Contributor: Edward T. Keller

- -

The king sits on his throne, facing us, lost in thought, his chin resting on his fist.

A messenger runs to him from the left. Percy. He has two arrows stuck into his back.

PERCY: My liege, my liege!

With a start the king leaves his reverie and eyes Percy inquiringly.

KING: Speak, gallant Percy

PERCY: The mongo, the mongo...

KING: Wah? Woh?

PERCY: The mongo, the mongo...

KING: Wooh? Weeh?

PERCY: The Mongols are coming!

KING: The Mongols?!

PERCY: Ja, das mongolen shvine!

KING: What do they want?

PERCY: Er, I didn't ask them.

KING: Well go and ask them, you silly person

Percy leaves. The king returns to brooding. Percy returns. He has now seven arrows in his back.

PERCY: My liege, my liege!

KING: Mein liebe, mein liebe!

PERCY: No time for that your majesty - the Mongols want to be paid tribute.

KING: Really?

PERCY: Yes

KING: Well how much do they want?

PERCY: Er, I didn't ask them.

KING: Well go and ask them, you silly person.

Percy leaves. The king shakes his head. Percy returns, now with three spears also sticking out of his stomach and an ax in his skull.

PERCY: My liege! My liege!

KING: Yes, Percy!

PERCY: They want to be paid in... chihuahuas!

KING: Bless you my boy!

PERCY: I did not sneeze, my liege, the Mongols want to be paid in live chihuahuas.

KING: What?! /indignant/ Let me see!

King takes out a small telescope from behind his back, unfolds it and looks into the direction from which Percy keeps coming back.

KING: Wait a minute, these are no Mongols!

PERCY: What are they, sire?

KING: These are de Gaulles. An army of short Charles de Gaulles bred in the underground laboratories of Morocco!

PERCY: But they ride on ponies and wear fur hats, your highness!

KING: That’s just to confuse you, my boy.

The king takes a revolver from his pocket and fires into the direction of the de Gaulles. Once, twice.

As the shots ring out a sleepy third character appears. Unshaven, crumpled, in a dirty T-shirt, holding his aching head, whiskey bottle in hand. Max.

He looks at Percy stuck full of arrows and spears and shrugs.

The king is now without a telescope, and is simply gazing into the direction of the de Gaulle hordes with majestic insolence.

MAX: Hey, what's the rack... hack...hack...blaaaaaaah /vomits/

KING: /looks with contempt at Max/ I say, Max, old boy, are you ...blaaaaaah /vomits/

King and Max look at Percy with expectation. Percy looks back at them uncomprehending.

MAX: Look, you...blaaaaaaah /vomits/

KING: You can't just...blaaaaaaah /vomits/

Percy realizes something.

PERCY: My bleaaaaaaaah /vomits/

MAX: Atta blaaaaaaaa /vomits/

KING: Sacre bleaaaaaah /vomits/

A preacher appears running from the direction from which Max came.

PREACHER: Stop, stop! You have been possessed!

All three possessed look at each other and shrug their shoulders.

Eight men dressed in work overalls, with masks of Charles de Gaulle, appear on the stage. Moving briskly, working in pairs, they pick up all four people and start carrying them away.

A foreman with a general's hat and a notepad in his hand walks over to overlook the procedure.

FOREMAN: You have been re-possessed.

****

ACT TWO

An old lady is sitting on an easy chair, knitting.

A man walks over to her, holding a megaphone to his mouth. He speaks only through the megaphone.

MAN: Mama!

MAMA: Yes?

MAN: Mama!

MAMA: Yes?

MAN: Mama!

MAMA: Yes?

Pause

MAN: Papa?

MAMA: No!

MAN: Papa?

MAMA: No!

MAN: Mama?

MAMA: Yes?

MAN: Papa?

MAMA: No!

Man ponders

MAMA: Stop speaking to me through this thing!

MAN: I can't. It's stuck to my lips.

MAMA: Come here, let me take a look.

MAN: I can't, I'm stuck to the floor.

Mama eyes him with suspicion, then shouts into the other direction.

MAMA: Help, help, I'm being attacked by a crazy person.

MAN: No, mama, I'm not crazy.

MAMA: Help, he is going to saw my head off!

Mama whips out a hand held saw from behind her back and start sawing off her head. After a few seconds she stops with a dying gurgle.

Enter policeman. He comes from the direction into which mama shoute; cautiously, a gun in hand.

COP: You!

MAN: Yes?

COP: You!

MAN: Yes?

COP: Me!

MAN: No!

COP: You?

MAN: Yes?

COP: Me?

MAN: No!

COP: You! You killed her!

MAN: No!

COP: You... killed her!

MAN: No!

COP: You killed... her!

MAN: Perhaps.

Cop looks satisfied, nods head in affirmation.

MAN: Please stop pointing that gun at me.

