Contributor: Gary Clifton

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Survival...Hell, that's all it ever was, really. The dirtbag and I were the only guys within six blocks of Boystown who weren't gay. I'd bought the shit, handed over the cash, then attempted a simple buy-bust. He pulled a pistol and in the struggle shot himself in the ankle. He lost a foot, got ten years, and DEA transferred me from Chicago to Dallas. I asked IAD if he'd shot off his balls, would it have been Detroit? Nobody laughed.
I'm on the job five years, but when an agent is transferred, they put him to riding with somebody knows the streets for a month or so. I drew a guy like a toad with wings - totally useless. Ol' Hogan chewed this black-crap. When he drove, he spat regularly, coating the driver's side with a layer of black-crap residue. And he never heard a damned word said.
He insisted on driving - never more than 27 miles per hour. Fifth day, we headed out Irving Boulevard, lined with greasy spoons, fine cuisine and heartburn guaranteed. "Stop for some Mexican, Hogan?" I pointed at Los Niño's. "Gotta spit out that black-crap."
"Say which?" He pulled over.
The joint was cafeteria-style, a five foot brick wall dividing a walkway to the serving line. Halfway down, two gunshots cracked outside the front door. A stringy, acne-scarred punk, arms decorated with penitentiary tattoos, stumbled into the lobby. Waving a revolver, he grabbed a teenage, female hostage by the boobs and stood behind her, pistol at her temple.
"Heads up, Hogan," I said.
"Say which?"
A uniformed cop burst in the door, pistol in hand, held at bay by the toad with the hostage. "Put it down, kid," the cop said softly, leveling his pistol. The kid backed toward us on the opposite side of the brick wall.
We were dressed casually - shirttails over our pistols, trying not to look like the law. "Say which?" Ol' Hogan asked.
Snake-bit from Chicago, I sure as hell wasn't going to shoot first and check the target later. Ol' Hogan casually pulled a .357 magnum from under his shirt, rested it on the wall, and cranked off a round at the assailant from thirty feet. I hadn't realized he even had a pistol, let enough sense to use it. A hand's width from the hostage's face, the round caught the kid in the left ear, blew a messy gush of head innards out the other side, then plunked out a front window.
"Hope they weren't making a movie," I said.
"Say which?"
The kid hit the floor partly decapitated in a puddle of brains, the hostage fainted, and the uniform stood, stunned.
"Federal Officers," I waved my badge like a birthday surprise. "Don't shoot."
"Bastard busted two caps at me outside," the officer blurted.
"Say which?" Ol' Hogan slipped the magnum in his rear waistband.
"Hogan, I'm now eligible for the sub-shit-list," I said. "I hope to hell my next stop isn't somewhere without a zip code."
"Say which?" Ol' Hogan turned back to the lunch line.


- - -
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has over thirty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. Clifton has been shot at, shot, stabbed, sued and misunderstood and is now retired.

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: John Laneri

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The summer after my tenth birthday was a turning point in my life. It happened on one of those warm summer nights when I realized that GI Joe represented the ultimate military man.

For two nights, Billy and I had been trying to glimpse the new girls in the house next to his. Finally, after spending the entire day studying GI Joe comics, we were ready. The girls would not escape our mission.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Billy asked, as he glanced over the bushes.

“I’m not sure... hand me the binoculars.”

I took them then crept to another bush, just as I had seen GI Joe do in, “Search for the Missing Platoon”.

“What do you see?” Billy asked, as he edged beside me.

“I don’t know. Everything looks black. I can't see squat.”

In the distance, I could hear voices coming from their house. Through the foliage, I could make out two silhouettes on the back porch in the adjacent yard. I was certain the girls were unaware of our presence.

I nudged Billy. “We need to approach them through the woods then sweep along the side of the fence and strike from the flank.”

“What happens if we get caught?” Billy asked.

“We won’t get caught,” I said confidently.

“But, my parents…”

“Follow me private,” I said, as I darted into the shadows and began making my way toward their house, crawling silently from tree to tree.

I stopped behind an oak to survey the area.

“See anything?” Billy asked, moving beside me.

I pointed ahead. “I think their room’s at the end of the house in front of us.”

Suddenly, I saw a shadow move past a window.

“What was that?” Billy asked, his voice on edge.

“They’re headed to the bedroom. Let's get closer.”

I crept to the next tree. Billy followed. And soon, we were outside their window hidden in the shadows, our nerves on end.

“Lets go back,” Billy whispered. “We might get caught.”

Ignoring him, I eased closer to the window and chanced a look. At first, the room appeared dark. Then suddenly the bedroom door opened, and I saw two girls come skipping into the room.

Quickly, I dropped out of sight and hurried back to Billy.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “They looked different.

“Different?” he asked.

“They didn’t look like the girls at school.”

“Were they monsters?”

“No, they’re full grown women. I think they’re fifteen or sixteen years old.”

“I want to see,” Billy said, coming to his feet.

“They might spot you.” I reached to draw him to cover. “You need to whisper. We’re on an important mission. We don't want to be discovered.” My attention returned to the darkened window. “We know they’re in the room, so we’ll wait. That’s what Joe would do.”

I remained crouched in the darkness, daring to breathe, my ears straining to hear the girls. In the distance, I heard an owl calling in the night – it’s sound sending a chill snaking along my spine.

Soon, I began to grow uneasy. The girls were too quiet.

“Lets move closer,” I whispered. “Something is wrong.”

We edged toward the window, moving carefully along the side of the house. Then together, we looked over the windowsill.

At first, I only saw darkness. But as the minutes passed, I began to sense an eerie, creepy presence almost as if something was watching, waiting.

Then suddenly – like monsters in a nightmare – two hideous faces with sharp teeth popped up on the other side of the window and began screaming.

Springing away from the window, Billy and I hit the ground together, jumped to our feet and sprinted away, fleeing for our lives. Once safely in his yard, we ducked behind a bush to make sense of what had just happened.

“Were those things girls?” Billy asked, his voice trembling.

“I think so,” I replied, chancing a glance over the bushes.

“They were the ugliest girls I’ve ever seen.”

“No stupid, the girls were wearing monster faces.”

Deep inside, I knew they had fooled us. In the background, I could hear them giggling, celebrating their victory.

By then though, I was already planning another strike. I was GI Joe, and I intended to accomplish my mission even if it took all summer.

Truth be told, I got my eyes full the next week when the girls were showering. And, the best part of all – they knew I was watching.


- - -
John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: Bruce Costello

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Douglas the black cat watches. With unblinking eyes and twitching nostrils, he probes the atmosphere around the meal table. His dear Shona has invited a perfumed woman to dinner. And Douglas is a very intuitive cat.
On the mantelpiece a wisp of incense curls from a burner.
“Will you ever try again?” Missy asks, leaning forward, blue eyes smiling beneath dark eyelashes
Shona screws up her face.
“I’ve tried enough,” she murmurs, gesturing with open palms. “Each time I hold a bit more back.”
“Men hurt us,” Missy sighs. “But sometimes you have to take a risk in love.”
“But not too soon?”
“Of course not. When you’re ready.”
Shona closes her eyes, wrinkles her brow, and shakes her head. A few minutes pass. Neither speaks. Celine Dion stops singing.
“Shall I put the CD back on?”
“Ok.”
Missy stands and crosses the room.
“All right then!”
Missy spins around. Shona’s hands are gripping the table as she pushes herself back in her chair.
“Okay! If I thought a man loved me and didn’t want to just use me, I wouldn’t hold anything back. I would take the risk!” Douglas stirs and mutters to himself.
Missy returns to the table and sits without a word. Her hands press hard on the arms of the chair, her fingers showing white against her scarlet nail polish.
She blinks, sniffs and turns away, with a glance towards Douglas, who is staring at her, eyes wide with suspicion.
“What on earth’s wrong?” asks Shona.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Missy breathes, clutching her breasts, looking up through tears. “I went to a specialist yesterday. He gave me a diagnosis. And a prognosis.” “Not.....?”
“Ohhhh....”
Shona tiptoes around the table, kneels beside Missy’s chair, takes her hands, holds them to her cheeks and cries.
Douglas springs into the air. “She’s on heat! It’s a trick!”
“Stupid cat’s gone demented,” says Missy.
“I’ll put him outside.”
...
A panic attack jolts Shona awake. ‘Deep, slow breaths,’ the therapist had said. ‘Remember your dreams. We must explore your unconscious fears.’
It’s three AM. Shona creeps out of bed and changes her sweat-drenched nightie. She goes for a pee, and then to the kitchen, makes a cup of black tea, and sits at the table. The dream has vanished.
And that other thing the therapist said, what was it, you want something real bad but you’re scared what’ll happen if you get it, so you settle for something else, a compromise solution? What was that all about?
Shona returns to the bedroom, slips into bed, and wakes later to a stroking on the back of her neck.
How nice. How lovely.
The city is dawning, cars honking, sparrows farting. Visions of the everyday leap into Shona’s mind - traffic, the checkout, endless grumpy shoppers.
Anxiety rises, like reflux. She turns, pulls the other to her, touches her shyly down there, marvelling at the response, then feels profoundly content as the woman raises herself on an elbow and smiles down at her.
“We’ll be fine together, my darling,” whispers Missy.
***


