by Julian Miles | Oct 7, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
George is waving his arms about again: never a good sign. Neela catches my eye and nods towards him, raising her eyebrows and frowning. Receiving the ‘sort it out’ message loud and clear, I take a last drag, then stub out my smoke.
His voice fades in as I approach.
“…then they got control of Area 51 and it all went sideways. The Belters wouldn’t tolerate a Saurian takeover, and the Ice Guardians are notorious for striking down any who threaten the Great Gates – Hiya, Mike – so Breakout Two instigated the genocide early to prevent further chaos.” He points at me. “Couldn’t wait to hear me finish my reveal of the Antarctic Deep Bastions, eh?” Waving to the half-dozen new arrivals gathered about him, he shakes his head, “You’ll have to wait until I’ve finished bringing the latest intake up to speed on our vital role in stopping the completion of the satanic agenda.”
I take a deep breath, consider my options, then speak.
“That’s enough, George.”
He looks at me.
“Enough what? We have to be ready for the call up. That means preparation, and our scavenging must change: it has to prioritise weapons and IED components. It’s too focussed on things to make us comfortable, and we all know how dangerous getting complacent can be: idle minds are grist for Satan’s mill.”
More than enough.
“Where’s Justin, George?”
He waves his hand towards the tents just visible under the trees.
“Volunteered for chores with Pilly. Doing his part, like I’m trying to. Gillian-”
No.
“What about Gillian?”
He catches my change of tone and pauses, momentarily nonplussed.
“She said I should-”
His face goes slack with surprise as Justin wanders up, arriving from the direction of the fish ponds – they’re on the opposite side to the tents. He’s hand-in-hand with Pilly.
“Mum said we’re trying to survive after an apocalypse, but instead of facing reality, you carry on with the fantasies that let you feel important. You told her she’d been perverted by Satan into trying to stop your holy mission. So mum left.”
I nod to him. Polite, but with an edge of anger. Entirely justified.
“Satan lured her away to serve the Saurians. Just you wait: she’ll be back with their lackeys soon, and you’ll all rue the day you ignored me.”
I look about until I spot Chas, our de facto leader. Catching his eye, I raise my eyebrows in query. We’ve talked about our resident conspiraloon often. I think we’ve finally hit decision time. Chas raises one finger, then hitches his thumb towards the entrance. Once chance or out. Got it.
“George, it’s time to choose. Either you shut up and start working with us, or you leave.”
He looks surprised.
“What? No, no. You’re wrong. You need me. I know about what’s really happening. All this,” he waves his hands about, “is a distraction from the satanic agenda. They’re-”
Gillian shouts.
“Coming to enslave us so their conquest of the Earth in Satan’s name will be complete? Or is it to kill us all to spite God? I could never work out which.”
She strolls up, trail pack and rifle cradled in her arms.
“I’m back, puddin’. Time for you to leave.”
George seems to shrink under her gaze.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me Satan’s whore. But we both have our crosses to bear, don’t we?”
He looks at those gathered about us, then turns to me.
“Walk me out?”
I nod. The least I can do is endure his final rant.
by submission | Oct 6, 2024 | Story |
Author: Joann Yu
A woman sat on a plane next to a man. He had blond hair tied in a tiny bud, wore a blue sweatshirt, and a black mask covered half of his face. She didn’t know if he had blue eyes. She didn’t dare to look at his face.
On the plane, she saw dusk coming from the other side of the cloud sea. They were flying into the night. The luminous violet oozed into the flight cabinet. Her skin looked peach caramel. The woman was not normally attracted to blonde men. They looked too light.
She fell asleep in her seat. Amid the border of dream and lucidity, she saw a black ring wrapped around the man’s ring finger on his left hand. Her head tilted, slowly landing on the blue sweater. It was a solid shoulder. The man did not shy away. She felt a furry ball gently lying on her head.
When the plane arrives, passengers stand up, line up, pace through the door and down the connection tunnel. Behind the blue sweater, She follows and drifts and they are walking side by side. It begins with a finger, two fingers, and then she feels a warm palm sliding into the hollow of her hand with the cool and stiff ring pressed against her bone.
When they stand on the curbside, the man waves for the taxi with his left hand, a black ring. He says, go to the nearest hotel. She sees the black mask move up and down.
When he lays her on the white sheets, he peels her clothes off. The fabric slides like silk. He peels himself too except for that black ring and black mask. The woman was afraid to check the color of his eyes.
When they become one entity, the woman sees, while eyes closed, that his face is as white as the bed sheets. His hair is white. His eyes are white. The blankness intruded on her. Oh no.
by submission | Oct 5, 2024 | Story |
Author: Liv
The need to write has become urgent. My thoughts, once manageable, are now turbulent, like the incessant ticking of a clock, warning of something terrible.