COP: I can't. It's stuck to my hand.

MAN: Come here, let me take a look.

COP: I can't, I'm stuck to the floor

Man takes two hand held saws from behind his back, throw one to the cop, they both begin sawing circles in the floor around their feet.

A de Gaulle in work overalls rushes to them.

WORKER: Wait, wait, don't... blaaaaaaaaah /vomits/

Another de Gaulle in work overalls rushes to them. He looks at his ill comrade. He admonishes the sawing man and cop.

WORKER 2: Now look what you've...bleaaaaaaaah /vomits/

King and Percy appear and carry off the first worker.

Man and Cop succeed in cutting through the floorboards. They fall through the floor.

WORKER 2: looks surprised/ Say, where did they ...bleaaaaaaaah /vomits/

Man and Cop appear again, with wooden circles still stuck to their feet. Hopping, they get to worker 2 and carry him away as well.

Preacher appears. Standing by the dead mom in the easy chair, he addresses the audience.

PREACHER: Compose yourselves, compose yourselves, my children.

Four de Gaulle workers appear and carry the preacher and the mom away.

Foreman with a general's hat and a notepad in his hand appears. He addresses the audience

FOREMAN: You have been decomposed.

CURTAIN

- - -

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Author: Edward T. Keller

Contributor: Eric Suhem

- -
Calista drove down to the mini-mall to have her nails done. Her car was at a stoplight when she started crying uncontrollably. The tears were flowing as she was just able to maneuver the Toyota into the mini-mall parking lot. She sat in the car, outside the pink stucco nail shop, clenching the steering wheel, and weeping. A large yellow duck, holding up a sign for a ‘$1.95 Car Wash SUPER DEAL’ in the oppressive heat, saw her and walked over from the intersection to see if she was all right. He gently tapped on the car window with his orange plastic beak, sweating and itching in the duck costume. Upon seeing the duck, Calista let out a scream and wailed, overcome by new waves of sadness, pounding the steering wheel with her fists.

During the humid day, the duck had been ‘molting’, as the glue holding its artificial feathers in place was coming loose. Bright yellow feathers slowly fell from the duck into a little pile on the sweltering pavement, as he stood next to Calista’s Toyota. Eventually he picked up his sign and walked back to the intersection.

The duck, actually a man named George, completed his day of work, and returned home to a dripping faucet and screaming child. The duck’s wife asked him about his day’s revenue, and he shrugged, the wilted yellow feathers falling onto the faded yellow carpeting in their one-room flat. He proceeded to pull off the heavy burden of his costume, and sank into his armchair, contemplating the doom of his slowly encroaching tomorrow.

That same evening, Calista was starting to feel better. She wanted to thank the man in the duck costume for his earlier concern, but when she drove past the intersection, he was gone. Calista still had a few errands to run, heading towards the grocery store and dry cleaners. As she turned a corner, she saw an emu situated on the sidewalk. Night had fallen, and a foggy mist drifted through the air. Hedgehogs scurried about before dropping into the sewers. An ostrich stared at the neon ‘Dry Cleaners’ sign. A panther looked menacingly from around the corner of a building. Some guinea pigs were gathering around a parking meter. Calista thought that perhaps the animals had escaped from the zoo, but there was no zoo in the vicinity. She managed to get home, and locked the door.

The next day, the animals seemed to have disappeared, so Calista got into her car and resumed her errands. She had been having the animal visions, and episodes of acute sadness, since her pet beagle had been recently killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Meanwhile, George returned to work in his duck costume, though over half of the feathers had fallen off. He was told by the car wash proprietor that he needed to go purchase a new duck outfit, and the time away from work would be deducted from his paycheck. As more feathers molted, George walked to the costume shop.

A block away, Calista suddenly saw a herd of giraffes rampaging down the middle of the boulevard. She swerved away from the giraffes, not seeing George crossing the street in his duck costume, thumping him heartily in the right hip with her left fender. As the giraffes rumbled by, George lay on the sidewalk, blood staining his ragged duck costume.

Calista screeched to a stop, got out of the car, and an ambulance was dispatched. Between the insurance payments, and Calista’s out-of-pocket settlement, George and his family were able to move into a new house, and he bought the car wash. The giraffes went on to trample the driver who had hit Calista’s pet beagle.


- - -
Eric Suhem lives in California and enjoys the qualities of his vegetable juicer.

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Author: Eric Suhem

Contributor: Tony Rauch

- -

I find myself floating through the sky, sitting in a strange mechanical device. It looks like an old, brass canoe – but with the front and back gradually tapering to curl up at the ends, with long canvas wings and delicate mechanical gears controlling it – fragile gears, rods, and thin levers at my side projecting from the curving floor. I don’t know how to control this thing. I’m afraid to even touch anything, so I look around in wonder as I drift through soft white clouds, floating gradually on a slow, gentle breeze.

