by submission | Mar 6, 2019 | Story |
Author: Thomas Tilton
Their date had gone fabulously well, which was why Simon was so depressed. Invariably, dates ended badly for him. Par for the course when you had a softball-sized parasite attached to your left flank.
“I should go,” Simon said, poised to leave Alice on her front doorstep.
“Please don’t,” she said, and her eyes shone with a bright pleading, though Simon detected a hint of reservation at the downturned side of her half-smile.
“I really can’t–” Simon started to explain.
“But you can. Please. Try it.” Alice’s words were insistent, but her tone bespoke hesitation and reluctance.
If Simon’s self-esteem were any lower, he might think Alice was trying to lure him inside to rob him or something equally sinister.
He sighed. “I suppose I could, but there’s something I should tell you first.”
She cut him off. “I have something to tell you, too. But first, come inside.”
Inside the foyer, neither one moved to take off their heavy coats, though it was stifling inside Alice’s apartment.
They stood there, awkwardly, for maybe a minute.
“Aren’t you warm?” Alice asked.
“Aren’t you?” Simon said.
Alice nodded, lowered her head in what seemed to be a gesture of weary resignation, and started to shrug herself out of her large purple coat.
Once decloaked, there was no mistaking the round protrusion on her right flank.
“You’ve got…” Simon began excitedly, though Alice must have mistaken it for disgust, because she crossed her hands over her right flank and looked away from him.
“No, don’t,” Simon said, shrugging out of his own heavy coat. “Look at this.”
He took off his shirt too, and he displayed himself proudly to her, was half-naked in front of someone for the first time in years and felt no shame.
“I picked him — it? — up on a mining colony off-world, when I was overseeing a dig,” Simon said, unselfconsciously stroking the parasite, which began to grow red, seemed to be sprouting orifices — yes, there were nostrils now, and a small gaping mouth.
“He gets hungry,” Simon laughed.
“Why don’t you feed him?” Alice said, and she removed her blouse.
Hours later, their bodies entwined in the sheets on Alice’s bed, Simon tickled Alice’s feet with his tongue and Alice stroked Simon’s calf tenderly with her fingers.
“I don’t ever want to be apart from you,” said Alice dreamily.
“I’m not sure we’ll have a choice in the matter,” Simon opined.
Between them, their two parasites clung together in an embrace, a glowing red furnace between their naked bodies, conjoining them.
by submission | Mar 3, 2019 | Story |
Author: Ian Hill
We showed each other our wounds in the iron room.
I saw the soft sump of skin on her head where part of her skull had cratered, and she peered at the fused and welded tendons that twisted the back of my leg. I felt her erratic heartbeat, and she counted all the places where my veins were knotted. I found an interesting cluster of lesions in the shadowy hollow where the bone under her eye was shattered; as I studied these, she stared back at me, tracing the bifurcations of a burn across the divoted dome that was my scalp.
As we got to know one another better, we felt the need to help the other. The thin, taut layer of tissue scraped over her ribs was always wrenching into whorls. I tried fruitlessly to mash her cramps smooth, and she creaked all the while, mouth twitching and eyes rolling. Another time, she carefully excised the worms from the festering place under my arm. But, in the end, we were no doctors; I could not unwind the torsion of her entrails, and she could not extract the poison from my thickening blood. We were terminal partners in that cold, sourcelessly bright room. But still, our angular, dazzling chamber was better than the white beach above where we had met. The cruel things were up there, amorous for more mangling.
The most affecting part of her body was her stomach. That torsion I mentioned before—that terrible writhing of the viscera—had forced some of her organs outward. They bulged against her thin abdominal wall, distending, showing dark and murky and purple as they slumped against her lap, barely retained by a thin layer of skin and fascia. The bloated bumps of hernias were nothing compared to this turgid sac that she had to cradle, lest something horrible happen. My eyes were often drawn to the lumpy coils, to the warm bag of maybe liver, maybe diaphragm, or maybe something new. We were changing, after all.
I tried not to look at her stomach, and she hid it from me in shame, hunching forward, folding her arms and gathering it all in. It frightened me, those unaccountable shapes, lobed and bruised so abhorrently. There were parts of me that revolted her, I know: where my scapula was exposed and sewn with marrow-seeping fissures, where my skin was so desiccated that it wept ash, where my hand contorted into a strange, convulsive club. But she never showed fear, even as convulsions wracked me and bent me into strange shapes.
It turned out that my disgust was well-founded, however. She was sleeping, one time, and I was staring at her sidelong. Something in her gut was churning, distorting. I stared with horror as one of the swollen protrusions crawled back into her. She made a strange sucking noise and turned, mercifully blocking the view. I forced myself to sleep. The next morning, I woke to a sharp intake of breath.
“Oh, God,” she said.
