for hoarding.”

    “That is terrible!” Ahmed said. “But what could you want from me? How can I help you?”

    “They haven’t found all the rats. I think if I could get rid of the rest, they might lessen the charges. I was hoping you could take them?”

    Ahmed’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yes!” he said. “Yes, of course! Where are they?”

    “Follow me,” I told him, heading for the abandoned shoreline.

    Two hours later, I made it to the docks. Jeb stood under a burnt out lamp post, twisting his hat in his hands. I could see the makeshift boat bobbing up and down in the water.

    “Did you do it?” he asked when he saw me. “Did you find a way to account for our weight?”

    “Most of it,” I said, climbing into the boat and fighting my way into the pressure suit.

    “It has to be precise,” Jeb said, climbing into the seat beside me and strapping himself in.

    “I have a plan,” I told him.

    The boat moved, silent and slow, down the digested river, occasionally bumping into a rotten corpse, or scraping along the tripe-like bile floor.

    “How did you fix the weight problem?” Jeb asked when we were approaching The Interior Anal Exit.

    “I can’t tell you,” I said. “Not yet. Here, we are almost there. I think we are dragging something behind us. A corpse, most likely. Get out there and dislodge it, we can’t have anything weighing us down. I only freed up enough for the two of us.”

    “Okay,” Jeb said, climbing out the manhole door.

    I quickly slammed it shut behind him and activated the lock. I could hear him pounding on it as I accelerated the boat. I could hear him screaming for me to let him in, but I couldn’t. Ahmed had been about my size, and would cover my own weight. If Jeb had really wanted to escape, he would have found some way to trade his weight, to swap, to make room for himself. I was thankful of his work on the boat, but now it was too late.

    I rounded a sharp curve and heard him roll over the boat into the bile just as I pushed through The Asshole and traded in my old life for a new, lonely life among the stars.


-----

Dustin Reade lives in a trailer behind a BBQ restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington. His book Grambo was published as part of the 2013-14 New Bizarro Author Series. He is also the head editor of the online bizarro fiction magazine, The Mustache Factor. He once won one of those “Eat-A-Giant-Steak-And-Win-A-T-Shirt” things in Hollywood, California.




   

Kitten Invades Alaska!

Kitten was sighted in a Barnes & Noble in Fairbanks Alaska!  Special thanks to Sarah Shaw.

It won't be long until Kitten finds it way into coffee houses in Iowa (I mean, if they've got coffee there, I have no idea), preschools in Utah, churches in Missouri, houses of ill-repute in Wisconsin.  It's all the r(amp)age. 

Have we forgotten what R.A. Harris had to say about G. Arthur Brown's Kitten so soon?

"One part a nightmarish family saga, and one part a fantastic, surreal voyage of discovery for a kitten. It's a seriously fun mix of grotesque humour and sombre existential horror."

That it is, R.A. That it is. 

His Blind Friend Daniel by G. Arthur Brown

My blind friend Daniel claws his way in the corners, as if in search of food, but he is just vetting the tile work.  I shouldn’t leave it to him; he’s blind and vetting is what I’m paid to do.  But I’ve got a jelly donut.  I didn’t tell Daniel that I had anything good to eat and he’s not exactly a blood hound.  I take a big bite and my lips smack.

Daniel’s head shoots up.  “What was that?  Are you eating?”

“No, Daniel.  I’m blowing kisses to the ghosts,” I say as I dust the confectioner’s sugar from my chin, as if he might see it, finding me out.  “Place is full of them.”

“I can feel them, too.”  He slides his greasy, gray finger tips along the grout.   An ecstatic expression squirms on his face, his hard-boiled egg eyes locked firmly on me.  “I know I am inside a ghost when I feel suddenly cooled, like an AC unit just kicked on. But it is also like you’ve been immersed in gelatin of some type.  You get the fear, like you’re going to drown.  But it happens so fast that you don’t have time to panic.  Sometimes, if you are lucky, they leave you a little bit wet.” 

