Contributor: Dirky Henkel

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Standing by the window, Odessa scratches that itch which never stops. This one is new, two days old. Her vagina's growing more swollen, turning light blue like her eyes, her pubic hair falling out in lumps. Every now and then she can see her vaginal walls move. And she knows it's a virus inside of her, another unwanted Hypherian baby, sucking its way into her womb as though there aren't enough of them leeching the planet. That's what shit like her is used for these days, breeding. She killed the first little fucker, because she found out. Giving birth to their young is suicide. They say you dissolve like acid. Rumours travel fast, even here in Block A329, a hundred floors up. There's comfort in complacency, especially when you're being fed pills.
The haze from the outside creeps through the grille and makes her face look like a checkerboard of fire orange. There's no day or night, no sense of time. She wonders what's beyond those dark clouds permanently casting shadows on the city that used to be, what those fast-moving, neon lights are below, how much longer those airborne star machines, with their protracting claws and flickering beacons waking her up mid-sleep with their noises, will be demolishing all the surrounding buildings. Everything's going, being replaced, yet nothing's really changing.
It's mostly lonely but she's used to it, these four walls of prison hell. She's seen much, enough. Sometimes she gets visits from that scaly bastard, Warden Ainu, whose only services are meals and abortions, the latter of which is to his gain, running a foetus-selling business on the black market which thrives right at home. Warden's not much different from the prisoners he watches, just male, old, one of the last surviving of his gender. Like them, his freedom's severely restricted, confined to the block. And he's not the first warden. Without him, they'd be dead. Without them, he'd be starving. Trust is mutual.
Something slides underneath the padlocked door, what she was waiting for. A piece of paper.
“Ready?” it reads. “Need the protein. Got your solution.”
She dips a stick in a bucket of faeces, scribbles on the paper, “Y,” and sends her message.
There's a buzz. The door clunks open, and the warden sneaks in with his briefcase of tools and motions for her to lie down. She does so, setting her legs wide apart, pulling up her johnny gown of brown blotches. She's then bare, being poked and prodded in inspection. It hurts when he feels that bump above her scarred clitoris, even more when he inserts a pair of pliers inside to fish for the parasite. But she knows it must be done. Her face compresses. She bites her lip. Her eyes roll back. She screams in her mind, but not from her mouth. She hasn't had her tongue since she was two. No human does. The cold, invading steel seems like it's about to puncture her intestines, inciting a need to urinate. Liquid runs down the back of her legs. It's not her essence. The thing's already out, being pinched between the pliers, wriggling its last. It resembles a glowing tapeworm. That's what they look like in the early stages. Warden Ainu throws it into a jar with formaldehyde, and leaves. Odessa has her survival.

Ten days since the abortion. The meal compartment in the door opens. She holds the tray just long enough to get a look, trying to spot the odd change, and sees. There's another warden. Ainu's gone. This one is more anemic, corpselike, torn from reality. Different. She tries to meet his eyes to communicate, but he shuts her off. She slowly sinks on the bed, lost of appetite.

From under her blanket, she hears the door open and close. She doesn't open her eyes. She can hear it cooing, tracing the ground with those viscuous tentacles, coming nearer. The blanket leaves her side. Her gown gets torn, and her body goes bouncing onto the concrete floor. She loses consciousness, but not before she feels the Hypherian thrust inside.

She's still bleeding below, that throb between her thighs ceaseless, her entire gown damp. She gets up in time and limps over for another serving, hearing those wheels squeak in the passage. As the tray gets handed through, she snags the warden by the tie. Suddenly, an alarm goes off, and she backs off ruefully, staring at the door, waiting. In enters a droid that shoots a canister of gas. It makes her sleep.

It's getting bad, the itch, really bad. Those fucks have her good this time. She can't move. She's not sure what they gave her, why they keep coming in, but she knows it's getting worse. She keeps fading in and out. The thing inside isn't in her vagina anymore. Looking down, she notices how her stomach is inflating.