- - -
Bruce Costello retired recently and took up writing as a pastime. So far, he's had modest success and lots of fun

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Author: Bruce Costello

Contributor: Jack Hill

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Vanessa and I sat in Taco Bell, a tray of chicken burritos and tacos in front of us, two diet pepsis and a pile of napkins and hot sauce packets - fire sauce. Vanessa stuffed a wad of brown paper napkins into her purse and smiled. I unwrapped a burrito and ripped the hot sauce packet open with my teeth.
The brown sauce dripped down the side of the chicken burrito and over my hand and knuckles and Vanessa said she had to use the bathroom. She slid out of the booth and stumbled and knocked her soda over and the cup rolled off the table and exploded on the tile floor. Brown soda screaming everywhere, down the grooves, between the tiles.
"Fuck!" Vanessa shouted. "Fuck! Fuck! God dammit!"
"It's okay," I said. "They'll clean it up."
Vanessa walked to the condiment bar and grabbed another fistful of napkins and bent over and soaked up soda.
"You're wasting napkins. They'll clean it up. Mop it up."
I stuffed the last third of the burrito into my mouth.
"I got it," she said and dropped another stack of napkins onto the puddle. She used her foot to push the paper pile around over the soda.
A Taco Bell employee - a woman about 50 years old - walked out from behind the counter and said she would grab a mop.
Vanessa nodded and said she was going to the bathroom. I heard her cuss under her breath and I watched her ass shake in her blue yoga pants as she walked away. The small mountain of napkins sat on the floor in the middle of the soda puddle like a volcanic island.


- - -
Jack Hill works in litter abatement, edits Crossed Out Magazine, and lives in Northern California.

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Author: Jack Hill

Contributor: C.J. Johnson

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He left his damp, small home and stood blinking in the morning sunlight. The forest was quiet and still , its calmness disturbed only by the chorus of birds and insects. It was so peaceful, yet dread and fear stirred within him at the journey he and his family had to take today.

He raised his big arms overhead and stretched, growling as his stiff limbs burned painfully, the consequences of sleeping in cramped quarters. He tried to ignore his fear and enjoy the morning when his children suddenly came bursting out of their home, their loud chatter instantly shattering the peace and quiet. The boy was cringing and protecting his face as the girl held her fist up, her expression thunderous. He turned his back on them and mapped out the safest route for he and his family to take in his mind.

It really didn't matter what route they took, either way, it was incredibly dangerous.

A sudden thud and startled cry rang out from behind and he turned slowly, his temper rising. He found the girl sprawled on her back, her arms splayed as she scowled at her brother. The boy looked surprised, as was he. Smaller than his sister, it was always she that pushed him around. As pleased as he was to see the boy sticking up for himself, he did not need their nonsense - not today. He grunted a warning to them and both children immediately startled at his tone.

Behave!

The children faced him, their heads bowed, arms behind their back. He immediately felt guilty; it was not their fault that he felt physically sick with worry. He rubbed both of their heads affectionately and each child nuzzled into him. He picked each up in one arm and swung them around, their squeals of delight echoing round the forest. This is where he was happiest, right here with his family, away from trouble and bother. No fear accompanied them on a regular basis, no danger to hide from, no worries.

But today, today was not one of those peaceful days.

The children's mother came out of their home and joined them, the fear evident on her face that she didn't even try to mask. He rubbed her face in reassurance, but she refused to look at him, looking at the children with horror in her eyes. She was picturing awful things happening to them, and he would have given anything at that moment to erase the dark thoughts from her mind.

But he couldn't, for the same dark thoughts tormented his mind also.

The children's mother carried the sack in which they would bring their food back in, as much as they could carry so that this journey would not have to be repeated for some time. The family took off as one, the children excited and happy at first, pleased to be out of familiar surroundings. They soon grew quiet and fearful however as the family ventured further into unknown territory.

Many miles they walked, each alert for any signs of danger. As they neared the place where they gathered their food, a noise reached his ears. He knew the animals of the forest, knew the individual noises they made - this noise, he had never heard before. More sounds reached the terror-stricken family.

Whatever animal it was, there was more than one of it.

He followed the sound quietly, his curiosity aroused in spite of his fear. A large opening of flat land lay just ahead, and he slowly parted the bushes to see through.

He immediately wished he had not.

Terror and disbelief gripped him as he stared at the large group of animals. He had heard stories of one being seen, but never a whole group like this. He had never seen one before, but his father had. The strange being that walked upright through the woods. The being that resembled he and his family, but yet was completely different and alien. He observed the hair on the creature's bodies as they walked around, making unusual sounds and gestures as they communicated with each other. Something brushed his leg and he looked down. The girl clung to him tenaciously, her eyes looking up at him full of fear and awe.

He had to get his family away.

He took one last look at the strange creatures, their hair fascinating him. It was so sparse, only really confined to their heads. The texture and colour of the hair on their bodies baffled him. It differed greatly to any animal hair that he had ever seen.

Backing away slowly, the family turned and walked back the way they came, leaving Bigfoot- prints in the sticky mud behind them.


- - -
My name is C.J. Johnson and I'm 30 years old. My first horror novel entitled Female of the Species will be released shortly in digital format and I'm currently writing my second novel, which is a thriller. I can be 'Liked' on Facebook for anyone interested in my work.

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Author: C.J. Johnson

Contributor: Hanson Hovell Holladay

- -
    Hazy creatures stroll across the white walls of Norman’s vision. Like the conclusion of a masterful drama, each one-steps with slow, gentle grace – a faint beauty of hymns and choirs releasing through the silence. The creatures are like angels: mystical, guardian observers from the world of Humankind’s mythology and fantasy; pure peace.
    Norman feels the eyes upon him. He can feel their healing, relaxing gazes over his mind and body. Their intention must be good, that he is certain of. Yet, he does not know these creatures. They move before him as enigmas, as mysterious entities unknown to time and space. Their presence and gaze inject pure bliss into his very being; and it is from this bliss that he begins:
   
    Above, below, and to his sides, the stars dot the black skyscape before Norman, each no more than a micrometer apart from its neighbor. They’re everywhere – they’re infinite, never-ending in all directions, all of them a life-sponsor to the offspring worlds surrounding. To count these stars, and to explore these stars: impossible, by human standards.
   


    Adjusting his view, deep within ecstasy, there is an object: a large rock-like body – a moon. Its shape is unorthodox – that is, in comparison to the custom Moon. Focusing his line of vision, Norman begins to see the grey lunarscapes, and the much darker craters throughout. Like the stars, each would be far too difficult to count. Slowly, the moon rotates.
    Norman feels himself approaching the moon, becoming closer and closer. Its craters appear in much greater detail, shapes and characteristics of numerous types growing by the hundreds. My God. He begins to mumble monologue within, his words somehow in separation from normal speaking prose. Not my Moon. No, not my Moon at all. Yet, such a beautiful moon.
    Again, he feels himself adjust without the motor functions of normality. The moon begins to vanish, fading away into the bottom left corner of his vision. For several moments only the stars are visible again, following the dissolve pattern of the moon, almost appearing to be shooting stars in a clear, northern sky of pure clarity.
    Before him now, large and immense – no, far beyond that – an indiscernible mass of lime and lemon of flavorful orchids – yellow and green colors, together in a combination of sensual beauty, along with a touch of light royal blue and orange magnificence, rests a world – a world of heavenliness.
   



