Twisted Tongue Magazine Brink Verbiage Formal Statement – Barrie Walsh 2 Under a Fat Bellied Moon – Ruth Henderson 12 Issue 16 a Taste of Murder

Home , 107th meridian west, Behind the Light, Beyond the Rave, Dirt sheet, Fonteyn (crater), Frank Robbins

Short Stories Twisted Tongue Magazine brink verbiage formal statement – Barrie Walsh 2 Under a Fat Bellied Moon – Ruth Henderson 12 Issue 16 A Taste of Murder – Nora B. Peevy 16 Stranger than Fiction – Jay Faulkner 21 The Fourth Floor – Jim Bronyaur 26 The Perfect Life – Timothy Fenster 29 Welcome to Twisted Tongue Magazine issue sixteen. Packed Vain – Jason D. Brawn 35 with thousands of words—larger than a standard novel— Bitsy – Barbara Stanley 43 approximately 80,000 words for your enjoyment. Turning Tightly – Ralph Greco, Jr. 47 There should be something in this issue for everyone … if Swastikas and Boobies – Adrian Alldredge 51 not, then let us know. Twisted Tongue is a magazine unlike any Long Live the King! – Sean Greennhill 57 other … here you will find works that are twisted and we don’t Bowl of Cherries – Sharon Birch 60 mean ones with a simple twist. This magazine is for those 18 and Puzzles – Gail Taylor 62 The Coffin Door and a Few Other Things for the over. Death-Catcher – Ralph Greco, Jr. 69 Don’t forget to take a look at the back page for your chance gimbals’ stati d’animo foolish resolution – Barrie Walsh 73 to win a freebie from BeWrite books. In this issue, you’ll read about many murders, vampires, Flash & Micro Fiction madness, kinky sex, tantalising foods, creepy shadows and even a Dime Toss – Len Kuntz 14 little Shakespeare. We also have two unusual pieces for you by Change Here ... – Mark Howard Jones 19 Barrie Walsh, I found them very refreshing—I hope you enjoy My Cookies – A J Madden 24 them as much as I did. Also, you can sink your teeth into the Skin Deep – R. K. Gemienhardt 28 beginnings of two novellas ‘Hack Town’ by Gretchen Van Lente In the Interlude – Theresa Nienaber 32 Honey – Adam Lugibill 32 and ‘The Writer’s Expanded Collection of Season One – Really Coming Home – Jason Barney 41 BAD Shakespeare’ episode one & two by Weeb (R.E. Heinrich). They’re Coming – Fermín Moreno González 45 There are also collections of work from some of Twisted Sleeping Stones – Jutter Caine 49 Tongue’s favourite poets—more collections to come in future A Moral of Utility – John Mark Hauer 49 issues. Federal Plaza – Calvin Seen 54 Meet in our interview novelist Michael McIrvin and Cally The Creeping Shadow – Jason Brawn 54 Taylor. In the articles you’ll make the acquaintance of Nick The Short Life of Liviana – Carlie Holmboe 59 Spalding. In this issue I’ve reviewed two novels, The Wannabes Voodoo Hyacinth - Ron Koppelberger 61 Ruff – Trisha S. Maloy 65 and Duncan’s Diary: Birth of a Serial Killer, both I highly Gypsies – Mike Walsh 66 recommend. The Last Roast – Eugene Gramelis 72 Our thanks to all of our wonderful contributors … and of course, to you, our readers. Enjoy your twisted read… Poetry The Dark Tower of Ghalathorn – Robert William Shmigelsky 15 Trapped Chest – Robert William Shmigelsky 15 Editor – Claire Nixon Monster Wards for Hero’s Campfire – Robert W Shmigelsky 15 Horn of the Fallen – Robert William Shmigelsky 15 Reading Team Fabric Shortcut – Robert William Shmigelsky 15 Claire Nixon Electric in the Sun – Michael Lee Johnson 25 Steve Fitzsimmons Hookers on Archer Are – Michael Lee Johnson 25 Darren McCormick Indolent Sun – Michael Lee Johnson 25 Michael Acton California Summer – Michael Lee Johnson 25 Deborah Rey Mr. Robot - Louis B. Shalako 31 Embryo – Dr. Charles Frederickson 33 Proofers Revalations – Dr. Charles Frederickson 33 Deborah Rey Land’s End – Dr. Charles Frederickson 33 Tim Reed Spinster – Dr. Charles Frederickson 33 Expresso Yourself – Dr. Charles Frederickson 34 Interview – James Hazlehurst Him – Sophie Crockett 34 Articles – Alexander James Let Me Take Your Hand – Sophie Crockett 34 Cover Image – Steve Upham My Vaulted Love – Fermín Moreno González 45 The Last River – E. N. De Choudens 50 Interview Fate – E. N. De Choudens 50 A Twisted Tongue Interview with Novelist Michael McIrvin 37 Pain – E. N. De Choudens 50 Interview with Cally Taylor The Shadow of Night – E. N. De Choudens 50 The Call of the Dark – E. N. De Choudens 50 Reviews Back to Writing – P.S.Gifford 53

The Wannabes by F J Jameson 85 Novellas Duncan’s Diary: Birth of a Serial Killer by Christopher C. Payne 85 Hack Town – part one – Gretchen Van Lente 76

The Writer’s Expanded Collection of Season One – Really Published by Claire Nixon in the UK. All rights revert to contributors BAD Shakespeare – episode one – The Telephone Call – upon publication. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced Weeb (R.E. Heinrich) 82 without consent of the author/artist and editor. Any similarities to persons The Writer’s Expanded Collection of Season One – Really or places mentioned in the stories or illustrations to persons living or dead BAD Shakespeare – episode two – The Long Walk Home – or actual places are entirely coincidental. Opinions expressed within these Weeb (R.E. Heinrich) 83 works are not necessarily those of Twisted Tongue. Book Excerpts Fiction/Poetry: © respective authors 2010 Life with No Breaks by Nick Spalding, extract 1 9 Life with No Breaks by Nick Spalding, extract 2 10 Artwork: © stock.xchng & respective artists 2010 The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time by Michale McIrvin 38

Website: www.twistedtongue.co.uk Articles A Book by Bedtime 8 Email: [email protected]

TWISTED TONGUE 1 TWISTED TONGUE 2 Did “Brother Francesco” influence Francis Walsingham’s brink verbiage formal statement 1590 death? [figure-1] 1344+123=1467 aligns Benzene Seal’s 1284/1344 gorILLI osing as 1681-memorbilia collector, the TT-reporter’s in mentality of codeX2000: year after Knights Templar arrests, they the Antipodeans following the Rendlesham trail. One of escape to rendezvous 1308+62=1344+666=2010 as new PBritain’s 3-legendary East Anglia anti-invasion protectors, millennium. Is P-&-P Propaganda Due’s P2 of John Paul I’s 33- the Rendlesham crown was dug-up & melted-down over 300- day papacy murder-conspiracy? years ago. That its 1681 dug-up & relocated is critical-path Contact Zero’s why he’s Arthur Gordon Pym non-de-plume. Rendlesham UFOs late December 1980, as 1681 inverse is 1981 New Year. erhaps her friend’s correct: “until a blue moon” means December 2009 blue moon GMT-anomaly is New Years P never. L-silo-Drama anagram Sally Ride’s “2-or-3 Chapter- Day 2010 in Australia to British 1788 penal-colony settlement. ending” quest to Edgar Allan Poe The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Mysticism’s 1788-1681=107 music-code riddle’s East Anglia Pym of Nantucket 1838-publishing. crown-protectors of ancestral raven-god Bran’s head in the 1344+666=2010-1776=234 encodes: MONARCH [St Tower of London, reignited by secret-manuscripts to 1936 Georges Day] Sotheby sale: A Warning to the Curious by M.R. James. The ghost- 1344+777=2121-1776=345 encodes: 900 MONAD story of finding 1-of-3 crown-protectors at Seaburgh England, [Pythagorean Theorem] pertains draft-manuscript’s marginalia notes “107 music-code” to 900=L symbol, so MONARCH & L-MONAD Rendlesham crown’s existence. superimposition highlight RCH/LD. RCH=1838 preempts Pythagorean Limma 256:243: he dedicated his penname Ahmes LD=L-silo-Drama of nuclear submarines. to Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot-dead October 7, “The terror of whiteness,” she recalled her friend citing Poe’s 2006. story is 1513 Piri Reis conundrum. Map’s 1929-discoverey shows Antarctica’s 1818-discovered north-coast with pre-ice accuracy. lood, your life depends upon lying close.” Prime Meridian’s through Giza Pyramids. It “-b 7-word part-message is 1999 memento of last 2- rejuvenated/inspired 1st-civilization beliefs of a superior human- calendarical blue moons in 1-calendarical year. A “no February race. Science has Antarctica Ice-Age bound either-side 1400- full-moon” technicality occurs when 7.13pm GMT 31st 4000BC. December 2009’s blue moon is 6.13am 1st January 2010 Turkish Admiral Piri Reis drew the map at Gallipoli, scene of Australian EST, so he’s revisiting Ganymede Helmsman 1999-entity ANZAC WW-I defeat. Hellespont 61-km narrow strait of The Candidate I Presume, after 54th Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race today’s Dardanelles: water flows Sea of Marmara to Aegean via surface tragedy 1998. current, & opposite via undercurrent. In Classical times, King Xerxes built A “ritual-killing” 6th-sense has Gus camped-out at the 2-bridges at 1-mile closest point between Abydos & Sestos, connecting remote site on New Years Eve awaiting sunrise The Mafia “L12” Persia with Greece, until destroyed in a storm. Misfit Reconstruction. He suspects 124-&-412 discourse to Her friend said Marlowe’s uncompleted Hero & Leander gastrointestinal anthrax of New Hampshire woman’s critical illness was poem was 1598-published in 2-versions: Marlowe & Marlowe- found on an electrical outlet & 2-drums during drum performance at United completed by George Chapman in traditional-ending. If Campus Ministry centre, Durham, December 4, 2009. Drum skins of Marlowe’s completed poem exists, it’ll emphasize the liberties ritual drum-circle were made of animal hides. already taken i.e. Neptune mistaking Leander for Ganymede, & Gus’ mind conjures shamanic drumming to riding Apollo-1 carrying him to the ocean-bottom. Realizing mistaken-identity, spirit journey. Neptune delivers him to the shore with a bracelet to prevent Is anthrax connection December 30 Forward Base Chapman in drowning, enabling Hero & Leander to become lovers. Khost, Afghanistan. Triple-agent Balawi killed 7-CIA operatives & his Marlowe’s poem breaks-off with dawn-breaking. Jordanian handler, detonating an explosives belt in gym. Anthrax was Classical poem’s of Hero priestess of Venus [goddess 911-aftermath, but is it precursor insider trading to CIA’s biggest love/beauty] in Sestos at Venus & Adonis festival, when Leander loss since 8-operatives where amongst 241-Americans & 58- from Abydos asks her to light a lamp in her tower-window French when Islamic militants bombed US Marines barracks in Beirut. overlooking Hellespont. At night he swims to her. One night a 2001 ANTHRAX code RN=1814/HAT/AX=124 after conceals fierce storm blows out Hero’s lamp. Leander’s lost & drowns. HAT=HATCH gates, doors, beginnings & endings of Roman god Hero jumps from the tower. Janus. Lower-half split-door’s HAT38. Gus is finding-out if he’s Was Marlowe, a learned scholar whom flaunted the classics, a ritual-killing. censored? Is Poe’s Pym story connected to his bizarre death 11-years -full moons” in same month’s a blue-moon. Once in a later? Sally’s at Venus & Adonis 41st-blueprint rendezvous, when “2blue-moon’s no cliché if spymaster Walsingham’s Contact a ventriloquist using his buns as dummy at Café’s adjacent table, Zero,’ Pym thought aloud. 1467+321=1788 Australian settlement intrigues. as British penal-colony, but is 1467+123=1590 death of Walsingham. He invoked 666-icings for clues. ontact Zero’s spy-safe-haven of Marlowe after 30 May “C 1593 fatal right-eye bar-room stabbing,” a bun said. “Legends of ritual-killing at Eleanor Bull lodging/safe-house, &/or ship Peppercorn escape aligns Elizabethan theatre’s Prime Meridian espionage. Marlowe’s a Walsingham spy. Legends resurfaced during WWII, when SOE-agents compromised in Diagonals 312+111=423; 132+333=465, & 465+423=888: occupied countries without hope of rescue unless Contact Zero Christ’s gematria. 423’s April 23 St Georges Day, in 1616’s exists. Harrison 1761 chronometer_” Shakespeare’s d-o-d on 52nd-birthday, & 1616-1467=149 35th- “Venus pentagonal of America Templar discovery,” said Prime; 1564-1467=97 cards Minchiate of Florence & Gregorian Pym. Jamestown’s 1607-1590=17, & sum 1-17=153, a sacred leap-years per 400-year-cycle. 111’s secret number Magic 6- number. Is its Contact Zero 1503? Square 312 dice reverse-reading’s 465. He sighed. “Every 8-years the Sun & Venus conjunctions form a 4-moons in same season is Farmers’ Almanac blue moon. Is pentagram vertex, the quintuple star of Babylonian discovery. 5’s 1814 “armadillos” almanac maritime? 1467-setting nonsensical secretly attached to Venus_” Hyperotomachia Poliphili 38-chapter acrostic-code translates “Brother “5’s 3rd Prime number,” Pym recalled Venus is 3rd Heaven. Francesco Colonna dearly loved Polii.” Anonymously published 1499, “One of Shakespeare’s 38-plays, 2-lost plays or unknown– its meaningless to this day. Pius III’s 26-day papacy was 36-years play encodes a master-plan as 41st-blueprint_” after 1467, with 3-Popes in 1503, like 1978. TWISTED TONGUE 3 “Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis 1593 narrative-poem,” Pym wilight’s a no show. Is ANTHRAX ritual being prepared in noted. “Janus sacred calendar predestines Gregorian’s January 1st Turbanscape? He’s playing a hunch, but its on-average 19-year 1622 New Year in Catholic countries & 1752 in Protestant cycles are personal. Gus nearly drowned being 2nd-American in England.” space, 21st July 1961 orbit, as Mercury Liberty Bell-7’s hatch “Arthur Gordon Pym: AG=17 & P=16 to 2007 Poe’s 198th- explosive-bolts blew prematurely at splashdown. The helicopter birthday hoax_” winching the capsule’s retrieval had a faulty weight indicator- “Hoax?” he startled. 322+223+232=777 Janus Triangulation light, & the pilot dropped the capsule. & “oneninety” Mystery Theatres Contact Zero investigations conceal Liberty Bell-7 is recovered in 1999 without evidence of a 5 to Walsingham’s 1590-death. Is Kit Marlowe a player to faulty-hatch mechanism. Gus resents speculation he accidentally spymaster playwright? armed the bolts when his elbow pressed the switch. A sealed hatch was “Poe pioneered short-story, genres & literary cryptic-puzzles. Apollo-1’s fate during a plugs-out test in a disconnected capsule Welcome to ‘My name is Arthur Gordon Pym’ January 18, 2009 atop a Saturn 1B-rocket, 27 January 1967. bicentenary of 123-&-321.” “We’re on fire! Get us out of here.” Roger Chaffee’s words, as “1788-1590=198,” Pym brainstormed. “198th-day-of-year’s Roger, Ed White & Gus burned alive. Suited-up in a pure- July 17 with 167-remaining. 167th-day-of-year’s June 16 atmosphere, a voltage-spike’s recorded at 6.30.54. Controversy Bloomsday: James Joyce’s Ulysses b-LOOM is Benzene Seal’s includes monkey-wrench left in an electrical-track sparked the 1584/1644 soLOMOn codeX phoenix.” instant fire. Gus was an outspoken critic of NASA’s Apollo The buns argued. “Contact Zero conundrum: ‘If I eat myself Moon Mission safety measures. “end of decade” goal of US will I get twice as big or disappear’. Shifting bottom-row to top President Kennedy’s 1961-directive, aligns no February full- makes both diagonals 6.” moon, but two in January & March. RN=1814/HAT/AX=124 countdown continues, but Gus discerns his cremation’s 20th-year coincides NZIA A Pacific Response conference, stock-market crash & 2/3rds Rendlesham Forest destroyed in 1987-storm. What’s 2010-1788=222 to today’s blue-moon?

1788+222=2010 is 1344+666 diabolical plot, but what’s ally’s had enough. He’s only interested in his buns, asking if 1590+222=1812 encoding? Pym picked a bun, but it screamed. SUnunbium is singular or plural. 666-rendezvous icings “Bitter ALMOND literary is food-poison to unseasonable hot- differentiate. She said. “ANZAC’s middle letter is Contact Zero’s cross buns_” ANAC to ALMANAC.” “Who’re you?” Pym asked the talking-bun’s ALMOND “Who’re you?” Pym rebuked the intrusion. icing. “Venus & Adonis 41st-blueprint rendezvous. Your silly “Ununbium, but everyone says Uub, as its U-212 to Contact contact procedure_” Zero’s U-2012 Mayan 5th-World End of 1344+666=2010 as 2- “Told you a Shakespeare play’s a master-plan,” said a Uub. year Missed Rendezvous. Your mission Pym, should you accept “Drop the talking-bun routine.” Sally attacked. “A poem it, is DON-ALM as Contact Zero code.” isn’t_” “You heard the bun?” Pym bewildered the consequences of ew Years Eve callout annoyed Ahmes. UK breaking news the unimagined. Nis Fulcrum-TV has suitable body-donor in Australia for “Cut the bullshit. Have you Poe’s ‘finished’ manuscript?” mummification reality-show Channel 4’s funding, & he’s to “What manuscript?” Pym discerned. interview the terminally-ill patient. But coordinates in Ahmes “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, silly,” said a Uub. vehicle’s GPS is a remote area. Closest town’s Gympie on “You know about it,” Sally accused. Queensland’s east coast. Driving through the night & nearing “If my buns do, doesn’t mean I do,” Pym argued. arrival in morning-twilight, he’s suspicious an Aborigine would “1344+123=1467_” volunteer. Death’s taboo, as TV-pictures of since deceased “We’re Uub. You’re Poe’s 2007 198th-anniversary Mystery persons is unacceptable to Aboriginal custom. Theatre.” “Whose Weereewa?” he asked himself aloud, surprised to It caused an uproar. Sally’s dismayed. The three spoke at hear a reply. once. RCH=1838 to LD=L-silo-Drama of Rendlesham Forest “Square-the-circle deflects your penname, as Egyptian scribe UFO, December 26-&-28, 1980, witnessed by ½-a-dozen USAF Ahmes documents earliest & most accurate Pi in 1650BC, military police. USAF deputy-commander RAF Bentwaters & copying Direction for Knowing All Dark Things older scroll: ratio of RAF Woodbridge bases Charles Halt verified 2nd-sighting. circumference of a circle to its diameter is 256/81. Being 313/81 or 3.16. Sally told why she thought Rendlesham Forrest’s connected You’re contesting Welsh mathematician William Jones’ 1703 to the MONARCH/L-MONAD superimposition, as Pym naming Pi after the 16th-Greek alphabet letter, as the square-root invoked his bun-icing’s. 256/81=16/9 being English letters PI=Pi.” Shocked by a hitchhiker in the passenger seat, he stammered. “So?” “Destination’s Gympie pyramid site to 1st-civilization preceding Cook.” “What?” “Legends of 1867-1880 stone building town with cut-blocks “Easier than going to Antarctica,” Pym saw Sally’s amazed from pyramid-stack nearby. Gympie’s establishment is a by the icing change. “1980-1838=142,” he explained Mafia “L12” curiousity.” Misfit’s 777-rendezvous Circle within Circle 666-rendezvous have “Transient Aborigines didn’t build in stone.” Ahmes doubts 222 diagonal. pyramid. “YUU: ‘oilop’ Code UFO’s 1344+777=2121,” said a Uub. “Some believe the Aborigines were aware of the megalith “Former US-airman Larry Warren pseudonym Art Wallace broke builders. Gympie’s coastal jungle was inhospitable in comparison story News of the World. Charles Halt used his real-name. Hal Tee to directly inland Mundubbera ‘footsteps in the tree’ dreamtrail W.S. is William Shakespeare’s 41st-blueprint. L-ender-shaw is of edible tree-food. Gympie pyramids your 107 music-code cipher-6’s Rendlesham m-inversion, instead of L-ender-sham.” Rendlesham-crown rendezvous ancestral raven-god Bran.” “I don’t get it,” Sally protested. “Rendlesham’s a UFO- “I’m meeting Weereewa for reality-TV’s mummification.” sham.” The hitchhiker’s silence is disturbing. [figure-2] Uub tabled Cipher-6, saying. “UFO-advocates believe extraterrestrials used 10x8-code during 2nd-half 20th Century, TWISTED TONGUE 4 disguising 10x10 English alphabet square Hess communicated to hmes’ hypnotized by the hitchhiker’s “codes” story. SIL- the British during WWII. KV are 9th-&-10th hidden beginning AORANGE/SILO-RANGE hyphen-frequency: 3-or-4 2nd-diagonal, & JU reveals 3rd-diagonal, etc. Hal is a major letter-abstracts Montreal-1990 full-visibility 4-tier Cultural Shakespearean character, so if Halt’s letter-T is substituted for Development Decade of the Nineteen 90’s Time Pyramid. William Shakespeare’s initials, HALWS comprises 1st-5-letters of “Pi-symbols 1703 establishment’s architecture,” the Cipher-6’s ALWHS.” hitchhiker noted. “Only factors 1703 is 13x131: letter-M has “How can Shakespeare be a UFO-code?” Sally disbelieved. Rosicrucian significance while 131=MA of Mason. 131-visibility “Sham applies to a real-person, but not playwright,” said conceals 313, as 131313/777=169=132. 169=Pi.” Pym. Mason Grand Lodge 1717 instigated. 1717-1703=14. Ahmes Uub said. “Cipher-6 is 2-year MR to 1961 January/March recalls Frieze: Vitruvian Wave 161 Architecture’s 131-visiblity as blue-moons, as Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated 35th-US School of the Night 81-year-cycles began 324AD Donation of President Kennedy on KV=November 22, 1963, & OSWALD’s Constantine, i.e. Greek Matthaeus Blastares 1332=2@666. six of 1st-7-letters ALWHSDO with Harvey H-initial 7-of-7. Giving privileges & riches to Pope & Roman Church, Donation Pythagorean’s KV_” cites after converting to Christianity 312, Constantine’s leprosy “Jack Ruby shot Oswald. If U=wire, then Ruby’s Uub,’ cured. retorted Pym. Ruby stone’s 40, half 8x10 rectangle. Ruby’s 0BC/AD “big bang”: 182=324 Inflation Period plus 20- sending a telegram, saw Oswald being police escorted. He said if Settlements@81=1944. he hadn’t made an illegal turn & used a bus-park, he’d have been 750-850AD fake documentation aligns Benzene Seal’s on the otherside of the block, & not noticed Oswald. Media 1884/1944 pOweR-duality. Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose 1327 broadcast Oswald’s hearing for 10am, but was 11.30 building novel-setting propositions millennium apocalypse aligns 324AD transferred. not 0BC/AD, & so 2324. “Ununbrium’s temporary name of a newly found element,” Uub “You’re my Gympie pyramid guide?” asked Ahmes. School admitted. “We’re 1999’s Candidate I Presume realization of YUU: of the Night’s connected to East Anglia’s 3-crown & raven-god ‘oilop’ code UFO’s 322+223+232=777 Janus Triangulation. Bran protectors. It’s 21st-Settlement in 2025=TY interfaces Concealed until 2005’s installation A.I. Locard’s Exchange 2005-64 TONY’s YNOT encoding to Operation Trojan Horse Surveillance’s sexagesimal-base, we’re presenting this December/January blue- TROY. moon anomaly, to help Aut-Gus the ghost’s ‘_blood, your life “Foucault’s Pendulum novel conceals 2010 Templar diabolical depends upon lying close’ message.” plot. 2324-2010=314, a Pi-abstraction.” The hitchhiker added. “ ‘I have scrawled this with blood, your life depends upon lying close’.” “Chapter 13 begins Et in Arcadia ego.” Sally remarked. “Last sentence of Augustus Barnard’s message to “What’s it to Gympie pyramid rendezvous,” Ahmes Pym in the ship Grampus’ hold, unaware of the mutiny_” demanded. Uub interrupted. “Keyword Gus is missing is ‘scrawled’, as “Aristotle’s 2nd-book of Poetics ‘Laughter’ in Name of the Rose ‘sawl c-red’ anagram plus H of HAL-William-Shakespeare is plots a northern Italy monastery secret-library-chamber’s ‘1st-&- Augustus’ pointed-stick & cut index-finger to write message. 1st- 7th of four’ encoding QUATUOR, a music-quartet of QR 5-letters of cipher-6 configure SHAWL_” decipher. Remaining 5-letters configure Suddenly the hot-cross buns squawk. 2@666=1332minus5=1327, as 666 Book of Revelations End- Days with deaths during Benedictine v Franciscan church imple Simon met a pie-man going to the fair. Said Simple Simon_ finances debate. Brother William of Baskerville encodes 2232, S Axon’s partner Will Playfair is staking-out Gus at The Mafia brother William 223, & 232 William of Baskerville. “L12” Misfit, but its 2003-Reconstruction: 11th-Scale of the Pineapple 322+223+232=777 to QUatUoR 2184/2244 EQUUS cipher. Pip GORDON disclosed 4th-entity’s concealed in original 3- 1344+888=2232: Bender [implosion/explosion] William Bridges visible exposes 1999’s 4th-Scale of the Pineapple Pip decoy, as The [tomb] of Canberra Royal Hospital 13th July 1997 demolition’s Candidate I Presume is 1st-of-7 Scales to ERTZ: Entering Registered STIFF Code_” Trademark Zone. “YUU: ‘oilop’ UFO Code’s 1344+777=2121[UU],” startled If 2001 US-postal anthrax attacks were “pie-chart” aligned, Ahmes. 1st-kings of East Anglia resided in Rendlesham, 911 terrorist-attacks are also suspect. 3-hi-jack planes hit targets Wuffingas Palace most renowned. Roman Emperor Honorius with devastating effect, 4th-downed in Shanksville field due died 423AD after abandoning England in 406. passenger revolt. YNOT entity of TONY reversal’s The STIFF “QR’s ‘107 music-code’ of the Rendlesham crown’s Code that Rests in . . . ? Arcadian Anthony is December 4, 2009 relocation?” he asked. New Hampshire anthrax incident. ANTHRAX/ANTHONY Dialogue stalled upon 1st-visible rays of sunlight. superimposition highlights RAXONY, so he’s codename Axon, There’s no hitchhiker in the passenger seat. as RN is his Arcadian cipher. ET IN ARCADIA EGO Latin tomb-inscription to 3rd-of-4- t the blue moon brink, Gus is overcome with nausea. Land esoteric-paintings by French artist Nicholas Poussin, 1642’s a 2- Aseasickness is a Watergate/Parkgate symptom without cure. year-MR to 1584/1644 soLOMOn codex. 120-years later in 1760’s, Head spinning, his Virgil Grissom initials VG=227=Pi 22nd July England’s Shepherds Monument detail, Shugborough Hall, is Magdalene Day is Janus New Year. Staffordshire, is mirror-image of Poussin’s Shepherds of Arcadia. 111111/777=143 & 14th March reflects 3.14 Pi-decimal. Its Difference: shepherd’s finger-points letter-R in painting; letter-N 111111=KKK=Ku Klux Khan head-spins 88+14=102 KKK in bas-relief. Seasonal blue-moon’s 1307+111=1418=NR: secret-entity via 102+100+143=345 Squaring the Corner Templar escape Magic 6-Square secret-number. 1814’s a loaded configuration. Magic 16-Square transformation to Klu Klux dice. Khan Golden 12-Rectangle is the Remote Control’s Alcheringa 2-full-moons in month’s 1946 phenomena: Sky & Telescope Architecture “test-run” @ the Archiwash of The Mafia “L12” Misfit. article “Once in a Blue Moon” misinterprets Farmers’ Almanac, & 1999 Blue Moon’s remote-control of dado & architrave refit at wasn’t noted until 1999’s “What’s a Blue Moon?” Axon to the American Institute of Architects headquarters, 17th Street & arrange a pair of buns for AG Pym & Mustang Sally to Venus & F Street, Washington DC. Adonis 41st-blueprint rendezvous, but feedback disrupts Gus Counterspin: Pi decimal-v-fraction. 102+227+106=435 connection RN=1814/HAT/AX=124 longitude countdown squaring corner alternate, 106’s Rosicrucian secret-number: HAT=HATCH. founder Christian Rosenkruez’s born 1378[13@106] & died His partner’s codename interfaces William Playfair invented 1484[14@106]. 13-&-14 cards-per-suit std-deck & Tarot-deck pie-chart in 1801 Statistical Breviary. 111-years later, Mayan 5th- Western-world conspires 1588 Regiomontanus doomsday-prophecy World End 2012 is 1801 Right-Angle between Will Playfair’s Comet, particularly England, even after defeating 1588 Spanish Contact Remote-Zero Control Axon’s Contact Irreal-Zero Café blue- Armada. Uncanny A*Topia Fiction 1988 is international moon 6.13am is 7.13pm dislocation. architectural program.