I glanced at the floor and saw a little pink thing quivering there. It was naught but a pile of neoplastic slag, almost—but not quite—formless. I looked away.
“What is that?” she whispered.
“It came out of you.”
We ended up pushing the pulpy thing into the corner, turning our backs, and simply ignoring it. This was for the best.
After a while, it denatured, and it became just another bit of unidentifiable, wholly inert sludge. But she was changed. Her wounds got worse. She withered, and she was glad. I watched it all, and I grew, and I spread. I wondered what I would become.
by submission | Mar 2, 2019 | Story |
Author: Bart Williams
Jeremy awoke to see Karen hovering over him. She covered him with kisses until he was aroused and then they made vigorous love.
“Good morning, birthday boy,” she said. Jeremy looked up at Karen’s perfect face, hair and skin. He never tired of her. He started to get out of bed, but she pulled him back for a second round.
“Early installment on your birthday present,” she said.
“You mean there’s more?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Hurry up and get dressed.”
Jeremy appreciated himself in the bathroom mirror. Lean, taut and toned. Not bad he thought. As a freighter pilot cruising near light speed most of his life, he didn’t age much. But in earth years he just turned three hundred. All his natural family were gone, but he had Karen. She was his fourth wife. He barely remembered the others.
Karen said she had a surprise for him. She called the mobileer and they drove to Galactic Pet.
There were aisles and aisles of glass cages, some room size, filled with the latest designs. Jeremy found it fascinating, though he’d never had a pet before. He liked the mini hippos, which were household practical and could fit in your bathroom tub. There were exotica like the rat-snake hybrid with two heads on a cylindrical body that tried to eat itself. They moved on to the legacy models and saw a Labrador retriever by ModiPet ™ that had all the standard features, including a remote.
“I like this one,” said Karen. “Of course, it’s your gift, honey, you decide.”
Jeremy chuckled knowing it was really Karen’s gift to herself, but he didn’t care. He actually liked the dog. He named him Bowser.
They decided to celebrate by taking Bowser to MetroPark. They took Bowser off the leash, set the remote to “play” and off he went into the dog park. Other models were there playing and they watched like proud parents.
“Do you think he’s playing a little hard?” Karen asked. Jeremy looked over to see Bowser humping a cockatiel Dalmatian mix. The cock-a-dal’s big wings were in an agitated flutter. Jeremy adjusted the remote and Bowser hopped off to face them expectantly.
“Hey, watch this,” he said and pressed a second button.
Bowser dashed to the fake fire hydrant and lifted his leg to pee. Jeremy hit “repeat fast” and the dog did a hundred pee lifts in the next minute before Jeremy hit “stop.” Bowser looked up, panting and tail wagging.
“Jeremy, that’s so cute,” Karen said.
The sun had now come out and Karen wrapped her arms around her husband. She balanced herself against him as she leaned her body back to catch the warmth.
Suddenly she froze, then fell and began to twitch violently.
“Karen! Karen!” Jeremy said, as he knelt beside her on the grass. Her eyes stared out blankly, their deep blue color beginning to fade.
“You’re OK, you’re OK, don’t worry,” Jeremy said. He sharply twisted her head to the left and her shaking stopped. He inserted his index finger deep into her ear until he felt a click, then lifted up her side panel.
“Ah, Karen you are an old model but I love you. Lucky for you I brought the first aid kit.” Jeremy pulled something out of a small bag on his belt and placed it into Karen’s head.
“I should get you replaced,” Jeremy said, trying to make a joke.
Karen’s eyes twitched just so slightly.
“I am sorry, honey. I didn’t mean that. I really didn’t.”
by submission | Mar 1, 2019 | Story |
Author: Ian Hill
Maisie swept through the workshop, skipping from bench to shelf and beaming at everything. As she went, the loose sleeves of her shoulder-draped coat knocked over little bottles of gears and springs. Her astrakhan lapels gathered ceiling-sifted motes, and her velvet vest turned from purple to gray. Her hair was soon thick with that agitating admixture of dust, soot, ash, and ossified spores that clung to everything on the city’s borders. This didn’t bother her, though; should she need it, a rubber-faced breathing mask with a ridged oxygen hose swung from her hip, expressionless lenses flashing iridescent from their oily coating.
Maisie hadn’t been to the workshop since she was a child. Her grandfather had willed it to her a decade ago, but only that morning had her access card updated to let her in. Such delays were expected, especially with buildings once used for perimeter security. But now she was here, and she loved it with all of its tiny, featureless dolls; all its green-barred lamps; all its mallets, spools, and chunks of hewn soap. Maybe she would move here among the curled wood shavings and hand-braided wicks. The colorful medals hanging from her collar surely warranted such a whimsical shift.