    Possessing a feeling of weightlessness, happiness, and peace, he feels his eyes and grin widening, yet still breathing air with a wonderful, clean cotton-like aroma. The world before him is one of a visionary, and one of fantasy. What’s below? He asks himself, the world rotating just as the moon. Without possession of a rightful expression to the beauty, Norman gratifies with what words he holds: To my God: in all of Your creation, what am I seeing? What is it that exists before me?
    Without an answer, he continues to gaze at the world before him, becoming more in focus with every passing moment. Further clarity quickly emerges, and Norman can see before him, surrounding the magnificent world, a series of divine, celestial rings of several layers. In the name of Your creation, and by the survivors of Noah, what is this beauty before me? The world continues to rotate, its rings of beauty surrounding.
    Norman stares into the world before him. He feels that he can stare forever – no, for all eternity. It moves and exists, just as a beautiful woman in her evening gown at the closing of a perfect day. To know what I see – to give this beauty a name… How can I? How can I without Your help?
    Saturn. He quickly comes to an understanding of the rings and colors. Yes, Saturn. Saturn is a planet of the… For a moment he thinks, tracing back to his days of fascination with such things. Yes, Saturn is a planet of the Jovian type: a gas giant. It’s the planet after Jupiter, and before Uranus.
    Norman begins to feel his memory re-emerge. Slowly, with an easy pace, he feels his knowledge begin to return. I know this world. Yes, I know it – I’ve looked into it in the past.
    The gases and indescribable colors continue to shine and possess his fascination. How is it that I’m so close? Only Voyager has ventured out this far. How is it that I am here? Am I the first – but how?
    His racing thoughts go silent. Looking into the atmosphere below, he shifts to the rings enclosing the world. The rings consist of layers, this he already knows, that stretch from the planet out into the cosmos. Each almost appears artificial, perhaps created long ago to portray the world’s true beauty for all the System to see in amazement. Maybe, just maybe, in a distant, almost faint recollection of past inspiration, the words of Lear are true: that civilizations flourish beneath the magnificent rings and colors.
    What? He can see something below, driving through the thickest layer of the rings. Slowly – far more slowly than the world’s rotation, an object moves with great ease like a gentle bird migrating through calm skies, leaving behind traces of a trailing gleam, coming into view only because of the distant Sun and its reflection off the atmosphere. What do I see? What are you? The object continues to move slowly, delivering its sign of artificiality. Good God.
    The object is of immense size, but moves with the pace of a deteriorating ocean vessel. However, it does move – it does exist. Moment after moment – minute after minute, Norman stares at this object streaming in a pattern through one of the outer layers of Saturn’s rings. At times he questions himself, only to notice the slow, continuous movement: What – What do I see? Am I seeing You?
   

    Before him moves something unknown. Just as the figures in the room, this anomaly is an enigma, moving mysteriously without explanation. However, it does move, and, therefore, it exists. God, can You tell me what moves within the rings? I know of us – of Earth’s accomplishments, and what I see cannot exist. What is it? Who are they?
    There is no reply to Norman’s question, only a stream of silence within his mind. Yet, the lack of a response does not frighten him; he only stares in amazement at the movement before him. Despite the absence of guidance, he feels within a state of comfort – of knowing that something other than man exists in such a stage of advancement.
    Miraculous, pure and exquisite. He questions as to whether or not he is the first to see such a thing: the existence of the unknown. How can I reveal such cosmic beauty to the world? Please tell me – I beg of You – how can I do it without destroying Your grace and message? I am a Christian, but the universe exists – it exists, and it’s infinite. Surely, I am not the only one to know that.
    Like a great whale synchronized with an ocean’s current, swimming in harmony, the object glides gracefully as though the rings are its natural home.  Are you of the living? Is it possible that You…
    Norman’s mind comes to a halt. He continues to stare into the rings of Saturn, watching the majestic object cruise with ease, leaving behind a contrail of shining beauty. Questions and theories begin to race through his mind, one after the other, each more unanswerable than the previous; a victim of racing thoughts.
   
    Is it You that moves before me? Is it You that I see in the colorful rings? Ever so slowly, it moves like a gentle giant amongst microscopic mortals. It does not appear to seek pure praise and glory, but only to be known – to be in view as an entity of reality. Is it possible?
    Norman takes closer notice of the derelict, free-flowing magnificent entity. It appears aged, and in possession of great experience. The hull appears like that of an old man, one who has lived a life of happiness and success. Now, alone, it seems to live solely off the memories of times past, cherishing every last one of them, each more magnificent than the last.

    The hazy creatures move about in slow motion, each one nearly identical to the other. The figures are out-of-focus, and their voices, though extremely faint, are like the gentle white noise of an off-air broadcast. The hum flows into his thoughts, and, with the visions before him, creates an ambient scene of pure relaxation. The sounds continue, both gentle and peaceful, releasing the ecstasy even further.  
    The drugs they insert into his vein make the world a place of perfection – a utopia. With their aid there exists no worries, no fears, no problems, and no hate: a pure, and absolute heaven on Earth; something of absolute non-sense and unreality. Yet, to Norman, it is in fact pure, and absolute reality.
    “Your son’s condition has worsened, I’m afraid,” Says the physician in a soft whisper to the elder man beside Norman. “Over the hours he has submerged further into the coma, and, it appears, his kidneys and pancreas are failing.”
    The hazy figures begin to draw close to one another, each with gazing eyes upon Norman. They are in shock – deep in confusion and anger. “What do you mean?” They all seem to utter.
    Norman can see the figures before him, noticing their movements and faint speeches of strangeness. He continues to gaze, his eyes growing heavier by the second.
    Was it You – was it You that I saw?


- - -
Raised in the city of Monroe, Louisiana, Hanson now attends Full Sail University, working to obtain a degree within the Creative Writing for Entertainment Program in Orlando, Florida. His passion for writing emerged in 2007 while taking a creative writing course. Seeking nothing more than exposure, he continues to write both in and out of the classroom, using the works of authors of lunar anomalies and space oddities as inspiration.

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Author: Hanson Hovell Holladay

Contributor: Miles Gough

- -
Can you believe it, I was a out getting fresh air. I know. I went out and didn’t even light up my smokes. I needed to cleanse my nostrils. I am the kind of guy that only sees the outdoors as a place to run through to get to the liquor store. As far as I can see, the natural environment is a placeholder until we can zone a few more cigar bars and mini-marts. But I have been working in the dangerous world of weaponized gasses and I just had to go out. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The birds need to shut the fuck up, but the outdoors is okay for a change of pace. Wouldn’t want it to do it that often, you know camping is not a four letter word, but its still pretty obscene.

Yeah, I’ve been working in natural gas, but in a valid way. I ain’t helping the environment, I’m causing havoc, or at least trying to. Couple weeks back Nolan, the sommelier at the Cavendish Club, came to me with an idea. You know how he is this crazy movie nerd. He pairs wines to Jean Claude Van Damme movies. He tried to pair reds with Steven Segal movies but it turns out that the only things goes well with those masterpieces is Schlitz in a can.

Nolan came to me and said he had a way to make some money selling weaponry. He showed me this French movie to explain his idea and I’m in hell, because this shit has subtitles and middle aged guys in a big house. The plot is they came to this house to eat themselves to death with fine French bullshit food. Whatever. Why kill yourself on foie gras and truffles when Big Macs and super sized fries are so easy to get? Anyway, I’m being tortured by culture and finally the movie gets to the end and one the guys farts and farts and farts, like for two minutes he’s farting and then he keels over and is dead.

Nolan was like, “That’s it, That’s what we need to do. We need to make a food that will make you fart to death. We can package it as Silent But Deadly Cuisine and sell it to folks who want to do a little nefariousness and get away with it. No matter how nasty the fart is, the evidence will be cleared by a good breeze. The medical examiners will look for poison in the food, but there is no poison, it’s just plain food.” He told me I was the guy to make up a dish that could fart a man to death.

This was stupid, so yeah, I had to do it. I did my research, looked into what could make a guy fart so long their whole system would shut down. I used some special skills with it, the kind I know. I had to create food that was hard to digest and it would be stuck in the colon making bacteria. I pan seared a small cut of prime rib. I made a sauce for it using five different beans and cream. I sweetened it with sorbitol and some other fructose. I placed it all on a bed of au gratin potatoes. I also got my hand on an enzyme that slowed digestion of food so that it this packet will wind up in the colon almost undigested.

This seemed like the ticket, but shit, I wasn’t going to test it. Nolan had a guinea pig in mind. There was this asshole who always ate at the Cavendish who was rude and nasty. So Nolan gave him my dish as a treat for being such a great customer. The asshole acted like of course he deserved this special treat. I tell you. Why we cooks haven’t killed all our customers already in one big hibachi massacre is beyond me.

Nolan served it to this asshole and he sucked it up but fast, and you know, he didn’t die. Did he fart? He farted. Ever been to the elephant house at the zoo? Kind of like that he farted. But he didn’t even complain of cramps or discomfort. And the worst part, he loved the food. Told everyone to order it, that it was a wonderfully earthy dish every gourmand should eat.

I went over to the Cavendish today to check on Nolan. Is he pissed at me. He asked me why I couldn’t fail and make a shitty dish? He’s in hell; the place stinks like you never sniffed. And everyone is ordering my dish as a special. All I can tell you buddy, don’t go to that neighborhood and light a match. Something might explode.

