Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category
Help?
September 1st, 2009 | 
Author: by Scott Wilson
Doctor Graham sat behind his antique rosewood desk playing thoughtfully with his thick grey moustache. The brass plaque on the door of his surgery stated he was a psychiatrist, although he stopped helping his patients ten years ago.
“Let’s go over the records, shall we?” the tall, slender gentleman sitting across the desk from Graham said.
Graham opened a thick accounting ledger and slid his finger down the page until he reached the most current entry.
“I have the total at seventy-five now,” he said.
The gentleman produced a small pocket diary from his coat pocket and licked his finger, then flicked through it casually.
“I’m sorry to say that the tally is actually still at seventy.”
“What are you talking about?”
Posted in 
Medusa’s Lament
by Aubrie Dionne
Statues stood all around her, stone faces frozen in horror and defeat with glaring eyes of malachite and stricken lips of crusted lime. Her fingertips traced the granite brows furrowed in constant fear and her fingernails chipped mica from hardened locks of hair.
She placed them lovingly in rows, one by one, scraping the earth by dragging the heavy bodies close. The ring of relics was her personal audience, her gallery of those that came to slay her, gawk at her ugliness, or claim her powers for their own pursuits.
Medusa sighed. The tangle of serpents sprouting from her head writhed, hissed, and dribbled venom down her neck. How could one surrounded by people be so lonely, so destitute? She was cursed.
She languished in her silent city, playing dolls with stone and sand. It was only when the wind blew from the east in warning that she hid in the depths of her cave, covered by shadows, cringing from the light. Two days ago her last victim came, following her into the ruined metropolis like a tortured soul into oblivion.
The warrior descended swiftly from the mountain, blocking the entrance to her dark cave. He was smarter than the others, for he tied a blindfold around his eyes, relying on his other senses to claim his prize.
The Teething Ring
by Beth Cato
Stars still existed.
After six months in the gutted, unceasing ash and smoke of the city, Jessie had forgotten how beautiful and colorful the world could be, even at night.
“Maybe I was afraid that everything was destroyed,” she told Aaron, “That we’d escape the city and the forests would be scorched, too. That everything would be gone, even the stars. Instead, it’s even more beautiful than I remember.”
In reply, the baby burbled and waved his arms. He lay on a blanket beside her, one fist clutching a rubbery teething ring in the shape of a contorted, circular giraffe. It had been one of many items Jessie had selected from the abandoned home they had taken shelter in for two weeks. Jessie felt stronger, more assured of their trek south. They had food in strict rations. They had medicine. Aaron was dressed in four full layers of pink feetsy-jammies and wore real cloth diapers, something that still seemed like an indulgence even though the diapers were quickly stained.
The Return of Chaos
by Salena Casha
A Dark Birth
Unlike my children, I remember my birth. I sprang from Chaos, the deepest void in space, followed shortly by my brothers and sisters. Apollo, who my inhabitants would later call the sun, punched holes through the darkness of our father, welcoming in a new era in the previously blank, lonely eternity.
The obscurity of the heavens above reminded me that Chaos could eventually return and consume everything, bringing the universe back into its beginnings of blackness. Yet while Apollo shone down upon me, I, Gaia, Mother Earth, was permitted to live. For a time, I thought Chaos had settled down to an eternal slumber. It was only later though that I realized Chaos existed in other forms, in other ways.
Penance
by J.A. Saare
He tugged at the throat of the thin ketchup stained white cotton t-shirt with anxious jerks of his short stubby fingers, unnerved by attention he perceived but couldn’t visualize. I lagged several paces behind, smiling to myself as he peered left, then right.
He couldn’t see me — and wouldn’t. Not until it was time.
Working as a necromancer didn’t come easy. I saw shit that caused me to toss my cheerios on a routine basis. But the dead people I helped cross to the ever after led decent lives, meaning they deserved a turning of the proverbial cheek for a little bit of yuck factor every now and again.
The same couldn’t be said for very much alive and breathing Mark Kingston.
Cold Too Long
by Heather S. Ingmar
He peeled back the dirt and felt the cool touch of the air on his skull. Tom shuddered, bones clacking like bare tree limbs; he couldn’t stand the cold. He’d been cold too long, and that was that. Enough.
A woman screamed not far off. Tom peered with eyeless sight between the gravestones, searching for the source of the noise and saw them: a large man dragging a woman up the gravel road.
“Boy, have I got plans for you,” the man said, grinning. He showed too many teeth, like a predator. The woman scratched, bit, and tore at the parts of him she could reach.
“Over my dead body,” she growled.
“That can be arranged.”