TWISTED TONGUE 5 Per-400-years, the Gregorian changed Julian’s leap-years sagas have 38-chapters, 38-characters etc. The Hardrada crest has from 100 to 97. 97-card esoteric-tarot’s secret calendar Lorenzo 38-ravens around 38-outward facing arrows.” de Medici’s born January 1, 1449. Minchiate of Florence major- 38=CH dislocated, she stopped. Aborigines thought white- arcana anomaly is std-arcana, Zodiac, Elements, 3-Virtues & people were ghosts of their dead. Was it due pre-accepted Cardinal Prudence, as 22+12+4+3+1=98. Virgo-Libra-Scorpio history’s 1st-European contact? become 2-Houses, or Empress-Priestess is Temptress. In the “Hyperotmachia Poliphili’s 1st-38 Chapter acrostic code,” Pym 1550’s Nostradamus wrote annual almanac’s beginning January gasped the 100-feet high terrace. Does 1467+123=1590 reflect 1st New Year. Walsingham’s death? 1961 & 1999’s 2-calendarical blue-moons Pilot-training kicks-in. 345-&-435 Pi decimal-v-fraction: without February full-moon’s 38-years. He said. “Prime factors z2=32+42 variables 534-&-543. Can Gus overcome nausea, as 4- 2x19, & 22+32+52=38. 38’s the largest even-number not the sum equations come into focus. of 2-odd composites. It’s order-3 Magic hexagon secret- number_” “Michael Murray’s Raven novel of secret-dossier Operation Raven, a 1940 British commando train-hijack to kill Hitler & deploy impersonator to cancel Operation Sealion invasion of

Britain. Except Archie the Hitler-impersonator_” Spinning-out of control, 198; 108; 189 & 99 differences are Axon hushed the bun, but the other said. “Nazi’s Operation his only hope of avoiding a blue-moon ritual-killing at the Raven strategically infiltrated America, which writer Hemingway remote site. He’s overcome with Wuffingas dynasty 3-crowns on reflects Nobel Prize novel The Old Man & the Sea. Its thought blue-shield is the Swedish flag superimposed on St Georges James Bond_” Cross, incites legend to heraldic shield of Colchester, England’s “6.12, its 1-minute to blue-moon,” Axon yelled. “Stop oldest recorded town. Is it the Helena “moon” connection bickering & help Gus.” through Constantine’s mother via Constantius Chlorius to “Who’re you & whose Gus?” asked Sally. 40km inland from 2009/2010 blue-moon? Tin Can Bay to the town that saved Queensland’s her Adding confusion, October 7’s Pallas Athena festival 107- dislocation. Gimpi Gimpi large round leaves are good for toilet- encoding. paper but leave sting-&-rash, & stinging tree’s loose translation’s

devil. Gympie’s also a hammer, but the goldrush takes hold. hat’d you do to my buns?” Axon’s trying to stop them “Axon’s my cover-name, from Greek ‘axis’, its a biological- squawk. “W term for nerve-fibers carrying electrical-pulses. Gus the Ghost’s a “They mine. I brought them,” argued Pym, as the squawking AIA remote-control.” stopped. [figure-3] “Bug’s feedbacking,” Axon read the button-size device’s “AIA’s American Institute of Architects,” Pym recalled the coding. “ ‘oneninety’ Mystery Theatre exhibit infinite-whiteness of his namesake’s 1838-Antarctic journey. He’s #977[322+223+232+198].” surprised by A Warning to the Curious blackness. A ghost called “Hogan Nerhus’ 2007 Edgar Allan Poe 198th-birthday William Ager. hoax_” “Whose remote-control’s 191-voyage,” Axon said. “AIA refit’s “Shut-up,” Axon placed both hands over a bun, but the Frieze: Vitruvian Wave 161 Architecture upgraded XXIInd UIA other said. Congress Istanbul 2005, after Boxing Day 2004 Banda Aceh “R-ave-N’s the Arcadian code hypotenuse of Washington earthquake-tsunami’s 200,000-deaths confirms dado-frieze-scotia DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue. In Poe’s famous poem, a distraught Holy Grail secret hereditary-line of protectors using Smith-alias narrator lamenting the loss of his lover, Lenmore, is visited by a captaincy, ply the Nova Scotia route. White Star Liner’s RMS talking-raven sitting on the goddess of wisdom Pallus Athena, Atlantic sank on rocks in 1873 with 546-lives lost [13x42=546; repeats 1-word, ‘Nevermore’. Poe’s nicknamed The Raven_” 14x39=546] near Nova Scotia: originally named Arcadia of rich in Dreading his buns are blowing his cover, Axon can’t muffle fur & gold Norumbega fabled castle & port-of-call. Tomb’s ET both. IN ARCADIA EGO Latin translates_” “Mad Tea-Party’s riddle: ‘Why is a Raven like a writing-desk’. “Halifax explosion December 6, 1917 is scotia to dado AIA- Alice finds Hatter doesn’t know. Dodgson explained a musical refit.” Starboard shipping-lane right-of-way, but Imo used port- incomprehension that Poe might’ve already written upon both.” channel & collided SS Mont-Blanc. Sparks ignited a fire: 9.04am Axon’s musical-hands enabled other Uub to quote Hamlet. world’s largest accidental explosion with shock-wave propelling “Come, ‘The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge_” Mont-Blanc kilometres & 18-foot tsunami. Fuelling 2,000-death- Sally alarmed. “Odin’s 2-ravens are thought & memory in toll, night was one of Halifax’s worst blizzards. 8-years later MR Norse mythology. Sent out each morning, they report back at James writes ghost-story. Pym’s aware 1925 is 1885-1944 Dick night, one in each ear. When a single raven, it changes from Tracy code. white to black as punishment i.e. Noah’s raven’s late reporting [figure-4] receding floodwaters.” If A Warning to the Curious is fiction, why’s he dread its Pym recalled the early-80’s jungle gym: a children’s blackness? playground climbing-structure accessing hilltop to bay below. “Dado/frieze/scotia 2005-upgrade reflects London’s 2012 But now it accompanies a Peter Jackson short-film of mysterious Olympic Games is Mayan calendar 5th-World End of codeX2000’s stone-terraces discovered in New Zealand’s South Island 2-year MR 1344+666=2010,” Axon argued. “Gus’ insider- hinterland. Latter’s a hoax & hilltop-to-bay access was realized to trading countdown’s critical to ritual-killing_” different conceptualization. Pym’s feelings gave insight. “Ritual-killing?” Sally’s lost in Et in Arcadia ego verbiage. “Brandon Lee’s accidental-death, March 31, 1993: prop-gun fires “7 July 2005 London won 2012 Games & terrorists kill 52 & part dummy-bullet instead of blank, The Crow filmset in Wilmington, injured 700, leaving Kings Cross St Pancras underground in 4- North Carolina. Black Crow takes soul of dead to the afterlife, but directions. North-line’s derailed so bomber took #30 Dennis sometimes returns a soul to avenge violent-death. Lee character Trident double-decker bus & denoted backpack in Tavistock Eric Draven’s murdered on Devil’s Night October 30, while Square. 2-weeks later on 21st, 4-terrorists action same plan girlfriend Shelly Webster’s raped, beaten, & dies in hospital. Shepherd’s Bush, Warren Street & Oval Stations & Shoreditch bus, but Shelly Webster & Eric Draven acronym’s SWED. Lee was due to only detonator-caps fire & bombers fled. 5th-bomber dumps device. High- marry Eliza Hutton in Ensenada, Mexico, April 17, after alert to capture terrorists on 22nd July included 21 Scotia Road completing_” where Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de-Menzies resided. Sally hadn’t finished. “38’s associated with Anubis, the Officer peeing didn’t I.D. de-Menzies’ 9.30am Kilburn job- Egyptian mythical jackal-headed god of death, mummification, & callout. Followed on Tulse Hill bus to Stockwell Tube Station, transfer to afterlife. Pharaohs were buried with 38-cat statue on train de-Menzies’ shot point-blank with illegal hollow-point guardians, & sarcophagi have 38-ankhs of ‘eternal-life’. Norse bullets. 7-headshots & 1-shoulder_” TWISTED TONGUE 6 “Islamic terrorists are reality. Conspiracy isn’t_” Sally’s Gus interrupted. “You mean October 7, 2008 Qantas Airbus perplexed 1867 Mary River goldrush near Gympie Creek’s called A300-330 passenger-flight plunge due computer glitch_” Nashville after James Nash’s discovery, before 1868 renamed “You Fulcrum-TV’s body-donor for mummification reality- Gympie. Mary River flows north to Maryborough port TV?” asked Ahmes. established 20-years earlier. 17km south, Captain Cook named “NASA couldn’t shut-me-up, so you won’t on a blue- Hervey Bay after Admiral Harvey in 1770. Locals write Harvey & moon,” Gus rebuked. say Hervey. Sally’s intrigued 97-years after Cook’s wordplay, “‘oneninety’ Mystery Theater exhibit#977[322+223+232+198] Nash enters the equation. For 1592 1st-record of playwright mix-up, as 322+223+232+198=975. Its your 2006-2008 October Shakespeare is by Greene & Nashe pamphlets. After Greene’s 7 difference,” Axon bewildered. Taking control without knowing sudden death, Harvey-Nashe pamphlet-controversy so intense, which situation, he added. all publishing censored. Shakespeare seems unhindered. “Next Blue Moon’s August 2-&-31, 2012, a 4-month “Both are reality, but like only a few of Muslim faith are countdown to Mayan long-count calendar 5th-World End, 21 terrorists, most within western countries’ various security-forces December 2012. Spy-world’s Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Tea-party aren’t New World Order_” is modelled White House table setting for 40, August 24, 1814 Overcome by cult-of-the-head insights Bran the Blessed at after American Battle of Bladensburg defeat.” Tower Hill, Pym’s a talking-head. “New World Orders millennia “What?” Ahmes & Gus spoke as one. phenomena. UK’s National Archives release: UFO-sighting by 70 “2012-1814=198 Mystery Theatre, as Blue Moon was also police & military witnesses, early hours March 31, 1993. Inquiry August 1-&-31 1814,” informed Axon. “British burnt public- established Russian rocket launching a Cosmos satellite, re-entered earth’s buildings of Washington DC without American casualties for atmosphere. At Cosford epicenter, duty MET-officer at nearby America’s sacking of York, present-day Toronto. When RAF Shawbury base confirmed 2-white lights flying in perfect Cockburn entered the White House, he found a table set with triangular formation with 1-fainter red-light, & low-frequency food for 40. Within 24-hours of eating, Washington DC’s struck humming sound also felt. Its 3-years to the day when Belgium by a hurricane & the British fled to their ships, loosing more men sightings lead to F-16’s_” & implements than their entire southern raid. Its believed Lewis “UK’s MoD just closed its UFO-office. Why’s Cosford_” Carroll’s Chapter-7 The Mad Tea-party is the White House Sally’s distracted by Maryborough’s 1847-founding has 1861- incident. 6-o’clock@33[Mason-entity]=198: as 1412 British- municipality. Why’s 1861 important? American War arose over ‘high-seas’ right-to-board-&-check “331+133+313=777 spies FOS watch. Cosford March 31, ships, 2010’s its 198 Mystery Theatre to why you’re here, instead 1993 is Brandon Lees” ‘accidental’ death.” Pym digressed. of Gympie Pyramid Australia.” “Conspirators cite nearby Orford Ness defunct top-secret MoD “Nonsense,” Ahmes & Gus again spoke together. research station’s behind Rendlesham’s UFO’s, but mystics “RENDLESHAM/ARDEN superimposition highlight of know a play’s made on Rendlesham crown. Its New World UFO & Shakespeare’s As You Like It, is LESHM anagram relocation corresponds Charles II of England grants land-charter to HELM. Alice in Wonderland ‘garden-party’ proof is William Penn for Pennsylvania, March 14, 1681, conceals more than RENDLESHAM/EDEN superimposition highlight’s RL=1812- it reveals. March 14’s Pi-day in America, but 22nd July in Britain SHAM.” & colonies. USA built airstrips & fortifications in East Anglia “Ganymede Helmsman,” startled Gus. “Mad Hatter’s during WWII_” RN=1814HATCH_” “What’re you saying?” Sally’s Mystery Theatre lost. Uub bun interjects. “RN=1814 finger-pointing code is A time-split occurs in the Café between 7.13pm & 6.13am. Watergate/Parkgate Arcadia exposure/concealment. 73rd-meridian east & 107th-meridian west complete a circle Ganymede’s a Trojan Prince, son of Tros, whose eagle abducted through the North & South Poles. to heaven where Zeus made him cupbearer to the gods.” “Ganymede’s the constellation Aquarius, the ‘space-age’ ill Playfair’s at Contact Remote-Zero Control. Heat-sensors threshold,’ the other Uub agreed. ‘1814 Napoleon aligns June W picked-up Gus last-night, & this morning’s Gympie 18’s 169th-day-of-year. Sally Ride, 3rd-spacewoman June 18, 1983 Pyramid arrival. registers 1983-1814=169.” Blue Moon: upon meeting the 2-images disappear, to be “Ventriloquist,” Ahmes & Gus astound talking-buns advent. replaced by a different pairing-signature. Computerized Axon ignored accusations. “You’re to communicate with reconnaissance informs: pseudonym Sally Ride & Poe protagonist Pym from Gympie Sally Ride: 1st-American woman in space on Challenger Pyramid, not exchange locations.” space shuttle 18 June 1983. 169th-day-of-year’s 13th+14th “What’s Poe’s only novel, if written as fact, to us?” Ahmes solar-calendar designate: 186. needs a story. She’s on-board of inquiry Challenger STS-51-L blastoff “Some think Poe’s October 7, 1849 death-bed yell tragedy, January 28, 1986. ‘Reynolds’, refers Jeremiah Reynolds book reference for The Finding: O-Ring failure due extreme frost-night pre- Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Reynolds also encodes morning launch caused tragic-loss 7-astronauts. January 22 RN=1814eyolds. Poe’s Island of Tsalah, which Pym lands scheduling delayed due various reasons/circumstances. January 19, Poe’s 29th-birthday, encodes TL=2012 ‘Sara’” to 1986-1967=19 years plus 1-day after Apollo-1 fire. 1814 Treaty of Ghent armadillos_” Sally Ride’s on-board of inquiry space-shuttle Columbia Suddenly café’s shaken ARMADILLOS[mirror- STS-107 February 1, 2003 reentry tragedy. Finding: foam- reverse]SOLLIDAMRA anagrams L-SILO-DRAMA, whereby strike compromises heat-tiles during blastoff. L=900 Right-Angle. Columbia flight-recorder belated find Hemphill debris-locate Buns arguing whether 28th-Prime earthquake, verifies 107 dumbfounds. AM-radio frequencies down a rabbit hole. Ahmes knows the Blue Moon ghost-story’s “107 music-code” needs FM-frequency ontact Remote-Zero Control, Axon’s also confused by the for quality transmission. But will Gus tell his story, as obviously C readout. Axon can’t mention Arcadia. Ahmes also needs stereo’s Pym & Ganymede Helmsman’s Shakespeare’s As You Like It Ride’s escapade to “other” side-of-the-story. Otherwise no proof “longitude” 41st-blueprint via ROSALIND/ROSELINE PY[Right-Angle]M=ID is why a Raven’s like a Writing-desk. superimposition highlight AD/EE codes A. Dee is Tsar TT-reporter struggles to fathom being mummification physician of Elizabethan 007 court-magi John Dee’s son assignment Raven returned via Rendlesham protector relocation Arthur, is Touchstone. critical-path, as that story escaped Ahmes. “Bloody hell,” remarked TT-reporter Ahmes penname. “I’m back in the UK. I thought it’s the shooting of Russian journalist © Barrie Walsh For bio please turn to page 74. Anna Politkovskaya October 7, 2006, not London tea-pot nuclear-poisoning of Russian writer_” TWISTED TONGUE 7 A BOOK BY BEDTIME Alexander James

Nick Spalding had a dull and drizzly weekend to kill, so he decided to make a start on the book he’d been promising all his life to write ... and finished by bedtime! Now his 60,000-word Life With No Breaks – written in his pyjamas in a single sitting – is earning rave reviews from readers all over the world. “I hadn’t a clue what I was going to write about when I sat down at the keyboard, said Nick from Southampton, UK. “I just knew that it was my life-long ambition to write a book and that I aimed to see it through. Thirty-six hours later, I had a full manuscript and crawled off to bed.” And within a few days, the book was published internationally and ranked in the top 500 list along with Dan Brown and JK Rowling at the world’s biggest book seller, Amazon. Advertising copy-writer Nick, who’s thirty-six, said: “For ten minutes, I just stared at a blank computer screen. Then I started to type ... and type ... and made up my mind that I wouldn’t stop until the words ‘The End’. “I kept coffee on the boil and opened the windows to let the chilly air in to help keep me awake as the hours ticked away.” By the time he’d finished, Nick had written the hilarious warts- and-all story of his colourful life. It really was Nick’s Life ... With No Breaks. When he woke, he decided to become his own publisher, too, to keep up the pace. And Amazon.com immediately published his work in electronic form for their massively popular Kindle eBook reader. Hours later, the book was on sale in all electronic formats for any eBook reading device, including PCs, laptops and even iPods and cell phones with the huge US-based Smashwords electronic publishing house. It’s now available in ebook form from most major online retailers. Nick Spalding struggles to keep his eyes He said: “I’m amazed how it’s taken off. You can download a open after writing a marathon. few pages free at Amazon as a taster, but their statistics show that something over eighty percent of those who read the free pages go on to buy the full book. And the reviews from all over have just knocked me for six. Gosh, it took me longer to paper the loo than it did to write Life With No Breaks.” Smashwords founder and CEO Mark Coker in California said: “I thought it was a scream of a book ... and that was before I knew its history – that Nick had written the whole thing in a single sitting. We’re keen on speed and efficiency here, so I’m all the more proud to have published Nick’s work.” Editor in Chief of Canadian BeWrite Books, Neil Marr, said: “I heard this English chap had written a book in a single sitting, so I had to read it just to see how hard he’d fallen on his face. But I couldn’t put the book down until I’d finished reading every word. It was quite brilliant. It had me in stitches at times, in tears at others. “I have about 100 authors on my books, and a year or so is pretty good going for most to finish a work of this length. Some take much, much longer. It’s quite amazing to see what Mark accomplished over the time it takes many folks to write a letter home to mum.” Author Bosley Gravel of New Mexico, USA completed the UK’s popular ten years old Write a Novel in a Month (NaNoWriMo) annual contest. He said: “Not many who take up the challenge ever finish the book they hope to write in thirty days, and most of what’s turned in is pretty dismal. It’s more about sticking power than quality. “I was one of very few ever to be picked up by a publisher for my book, The Movie. When my editor discovered that I’d written it in a single month, he could hardly believe it. But I’m a slow coach compared to Nick Spalding. I have nothing but admiration for this author. And his book’s a knockout.” Now Nick is planning to release Life With No Breaks in paperback ... and to save time with dithering publishers, he says he’ll probably handle the job himself – maybe over a bank holiday weekend.