It’s as if everything in the sky that was once old is now new again, for I see palatial mansions appearing through the clouds. Some are up close and some are scattered in the misty distance. It looks as if the mansions are built on the clouds. Large weeping willows surround their yards. The houses and trees in the distance look grainy and hazy, as if semi-transparent - as if they’re there and yet not there, as if stuck between time, caught between realities.

I pass so close to one large ornate house that I can see inside its big windows. It has rooms of decorative wood and burgundy carpets and chandeliers. In back there is an elaborate classical garden with a fountain and formal hedges circling the yard.

Then there is a brick lined sidewalk with a fancy iron fence and street lamps. I approach another tall, brick house with a steeply sweeping mansard roof and iron work running around the top. Inside the corner turret I see one of my cousins. She is looking out the window. She recognizes me and waves with a sudden, surprised smile. I watch as I slowly pass. I smile and wave. She runs from the window, as if running for the door. She runs around the side of the house and begins running along my gently floating sky boat. “Pull the lever,” she waves and slows as she knows I am drifting away. “Slow down. Come inside,” she calls, trotting in the mist.

“I don’t know how!” I call back, kind of loud, but yet kind of quietly at the same time, as if I don’t want to wake anyone or disturb anything.

“The lever!” she cries and points, “Pull the lever!”

My head darts - looking to my sides, looking to the floor. “Which one?” I shrug. There are several golden brass rods shooting up at my sides. I don’t know which to pull. I should pull one, anyone, to try and stop, but for some reason I just can’t seem to decide. This is a familiar feeling – too startled in a moment to react. So I just stay there, stuck, unable to do anything. My cousin turns to mist and becomes transparent with the brick houses and full trees and everything else in the crystalline, celestial distance, and the moment is gone as if slipping away into forever. And at that instant I remember my cousin had died a long time ago. She fell asleep one night and never woke up again.

I continue through the milky fog, strands of clouds waving by like twisting blankets and long strings. I wonder if she wanted to get into the sky boat with me. If she did, would it bring her back to the living again? But she asked me inside. What would that do, if I went inside? Maybe this is a dreamland? One of several perhaps. Maybe she fell asleep and ended up lost here, unable to get out, and thus unable to wake again for some reason.

Then I see a clearing to the side with a tall gazebo. A brass band is playing in front of it. There are some people scattered about before the band, dressed in their best clothing – women in flowing frilly dresses with parasols on their shoulders, and men in tight suits with tall top hats holding fancy canes. The band is dressed in navy blue uniforms with gold tassels and trim. They wear tall, furry hats. There are only a few band members though. There are spaces between some of the band members where I can only assume others should be standing. Their music is hard to hear through the gusts of breeze and the long distance. What I hear is an incomplete, fractured sound – something almost beautiful, poetic, and inspiring, and yet at the same time somehow completely beautiful and inspiring in its incompleteness, in its wanting to be more.

I turn to watch, but continue floating on. The band passes my view to disappear into the soupy mist of the distance. Another small boat machine appears ahead, but is passing directly in front of me, right-to-left, about two hundred feet ahead and thirty feet above. It glimmers a golden brown. Three large mouse-like beings appear to be riding in it, sitting in a row, one in front of the other. One is wearing a green derby and plaid vest.

Then I pass a field. There is long grass, then some short plants with big leaves in the distance. I notice some figures in the field. Five of them. Their backs are turned. As I pass I see they are tending to the fields, dressed in workers’ overalls, and bending and digging with long sticks. One bends and pulls something up, what looks like a head of lettuce. The figure turns in my direction and peels away some of the leaves. The figure is a hunched-back beast of some type, with curls of dirty blond hair obscuring its face and several large horns curling out of either side of its head. It is peeling away the leaves to reveal a baby in its large clawed hand.

More trees appear, getting thicker and thicker, and I veer around them, as if my mind is controlling the steering of the sky boat. The trees are thick old willows, twisting and leaning, draping me in a silky shadowland. There is a small wooden hut in the trees and a woodsman walking away, carrying a wicker basket at his side. A yellow cloth covers the basket. Then there is a little winding creek filled with large stones and a stone bridge curving to arch over it under a thatch of thick trees.

Then there is a series of small stone houses. Some have tall turrets on their corners, others have tall, curving roofs with small dormer windows. On some houses the dormers are tall and narrow, on others they are low arches. The area is overgrown with plants and trees. Then there is a small clearing, like a town square. Several people are in it and playing what looks to be a strange form of baseball – the diamond is a square with four bases instead of three. There is an ornate bandstand behind home plate with pointy spires or finials on the tall, curving roof. This viewing area is half filled with well dressed people. They are watching the game at hand. Some of the people have the heads of great lizards with scales that glisten green and purple and gold, while many of the others have regular people heads. The players in the field are wearing floppy uniforms that look too large for them. They are adorned with a strange large symbol on their left chests, as if an insignia of some sort. There are two batters standing on either side of home plate, one slightly behind the other as to not hit one another as they swing at the pitched balls. There are two pitchers. One swings and misses, while the other manages to make contact. He runs to the base on his left and another runner on a different base runs to the same base from the other side. Unfortunately, I wander on before I can report anything further.