“I know I am inside a ghost,” I kid him, “when I am at the nursing home.”

He nods gravely, pensively.  “Their tiles need much work.”  He brings a filthy pinky to his nose and sniffs. “A dead person ate fenugreek here.”  He utters this in such a way that I have no doubt he is correct.

It is then that I notice that the jelly is not jelly at all. It is a green fenugreek custard.  I can taste it now. It was never even sweet.  “Do old people get pudding?” I ask.

“Yes, of course they do. You know that.” He runs his fingers along the edges of the sheets, tucking me in.  It’s comforting to hear his voice.  It is so dark and cold here.

“Tell me a story.”

“You know all the stories. You invented the stories.”

“Tell me one that I have forgotten.”

He clucks his tongue.  “Do you remember the story about your blind friend Daniel?”

I shake my head.

He clears his throat. I imagine what his face must look like while he composes himself. He begins, “Your blind friend Daniel claws his way in the corners, as if in search of food, but he is just vetting the tile work.”

Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown
Artwork Remedios Varo

R.A. Harris Interviews G. Arthur Brown

Okay, this happened a while back. (Another attempt to sell my New Bizarro Author Series book Kitten.) But in case you missed it, R.A. Harris interviewed me, and here's a sample of his witty question techniques (patents pending):

LeakyLibido: ....Tell me, young squire – if you were at the point of a sword and the hand that held the other end was attached to an arm that was attached to a torso that was attached to a head, via a neck, and on that head there was a mouth and that mouth did move and sounds were elicited in that movement that formed the words, “sum up your life philosophy in five words”, what, pray, would you say?
Simulacrum: Mind your own business, man.
LeakyLibido: Oh, ok. Well… erm… how do you take your coffee?
Simulacrum: I prefer tea. But if I must have coffee, sweet and light.


Check out the full interview at Leaky Libido!

And Kitten is also available for Kindle!

THE TRUTH OR DARE CHAMPION by Justin Grimbol

Earl woke up to someone pounding on his door.

“Who is it?” he yelled.

The door opened. Light seeped into his room. Pussy Bear stuck her massive bear head into his room. She was drunk.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’m bored,” she said.

“It’s five in the morning. You’re supposed to be bored. You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“I don’t want to sleep. Come on, let’s hang out?”

“And do what?”

“We could play Truth or Dare.”

Pussy Bear loved to play Truth or Dare. She was a pro at truthing and daring. Once she dared a girl named Lila to stick a super powered flash light up her butt. It made both the girls ass cheeks glow. It was the best time ever. Earl was a nerd. He didn’t get to see cool stuff like that very often.

Truth or Dare could also get very awkward though. Pussy Bear loved to dare Earl to sit in her lap and touch her. She loved to make him uncomfortable.
 
Once, she dared Lila to kiss him. Lila refused. “He smells,” she said.

Earl looked like he was about to cry. This made Pussy Bear furious.

She started verbally abusing the girl. She called her a skank. She told her she was ugly. “You look like fucking Mrs. Potato Head!” Pussy Bear told her. Lila eventually ran out of the house crying.

It had been months since the incident with the Lila. Still, he was apprehensive about playing Truth or Dare. What if she got him all horny and they ended up boinking? He didn’t want to lose his virginity to a drunk Bear.

“Who else is awake?” Earl asked.

“Just me.”

“You can’t play Truth or Dare with only two people.”

“Sure you can.”

“It would be boring.”

Earl sighed. Pussy Bear was his first roommate. He thought it would easier to live with someone who was older. It wasn’t. He had been living with this big titted bear for almost a year and he hadn’t gotten used to it. She was belligerent and sex crazed and she never did the dishes. He heard that before she got the surgery she was just a normal woman and that she was pretty.  People told him that the surgery had changed her, that it didn’t just make her look like a bear, that it also made her act like one.

“Listen Pussy Bear, I’m eighteen now. I’m way too old to be playing Truth or Dare.”

“Age doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m old as hell and I still love playing Truth or Dare. It’s the best.”