They're standing around, watching her like this is some kind of sick show. How many days has it been? All she can see is their silhouettes, and all she can do is turn her head, wring silly smiles. The pills make her want to laugh. They overdid the dosage. She realizes why. It's happening. The veins on her forehead tense. There's an eruption in her abdomen, a sensation of needles plunging outward, and then she can finally scream even though it sounds more like a deep grunt. The dome of her stomach pops, sending blood on her face, everywhere. The thing's head rears from her organs. It's a wet, hairy ball, like a spider as big as a dog, and it scampers away to join its family. Odessa's skin is burning, disintegrating, and she can see the bones in her fingers. The light from the window isn't orange anymore.


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Dirky Henkel writes from Berlin, Germany. Follow her on Twitter at @DirkyHenkel.

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Author: Dirky Henkel

Contributor: Catfish McDaris

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I slash his throat and hands with my machete, as the scream escapes, I cut it into thin slices and deal them like a deck of tarot cards, then I wake up. Some nights it’s playing chess with Elvis and I wake before I checkmate the king. Or I’m a phrenologist and feeling the lumps on Hitler’s head before shoving a grenade in his mouth. Sometimes the night gathers me up in its arms and I listen to the mermaids whisper and laugh. Or the continuous sex of knocking boots with beautiful twin sisters, they decide to treat me down and doggie. They make me a nasty sandwich, by wiping their ass on bread, spitting on the cheese, blowing boogers in the mustard, jerking out some pubes for the lettuce and slicing dog doo for the main ingredient and covering it with salsa. It’s not as bad as it sounds. They let me shave their armpits and vaginas and lick them baldy clean. Then I take them to Benihaha’s Jap Café, this Asian dude slaps steak and onions on a hot grill and fashions the pile into a tiny steamboat and manipulates it across the heated surface, making it puff smoke rings. He then divides it and flips it into our bowls with rice in soy sauce and does some tricks with chicken and shrimp. Tossing the salt and pepper shakers up in the air and catching them on top his chef’s hat. I go to the can and come back and he’s dropped down on my girls, playing Ring Around Tokyo Rosie. When he gives me the bill, I need an ambulance and an armored car. I just wish I could mellow out and have some smooth dreams again.


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Catfish McDaris’ most infamous chapbook is Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. His best reading was in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore. Catfish McDaris Mcdar3@aol.com

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Author: Catfish McDaris

Contributor: Craig Podmore

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After walking the isolated, rural country road I finally come across an idyllic cottage. I spray my perfume, all over my neck, my wrists and my exposed cleavage. I knock on the door. A male dwarf answers; he thoroughly scans my legs, all the way up, past my thighs to my breasts and then finally my face. Not a word is muttered as I enter the cottage. Inside there’s a fire and two naked women, both wearing amputated pigs’ snouts that crudely deform their pretty faces. The perfume stings my skin as the salt of my sweat reacts. The heat is immense.

I have no recollection of getting here...

“Welcome, welcome! My beautiful flower is here.” The director greets me with his absurd sentiment.
“Do you have the key?” He asks. An overwhelming confusion envelops me.
“A key? I’m sorry…I…”
“Don’t worry, princess…” He claps, smiling intensely, almost unnervingly. The dwarf man claps too but the two naked women stand with a haunting stoicism. The fire is nearly as big as the room itself; it’s a blue and green flame and not a normal colour.

“This is Grieg, he’s the cameraman for the shoot.” Grieg, an obvious man of sleaze, his grin stretches to a disturbing point, his neck has burn marks – “it’s just a love bite, don’t worry about it.” They both laugh; as Grieg knew I was staring at his inflamed scars. The feeling of inadequacy is unbearable; I could not comfort nor contain myself at all. The dwarf approaches me with a disturbing grimace: “is your cunt wet yet?”