‘Life…with no breaks’ can be purchased in all ebook formats from major online stores, including: Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ICWJ4C Smashwords URL: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/13551

TWISTED TONGUE 8 Extract: One from Life With No Breaks by Nick Spalding

Cast your mind back a few chapters and you may recall I talked about a trip to Las Vegas with my cousin. I promised I would speak more on the subject and the time has arrived to do just that. As Vegas is generally considered to be the home of sinners and dodgy morality, what better place to investigate the idea of watching sex in public, eh? James had one ambition while in Las Vegas. He wanted to visit a strip club. Not just any strip club, but one where young ladies would entertain the customers with large and vibrating rubber implements. It may sound like James was a colossal pervert, but in reality, he just wanted to ‘broaden his horizons’ before marriage. Personally, I would have broadened my horizons by not marrying the pasty looking rodent of a woman he was betrothed to, but then who am I to judge? So off we all went one night … seven partially drunk British men in a cab, wallets stuffed with bills of low denomination to be placed in the g-strings of the local good time girls. The cab driver, a grumpy looking individual who’d done this kind of thing a million times, takes us to a strip club called ‘Rhinestones’. This turns out to be a dreadfully tacky looking place (even by Vegas standards) with some large plastic cow-girl statues parked outside the entrance and the kind of exterior lighting you’d normally find on aircraft carriers at sea. It may have been one o’clock in the morning, but I still needed sunglasses to look at the damn place. We all go in, naughty school boy expressions on our faces and are greeted – not by a semi-clad lovely, but by a grinning fat man in a suit three sizes too small for him. “Hello boys! Come for some fun with the girls, have you?!” No mate, we’re here to check your plumbing... James, too carried away to bother with sarcasm, nods his head enthusiastically and requests a private table and ‘the works’. The fat pimp grins even more and leads us to a private booth at the back of the club. He takes our money (grinning all the while) and retires. A few moments later, three women enter the booth. They are not what you’d call ‘stunners’. Stunted maybe, but definitely not the kind of woman you see frequenting the front cover of glossy men’s magazines. None of them look particularly healthy and I’m pretty sure the tall brunette is in her late forties. The red head in the cowboy hat looks like she’s suffering with a good case of acne and the blonde one appears to be cross-eyed. They’re dressed in a variety of sexually alluring outfits, which feature a lot of leather, rubber and (of course) rhinestones. Two of them jump onto the table in front of us, while the cross-eyed one walks uncertainly over to the back of the room and picks up a large black bag. I’m fairly sure she’s walking slowly so as not to bump into any of the walls. James and the others start to make strange cat-calls and grunts of excitement. When an American does this it sounds loud, brash and heartfelt. When a British man does it, it sounds like he’s feeling very awkward and in need of the toilet. I join in, trying to get into the spirit of things. The two girls start to fondle one another on the table. Items of clothing are removed and much slapping of flesh and licking of lips follows. The cross-eyed one starts to delve into the black bag, producing an increasingly eclectic variety of sex toys. There are long ones, there are short ones. Some vibrate, some are tied together with rope. They come in various shades of black, red, purple, pink and green. One looks like something you’d use to clean your fish tank with. Cross-eyes hands some of these to the two on the table, who proceed to insert them into various orifices. Contrary to what you might believe, this is not arousing. What it is…is mechanical. I might as well be watching robots putting a BMW together for all the sexual thrill it’s giving me. You can easily tell these girls have done it a thousand times for groups of men much like this. You get the impression that while they’re poking implements into each other and moaning gratuitously, they’re also thinking about what food to buy for the cat and what time Oprah’s on that evening. Unbelievably, I’m starting to get bored. The others look to be more into it than I am, though I’m sure they’re faking most of their excitement to keep up appearances. Miss Cross-eyes then asks me if I’d like her to sit on my lap. I give her a terrified look and, metaphorically, straighten my tie. I’m acting so damnably British, it almost hurts: “Oh … er ... no thank you. I’m quite alright as I am, but you’re very kind for asking.” What a stud, eh? She looks at me in disgust and turns to help with the implement insertion. This gynecological display goes on for another five minutes or so, with the girls collecting up a nice bundle of singles, fives and tens. By this time, I’ve started looking closely at the curtains, wondering if they’d look good in my bathroom back home. The fat guy puts an end to the fun by sticking his head through the curtain and telling us the show’s over. I’m quite relieved by this. The girls immediately stop acting like rutting hyenas and bugger off back into the dressing room to clean up before the next load of horny idiots come-a-knockin’. I ask James if he’s happy. He nods his head slowly, as if not entirely sure he believes it. We return as wiser men to the nightclub proper and proceed to get drunk on vastly over-priced lager. James got successfully married to his woman in the end and as far as I know the Vegas sex show has never been mentioned in their household. Every time I see him however, I like to go cross-eyed for a moment and ask him if he’s cleaned his fish tank recently. It always cracks him up.

TWISTED TONGUE 9 Extract: Two from Life With No Breaks by Nick Spalding

Of the ‘sensible’ phobias, I’m only affected by needles. I hate the bloody things. I don’t care if you are administering life-saving antibiotics, you’re still intent on sticking a large pointy metal object into my body, which in my book is a distinct no-no. At the other end of the phobia scale are the quote ‘silly ones’. These can be about anything: Chickens, fruit, bricks, worms, top-hats, Milton Keynes, Britney Spears. Anything. In my case it just so happens to be sponges. Don’t get me wrong, put me in a room with a sponge on the table and I’m not going to start screaming in terror and bashing up the furniture to make a crucifix. But … I will start to feel ever so slightly anxious after a while and will be happy to leave the room, breathing a deep sigh of relief as I do. They’re just so creepy. Take a look at one. It’s all holes and rough textures, isn’t it? You spread it apart in your hands and those holes get bigger and become miniature caverns leading into the heart of the monster. Eurghh. I can’t touch one. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. Look! I’m shuddering right now as I write. The irregularly shaped ones are the worst, the ones that come straight out of the ocean. All pointy and rough and ready to leap onto my face and suffocate me in seconds. I can handle the shop bought ones. The rounded edges and tightly packed holes are a bit more bearable, but not by much. If anyone ever plans on mugging me, they won’t have to worry about finding a hand gun or a knife. All they’ll have to do is wave a loofah in my general direction and I’ll hand over my life-savings and first-born. To get to the bottom of this irrational fear, I asked my mother if there were any episodes in my infancy that might account for it. She racked her brains trying to think of one and couldn’t come up with anything. A few months later however, she remembered when I was a small baby, I would like nothing more during a bath than to chew intently on whatever came nearest to hand. My mother remembered she always had a large sponge with her at bath times and it would invariably end up in my gob at some point. From this, I can only deduce at some point in my mastication of the sponge I must have bitten off a small piece and choked on it. I had obviously cleared the obstruction without my mother noticing, but the trauma of it had wormed its way into my sub-conscious, waiting to pop up in adult life and embarrass me at dinner parties. Having some knowledge of where the problem stemmed from did not make me less afraid of the horrid squelchy things, though. On the contrary, I now had another thing to add to my growing catalogue of sponge-related horrors … choking to death one. I’ve tried in the past to confront my fear without much success. I once took a bath and had a small inoffensive sponge with me to test my mettle in the face of adversity. There it sat, on the edge of the bath, squatting like a malevolent purple, squishy monster … just waiting for me to turn my attention away for a second before launching itself at my head like that face-hugger thing in Alien. Summoning up reserves of courage I didn’t know I had, I picked up the sponge and started to scrub my back with it. It felt like dragging the hand of a corpse across my flesh. Giving one of my patented ‘small girl getting her pig-tails pulled’ screams, I held the offending object away from me like it was going to explode. Then I lobbed the sponge across the bathroom. It flew in a spinning arc, flinging droplets of water all over the shop before coming to rest with a squidgy plop down by the radiator. The rest of the bath was conducted using a flannel, between suspicious glances over at the slimy monster, which I’m sure was leering at me. There it stayed. For two weeks. I eventually picked it up with a pair of salad tongs and dumped it in the wheelie bin. Bomb disposal experts would have recognised the expression on my face as I dropped it in and slammed down the lid. That was where my great sponge experiment ended … in defeat and despondency. For a blissful few years I managed to avoid sponges. My life was sponge free. Then I got married. Unlike me, my wife had no such qualms against scraping sponges across her body and would do so at every given opportunity. This meant the bathroom became a chamber of horrors, with sponges of every shape, hue and texture lined up like malevolent goblins on the cabinet. My mistake was not confessing to my new wife I was scared of them. It’s just not the kind of thing you want to do is it? You’ve just got married and at this point your new spouse (hopefully) still sees you in a good light. It wouldn’t do anything for your reputation to admit you’re terrified of a bloody sponge. So I suffered in silence and the sponges mounted up. She seemed to go through them at an obscene rate of knots, and every couple of months or so I’d be presented with a new one to kick start the nervous adrenaline. I’d just about get used to the long blue sausage shaped one (enough to be in the same room with it anyway) and she’d swap the bloody thing out for some brown, plate-sized monstrosity, that looked like a creeping fungus blown up five hundred times under the microscope. I did eventually pluck up the courage to tell her about my ridiculous phobia. She managed to keep a straight face for nearly two whole minutes. When I’d managed to impress upon her the seriousness of the matter, she started to sympathise a bit. The sponges were then shut away in her half of the bathroom cabinet, so I didn’t have to look at them. But I always felt my heartbeat rise slightly when I opened my half to get the shaving foam out. I’m going to move on now, as I’ve given myself the creeps.

TWISTED TONGUE 10 LIFE WITH NO BREAKS NICK SPALDING

“I’m Nick Spalding and I had an idea. What if I tried to write a book about life ... with no breaks? An entire book in one go. Could I do it? And how would it turn out?”

Join author Nick Spalding as he wends his merry way through an odyssey of non-stop writing, covering a variety of subjects in a selection of riotous anecdotes, comedy asides and humorous stories ... dredged up from a brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.

The book is written as a conversation with YOU, the reader ... and with Nick you’ll venture into the thorny topics of love, life, death, sex, money, horribly timed bowel movements and a deathly fear of sponges (amongst other things).

After you’ve read Life With No Breaks, there’s a very good chance you may never look at the world again the same way!

PUBLISHED BY: – Nick himself because he was in a rush!

ISBN: 978-1-4523-3041-9

140 Pages

£1.37

AVAILABLE FROM: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ICWJ4C http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/13551

Also at the iBook store for Apple iPad and iPhone and soon from Barnes & Noble’s ‘Pub It’.

TWISTED TONGUE 11

Under A Fat Bellied Moon Ruth Henderson

rifting snow wrapped Ginny in its secret world. White trees merged into the white evening and a thousand D eyes watched from the dark forest floor. Cautiously she edged the car forward, peering through the arcs left by the labouring wipers. The headlights were next to useless. A shape came into focus. A dog? It stood in the middle of the road, staring at her with narrowed eyes of luminous yellow. Not a dog. A wolf! Ginny lost control of the car and it slid gently into the shallow ditch. When she looked up the creature had vanished. Cursing, she picked up her bag and bracing her back against the door, rummaged for her phone. It was late, she’d rouse the whole house, but it couldn’t be helped. Her mother would think she was safely at Gran’s cottage by now but she’d stopped for some food … and met the stranger. Tall and mature, big-boned, slanted grey eyes, long black hair and his words laced with an accent she hadn’t been able to place, he’d touched her. With fingers of fire he’d brushed a stray hair from her face and stroked her arm. Ginny wasn’t used to this sort of man, not used to any sort of man; she was used to students, her mates. To her shocked surprise her body had urged him closer, her fingers trembling across the fine hairs on the back of his hand. Overpowered by his alien scent she’d yearned to taste the moisture on his long, full lips. She almost succumbed. Almost. She’d pulled back just in time and run away. The car door swung out and Ginny fell, dropping her bag. A shadow loomed over her, more than a shadow, a presence, big and urgent, undoubtedly the man from the pub with his Ginny felt able to run forever. It felt right to strip off the indefinable scent, smoky outdoors, like a half-remembered meagre coverings of convention. Sleek with sweat she stretched campfire. She pushed herself up, shrinking away from him. out her long legs and raced across the iron hard fields, relishing “You are in a hurry?” He stated. her place by the leader, savouring the pungent scent of the “I’m going to my Gran’s.” Why had she said that? As a child wolves and the keen night air. It was good. Howling at the moon she’d known better. she ran with the pack. “You need help.” With consciousness came panic. She had no idea how long “I’m phoning my Dad, he’s the forest ranger.” she’d been lying on the frosted stones of the porch. Touching The man picked her phone from under his booted heel. The her naked body with muddy fingers that shivered over stripes of splintered plastic fell in fluorescent pink shards, piercing the blood on her legs, she remembered where brambles had lashed snow. He took hold of her wrist, pushing his fingers into the cuff with thorny whips and more scratches on her white thighs, of her red jacket, but something stilled him. He lifted up his face. where she was sore and tender, brought haunted memories in His hooded eyes peered through the snow. His nostrils flared tantalising snatches; memories of animals growling, howling and and he moved his head back and forth, searching for something running, always running. The moon was at its zenith bestowing in the keen air. The heavy cloth of his long coat was warm. Filled diamonds on the mist-shrouded forest, a forest she’d played in with anticipation she stepped closer, she wanted him, wanted all of her life, played hide and seek, gathered honey and peeped whatever this night had to offer and he knew it. Something at the speckled thrush’s eggs, a forest that now filled her with heavy brushed against her legs. She looked down into the yellow horror. eyes of the wolf. Shaking with cold she fumbled through the letterbox for the He fondled the animal. “Easy girl.” The timbre of his voice key and fell into the house. “Gran! Gran!” Her voice shattered in dropped to a purring growl. But the wolf wasn’t easy. She the cold room. This was wrong. The fire should be crackling weaved between them, pushing at him, mouthing his hands, sparks onto the hearth. Fairy lights should be flashing on the watching Ginny, who was fascinated by the intimacy that bulky tree that filled the deep bay of the window. Comforting enclosed beast and man. smells of spiced puddings and meats should be filling her mouth The wolf whined a response to his crooning, lowered the with anticipation. Not this dank odour of moulded wood and stiff hairs on her back. But he was too arrogant, too soon. He forest. “Gran?” Terror drew her up the shallow stairs, into her reached out to Ginny and the wolf was on him. His blood Grandmother’s bedroom. spurted on the virgin whiteness. He snarled. The wolf growled. “Virginia?” A feeble thread of sound came from the bed and He grabbed handfuls of the thick neck ruff and with awesome in the light of a guttering candle, in the window, her power swung her in an arc to fall, smashing against the trees grandmother tossed in a fever that emphasised her big brown where she was on all fours before she landed and came back at eyes and her lips pulled back over long teeth. “Oh darling, don’t him. take on so. I’ve just got the flue,” she whispered, her voice With her heart thudding against her ribs Ginny left them to stretched to breaking in her parched throat. each other and ran. The dark strip of space under the trees Ginny kissed her. “I’m here now. I’ll soon have you slipped past. The wind shook out sheets of dancing snow and comfortable.” laid them before her. Phantoms and shadows kept pace with her, The phone lines were down. It wasn’t possible to call her now ahead, now behind, from the corner of her vision a grey father, but he’d be on the road early in the morning and it was shape wove through the trees, then another and another. Loping the work of only moments to have hot water running through through the underbrush, a pack of wolves. the radiators and the kettle boiling. Ginny knew nothing about The snow thinned to confetti and a fat-bellied moon rode the herbs her grandmother dosed herself with so was relieved to the racing clouds gathering all things female with strands of find a box of welded flue powders. Helping her grandmother to silver. The big she-wolf left the pack to trot at Ginny’s side. the armchair Ginny dealt with the wrecked bed. A sharp object TWISTED TONGUE 12 caught her finger. With a little scream she pulled her arm back evidence of a scavenging pack, but a man who could change into and something shiny flew up and down again to bounce over the a wolf? Ginny didn’t believe in such things. floor. It was a white tooth on a shiny pink palate. It lay grinning The throaty roar of her father’s 4x4 suddenly flung through at her. The situation was ridiculous. Bubbles of laughter rose in the gap in the trees. As soon as it stopped, a welter of dogs her throat. ‘Oh Grandmamma, what big teeth you’ve got,’ she poured from the vehicle, milling around her, yelping as they spluttered and realised just how high-strung she was. Surely she’d picked up the spoor of the wolves. Her father stepped down and imagined it all. Hysteria, brought on by lack of air as she’d run Ginny ran towards him. She was so glad to see his dear face, away from a lecherous old goat and a pack of scabby dogs, had wrinkled and tanned from years of honest labour. He wore caused her to imagine fairy tales in the woods. “All the better to padded work clothes and laced boots, and his hands were rough eat you with.” She waggled the tooth at her grandmother. “I from constantly wielding the huge chain saws that were the tools didn’t know you had a false tooth.” of his trade. He was a big man, dependable. “Not mine. Freddy’s.” “Hi. Glad you’re all right. The snow’s banked up in drifts, “Who’s Freddy?” almost impossible to get through. Freddy here’s been so worried “You’ll meet him.” about your Gran. Come and meet him and his son.” Her grandmother was a woman in her fifties who’d been Two men stepped down. An elderly man, gaunt and feline in married three times and worn out more than a few lovers. flowing furs and a big hat waved a greeting, and then, another, Obviously Freddy was the latest. As she drifted into her drug tall and big boned, with long black hair drifting on the breeze induced sleep she muttered something about wolves. and grey eyes that watched her as he licked long full lips. He gave “Wolves, Gran?” a low command. The dogs, even her father’s, came running to “Breeds them.” jostle for position behind him, their leader, the Alfa. “Freddy breeds wolves? What does look like?” The three men sniffed the keen air, then, as if on a “You’ll like him, darling. He’s Russian.” Her grandmother command, they turned to look into the trees. Ginny felt the hair drifted off to sleep. rise on her neck, sweat poured from her burning skin. The sight Ginny couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned into the night. of the big she-wolf, stepping daintily from the forest, brought a Finally she got up to make a hot drink and looked out the shiver to her bones. The animal stood in front of the men and landing window to a moonlit scene in front of the cottage, where dogs. She lifted up her muzzle to stare at Ginny, who, as the the wolves restlessly trampled the soft snow. The she-wolf lifted most recent member of the pack, knelt in subservience to the up her muzzle and sent a long howl screeching across the tree favoured bitch. tops. Then he came, stepping into the meadow. Dropping to his knees he caressed her. He shrugged off his coat and Ginny © Ruth Henderson gasped at his nakedness. Thick hair grew in a pelt along his back. His tail was proud and erect. His teeth gleamed, the incisors prominent and sharp as razors. There was no sign of him ever The author of two novels, Ruth Henderson is a proud Geordie having had human form. He was all wolf. The pack moved in from North Shields where her ancestors mined endless tunnels and soon there was only a shifting yelping undulation of grey silk of coal and fought the pitiless North Sea from the open deck of Ginny’s body burned with shame and desire. She tore at her a trawler. Her passion for her large family and the area that nightgown pressing herself against the cold glass, welcoming the formed them is the foundation for her award winning stories. tiny crystals of frost against her wild heart. When she calmed her Living now in Cullercoats, where the sea is a constant shuddering breath and dared to look again the wolves were background and inspiration, she also writes short stories, many loping toward the moon, sleek shadows on the brow of the hill. of which have been broadcast on Radio Four; you may also have seen her historic sketches in some of Tynemouth Pageant's The leaders turned and howled and Ginny shuddered as the annual productions. sound filled her head with madness. She fled and buried herself While currently engrossed in another novel, she still finds under the covers, shivering until the sun sent the shadows back time to teach creative writing for North Tyneside Libraries, and into the forest. is enthusiastically involved in a play writing initiative at Live After a shower and a hot breakfast she felt less jittery, forced Theatre. As long as a project calls for imagination and words herself to be calm, to convince herself she’d had a horrible Ruth will meet the challenge. nightmare. She sponged her grandmother and administered more medicine, then, pulling on an old pair of boots, went outside into the crisp, bright morning. Tracks in the snow were unmistakable

High Tides by Ruth Henderson

The high spring waters that crash over Tynemouth pier mirror the turbulent storms of emotion that threaten to engulf Estelle’s disintegrating family. When high tides arrive for all of them she worries that their defences might be too weak to withstand the onslaught.

ISBN: 978-0-9554027-5-3

£6.99

http://www.redsquirrelpress.com

TWISTED TONGUE 13 Dime Toss Len Kuntz

he cab driver’s eyes were alert and alarmed, like a cat facing down a python. He took her in through the rear-view conspicuously. T Her hair, her outfit, even her makeup was the wrong decade— odd, futuristic somehow. Not only that, but she was weeping. “You okay back there?” She nodded, sighed, inhaled deep and said, “Take the next right.” She knew where to find them, of course. She had the photograph in her handbag and besides, she’d heard the story dozens of times, always at her request: “Tell me again how you met. Please Mom, please?” That was before the shattered bourbon bottles and busted bedroom doors, the scalding incriminations and sunburst bruises. But they had come for her graduation. To their credit they sat together. To their credit, they waited a week before bringing her into the kitchen to break the news. “We still love each other, it’s just different now. Someday you’ll understand. People change, Steffi.” Steffi wasn’t a drinker. As proof, that night tequila raced through her system unchecked, setting every cell afire. Her best friend suggested the tarot reader and so she’d gone along, blurry-eyed and heavy-headed. The two girls had each been given a card. “Remember, it won’t work unless you believe,” the old woman had warned. “This is it,” the cabbie said, eyes wincing with concern. “You sure you’re okay?” Steffi smiled and straightened. Believe, she told herself. She handed him three folded bills, and though she was at least ten years younger, she patted his hand. “You’re a good man,” Steffi said. She walked into the carnival as if stepping into a Technicolor dream, a slow-motion hallucination. Warm, moist air caught her skirt and hair. The night rose and fell in a maw of shrill laughter and screams, organ and rockabilly music, rumbling as this or that roller coaster rattled across its rails. Steffi checked her watch. In five minutes her mother would round that corner and set her purse on the wooden ledge and her father would turn and be dumb-struck by her beauty and he’d pull up in mid-throw, arm hooking while the dime flew and twirled before it landed in the furthest jar with the impossibly narrow mouth. The carny would call, “Winner!” his voice frail and startled because no one had ever landed a coin in that particular jar, and thus none had ever won the giant panda worth a small fortune. Good-love gone-bad, she’d seen it firsthand, felt the walls shudder, sat through steamy breakfast hatred and heard the deafening dinner silences. In a few moments Steffi could change it all if she could maintain her courage. Believe, Steffi told herself. “Hey there,” he said. Turning, she staggered, unprepared for how young and handsome and dangerous he appeared. A wry smiled hitched his pulpy upper lip, emphasizing a confident smirk. It was so easy to see why her mother had fell, and fell hard. “You aren’t from around here, are you?” he asked, his blue-black hair glistening. She knew what to do. She’d planned each detail down to the sigh and back arch. Also she understood her time was limited, that her mother was three minutes away from making an appearance with her friend, Marcia, in tow. “No,” Steffi purred. “I didn’t think so. Your outfit, it’s strange.” “Strange?” “Funny,” he said, “But I like it. It’s nice. Different.” Steffi bit her lip. She was nineteen, a year older than this man, her father. Despite tremulous knees and sweat drops spider-crawling down her ribs, she held his gaze. Believe. “Say,” she asked, twirling a curl of her hair ridiculously, “will you do me a favour?” “Oh, you betcha.” “My friend is waiting in line at the Ferris Wheel. She’s easy to spot, poodle skirt, purple bow in her blonde hair. Will you tell her I won’t be needing a ride home?” Her father stared, blinked, and then grinned. “Of course. I’m your ride.” “Really?” “Sure thing.” “But you can’t come back until you find her.” “No problem.” “Promise?” “Promise.” The daughter opened her handbag and pulled out the photograph of her parents arm-in-arm but for the six foot tall panda between them. They looked happy, stunned by their good fortune at having found each other. The daughter closed her eyes. Steffi wasn’t sure how long it would take, how long until she no longer existed, but she hoped it would be soon. Just then she heard her mother’s young-girl voice. “Say,” she asked, “do I know you?” Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with his family and other pesky lake creatures. His writing appears widely in print and on the © Len Kuntz web, as well as at lenkuntz.blogspot.com

TWISTED TONGUE 14 The Dark Tower of Ghalathorn Horn of the Fallen Robert William Shmigelsky Robert William Shmigelsky

The Dark Tower of Ghalathorn. orcish player Crooked spires rising above gray clouds. shifting lips Unworn crown stretching down into shroud. rancid breath Swathed around by darkness itself, foulness squeezed from eyes of elves and men concealed, down bone mouthpiece the finished products of its dark designs, hands wringing but allowing them to see–they were inside. changing position Below, needing torches to light and see, ungodly instrument held the tower was slightly slanted and stood fastened coils of a snake still moving to large iron chains to keep it from falling. scaled crooks glistening The tower, you see, was a reassembled heap skull of a behemoth watching of parts and sections once of other conceptions: teeth bared sockets bare unleveled and uneven ramparts and walls, piercing fabric hole crumbling bridges, ramps, and stairwells, dimensional shadows and an odd arrangement of windows seeping through of varying shapes and sizes. along sound of the fallen Resting below sea level, the first base screaming of the tower, where granite steps rising, shouting claws jammed into earth like tent poles, in increasingly deafening tones led to an overly large abyss-filled gate. sapping courage The tower, departing the Upper World, devouring minds descended down through tunneled ground fading hope to the hollow depths of the Under World, of mortal men where a second base was dug into the ground horn always followed by around the surrounding goblin shanties discordant chorus of aglow with the hissing of mechanical tools dark language and the belching of smoke-spewing contraptions, eager guttural voices digging into the hard adamant rock, marching metal boots meant to conceal and protect, beating shields and removing the parts and sections clashing arms from giant-sized ruins of the first race called to battle that succumbed to its own follies. by disembodied souls trapped inside © Robert William Shmigelsky void between darkened Earth and sundered heaven.

Trapped Chest Robert William Shmigelsky Fabric Shortcut golden treasure chest Robert William Shmigelsky man goes to open gold chest gold chest shows its teeth. Seraph © Robert William Shmigelsky sidesteps and takes dimensional shortcut. Meets shadow in the shadows, finds dead end.

Monster Wards for Hero’s © Robert William Shmigelsky

Campfire Robert William Shmigelsky

Robert William Shmigelsky is an aspiring fantasy writer moon lit on night sky, trying to improve his writing. Besides reading and werewolf slips past circle into writing, some of his hobbies include computers and electric monster zapper. history. He has a dry sense of humour, which he blames his stepfather for. Also, he has a habit of making history © Robert William Shmigelsky jokes no one but him understands. He is currently working as a certified care aide in beautiful British Columbia to support his writing.