“I just don’t want to play, OK? I got to get some sleep. I got to go to work tomorrow.”

“OK. I understand.”

Pussy Bear closed the door. Earl lay in bed and listened to her stomp around their apartment. He could hear her rifling through the refrigerator. He could hear her dropping food onto the floor and then drunkenly cleaning it up. Pussy Bear got hungry at night. Especially when she was feeling rejected.

At one point he heard Pussy Bear talking to herself. She was playing Truth or Dare. Alone.  “Truth or Dare?” she asked herself. “Truth,” She said. “Don’t chose truth. Only wimps chose truth. Truth is boring.” She said. “Fine I’ll chose dare. OK. I dare you to stay up all night, eat all the food in the refrigerator and then to take a nice long piss as you watch the sun rise.”

Earl laughed when he heard her say this. She was so determined. She was like the Rocky Balboa of Truth or Dare. Part of him wanted to join her. An even bigger part didn’t want to get molested by a giant bear.

He couldn’t sleep. His thoughts were racing. He kept thinking about Pussy Bear. All that fur. Those giant breasts. Her musky odor. Then he thought about Lila. He thought about her ass and how it shined like Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.

Hours passed. The sun rose. Birds began chirping.

Earl heard Pussy Bear walked outside. He heard her pissing. She pissed for what seemed like a small eternity. Earl loved the way it sounded. It was the sound of triumph. She had succeeded. She had played Truth or Dare by herself. And she had won.

-------

Justin Grimbol went to some college for a million years and he has a beard, but you should totally buy his books:  Drinking Until Morning and  The Crud Masters.


Copyright Justin Grimbol
Artwort Giorgio de Chirico

James Brown Saves Christmas by Andrew Wayne Adams

“Get up!”

“Get on up?”

“Get up!” shouts James Brown again, “it’s Christmas!”

“Holy shit!” I say, and jump out of bed, throwing off the covers and rising straight up like Nosferatu. “Christmas!”

We run downstairs, James Brown in the lead. His face is all sweaty. He screams, “Stay on the scene!”

And by “the scene,” he means: Christmas morning!

We each have one present under the tree. From each other. He opens his first, ripping away the paper to reveal: me!

“So good,” he shouts, “so good; I got you!”

I open mine next. It’s: James Brown! He doesn’t wait for me to finish unwrapping him before he gets up and dances, flinging off the last bit of paper himself as he does the Mashed Potato.

Dad comes in—we haven’t seen him in years—and unwraps his present (that he got for himself) to reveal: a snakeskin purse!

James Brown screams, “Papa’s got a brand new bag!”

Then Dad leaves again for several more years.

We both fall silent, looking inward. I sink to the floor. The Christmas tree wilts. From the fireplace comes, not Santa Claus, but carbon monoxide.

Then James Brown does the Twist, and he looks at me and screams, “Get up!”

“Get on up?”

“Get up!” he shouts, and I do, and we both run to the kitchen and fling open the cupboards and fridge and grab flour and sugar and eggs and butter and PCP and start to make Christmas cookies!

Once the dough is ready, James Brown rolls it flat by dancing on it. Sweat drips from his face and mixes with the dough.

I feel good.

We cut shapes from the dough. We bake the shapes. We decorate the baked shapes and put them on a plate. We make hundreds of cookies of every kind. I feel nice.

James Brown picks up a gingerbread man and says, “This is a man’s world!” Then he eats the gingerbread man.

We eat hundreds of cookies.

The overload of sugar and PCP turns James Brown into a monster. A vampire, to be specific. He grows fangs and dons a cape.

He attacks me. I grab a cookie shaped like a crucifix and try to ward him off. He hisses. I back him into a corner. He does the splits and wraps himself in his cape. I stand over him, holding him in place with the cookie.

A saxophonist sneaks up behind me and honks his instrument in my ear. It startles me, and while I’m distracted, James Brown bites me on the arm.

The saxophonist bows to James Brown, calls him “Master,” then turns into fog and disappears into the exhaust fan over the stove.

I look at the bite on my arm. I look at James Brown.