Wait. Maybe something will explode. Okay, so I can’t kill someone by farting, but what if they can flame throw those farts? We can have ourselves a decent weapon that no one can frisk you about. Yeah, that’s the way I’ll go with it. You know me, making lemonade out of lemons. Foul stinky ass lemonade, but still lemonade, brother. Got to go, I got to find an igniter that can fit comfortable in a fella’s underpants.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Julie Lye

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The house had stood empty for years. It had once been a bright yellow house full of laughter and love, always busy with music or cooking smells wafting out of it, anyone was welcome, it was that kind of house, but that was many years ago now. Annie could tell you about the house, she had been a small girl when it was built and even though she was now one hundred and two years old she could recall it as if it were yesterday.
Annie must have been about five or six when the men began to build the yellow house. She could still remember how very excited she’d felt and recalled how she would sit on the steps of her parents porch chin in hands watching with amazement. She’d never seen a castle being built and the workmen were always friendly, she often saw her Grandpa talking to them and very often they’d drop some sweeties off for her.
The house grew very slowly to begin with, there was the floor to put down first but then after the first two or three months day by day the house began to grow. Before going in for her dinner each evening Annie would stare at the house almost willing it to grow. It grew and grew; it had three storeys and a big drive, a huge wooden front door, a very odd squiggly roof and lots and lots of windows.
Annie was at school the day it was painted and still remembers how bright the house looked when walking home that day with her mother. Her father had called it an over ugly giant bird box, but she didn’t agree. It was huge yes but it was also amazing and vibrant, it almost smiled at you and it seemed to shout come and play. It was magic and to little Annie it was nothing less than a fantastic and colourful castle.
Eventually on a Saturday morning as she recalled, the big removal truck arrived with three stocky men in brown uniforms declaring they were ‘removals’. The whole street had either been out in their picket fenced gardens or peeping from behind twitching curtains. Annie had of course taken up her residence on the steps of their small yet clean porch. The usual type of big furniture had been carried in, sofas, beds, dressers and a huge dark dining table.
It was all very exciting and to this day she remembers how her skin had tingled with curiosity and how tiny goosey bumps had appeared on her arms. She had run into tell her mother all about it but had been told to be a good girl and try not to be too nosey. Her mother was like that, she wasn’t interested in what was going on elsewhere, she was only ever interested in her father, her brother and of course herself. Annie loved her mum lots and lots.
As we talked a tear ran down Annie’s face as the memory of being a little girl and of her mother washed over her.
After a big hug and a cookie Annie returned to her post and continued her vigil. It was soon to be rewarded for a large black car pulled up and out from it climbed a giant!
Her hands involuntarily clasped over her mouth in a gasp, as they must have done on that day.
A giant, how can that be, weren’t they only true in fairy tales? They weren’t real were they? So many questions ran through her head, but Annie, being a good girl, stayed sat in her usual position, eyes agog as she watched the giant walk around the car and open the door for the most beautiful lady that she had ever seen. It was like a fairy tale, there was a giant and a beautiful princess, Annie couldn’t believe her luck, they’d come to live here in the big yellow castle! A few moments later three children emerged from the big black car, two boys and a girl. They began running around the car skipping and singing, could they be new friends or were they all ogres and want to eat her?
Annie became scared and ran indoors bumping straight into Grandpa who caught her and spun her round in the air, she loved flying with Grandpa it made her tummy giggle inside.
Annie grew tired and I knew our interview was over for the day. I thanked her for her hospitality and asked if I could come again, I had a feeling there were a lot more stories to listen to from Annie. She said I could come back the same time next week if I’d like to but could I please bring some Jelly Babies.


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I have always loved reading and recently discovered how much I enjoy writing when I joined the local writers group.

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Author: Julie Lye

Contributor: Bruce Costello

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Once upon a time during the Nixon reign, two men stood side by side at a country bus stop. One was young with an ugly scarlet scar and a dreamy look on his face. The other was old and bald, wearing a scruffy ex-army coat and an intriguing hook where most people have a right hand.
The young man with the scar, a history student, while continuing to face straight ahead, was twisting his eyes sideways and downwards, examining the hook as discreetly as he could. It was grey and fierce-looking, reminding him of an illustration from a favourite boyhood book: Captain Hook in a vivid red and blue pirate’s coat, wearing a black cocked hat with white skull and crossbones, holding an evil sword in his left hand while thrusting at Peter Pan with his horrible hook.
The hook’s owner seemed about 70, unkempt, unshaven, and probably unloved, too, thought the student. But, who knows, he could have been a dashing soldier once, wounded in battle. Perhaps a booby-trapped cigarette case left by the retreating Germans in Italy. A sniper’s bullet in Normandy? Shrapnel on Guadalcanal?
Pretending to look down the road for the bus, the student now stares directly at the old chap, and sees a young soldier in war-torn battledress running crouched across a jungle clearing through bursting shells towards a crashed and burning aircraft. The pilot is still alive. The soldier hears his screams through the smashed perspex and sees him, panic-stricken, struggling to free himself from the leaping flames. The soldier reaches the scene, leaps heroically onto the burning wreck and pulls the pilot free, as the shells burst close, closer, ahhh! too close! The soldier falls. Blood spurts onto the jungle floor.
The bus pulled up with a squeal. The student stood back to let the other board first. The old man stopped in the doorway and began to fumble for money in his coat pocket, but the driver waved him on with a grin. He shuffled to the back of the bus as the student bought his ticket.
“Do you know that old guy?” said the student to the bus driver, who seemed a friendly sort.
The driver laughed. “Simple Sam? Everyone round here knows Simple Sam.”
“Simple? But what happened to his hand? Did he lose it in the war?”
The bus driver laughed again. “That’ll be the day. He lost it in the river, mate, when he was a lad. Him and his brother, fishing with dynamite.”
The student thanked the driver, found a seat near the front and settled back with his eyes closed, but the scene from the jungle had faded. He smiled to himself, then opened his eyes and, looking up, saw the man with the hook standing there, staring down at him.
“Pardon me for staring,” said the old man politely. “I seen your scar back at the bus stop and I been wondering. Was you in Vietnam?”
*


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Bruce Costello recently retired and took up writing to keep his brain ticking over. So far it's working, although there are signs of surface rust appearing behind his left ear.

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Author: Bruce Costello

Contributor: Jack Hill

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Heat rash burned in my ass crack. Thirsty for a diet soda and cigarette. I offered to buy a cigarette from three smokers at three street corners. Pity from being shot down sloshed in until I knotted my fists and stomped the eight blocks home. Black holes for eyes watched me step, knee bones popping.
The coffee can in the kitchen lashed back at me, cutting open my thumb knuckle, when I jerked out a ten dollar bill. Aluminum molasses collapsed under my shoe after five or six attempts. The kicked remains clanked against the stove bottom.
Sold out, the cashier said when I asked for Camel Wides.
Camel lights, I asked her.
Sold out, the cashier said.
All the cigarettes are sold out for you, the cashier said.
What, I asked her.
I know you stole a six pack last week, she said.
I shook my head.
Leave my store, she said.
You have me confused with someone else, I said.
Leave my store, she said.
It wasn't me, I said.
I remember your face, she said.
I wouldn't steal from this store, ever, I said.
You will never buy cigarettes here again, she said.
I would never steal here – this store is in my neighborhood, I said.


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Jack Hill works in litter abatement, edits Crossed Out Magazine, and lives in Northern California.

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Author: Jack Hill

Contributor: Phil Lane

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Shea Stadium looms like a bloated, blue behemoth. Such strange hybridity results when two disparate heritages are mixed. How had the marriage of the old, storied Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants yielded this blue-orange monstrosity? I myself am the offspring of a classically trained pianist and a somewhat well-known poet, so I’m living proof that when you mix words and music, you don’t always end up with ballads. But it’s New Year’s Eve and I know I’m supposed to be a new leaf turning in an old tree or something.

“Jimmy!” I can hear the voice even before I pick up the spastic cell phone which beeps, rings, and vibrates simultaneously, an alarm bell warning me of an encroaching domestic shitstorm. So this is love. It’s like a bloodhound with bionic senses. You can’t cover up your tracks or hide your scent or ever be silent enough to throw it. I muster every last quarter-inch of restraint I have not to answer it with an abrasive, monosyllabic “WHAT?” I opt instead for “Hey, Baby.” I’ve always hated this particular term of endearment but, then again, she is a big baby so what the hell?

Snowflakes fall in my hair and I remember when I was six and had head lice and got to stay home from school for a week: halcyon days. Snow collects on the Unisphere, the 150-foot steel globe that towers over the park. A lifetime ago, on our way to a ballgame, my father had explained that it had been meant to symbolize man’s conquest of space when it was been built back in the sixties for the New York World’s Fair. Forty years later, it seems like it’s here just to mess with me—some strange Orwellian construct meant to remind me that I am nothing, an insect, a cog in a machine, irrelevant.