I pass into more trees for a moment. Then the trees thin and I pass another of these machines. As I come closer to it I notice my friend, Parker, is in it. She is sitting and taking it all in, just like me. I smile in recognition as she moves closer. “Hi, Parker,” I grin, “This sure is a strange place, isn’t it? How do you suppose we got here?”

“I don’t rightly know,” she answers in wonder.

“Should we hop out and run around?” I call, “Maybe go into one of the houses?”

“Oh no, I don’t think we’d wanna do that,” she swallows hard. “We probably shouldn’t go in there, go in any of ‘em. . . I got a feeling this is the land of the dead or something,” she is working the levers to slowly steer her machine to spin around to be next to mine. “I’m afraid if I get out, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

“You’ve been here before?” I ask as I look down, through the clouds that reveal another rolling field about fifty feet below me.

“Oh, yeah. A couple of times now,” she shrugs as she slowly spins and settles to rest at my side, “I think this is the land of the dead, or half-dead anyway.”

“When you’re sick or something? Or are we both just dreaming?” I ask.

“No. Not when I’m really sick or anything. And I don’t think this is all just a vague dream. I just find myself here. Sometimes. But not often. But I’ve learned to kind of control this boat thing and steer things. . .” she slows up along side me and bobs gently on the slight breeze.

“Really? Wow. Can you show me how to?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she shrugs. “It’s like everything else, I suppose. You just have to learn how. . . It just takes practice.”

We drift ahead, into some curtains of fog. There is a strange creature that comes into view. It looks like a tall penguin – at least four feet tall, but not a penguin, but something penguin-like, or penguin-shaped. It has short white fur all over and short, flap-like arms running down its sides. It waves at us as we glide past, five or six flap-like arms rising slightly on one side. “Hey,” it says in a thin, human-like voice. “First time here?”

“How’s it goin’?” I nod casually. “Yeah, first time for me, but not for her,” I nod over to Parker as we gradually slide by.

“Well, enjoy your stay,” it says as we drift on, “It never seems to last as long as you think it should.”


- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.

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Author: Tony Rauch

Contributor: Linda M. Crate
- -

It was autumn, the trees were shedding their brightly colored leaves, and a rush of orange tiger lilies came sweeping in like a tide. They were freckled in small brown dots, like the ones spattered down her cheeks and arms. She pulled strands of dark brown hair from her equally as dark hickory eyes. These were beautiful days, days where she couldn't tell where he ended or she began. She could never explain that to anyone, none of them seemed to understand. Only he seemed to have that capacity to read her as thoroughly as a book.

She hoped she were a novel worth reading. She sat upon her favorite rock in the back yard, a large stone hidden in the bosom of thistles and trees, pondering the meaning of love and life and everything inbetween.

She had been married for three years already, but the twenty six year old still had many unanswered questions. Life wasn't an easy mystery to unravel. Sometimes she threw down lemons, and other times she lifted you into the golden splendor of sun star moments. Kiki didn't think she'd ever understand why things fell apart or even why or how they sometimes knitted themselves together more perfectly than a dream.

She had a life before she had married Nolan Crest. Yet that seemed like a dream borne years ago wrapped into another dream.

She didn't sacrifice her dreams for her husband. Nolan had been the only thing she had yearned for in life when she had been sixteen. She then soon flowered and blossomed burgeoning ideas of her own for what she wanted in life, but he had always been a part of it for as long as she could remember. She could scarce remember her childhood dreams for many of them had died in the chill of winter's frost.

Kiki had always wanted to be a fire fighter, and Nolan didn't stand in her way. She loved her job, but she also loved those precious rare moments where she didn't have to run into the flames. She had always been brave, but sometimes the fires scared her. As if one day, they would burn away all those attributes that made Nolan happy - that one day he would turn away from the crone that lived in the shell of her semblance. Yet when she had exposed these fears to him, he had laughed. He told her that no matter what happened he would always love her.

Autumn was magical for her, and it went beyond the pretty colors and the way she felt connected to the earth in that season. It was this month three years ago that Nolan had proposed to her - in the middle of a snow covered November's ground. She had been ice skating with him when he popped the question, and she had to admit she was impressed. She hadn't thought he had an original thought in his head when it came to things like that. Later she would come to find it was her sister's idea when Nolan begged her for an idea that wasn't so cliché as her favorite place to dine out or even a movie theater. Though, she hadn't known anyone that had become engaged there, he could have probably went with that idea and she'd have been just as happy. But Nolan was something of a perfectionist, and he always wanted to make her smile.