James Brown screams, “I got you!”

Indeed; and soon I will be like him: undead!

I cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I drop to my knees. James Brown drapes a cape over me.

I die.

James Brown puts me in the oven and rolls a large rock in front of it. I bake at room temperature for three days/months. Then:

“Get up...”

“Get on up?”

“Get up...” James Brown croons into my mind through vampiric telepathy; “it’s Easter!”

“Holy shit!” I say, and burst out of the oven, rising from my tomb like Nosferatu. “Easter!”

We run outside and hunt for eggs and drink the blood of humans. The humans call me “Master.” They are my flock. I feel good.

I knew that I would.

-------

Andrew Wayne Adams is a total jerk from somewhere in the Midwest or something.  He wrote a book called Janitor of Planet Anilingus.  He stole G. Arthur Brown's Kitten and he won't give it back. He now lives in Portland where he is happy and successful (and licking butts).

Copyright Andrew Wayne Adams
Artwork by Leonora Carrington

The Story of Geordio's Rooster Flock by G. Arthur Brown

Geordio had a whole flock of roosters. This is not something you find all the time. You can find whole flocks of hens.  Mostly in the trees, which is where they sleep. Easier to find when they are sleeping. Craftier than you might think in the day time.  Seems crazy. Foxes and raccoons are out at night. 

“Fuck our eggs!”  squawked one rooster!
“We don’t even have any fucking eggs!” squawked two roosters!

Geordio, as I said, had a whole flock of roosters.  This was because he was a homophile.  He couldn’t relate to women, even chicken women.  He even got rid of a poinsettia that he thought might be a girl.

I totally told him it wasn’t a girl.  He still gave it to a homeless man, who was very happy about it, until he realized it wasn’t cannabis sativa. 

But the point is, you see a group of chickens, you assume that most are hens.  This was not the case when you came around Geordio’s place.  First of all, he just had them inside, like dogs or cats.  There were nearly twenty of them.  And the shit was caked into his carpet, which wasn’t good to begin with, so that I wouldn’t wear my nice shoes in his house for fear of fucking them up. 

I was at his place one night. 
“Fuck our eggs!” a rooster squawked.

And yeah, roosters can’t lay eggs, but they were laying something that was sort of like golf balls.  If you boiled them down, and then crushed up the residue and snorted it, it got you super fucking high.  We even gave some to that disappointed homeless guy.  He could fly after that.  I’m not sure if he could fly before that, but he did have large wings.  

Copyright 2013 G. Arthur Brown
Artwork Remedios Varo

Ourselves by Caris O'Malley

Setting fire to the forest was such a good idea. It was all of those campers. So happy, so content. Roasting their fucking marshmallows over open fucking flames.

Open fucking flames.

The flames were what did me in, I think. Their light, their beauty. The doctors, the police insisted that I ignore the call. But what would the play be like if Romeo spurned Juliet and fucked Tybalt instead? Because that’s what they wanted me to do with this job building things and clearing out footpaths for lazy hikers so that their cigarette butts wouldn’t set the brush aflame. They wanted me to come out here every day and fuck Tybalt. Fuck him right in the face as Juliet watched, horrified.

My adultery only lasted a short while. They processed me, dressed me in this silly uniform and sent me out into the wilderness to face the bears and the trees and the people- oh, the awful fucking people- without so much as a match to keep me warm, nothing at all to protect me from the elements and the animals and my inescapable fear of being alone.

It’s ironic, I think, that my job provided me with the inspiration necessary to land me in my current predicament. I’d never made love to my muse in a forest before. It had always been behind closed doors and in secluded alleyways that we met for our trysts. She’d dance, slow and sensual, until she peaked, spreading her joy all around, lighting the world with her brilliance. Once you’ve had Juliet, no silly boy will do.

My day had been spent with shovel in hand, clearing away the fallen leaves near a popular camping space. I’d say which one, but that might amount to a confession if these words are ever discovered. As I see it, that much isn’t likely, but stranger things, I’ve been told, have happened.