“Babe, where are you?” she squeals into the phone. “The party’s already started, they have
jell-o shots (my favorite), Mindy’s here and I haven’t seen her in forever, they’re talking about playing a drinking game, everyone’s asking about you, I’m a little drunk already, can you tell? You can’t tell, can you? Be honest.”

Just as I’m mercifully hanging up, I notice a woman walking towards me. I watch her advance with prurient interest. She has these long legs that remind me of stilts which seem to transport her across the park. She is pale and with the snow falling around her, she looks like an apparition, a snow ghost. Just once, just once I wish I didn’t have to work for it. How much goddamned good karma does one person have to bank before a gorgeous woman throws herself at him? I swear she’s looking at me but then I’ve always had a vivid imagination, the kind that can cause one’s mother to burst into one’s bedroom at the most inopportune time. I think about my enduring suspicion of women; surely that indelible moment during my most impressionable years has been a contributing factor.

“I’m on my way, baby.” I try to sound oh so nonchalant despite my mounting intrigue concerning the woman heading in my direction. “Just out of the shower and getting ready right now. I’ll see you soon. Tell Joey to keep the beer cold for me.”

“Babe, you should wear your black shirt, you know, the one with the pink pinstripes, it looks so good on you. It’s just everyone here’s dressed up really nice for New Year’s so, you know, I just wanna make sure you’re not, well, underdressed.”

“Ok, sweetie, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you in a bit.” I enthusiastically press the END CALL button. The thing about cell phones is that you can’t slam them down the way you could the old landline phones of my youth. In this case, it was for the best, but sometimes I miss the good old days when you could say everything by the way you hung up the receiver. You could even do a half-slam to show that you were pissed but not quite enraged. That would have been the proper flourish for this call.

Just as I am about to get up and drag myself obligingly to Joey and Jane’s party, I hear a voice beside me on the park bench.

“Hi.” It is stony and unsympathetic, the exact opposite of Lauren’s flighty, valley girl intonation. “I’ve been watching you. What’s your name?”

Finally, the Karma Gods are paying me back, and after decades of building up credit. It’s about damn time.

“Jimmy,” I reply, hearing my voice waver and crack and cursing myself for letting the moment emasculate me.

Nevertheless, it is New Year’s Eve and I know I’m supposed to make a resolution. Shea glares down at me like a Jotun, studying my movements with terrible scrutiny. The Unisphere seems to be spinning wildly on its artificial axis, imploring me to make a wonderfully rash decision. Accordingly, I toss my phone into the snow. It seems to sizzle as it rushes into its rectangular grave. “So what are you up for tonight?” she asks, her craggy voice oozing smoke and slicing through the park’s clean breeze of tyranny.

“What do you mean?,” I ask back, my tenor still an octave too high.

“I mean I’ll suck your cock for fifty bucks.”

From its snowy resting place, the phone begins to ring again. Its muffled tones remind me of my deliberate tapping on the old upright piano as I attempted to play Auld Lang Syne on a New Year’s Eve long ago. My father had stood over me with a ruler, ready to correct my errant fingers if they misplayed a note. Sometimes I intentionally played it wrong, my own little shot at revenge. I was a glutton for punishment, then as now.


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Phil Lane's work has been appearing online and in print for the past decade. He lives in New Jersey and teaches English for a private tutoring company.

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Author: Phil Lane

Contributor: David Macpherson

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A guy at the bar let the girl go. Tells us she was hot, she was tight, she was worth drawing on a fresh piece of good paper. He tells us she was into him, she smiled and fluttered and hummed desire. When they met for designer hot dogs and Fresca, he gave her up though. “Drool was coming out of her mouth,” he says.

We don’t get what he means. “So was she really hungry,” one of us asks.

“No,” he says. She wasn’t that bright. Dumber than a bagful of poorly chosen metaphors. “I need a smart girl. A girl who can talk and not just talk. She got to have thoughts about politics. And a job that does more than pay the rent. “So after the restaurant I said goodbye and that’s it.”

We married guys see this a minor sacrilege. For we are casual sex rubberneckers. We are tourists in the land of promiscuity. We take pictures, buy postcards, mouth off that its not as good as it used to be, too commercialized. We will not concede he may have done the right thing. “How can you let her go,” we ask.

“She wasn’t for me. She and I had nothing to talk about.”

We look at him. We stare at the words sailing past us. We speak different dialects. We almost comprehend was the other is attempting to confess.


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Author: David Macpherson

Contributor: Peter McMillan

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Lately, he hadn't been feeling himself. Overworked, burnt out. Covering for this person then that one. Pulled in all directions. Spread thin and stretched beyond his limits.

It was standing room only on the morning express train, and he stood wearing a freshly-altered suit with the back of his head mashed up against the roof of the car. In twenty years riding the train, he'd never been so cramped. From his vantage point, he could see the little heads, tucked behind newspapers, chattering away on the phone, or retreating behind shuttered eyelids and pulsing earbuds.

At Union he realized he was stuck and couldn't easily dislodge himself. Twisting his broad hips and long legs to the edge of the aisle, he watched upside down as the passengers shoved under and past, paying him no more mind than they would a column in the station concourse.

Once the car was empty, he was able to kneel and bend until he came loose, and in a semi-squatting stance, still stiff, he waddled out the door. After unfolding to his full height, he looked up and down the tracks for the nearest exit. It was on the other side of the tracks. Seeing that no one was looking, he grabbed the CCTV camera and pointed it away, and in one great stride crossed from platform 5B to 5A. Squeezing through the narrow double exit doors, catapulting down the station steps, and finally swimming above a swirling stream of tiny heads on short, bifurcated pedestals, he made his way to street level.

It was too early for the sun. The city lights cast faint shadows in the dawn. Cabbies honked and there was a multilingual cacophony of loud and excited voices in the cab rank. Pedestrians and drivers dared and double dared over the last bit of amber in the traffic light. A homeless person, unable to get his attention, spat at him as he walked by holding a handkerchief to his face. A gaggle of teenage girls crashed into him and, on turning their heads, screamed and ran.

He hurried away himself. In two effortless steps he reached the opposite curb where he knocked over the pompous doorman of the Royal who was signaling a limousine to pull up. Getting to his feet, the servant, red-faced and ripe, with a tone that comes from years of service, launched into a fusillade of spiteful and contemptuous remarks. Mid-sentence, the lumbering colossus, provoked, gazed down on the round, red, balding head and squished it between thumb and forefinger.

He waited in a makeshift jail in the port lands, while the authorities debated their extrajudicial options, namely whether to ship him to the zoo or the museum. It was the museum. There, a new tailor—this one a PhD in anthropology—outfitted him with clothing suitable for a wide range of exhibits BCE.


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The author is a freelance writer and ESL instructor who lives on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario with his wife and two flat-coated retrievers. In 2012, he published his first book, Flash! Fiction.

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Author: Peter McMillan

Contributor: David Strong

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Habit assists her. Founded upon an irrepressible indulgence to sanctify the past, she picks up the black ceramic pot off the stove and surveys the room. Strewn newspapers carpet the dirt floor; a bony, spindly cat weaves in and out of the kitchen table’s legs purring for its morning meal of cheese and whatever other scraps inevitably fall. Satisfied that all is in order, she pours a cup and sits on a cracked oak chair, creaking perilously above its head. Nonplussed, it meanders from one leg to the other to ensure as much patronage as possible. Today it’s Gruyère and toasted crackers. Askance, she spies a dark purple binding on the fourth shelf. The gold embossed title has long since faded into the rusty lettering seen on the fishing trawlers swaying back and forth down at the docks.

“There it is,” she murmurs to herself while placing her finger on the rim and rubbing it full circle. Before she can move, the cat jumps on her lap and paws at the slice sitting on the saucer’s edge. Her hand slides over its head, pressing down its ears before slipping underneath to feel the sonorous purring. Its meditative rhythm is a welcome companion to morning’s first light. She closes her eyes, recalling sleep’s dreamy peace and anticipating those under the sun.

Thoughts of youth dance in her head. Sitting by her father’s feet, listening intently about explorers, architects, and other vanguard inventors. The wonders create a permanent smile on jubilant, fresh cheeks, now tallow and wrinkled. “Can I build a weathervane that captures the lightening someday,” she wonders aloud. “Of course dear, you can build anything you want.” Sundry tales twirl about in her head, enlivened by his intonation of anticipation and amazement. That is what life is meant to be. Yet, it doesn’t matter where she travels: Macchu Picchu, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, or Angkor Wat. The genius underpinning their glory is lost because he is not there. He was supposed to teach her how to make these adventures real. But his heart couldn’t take it. Though she tried, nothing—or more properly—no one could compare to his constant devotion. But life, as he taught it, told her not to give up, not to rest at base camp. Each day she dedicates her life to recapturing this truth; it lies in these books and the memory of his baritone giving each achievement its due.