TWISTED TONGUE 15 amusement. Mind you, I hadn’t always been this way, but so the A Taste of Murder seasons make the girl and the girl makes the seasons. Nora B. Peevy “My mother was the original hippie.” I rolled my window down further, enjoying what little breeze there was. Earl watched patches of sunlight flickering over my face as I leaned into the open car window with a casual grace and a spoke, my arm draped out the window. “You talk about her in coy grin that could snatch a cat’s tongue right out of its the past tense. Is she?” I mouth. “Can I get a ride?” My breath smelled sweet as my “Oh, she’s not dead. She lives out of state. I visit her almost bubblegum as I flicked my long hair over one lean, tanned every summer.” shoulder, using the gifts my mother gave me. Men—they’re so “Where does she live?” easy to read. Show this one a little leg, show that one a little “Mt. Olympus, Washington. I’m hitching my way there. Do bosom, and they salivate like the dogs they really are. And this you like my shirt?” Debbie Does Washington stretched taut over one was a special breed of sicko. my breasts in bold white lettering cracked with wear and “Sure can.” He leaned over to open the door for me, noting washing. I could hear his cock stirring in his pants. Sooey, boy! the dust on my boots with a small grimace as he scratched his Come and get it! nose and watched me fold my lanky frame into the hot vinyl seat. “It’s a nice top.” Earl struggled to keep his eyes off my chest I shifted my legs for his benefit, as I positioned my cowboy and my black cowboy boots with the red stitching leading to boots around a worn and faded black backpack. The smell of firm, well defined calves and an inviting pair of thighs. I let him pine-scented air freshener and stale Old Spice clung to the imagine the candy, salty taste of my delicate throat on his tongue, clammy air. A trickle of sweat ran down my neck and settled as with long, tanned fingers, I stroked the lettering across my between my breasts, leaving a wet spot on my red baby doll. I breast. sighed long and gathered my hair from my sticky neck, snapping “Even though the shirt’s a little worn, I still wear it because it a black band off my slender wrist with my fingers, long and agile reminds me of home.” A tiny, sweaty, blond curl clung to the as a pianist’s, nails painted a blazing red. I could hear his mouth nape of my neck. My breastbone rose and fell as I breathed the moisten with desire. He was just like my husband—a lying, sweltering air of the car. It was hot enough to fry Hades in here! mangy cur of a man who tricked me into eating those damn Hmm … A nice thought. I would have to come back to that one pomegranate seeds, but no matter. I knew his type, looking for a at a later juncture. “Don’t you have air-conditioning?” I leaned cheap, easy ride with a wild finish, coveting something he’d forward to fiddle with the dials on the dashboard. never own—me. “Please don’t do that.” Earl placed his hand on top of mine. “So, what’s your name,” I asked, squinting into the sun as I I grinned, flashing my oh-so-cute dimples with an impish, licked my lips and flipped down the visor on my side. irresistible wiggle of the eyebrows. I did not remove Earl’s hand “Everybody calls me, Earl.” He tried to focus on the from mine as I blew a huge pink bubble that popped in his face, writhing snake of blacktop ahead, a river of green cornfields wrapping my other hand around Earl’s, feeling the warm curve streaming past as he drove, but I could tell his fingers hungered of his palm in mine. “You don’t work with your hands much, do for fresh flesh. Time had been limping along on a broken leg for you?” I stared at his thin fingers, fine-boned as a blue heron’s poor, desperate Earl and he’d been trapped between a scorched wing and soft as a child’s. piece of highway and the baking sky all morning and afternoon. I watched Earl silently recall a ghost memory of the last girl He didn’t know how many days he’d been on the road, but he who held his hand, the vintage pinup pouting lips and the taste thought he’d found a new companion in me. of cinnamon kisses on his tongue, stealing his thoughts. He I laughed—the sharp staccato rhythm of a pair of high heels swallowed, forcing himself to speak, slowly. “I’m an accountant.” on pavement and snapped my gum, slouching lower in my seat I saw the corner of his mouth twitch as he took his hand away and putting my dusty black boots on the dashboard, exposing from mine. I decided to turn up the heat a notch and I opened another inch of oiled, tanned thigh in my tight daisy dukes. “I’ve his glove compartment, rummaging for a napkin and shuffling never met any Asians named Earl. You’re all named Lee Chung through a thick stack of maps rubber-banded together, vehicle or something,” I snorted, stomping my boot heel on the dash, registration papers, and a pair of black gloves that made my skin positive that would really get Earl’s blood a-boiling. (One time, I scream on contact. fed hubby-poo’s doggie, Cerberus, a drugged steak, sending him Earl’s brow wrinkled and his upper lip twitched. He bit his to dreamland for three whole days and leaving the gate tongue, frowning as he leaned over to slam the tiny door shut. unguarded. Hubby was pissed! Ah, such fond memories). “That stuff’s private. Understand?” He frowned at my boot. I’d pegged him for a control freak So he was a control freak and didn’t want me in his private alright. “I’m a first generation American. I don’t need an Asian cesspool of filth. Hmmm … Well, I could give him something name.” He paused, the corner of his mouth twitching as I tapped else to be mad about. Maybe, he’d snap and I could finish him my toes on the dashboard. Like bricks, his words fell heavy and off early and be on my way. I pouted like a naughty debutante, uncomfortable from his mouth. “Will you please take your boots spitting my gum into a Dairy Queen napkin, which I crumpled off my dashboard?” I lowered my boots to the ground with a and tossed to the floor by my boot. “What do you think about rebellious thump! Giddy as a schoolgirl picking daisies, I stared that, Earl?” I leaned over, my breath hot and sugary in his ear. out the window as a flock of red-winged blackbirds rose in a blue That should stoke his engine a bit. arc of sky. I could practically see the roots of Earl’s black shoe From the corner of his eye, I could see him peeking down polish hair burning crimson with anger. He gave me a reserved the front of my top. He shoved me roughly back into my seat. “I smile and continued, “My mother named me. She liked the think you should pick that up and put it in the trash bag. That’s name.” He stopped, admiring the curve of my nose. An what I think about that.” He pointed to a small white plastic bag exemplary specimen of Roman beauty, I heard him think. I could on the floor near my backpack. smell my own body heat. The sour candy apple scent of my hair “Fine.” I sighed, pretending to be perturbed as I bent over to made him smile again. He turned his attention back to the road. pick up the wadded napkin. “Are you this rude to every girl you “What’s your name?” pick up?” This was going to take longer than I’d originally “Persephone.” My name hung like a ripe red-orange fruit planned, but lucky for Earl, I was a persistent girl. between us in the moist in the air. I rocked my left boot back on “Are you this rude to every man that gives you a ride?” I its heel, my long fingers splayed in delicate grace across my knee. could see the internal anger struggle, how hard he willed his “And you’re laughing at me?” His skinny shoulders shook as mouth to stop twitching, giving a stiff smile and a wink. he chuckled. Then he grew quiet. His shirt slick with sweat, he “No.” My voice became muffled as I popped a cherry sucker shifted his weight in the car seat, the vinyl chafing and burning from my bag into my mouth and put the wrapper in the trash his skin. I sensed he suffered from a sharp kink in his neck, like bag with a slow deliberateness; my eyes locked onto his as I someone twisting a screwdriver into his back, and I wanted to ground the trash bag beneath the pointed toe of my boot. It lay twist it a little further—but slowly—or my own devious like a shrivelled onion on the floor as I took my sucker out of my TWISTED TONGUE 16 mouth, licking my red-stained lips, fully aware of the phallic wankers. “The Midwest Mangler killed some girl in Mayville this flirtation, and relishing every minute of it—just reeling him in a weekend.” little more. “What a shame. How many young women has he killed? Is it Earl swerved around a small pile of brown fur in the road. twelve? That’s the number I heard last night.” He smiled. “He’s “Rabbit.” probably, going for lucky thirteen.” “Plenty of those where that one came from.” I popped my “Thirteen’s my lucky number, Earl.” I flashed him my very sucker back into my mouth. best Las Vegas showgirl smile as my fingers played over his thigh Too much corn, I heard him think loudly. When will it ever with sensual warmth, restraining myself from digging in with my end? He checked his watch. fingernails and ripping his quadriceps from his thigh. “Gotta be somewhere?” I knew where he wanted to be, but “Please, don’t touch me.” Earl peeled my fingers from his he wasn’t going to get there. It’d be a cold day in hell before leg, squeamishly, like he was peeling the skins of rotten fruit. He Hades even got in bed with me. Stealing me away from my watched me. His cagey eyes caught the dying sun, a flash of family—the epitome of the brute cavemen dragging his wife to blood flickering in muddy brown puddles. his den by the hair—so unevolved and uneducated and So he doesn’t like to be touched, huh? Well, I was going to unprepared to deal with the likes of me, just like my precious, do more than just touch the bastard by the time I finished my naïve, little Earl. But Earl thought he could and after imprinting business. I trailed a lazy “S” over my collarbone with my long, on those black leather gloves, I knew he had special plans for red nails, my eyes roaming down to my inner thighs. As I sank me. lower in my seat, I let my legs fall open just a little bit, revealing “Nope.” Earl shifted in his seat. smooth, tender skin. “I hope we can stop soon. Don’t you, I stuck my hand out the window. “Did you ever see Children Earl?” of the Corn?” My subtle wit was lost on Earl—sad that there was “Yes.” no one to appreciate my wit. I’d take a standing ovation, but I knew just how to prick a man’s interest. I sneered then, I was sure I’d get one from Earl sooner or later. I stretched lasciviously at him. He glanced away from me, and I saw images my hand further out the window, trying to grab a stalk as we of me writhing beneath him burned into the putrid core of his drove the deserted road. Every few minutes the black hat of a vulgar mind. His mouth twitched as he leered unknowingly and scarecrow popped up out of the monotonous green and blue the road curved ahead. landscape. You think I’d appreciate my mother’s handiwork A tiny gas station appeared around the bend next to a white more, but really, if you’ve seen one cornfield, you’ve seen them clapboard house with red geraniums in paint-peeled window all. boxes. As we parked, an elderly man with a striking resemblance “Didn’t see that flick.” Earl scratched his chin. to James Earl Jones poked his head up from his newspaper at the “Too bad for you.” I shifted in my seat. Too bad for you, counter. He eyed Earl with a dull rheumy curiosity, his face dark you’ll be dead soon. I grinned. in the greasy window. I arched my back like a cat, getting out of He squinted at a wavering streak of red in the distance, the car, bending over to grab my ankles and stretch, and for the muggy drops of sweat rolling down his nose. “So, you watch old man’s extra benefit, I lifted my head up from the ground scary movies often?” with a suggestive smile. My blonde ponytail cascaded over one “Oh, yeah. I shuffled my feet, stripping the last bit of sucker shoulder as I held my ankles. The old black man turned away from the white paper stick with my two front teeth. A bright red from the ample view of my cleavage. Instead, he watched Earl stop sign sprung up from the pavement at the top of the hill, pumping gas. He hadn’t paid me much interest, but I knew he cornfields still pressing in on both sides of us. Earl inched to a was a slavering rat like the rest of them. Most men that I stop and then scooted the nose of his car into the intersection. encountered were. That’s why I’d gone into the exterminating The loud angry goose honk of a semi blared down on us, the business in my free time. Never again would I be a helpless driver glaring and shaking his fist as he passed the car. victim and a little vigilante justice could help out my sisters in “Shit, that was close.” Earl’s heart slumped somewhere need just fine. around his knees. The little bell above the door tinkled as I entered, bringing a “You were saying something about scary movies?” I beamed, hot cyclone of air with me. I nodded to Earl at the register and licking my lips at his discomfort. I scratched my neck, with a wove through the short aisles, trailing lazy fingers across the bored sigh. “Does your radio work?” glossy packages of gum. Eyeing the Red Vine liquorice, I plucked “Nope.” another cherry sucker from a display tree, unwrapping it. I I stared out the window. Wasn’t there a gas station anywhere crumpled the waxy wrapper in my hand, wedging it between two in this godforsaken place? I’d been waiting on the road all day rows of Juicy Fruit on the shelves, and twirling a stray curl for Mr. Scumbag to show up; my feet were sore, my back itched around a finger, a coquettish smile on my lips, walked over to with sweat, and I could really use something for this headache of Earl. a companion. I wanted air conditioning, cold water, and “You have to pay for that.” The old man frowned. vengeance faster than Paris Hilton could spend her daddy’s Earl pulled two worn dollar bills from his wallet, leaning on money, but it didn’t look like I had a chance in Hades of finding the counter. “Keep the change, mister.” either for at least another hour. I scowled. Earl checked the gas “Do you have a bathroom I could use?” My tongue by now gauge, a quarter of a tank left. was stained a deep cherry red. “Do you have anything to read in here?” I peeked in the “Out back.” The old man slid the key attached to a battered backseat, giving him a backside view of my daisy dukes. They piece of wood on a chain across the counter and I sidled out of crept higher as I rustled amongst some empty paper bags and the store, my boot heels clicking, the key jangling in my hand, soda cans. Finally, I sat up, victorious, my cheeks flushed and and fully aware they were watching me leave with hungry eyes. damp curls springing loose from my long ponytail like Medusa’s Earl patted his back pocket, double-checking his wallet. snakes, a wrinkled newspaper in my hand. I settled down into my “Thanks.” He gave a hurried nod to the old man. seat with my discovery, the toes of my boots resting on my pack with the newspaper smoothed across my tanned thighs. I s the doorknob turned I sat with my back against the scratched my throat and glanced down at the headline: Midwest Aclammy yellow tile, my elbows resting on my knees. I tossed Mangler Strikes Again. Meh! I already knew who that was. I was my red sucker on the floor by the toilet. A cockroach scuttled sitting next him! past me and I ground it into the tile with the toe of my boot, “Any good news?” Earl turned left on County E. More picturing it with Earl’s face. The muggy air nuzzled like an eager cornfields welcomed us. kitten against my chest, snatching the breath from my mouth and I watched the setting sun stain the horizon a deep red, the I wrinkled my nose, overcome by the sweet noxious stink of old pulpy colour of a blood orange. I wanted to kick the shit out of lady rose deodorizer and urine. The faucet dripped. I steadied this poor excuse for a man. After Hades, I had little patience for myself for the encounter.

TWISTED TONGUE 17 Earl stood in the sulphur haze of the overhead light, small earth of my voice enveloped his ears. “Open your mouth, Earl.” white moths beating their frantic wings against its globe. He Open your mouth, so I can kill you. jeered at me in his black gloves and I flashed him a lynx grin, Earl opened his mouth to receive my communion, lulled by rising to run my red nails over my wrinkled daisy dukes. the pulsing symphony surrounding him. He waited. I lifted my “Hello, Earl.” I sauntered to the tiny sink to splash cold arms. My palms turned upwards as two javelins of green stalks water on my throat, my hips swaying, the droplets running down shot from my wrists, piercing Earl’s bony shoulders. Red jellyfish to my breasts, so many diamonds reflected in the light from the billowed on the waves of his white shirt. The stalks burrowed doorway. He quietly rested his hands on the doorframe. “It’s hot through his collarbone, prying, eager for purchase on the wall in here, isn’t it?” A wave of curls tumbled around my face as I behind him. The tiles whined and shattered around his head. undid my ponytail. Flecks of gold flickered in my green eyes and Sharp bits grazed his cheek and a trickle of blood ran down his I swayed with the grace of a cat, my long, brown legs cheek. Earl’s eyes bulged and he gasped, sobbing, sinking in fear shimmering in the darkness. and hot blue pain. I felt pleasure for the first time in months. Earl savoured this moment, watching my ample chest rise “Kiss me now,” I commanded. Kiss me now, so I can finish and fall as I breathed and the slight tilt of my head as I beckoned you, Earl. him. The faint, moist smell of fertile earth clinging to the air An army of stalks snaked over my wrists as bloody tears ran around me whispered sunny childhood memories of running down his cheeks. The stalks stabbed at his ankles, drilling through gold-kissed fields under an autumn sky so crisp in his through the stringy gristle of his Achilles’ tendons. Searing red ear. He shook his head, focusing on my face in awe. waves of torment licked at his toes. He cried out, but I showed I pulled the red top over my head, dropping it to the floor. I him no mercy as he’d given none to his victims. He was nothing stood there, my areolas large, the colour of ripe mangos in the more than gum on the bottom of my boot, a wad of spit on the semi-darkness. They lay like two half-moons pleading for his pavement, a plump slug popping beneath my boot. kisses. “Come here, Earl.” Come here, so I can kill you, Earl. I “Ssshhh.” I pressed a cool green stalk to his trembling grasped his gloved hands and pulled him towards me, steeling mouth and tore it away with vicious glee, slicing his lower lip, myself not to recoil from his tainted touch. I envisioned myself jeering at him, as his eyes rolled white. Blood ran down his chin. as a sharp sickle eager to cut down his sheath, borrowing a little That one was for Hades. of my mother’s legacy. He tore off his gloves and flung them to “Please, no!” He spluttered. the floor. They crumpled like wilted flowers beneath our feet as “Tsk-tsk-tsk. Do you really think I’m going to let you go, he ran his fingers down my throat. Earl? After what you’ve done?” “Kiss me, Earl.” Kiss me so I can kill you, Earl. I threw my I rubbed my nose against his clammy cheek. Earl opened his head back, letting him taste me. The faint, earthy scent of my mouth to scream, as a green stalk slithered down his throat, skin swelled, pulsing around him, calling him to me like a babe as stifling his pleas. I grasped the four stalks pinning Earl to the I opened my mouth to him. His hands reached to cradle my face, wall like a quivering insect and reeled myself in along their thick, my cheekbones finer than a dragonfly’s wing. I tasted Red Bull green serpentine flesh, until my thighs pressed against his. My and beef jerky and tried not to puke. green dress skittered over his skin, cocooning him in stalks and My strong arms encircled his waist. Around us the air sizzled leaving only his face free, my breath sweet on his lips. with the reedy symphony of dry husks of corn grinding their “I’ve shown you so much, Earl, so much more than those bodies together. My body turned, entwined with his, pinning him other girls have shown you. Haven’t I?” I leered at him, my teeth to the tiled wall, as my hands stroked his chest, teasing his blazing white in the darkness. I knew in the iris of my eye, he cinched belt. I gave him a pouty Marilyn Monroe smile. saw the dead girls reflected, sprawled like broken ragdolls in I could feel the hot bite of the box cutter in his back pocket. fields of green. They loomed closer and closer. He shut his eyes Green tendrils of smoke snaked upwards, wrapping their wispy tight, struggling to break free. arms around us. Earl blinked, dazed. He sighed as my fingers “Kiss me, Earl. Kiss me, so I can kill you.” A glistening ear stroked his stomach. I tore his shirt off like we were in some of yellow corn slid from my lips. With a soft squish-crunch, it cheesy scene of a “B” movie. Really, I wanted to tear his head punched through the shredded meat of his mouth, burying itself off with my bare hands and use his spinal cord as the newest belt in the tiles behind him. Earl’s body slumped against the broken in my collection, but I had discipline after all these years on the wall, his eyes rolled up to the ceiling, a bloody ear of corn thrust road tracking down the slime of the earth. I would relish this from his torn and jagged lips. moment, slowly, like a fine wine and a box of chocolates—every It was done. In whispers of dried flesh, the corn stalks girl’s best friend. unfurled themselves from my body, fading into wispy green “Are you happy, Earl?” I’m happy now that I’m going to kill entrails, dissolving into darkness as I retrieved my top from the you. I wriggled against him, undoing his belt and stepped back, bathroom floor. I shook loose the dust of the broken yellow my hair flickering in a golden glow, millions of fireflies entangled tiles, and put it on, walking over to the sink to rinse out my in my tussled tresses. I saw him marvel at my transformation. mouth, admiring my handiwork, checking underneath my red Maybe, he thought it was just a hallucination. It didn’t matter. nails for blood, grinning. Tendrils of green smoke twined around my torso, as my eyes glowed like a coyote’s, two pinpoints of amber in the darkness. © Nora B. Peevy Earl watched my playful smile, the green smoke slithered over my limbs, materializing into thick healthy cornstalks. I hummed and swayed, letting the stalks curl around my breasts; cupping them like cats’ tails they wound over my bronzed flesh to form a Nora B. Peevy has a B.A. in English with a Concentration in living, green dress. As I pumped my hips, a lean glint of thigh Creative Writing from Cardinal Stritch University. Originally gleamed through the stalks of my skirt. from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she now lives in Dallas, Texas, with her three bearded dragons, three cats, one Cuban Knight I sang in a husky siren’s voice, “What do you want, Earl?” I Anole, and her husband. Spending her time stalking zombies, know what I want. I want to kill you. werewolves, vampires, and other creepies, she has been

“I want you to kiss me.” He gasped, the air snatched from previously published in The Oddville Press, The Monsters Next his throat, his skin feverish with lust. He was losing himself in Door, Deadlines: An Anthology of Horror and Dark Fiction, me. I knew he could feel my life force, a drum beating strong in and other publications. More information about the author can the centre of his gut. He licked his lips, his mouth a dry husk, be found here: http://norabpeevy.com/. and I, so lush and green and full of life before him. He yearned http://www.cometpress.us/books/deadlines.html to drink from my fountain. “Close your eyes, Earl.” Close your eyes, so I can kill you. I paused, studying the tiny blue veins in his fluttering eyelids and grinned. He closed his eyes, an obedient disciple, and the warm

TWISTED TONGUE 18 Change Here... Mark Howard Jones

is legs refused to work as they should as he hammered his feet down onto the stone steps. “C’mon, c’mon,” he H muttered, a mantra of encouragement to his reluctant body. The guard was just about to close the doors and press the signal for off as Nick got to the top of the steps. He caught the man’s eye and got a look of impatience as he hobbled the last few yards. Why the hell did the last train have to go so early anyway? All he asked for was a few beers with an old friend once a month or so, but obviously that was far too inconvenient for the damn train company. 8.40. You’d swear I was 10 years old, he thought bitterly. God, he’d be glad to get home. What a day—one more deadline and his head would explode. And he was sure that last week’s announcement about re-structuring meant he’d soon have a desk in the car park. He pulled out his newspaper and a small sheaf of ‘sticky’ notes fell onto the floor. Messages from home left on his desk by his witless colleague, Steve, who delighted in his being kept on a short leash by his wife. He flicked through them and sighed. Most of them concerned his daughter’s ‘operation’ tomorrow. As if he could forget what a mess the little idiot had got herself into. He glanced about him. The train was empty. He was the only passenger. Good, he thought. No noisy teenagers and idiots having loud phone conversations about nothing at all. He shook open his newspaper and began to read. The train pulled out, heading off into the night as darkness had begun to gather. He tried to concentrate on the words in front of him but his mind wouldn’t let him rest; debts, his co-workers sneering about his son’s supposed addiction problem, his wife’s recent coldness for no apparent reason, all jostled for attention. After about 20 minutes of chewing his nails, Nick had finally become absorbed in some story or other. Then he caught the guard’s announcement. “ ... Taff’s Well, Pontypridd, Abercynon West ...” “What? There IS no Abercynon West,” he thought. The voice continued “... Atlantis Central.” Either the guard was drunk, or some joker had fiddled the lock and commandeered the intercom. “Next stop Narnia,” he snorted to himself, returning to his paper. When next he looked up he was still alone. Nobody had even got on at Ponty, which was usually busy. Suddenly the carriage was plunged into darkness as they entered a tunnel. The lights flickered on, then off again, on, off. Nick gave up trying to read his paper in frustration. He didn’t remember a tunnel, certainly not one this long. Or this cold; the train was freezing. Perhaps this was a detour because of engineering works. But then he remembered it was a single-line track. And there were no tunnels on this stretch of line anyway. Pressing his nose to the cold window, he could see a blob of light was getting closer. He caught a glimpse of a sign with a bright, flickering light above it; below that was a tiny platform big enough only for one or two people to stand on. The sign had said ‘Abercynon West’. And hadn’t there been a figure standing in the darkness? With something ... no. That must have been a trick of the light. And, despite the announcement, the train hadn’t stopped at that station. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as the train plunged deeper into the surrounding darkness. Part of him desperately tried to rationalise the situation. He told himself that the tiny station was simply intended for maintenance crews and not passengers, hence its small size. That must be it, mustn’t it? And he must have just misheard the final destination ... He stared into the cold darkness beyond the window, feeling like a child desperately clinging to a belief in impossible things—fairies, Santa Claus, happy endings—then, to his horror, finding that impossible things really did exist; other things, less kind. Suddenly the carriage was out of the darkness and the brakes began to screech as the train pulled to a halt, jerking Nick forward in his seat. A pale blue light flooded through the windows, showing up every grimy seat cover and dirty scuff mark on the floor. Nick looked out at a clean, wide station platform with not a soul on it. Carved into the shining blue stone at the back of the platform were the words ‘Atlantis Central’. Then came the announcement. ‘Atlantis Central. Last stop. Change here for services to Hy-Brasil, Cockaigne, Erewhon and Elysium.’ Nick stared up at the ceiling speaker in disbelief. He got to his feet, wondering if this was some sort of marketing gimmick. It looked like a bloody expensive one if it was. He pressed the button and the doors hissed open, letting in a blast of cool, fresh-tasting air. Stepping out onto the spotless platform, he looked around, then followed the sign saying ‘out’. Through a window high up he could just see the top of an ornately-carved bell tower beneath a clear sky. From somewhere the sound of huge waves crashing against a sturdy sea wall reached him. He knew the route the train usually took was at least 20 miles from the sea. But even his tired mind was beginning to realise that nothing here was usual. Suddenly feeling self-conscious he checked to see that he wasn’t leaving dirty footprints on the pristine floor. At the platform end, the horse-headed guard with the golden horn sprouting from his forehead smiled at him as if to say ‘Good to be home, isn’t it?’ Nick glanced back at the dirty, ugly machine sitting at the platform. He’d taken his last journey home.