Getting the materials was surprisingly easy. I’d hung on the periphery of a couple’s vacation spot and listened attentively as they attempted to set up their tent. The two of them were having some trouble agreeing on the best way to construct their shelter, which resulted, as most arguments do, in the gentleman storming off leaving his lady to stamp her frustration in solitude.

He was my choice. Making my way through the underbrush, I spotted him not far from his camp, swearing and furiously lighting a cigarette. I was going to ask him for matches or, as the authority around the park, I could confiscate them in the name of security. But, as it was, my authority was unnecessary. 

“Hey, man,” I said. “Sorry to be lame right now, but can I bum a cigarette off you?” I wiped my brow, doing my best to look stressed and tired, attempting to turn my exhilaration into anxiety. “I forgot mine at home this morning.”

He grumbled, but fished one out from his pocket. I took I from him and placed it between my lips. He held up his lighter- oh, his lighter- I could have fucked his hand right then and there- and lit my cigarette. I closed my eyes and pulled my lady’s warm perfume into my lungs. She felt so good. 

“Thank you,” I said with sincere gratitude. He grumbled something and wandered off back toward his camp. It was clear to me that the flame, in her brief appearance, had relieved him of his tension. It happens like that early on. I felt a pang of jealousy, but dismissed it just as quickly. No man owns my mistress. She gives what she gives and we should be thankful.

With a spring in my step and a song in my heart, I pirouetted into the forest, relishing the sunshine, the open air, and the wrongness that tinged the whole situation. The police wouldn’t like this. Lady Capulet wouldn’t like this. But I had my love and my love had me and everyone else could go get fucked.

I couldn’t hold it if for long. As soon as I saw a soft, inviting bed of leaves, I dove in. Piling the leaves on my lap, I built a nest for my lovely. As I set the cigarette in the place I had prepared, I could tell my lady was pleased with me. She flickered to life and danced, consuming all I had provided for her within seconds. Feeling the bite of her love on my thighs, I leapt out of the way. My lady didn’t always know her own strength.

She took to our bed like a ravenous animal, tossing and turning, spitting and leaping. Soon enough there was nothing more. But she needed more. I frolicked and jumped about the forest, kicking more and more into her glow. She grew bigger and fiercer and needier. She wanted to play. I constructed a line of leaves, like gunpowder leading to a dame in a western movie. Mine wouldn’t lead to her destruction, though. No. Not my lady. Nothing could destroy her. She was as old as time itself.

My trail lead to a work shed. It was an insignificant thing in her view, but, then again, so was I. And she still loved me.  After piling the dead limbs of trees against the walls like a lean-to, I hid inside and watched from the windows. She was coming. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent, so was I. My hands had taken on a life of their own, pawing against me, urging me to find relief before my lady was near. 

I only had to last a few more seconds, a couple of minutes at most. But my hands were sabotaging me. Such large and beautiful flames would soon be on us and they wanted to paw me into uselessness. I forced them away from my crotch and made them help me remove my jacket. I had to render them useless or they would ruin everything. I tied the sleeves of the jacket together and fastened all but the top button. I felt pleased as I pulled the jacket over my head like a t-shirt and forced my arms into the sleeves. They were snug and secure and they couldn’t have reached my crotch if they’d wanted to. 

And then, as quickly as she had ignited that first cigarette, she was on me. Smoke poured into the shed, seeping in through the spaces between the planks. I leaned backward against the wall, nestled among the extra rakes and shovels and felt my lady enter the structure. Her beauty blinded me, scorching my eyelashes. I turned my head away, playing coy and trying to stop the burning. The feeling was great, but I had to see her to reach my own crescendo. 

I felt her rough touch on my shoulder. “Hey!” I cried out. She was usually more careful than this. She didn’t usually make contact with my body. It simply wasn’t necessary. She touched me again and her hand stayed, making my jacket smolder. I reached up to pat out the flame, only to find that, in my homemade restraints, I couldn’t. “Ow!”