I look at the director and he just continues to laugh but suddenly stops, almost robotic-like, he takes a knife out of his pocket, I drop my handbag, Grieg starts shooting, the director starts to smile again with a more inhuman jest, he penetrates the knife into himself, such screams, such woe, such pain as he slices the knife up from his abdomen to the top of his chest, he stretches the wound open, blood spits onto my make-up and expensive lipstick, I quickly look at the two naked women and still they stand inanimately, the dwarf however is dead on the floor, headless; his head smoulders in the fire, the director’s self-autopsy is at a near completion as his ribs, sinew, guts and bone exhibit explicitly in front of me, shockingly still, in the darkness of his very flesh, something moves, something alive comes forward, it has a face, I cover my mouth as vomit protrudes slowly, I recognise the face, it is my father's.

I wake up in the back of a limo as if an electric shock had passed through me. A slight disorientation, a profound irritation overcomes me, a complication of realisation relating to whether I just witnessed the unnerving events that I had experienced back in that ghastly cabin. I notice a glass of champagne, half full, lipstick-smeared glass (my colour); my head is pounding, my mouth unbelievably dry and my vision doubles as one tries to look at things close up. The limo stops. The driver announces my arrival, he gets out of the car and walks round to the door on my side, he opens it with a gentlemanly charm, I did expect an abundance of flash photography bruising the corneas of my eyes, instead, the welcome is of a pure silence. A figure waits in the doorway of a funeral home, it is my mother; I notice that her dress is soaking in blood, so thorough that the cotton of the dress has solidified. The blood derives from her left breast, where her heart resides. She does not greet me with exuberance but with a haunting calm, she mumbles apologies to me with an illustrated torture that resounds throughout my soul and skin. Again, I sweat; my perfume no longer lingers of sweetness but something more death-like. I look back to see if the limo was still there but it has disappeared without a trace, I didn’t hear the engine at all for my mother’s apologies. I look back towards my mother and no longer does she stand in the doorway. I walk into the funeral home, a thick blackness swarms the inside and I hear constant whispers inviting me into the building, I’m somewhat apprehensive but some unconscious notion drives me to walk inside.

A spotlight hits me from a beyond no soul knew existed. It blinds me, I put my hand up to see if I can gain a vision for anything ahead of me but all I can make out is a catwalk-like stage. From within the dark, I start to her voice resonating, steadily progressing louder and chanting my name:

“Anna, Anna, Anna…”

Such a disturbing engagement, I step back due to trepidation and fear until a soft light appears at the end of the stage. A young girl playing with her skipping rope, she does not seem of this age, the delicate pigtail hair and the rich, floral dress flows as she jumps, her movements postponed somewhat, as if she’s in a slower motion than our dimension of actual time. She seems so real and so…familiar. I start to walk towards her in a steady speed and the voices still carry on chanting my name. As I begin to walk, a dead rose is thrown in front of me. I step forward furthermore and to my horror, a human kidney is thrown before me, I shake and stumble in a catharsis so profound. No longer do I want to look back, no longer do I want to see forward. Although, the young girl continues to skip and play in her own little heaven ahead, I pull myself together and step over the grotesque organ. More steps I take and blood starts to flicker onto my face, I vomit onto the stage with such violence. The chanting abruptly stops, I look unto the darkness, nothing to be seen but the glare of the spotlight, again I stand straight and look ahead. The girl still skips. Voices appear again although this time, it is a choir of incoherent ululations, it makes me look around in an erratic fashion and never before have I witnessed such madness. I walk, faster now, towards the girl, more intestines, hearts, bones, fragments of brain, amputated genitals, prosthetic limbs, dildos, pictures of murder victims that I could recognise, my pace growing and growing and more macabre offerings land in my path.

Finally I approach the girl, she stops skipping, with her back to me she slowly turns around and faces me only to reveal that she is a younger me, she smiles and then places her index finger before her lips; ‘shhhh…’ She disappears, I am frantic as I begin to shout for her, the invisible beings within the cold dark start to laugh and applaud such a delusion.