The cat’s agility shows how movement and space, flowing fluidly from here to there, epitomizes the philosophy he imparted. It cocks its ears when a cacophony of feline shrills and bellows announces the daily trek down to the boats.

“They’re calling. Just remember to come back tonight.”

It perches itself on the windowsill, looking back before bounding down. Free from its kneading paws, she stands and walks towards her father’s monument, sidestepping the Sunday edition. Despite its age, no dust collects underneath her nails as she pulls its free. Her fingers trace the faded letters. It seems like yesterday when he stroked her hair and nothing of the world’s indifference entered into their home. Drifting back to the wooden chair, she opens the book, but the words lost their force long ago. Meaning occurs only through reminiscence, vivifying what was once felt. Closing it, she places her hand on the worn, grainy leather cover where he had so often placed his. This smallest of acts allows her to live in the moment and not the next, to isolate and luxuriate in an instant of love that encompasses both body and soul. A journey that surpasses all others.


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As an English professor at the University of Texas at Tyler, I have published extensively in non-fiction. “Memory’s Touch” is only my third endeavor into pure fiction. My most recent story is found in the summer issue of Full of Crow.

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Author: David Strong

Contributor: Eric Suhem

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Bill sat on an overstuffed bag of feathers, beaks, guts, spleens, stomachs, livers and eyes. He could hear the faint chirping and quacking emanate from the chair. He was in his den clicking at the television remote control feverishly, wisps of smoke rising. It was 6:02 p.m., and he finally settled on Channel 38 University of the Air, Sky and Galaxy. On the screen, a man was sitting at a wooden desk in front of a blackboard in a stark room. Suddenly the man at the desk, and the blackboard disappeared in a big ball of light that was filling the television screen. “Bill!” it roared, “you are not what you think you are, you are a stream of energy coursing through a body, a vessel, a shell. You are like me!” said the ball of light.

The quacks and chirps from the chair began to get louder and Bill snapped, “Ssshh birds, I’m trying to watch this!” As he uttered those words, the ball of light disappeared from the television screen, and the man reappeared at the desk, frantically hitting the blackboard with a steel pointer and quacking. Bill then slowly murmured, “Hello birds, thank you for letting me enjoy your vessels. When my vessel has deconstructed into a new form, and its pieces fly off in shards of flame, I hope you will enjoy the use of it, just as I have enjoyed the use of yours.”

The chirping and quacking continued from the chair as the ball of light returned to the television, saying, “Yes, you are just a stream of energy coming from the universe.”

Bill’s wife Norma was in the kitchen with their niece, cooking a chicken. Norma heard the commotion and entered the den, where she was instantly alarmed by her husband's appearance. “Bill, you look like you had too many of those 99 cent vitamin packets from the 7-11,” she said in a concerned tone, looking at the array of brochures on their coffee table. “Have you been reading more of those New Age transcendence pamphlets?”

“No dear, I’m fine,” he said, staring at a picture of mallards on the den’s fine-wood-grain-paneled wall.

“We have enough problems just trying to pay the bills, without your excursions into metaphysical whatnot,” said Norma, leaving the room as Bill slowly transformed into a bright ball of light.

When Norma returned to the den, Bill was gone, and on the television screen was a duck, sitting at the desk in front of the blackboard. “Now listen to me, Norma,” said the duck. Norma tried to use the remote clicker, but the television was stuck on Channel 38. "You have enjoyed our vessels, though we are all really one with the universe. Quark-Quark!...I mean Quack-Quack!"

The duck insinuated itself into her being, its webbed feet grabbing hold. It pecked at Norma's conscience, hunting for niblets of corn inside the inner reaches of her cortex gray matter, perching on a cactus of thought beneath the blue shine of her inner cranium. The duck’s bill pecked urgently, as Norma was transformed into a bright ball of light, joining Bill in a new consciousness, in tune with the cosmos.

Bill and Norma’s molecules seemed to have disappeared from the neighborhood, though it was rumored that they were still in the vicinity. Their niece went to the park’s duck pond every week, to sit and listen to the quacking.


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Eric Suhem dwells in office cubicles and ocean waves. His new book 'Dark Vegetables' can be found in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

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Author: Eric Suhem

Contributor: Pranas Perkunas

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I opened the door one morning to a new world. For the first time, the homeless cats weren’t crying; they asked me if I was hungry. The neighbors' demented dogs refrained from barking against their too-short leashes; instead, they sang sumptuous strains of ancient mermaid songs. I arrived late for work, but my normally severe manager just laughed, clicked his heels, and crooned this little ditty,

Here's a check that should tide you over
for a few million lifetimes or so;
you can stay and groove with us,
or you can happily go.


I surveyed the scene behind him, which consisted chiefly of a bevy of my now-lovely co-workers, their collective youth restored, and their formerly unfortunate features reformed to fit their individual tastes.

An Asian, cosplay princess shining among the others beckoned to me with one of her long, red, plastic boots; so I joined them on a levitating white couch for a while, and for the first time our flesh didn’t flinch to be with each other. We drank some Kool-Aid, but it didn’t kill us; and by the time I departed I was younger--better looking too! It was then that I noticed that one of my loafers had been replaced by a long, red, plastic boot.

In a delirium of damn-that-was-good, I stumbled into a street normally choked with traffic, yet there were no cars, just beaming young people smiling and holding hands. Seeing into my thoughts, one young man said, “Cars hurt people, and road kill ain’t kosher, man.” I tried to further converse, but no matter how quickly I ran, I couldn’t catch up to him as he strolled into the psychedelic sunset.

A singing seal sporting high-heels passed, “No more Re pub li cons and De mo cants-“ An English loon took up the tune, “No more giving our money to banksters!” A whirling carnival of emotions opened within me.

"Had God finally heard us?" I asked a soft, pretty child with hair like a field of dandelions roaring in the breeze.

“Nah, we finally had to fire the bum,” she said while taking a small sign from her basket brimming with keys and kaleidoscopes and hung it right around my neck. The sign sprouted a mouth like a plum and said, “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.”


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I teach English in the inner city, and I'm building a colossal Hello Kitty assault robot which I will use to avenge all abused creatures. My favorite authors are Kenneth Patchen and Crad Kilodney.