© Mark Howard Jones Mark Howard Jones lives in Cardiff and has had dozens of short stories published on both sides of the Atlantic. His new book ‘Songs From Spider Street’ is available now from Screaming Dreams: www.screamingdreams.com

TWISTED TONGUE 19 TWISTED TONGUE 20 been so good last month, hadn’t mentioned that my story had Stranger than Fiction been on the cover and that it was thanks to me that … Jay Faulkner “Linda?” “Yes?” I hated the smug look on Nick’s face as he realised— correctly—that I hadn’t been listening. “Sorry, Nick, I was miles ha.…” I screamed as a sudden grip tightened on away!” my shoulder and, as my shoes clattered across the “No need to apologise, love,” he glanced at the two men on “W concrete—giving little to no purchase—I was either side of the table and winked. “Probably thinking of much propelled towards the edge of the train station’s platform. more important things than our end of month wrap up, weren’t I struggled, twisting back and forth, trying to grab at you? What was it then, shopping list?” whoever was pushing, but couldn’t. One of the heels snagged in “No, I …” a crack on the concrete floor, before my shoe was wrenched off. “Don’t matter, love,” he cut me off. “Don’t need to know. My bare foot scraped against the hard surface, skin ripping with a What I was saying, while you were off wool-gathering, was that burst of pain but, suddenly, I had foothold. Ducking down, I’m going to take us all out tonight to celebrate. So, why don’t twisting around, I came face to chest with a grey suit. My brain, you go powder your nose—or whatever it is you do in the synapses firing faster than ever before, took in every detail of his bogs—and let’s go get slaughtered!” form. Six foot tall. Average build. White shirt. Slender tie of a Jamie and Colin jumped to their feet, immediately. It wasn’t lighter grey. Dark hair. Clean-shaven. No anger, no malice, no often that Nick put his hand in his pocket for anything, after all. emotion at all on his face. The three-week self-defense course at We sometimes considered ourselves lucky just to get paid at the the YMCA suddenly screamed out at me from the recess of my end of each month. Even that didn’t happen without the memory and I slapped out, as hard as I could. His head barely customary moaning about none of us being worth half of what moved to the side. I brought my knee up—hard—into his groin. he paid us. I had once looked up ‘tight’ in the dictionary and was He didn’t even flinch. Slowly, impassively, he stared at me— disappointed when I didn’t find his photo there. They had their through me—with grey eyes that hardly seemed to register my jackets on before Nick had even lumbered his bulk to a semi- existence. vertical position; they wanted to take him up on the offer before his mood changed along with his mind. ‘m sorry,” I faltered, in mid-recollection. “I just still can’t “You guys go on,” I said, as I walked back to my desk. “I “I believe it happened to me!” need to check a few emails first. I might have a lead on I winced at the sound of my voice. It made me sound weak. something for next month; Dave, the guy that tipped me off last Unreliable. The positioning of the lights in the room meant that time, says that he may be able to get more—something even I couldn’t see their eyes, not clearly, but I knew what I would see bigger, he said.…” there if I could. Doubt. I mean I felt it myself; I had been “Whatever,” Nick threw back over his shoulder as he led the through it and even I couldn’t believe it. How could they? other two out of the door and stood in front of the elevator. “So you said, Ms Maycock,” the older of the two men stated, “You can tell me all about it at the pub. Don’t be long, though, impassively. His voice was calm. He must have sat there so or you’ll miss out on happy hour—and after that the next round often, interviewing people just like me. Well maybe not ‘just’ like is on you!” me; I was a journalist - I interviewed people too. I did it to sell The door to the office closed behind them as they waited at their stories, though. He was a cop. He interviewed people to get the elevator and, finally, their voices died out. Leaning back in the truth. I wasn’t even sure that I knew the meaning of the my chair I quickly typed in the password and watched as the word anymore. If I couldn’t get a story, I simply made the ‘news’ monitor flickered to life, then called up my email. up. Any journalistic integrity I once had, died the same day my “Dammit.…” I gave the mouse a shake, watching the cursor dreams of writing for the major leagues did; the day I started move contrary to my wishes. As the small arrow continued to writing for a dirt sheet that specialised in conspiracy theories, dance, aimlessly, across the screen emails started to disappear, alien abduction, and celebrity gossip. one by one. None of the guys were here to do the one thing they ‘The Truth’ was London’s answer to ‘The National were good at—geek stuff—so I resorted to using my own, Enquirer’—but with fewer facts per square inch. Nick Flanagan, amazing, technical skills. When slapping the monitor, and the owner of the rag, had come up with the name one night after shouting at it, didn’t work, I bit off another frustrated curse and knocking back a few pints. He thought he was being clever when grabbed the phone. Nick’s number was quickly dialed before I he dropped the ‘stranger than fiction’ part of the well-known realised that I was listening to silence. I looked into the receiver, phrase and used it for a monthly newssheet that had as much as if I would be able to see why there was no dial tone, then was truth in it as a politician’s promises three days before election. thankful I was alone; I would never have lived it down had any “Why don’t you start again?” the cop prompted. “From the of the guys seen me looking helpless, like a damsel in distress, beginning.” His younger colleague picked up a pen and waited, because I couldn’t get my email or phone to work. patiently, as I tried to recall what I wanted only to forget. “Oh shit.…” The phone dropped from my hand, landing on the keyboard with a clatter, as my face was suddenly bathed in uys—and girl, of course” Nick said, with the quirk of blue light. Even my limited technical knowledge was enough to “G his lips that passed for a smile, as he glanced my way, “I know that a PC suddenly showing a blue screen, with the words am pleased to tell you that we just had our best month on record ‘memory’ and ‘dump’ in the same sentence, wasn’t a ‘good thing’. … and that’s the truth.” I snatched my mobile phone, hitting the speed dial for Nick, as I The belly laugh that erupted from him was echoed with hurried out of the office. lackluster noises from the other two staff reporters at ‘The “Hi there, this is Nick.…” Truth’, Colin Wright and Jamie Rogers. Nick Flanagan thought “Nick, you fuck!” I snarled into the silver Motorola as I hit that it was the epitome of humour to work the title of his the call button for the elevator. “It’s Linda …” publication into at least one conversation per day; I had heard it “I can’t get to the phone,” his voice intoned, “leave a too often to even pretend to find it funny. He didn’t notice that, message after the beep and I’ll get back to you.” nor that ‘his boys’ weren’t really laughing either. Had he cared It took me a few seconds to realise that I was about to rant for the truth, after all, he wouldn’t be where he was. at an answering machine. In all the time I had worked for Nick I None of us would. had never known him to turn his phone off; day or night he was “Circulation is up by seventeen percent and the last issue always ready to take the call that would be, in his mind, a tip on peaked at thirteen hundred and four copies.” He beamed at the the next big story. The fact that it never came, though, never figures and I was reminded of a shark as his teeth flashed. A stopped him. He never turned his phone off. short, fat and balding shark but a shark nonetheless. It were the “Nick, it’s Linda.” I sighed, not really wanting to talk to a small, cold eyes that did it. Even when he laughed his eyes never machine. “Your cheap-ass computer just ate my emails and then lit up. Of course he hadn’t mentioned just why the figures had committed ritual suicide in front of my eyes. You had better get TWISTED TONGUE 21 someone to get my shit back; I am not willing to lose everything coke. on there! Also, you must have forgotten to pay the phone bill! “Wha.…” I screamed as a sudden grip tightened on my We’ve been cut off—again—you idiot!” shoulder and, as my shoes clattered across the concrete - giving A small tone rang out as the elevator doors began to open. I little to no purchase—I was propelled towards the edge of the started to snap the phone closed but, with a smirk, I brought it train station’s platform. close to my mouth again. I struggled, twisting back and forth, trying to grab at “… and make mine a double, you skinflint. If it wasn’t for whoever was pushing, but couldn’t. One of the heels snagged, in my story you wouldn’t have the best numbers you have ever a crack on the concrete floor, before my shoe was wrenched off. seen!” I grinned, stepping forwards. The phone fell from my My bare foot scraped against the hard surface, skin ripping with a hand, dropping into the darkness, as I scrabbled for balance. burst of pain but, suddenly, I had foothold. Ducking down, Grabbing the side of the doors I pulled myself backwards, twisting around, I came face to chest with a grey suit. My brain, staring down into the empty shaft where the elevator should synapses firing faster than ever before, took in every detail of his have been. I heard my phone clatter of something further down form. Six foot tall. Average build. White shirt. Slender tie of a in the darkness and then all went quiet. My heart, pounding, was lighter grey. Dark hair. Clean-shaven. No anger, no malice, no the only sound that filled my ears. emotion at all, on his face. The three-week self-defense course at “Stupid. Fucking. Building!” I staggered back from the abyss the YMCA suddenly screamed out at me from the recess of my and watched, shaking, as the elevator doors closed—silently and memory and I slapped out, as hard as I could. His head barely slowly—as if nothing had happened. Twice, last month, the moved to the side. I brought my knee up—hard—into his groin. elevator had broken down but then it had simply got stuck He didn’t even flinch. Slowly, impassively, he stared at me— between floors. This was the first time that it had nearly killed through me—with grey eyes that barely seemed to register my someone. Nearly killed me! “Nothing fucking works!” existence. Slamming open the doors to the fire escape I took the stairs The wind picked up behind me. The rumble of the down the three floors and walked out into the January night. My approaching train grew louder. I squinted, dust and debris flying, breath escaped in a cloud of vapour and I shivered; I told myself hitting my face, and it was then—as he reached towards me once that it was from the cold but I knew—or at least the small part more—that I realised what was causing every fiber of my being, of me that I, big girl playing in a man’s World, normally ignored every nerve in my body, to scream in protest. It wasn’t the fear, it knew—that the near miss with the elevator had scared the shit wasn’t the attack, it wasn’t even the knowledge I was about to out of me. Not literally, of course, but pretty damn close. die. I had hit him; I had kicked him where it should have hurt. Turning left out of the building I hit the button on the The wind blew debris directly into his face, into his eyes, but he pedestrian crossing, jabbing at it repeatedly as if that would make never reacted. the lights change faster. I saw a lorry approaching but the He never blinked! crossing sign changed to green in my favour and so I stepped out Staring directly ahead, eyes fixed, he reached for me. I felt his into the road. The scream of tyres, and the blaring of a shrill fingers scrape across my nipple and, in an absurd moment, it horn, rent the silence of the night and, as I turned—eyes wide— hardened at his touch. Before he could grab me, though, I pulled towards the sound, I saw the grill of the lorry rushing towards at his wrist and—with a scream of terror and fury—dropped to me. Shoulders bunched, eyes closed in horror, and I held my the ground, hoping and praying that my momentum would move hands out, Canute-like, as if by some miracle I could physically him. stop it from crushing me. Curled, foetal-like, face down on the platform, I watched his “Wha’ the hell are ya playing at, ya stupid girl?” body collide with the incoming train. Like a meat balloon, he Silence returned. My eyes opened. I was mere inches from exploded. His blood and viscera drenched me. the lorry; steam rising from the engine and the tyres. A face looked out from the side window, the most beautiful face that I nd then?” had ever seen—simply because I was still alive. “…A I stared at the cop, as if seeing him for the first “The man was green.” time, forgetting where I was—briefly—and taking a few seconds “Wha’?” to free myself from the gripping fog of memory. I looked down “The man was green,” I repeated, this time with a voice above at my hands, knuckles white, as I clenched them hard enough for an inaudible murmur. “The little man on the crossing was green; the fingernails to draw thin lines of blood on my palms. that meant I could go.” “And then?” Failing to choke back the laugh, that threatened to “Don’t be stupid, lass,” the driver spat down at the become a scream, I let it out in a gurgle of hysteria. “Then I pavement. “My lights were green; they never changed. Ya nearly came here so that you guys could have me repeat this over and got yaself killed there!” Muttering curses he pulled his head back over again while you look at me like I am mad!” into the cab of the lorry and indicated that I should get out of his The door opened and a grey haired policeman peered in, way. I didn’t need much encouragement and was across the road nodding towards the other two. Standing up, lifting the file from before he could change gear and start the lorry moving again. As the table, one of them walked over and listened as the older man the taillights faded into the distance I stood, alone, in the dark whispered to him quickly before backing out of the room again. and felt my heart pumping harder than ever before. Twice in one Indicating that his young colleague should follow him, the cop night I had nearly been killed. I had nearly died! All I wanted to smiled. do was go home, wrap myself up with a hot water bottle, and go “We’ll be back in a few moments, Ms. Maycock.” to sleep. I knew that, in the harsh light of morning, the guys would laugh at the silly little girl who let two accidents scare her o, what do you think?” Richard Dawson, Detective so badly, though. I also knew that, in the morning, I would agree “SConstable for all of four months, looked earnestly at his with them. older colleague as the door to the interview room closed. Looking down the street to the left I realised that I still had a “I’ve just been told that there have been no reports of any fifteen minute walk to get to the pub. The drop of rain that hit incidents on the Tube tonight, Rich,” Detective Sergeant me between the eyes made me turn, instead, to the right and Andrew Magwood sighed quietly. “I sent someone to check out scurry the three hundred feet to the entrance to the Tube station. the address she gave us for the so-called ‘Truth’ of hers.…” I never liked taking the Tube at the best of times. Late at night, “And?” on my own, and having the sort of night that I was, was “There’s nothing there. The building is there, of course, but it’s definitely not the best of times. Getting drenched was worse, disused and empty—looks like it has been for years,” Andrew though, and it was only two stops. I descended the steps, the continued. “No trace of the people that she supposedly works sounds of rain fading behind me, and moved onto the deserted with, either. No social security numbers, no birth certificates. platform. The faint rumble in the dark tunnel, and the small rush Nothing. They just don’t exist.” of air that made my hair dance, let me know that I wouldn’t have long to wait for my train. I could almost taste the vodka and TWISTED TONGUE 22 “What about the blood?” Richard asked, confused. “She’s As they made their way towards the room, moving in silent covered in it!” symmetry, Detective Sergeant Andrew Magwood stared after “I don’t know, Rich. It may be an animal’s, it may be fake, I just them. don’t know,” Andrew admitted. “The initial tests show it Unblinking. definitely isn’t human, though, so we don’t have to worry about her being an insane serial killer!” © Jay Faulkner “Is that what you think, then?” “What, that she’s a serial killer?” “No,” Richard returned, quietly. “That she’s insane?”

“Maybe.” Jay Faulkner resides in Northern Ireland his wife, best-friend and soul mate, Carole, and their two wonderful baby boys Mackenzie “So, what now?” Richard asked, obviously concerned. “She needs help, doesn’t she?” and Nathaniel. He says that while he’s a hopeful writer, martial-artist, “Now, my son?” Andrew smiled, glancing over Richard’s sketcher, and dreamer that he’s mostly just a husband and father. shoulder towards the older policeman at the front desk. “Now, He’s been lucky enough to have been published in Offshoot you go and get me a coffee. And don’t worry—we will look after Magazine, Apollo’s Lyre, Campfire Tales, Nanoism, Long Story Ms. Maycock.” Short, Every Day Fiction and Static Movement to name a few. As Richard disappeared further into the police station Andrew He has two short stories coming up in Pill Hill Press’s anthology watched as two men—both six foot tall, both with dark hair, ‘Daily Flash 2011’ and a novella, entitled ‘The Crimson Blade’, coming out late in 2010. He is currently working on his first both clean-shaven, both dressed in grey suits with white shirts— entered the station. novel, ‘Wednesday’s Child’. He founded, and edits, ‘With Painted Words’ Walking to the front desk he glanced at the newspaper they www.withpaintedwords.com —a creative writing site with a held out towards him. Linda Maycock’s by-line graced the front monthly image prompt page beside the headline: “They walk amongst us! Who—or For more information, please go to: www.jayfaulkner.com what—really runs the Country?” He handed them his file and, without a single word, pointed towards the interview room.

TWISTED TONGUE 23 My Cookies A J Madden

‘ve just finished giving out the last of my cookies. All twenty bags left on the doorsteps of my friends and neighbours. It’s I nothing really, just a token of my sincere appreciation for their support over the past few years. I don’t mind if they decide not to send me thank you notes or forego the traditional phone call of appreciation. This is a simple, selfless act. I made the bags myself, too. I do consider myself something of a craftswoman. I used recycled green and purple paper to make the bags themselves, and then glued little plastic stars and rainbows to give it some extra flair. Also, on the centre of every bag, is a big, yellow smiling face. Which I think is a nice touch, don’t you? The cookie recipe is fairly simple, albeit with a few adjustments. I made sure to find a nice recipe; I’ve never been a natural housewife so it took a lot of researching and practise to get them right. I’ve got a heap of deformed dough festering at the bottom of my trashcan as a result of many failed attempts. I suppose I never had the sort of mother who would teach me homemaking skills, all the raw dough and heated ovens are new to me. I’m trying my best. I think I’ll go and see my husband’s grave now that I’ve finished. He caused all of this really; he’s the black stone at the centre of this rotten fruit. He is both my true love and greatest enemy, and though I’ll love him until I die I can’t deny that he ruined my life. Everything that man did was toxic. He poisoned the air and filled our garden with weeds. The alcohol bottles spilt from our front door in a slow vomit, tumbling onto the ugly and barren garden. I honestly can’t remember why I married him. There must have been a reason, but I can no longer recall what it was. We had our moments, but we were often happy. What couple doesn’t have its arguments? Sometimes people just lose their temper. Though he never said as much, I’m sure he loved me. He just wasn’t that sort of man; he preferred to keep things bottled up. Unfortunately, that often led to problems. Our neighbours disapproved of course, as they always do. They seemed to forget something vitally important. Reader, I loved him. He was a waste of air and time, but that hardly matters when you’re in love. I disapproved just as much as them, but there was nothing I could do. The neighbours couldn’t seem to separate the two of us, we were bound together in their minds. Even though I displayed none of my husband’s drunken laziness, they refused to see me as a separate entity, so we were judged and tried together. Then he died, and everything died with him. The house cracked and rotted, a deformed face sinking into itself. I could no longer afford to pay for its upkeep, and what money we did have went straight to pay off his debts. The fridge emptied until it was just a pale, gaping mouth in the corner of the room, and the children went hungry. I tried to reach out, to search for a helping hand in the community. Instead I found only resentment. The complete lack of basic human compassion was surprising, a sort of institutionalised callousness, whereby all nastiness is justified by the idea that the victim deserved it. Apparently, I should have expected my imminent downfall; I was a perpetrator, rather than a victim of my own impoverished state. Eyes would roll, lips would curl whenever I dared show my face in public. As money evaporated from our house, I found I had become a social leper. We recuperated eventually, though it wasn’t easy. I picked up extra jobs, working shifts in all hours and places. My son left school in order to help me and we sold most things we didn’t need. Sometimes we ate food months old, squirming with diseases that would make us sick for days. Nobody offered us food, though I suppose I’m naïve for ever expecting that. Nevertheless, we began to claw our money back. I cleaned up the house, decided to take up baking. Which brings me back to my cookies. I took me a few hours (I’m not a small lady!) but now all the houses have a bag each. They don’t know that I made them, which isn’t an indication of selflessness so much a precaution to ensure my plan succeeds. Like I’ve said, the cookies are a fairly traditional recipe. Eggs, milk, flour and chocolate chips. Oh, and some disinfectant, bleach, weed killer and a handful of painkillers. They’re little bundles of death. And hopefully, everyone will eat them. Not many people would eat food left at their doorsteps in clumsy packaging, but the people who live here are idiots. They’ve proved that time and time again. I’ll go to jail, of course—but at least I won’t be dead. They’re judging eyes will be closed; the fingers that twitched at the curtains will cease to move at all. Finally, I get my own little slice of revenge.. Everyone has their breaking point. I’m pretty sure I heard mine; there was a sudden pinging noise in the back of my mind like the string snapping on a violin. That was when the plan began formulating in my mind, and here we are at the outcome. At maximum, thirty six people dead. Heartless bastards. I’m going home now, and I’ll be waiting for the phone calls. I might even help myself to a cookie.

A J Madden is an English Literature student in Cardiff, Wales. He is previously published in The Monsters Next Door and Sonar4 ezine. He seems to enjoy writing stories about bitter and twisted people and takes his inspiration from the likes of Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe. He writes as a form of escapism from academic work and in his spare time he enjoys reading (obviously!), playing tennis and learning to play guitar.

TWISTED TONGUE 24 Electric in the Sun Indolent Sun Michael Lee Johnson Michael Lee Johnson

I’m electric in the spring sun In early March nomad in the summer dust an indolent sun my lantern burns persists in tossing without fuel, volunteer rays of I lie in the deep grass soft flickering sun silk with microphones tossed through dark desolate over my ears− willow tree branches− and feel like I’m on a high− melting remnants psychedelic of snow diamond crystals blue-green grass from weathered wooden planks pink sunglasses in my left hand, on my balcony. teeth pearly white ivory tusks, I’m starting to think life muscle tee shirt, with brown sash is an adjective exaggerated from shoulder to hip, by the sway of seasons. crazy beads around my neck It’s normal feeding time. yellow-orange shaped like Below two floors candy corn− wild Canadian geese life is but a blitz, wait impatiently I’m electric in the sun, for the tossing of morning feed; and there is no cell phone the silent sound they hear─ by my side. no dropping of the seed.

Hookers on Archer Avenue California Summer Michael Lee Johnson Michael Lee Johnson

Late evening, early morning, Coastal warm breeze I search the night for whores, off Santa Monica, California young and bloody with desires. the sun turns salt The night streets are silent streets shaker upside down accept for the hookers and the Johns. and it rains white smog, humid mist. One wants the pushing of groins No thunder, no lightening, the other green eyes in dollar bills nothing else to do are sacred treasures− except sashay the snatch of the wallet, a consecrated craft. forward into liquid Both hit the streets quickly and swim satisfy the needs quickly into eternal days finish in different directions quickly. like this. I’m an old buck now rich with memories more than movement, talking the trash, © Michael Lee Johnson taking the porn pictures, peeking Tom expert with a naked eye, snooping around department store corners, and dumpy old alleyways. My hair is gray, my teeth eroding, Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo my thoughts leaning toward prayer version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: A.M. Catholic mass, http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa. finishing off the early morning The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: with a lethargic walk http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7. to pick up my social security check− He also has 2 previous chapbooks available at: http://stores.lulu.com/poetryboy. comforts my needs. Michael has been published in over 22 countries. He is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his Web site: http://poetryman.mysite.com. All of his books are now available on Amazon.com: © Michael Lee Johnson http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search- alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=michael+lee+johnson. Borders Books: http://www.borders.com.au/book/lost-american-from-exile-to- freedom/1566571/. Now on You-Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih5WJrjqQ18. E-mail: [email protected]. Audio Mp3 poems available; open to interviews. Follow Michael Lee Johnson On: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/poetrymanusa Twitter: http://twitter.com/poetrymanusa MySpace.com: http://www.myspace.com/469391029