“Anna. Turn around my sweet petal.”

The deep voice bellows from behind my back, the familiar voice cuts me in two. I fear that it is my father. I turn with an immense apprehension; my guts turn into a sour grave, as it is indeed my father. I nearly fall onto my behind as he stands with a newborn baby girl in his arms along with a revolver pointing to her skull in his right hand. She screams, the poor girl, such hullaballoo, I can’t look him in the eyes; the dark voids of his homicidal menace haunt me.

“The fact that she isn’t screaming because of the sight of the gun but because of something more mundane, like hunger or flatulence, it illustrates to me how stupid we all are, without the wisdom of the elders we’re nothing but flesh…existing.”

He pulls the trigger; the blast, the rapid fire, it’s burning chamber smokes as the innocent’s blood exits the frame of its little head. The audience is revealed; every single person is me, an exact mirror of, laughing and pointing at me, photographers jump onto the stage, the bulbs flashing like machine guns, Polaroid pictures of my bloodied face hit the floor amidst the confetti of flesh and sinew, the blood of me, newborn, stains my eyelids, forehead and cheeks, I feel a gnawing coming from the genital area, a subtle pinch, I guide my hands between my legs and I nervously feel a residue. My fingers reveal specks of menstruation, now I can see…


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Author: Craig Podmore

Contributor: Will Lawrence

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She didn’t know what was wrong with her.

Was she unstable?

Was she a pervert?

Could this be a gateway fetish to something more bizarre, like S&M, or licking a man’s anus?

Her boyfriend left her three weeks ago this Thursday.

It was Tuesday.

And now she felt damaged, unworthy of another long-term suitor, because she would inevitably carry this peculiar desire over from one relationship to another, and so on and so on… until, she feared, word would spread, and every eye belonging to every man, woman, child, and animal she passed in her day-to-day life would be not only aware, but firmly fixated on her, for that one and only reason.

She would probably die alone. She couldn’t be more certain of that. She continuously told herself she was going to die alone, over and over, each and every day, and now she fully trusted the idea, firmly believing in her own ridiculous foresight.

She hid faceless in Internet chat rooms and on message boards, dating sites and personal ads, believing what she was doing was nothing more than research – a quest – for a potential husband, or at the very least a loving, caring, understanding life-long companion. But all they ever turned out to be were one-night stands, leaving her unfulfilled, but more than anything, embarrassed and ashamed of herself, while they would leave with yet another notch in their belts and a great little story to laugh about with their buddies over drinks. It didn’t take long for her to realize the safest bets were hooking up in parts of the city where she was unlikely to ever run in to her one-shot beaus again, and to start using “fake” names.

Thank God for old high school enemies.

But was this thing just a sickness that would continue to live on, an incurable disease?

Even after her eventual demise, was this something that would haunt her even beyond the grave? Would this be her legacy? She couldn’t help but return to that terrifying belief, that these partners – each one she had infected, even amidst their dim-witted, dullard exteriors – would grow old, have wives, children – families – and tell their son’s tales, during late nights when boundaries cannot be crossed, when nothing seems remotely right nor wrong, about that one revolting night in the history of their youth. And she would be the siren who’d got the best of them, led them astray, but nevertheless sent them along to reiterate the tale of the woman who couldn’t help but be turned on to hear her men fart during sex.


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I like to write stuff.

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Author: Will Lawrence

Contributor: Misti Rainwater-Lites

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She was quite the side dish, much creamier and more filling than potato salad or green bean casserole. No woman in her right mind wants to be meatloaf or turkey. That’s what wives are for.