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Author: Pranas Perkunas

Contributor: Carmen Tudor

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Jenna had grabbed at Doug throughout the entire lights-out ghost tour. The historic mansion’s darkened halls and passages hadn’t affected him at all, so Jenna’s continual grabbing of the back of his shirt caused grimaces the tour guides put down to horrified excitement. They smiled with satisfaction each time the look passed over his features and congratulated themselves on a job well done. The admission price didn’t cover an actual haunting experience; that was left up to the ticket holders.
“Let’s get some photos. The kids will love them.” Jenna seized Doug’s arm and pulled him toward the fountain terrace as the rest of the group followed the guides along the path to the entrance gates. Doug rolled his eyes and followed his wife.
“Maybe we’ll get an orb or something.”
“Maybe.” Shivering in his padded parka, Doug stifled a yawn.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life. The morning room with the little sulking area! The butler’s pantry! Yeesh.”
“The billiards room was all right, I guess. We should go, Jen.”
Jenna snapped a few more moonlight shots of the fountain. “Heehee, what if we checked out that window from the courtyard. We could see if Leila’s ghost is looking down. Spoooky.”
“There’s no ghost in the bloody window.”
The smile fell from Jenna’s face. “I know. I just thought it would be fun.” The camera dangled from its strap around her wrist.
“Fun.”
“Didn’t you enjoy it?”
“We need to go. We’ll get a ticket if we don’t move the car.”
Jenna nodded. They followed the moonlit path away from the fountain terrace and toward the east lawns. The gatehouse outline was visible in the distance.
“Bloody lights are out. What’s that about?”
“Doug. Doug. The lights are out. Try the door.”
Doug tried the door. “They’ve locked up already. ’Sokay. We’ll just, I dunno, climb over the fence here and go around.”
Jenna and her husband struggled over the waist-high garden fence and continued down to the main gates. The heavy nighttime traffic sped by on the other side of the high gate. Jenna noticed the padlock first. “What do we do?”
Doug looked behind him toward the gatehouse path. “Did we take the wrong path out? How’d they get out so quick?”
“What do we do?”
“Climb over, I guess.” He rattled the gate.
“I’m not climbing over that. We’re locked in. We’re actually locked in.”
“Be quiet for a sec; I’m thinking.”
“Sorry. It’s just that we’re locked in. After a ghost tour. I can’t belie—”
“Well, it’s pretty bloody obvious, Jen. There is a lock on the gate.”
Jenna’s eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to speak.
“Don’t start up again. Look, if you want, you go first. I’ll give ya a boost.”
Jenna’s shrill laugh rang out in the gardens. “I’m not climbing that. Let’s go back up to the house. Someone would be up there locking everything up, I’m sure. Come on. Please.”
“It’ll take two seconds to climb over the gate. I’m not going back through the bloody gardens. Bugger that.”
Jenna grasped Doug’s arm, but he shrugged her off. “Wait till the kids here about this, eh? They won’t believe we got locked in the haunted mansion. Eh?”
“It’s not actually haunted. And we’re not locked in. They just locked the gates. It’s hardly exciting. It’s cold, is what it is. I’m going over. If you wanna go back up to the house, I’ll bring the car around. Too cold to wait around for you to make up your mind.” Doug scaled the gate with ease.
His trembling wife met his gaze through the palings. “I can’t believe you’d leave me in the haunted ghost house.”
“It’s not really haunted. That stuff was so fake it was ridiculous. Stupid.”
“Doug. What do I do? I can’t climb that. There’s no way...” Jenna heaved her foot toward the first rail. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Just go back up to the house then. I’ll bring the car around.”
“I’m scared. You’re not really going? Don’t.”
“It’ll take ten minutes max for you reach the house. Or you can just scale it like I did. It’s bloody freezing. The exercise will be good for ya anyway.” He blew a steamy breath onto his cupped hands.
“I can’t believe you’d leave me in the haunted mansion.”
“It’s hardly haunted. How can you believe that crap? Look, I’ve gotta move the car. We’ll get a ticket if we’re parked there for more than two hours. It’s past two hours.” He hopped from one foot to the other.
Jenna shook her head. “I can’t believe you. I’m going back up to the house.”
“Whatever, Jen. Don’t be long. I’ll bring the car around, but I can’t stop for long—look at all the traffic.”
“I can’t believe you.” Jenna started back toward the gatehouse. “I can’t believe you.”
“Hey, don’t be long!” Doug shook his head. He waited until Jenna’s figure disappeared from view, and then made his way to the car.
Jenna blew her nose on a crumpled tissue as she neared the gatehouse. It was the emptiness of the mansion, she thought, rather than any unusual inhabitants that got to her. An empty room always had that effect on her. She sniffed. Climbing over the little garden fence again was about as appealing as scaling the main gate; she turned toward the fence, and then back toward the direction she’d just come from. The chill path to the fountain terrace was much darker and overgrown, she thought. And so, with a sigh, she headed back for the main entrance gate.
Doug was already waiting by the side of the road. His flashing indicator blinked in a steady rhythm. He checked the traffic in the rear view mirror and called through the open passenger window. “Someone coming?”
“No.” Jenna wrapped her fingers around the palings. “No one’s coming.”


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Carmen Tudor is a young Aussie writer whose fiction has been published in the US, the UK, and Australia. "The Price of Admission" was inspired by getting locked in the grounds of Melbourne's historic Como House one dark and stormy night.

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Author: Carmen Tudor

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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"Fifth Girl Found Butchered In South Dallas County" the headline blared. Homicide assigned McCoy and Harper the series of brutal murders, all with similar touches of indescribable cruelty and sadism. The bodies showed signs of cannibalism. They lifted a DNA trace on the last kid and damned if they didn't get a hit on Charlie Bob Sneezel, called "Snark", with priors for child molestation.

They should have known better, but before arresting him, they sweated him at his mama's house. Snark, textbook arrogant, squinted his gouch eye and blurted, "Mama always said little girls was dirty."

"But tasty?" McCoy snapped.

Harper, big, tough and never without a nasty cigar recommended they pull of the suspect's head. McCoy, a rather rudderless oaf, thought instant eternity was too much and argued they jail Snark so other prisoners could "entertain" him. Child murderers have a tough time surviving in Texas jails.

The plan went to hell on three wheels. Before making any real confession, the murdering little rodent slithered through a hole in the floor, then ran south on Webbs Chapel. McCoy chased on foot, Harper followed in McCoy's assigned Dodge.

Snark, frantically veered into a convenience store. McCoy followed. Harper roared up. Unfamiliar with the brakes, he crashed through the front and squashed the fugitive beneath the porno book rack like a sidewalk wooly-worm.

"Harper, do you realize there's not enough left for the medical school to even try for parts," McCoy said somberly.

Snark's child raping, butchering career was concluded, but damages were two hundred thousand dollars.

"You know, partner," Harper said later. "A brake job woulda been a lot less paperwork."

"Yeah, but he'll play hell of appealing the sentence," McCoy smiled. "Being as he's more jelly than corpse."


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Clifton, forty years a cop, has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University and has short fiction pieces published or pending on numerous online sites.

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Thomas Pitre

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Stovepipe is a big, loud man, with a heavy school ring that he taps on the table as he punctuates each of his talking points. Blah, blah, blah, tap, tap, tap. Blah, blah, blah, tap, tap, tap. Stovepipe’s ring is bigger, heavier and more ostentatious than the Fisherman’s Ring worn by Pope Benedict.

Stovepipe used to do security work for a computer outfit in the Southwest. It was a middle management job, but if you listen to his description, he has it embellished to the point that you might believe he ran the place, and half the state’s security personnel.

He was one of the first to get a carry permit for his 9-millimeter, and he wears it everywhere. I’ve seen him bending over to start his lawnmower, and it was tucked into the small of his back while he mowed his lawn.

Stovepipe’s wife is a big woman. She manages to keep her husband under her thumb. She spends most of the day in her recliner with the dog as she commands the roost. She is a soap opera fan, a game show fan, and a big fan of reality shows. She barks orders all day, never lifting a finger, while Stovepipe vacuums, cooks the meals, does the shopping and picks up the dog shit in the house. She usually barks commands while chewing, and bits of cookie and cracker fly out of her mouth and hit the dog in the face, or come to rest in messy little heaps around the base of her favorite chair.

There were two times that Stovepipe had his finger on the trigger of his automatic. Once at the firing range when he learned how to use it, and once after he was berated and cursed in front of a friend, for missing a spot behind the couch with the vacuum.


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Retired educator, living West of Seattle in a small, old, tired town with my dogs, weed whacker and Olympic Manual.

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Author: Thomas Pitre

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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Neighbors called it in. They hadn't seen the old woman in the faded house at the end of the street for several days. Dispatch said her granddaughter, Ida, ten, lived with her.
When nobody answered the doors, Jackson, a graying old-timer, slipped the front lock with a Visa and stepped in. Forelli, a rookie, followed, pistol in hand. He motioned her to holster it. The house smelled of mildewed clothing and rotten potatoes. Jackson had a rep - elephant hide tough and never flustered by someone else's suffering. He could handle anything.
Ida, pale and perhaps forty pounds, with sunken, morose eyes which appeared incapable of smiling, sat beside Grandma's bed, reading aloud haltingly from a Bible. "She's tuck sick," the child looked up. "Cain't eat." Forelli coaxed Ida out of the room. She clutched a filthy, rag doll in her grimy little hands.
"Deader 'n hell...several days," the E.M.T. said, matter of factly. "Mummified sorta...stinks, but not as bad as usual."
Jackson scribbled in his notebook.
"Morgue's next to the County Home," the E.M.T. looked up earnestly. "Want we should dump the kid off? Save y'all a trip. She could take her last ride with granny in the back of our bus," he pointed his chin at the shriveled corpse.
Jackson glanced toward the hallway where Forelli was talking with the kid. "Man, some days..." He lowered his notebook. "No, leave her be. I'll buy her an ice cream cone on the way to the Home." His tears caught him totally off guard.
The E.M.T. turned away. Maybe Jackson wasn't so tough after all. But he sure as hell wasn't about to say so.