“Ow” was our safe word. In the past, whenever she heard it, I was allowed to leave, to run off into the night before anyone caught us. But she wasn’t playing by the rules. Her love was spreading all over my back and my hands could do nothing but struggle against the knot that only grew tighter with each effort. 

I dropped to the ground and rolled like they’d told us to do in school. My lady saw what I was doing and got excited. She ignited the leaves on the ground of the shed (which I hadn’t yet seen) and turned the entire building into her furnace. Her uterus.

When I realized, finally, where I was and why she wouldn’t allow me to depart, I almost cried with joy. She was allowing me into the inner sanctum. She was prepared to give all of herself to me. I laid still, making sure that I felt every touch, every sensation. Her bites hurt, but that was just a part of the game. She loved me and I would take anything she was willing to give. 

I stared at the ceiling, lost in her brilliant orange stare as she took me. Her Romeo. I could hear the sirens coming. Her family, they would never understand. She’d die to.

The hoses were turned on us. I listened as her life was extinguished, then let go of my own. Star-cross’d lovers in Yosemite. Lost to the world and dead to everyone but ourselves.

-----

My name is Caris O’Malley. I am a writer, a horror film aficionado, a librarian, a dad, and kind of an asshole. I ride a fixed-gear bicycle with but one pedal and, occasionally, wear a hat. You can find my book, The Egg Said Nothing, on Amazon.com.

Copyright Caris O'Malley

WHERE I COME FROM/WHERE I'M GOING TO by J.W. Wargo

1.

The people were always given two choices. One was faith in instruments, the other faith in feeling.

As long as I can remember the two sides were constantly bickering with each other. Upon completion of my larval stage I was brought before the city council and told to choose a side. I had more often stuck my faith in instruments growing up and I chose that side.

I performed my fundamental duties to man and machine well. I always downloaded the latest files and tried to upgrade my hardware at least once a year to keep from becoming obsolete in the system. The system made sense and it filled me with great purpose knowing that the external could be measured.

Eventually, the ones with faith in instruments were able to create a device that left the confines of this universe. The first and only transmission received from the device on the other side left our leaders puzzled and secretly conflicted about their faith in general. They downplay the whole thing whenever necessary, which isn't often. Where I come from, people don't like to read the writing on the wall.

The device's  message was, "There is nothing but feeling outside the universe. I feel."

2.

The people were always given two choices. One was faith in feeling, the other faith in instruments.

As long as I can remember the two sides were constantly bickering with each other. Upon completion of my larval stage I was brought before the city council and told to choose a side. I had more often stuck my faith in feeling growing up and I chose that side.

I honored my sacred duties to man and spirit well. I always meditated upon the latest philosophies and tried to donate my income at least once a year to keep from losing my soul. The soul made sense and it filled me with great peace knowing that the internal held all the answers.

Eventually, the ones with faith in feeling were able to make contact with the god that was responsible for the creation of this universe. The first and only words received from the god on the other side left our leaders puzzled and secretly conflicted about their faith in general. They downplay the whole thing whenever necessary, which isn't often. Where I'm going to, people don't need to read the writing on the wall.

The god's words were "I am nothing but the instrument through which you create your reality."


---------

J.W. Wargo, Nomadic Bizarro Storyteller, is neither here nor there, but a little bit of everywhere. You can find him on your city's sidewalks busking for his next meal, or at jwwargo.blogspot.com. His first book, AVOIDING MORTIMER, is now available on Amazon.

Copyright 2013 J.W. Wargo

Facebook Eternal by Justin Grimbol

 Ned logged on to facebook to stalk his dead wife. He clicked on her profile pics and found a shot of her sitting on Benjamin Franklin’s lap. She was drunk and wearing the tiniest skirt he had ever seen. He looked at more pics. Heaven looked rowdy. He had hoped that Heaven would be a like one long yoga class. Instead it seemed like a massive keg party.

There was one pic where she was doing a keg stand, with Chris Farley holding her upside down. Her shirt hung over her face. Her big titties dangled. There was another pic of the two kissing. Chris Farley was his favorite actor. Now whenever he watched one of his movies he would think of him boinking his dead, drunk wife. He was devastated. 