Kiki smiled warmly at that thought. Her husband was such a thoughtful man. He always had been a good person, that's why she had fallen so madly in love with him, and she knew that love would never die no matter how many winters came in, trying to blow them apart.


- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. She has a Bachelor's in English-Literature from Edinboro University. Her poetry and short stories have been published in several magazines.

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Author: Linda M. Crate

Contributor: Richard Colman

- -
‘…Now for the last time, go brush your teeth and get straight to bed.’ Said little Matthew’s babysitter, starting to get irritated now. Who would have thought it would be this hard to get rid of the little brat?

‘But it’s only eight o’clock.’ Argued little Matthew, refusing to budge from the settee. ‘My Mum and Dad always let me stay up to at least half nine on a Saturday, sometimes until ten!’

‘You’re like an annoying broken record you are kid. Now do as you’re told! Or else I’m gonna tell your parents how much trouble you’ve been tonight. Let’s see how long they’ll let you stay up after that.’

‘But that’s not fair!’ Cried little Matthew.

‘Life’s not fair kiddo, you best start getting used to it. Now go on, up you get. And the longer it takes you, the more bad stuff I’ll tell them about you.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Try me.’ Grinned the babysitter. Little Matthew jumped off the settee in a huff, and stamped his feet all they way up the stairs towards the bathroom. Stupid babysitter. He could still see a patch of daylight outside the window. Even some of the other kids in the street were still outside playing. She was right about one thing though; life was definitely unfair.

Matthew slammed the bathroom door shut behind him, as hard as he could. He got his frog-shaped toothbrush, put the multi-coloured toothpaste on it, turned the tap on and began to brush his teeth. What was she going to do down there anyway, except call all her friends for a long chat on the house phone? Maybe he should be the one grassing her up. But why bother? His parents were never going to believe him…

He was just nearly finished when he heard the low growl. It was like a slow rumble that echoed throughout the bathroom. Little Matthew turned his head round towards the bathtub. He walked towards it, and with his free hand he pulled back the shower curtain that hung all the way around the front side of the tub. The crocodile was lying perfectly still in it, baring all its shiny white and pointy sharp teeth, as though he was almost smiling at him. Matthew slowly pulled the curtain back, turned the tap off and put his toothbrush and the toothpaste back on the side. He then, very gradually, opened the bathroom door and walked out, all the while keeping eye contact with the bath where the crocodile lay, wary of any sudden movements. He closed the door behind him and walked back down the stairs. The babysitter was sitting in Matthew’s spot on the settee nattering away on the house phone as he suspected.

‘Hang on Jenny… What the hell did I just tell you?’ Said the babysitter, putting the phone down temporarily from her ear. ‘Get back up those stairs right now! Have you cleaned your teeth yet?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘So go to bed then! You’re already in enough trouble as it is. You actually want me to tell your parents that you didn’t behave? I’ll smash something and say it was you.’

‘But there’s a…’

‘How about this framed picture of your nanny? I’m sure you’ll get at least a couple weeks of being grounded for this.’

‘There’s a crocodile in the bathtub.’

‘Matthew! Stop telling fibs and get to bed.’

‘But I’m not lying!’ Pleaded Matthew.

‘Sorry Jenny,’ sighed the babysitter after picking back up the phone, ‘He’s having nightmares or something. I’ll call you back in a minute.’ She put the phone down and turned the volume to mute on the television. ‘What are you saying Matthew? You think there’s a boogieman in the bathroom?’

Matthew shook his head. He knew it wasn’t the boogieman; the boogieman lived in the wardrobe. ‘No, not the boogieman, I said there’s a crocodile in the bathroom.’

‘A crocodile? Good god Matthew; how old are you?’ Said the babysitter. ‘Go to bed and stop fooling around. I mean it.’

‘But shouldn’t we tell someone about the crocodile?’

‘Who then; the crocodile police? You’re really starting to get on my nerves now. Come on; I’m going to show you that there’s no crocodile and then put you to bed myself.’

She got up from the settee and nudged him up the stairs, with Matthew hesitantly being lead. They got to the bathroom, and the babysitter knocked twice on the closed wooden door.

‘Oh Mr Alligator? Are you in there? Open up if you are!’

‘Stop it!’ Whispered Matthew. ‘You’ll annoy him.’

The babysitter cackled with laughter, and began to open the door. ‘Let’s see how much we can annoy him then shall we? Oh snappy? Here snappy? Where are you boy?’ She walked right in and peered around the bathroom. Once she was fully in, little Matthew slowly closed the bathroom door behind her.