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Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University and has short fiction pieces published or pending on numerous online sites

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Stephen Hernandez

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I was diagnosed with liver cancer on Monday 7th July 2002 at 4.45 in the afternoon. I looked out the surgery window as the Doctor gave me the news. It was cloudless and sunny outside. People were walking past the hospital in shorts and Hawaiian shirts, happy to feel the sun on their backs, whilst this man in a tailored suit was quietly telling me the reasons for my death sentence – hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC or liver cancer to you and me – the Big C. I had three months.
Afterwards, a male nurse escorted me to a ward where I was to spend four days undergoing fitness tests to see if I would survive a liver transplant. A long shot I was told, but my only chance of survival if there was one. After four days they decided I was. I wasn’t particularly surprised at that, after all, keeping in shape was necessary in my line of work. I was put on the liver transplant waiting list and I went home.
My job was of course severely compromised. Not that I really do what would be termed a normal job with normal hours. You see I’m a collector of sorts, I collect money. More specifically I collect money from people who owe money to the wrong people.
Unfortunately for me given my present situation the working hours are extremely irregular and I’m expected to collect said owed dosh in a very short space of time, usually in fact, straight away. The people I work for are not in the habit of sending polite reminders. I am given a name and an address and off I am expected to bloody well trot and bring back the necessary. Being on a twenty-four hour transplant waiting list for a new liver with fifteen minutes notice to prepare yourself to be picked up by an ambulance and rushed to hospital severely compromised my ability to carry out said task to the satisfaction of my employers. They were not known for being sympathetic to organ failure of any kind unless the organ failure had happened after and not before they had been successfully reimbursed by the owner. And you see I also unfortunately owed them money myself. Luckily in my case a compromise had been reached some time ago in which I agreed to collect what was owed to them by other unfortunate mugs and they in turn agreed to knock five per cent of the money I collared off of my debt.
I asked as humbly and politely as I knew how for a year’s leave of absence so that I could remain at home as much as possible in the hope that I would receive the call from the hospital which would mean my salvation. I didn’t tell them about the cancer and that I had been given just three months to live. In their eyes this would have made me a financial liability and they would have dealt with me accordingly; Instead I told them I needed a bit of a rest to sort my head out as the job was getting to me. So they gave me a compromise. If I didn’t choose to collect the money from the person who owed it there and then when I was told to I could instead provide the money they owed myself. I suppose it was fair enough. After all, it did give me more of an incentive to collect the money.
I still had some years left to pay off my own debt and I was lucky because they had left me with all my limbs intact and my organs in the places they were meant to be, that is - still inside my body. What it meant though was that just a few unrecovered debts added to my own and I would be working for them for the rest of my life or what little was left of it. My own debt was the last thing I had on my mind though. It was time that was paramount to me. When you have been told you have X amount of time to live time itself takes on a solemn weight and the ticking clock and the second hand on your watch become your enemies, remorselessly counting down the minutes and seconds you have remaining on the planet.
The waiting list for livers worked in a strange kind of way based around blood types and body weights and naturally subject to availability. So, you would think that having a common blood group like mine (O positive), would be an advantage as there would be more livers available, but no, it worked the other way around; because it was a common blood type it meant there were more people on that particular list. In fact the list I was on meant that at the current rate of transplants for O positive patients I would be looking at a wait of one and a half years. And I only had months not years. The cancer was spreading at an alarming rate. Evidently cancer tumours need a rich blood supply and having made their bed in my liver the tumours were reproducing so fast they could roll over, re-arrange the pillows and smoke a cigarette.
It felt like I was in a no win scenario playing out my own personal end game – all very depressing. But I have never been a quitter and as the saying goes: ‘when the going gets tough the tough get going’ or in my case they get a liver. So I looked for a solution. There had to be an answer, there always is. If I couldn’t get a transplant straight away then the obvious thing to do was to improve my chances as much as possible. As I may have mentioned previously my employers were not particularly concerned about the physical condition of the payee once they had paid back their dept. And in some cases they positively welcomed mortality as this usually acted as a form of encouragement to others to settle their debts promptly. It occurred to me that I could kill two birds with one stone – quite literally in fact. Get the money for my employers and improve my chances of getting a transplant by supplying fresh organs.
I would have to make sure the subject was not too damaged in the abdominal region. The liver had to remain intact. Hopefully this would greatly improve my chances on the waiting list. The debtor would have to meet certain criteria of course. About the same weight as me, obviously the same blood type and not have subjected their liver to substance abuse which was quite common in some of the wasters I collected from. The main thing of course was that the person would have to be dead but that, as they say, could be arranged. I drew up a list of qualities that in my opinion would constitute a good donor and meet my own particular requirements.
It was a while before a suitable candidate showed up. Most of the others were addicts of some sort or another and I didn’t like to think what state their livers might be in. But my fourth client looked good. He was young and buff and I was pleased to note a non-smoker. I roughed him up a bit first of course, just to let him know I meant business and then waited patiently whist he rang his friends desperately pleading for funds. He managed to get it all together in the end, they usually do; after all, the alternative is not pleasant and in between my persuasive fists and boot I was giving him plenty to ponder about what the future might hold if he didn’t come up with the goods.
We finally ended up back in his flat after collecting all the dosh. A well-furnished bachelor pad in Chepstow, which coincidentally was also quite near the hospital in charge of my transplant. It wasn’t going to get better than this. After I had put all the cash safely in my briefcase I got out my donor questionnaire. Understandably the guy was a bit taken aback by this. I suppose he thought our business completed I should be on my way and not asking punters to fill in questionnaires. But I made him complete it despite his protests and enquiries into my mental condition; people as a rule don’t argue with me. There was one point he was not clear on and that was his blood type. Considering the amount of it he had lost over the past hours you would have thought this was something he really ought to have known. I just gambled that he was O positive the same as me. It was the most popular blood type and it’s usually only people with rare blood types that know them anyway.
It didn’t take much to finish him off. I had made sure during the whole softening up process to avoid any direct blows to the liver area. Now it was a question of getting the cadaver to the hospital as quick as possible. Time was of the essence. I put him near his front door so it would be easier for the ambulance crew and with the organ donation form I had made him sign clearly visible in his top pocket.
I phoned the ambulance service and waited nearby to watch the results. It was some time before the corpse was carted off because the police arrived soon after and promptly cordoned the area off. I went back home and waited patiently by the phone. But there was no call. It could of course have been down to several factors but the one poignant factor I realised is that the police would consider the death suspicious and probably wanted an autopsy.
I decided that the best way forward to speed up the whole thing was just leaving the torso next time. Then the police wouldn’t have to worry themselves about identifying the corpse. On the next job I decided I would take a freezer box, an apron and a good collection of butchers’ knives. Over the next few weeks I was lucky enough to get quite a few decent subjects one after another. It was much messier work than I thought it would be. Who would have thought the human body held so much blood and also the amount of flesh increased exponentially when it was chopped up.
Unfortunately the torsos were ignored just as much as my first job was and I only succeeded in terrifying half of London into believing that a mad serial killer was on the loose inevitably nicknamed by the tabloids as, ‘The Torso Terror’.
I had disposed of the limbs in one of the Firm’s furnaces designed for just such purposes. But the tabloids seized on the fact that none of the limbs or the head of the victims had been found and got the idea that the ‘Torso Terror’ was in fact a cannibal and painted vivid pictures of how he might be preparing and eating his victims. One paper had even gone so far as to ask readers to send in their cooking ideas.
The fuzz were getting pretty hot though so I eased up for a while. In the end they arrested some poor loony who confessed to all of the crimes and a few others that the Old Bill hadn’t solved.
A month and a half had gone past and I still hadn’t got the call from the hospital. I did however get a call from my employers. They were pleased with the results I was getting but were concerned that I might be becoming a bit over zealous in my work. The debt money was being repaid faster than ever so they didn’t complain too much. Word had got around that the killings were connected and the Firm were cracking down in a not uncertain manner so people were paying up double quick.
What I needed was a good old-fashioned disaster. A train accident or a motorway pile-up would be just the job. I stopped short of wholesale mass murder though. It didn’t seem right a load of innocent people dying like that. But I knew time was running out and if the worst came to the worst…
I racked my brains for days. And then I struck gold. I’d been watching an old re-run of West Side Story and it came to me - I’d start a turf war. It just shows how stressed I’d become that it hadn’t occurred to me earlier. It was bound to supply plenty of corpses and moreover corpses of people who probably deserved to be dead. I felt practically philanthropical. There was even a bonus supplied by modern technology which directly benefitted me. Lately the gangs had been opting for headshots due to the unsporting behaviour of some criminals who insisted on wearing bulletproof vests. This of course nicely protected most of their valuable organs, at least the ones that were valuable to me. I made a point of telling all my associates what a good thing they were and that wearing one on the street should be a matter of course, a bit like putting your safety belt on when driving a car.
It wasn’t difficult to get the gangs at each other’s throats. Most of them hated each never mind the other gangs. I waited in a dark alley and beat John ‘the Baptist’ Jacob’s (so called because of his habit of torturing people in a bucket full of water) brains out with a baseball bat. It was well known that this was ‘Mad’ Mick McCarthy’s weapon of choice and that he had a grudge against John. It wasn’t long before a full scale war had broken out and London’s streets were awash with the injured and dying bodies of villains and of course lots of fresh livers. By carefully and surreptitiously bumping off the odd popular villain I managed to escalate the turf war into a full scale Armageddon between those South and North of the river. It was like the Krays and Richardson’s feud all over again.
Inevitably it dragged in my own employers. They met their deaths by being force fed their ledger books. A brilliant innovation of sublime poetic justice. By a happy coincidence it also meant that with the demise of my employers and their books (which no one cared to retrieve,) I was no longer in debt when I did finally get my liver.
I was of course doubly pleased because it was obvious to me by then that my body was predisposed to only receive a villain’s liver.

I am well.


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Author: Stephen Hernandez