TWISTED TONGUE 25 The Fourth Floor Jim Bronyaur

t always seemed that the older the kids got, the louder they screamed. I guess that could be rationalized by assuming I that the younger the kid, the less they knew about going to the fourth floor. The doctor’s office. The one true nightmare for a child. The vivid imagery of the horrible instruments they use to check eyes and ears. The popsicle sticks with no popsicles to check throats. And then, the needles. The screams always echoed through the entire first floor of the building. The building had an open design with large windows that rose up the entire four floors. The open design allowed the shrill screams to echo up and then back down. Even with his office door shut, Kyle could hear the yells. They sounded so helpless. So desperate. So real. Well, they were real. Kids were afraid of the doctors, right? He shook his head as the screaming finally stopped. It was the second kid today. He looked at the calendar again and saw the number thirteen on the Friday block. Child’s play, he thought. He had been overcome a few times that day with paranoia and superstition, hoping any bad luck or hoaxes of Friday the 13th would avoid him. He knew it was all in his mind, but he let it run. On the ride to work, the flock of crows that hovered over a field everyday now meant something terrible. The neighbours black kitten, who always loved to rub his leg as he passed through the hallway, was avoided as he used the back door to the apartment building today. Being alone at work provided Kyle with too much time to scare himself. He shared an office with another accountant, but The woman began punching the buttons on the elevator Dan was at a meeting with a bank regarding some restructure panel until the door shut. Kyle pressed the Up button vigorously financing for the company. It was a big meeting, one that could but it proved nothing. The elevator was going up. save Kyle’s job. The second elevator opened. It was empty. He wasn’t worried about his job being saved as he heard the Kyle looked around and the bottom floor was mostly empty. third and fourth kid came into the building screaming. The The little snack shop tucked in the corner had no customers; just screams were ear shattering. One was a boy pleading his case. He the owner reading a newspaper. promised to brush his teeth four times a day. He promised to “How about those kids?” Kyle yelled to the man. never EVER eat candy again. He promised to not watch “Eh, they always scream. Trust me, it means nothing,” cartoons on Saturday mornings. replied the snack shop owner. It didn’t matter. “I want to make sure that little girl is all right.” The screaming was muted once the elevators doors shut. “Leave heroes for the movies,” the owner said. He turned Kyle was sure the screaming continued as the slow ride took the and picked up the paper so they could not make eye contact boy to the fourth floor doctors, but thankfully the doors kept the anymore. sound away. The echo of the their voices faded as the doors of the Next came the little girl. She stomped her feet. One, two, elevator rumbled shut. Kyle pressed the Up button again and the three, four. Kyle slammed his pencil on the desk. He stood up doors opened back up. He imagined that little girl. Pleading. and walked to the door. He slowly opened it a crack and saw a Screaming. The woman grabbing her face. He felt obligated to short, blonde-haired girl with red cheeks, crying and with tears check on her. He would just mosey around the fourth floor and streaming down her face. play stupid—’Oh, this isn’t the first floor!’ and then go back to The poor girl’s assumed-to-be mother looked just as work. distraught. Part of it was childhood suspicion and part of it was because This is why I don’t want kids, he thought. it was Friday the 13th. He wanted to know what was on the The woman, in a few swift movements, wiped the little girls fourth floor. The sign on the building said Dr. N. Fowleri. face, picked her up by holding her armpit, and then dragged her He stepped into the elevator and turned. He pressed 4 on to the elevator. Kyle kept watching as the elevator door opened the panel, and as the door shut, he saw the owner of the café and a person came out, alone, looked at the little girl and then look up from his newspaper and shake his head. The elevator quickly hustled out of the building. On the sidewalk, he turned had no music. It was gold trimmed with an emerald green carpet and looked up at the building, shook his head, and then ran to and reflective metal on its walls. The slow ride to the fourth floor his vehicle. gave him plenty of time to scare himself. It was like when he was The little girl spread her arms and held herself in the a kid and would turn off the light and try to walk around in the doorway of the elevator. She started screaming again. Louder pitch black. His mind would successfully convince him that there than ever. So loud that Kyle felt like saying something to the were ghosts and monsters everywhere. woman in charge of the little girl. But what could he say? He The elevator made a ding sound and stopped. Kyle stuck his wasn’t a parent. He didn’t know what it was like taking a child to hands out, braced for a fall. He thought about movies and stories the doctor’s. where the thick cord and electrical system fails and the elevator The woman lost her cool which wasn’t cool with him. She crashes and kills everyone. Or in this situation, just him. grabbed the little girls face, literally, and pulled her into the elevator. Kyle dove out of his office, running towards the elevator. That can’t be part of parenting, he thought. TWISTED TONGUE 26 The door opened. He was alive. He let out a long sigh. “People don’t understand the good we do. If these zombies Almost thirty and still scaring myself, he decided. I need to stop actually walked in normal society, they’d never stop. They’d eat being so worried. all the kids.” He contemplated just going back to the first floor, back into “There goes Christmas!” the fat nurse said bellowing a loud his office, back to his work. laugh. Since I’m already here, he mumbled and thought about the “Hey, there’s an idea. We can approach major retailers if we little girl being ripped into the elevator again. ever need funding. Blackmail them for money.” He walked down the small hallway. There was only one “How many more kids do we have coming today? I want to door. No signs. No posters. No nametags. Just a door. Just the go home, I have a movie taping I want to watch.” doctor’s office. Kyle watched as the people had normal conversations. He Laughing at himself, he turned to walk back to the elevator. could hear the soft screams coming from the zombie room. Then he heard a soft cry and loud thud against the door. The cry “It’s Friday the 13th, Barb, you know hungry they get on days was that of the little girl. Without thinking, he hustled back to like this. It’s going to be a long night.” the door and opened it. Kyle was partially relieved to know his suspicion about the Blood was everywhere. A hoard of people stood together, day wasn’t a waste. His brief relief switched back to fear as the eating what looked like other people. The hoard looked up and tall skinny man stood and hunched over him. With his hands and growled at Kyle as he stood frozen in the doorway. These people feet tied securely to the table and a piece of cloth stuffed in his weren’t eating other people, they were eating kids. The screaming mouth, he was helpless. Violent images of zombies and nurses kids. The ones he thought were going to the doctor’s. They were cutting him and eating him started to play in his mind. all gone now. “Hey, should we try this guy? Something bigger. Maybe Zombies? he wondered. Is this real? they’ll get full.” Soon the people went back to eating. They licked droplets of “Nah, no good,” said Barb, the short, fat nurse, “they like blood off of little shoes. They got on all fours like a pack of lions kid brains. Skulls are easier to open and the brains are juicier. I and fought each other for leftover body parts. One slumped up already told you, Specimen 35 sniffed him. If he grabbed him I to Kyle, smiling. It showed its teeth and reached to touch him. would have shut the door and walked away.” Then it came in close and sniffed him, made a grunting sound, “Well, what do we do with him?” and walked away. “We can’t tell Dr. Fowleri. He’d be mad that he was up here “Excuse me sir,” a voice said from behind him. to begin with.” He turned and was faced with a short, fat nurse. “What about Project Black Night?” “Are you here to drop off a child?” she asked. “The vampires?” “What is this?!” he yelled. “Why not. Something different. Plus it’ll save us some time “Sir, are you here to drop of a child?” later so we won’t have to trick someone into Dr. Fowleri’s blood “No. Are they eating children?” donation clinic.” “Sir, you can’t be here. You’re causing a problem.” “Stupid economy,” the nurse said, “last year, people lined up “Listen, what the….” to donate blood and now, look at we have to do.” “Okay, sir, please come with me.” “Anything to protect the blind citizens. If they only knew “Like hell I will,” Kyle yelled. how hard we worked to save them from monsters they think He turned around to see the gruesome scene one more time, only exist in movies.” before he was going to make his run. He wasn’t sure whether to Barb stood up and dug through a drawer. call the police, the newspapers, the CIA, the FBI, the President, “What’s that for?” asked the tall skinny man. or drink a bottle of whiskey and hope the visions would go away. “Cover his eyes. Be respectful.” The door on the other side of the massive blood spattered “Sorry,” the tall, skinny man said as he covered Kyle’s eyes. room slowly opened. Kyle heard the scream of a child as a man In the darkness of his eye sockets he envisioned monsters as the size of a building threw it into the room and slammed the he did when he was a child. Only this time, when the cover was door. The zombies attacked as Kyle felt something hit his head. taken off of his eyes, he’d be face to face to with real ones. Before he would witness the carnage, everything went black. “How did he come up here?” he heard a voice say. © Jim Bronyaur “I’m not sure. I came through the white door and he was standing with the door open. Specimen 35 sniffed him. I was scared for a minute that it was going to leave.” Jim Bronyaur lives in Pennsylvania where he thinks, “Don’t even say that. Could you imagine if these walked the writes, and thinks. Follow him and many ongoing streets?” writing, poetry, and music projects through his blog “I don’t want to.” at www.jimbronyaur.com His work has been published in Flashes in the Dark, New Flesh Kyle opened his eyes. He was lying on a table. He was Magazine, Cynic Mag, and Piker Press. unable to move. The fat nurse and a tall, skinny man sat in chairs next to him.

http://www.duotrope.com/

TWISTED TONGUE 27 Skin Deep R. K. Gemienhardt Previously published by: MicroHorror.com

olleen was more confused than afraid when she opened the front door and found her creepy neighbour standing in the middle of her living room. C “What are you doing here?” she demanded. Without saying a word, Gerald walked over and punched her hard in the stomach. Colleen dropped to the floor gasping for breath. Gerald slammed the door shut and glared down at his neighbour. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the bedroom. Gerald picked Colleen up and threw her onto the bed, tying her arms and legs to the bedposts. “Are you going to be quiet or do I have to hit you again?” Gerald asked through clenched teeth. Colleen just nodded her head, tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes. Gerald tore her dress down the front and ripped her bra and panties off. He stared at her naked body, while Colleen silently whimpered. “I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t kill me,” Colleen begged. Her voice broke Gerald’s trance sending him into a rage. “You think I’m stupid, that I wouldn’t notice. You think you can just walk among us.” “What are you talking about?” Colleen whispered. “I know you’re not human. Nobody has skin that perfect.” “You’re crazy,” Colleen said, as she started thrashing on the bed, screaming for help. Gerald walked calmly to the kitchen and came back with a small paring knife. Colleen stopped screaming, and her eyes opened wide, when Gerald approached the bed, knife in hand. “Please, you don’t want to do this; you’re making a big mistake. I have nice skin but it isn’t perfect. Take a closer look before you do anything drastic,” Colleen pleaded. Gerald stuffed the torn panties into her mouth to shut her up. Colleen violently shook her head back and forth when he brought the small knife up to her face. Gerald put one of his calloused hands on her forehead to hold her steady. She let out a muffled scream when his knife bit into her flesh just below her right ear. He cut down under the jaw line and around to her other ear. Her screams stopped and her eyes glazed over as she started to go into shock. He removed his hand from her forehead and cut up along her hairline from ear to ear. He stepped back to admire his work. Blood was pouring out of the cut along the scalp, saturating the pillow below. He reached down below her jaw and grabbed the skin along the incision and tugged. This brought a fresh batch of screams from Colleen until she mercifully passed out from the pain. He managed to pull the skin up over the chin to her mouth where it got caught. He used his paring knife to trim the skin around her lips allowing him to pull the rest of her face off with little resistance. He was shocked when he discovered that she didn’t look like an alien beneath her perfect skin. He panicked; maybe she was human after all. He looked down at the mutilated body of his neighbour and realized that no one would understand. Adrenaline pumped into his body as he raced next door to his house. He headed straight for the bathroom and turned on the faucet. He set the knife on the counter and cupped his hands under the cool water, splashing it onto his face. Out of the corner of his eye Gerald caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and to his horror noticed his own perfect skin. With a trembling hand he picked up the bloody knife and brought it to his face.

R. K. Gemienhardt resides in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. His fiction and photography have been published in various e- zines, magazines and anthologies. His inspiration comes from the things that go bump in the night.

The Exaggerated Man & Other Stories by Terry Grimwood

Terry Grimwood's first collection, The Exaggerated Man is available from The Exaggerated Press at [email protected] or from www.lulu.com.

“Grimwood is an excellent teller of gruesome tales...Never have I come across such a wealth of stories, all so different, but all held together by the bloody umbilicus that links beauty to horror and horror to reality.”—Rachel Kendall Sein und Werdun magazine

“This book should have at least a million readers...The most memorable exquisite song— beyond all ostentation and comparison”—D F Lewis

TWISTED TONGUE 28 I’d love for her to stay awake keep me company, but I’d feel bad The Perfect Life if I kept her awake again. Timothy Fenster Finally, I fall back asleep. It sort of feels like I’m dreaming about that desert island again, but this one isn’t nearly as realistic as the one before. ‘m trapped, lost, and utterly horrified. Everything appears in a blurry haze, reminding me of the years of my youth when I ddly, I wake feeling fresh and lively. Just as I turn the alarm I used to smoke pot and use anything else I could get my O off and sit up in bed, Karen exits the bathroom, drying off hands on. Minutes are lost while I try to comprehend where I her golden blond hair. “Morning, baby, how’d you sleep? No am. A terrible aching sensation grows in my stomach and I feel more nightmares, I hope.” as though I’m spinning. I lie, telling her I slept like a rock after the first one. I really A blurred figure approaches and grabs me by both don’t want her to worry about me. She reminds me the shower is shoulders. Almost instantly things begin to come in clearer. The open, which is odd because I can clearly see that she just got out. man before me is pitifully filthy. A dirty, wild beard masks his Karen always seems to be out of the shower by the time I wake cavernous cheeks. Soiled rags cover his bony limps and lean up. I mentioned this to her a few times. She says it’s her torso. He isn’t wearing shoes and a thick layer of mud covers the impeccable timing, but I still find it strange, I mean, she can’t over-tanned skin beneath his knees. He is speaking in control when I wake up. indiscernible rants. Through the garble, I’m only able to I give her a kiss on my way over to the bathroom. I enter the understand the words “calm,” “relax,” and “sit.” bathroom, turn to close the door, but stop and look back. Karen Finally, I pull my gaze aware from the mysterious figure has her back turned and now both towels are on the floor. I before me. Where am I? A desolate beach surrounds us. Beyond close the door behind me, cross the marble floor of the that stands a rough forest filled with enormous palm trees with a bathroom, and turn on the shower. As I undress and wait for the thick, almost jungle-like network of brush and ferns below. water to heat up, I wonder how I got so lucky to end up with a Ahead in the distance stands an imposing cliff, perhaps part of woman like Karen. some kind of mountain or volcano. Fifteen minutes later, I come downstairs to help Karen with Suddenly, I’m struck with the most awful sensation of fear. breakfast, but by the time I get down there, Karen is setting the I’m almost certain that something here isn’t right. I turn around coffee pot and a plate of scrambled eggs and toast on the kitchen slowly, ignoring the insane rants of the man before me. A surface table. Karen always seems to have breakfast ready by the time of dark water begins at the end of the desolate beach and I’m showered and dressed. Perhaps it’s another example of her stretches out as far as I can see. I look left and right; there is no impeccable timing. land, boat, or other such sign of human life anywhere in sight. The traffic on the way to work isn’t bad. People are always Then it hits me. We’re trapped here because this is an island; complaining about traffic in LA, but it never seems too bad to a desert island. I do not know how I’m certain of this, but I am. me. I reach the TV studio in only twenty minutes. I enter Studio 6, which is where I was told we’d be filming awake confused and unsure where I am. I soon realize I’m today. I promptly set to work on costume and make-up. It isn’t Ijust at home lying next to Karen in bed. Within a minute, my easy to look like someone from Shakespearean times, pulse returns to normal. considering it’s been about four hundred years since The The nightmare had been horrifyingly realistic. It was one of Tempest was first written. The whole process usually takes about those dreams that you honestly believe is real until you wake up. thirty minutes, but it always seems to pass by quickly. I feel relief upon knowing that everything I’d just seen had only I’m one of the last actors ready, so once I’m on stage we’re been a dream. able to get to work almost immediately. We start with Scene Two I adjust the silk blankets and turn over in bed. The water bed from Act One. Everything seems to be rolling along pretty well, conforms to my new position. Karen stirs; I hope I didn’t wake except today Patty Berl, our Miranda, is having some trouble. her. She turns over and opens her eyes. She knows all her lines and everything, but she just isn’t acting “Matt, is something wrong?” she asks. very well. No one blames her for it though; everyone has bad “It’s nothing,” I whisper, rubbing her shoulder. “Just go days, except me I guess. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but it back sleep, baby.” honestly seems like I never have a bad day. Bob Richard, the Sometimes I swear my wife must be psychic. I suppose it’s director, has said several times that I’m one of the most just as she says, “a woman’s intuition.” consistent actors he’s ever seen. We begin work on Scene One “Again?” she says. “You’ve been having nightmares all from the Fourth Act before Mr. Richard calls a lunch break. I get week.” out of costume and makeup and head over to the elegant studio I’m not particularly worried about a simple dream but, of café. course, Karen won’t let something small like that go. Halfway through my delicious turkey Panini, Mr. Richard “What was it about?” she asks. approaches me and tells me that I’m doing a great job and he “I was trapped on a desert island with only one other guy. loves how I’m taking the Ferdinand part. And no one knew where we were.” Something is amiss in his tone; the over-kindness, the “Oooh, trapped on a desert island with another guy.” compliments. He gives me the sense that I’m doing something “Come on, Karen, it isn’t funny. It was a serious dream. We wrong. had hardly any water and we were starving. I was afraid we “No, I think it’s great,” he says. “I just wanted to tell you would die on that island.” that you’re doing a great job.” He starts readjusting his pony tail. She apologizes and reminds me that I’ve been having “What did you think? Did you think I wanted to tell you you’re nightmares like these all week. I suppose it might be some kind taking this part in the wrong direction?” of recurring nightmare, but I’m not particularly worried about it. “Yeah, I sort of felt like you were.” I mean, it’s not like I’m falling or being murdered in the dream. “Well, no, we’re having a little trouble with our Miranda and It certainly isn’t a pleasant dream, but it’s not so severe that I’m Caliban, but Ferdinand is doing just fine. All in all, I think this shocked awake every single night. just may be one of the best television performances of a work by Karen again suggests I should see a psychiatrist about the Shakespeare.” dream, but I don’t see the need. It’s only a dream and besides, I I shoot the crap with Bob Richard for a few minutes before don’t want some shrink to evaluate me. That would just be a he says he has to leave. As I watch him walk away, I get the waste of money, although that’s never really a concern for us. strangest sensation. I feel as though Bob Richard, a fat man with Once I convince her that I don’t need a psychiatrist, she goes long, greasy hair, somehow reminds me of someone else. The back to bed. I try to fall back asleep, but instead lay awake in bed weird part is that I can’t for the life of me think of who it could for over an hour. However, I pretend to be asleep until Karen is. be.

TWISTED TONGUE 29 After my sandwich, I get a piece of lasagna, followed by a and strikes me in my heart. She abruptly goes limp, staggers, and large slice of strawberry cheesecake. I eat like a pig, but never gradually begins to fall as if in slow motion. I rush forward and seem to gain an ounce. Although I run and work out a few times manage to catch her just before she falls onto the polished a week, it certainly can’t be enough for the way I eat. I guess I hardwood floor. I carefully set her body down. Her eyes are just never lost that fast metabolism from my teenage years. closed and her breath is soft. After lunch, we finish filming Scene One, Act Four. After shaking and calling to her for awhile, Karen wakes Everything rolls along well so it doesn’t take us very long. We’re back up. She seem disoriented and asks me what had happened. even able to finish a whole other scene, the second scene from Meanwhile, I’m left dazed, she’d only been unconscious for a Act Three. Once Richard is fully satisfied with the scene, he matter of seconds and somehow she’s entirely forgotten what gives us the usual, done-for-the-day speech. He’s very pleased had just happened. with how well everyone did and even mentions me specifically I explain how she’d fainted and was briefly unconscious. for how well I acted today. After his speech, we’re sent back to Suddenly she seems fine and speaks in an aware, rational tone. the dressing rooms. She asks me ordinary things like what time it is and if we’re Once I’m back in 21st century clothes of khaki pants and a ordering Chinese for dinner. I’m left speechless. Here, she was red polo, I say goodbye to some of my fellow actors and head speaking totally irrationally, but after passing out, she begins out to my ‘09 Porsche. It’s a very nice day and we finished a little speaking as if everything is perfectly fine. early, so I get on the I-20 instead of taking Maplewood Road She even manages to bring herself back up to her feet back to my neighbourhood. The thruway takes a lot longer to get without effort. Meanwhile, I’m now left disoriented on the floor. home, but I’m in the mood for some cruising today. She says she’s hungry and prompts me to order dinner. When I enter in the kitchen, I notice Karen has a worried I can’t stand the confusion any longer. I have to ask her what look on her face. I check my Rolex; 5:10 pm. I apologize for happened even if she now seems perfectly fine. “So you’re fine? being late and tell her it was only because I was cruising around “Yeah, did you catch me or something? I don’t feel like I fell before coming home. It seems ridiculous that she’d be so on a hardwood floor.” worried about me coming home a little late. I respond slowly, telling her how I caught her. She tells me that she wasn’t worried about that. She doesn’t “Is something wrong?” she asks. say anything else, which leaves me wondering. I ask her if she’s What, you are the one that was suddenly acting crazy. How’d this get ordered the Chinese. She doesn’t respond for awhile, then says turned around at me? “No,” so softly that I can barely even hear. I hope she isn’t “Right before passing out, you were saying things that were worried about something ridiculous or untrue. I begin to worry totally crazy. You thought my nightmare had something to do that she might be thinking that I’m cheating on her. with my soul living an alternate life and you were saying that I act as though she isn’t being unusually quiet and strange. I maybe we’re all just living in a dream.” remind her that she didn’t need to wait until I got home to order She has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. She even the food. treats me like I’m the one who’s being crazy. “Look, Matt, I’m not really too worried about the Chinese I don’t know how to respond. She starts giggling. “No, I right now,” she finally says. “I’ve been thinking a lot and maybe think you’re losing your mind,” she says. “All I remember is now I know why you’ve been having those nightmares.” waiting for you to get home and wondering if I should order the I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank god she isn’t accusing me of Chinese and then I woke up there on the floor.” having an affair, but what in the hell is she talking about. “You don’t remember any of what you were just saying?” “Baby, how could you possibly know?” I say while giving her “No, can’t say I do. Now come on, I’m starving; let’s order. a big hug. “Dreams are just random images made up by your You like sesame chicken right?” mind. I’m sorry but your intuition isn’t that good.” As bizarre as the whole ordeal was, I decide to just let the “Just hear me out. I think I know what’s wrong.” I let go of whole thing go. Maybe we’re both completely out of our minds. her and take a step back. I’m having some bizarre recurring nightmare about being stuck “I know it sounds crazy, but listen. What if you’re living in on a desert island and Karen suddenly starts saying all these crazy some kind of alternate reality in which you are trapped on a things, passes out, and doesn’t remember any of it. Maybe I’ll call desert island?” a psychiatrist tomorrow morning. I just hope Karen isn’t on any I can’t help but laugh. “What? Alternate reality? It sounds kind of drugs. I’ve never noticed her do anything like this before, totally crazy, but what do you mean?” but it’s still a possibility. “I mean it’s possible that you could somehow be living a Around eleven o’clock that night, I’m suddenly daunted by a separate life, in which you are trapped on a desert island?” strange fear. Karen and I are just sitting in bed watching the “But, I’m living here, in LA, with an apparently mental wife. Daily Show, so there isn’t any reason for me to feel distressed. I How could I be on a desert island?” seem to get the sense that something is terribly wrong. “Your soul. The Hindus believe after you die, your soul Somehow, I just know that something dreadful is going happen moves on to another form and you live another life. Couldn’t it soon. I go downstairs and make myself a stiff drink, usually that be possible that your soul is somehow living another life in a helps calm me down whenever I feel alarmed or anxious. different form?” Karen’s voice sounds different now, although I I empty the glass almost immediately. Although I catch the can’t really describe how or why so. usual buzz, but don’t feel calmed at all. I consider getting myself I give up playing along and flat-out tell her that she’s acting another drink, but I don’t want Karen to know something is crazy. I suggest that maybe she’s been watching too much of that wrong. crazy spirit and witch crap on the discovery channel. “You don’t look so good.” How does she always know when Karen isn’t able to respond. She spits out a few pathetic something is wrong with me? I swear she must be psychic. sentence-fragments as if she’s contemplating some shocking and I tell her I’m fine, but somehow she knows that something is unbelievable truth. I try to calm her down and get her to speak wrong. I insist that everything is alright, but still she persists. rationally. “Don’t lie to me,” she says. “What’s wrong?” “What if this is all a dream,” she says softly. “I don’t know. I just feel kind of nervous or something.” “Are you kidding?” Karen looks paler than usual. She also “Why? Do I make you feel uncomfortable?” she teases. seems confused or dizzy, almost as if she’s intoxicated from “No, I don’t really know what it is. I just feel like something some kind of opiate or hallucinogen. is wrong.” Again, she isn’t able to speak in full sentences, and only says A sudden voice cries, “Wake up, Matt!” It is neither mine things like “what if” and “I’m scared.” I try as best I can to calm nor Karen’s. We’re alone in the house and I’m certain that I’m her down. I even think of calling a doctor, she may be having a awake. Terror shoots up my spine as my pulse takes off faster nervous breakdown or could just be flat-out losing her mind. than a mustang. Suddenly, Karen’s eyes turn upwards until her pupils Frantically, I ask Karen what the voice was, but she didn’t disappear inside her eye sockets. A cold fear shoots up my spine even hear it. How could she not have heard it, the sound was TWISTED TONGUE 30 louder than a jet engine. Suddenly, it occurs to me that perhaps anyway? I hope it’s a lot better than this spit of sand out in the there is some other, horrifying reason why Karen didn’t hear the middle of nowhere.” noise. “Yeah, it is,” I say, then pause while thinking about how to “No!” I scream. “Something’s wrong. Something here isn’t explain it to him. “I’m an actor, I have a hot wife, nice house, a right.” great car, and no kids. It’s a paradise really. The perfect life.” Karen says something, but I’m not sure what, her voice is He tells me to forget about the dream, reminding me that distant and faded. none of it is real. “This island, that’s what’s real.” He says. I “Wake up, goddamnit!” the voice cries again. Suddenly apologize again. I can tell that my condition really is bothering everything is gone, the bed, the house, even Karen. I squint my him a lot. I find it kind of strange to apologize for my dreams. eyes open only to close them again to shield my retina from the It’s not like I can control what I see in my dreams or how I feel blinding sunlight. I look around, someone is standing over me; about them. his face is hidden beneath a blinding white light. I look around, Eventually, I ask him what we should do today, just to seeing nothing but dirt, sand, and palm trees. change the subject. It doesn’t do either of us any good to dwell “You where talking in your sleep again. I’m worried about on the dreams or my condition. He reminds me about the fire pit you man. You’re slipping farther and farther from reality every we’re building on the mountain. “Alright, let’s get to it,” I say, day.” trying to sound enthusiastic and stable. “I’ll be damned if another plane is going to pass without seeing us.” study the man carefully, but still I’m not sure who he is. John helps me to my feet and heads off into the woods. I I “Damnit, Matt, I’m John. You’ve known me for years and stare out at the endless ocean. For a moment, I imagine Karen, I’m the only person you’ve seen in over five months.” the Porsche, and the aspiring actor. A rush of thought floods my brain as a lifetime of memory Why must I wake? I belong in my dream world. comes back to me instantly. Specifically, I remember the plane I turn back; John is already a good hundred feet into the crash, followed by the months trapped on this godforsaken woods. I run to catch up with him. My foot catches a stone as I floating piece of dirt. The suffering, the hunger, the thirst, and scramble through the forest, and I stumble several strides before the desperate attempts at sending up smoke signals. Nights spent regaining my composure. I certainly don’t belong here. shivering in the cold or hiding beneath a tarp to escape the rain. I apologize, letting him know that I must have been lost in © Timothy Fenster another pleasant dream. He doesn’t seem quite so angry anymore, understanding my condition. Although I suppose it isn’t any real excuse. After all, he is in the exact same situation. I Timothy Fenster is studying creative writing and assure him that I’m now back in reality. working towards a journalism major at The College “Alright. Good,” he says, appearing relaxed that I’m still in at Brockport. He is a native of Buffalo, New York. touch with the real world. “What do you see in your dreams