‘Hey numb nut, the lock’s on this side of the door! You thought you could lock me in here all night. Oh, boy, you are in so much trouble. You are so…’

The low, rumbling bass of a growl shook through every wall upstairs, and even more so against the bathroom door, followed by utter silence. Matthew waited for a few minutes, but couldn’t here another sound.

After a while, little Matthew thought that the old saying “let sleeping dogs lie” could also be said for crocodiles, so he slowly went downstairs, got some ice cream from the freezer in the kitchen, and sat up on the sofa to watch the late night horror movie on TV in peace; uninterrupted, until his parents came home.


- - -
Richard Colman is a novelist and short story writer focused mainly in Horror and Suspense, based in Hertfordshire, UK.
http://richardcolman.wordpress.com

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Author: Richard Colman

Contributor: Tony Rauch

- -

I swear I heard them outside for at least a month beforehand. Every night I’d crawl into bed a little earlier than the night before, to see if I could catch that flickering little twitter of a noise. It was always a mere buzzing. Or a faint humming. Just hanging in the air. Milling in the distance. Barely perceptible. Like the distant buzzing of the street lamp down the road by the swamp. Or like the mumbling of the air conditioner at the gas station. I mean, I could barely hear them. But they were there, somewhere out in that wet darkness of night.

Every time the coal train whistled, whining far off, fading into all that endless emptiness way out there (that nothingness just waiting to be discovered, waiting for someone like me to happen along and fill it up), they stopped for a bit. But then they always started up again after awhile. Real slowly. After the train had passed the fields.

I swear, each night beforehand I could feel that warm little hum, that slight buzz, that little gathering, that secret conversation, getting closer and closer.

Then one night I just couldn’t sleep, so I dropped out my window and took a little stroll. I looked up at the night and all its worlds, thick and moist and endless, a comforting home. It wasn’t very dark out as the big-daddy of a moon was up there hanging big and low, illuminating everything a strange silver gray, spreading shadows across the grassy fields. So I could see pretty much everything I reckon - the hay barn, the tractor shed, the granary, everything illuminated by the glow from above. The sky was so clear and the moon so close. It was like I could just reach out and touch it all. It was like it was all right there for me, everything waiting for me to spin it into action.

I kept thinking about the future and where I’d be next year, where I‘d end up. Could be almost anywhere after the summer. That scared me a little. Yet it was also quite exciting - graduating from school and now being free to do whatever I could find.

That’s when I stumbled across them. That little murmur, that tiny, faint humming. As I was out walking, searching for that noise, I heard that long thin whisper in the current of wind. I just suddenly caught it, picked up on it as I was scanning all the silver stars blinking above like dust in the sunlight, as if each star was blinking just for me. I picked up on that far away buzz and followed it. The weird thing was the noise didn’t get any louder as I snuck through the fields and marsh and woods to them. It was always about the same, just hanging in the distance, just riding on the breeze. Finally, I crept up on them, slowly crawling through the dry brush as to not make a sound. I wondered who could be out here this late: some transients, migrant workers, hobos, some criminals maybe, some highwaymen, or maybe a spy ring or something. And then I happened upon them. I crouched through the leaves of bushes and tall grass. They were gathered in a little clearing I never even knew was out here. It was a little bare spot. Cleared out under a group of trees. In a circle of thick brush. In a gully out behind the barn. A half mile to the west. The area they had cleared out was only big enough for maybe five or six of them.

I crept up behind a group of bushes and spread the leaves back carefully, quietly. The back of one of them obscured my view. A small candle in the middle of them flickered an eerie amber glow. I moved around to get a look at their faces, to see who, or what, they were. They were wearing long overcoats with large hoods. And then I went stone numb. . . They were people, the likes of which I’d never seen or imagined before. Little people with large heads and strange, tiny, deep eyes. And that’s when I heard it, that murmur of a whisper, my blood turning to ice. I just froze. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe - “OK, then, it’s settled,” one of them exhaled a breathy wheezing whisper, “. . tonight we ask Billy to join us.”


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Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.

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Author: Tony Rauch

Contributor: Candy Caradoc

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The wishing well was situated, oddly, on the terrace outside the Café Voile. A shiny, gold and ivory, opulent-bordering-on-flashy attraction currently glittering in the moonlight. Also visible from the outside: crystal-clear windows (more glass than brick was that wall, and therefore impractical and wrong, as far as he was concerned), white tables with fancy chairs made of swirly-patterned metal, and the large, cursive lettering of the name above the main door. It’s all a rich-cunt’s fantasyland, he thought, what do they need a wishing well for, anyway?

He had stolen things in the past. Only minor things and only when he was in need. Apart from those incidents of mindless shoplifting in his school years, but which everyone grows out of and hardly count, he supposed. The issue was, he now believed, who you stole from.

So when he’d received an unexpected medical bill, overdue rent notice and extortionary car mechanic’s invoice all in the space of a week, he’d had a good hard think about where he could take some money without too much risk or too much damage to his conscience. And he had thought of the ridiculous wishing well outside that poncy café.