I haven’t slept in days, and I bite my nails to the flesh. The cause of my horror is real. My name is Carmélia, 26, and though there’s little about me that stands out, this isn’t about me.
At first, a slight haze darkened the earth—subtle, easily dismissed as city pollution. When I mentioned it to friends, they brushed it off. But the darkness grew thicker, a grayish, dirty fog that slowly turned black, like tar, even in daylight. Soon, it covered everything, bringing a putrid, musty stench that clung to the senses. Food crumbled in my hands, pages disintegrated at the touch.
And then the darkness took more. Black spots appeared on both sides of my vision, eating away at existence itself. It wasn’t just the loss of sight—it was a deeper annihilation, an abyss that filled me with emptiness. The streets vanished, and I was trapped in my house, staring at the nothingness.
I’m paralyzed by fear, afraid to move too much. Desperation drives me to drink perfume. The silence outside is maddening. Where is God? I’ve cried out to everything, divine or profane. But nothing listens.
The last streetlamp outside my house flickers—my only connection to sanity. And then, it too fades, leaving me completely alone.
I decide to end it. Knife in hand, I aim for my throat. But something stops me. It’s my shadow. It holds me, its grip soft and disgusting. I try to fight, but it’s too strong. It seeps into me, suffocating me, flattening me under an unbearable weight.
The darkness consumes everything—not just light, but form, sensation, and thought. It’s a total collapse, the end of differentiation. Everything is black.
I don’t exist anymore. The darkness has won. Humanity is doomed
by submission | Oct 4, 2024 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
Scott heard the girl’s scream and thought, ‘Oh crap, not again.’
He was taking out the boxes from the new gadgets he had bought for his recently acquired apartment, bringing them into the alley to be disposed of properly. Scott figured it was still too early in the night for the crazies to be out. He’d been wrong.
The woman was on her knees clutching her torn skirt to her groin, her cheeks exposed in the tiny panties. Her button-down shirt was ripped off one shoulder showing half her beige bra. There was blood leaking from her lip and a darkening bruise growing under one eye. Her makeup was mussed from tears and her hair resembled a rat’s nest. Her scream had momentarily postponed the inevitable.
There was a chain link fence separating his alleyway from the adjoining one on the back-to-back buildings. There, positioned in a square around the unfortunate girl, were four ruffians, bandanas covering their shorn heads and drooping jeans. They resembled a pack of hyenas ready to tear into a wounded gazelle. Scott puffed out a breath. He could turn and go back to his comfortable, air-conditioned, new apartment and watch some TV or he could intervene. Really though, there was no choice.
Scott stepped to the fence, placed his palms together at a ninety-degree opposition, spun his hands until the fingers aligned, pushed up from the tips into a steepled position, then let them slip into the gap of the fingers of the opposing hand and slowly pulled them apart to about shoulder length. The fence separated. More appropriately, the space between his hands had vanished into the fold. Scott stepped through the gap.
The gang had not seen the occurrence but as the slackened fence rattled as it unraveled, they took notice of him.
“Hey man, back the fuck away unless you want to get hurt real bad,” the one closest to him said, brandishing a knife of Rambo-sized proportion.
“Now boys, play time is over and it would be better if all of you just went home.”
“Oh, yeah!” The blade wielding thug moved to slash at Scott’s midsection.
Scott had already deftly manipulated his fingers, duplicating the complex procedure. As the swipe came at his stomach – Scott spread his hands to either side. The man who had been holding the weapon finished his swing and then stared at the stump of his arm, everything below the elbow was gone. There was no blood, no pain. It had not been amputated. His hand and forearm no longer existed on this plane. Had never existed here. It was if he had been born without the limb, only just now realizing it. The detached hand holding the knife was now in the fold.
They all stood there looking at the truncated arm. The three unharmed men took off like shots and were out of the alley in seconds. The depleted criminal spent a few extra moments to try and comprehend what happened, couldn’t, and then staggered off in a daze.
Scott helped the woman to her feet, tied the remnants of the skirt into a knot around her waist, pulled the shirt somewhat back into place and gave her his handkerchief to dab against her face.
“I think you’re OK.”
Her face was a blank mask of bewilderment. Scott put his hands on her shoulders which made her flinch. He said, “Go home, my dear.”
She took one last look into his eyes, blinked, and then limped out of the alleyway.
Scott sighed. People were going to talk about this. He’d have to move. Again.
by submission | Oct 3, 2024 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
The moment is almost here. At last, after all the speculation and rumour, the grand reveal. A cage has been wheeled onto the stage, sitting at its centre, covered by a white sheet, pristine and perfect. Everyone is certain that, when the cover is pulled away, it will be intricate and ornate but formidable. The creature trapped within and unable to escape.