“You’d rather see me dead than with another man. Wouldn’t you, baby?” she murmured, nesting naked in stained twisted sheets and not so fluffy pillows.
“Damned straight,” he said, tweaking her defiant left nipple.
The newest hot shit reality show blared from the television, which was surrounded by empty wine bottles and gay sex magazines. “Survivor Small Press Poet Island.” If the two surviving poets did not resort to cannibalism they would win a book deal with Simon and Schuster and a lifetime supply of peppermint flavored condoms. There was a catch. The surviving poets would not be allowed to brag about their victory at Facebook. The surviving poets would, in fact, have to deactivate their Facebook accounts. It was a kind of experiment. Would poetry books sell without Facebook? It was a gamble the producers were willing to take.

“I feel sorry for your wife. The meatloaf. The turkey. The lasagna so forlorn in the deep freeze,” the creamy and filling side dish said.
“Shush,” he said. He reached for the nearest bottle of moscato, took a swig.
“I talk too much, I know. Sorry, baby. But I don’t want to ever take your wife’s place. Just wanted to make that clear. I’m very happy with the way things are. You fuck me then write poems about me. We’re adhering to an ancient tradition.”
“Yup.”

They fucked and drank moscato until they passed out. It was kind of like a Bukowski poem but much deeper and more poignant. Outside the window a homeless wino screeched,”We’re being poisoned by this Disney princess syndrome! True love ain’t a mermaid cartoon!” A tourist from Texas with bad hair and worse ideas handed the wino a dollar. It made her feel altruistic and relevant. The sky spit down rain but the bars were open. The Texan walked inside a bar and ordered a Maker’s Mark, neat. No one in the world could mess that shit up.


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I like to drink beer and play with my vibrator.

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Author: Misti Rainwater-Lites

Contributor: Dirky Henkel

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The weight of the man was gone, along with that smell of old nicotine. A scurrying sound indicated his exit. She stood, trying hard not to retch, and assembled what was left of her dress. The outline of her body was still embedded in the grass, on that patch where her life had been changed. She climbed out the park corner, left with nothing but a limp. And a secret.

***

They were in the front garden taking pictures, just Nina and her boy as it always had been, preparing for his graduation day. Through the lens, she saw a mirror image, and shut her eyes to rid of the poison, those memories that rendered her a pigeon of a human being. She couldn't let them get to her now. So she breathed in. One last snap was enough. They joined the road.
“You've grown up so fast,” she said and he agreed, and her hands tightened around the wheel. Then she spotted him fidgeting in the compartment. "What are you looking for?"
"Nothing."
"Your camera?"
He sighed. "Yeah. Hope I didn't forget."
"It's in my bag--"
Right then, a piece of paper slipped out from Nina's art portfolio, and so too did their firearm. Thomas went to put the items back, but couldn't help but be compelled by the sketch of a man's face: chiseled features, spiked hair, full lips, enlarged jaw on which was flaunted a petite goatee.
"Put that back," she insisted, snagging it from him, slamming the compartment closed.
He looked at her curiously. "Sorry. Just liked the drawing."
She regretted lashing out, and ruffled his hair. Then she wasn't sure why she made mention of it next and when she did, it was too late to withdraw, "Remember when I told you how daddy left?”
"What about it?”
Maybe it had eaten away for too long. Maybe she just hadn't been open enough with him before. She replied, "Honestly, it's been bugging me a lot. Lately, that is.”
“Doesn't bug me, mom. Anyway, these talks make me agitated.”
“I know but...” Now she almost couldn't bring herself to speak. Her words jumbled. “Thomas, Daddy didn't really walk out. There's more to it. ”
“Like what?”
“I...I don't know your daddy.” She looked away, rueful only when she noticed his surprise, because she wasn't expecting that.
“How is it even--” Thomas laughed incredulously.
“When I said those things about daddy, I was lying. Never had a partner in my life. But back when I told you, you were just a kid, understand?”
“All those stories, meeting daddy at a camp--were those made up?”
She tried to reason, “Yes, but hear me out, okay?”
Thomas stopped her with a hand. “Please don't,” he said softly. “Not now.”
The sky darkened.