He’d only ever seen it from a distance. He couldn’t think what it could possibly have been if not a wishing well. And yes, sure enough, the cylindrical brickwork was half-filled with water and there were gold and silver coins, dully catching the light, at the bottom.

He had decided from the first that the easiest way to go about it would be to climb in, as long as it wasn’t too deep (it wasn’t) and he was prepared: he climbed in with his waterproof draw-string bag and, water level comfortably below the tops of his galoshes, got to work.

The idea popped into his head that some would accuse him of stealing other people’s hopes and dreams. His thoughts immediately addressed that issue, as though challenged (he had nothing better to occupy his mind, anyway). Firstly, he thought, these people are living every dream I ever dared to have, and then some. Secondly, who can really sum up their life’s aspirations in the flip of a coin? And, further to that, people rarely know what will actually make them happy. And finally, no one who spends about ten bucks on a slice of cake should be allowed to purchase their heart’s desire for a lousy fucking coin. Mere shrapnel cluttering up their designer purses. Dead weight next to their cheque books.

What about the innocent kiddies – is that what they would ask? Rich kids have it all and don’t even know what to do with it yet. Their problem, if anything, is having too much. Not to mention the irresponsibility of teaching susceptible minds to rely on fantasy. Bad enough that rich kids have the idea that they can sponge off their parents. Now they can sponge off the powers of a magical water-holder, too?

He was taking these coins, but he was giving something back: giving everyone a wakeup call. You want a castle? Get building. Want to be famous? Get your ass to an audition, and, preferably, hire an agent. And for God’s sake get some talent. And if you want to donate to the needy then by all means toss your coins away in some ridiculous, childish ritual meant to stuff further riches into your already glutted lives.

He’d finished – bag was damn heavy, too. These people liked a wish.

He climbed out and moved away from the empty well – a wishing well with no wishes to fulfil. He suddenly had the comical thought that a wishing well with no wishes on its “to-do” list may be so desperate for a purpose that it could actually grant a wish if someone would just give it a go – that even a supernatural fancy could get one thing right.

He stopped, reached into his pocket and fished around amongst the screwed up paper and cigarette stubs and rubber bands and gum till he found the small coin. Then he meditated for a moment before tossing the coin into the well.

He snorted sardonically at his own ridiculousness and walked away.

Well, fuck it, he thought. We all have a job to do, don’t we?

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Candy Caradoc lives in Melbourne, Australia. Last year she completed a thesis on uncanny representations of the effects of narcissistic parenting in Hoffmann’s The Sandman and Aronofsky’s film Black Swan. One of her stories, about a woman in love with a straw man, appears in Dog Horn Publishing’s Women Writing the Weird.

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Author: Candy Caradoc

Contributor: Joseph Carfagno

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We sat on the couch crammed so tightly our legs were touching, the popcorn was on the table in front of us, we didn’t touch it, our favorite show was on, live from Paris, we saw it on tape delay, each week a new remarkable guest. The host, prone to logorrhea, strode to the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very special show for you tonight. We’ll be talking to the smartest man in the world.”
The guest came on, he was thin, he wore a brown suit, he was a little shorter than medium height though that was probably due to the extraordinary smallness of his head, about two-thirds the size of an ordinary adult male’s. This head, in its mid-forties, had reached an advanced state of baldness, due, we conjectured, to the extraordinary brainpower it contained. Seated, he looked like a miniature. The host showed a short video clip that explained the origin of the guest’s intelligence. The usual authority provided the voiceover:
“Many people speak of synapses firing when they are engaged in profound or insightful thought. Though” – we were relieved didn’t say while – “it is true that sparks traverse our synapses when we think, we must still acknowledge the source and sustaining force of those thoughts. All thinking originates in the dendrites. By shrinking the gap between the dendrites, reducing the synapses to near nullity, thought becomes both more profound and quicker. Our guest became the smartest man in the world, a man who thinks as deeply as the Buddha and faster than any game show champion, by so compressing his synapses that his head, in natural sympathy, compacted.”
There were photos of the guest growing up, riding his bike and playing soccer as a boy, finishing off bicycle kicks, playing parts in university dramas -- that’s when his head started to shrink, it seemed normal before then -- his first job at the lab, and so on. The video ended with the guest, his tiny head filling up the camera, screaming at the top of his vocal range, “Dendrites are what matter! Dendrites make you smarter! Dendrites are all!”
The show broke for commercials. We remained silent, no one touched the popcorn, we were all silently wondering what amazing things the small man would say. The host came back. “Of course tightly packing the dendrites is merely a prerequisite, a necessary but insufficient condition, for extreme intelligence. They must also be cleverly arranged and have the power to originate and appreciate the most brilliant thoughts.” He sat down next to the guest, sipped some cold water, leaned over to him, and asked his first question. We all leaned forward for the answer, at last we’ll be enlightened, the camera zoomed in on him, we saw the tiny vocal cords quiver.