Mr. Robot Louis B. Shalako

I, robot Don’t have the capacity To dream about tomorrow But I never spell a word wrong Fueled up, brains all loaded With everything that’s passed And I have no place to go I can never die As long as the batteries last Here I come Here I come Here I come I have never speculated As to where I came from Did I spring from the dust? Was I created? I’ve never cared. I’ve never asked. Simply because it’s easier In the Good Lord I trust Here I come Here I come Here I come Cryogenic heart, skin a polished silver One thing I am glad of For this I thank my builder I can never rust. And in my own self-assumptions; I place my deepest trust I, robot; am happy within myself. Louis Bertrand Shalako lives in Canada. He studied Radio, Television, and Journalism Here I come Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology in Sarnia, Ontario. Louis enjoys cycling and swimming, and is a lover of good books. He lives with his elderly Here I come father, in a small war-time bungalow filled with books, cats, and model airplanes. Louis Here I come… is extremely fortunate to have retired early, and to have the opportunity to write fulltime. He still has his self-respect, and that's the main thing. © Louis B. Shalako

TWISTED TONGUE 31 In the Interlude Theresa Nienaber

ou know those days in early winter? The ones that always remind you of Thanksgiving? Where there’s no sunset, just a crisp cool orange on the horizon, barely reaching the tips of the highest trees before being met by an ominous grey blue that threatens to push Y that crisp, comforting orange back under the earth. Just like the orange glow of a stone fire place on Thanksgiving promises comfort and good food, you succumb to that crisp orange excuse for a sunset even though you know that ominous blue grey will black it out, giving way to frigid winter nights. Just as that comforting fireplace will reduce itself to smolders as rivaling relatives fight each other for the prime spot in grandma’s will. But why think of Thanksgiving? It’s almost February and winter is at its heart. There’s no doubt in my mind the night will be colder than the one before. And no orange farce can change that now. But I know how to stay warm. And it’s too late for her to care. She’s the cause of all this, that wretched woman who dares to call me her daughter, even now. She calls and so my mind is forced to remember that evil Thanksgiving glow. And God curse this sun for refusing to set on my sin. You see, we needed this money more than any of them, those impossibly lucky, wretched, relatives. While they send their children off to the ivy league I stay here and work. And out matriarch knew it. So what does she do? Pit them against us for a place in the will. The one that loves her the most gets the money. But we needed it you see. Do you understand? I had to do what I did. Mother and I—we had to. Don’t you see that? You see? Keep your eyes out of my trunk. What business is it of yours if my passenger lies unnaturally still. Keep your eyes on that glow. And then we’ll be here. Say, since you have the time to gape, will you help me dig? The ground is frozen solid. And the orange is finally going away—and the harsh reality finally setting in. We couldn’t hurt grandma, oh no. She’d never put us in the will then. This is just eliminating the competition. Money has to go to family I guess, and mother’s adamant we get it—especially after auntie murdered father. What? Did you think we started this game? We’ve already lost too much to quit. Just look at this scar on my chest. She tried to get me first. But one down, three to go. Mother would be so proud. I always love driving back. Its so peaceful, especially with the passenger gone. The crisp orange flow has dissolved and stars on black replace that ominous grey-blue. Its like an interlude between acts, I’ve always like that interlude best. So much potential before that climactic fall. Say, do you think I should tell them all grandma lost her money in bad stocks last year? I’m the only one she told that to. That’s way she made us take care of her—couldn’t afford to herself. No, no, you’re right. Some secrets are better left buried. Theresa Nienaber is a resident of St. Louis, Missouri where she is currently a © Theresa Nienaber fulltime student studying English education. She has been previously published in Black Petals ezine for her short story, The Introspective.

Honey Adam Lugibill

he called me honey. At a different time, in a different place, from Sa different woman in a different dress, that would have set me off. From her I just smiled and took it. I’d be taking it from her for a while yet. I ordered a cup of coffee, black. Couldn’t even stomach the stuff, honestly, but when the woman sitting next to you calls you honey and you take it, it’s the drink of choice.

Adam Lugibill lives in State College, Pennsylvania. He studied philosophy at Penn State University. He now spends his time writing, selling comic books, and working on his time machine.

TWISTED TONGUE 32 Embryo Land’s End Dr. Charles Frederickson Dr. Charles Frederickson

Known unknowns stillborn beyond conception Steep craggy precipice overlooking harbour Casualties of devastating invisible war Inching ever closer stopping short Rudimentary soiled ground rules uprooted Slippery when wet edgewise brink Uncivil foetal miscarriage of justice Too fearsomely paralyzed to move

Fallen asteroids bearing false witness Chalky limestone tabula rasa erased Lost twinkle hollow forked wishbone Ghost writer publishing own obituary Shallowness gone off deep end Tired of reading between wavy Gagged silence threatening veiled masquerade Lines stretching narrow margin borders

Heard so little about unspeakable Great Heron changes flight path Crimes overpowering evil all-too profound White-on-white lack of pigment plumage Marauding faceless bands gang raping Wooing own mirror image reflection Indiscriminately any moving bull’s-eye target Pointed bill snapping turtle prey

Brutal mind-bending atrocities traumatic humiliation Full-blown snowflakes having already blossomed Maimed vaginas reproductive organs mutilated Driftwood seeds swept across seascape Victims violated with loaded firearms Wonder remains etched on every Pissed upon morals triggering roulette Child’s face gifted storyteller fibs

Grappling with traumas missing childhood What once was falling through At gunpoint sons committing forced Bottomless slate cracks chasmal gaps Intercourse with own benumbed mothers Empty blank spaces never filled-in Virgin daughters abducted sexually enslaved Burrowing hellhole denizens climbing out

Averted parting glances fleeing censure Desert rat race that roared Looking away never staring back Furry avalanche sheer melodramatic cliffhanger Eyelids slammed shut hope abandoned Unorthodox cult Pied Piper apostles Healing resigned to god-forsaken Fate Lemming mass suicides mousy claptrap

Revelations Spinster Dr. Charles Frederickson Dr. Charles Frederickson

The guilt and shame for Always old womb transcending tomb Having barely managed to survive Virginal solitude never broken into Stab deeper than tormenting pain Vacant echoes shiver through deserted Rusty blade decayed tissue gangrene House chosen to be vacant

Gold frankincense myrrh Magi gifts Rummaged through life never lived Moral parables unlucky thirteen apostles Sun-baked clay bricks foundation crumbled Loaves miraculously become communion wine Mortar clinging to bent straw Stale crumbs feeding unfledged squabs Nothing’s permanent everything’s cracked up

Brut champagne bubbly effervescence flat Paved street tendon corners turned Bottled up decanter crystal stopper Hot asphalt two right footsteps Clear-cut glass refractive gazer prisms Timeworn soles stuck to tar Losing undiluted aromatic essence potency Scrapbook black & white snapshot pics

Tearful artesian well stonily hardhearted Crystal heart kept under wraps Sunken wishes rising to surface Locked jewel box key misplaced Disgraced swans awkward ugly ducklings Proper upbringing rattletrap hope chest Never learning how to swim Long-held secret can’t remember what

Mortals survive anything except death Pure childless bearing legacy aborted Live down whatever save virtue Few remember who she was Unconvincing rooster eggs bullswhip justifications Sequestered voice unspoken inaudible screams Fearful humiliation sneaking up behind Expectations wrapped in crushed velvet

Shaky existence shrieking boomerang horrors Parallel lines meet infinity primly Anguished echoes keep coming back Cul-de-sac ends abruptly unfinished sentence Taunting anima hurt deep inside Moral guideposts one-way directional signs Unhealable scars festering crusty scabs Giant steps clutch empty space

TWISTED TONGUE 33

Expresso Yourself Dr. Charles Frederickson

B.C. – Blissfully Caffeinated Nirvana instant Karma Bever-Age of brood brewed awakening Starbucks Milky Way morning metamorphosis An ARTiculate uinVERSEalist, othe rs-oriented enabler, heretical believer, pragmatic idealist and passionate improvocateur, No Mug shot rejolting overtime perks Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson’s intrepid wonderland wanderlust has taken him to 206 countries, images and impressions 9–to–5 ruttine filtered drip grind of each presented on http://www.poeartry-combo.com . 500+ Gimmea loving cuppa break fluid poeArtry publication credits on 6 continents include: Above Never too dark noir choco-latte Ground Testing, Arabesques, Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Mrs. Sippy River sedimental journey Autumn Leaves, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Carillon, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Corner Poetry, Dance to C – U latte mud junkie fix Death, Decanto, Eclipse, Enchanting Verses, Flutter Magazine, Fullosia Press, Gangway, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Qahwa spoken here Pony Espresso International Poet, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Lunarosity, Mocha Cabana Rio de Joeiro Madpoetry, Masque Publishing, Melange, MuseCrafters, Newtopia, Café Ole la Vida Mocha Neon Highway, New Verse News, P & W, Panic! Peace Poetry, Planet Authority, Poetisphere, Poetry Canada, Poetry Cemetery, Kenya cappuccino? Yes, I Kona. Poetry of Scotland, Poetry Stop, Poets for Peace, Poetry I scream 4Frappucino ice cream Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, The Smoking Poet, Taj Mahal Review, All That Java lotsa potluck Tamil.sg, Twisted Tongue, United Minds For Peace Society, Human beans Sanka berry mocha Vintage, Ygdrasil, Ya’Sou! & Zafusy.

Him Let me take your hand Sophie Crockett Sophie Crockett

I let him lead me. Whirlpool of the mind. From the mirror he came. Destruction of the body. I let him hold me. Blood spilled over weeping eyes. From hell he came. A path to long to walk. Let me take your hand. I watched and wondered. Eyes aglare. Into nothingness of space and time. This wonderful being. Ears bleed from deadly lies. Couldn’t possibly be there. Let me take your hand.

Eyes so deep. Open my soul. Like rivers of gold. See it, suck it, shake it. Touched and held. Who am I, stranger? That was never foretold. Let me take your hand.

He let me die. Lead me to rights. As he crushed my heart. Lead me to straight. He did not care. Lead me to happiness. As he sucked my soul. Let me take your hand.

He left with my heart. © Sophie Crockett He left with my soul. Where was he? He was gone. He was never there. Sophie Crockett is 17 and lives in Wales, she has been home taught for a number of years and wishes to work in All that was is me. third world countries. She has been writing for around 10 years and this is the 7th time she's been published. For the © Sophie Crockett future she would like to become a nurse. She loves acting and dance, and lives for her volunteer work.

TWISTED TONGUE 34 people would want to go under the knife. To sum it up, all I ever Vain wanted in life was to be able to fit in, be accepted and, most Jason D. Brawn importantly, be loved. 17:30. I was alone in the office, as Pauline slipped out early to see her friends. As for me, I was typing out the minutes for he image of the most beautiful human being ever stood Michael, who was working late. As soon as that was completed I before me, sharing my feelings and thoughts. The person slung it on his desk, next to the cold coffee I made earlier, and T was my own reflection, tall with jet black hair blowing out told him good night. He was still on the phone to another client. like the wind, and with a clear and ageless skin. A female Dorian I had no time to await his response, so I quickly grabbed my coat Grey. The business suit I had on looked a lot better on her, and rushed out. As I ascended the staircase, I heard: instead of my plump figure with my unattractive face. She looked “Jennifer!” He sounded cross. twenty-one. I looked over forty and not thirty-six. A younger and I ran out, pretending I didn’t catch his voice and joined a sea beautiful version of myself. of pedestrians, who too had finished work for the day. I spent the remainder of my lunch hour admiring her outside 19:34. I still gazed passionately at the mirror outside the the window of a bric-a-brac shop called, ‘Temptations Ltd’ in closed shop. This elongated looking-glass had some kind of Highgate High Road. Throughout my life, I have been subjected power. Maybe a power of God? Or perhaps it displayed my to verbal taunts and physical harm for the way I look, future self? I continued looking at this enchanting by the horrible people I’ve met. But since I mirror for most of the evening. caught sight of this tall Edwardian mirror, I arrived late at my one-bedroom flat in carved in a beautiful mahogany spiral Muswell Hill, and rushed to the bathroom frame, I have finally found the true self to try on foundation to cover my acne, that will give me the confidence I the finest mascara and lipstick were have always sought. carefully applied to transform me “You’re late again!” boomed into a particular image. Michael Coleman, my boss. After thirty-five minutes, I “Please accept my so looked the part. For the apology,” I said politely. “It first time in my life I was won’t happen again.” beautiful. Now, things were “This is not good about to change; as of enough,” raised his tomorrow. commanding voice. But it didn’t happen. Pauline, my When Michael caught colleague, sat across the sight of me, he stood in office, smirking at my horror. received telling off. “What the bloody He pointed at me. hell?!” he shouted. “Remember this, I couldn’t you are still on understand his sudden probation and we’re still anguish, until Pauline’s in a recession,” he arrival. Instead of warned me. “Now, looking shell-shocked, make me a coffee.” He she had the audacity to headed to his office and laugh out loud. slammed the door. Michael squeezed my The impact of his arm and dragged me out. behaviour left me stunned He was still with me when with worry. All I could do he threw me inside the was stare at his door. ladies toilet. There I felt his “Better hurry,” said the abusive power. bitch I shared an office with. We both faced the mirror I stormed into the kitchen and I finally saw what the and waited for the kettle to boil. problem was. My euphoric lunchtime escapism “Look at yourself!” He repeated had now died, and instead wanted to angrily, when I failed to respond. cry quietly. But I’m a strong woman and “I’m sorry,” I sobbed. strong women don’t cry. He tore off a sheet of hand paper and When I returned to my desk, Pauline was slammed it into my hand. “Clean yourself up!” giggling with one of her friends on the telephone. He looked at my reflection one more time and Now, if that were me, Michael would have slammed his hand on stormed off. the cradle. Michael was having an important meeting, so I could Instead of the beautiful image I’d aspired to become, I saw a only leave his coffee on my desk. hideous person, trying to look attractive. My make-up was As I looked at Pauline, I couldn’t stop thinking how far she applied wrongly and there was too much lipstick. was going to go in life because of the way she looked and how For the rest of the day, I stayed in the building, afraid to step bubbly she appeared. That was due to her confidence. Pauline outside and avoiding the intimidating eye contact with Michael. wasn’t the smartest person and I knew this job was only a It was nightfall when I left for home .London was blitzed in stepping stone for her. Maybe she’ll marry a footballer. As for the cold rain. I walked fast, passing many shops through the myself, my father always told me I may be unattractive, but I streets of Highgate Village, and when I passed ‘the’ shop, I have a brain and should put it to good use. Like everyone, my refused to look at it. And hopefully I would never again. parents had preferential treatment for my younger sister, Louise, But I kept thinking about the mirror for every second of my who was very beautiful but not as smart as me. Today, she is weekend. And my mind was already made up. Nick, a nice- married to a stockbroker, works as a freelance interior designer looking chap who lived downstairs, had caught my heart. He was and has two beautiful brats who enjoy teasing me. I’ve always friendly and funny and, most important single. I had to do wondered what it was like to be chatted up, or being in a sexual something as I was getting mighty crazy about him. relationship, and could never understand why these beautiful TWISTED TONGUE 35 Monday lunchtime, I stood facing the shop door with a “Give me your hand.” Her hand was raised and soon sense of dread. This was the moment where there would be no emerged from the glass. turning back. I gently pushed the door and stepped inside a My hand linked with hers. It was warm and soft. She gently dingy and dusty place, with old furniture no one wanted, medals, pulled me towards her . I now entered straight through the glass. dolls and worthless paintings. I was alone. But soon, a nightmare would begin. When I looked around, I couldn’t stop noticing how I was all alone in a dark and cold cavern, which stank of expensive every item was. The place was a dump. The proprietor urine and manure. should be ashamed for not looking after it. And how on earth My mirror’s world. Her world was hellish and when I could he or she make a living when there never were any journeyed further, she was no longer to be seen; the light, from customers? my bedroom became distant. “Can I help you, madam?” a soft voice interrupted my “Where are you?” thoughts. I was panicking, as she never attended to my anxious voice. I I spun around to see an elderly man, wearing a flat cap, red must head back, I thought I sprinted back but my face smacked bow tie, white scarf and a light brown duffle coat. He spoke in a against the strong glass, which had become an invisible wall. Yorkshire accent. He looked rather strange, giving me the creeps. Trapped. I didn’t know what to do. I screamed and banged the “Noticed you have been looking at this mirror for quite a glass, begging her for help. while.” He must have observed my daily dalliances. “It’s a Eventually she appeared on the other side, glaring at me with genuine piece, for a reasonable price.” hatred in her eyes. “How much?” I wanted to know, as I was ready to buy. I kept screaming, hoping the neighbours would intervene, “750 pounds,” he answered with some hesitation. but nothing happened. All I could do now, was watch her “That’s a lot of money.” My words forced him to haggle it explore my room, throwing my clothes from the wardrobe. It down to, “OK, 200. Take it or leave it.” He was obviously was as if she was looking for something significant. Then the desperate to get rid of it. lights went out and she left the room, leaving me in the cold with Still a high price for an item that was considered as junk. I my feet buried in mud. stood in deep thought, feeling like a complete mug, but the I knew screaming for help was of no use, so I waited and moment I glanced at the mirror, she smiled at me, insisting I waited, in the hope I’d wake up from my worst ever nightmare. should buy her. A charming smile tried to convince me, as I still When the lights flicked on again, causing me to blink, I must wasn’t sure. have been waiting several hours. By now, I was hungry and dying “I only have fifty quid on me,” I lied and I think he knew it. for some warmth. She walked over, with her hands behind her He fixed his old eyes onto mine and waited for a long beat, back, staring coldly at me. then he said, “It’s yours.” He was disappointed at the final price. “Please, let me out!” I pleaded. I did feel guilty that I’d conned him and could have met his She stood and, for a long while, gazed closely at her own price, but hated spending that kind of money on any object. I reflection. Then her expression morphed into an ugly mask, as if gave him the money, went home and phoned up sick. she hated what she saw. “Damn you!” she screamed and with a mallet struck the I savagely tore off the bubble wrap and saw, in delight, the surface, shattering the glass. mirror. She smiled happily at me. I raced to my bedroom, carrying the looking-glass, which had caused me great agony on © Jason D. Brawn the way home. Once it stood in my room, I gazed at her, admiring my new friend for a long time. Then an idea came…. Jason D. Brawn lives in London and his short stories have Slowly, I slipped off my clothes. When I was completely appeared in Horror Zine, WeirdYear, Deathhead Grin, naked I stepped closer to the mirror. Her body was immaculate Deadlines, House of Horror and more stories forthcoming and beyond perfection. Her thin frame must have been a size 9, in The Third BHF Book of Horror, Estronomicon, perhaps she weighed 8 stone. As I turned, she turned. When I Twisted Dreams Magazine, Daily Flash: 365 Days of Flash smiled, she smiled. When I screamed with delight, she also Fiction Anthology, Daily Bites of Flesh: 365 Days of Flash screamed. Then, together, we let out a triumphant laugh. Fiction Anthology and Daily Flashes of Erotica: 365 Days “Jennifer,” she whispered softly, like the wind. of Flash Fiction Anthology. Jason also appears as a raver in the Hammer Horror “Come and become like me.” webserial, Beyond the Rave, now out on DVD. I moved towards the mirror and froze.

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TWISTED TONGUE 36 A Twisted Tongue Interview with novelist Michael McIrvin

Michael McIrvin is author of the novel The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time (www.Bewrite.net) and Optimism Blues: Poems Selected and New (www.cedarhillbooks.com), as well as another novel, several poetry collections and an essay collection. He lives on the high plains of the US with his wife Sharon and makes his living as a writer and freelance editor (www.a-1writingandediting.writernetwork.com).

TT: Talk a bit about your latest novel, The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time.

MM: The novel is literary fiction disguised as noir thriller, which means that characterization and thematic issues are more important than plot, of course. Stated a bit differently, the arc of the story is tied tightly to the thematic elements. In fact, one very astute reader recently told me that this novel does for thrillers what The Oxbow Incident did for westerns, a compliment indeed. Wallace Stegner said of Clark’s novel that the theme was civilization, and that was the aim of my book too. An act of hubris, I know. The main character, Sonny, a drunken convenience store clerk, is a former CIA agent who wakes up in an alley, coloured blue from head to toe. As he tries to figure out why he is blue, his former role in counterintelligence is revealed and it becomes apparent to Sonny that this is a very dark joke played by someone with the requisite skill to produce a systemic agent just for him. Just for him because his name as an operative was Blue, and in fact, he makes much of the romantic way he heard his agent name, the heroic connotations, compared to the way his employers heard it, violence in every interpretation. Sonny’s search for answers starts in the US rustbelt, but he must ultimately go to Chiapas, Mexico to confront other former operatives who have gone to this extreme to recruit him to a job for one of their corporate employers – to steal 400-year-old trees from a Mayan tribe. Along the way he befriends this same group of Mayans, who are struggling just to survive; reconsiders the nature of terrorism and the drug trade; and deciphers an ancient Mayan vision of the end of time. He also meets another former CIA operative who doubles as a jaguar shaman, an old Mayan holy man whose prophesies include Sonny, and a mysterious boy MM: Discussion of those big stories, religious mythology or whose role in his people’s future is both mythic and bloody. Greek tragedy, tends to boil it all down to a question of good Sonny’s memories of his time in Mesoamerica in the 1970s and evil, and that was of course the underlying historical and 1980s come back to him with a vengeance because of his narrative during the Cold War: good guys vs. bad guys. And present circumstances, and he has frequent flashbacks to his although one of “us” might become one of “them” and vice government work in Mesoamerica, including the act for which he versa, the storyline remains simplistic: black and white. That is was “excommunicated.” The overall result is an indictment of how the story of counterintelligence is handled in the typical the methods of power, both national and corporate, which thriller too. But just as a closer look at Medea or the Oedipus include torture and murder. Like Stegner said of Clark’s western, plays reveals a world much more complex than black and white, though more subtly perhaps, the book achieves the level of so too the overall tale of counterintelligence. It gets really hard to allegory. tell good from evil, and I wanted that level of truth in the novel,

that level of complexity. TT: Did you consciously write an allegory of modern civilization then, or did that happen as a consequence of the scope of the TT: I was fascinated to learn that The Blue Man Dreams the End of novel. Time was published in the UK. You are a US writer and all of

your previous books were brought out by US publishers; so why MM: The easy answer is both. It was not by accident that Sonny not publish this novel in the US? is obsessed with images of the Greek notion of the Underworld, or that the Mayan version of the Underworld is much like the MM: I knew, even as I was writing this book, that US publishers Greek, albeit more harrowing. These big versions of reality lend might balk. The way the topic of counterintelligence is handled, themselves to allegorical interpretation, of course. Mayan complexly, tends to fly in the face of how popular culture iconography is especially filled with extraordinary levels of generally handles it. But this seems extraordinarily true in the US, meaning. So, that material sets the writer up to achieve the level especially in light of the last decade of our history, the so-called of allegory almost by default. As in a play by Sophocles, the war on terror and all the paranoia that accompanies it. In fact, symbols from religious mythology become manifest in the the counterintelligence machine tends to get excused even for everyday world. But I think the socio-political scope of the those few excesses of which the public is widely aware. This is project might have led there without those other elements. merely the same Cold War rationalizations for bad behavior, the

same good guys vs. bad guys oversimplification, lifted to some TT: Why that model, an allegory, for a topic often handled in exponential extreme. thrillers as a simple adventure story?