***

It was late afternoon, a week day blurred among the rest. As Antonio had done for two decades, he disposed of his day-concluding coffee cup and made notice of his farewell to colleagues with the usual wry tip of the hat. He went to his locker, taking in the time-captured beams of his dead brides, and saw himself in the mirror. Old, sinful. That ugly mug of a face was more of a raisin than ever, he reckoned. But he cropped it down to all the restless nights, to those dreams giving him insomnia as a better option, those unwanted faces being resurrected in his subconscious. Haunting him, his unclean hands.
“Hey,” his supervisor startled him. “What are you doing for the weekend, buddy? There's a rumor about you making the rounds in the upper floors.”
“Really?” Antonio replied. “I hope it's not a bad one, boss.” A nervous laugh escaped him.
“No, not at all. Big heads made mention of promoting you to captain. You're only supposed to find out next week, though." A reassuring pat on the back set Antonio at ease. "Congratulations, Sergeant. Or should I say, Captain.” The supervisor issued a wink and left.
Antonio stopped smiling that fake smile. When the room was empty, when the only company was his thoughts, he gave in to his tears. He wasn't sure why he was crying, but then he started enjoying it, and then he started remembering the crimson of the past.
The ensuing moments blurred.
Antonio started his way home, blue and red blaring in victory over the traffic. In his rear view mirror, a wily grin took shape.

***

If it hadn't been for the presence of the police car pulling up, she wouldn't have braked before the stop sign; it was getting dark, inciting her to haste. She tapped her finger on the wheel while Thomas conversed with someone over the phone. Then she swung her head toward the policeman waiting beside her, just out of interest at first, and saw him. Her heart entered her throat, and she lost wind as if her stomach had been smashed inward. She squinted to make sure, and she knew it was him but kept denying it. She was alone then, just Nina and that man from twenty years ago, and she was focusing in, tracking his movement. The policeman veered forward and she did so as well, and then she banged into him, and again. Until they were both off-kilter, screeching, forced to a halt, both amidst a chaos of neon vulgarities. Chirality.

***

Nina began dragging her feet along the ground outside, feeling glass fragments beneath her soles. She heard a familiar voice--Thomas. But he wasn't in the car. Through a crack in the window, she saw him splayed on the pavement, and her eyes went wide at the sight of his ruin of a face. She tried to get out, but a hand pushed her back. A shadow swallowed her. There he was.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” the policeman bellowed as she stared at the compartment, waiting for the right moment. Then she made eye contact, meeting his rotten hazel, and immediately he clamped her shoulders, went to undo her garb, and this wasn't part of her plan. It was happening again. She loosed a yell that went nowhere.
"Shut the fuck up," he whispered a warning, pressing his nicotine palm against her mouth. Her kicking grew torpid against his catch. He went to his buckle, and all she could do was mutter prayers. An icy breeze whipped her loath skin. The man laid the cold steel of his glock against her head, readying. Slyly, her hand was already inside the compartment, out of his sight, scrambling for what she needed.
But it wasn't there. And a shot fired off.
Antonio wrung a crude smile, satisfied. He turned, and his smile went, because the boy was behind him, holding a gun too. And there was a hell of a pain in Antonio's back, so bad it was obvious what it was. And he was losing feeling. And then he wasn't on his feet anymore.

***

When Antonio came to, he wasn't sure if it was night or day, why he was in an unlit room, why he could only budge his head. Looking down, he saw he was tied up, stuck on a wooden chair. Kidnapped. Light squeezed through a door ahead. There sounded a creaking of floorboards then footsteps. The door opened. A hand smacked a light switch. At first it appeared to be help but then--
Nina rolled her wheelchair-bound son inside, passing Antonio a smile that would forever haunt, a smile that was kept there for a minute of eternity. She said to the ear of the still boy, “Thomas, meet your father. You'll have forever to be acquainted.”

***


- - -
Dirky Henkel is a daughter of the dark, a fledgling writer of erotica and horror, hailing from the sewers of Berlin, Germany. Twitter: @DirkyHenkel.

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Author: Dirky Henkel