The cage is a giant replica of a Victorian birdcage. Across the theatre speculation begins afresh, hushed but audible. Is the creature in some way birdlike? Winged, even? A raptor – a throwback from pre-history, from the land that time forgot.
This little theatre is packed to the rafters, and the anticipation is rife and sour. It tastes bitter but I keep on swallowing, I keep on looking.
The whole world is watching and I imagine people standing on street corners staring through shop windows at old television sets. Concave screens housed in wooden boxes, rabbit ear aerials perched on top, retro aliens with spindle legs.
This theatre is old, a gilded, burnished artefact with its shag pile carpeting and its flock wallpaper. The plush velvet seats are the colour of blood and the backdrop hanging behind the shrouded cage is colourful but fading. In my head, on those old screens, everything has been reduced to black and white.
I glance up at the drones hovering overhead and a spotlight hits the cage. We can see the creature now, its’ silhouette behind the sheet. It appears naked and not unlike us. We can see legs, arms, hands, the head. The creature doesn’t appear to be bound or gagged and we wonder if there is a blindfold or will the creature be able to see us, be permitted to speak? Will we understand or will it merely screech and squawk? Or has its tongue already been cut away in order to save us from its blasphemy. Will its voice be deep and guttural, an anguished howl?
But this creature is quite clearly delicate and fragile. Sylphlike, a fallen angel perhaps, its wing surgically removed but not its halo, not its glow.
by submission | Oct 2, 2024 | Story |
Author: James Callan
The holographer did more than tell us who was next on their list to be murdered, though that alone would suffice as unnerving. They didn’t mention names at all, opting for an artistic approach, something avant-garde to demonstrate their next dreadful slaughter. The holographer had their modus operandi, their eccentric, sadistic show-and-tell. No one wanted to witness any of it, of course. But that didn’t stop the grisly shows of light.
The holographer was a genius of their craft, capable of weaving light-forged imagery as convincing as materiality. Their “art” was telling of their skill, though it did more than tell: It showed us who was next to be murdered. The images came in hijacked spasms of radiance, every holo-device ejecting a visual presentation that did not miss the nuance of each drop of blood, each soundless scream, each strand of saliva from every wide-mouth vortex of horror.
The holographer didn’t spare their audience the finer distinctions of homicide, nor did they consider their audience beyond its numbers — the more the merrier. The “artist” didn’t bypass any outlets where they might share their work, sparing neither the children’s daycare film theatre nor the mellow, daytime holo-vision programs. The holographer was all about inclusion, sharing their light-engineered horror-show with all of Venus-Side Starport. In vivid color, in deft realism, no one was spared the shocking omens crafted in hovering luminosity.
It happened sporadically –a day, a week, a fortnight between each vulgar exhibit– then, like a ghost, it would enter the room. It would invade your senses with a stunning emission of light, a portent of what was soon to occur. It happened during dinner, at the gym, at work. You’d be eating a sandwich or lifting dumbbells, maybe filing paperwork, having sex, then it seized your awareness completely. You’d be an eye-witness to a violent act, a gruesome murder. And it wasn’t just you, just me. It was everyone.
No one was spared the 3-dimensional soon-to-be homicides, their tasteless, hack-and-slash horror. The visions of terror could not be avoided, and as the death toll climbed, neither, it would seem, could their inevitability.
When my own death was broadcasted over an evening meal shared with my mistress, I dropped my sushi, chopsticks and all. The tank-bred tuna wrapped in UV-grown rice and seaweed-substitute splashed in sort-of-soy-sauce across my plate. I glanced down to a meal that was less authentic than the image of my eventual murder before me. I pushed away my food, averting my eyes from the blunt-force cranial cave-in of my skull, the splintering of my hardhat that I wear at the starport docks.
I glanced at my mistress, noting her wide-eyed fear, the stringy thread of lab-grown sashimi dangling from her coral-red lips.
“Could the holographer be wrong?” Little hope in her tone. “Might you avoid being murdered?”
I measured the qualities of my mistress –her elegance, her beauty, her kindness– none of which I figured I deserved. “Don’t worry.” I assured her. “I’m certain to avoid this horrible death.” I passed through the 3-dimensional image of my brain being smashed into sushi ginger, my skull being fragmented into a joyful celebration of thrown confetti.
“How can you be certain?” Tears in her baby-blue eyes.
“Trust me.” A semblance of bravery. “I will not be murdered by the holographer.”
I went into the next room and sighed, loaded a fresh charge into my laser pistol and raised its barrel to my temple. The cold, gleaming instrument trembled against my ear.
I looked in the mirror, a semblance of bravery. “I will not be murdered by the holographer.”
