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?”

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.

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.

flying saucer
its faulty tractor beam abducts
a garden gnome

lightning bugs flash in the dark,
but they’re red.

no.

I’m seein’ the eyes
of the demons again.

but I’ve still got wood to chop…

I hurry, but I hear their
screeching
crunching leaves as they approach.

I grab an armload and head inside
where my wife and my newborn son
sit in a rocking chair.

she says “They’re coming out sooner.”

I nod “I know”

and set the wood by the dwindling fire,
throwing a log on.
it immediately catches
and I relax.

they can’t get in here.
there’s too many crucifixes on the doors
and I have a shotgun;
a double barrel loaded with shells
blessed by the local preacher
just this morning.

he’s the only other one that knows.
he understands
and says that he’ll help in any way he can.

everyone else thinks we’re recluse.
they think we’re just
creepy mountain folk,
only showing up in town
when we need
supplies.

but they don’t know about my father,
the bankrupt farmer
and the deal he made to get this land.

they don’t know about what
he offered the devil;
every other child
starting with himself
and continuing on
with my son.

he expects me to have another after
so he can take me.

then my second son will grow up
and father a child
just to give him away.
just to have another
and die himself.
just to have this land.

it is beautiful, though.

crops grow within days of planting.

the well is always full of water.

the animals always offer clean meat.

but you only get so long to enjoy it
because there’s a quota
and you have to fulfill it.
you have to go with it.

but I don’t want to cooperate.

I don’t want to give up my son.

his first words were “Daddy…”
muttered in a peaceful voice on a rainy Sunday morning.

I don’t want his last words to be “Daddy!!!”
echoing in a horrible shriek
as he’s pulled into the darkness by the demons,
their eyes blazing
their laughter resonating.

I can hear them outside now,
scratching on the roof,
at the walls,
the front door.

but we have the crucifixes;
seventy two in all,
lining every doorway
and every other possible entrance to the
house.

the crops are tall.

the well is full.

the animals are sleeping, content.

but me, my wife, and my son
cower in fear.

we hear them scratching
just like last night
and the night before.

I am determined
to stop them
from getting my son.

just like last night
and the night before,
I will stay awake
because I know they have a
potential agent,
an outsider in the deal;
my wife.

they will try to
possess her
and use her
but she doesn’t know any of this.

my wife thinks I’m protecting them both,
but really
the shells,
the shells had blessed by the preacher,
they’re for her.

I only let her hold my son
so she doesn’t get suspicious,
but this has gone on long enough.
too long.

I know, deep inside of me
I know
that I will have to kill my wife tonight.

that’s why I had the shotgun shells blessed
this morning.
the demons scratch outside, laughing.
I stare at my wife, forcing a smile
to assure her that we’ll survive
another night of this,
but I know
she won’t.

because there’s more veins in her face than usual.
she’s swallowing more because she’s thirsty.
because hellfire is hot.
it dries you out.

she gets up from the rocking chair,
holding our son,
and tells me that she’s very tired
and she wants to go to bed
and I say

“Yes, my love. Go to bed.”

she puts our son in his room;
the doorway lined with crucifixes
and staggers into our
bedroom
and I follow,
shotgun in hand.

I stare at the lump of sheets on the bed,
watching it rise and fall with every breath,
waiting to pull the trigger.

my father kept a journal
that describes, in detail
how my mother acted
before she took him.

the woman will claim she’s tired
and go to bed.
once asleep,
the demons invade her,
corrupting her.

there’s no stopping it.

it’s bound to happen eventually.

it’s exactly how they got my uncle’s son.

he used to live a few acres away
before he killed himself.

so I watch the sheets
rising and falling on the bed,
waiting for them to slow
then turn panicked.

and that’s when I fire.

one quick blast, and everything stops.

I stare at the lump of red sheets
for what feels like an hour
before I hear crying
then I run to my son’s room,
shotgun ready,
and see that the window has been shattered
and he is gone.

I hear a faint scream.

“Daddy!!!”

I fall to my knees,
cursing God for letting
his enemy run rampant.
then, I notice that the crucifixes
I personally put over the window frame
are scattered all over the floor.

they’re getting smarter.

they got to my wife before I did.

the last time I saw her alive,
she was sitting in the rocking chair.

she looked normal.

she told me that she loved me.

then she put our son to bed
and removed the crucifixes.

how long did they have her?
she acted so normal…

the next day, I wake up alone.

I tend to the tall crops.

I get water from the full well.

I feed the healthy animals.

after I’m done, a car comes up my drive
it stops and
a woman gets out.

she’s very beautiful.

she tells me that she’s lost.
I give her directions
to help her on her way
then she tells me that
she’s been traveling for days
she tells me that
she’s very tired
and could really use
a cup of coffee.

and, over coffee and pleasant conversation,
it hits me.

this woman will be my next wife.

she will father my next son.

the son that will replace me.

when the demons come again.

I take another sip of my coffee,
listening to her talk about her brother
thinking all the while
about the other blessed shell that sits in my
shotgun,
awaiting my decision.

the crops are tall.

the well is full.

the animals are healthy.

I lean across the table and kiss her,
sealing another deal,
another tradition.

She fell, again, scraped her knee

on the sun-warmed curb

and came crying

to my side.

She had never before

seen blood.

I shushed her, unfolded

a bright blue band-aid

across the weeping gash

and cupped her cheek.

(Scars on my palm

pale like dried canals)

“Everything bleeds,” I said,

and sent her off to play.

Even us, now.

I savored the thought,

our mortal stink

and sweat

sweeter

than all of Heaven’s stardust.

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.

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.

The barbed wire fence
On a dusty dirt road
Lies broken in the middle.

A gaping rusty hole
Painted thick with crimson fire
Drip-drips from ragged wire.

A bit of bubbly flesh
Clinging to the post
Reeks of the lesser beyond.

What tried to escape
May not have succeeded;
What tried to intrude
Left a public mortal mark.

There is no sun on the road at night
No moon in the ink black sky.

But the Hound’s wet nose
To the ground, beneath
Will find you just the same.
Will find you where you lie.

Peter Diseth has published a number of poems, short stories, and essays both online and in print.  His most recent poetry credits include Sinister Tales and MindFlights magazines.  He currently lives in New Mexico with the love of his life, and if you can’t find him at his computer writing like mad, then he’s probably out on the balcony with a Spirit in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other.

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.