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Joseph Carfagno was born in Brooklyn but lives in Connecticut.

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Author: Joseph Carfagno

Contributor: Tony Rauch

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I tell ya, they buzzed back and forth - high and low, wooshing in angles, cutting tight curves, zipping across the pale blue sky - bright silver disks, big and small - piercing puffy white clouds, thrusting overhead, zooming around and around, whipping in great wide arcs above the tree line - zipping up into the atmosphere, down over the yard, sailing back out to beyond, and then looping back again just like that - with shiny blueish silver glinting off the sun, streaking bright lines and flashes in the morning sky.

I gazed in awe, kneeling on the living room floor, my hands on the picture window. “Ah, Dad,” I finally collected myself to stammer, “Ya gotta see this stuff. . . Take a look. . . You’ll never believe what’s goin’ on out here. . .”

“Yeah, . .” my dad swallowed lazily. He was lying on the couch, reading the Saturday morning paper. “. . They been doin’ that all morning,” he rolled over, folding his arm over his face to hide his eyes from the crisp morning light. “I’m sure they’re just showin’ off. . . Just goofin’ on us,” he yawned. “Wake me if any of ‘em have the guts to actually land, or if one of ‘em knocks on the door or something.”


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Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.

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Author: Tony Rauch

Contributor: Troy Manning

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Tim’s house was fairly large and somewhat haunted. Most of the ghosts left him entirely alone and it is not good for a man to be that way. He would often try to talk to them but very seldom would he receive a reply.

Tim intentionally purchased a home near a cemetery so he might have company that he would neither have to provide for nor clean up after. The closest he ever came to that before were some sea monkeys he had as a child. They required nearly as little upkeep as the cactus he later was given as a housewarming gift.

The house in which Tim lived was a white North Carolinian manor. Just looking at it was enough to make one suspect it had ghosts. In the three years he lived there, Tim counted four of them. They were Kevin, Janet, Nancy, and Brad.

By far the tallest of the four was Nancy. She stretched to nearly eight feet. Tim knew this because he frequently heard the clinking of his chandelier that hung down six feet from a fourteen-foot ceiling. One could suppose she about stood five-feet tall and reached up the remaining distance with her arms, but Nancy didn’t have any arms. A pink sticker on her driver’s license said that any part of her body could be used in case of a medical emergency and those were the parts they used.

Coming in at just under five feet was Kevin. Compared with Nancy he was essentially a midget. Whenever he wanted to make the chandelier clink, he would have to use a stick or ask Nancy for assistance. Nancy was happy to oblige Kevin but when Tim would ask her to make some noise, the house would fall deathly silent.

Though only five foot three, Janet was easily the scariest of the bunch. Sometimes she would play with squeaky doors while at other times she would cause rotting flesh smells in different rooms of the house. Tim once asked her how she made those smells but she simply replied with a shrieking laughter that frightened him very much.

As for Brad, he was neither here nor there but sometimes everywhere all at once. Of the four, he was typically the most visible. Whereas the others were usually more effusive, Brad often took the form of a dense smoke. It brought Tim comfort, at times, to simply pull up a chair in the midst of him and reminisce about old flames.

Tim might never have known the names of his housemates if it weren’t for a friend that they all had in common. Cindy, one of those transient romances from Tim’s adolescence, reestablished contact with him through Facebook. He invited her to dinner and she, almost immediately, recognized the peculiar odor in the house as Janet. They often played together as children, Cindy explained, until Janet’s family moved away. Janet frequently suffered bouts of depression and burned her arms with cigarettes. As she seldom bathed, the sores would often putrify. Other than that, Janet was generally pleasant to be around.

Tim told her about his house’s other three inhabitants. By his descriptions, Cindy was able to put names to them as well. Recently, she had learned from a Tweet that Janet had been in a fatal car accident several years back while out on a double date. Janet, driving, lost control when Brad, her date, lit up a cigar then politely offered it to her. Nancy, an unusually tall girl who was keen on smaller guys, also succumbed in the crash, along with Kevin.

Though disturbed by this information, Tim took some comfort in knowing that those with whom he shared his home were practically his peers. Cindy soon joined the household through matrimony with Tim.

Becoming increasingly intrigued with things supernatural, Tim began attending a local seminary and was eventually ordained as an Episcopalian priest. While this made a few of the occupants uneasy, Father Tim assured them they could stay as long as there was no more smoking.


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Troy Manning is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has recently been taking literature classes at Cal State University, San Marcos where his stories have been published in the creative writing program's Cat Ate My Chapbook, Fierce Notes 1 & 2, and the Spring & Fall, 2010 issues of Oh Cat.

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Author: Troy Manning