Maisie’s wandering eventually took her to the tower’s balcony—a parapet-guarded overhang that afforded a fantastically unobstructed view of the outer wastes. The city’s walls were high, but now—finally—she was higher, and she could look out at that rotting sprawl and really see what people had wrought. Her excitement hardened into a lump. All was gray and brown and leached out there in the swidden desolation; mangled buildings flowed into each other, sucking swells of mud swirled in slow maelstroms, and trash heaped up in tremendously decayed mountains. Spore haze danced sickly at the horizon, and evil, dark vapors surged to and fro, rolling through black valleys and leaving shimmering trails of melt. A constant rain of what look like blighted stars showered the wasteland; everywhere one of the tiny, dazzling fuzzes landed, a flash of light went out and etched things into char.
Maisie watched the bizarre display for a while, eyes reflecting the fitful plague. Then, a flash of pink in the murk drew her attention. Someone was moving around down there, picking between mounds of refuse, meandering aimlessly. Maisie leaned over the guardrail and squinted. It was too far to see, so she ducked into the workshop, retrieved a brass telescope, and, with one boot braced against the steel, propped herself up like a surveyor and looked again.
There was a little girl out there. She wore a stained jumper, and she trailed a doll from her right hand. Maisie’s heart leapt. She watched as the child scoured mold from mirrors, picked maimed toys from sludge, and played fetch with a leprous dog that followed her around. At one point, the girl climbed to the top window of a gutted, rolled hotel and pretended to be a princess. It made the woman’s heart ache.
Within the hour, Maisie was knee-deep among the scum and corruption, mask on face; at least its nose was stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs. At length, she found the little girl in a sort of glade of garbage, wheezing and petting her fungal puppy.
“Hi,” Maisie said, voice distorted.
The girl looked up.
“Come to the city with me.” Maisie extended a gloved hand.
The girl smiled and made to stand, but she stopped. “What about Rufus?”
Maisie peered at the trembling mutt and shook her head. “He’s sick.”
The girl smiled even broader and plopped back down, carefree. “No thanks!”
Rufus rollicked; Maisie’s heart broke.
by submission | Feb 28, 2019 | Story |
Author: Suzanne Borchers
Her fingers fumbled with the fasteners on the uniform. She breathed out harshly and shook her left hand. Trying again to manipulate the loop, she cursed under her breath so that her crew wouldn’t hear the unprofessional words. They were at war, dammit, and she couldn’t allow anything less than perfection from them or herself.
Calm. She needed to relax, take the time for precision, and allow her fingers to find their strength and dexterity. Once more she attacked the task. Dammit! Why did some idiot decide officers needed loops and not Velcro fasteners? Velcro had been used for eons and then some designer changed the uniforms—why?
And why wasn’t her hand cooperating?
“Sir, may I help you?” her second-in-command’s syrupy voice interrupted.
Second would love to be in charge, wouldn’t he? Always watching her and waiting for a chance to catch a mistake in judgment. She was a mature woman with decades of service! She wouldn’t step down to this man only a few years out of academia. What did he know about running a starship? He had no people skills and one had to command not only the crew’s minds but their hearts.
“When I need your help, I’ll tell you.” He needed to remember his place in command. His face told everything that skipped through his brain. And a captain needed to control emotions and not show them so obviously. What was the fleet commander thinking when he draped this albatross around her neck? “Make your job easier,” he said. She swallowed a guffaw.
Give him a project to handle and he wouldn’t have time to stare at her. “Second, alert the crew to ready themselves for a battle drill.” There, that would keep his power-hungry eyes off her. And why couldn’t she move her left arm? She, who had always prided herself on control of others, couldn’t control her own muscles. What was happening?
“Sir, I didn’t understand your command.”
What was wrong with his ears? She deepened her voice and raised the volume when she repeated it.
Why were other crew members swiveling in their chairs to stare at her? Their faces registered confusion. She had to regain control. This was an insult!
“Second, we are to begin a battle drill! Alert the crew!
The second-in-command tapped his panel. She couldn’t hear his words. His quiet voice quickened her suspicions of mutiny. The bridge crew members appeared to be on the edges of their seats, watching her.
Tears began to tickle her eyes. She never cried. She blinked hard. She was the captain! She was in control!
The doors opened to admit the ship’s lead surgeon. As he approached her, he said, “Everyone back to your panels,” and they obeyed.
As Second stood next to the doctor, his face showed his emotion. What? He was sorry for her!
The doctor touched her arm. “Captain, please accompany me to the sick bay. You’re needed there.”
When did those two orderlies enter the bridge?
“I’m needed here, Doctor.” She had to stay in control. Why wasn’t her body cooperating?
When she awoke in Sick Bay, she scrambled to climb out of the bed. Her body pinned her down. Why didn’t her left side obey her command? She used her right hand to lift her heavy left arm. When had her skin become thin and wrinkled? When did brown spots cover her hands?
She was just an old woman.
She wept uncontrolled tears.