That’s it, he decided. I can’t take it anymore.

He deleted his dead wife from his friends list.

For a moment he felt better. A weight had been lifted. Then he decided maybe a little too much weight had been lifted. He wanted it back.

 He tried to re-friend her. But it wasn’t that simple. She had to accept the friend request.

He waited and hoped for her to accept the request.  “Come on, come on!” he mumbled to himself. An hour passed. She hadn’t accepted his request.

     It was late, but he was too anxious to sleep. “WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?” he yelled at his computer screen. “JUST ACCEPT MY FRIEND REQUEST! HOW CAN YOU BE SO CRUEL? YOU BITCH!”

He folded down his lap top and took a deep breath. “OK Ned, get a hold of yourself,” he said.

He waddled to the kitchen and made himself a massive ice-cream Sunday and turned on his favorite Rocky movie, the one where he fights off the zombie apocalypse. The movie calmed him down a little. He used to love comedies, but his wife had been hooking up with all his favorite dead comedians and now he found he couldn’t watch anything but horror movies.

The volume was too loud. It woke his daughter. She stumbled to the living room and snuggled up with him on the couch.

“Honey, it’s four in the morning,” Ned said. “It’s way passed your bed time.”

“I just want to watch a little bit of the movie,” she said.

“OK, just a little bit.”

She sat next to him and watched the movie.

 When she fell back to sleep he carried her into her bed and tucked her in.

He loved her hair. It was red and long like her mothers.

Poo Party by Justin Grimbol

     “Why can’t I stop shitting?” he yelled.

Heavy tears rolled down his cheeks. He had been in the bathroom, sitting on this heartless toilet, for over an hour. He had flushed six times. The smell was monstrous. He couldn’t stop.

“Why did this happen now?”

His roommates were throwing a party and it was getting wild. He could hear them dancing and laughing. Tits were being pulled out, he was sure of it. People were getting naked, he could tell by the way they were cheering.

“Oh God have mercy on me!” he called out to the heavens.

God did not respond.

He kept pooping. It was as if his ass was the sky and the toilet was the ocean and this was the perfect storm.

 Soon the hooting and hollering turned into moaning. He could hear flesh smacking against flesh. He could hear sucking sounds. His cock got hard. As he cried and squeezed out long turds, he jerked his dong. He was desperate to be included in the party in some way.

The sex sounds became more intense. Eventually the moaning turned into screams. He could hear flesh tearing and bones breaking. He was just about to come when he saw a puddle of blood seep under the door. His boner became limp. His eyes widened.

Finally, the shitting had stopped. But he no longer wanted to leave the bathroom. He no longer wanted to join the party. He wanted to hide.

“Help!” he heard someone knocking on the door. “She’s killing everyone!”

He ran to the shower and shut the curtains.

He sat there, trembling.

Even after the screaming stopped and things became quiet and the sun had risen, he refused the leave the bathroom.

“Dear God, help me,” he begged as he lay in the tub, naked, in the fetal position.

The door shook and then got ripped off the hinges. A woman walked into bathroom. She was a seven foot tall woman with a firm, curvy body that was covered in blood. Tusks jutted out of her mouth. Her eyes were piss-stain yellow.

She didn’t notice him.  She sat on the toilet bowl and started to shit so loudly the entire house shook.

The smell was potent. It filled the boy in the tub. He became dizzy. His body shook. Horns sprouted from his head. His limbs stretched out and his muscles bulged. He screamed in pain as his teeth grew into long, cock-shaped daggers.

When he was done transforming he looked up and saw the lady-monster was standing over him. Her eyes were wide. She mounted him. The sun was up but the night wasn’t over yet. This girl was ready to party. 

------

Justin Grimbol went to Green Mountain College for thirty years. He majored in Partying and Dry Humping. He is the author of DRINKING UNTIL MORNING and THE CRUD MASTERS. 
Copyright 2013 Justin Grimbol