Tom watched him haul her — tripping, stumbling, pulling her through the mud — across the worn cemetery paths. Then, he began to dig, shaking with pain as the chill air washed over his bones. He hated the dirt, hated being cold, but by God, he’d break himself in pieces before he’d come crawling back to it! Dirt skated between his thin fingers, and he worked harder, uncovering his ribs, pelvis, femurs, the white of himself a beacon in the dark earth. He was free then, and it was all he could handle to pick himself off the grass. But standing gave him strength and moving made the cold-ache a little less, a little less.
Dead Teenagers at Make-Out Point
by Joe L. Murr
There’s a night I can’t stop thinking about. I’m racing against Stanley to Make-out Point. We whip around the curves of the scenic road winding up Williams Mountain. His Thunderbird is souped up, my Rocket Eighty-eight is stock, but I know I can beat him. I goose it and overtake him. Laura screams with delight in the passenger’s seat. The window’s rolled down and her hair’s all over her face. “It’s better than any rollercoaster,” she says. “Crazy.”
The Killer’s on the radio. There’s a rubber burning a hole in my pocket. We’re so alive, just now, so alive.
Stanley’s headlights gleam briefly in the rear-view mirror. He’s falling behind. Laura puts her hand on my thigh, squeezes, says, “Oh God, Jerry.”
I think, Make-out Point, here we come. We’re almost there. Here’s the entrance to the park. Road turns to gravel.
She leans in, says, “Kiss me.”
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I do. I’d do anything for her.
New Neighbor
by Jack Thrift
I never meant to kill the man. God’s honest truth. Nicholas Dressler was his name, though I didn’t find that out until later, in a police interrogation room, hours after I’d planted the steak knife in the corner of his eye. Which was a complete accident. Worst I should have been looking at is involuntary manslaughter; instead they went after me with first degree murder. The prosecuting attorney told the jury they had evidence of intent to kill, which precludes manslaughter, and anyway, he asked them, what was I doing approaching the guy with a knife in my hand if not to kill him? It looked bad. Plus — okay, cards on the table — there was the matter of what I did to his body after he was dead. “Mutilation of a corpse,” the name of the charge that got tacked on to the murder charge, didn’t help matters, especially as the charge went uncontested by my lawyer. The jury found me guilty and recommended death, and in the sentencing the judge took no pity. So now I’m staring down the barrel of death by lethal injection. I suppose the judge and jury feel the justice in that. Ah, but there’s so much more to the story they never heard. Some crazy, freaky shit I’m about to lay out for you, stuff that might have swung things my way in court if only anybody would have believed any of it. My public defender, the louse, at first thought my story might be useful in constructing an insanity defense, but he quickly rejected the idea given the dismal success rate such a plea historically has had for a defense. No, he reasoned, let’s stick with a story people will believe.
A lot of good it did me.
The Real Snow White
by Kristen Lanoue
As far as every little kid knows, Snow White was this magical princess. She was beautiful beyond words, with lips and cheeks as red as blood and skin as white as snow. I mean, that’s the sunshine and daisies version of the story, but if you want to know the real deal, just pull up a chair and listen to me.
Snow White, yea, I met her. In fact she stole my bed the first night we met. Was I one of the dwarfs you ask? She calls us her happy little dwarf friends, but in reality we were her servants. “Hey you with the beard, get me my comb, I want some soup, mine me some diamonds today.” Living with her was this never-ending litany of orders. I would get home after a long day of work and all I would hear were complaints.
Anyways, back to the story. One day I was minding my own business with my 6 brothers, just walking through the woods back to our humble abode, and no we did not “whistle while we worked”, when I came upon my house, the door open, our food eaten, our dishes dirty, and some snot nosed brat sleeping in my damn bed. To say the least we were not too thrilled. Yea she was a cute kid, but really, when you are that tired after a long day of work, it doesn’t matter how pretty the kid is, you want your own bed. Well, after taking a vote the boys decided we should let her sleep, by boys, I mean my brothers all of whom had their own beds to sleep in, no one cared that I had to sleep on the ground.
Prison Dreams
by Fred Warren
Davis hit the floor of the cell face-first, dirt and cement grit grinding into his teeth and mingling with the blood that oozed from between his lips. The guards slammed the door shut behind him with an authoritative clang, and Davis could hear their footsteps echoing along the corridor outside in a dwindling staccato counterpoint to their laughter.
The cell was dim and bare. Two thin blankets, one occupied, on the floor; a steel commode and sink in the corner; light struggling in a thin ray through a tiny rectangular window near the ceiling. It stank. Davis picked himself up and wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve.
“Heya, fresh fish. Welcome to the Plaza.” The man on the blanket was scrawny, bushy grey hair tangled about his wrinkled face. He propped himself up on an elbow, inspecting Davis with a rusty, gap-toothed smile.
“Hello yourself,” Davis replied. “You got a name?”
“Nobody has a name here.”
“I’m Davis Trent.”
“Whatever you say. Doesn’t really matter. A month from now, you won’t remember it.”