TWISTED TONGUE 37 Consequently, I was only sending the book around books that have sold well recently just because of big budget halfheartedly to US publishers when a friend asked the obvious marketing campaigns, but I won’t). question: why not try non-US outlets. As it turns out, Bewrite Good publishers not only recognize that the internet is a Books was my first and only attempt. Neil Marr, my editor there, wide open space for creative marketing but gauge how best to was enthusiastic about this novel from the start. achieve that kind of marketing. Bewrite Books has also recognized earlier than most publishers of any size that TT: Are there disadvantages to publishing across the Atlantic? electronic delivery is the next wave of distribution, but they are Do you recommend this same move for other US writers? also smart enough to know that eBooks will probably never completely supplant traditional books. So, The Blue Man Dreams MM: If there are disadvantages, I have yet to discover them. I the End of Time was one of the first books Bewrite offered not think that, at least in part, the radical changes in technology not only in paperback on a print-on-demand basis (and the bigs also only allow for this move but even perhaps encourage it. That is, seem slow to recognize the inherent value in this method of publishing is in flux these days like maybe never before, wreaking producing print books too) but in all the various electronic havoc on many a well-laid plan for publication, from cancelled formats for the various handheld readers: Kindle, Nook, palm publishing contracts to the death of one’s title by publisher devices, mobile phones, iPods and so on. They have also inattention – so why not try a publisher in another country? developed partnerships with lots of digital distributers like As for whether I actually recommend such a move, I would Overdrive and social networking outfits like Scribd. say that depends on the publisher. In fact, the criteria should be I don’t claim to understand all of these new initiatives, but the same whether a writer seeks a publisher here or elsewhere: to what is apparent is that writers should probably avoid any find a publisher that is proactive in the changing marketplace. publisher not exploring these new outlets lest their book get left behind. TT: And what does that mean in real terms: being proactive in the changing marketplace? TT: What are you working on now?

MM: Bewrite Books is a midlist publisher, and so they do not MM: I am putting the finishing touches on another poetry have money for reading tours and big marketing campaigns and collection, and as usual, I am working on poems that don’t fit in the like, the traditional big-house ways to flog a book. But such this collection but might in the one to follow. I am also doing the methods are not necessarily successful these days, and where prep work – notes and just thinking – for a new novel. The they have been successful, the results are questionable because so protagonist is going to be a feral child. I am not sure if the much deception is involved (I could name several really bad project will work out yet, but this maximally creative part of the process is always lots of fun.

EXTRACT: The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time by Michael McIrvin

Chapter One

I woke up blue today. Not sad as in the cliché, but actually, absolutely, from head-to-toe, blue. Ultramarine, Chanelle says. Cerulean, says Justine. All I know for certain is that I passed out drunk in an alley halfway between the Lucky Satyr Lounge and my apartment, and when I woke up shivering in the cold dim light before dawn, to the smell of stale piss and rat droppings, I was naked. My clothes were neatly folded in a pile by my head, my cheap, size 13 shoes resting on top with their tongues lolling like thirsty daschunds. My hands, my genitals, even the soles of my feet were a deep blue, and the cold and broken asphalt had made little blue indentations in my shoulders, ass and legs, like craters on the moon, shadows within shadows. Before I realized my change in hue in the small light of the alley, I checked my back pocket to see if I had been robbed, a perplexing glimmer of other possible violations to my naked self beginning to surface in my imagination. The seventeen dollars I had when I left the bar were still there, along with my comb and the map to Chanelle’s new apartment she drew for me on a bar napkin the night before. The directions are poetry: down the alley between 3rd and 4th, a silly Caucasian-titty-pink stucco story-and-half in the middle of the block, up a flight on the outside to the only door, also pink but Pepto-colored. Now, as she stands in my tiny, greasy kitchen with a cup of tea steaming between her long black hands to warm them, she worries that the “perpetrators,” as she calls whoever painted me blue, will use the map to find her, steal her stereo, violate her, maybe paint her too. Justine is sure Chanelle watches too much TV.

“Witness your use of the word perpetrators. Hell, why don’t you just call them perps, or alleged perps. TV is making you paranoid, girl.”

TWISTED TONGUE 38 “There ain’t no alleged about it,” says Chanelle. “Poor Sonny is blue, isn’t he? Not allegedly blue. That crap is for the weak-kneed, for liberals who think the whole human-damned-race is innocent instead of fallen.” Chanelle puts one hand on her hip and leans slightly forward, as she always does when she is about to wag her index finger in her sister’s direction and make a not necessarily cogent point that she thinks is so obvious it’s a major tenet of native wisdom. “You’re guilty, or you’re not; and a man is blue, or he isn’t.” She smiles smugly and Justine rolls her eyes, as she always does when it’s obvious her sister has settled into a final certainty no matter the violence to reason. I sleep with both women, but one at a time. The only thing they agree on to my knowledge is that all of us in one bed would be a perversion. I met them just over a year ago at the Lucky Satyr where Justine serves drinks. She took me home one night when I couldn’t take my eyes off her beautiful ass in the ruffles of an over-tight uniform that accentuated everything, all those Pavlovian signs in search of a response, and I went home with her twin sister by mistake the next night. They thought it a damned funny joke to play on a drunk white man, and had probably played it on many - or so I think in my most cynical mode - but when I mentioned the possibility of, “you know, uh, us all together,” they said the word in unison, drawing out the middle syllable and their voices rising in volume and tone like school girls: perverrrRRRsion. Then they giggled until they actually hurt my feelings, which I thought impossible after all I’ve been through, and I haven’t said a word about the three of us together since. So we have a schedule, “our arrangement” we call it when our three-way relationship is mentioned at all: Monday and Wednesday Justine stays at my little apartment over a dry cleaner, Tuesday and Thursday Chanelle stays, and Friday through Sunday I sleep at one of their places or the other, alternating weeks, like a kid in a complex custody arrangement. Just because you sleep with somebody doesn’t mean they have the right to laugh at you when you’re blue. “Know what happened to Little Boy Blue when he grew up?” Chanelle asks Justine, her eyes sparkling at me like Fourth-of-July rockets from where she leans against the ancient gas stove, a pot of day-old soup still on the only burner that works. “He became a drunken Seven- Eleven clerk, changed his name to Sonny so people would stop asking him to blow that damned horn, and he got bluer and bluer.” “I heard Boy Blue’s mama warned him he’d turn darker and darker if he didn’t stop playing with his pee-pee, but he wouldn’t listen,” says Justine, and she laughs at her own joke, bending over and slapping her thigh in an exaggerated pantomime of laughter. Her voice echoes in my nearly empty apartment. “I heard she told him if he slept with black women it’d rub off. If we were triplets, he’d be indigo.” The sisters fall into each other’s arms with laughter, tears flowing heartlessly down their cheeks. I am wondering how to become unblue. I have already taken a half dozen showers, hoping an onslaught of hot water and hard scrubbing will at least fade me to something like gray, a sign I will be my pale self eventually. But soap hasn’t lightened me a shade, and the scrub powder for sinks and toilets I used just now left me severely chafed, which seems to add to these women’s enjoyment. I return to the molding bathroom to stare into the mirror at the abomination of my face - which is bluer than Krishna’s it occurs to me - to consider my options in some semblance of peace. I am due at work by noon, which requires either a cure or calling in sick again. It’s likely that the just- beyond-acne kid who is the manager, Bob something-or-other, will fire me this time. Lately, I can’t stand the thought of waiting on morons who don’t know which self-service pump they got gas from or delinquents who have $20 worth of store merchandise stuffed in their pants - like I care - or some minimal semblance of a human being screaming-pissed because the milk he bought yesterday is rancid already, as if his sanity depended on this retribution against a minor functionary in the corporate infrastructure who couldn’t do anything about his dilemma should he want to, so I call in sick and go to the bar instead. An angry contusion is trying to force its way through the blue darkness of my left cheek where I used the chlorinated powder most vigorously, panicking when I realized that this may not be something applied to my skin as a prank, that this blueness might be systemic. A wave of unmitigated horror, tinged with an awed appreciation for the multiply-leveled irony in my blueness, is pushing its way to the surface, too. It’s been a long time since I looked over my shoulder every few minutes, since I fled from job to job at least monthly, and town to town nearly as often, for fear they’d somehow trace my fake social security number back to me, for fear that the thin shield of my various aliases would crumble like tinfoil. But who else would do this, use a systemic agent both reprehensible and, as Justine and Chanelle’s reactions only hinted at, funny in a macabre way, in that darkly ironic way that seems to characterize the age? Who else? If they only knew, the sisters would probably appreciate the scope of the joke, the time and energy it must have taken to produce a systemic agent just for me so I can fully appreciate the seemingly cosmic scale of this prank. So I can completely grasp the fate rolling at me like a train sans brakes just before it runs me down. So much for beginning in the middle, for coincidence, accident. The hand of fate is not cosmic, however, but very human in this case, if my fears are correct. I close my eyes against the blue specter of my face, and for a brief moment, I am caught in that uncomfortable land between laughing and crying. In fact, I feel like I could do either, and I have not shed a tear or let loose even a minor snicker for what seems like years. Fate. I consciously stopped using the word a long time ago because it can’t exist except as a sum of random forces, at least to my saner self. The cosmic dice roll and one of an infinite number of permutations is, momentarily or for the duration of one’s life, depending on scope and context, fact. A life only looks like a whole thing, something that could have been scripted, after the bleakest of facts, when you’re worm shit. A man is simply born what he is, when he is, to whom; which is to say, all of us are merely a bundle of peptides twisted just so, born into class X, untouchable or Brahmin, slave or master, into nation Y in the first or third world - the existential albatross or the existential brass ring just like that. Random as a lightning bolt. All subsequent permutations the result of human interaction, the force of the impact as we run headlong into other lives and careen off in some new direction as circumscribed by those first factors, as circumscribed by the simple facts of one’s birth. No, Einstein would not have dreamed relativity if he were born into a Guatemalan slum. Instead of an equation that falls just short of the unified field, he would have seen a half-baked God dressed in feathers and a breechcloth in an impoverished Guatemalan version of Nirvana - and he probably would have gone mad. And I would never have dreamed myself a hero if I were born anywhere but in America, land of the ostensibly free and the brave only when absolutely necessary or utterly deluded. I dab some Vaseline on the abraded skin of my cheek, wincing ever so slightly, and try to decide what to do, but no ideas come to me. Instead I am assaulted by the inane memories of how I arrived here, if my suppositions about this blueness are correct, the long road to becoming this blue man in the mirror. When I was young, I had a strident sense of destiny. I knew without doubt that the universe had something in store for me, a heroic role to play in the grander scheme that I could barely touch with my mind, like groping in the dark for an object you can run your fingertips over but can’t identify as vegetable or mineral. In my delusion, I intuited that I was somehow special, but I couldn’t quite bring to the full light of consciousness exactly why or how. I thought I was a work in progress and the eventual sum of all my experience and thoughts and stupid dreams would be a man well suited for an extraordinary purpose. Then came my fall and subsequent banishment. And even then, like Oedipus after he knew he’d killed a king but had no idea he’d killed his own old man, I was stupid enough to think that I simply hadn’t discovered what I was to do in this world, even rationalized that my mistake, the reason for my dismissal, had been somehow foreordained, woven into the very fabric of the universe and was thus meaningful on the largest possible scale. Two men had not merely died, or hell a hundred or more men and women and children had not merely died, at these blue hands, but the world had inched closer to its own destiny, a blossoming into fulfillment that required my sacrifice and penance. TWISTED TONGUE 39 What crap. My so-called fate has always been engineered by men. Men with power or men who are merely petty bastards like Bob what’s-his-name, just men - and this blueness may be the final proof. Justine is jiggling the doorknob as I put the Vaseline back in the medicine cabinet with the cracked hinge that sounds like a cat when its tail is pulled. She tells me that she and Chanelle are sorry if they hurt my feelings. “Go away,” I say. “I think I may be ill. I’ll be out in a minute.” She walks away and there is a burst of female laughter from the kitchen. It’s wonderful to be loved. Chanelle is probably closer to right than Justine – ultramarine. The blue is darker than my eyes, which are closer to azure, sky blue, but I’m not as dark as the nearly purple Chevy I drove in high school. The color on my body is just as immaculately even, however, as if sprayed on with an airbrush. The wrinkles at my eyes are as blue in the valleys as at the peaks. I have a day’s growth of beard, which makes the color appear to be deeper at my cheeks, where I’m going soft around the jowls, where the stubble remains dark, but it’s an illusion of contrast. At my temples the gray looks snow-white because of the deep blue background. I look at my cock when I take it out to pee. It is the exact same shade as the hand that holds it, as my face in the mirror a moment ago. I can’t stand to look long and close my eyes, miss the eternally stained toilet to the left for a second, and open my eyes again to adjust my aim. Who else could have devised this agent just for me, just for the joke that is another man’s terror? Who else could make a metaphor reality just for a laugh? I shake my blue dick with my blue hand and fold it back into my pants. Before I was Sonny the drunken Seven-Eleven clerk, before dozens of other names I culled from obituary columns and then enacted as I had been trained, before they threw me out for what they called my mistake, my code name was Blue. As in sad but also faithful - true blue like an old dog named Blue - as in heavy-hearted music played by John Lee Hooker, as in outa-the-blue, blue Monday, blue skies, bluebells, faded blue jeans and a Chevy so blue it was almost purple with blue interior and discarded blue panties to reveal the magic pink passage beneath a blue dress. That was my problem at the Agency. I was a romantic in a world of cold-blooded killers incapable of poetry, unless you consider the condensed lingo of the trade, the bloodstained words that represent an entire body of macabre knowledge, poetry. Never mind that I became one of them; somehow I stayed a romantic even after the bitter end, but the clues were in the name I picked the day I lost my virginity, as they called it, the day I “played my first solo” and took out a Colombian diplomat suspected of being a commie drug runner. Suspected by whom and based on what evidence no one ever said, and I didn’t expect them to tell me anything but the target and the date of his exit to the Underworld - that ancient Greek destination for all the dead whether they were saints or sinners. The Mayans believe the same thing, that all the dead are gathered in the dark below ground, but how I know this is a long story. I stare at my face again in the mirror, and I swear, this tale gets funnier by the minute in a bleak kind of way, like a joke told by a demon, and not the Greek version but the medieval Christian one with a hot fork and vicious sense of humor - you know the punch line is going to hurt but can’t help but laugh. Only later did I figure out that the Company never cared about the latter charge against the Columbian, not then and not now. Being killed for running coca must be one of those bleak jokes at the Agency these days, since the boys in the Company have made money selling that product themselves to finance a covert war, if the news reports from a few years after my departure are to be believed. Maybe it’s accepted as a business thing, taking out the competition, and maybe it was even then, even as the man’s windpipe buckled in my hand and he gaped like a posturing orangutan at the zoo and his eyes bulged and he went nearly as blue as I am now. Or maybe the current war on drugs taking place on foreign shores just gives the foot soldiers in the Agency something to do since the former charge became the biggest joke of all, the communists now mostly gone or doing their best imitation of capitalists. Maybe the war on drugs is just blood and maneuvers to keep agents occupied and the machine of covert operations greased, that omnivorous handmade clock finely tuned and blood-hungry. Just in case. Maybe that was the reason I was told to kill the diplomat, just for practice. It was the other charge, the diplomat’s politics, that made it OK in my own mind to kill the man: my raison d’être, his raison d’mort. It wasn’t about economics then, not explicitly, which is maybe the greatest act of legerdemain ever performed - to associate closed markets with evil in the popular imagination, to convince the hero that he serves good no matter how evil his tactics - a joke told by a demon. The Christian kind with a forked tail and a pointy beard.

That day in the back of a limousine with tinted windows, in a perverse rite-of-passage for which my fellow agents slapped me on the back and bought me drinks when I returned to the States, I became Agent Blue, and the name became part of an elaborate illusion wherein I could believe I had become a hero and the Agency could forget I am a man. After all, the hero is always incognito, pretending to be just a man until he dons his other identity and his true name, something elemental and beyond the understanding of common human beings, those who are not heroes, who might condemn the hero’s methods as too brutal, too inhumane, if they only knew. And my handlers could punch in the instructions for the next mission, encode them in my synapses as into a machine. My code name also became part of an elaborate misunderstanding between the Agency and me. It was not the name itself, but the differences between what we heard in it. It was only during my excommunication that I realized that my colleagues didn’t hear my name the same way I did. For them, blue was part of a football cadence, blue-31-hut-HUT, or the color of a fast and brutal car with no panties or other trappings of a life, or the word was short for the infamous blue streak that all fast talkers are capable of, or the color of a gun barrel. Or blue was past tense for blow: she blew me and I blew her away. Or blue was the color of suffocating men, men with smashed windpipes, Colombian diplomats who run drugs and stupidly call themselves communists in a hemisphere patrolled by cowboys in dark glasses who will make sure the profit goes to one of us, a Norte Americano, or to nobody. The day I figured this out, the company heard my name the way I heard it, and consequently that was my last day as an operative, an agent, a spook, a cowboy riding the geopolitical range in the clandestine service of America. My last day as a hero. It was the end of our misunderstanding, but not the end of the illusion, which is of course just a diminished version of that larger illusion the powers-that-be perpetrate upon us all like a perverse Platonic paradigm. We are the good guys and all who would oppose us are the bad guys, the old white hat and black hat thing from childhood. But the illusion in my case is stronger than most people’s reality, which is to say, than other people’s version of the illusion, which is the crux of the joke. I actually thought I wore a white fucking hat and the people I killed wore black hats. Now the joke has apparently become palpable. Today, I woke up actually, absolutely, from head to toe, blue. I could almost laugh.

Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all other major online stores, on order from your local high street bookshop or direct from www.bewrite.net & www.smashwords.com

TWISTED TONGUE 40 Coming Home Jason Barney

hen Louise got home from the protest she threw her jacket, umbrella, and shoes in the closet. She dropped her bag of antigovernment pamphlets at the door. Immediately Marlo, her gray-white cat, hungered for attention. She patted him and contrasted W his affections with the casual apathy of the average citizen. It was unsettling. She’d sacrificed her weekend for the cause. Her muscles and joints felt like she’d waded through a pool all day. Louise had passed out so much literature the skin on her thumbs was raw. Her fingers ached. She wondered if old people with arthritis felt similar discomfort. She went to her living room with a cup of steaming tea, the newspaper, and some chocolates. She let her body crumble onto the couch. Light from the dying day retreated from the room as the minutes passed. She skimmed the headlines. She nodded off. Louise was roused when Marlo jumped on her. He pushed his face into hers, and purred even before she stroked his back. The sound of a well-oiled motor erupted inside him. Louise felt his body vibrate with affection. She wished people were like cats. She felt something on Marlo’s back. Her fingers found it near his tail. It was under his hair and skin, like a stone under a rug. Louise’s probing fingers groped his hide. His yellow-green eyes looked at her with slight pain. He adjusted his position to avoid her curious caress. She briefly lost the bump, but located it again. It was a bunch, about the size of pebble. Marlo didn’t want her touching it. She hoped her pet wasn’t in pain. She wondered how long he’d had it. Marlo tried to jump off the couch. Louise grabbed him. She cradled him like a new born. He stopped purring. Guilt washed over her. She hated to think she’d neglected him. Then she saw his eyes; Marlo’s yellow pupils were dimming. She felt his body go limp. Louise gasped. Her heart rate quickened like she’d been jogging. Marlo went cold. She smelt hair burning. There was a shadowy funnel of smoke coming from his spine. Louise bolted off the couch. His body clumsily thumped onto the floor. Sparks vomited from his back. With horror, Louise realized the burning thing wasn’t Marlo. She took the couch blanket and smothered the flames. She moved away from it, afraid it might gain life and attack her. She left the living room. Louise wondered where her Marlo was. She ripped through her house, calling out his name. She missed his flirtatious hugs and friendly cuddling. Hours later, she collapsed in her bedroom. She couldn’t find him. The sun had set hours ago. She wondered who was out there, watching her. Louise considered her crusade of antigovernment activity. The administration was insidious. She thought of the discarded imposter downstairs and wondered how long ago they’d replaced Marlo. And she cried. Jason Barney lives in Vermont. He is a high school Social Studies teacher who loves politics and teaches a required senior civics/government class. His previous writing credits include © Jason Barney contributing to the online movie site Box Office Prophets, writing two articles for Trekweb.com and contributing to the Star Trek Fiction Timeline. In December of 2009 and the first half of 2010, he has had twenty-five stories accepted by Lame Goat Press, Pill Hill Press, Ensorcelled Magazine, Resident Aliens Press, Wicked East Press, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal This is his first published story with Twisted Tongue. Jason is 34 years old and is confident he has many more SF stories in him. He is an avid New England Patriots fan, believes humanity should be very concerned about climate change, and really enjoys life.

The Occult Files of Albert Taylor by Derek Muk

Product details: Paperback: 208 pages ISBN-10: 144954195X ISBN-13: 978-1449541958

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TWISTED TONGUE 41 The Tor Liza Granville

PUBLISHED BY BEWRITE BOOKS

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-906609-22-1 eBook ISBN: 978-1-906609-23-8 162 Pages Paperback: $10.37 eBook: $5.99 (formats: PDF, ePub, Mobi for Kindle)

Among the rotting ruins and open sores of a diseased Earth, Jude—sole survivor of a solitary group of hungry travellers and scavengers—is destined for a vital task—but those who knew what that task is are all dead. Bewildered and questing, Jude makes an epic Odyssey across a dying and decaying landscape of corrupt countryside and crumbling cities, thinly peopled by savage killers and unworldly dreamers, in a desperate bid to discover what he is meant to do. Along the winding way, he gathers new companions: a wretched waif, rescued from slavery and cannibalism, a mysterious woman of beauty and secrets, and an equally mysterious, though anything but beautiful, old man of unfathomable prophesies and ferocious violence. At times, Jude feels his tired old wagon horse is his only true ally as the once-clear dividing line between friend and foe becomes blurred. In this futuristic re-telling of ancient Grail legends, Jude becomes knight errant in a joust to the death between fear and duty. Will he become the saviour of humanity or its doomed scapegoat at the end of days ... when his quest finally brings him to The Tor? With characters that become as familiar as personal friends and enemies, a story that is both vaguely remembered and vividly fresh, and pages that seem to turn in the wind, Liza Granville inspires her reader to ask, for new reasons, the age-old question ... is our very presence on the only planet we know intimately the problem or the solution? Are we Mother Nature’s children or her killer?

Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all other major online stores, on order from your local high street bookshop or direct from www.bewrite.net TWISTED TONGUE 42 All through dinner Wally could scarcely concentrate on Bitsy Mom’s game shows. He thought again of the night months ago Barbara Stanley when this whole wonderful thing had started. He’d been in the attic, off limits to Wally except for this one time when Mom Previously published in SubNatural annual needed a heating pad. While searching around he found a photo album stuffed with pictures of smiling strangers, but one picture had stopped his heart—that of a brawny giant with dark brows, om’s voice boomed in his head. soft smile, and a face exactly like Wally’s own—the face of “Kill them tomorrow.” she said. Wally’s father. Tomorrow was Saturday, Wally’s day off. Wally’s father had spoken to him that night, whispering M songs and stories and telling Wally he loved him. Together they Wally was used to hearing Mom’s voice in his head and it didn’t scare him anymore. Mow this, clean that, make the beds, had watched a spider snare a fly in her web and roll the fly into a be quiet—Mom’s words often spun around Wally as he went tight white pellet. Wally heard his father laugh, a sound like through his workday. Her yells were as familiar to him as the tinkling bells. ambulance sirens at this hospital. But today he felt a chill inside For months afterward Wally managed to visit his father late so cold it nearly froze his heart. His heart was beating, yes, Wally at night, sneaking up to the attic after Mom fell asleep. He could feel it, but it seemed to beat a new rhythm, made for a watched spiders swing through the air on invisible thread and different Wally. Kill Bitsy? Kill the first real friends of his whole dance across the ceiling. He began to dream of spiders, watching life, this new Wally asked? No, he wouldn’t do it. hundreds of them crawl around, over his Dad’s face, over An old lady in a wheelchair waved goodbye from a hospital Wally’s face, while his father laughed beside him. He dreamed all window as Wally left for the day. She had white hair and bony the photo people were stored in bundles in a web, waiting for shoulders like Mom. But this old lady said thank you dear, to Wally to visit; he dreamed of spiders eating them. Wally when he lifted her and never called him names or slapped One night Wally accidentally gave Mom two extra sleeping him in the face. She didn’t throw food on the floor if it wasn’t pills instead of her digestion pills after dinner. Hands shaking, just right. She had a soft voice and soft-looking hair. Wally Wally flipped through different channels before landing on the wondered what it felt like. Wally had never touched Mom’s hair. nature channel, where a story about spiders was in progress. He never touched Mom at all except to help her walk when she Wally watched the entire program, enraptured, while Mom got tired. snored beside him. He took a seat on his bus and closed his eyes, thinking of his He heard of the angry Greek goddess who changed a girl friends. into a spider, saw jagged stringy webs made by spiders given Bitsy was the name he’d given all of them—they were so LSD, learned of the two spiders sent into outerspace. While little and pretty. Bitsy in the garden, for example, had a long weightless, one had actually spun a web. Wally marvelled at the black body splotched with yellow and long black legs that glowed magical beings that spun homes from their own bodies and red in the sun. Bitsy in the house had a tiny brown body and legs rolled enemies into food. He felt he lived in a new world filled thin as eyelashes. Bitsy in the tub, Bitsy in the corner, Bitsy on with tiny powerful friends. the ceiling—Mom had always said that she and Wally were alone The next morning Mom was cranky from a headache, which in the world, and that Wally must take care of her. But these days went away by noon. No harm done, and she was none the wiser. Wally never lacked for friends. They surrounded him. Most nights in the attic, Wally and his dad would sing their He opened his eyes to look back at the hospital as the bus favourite song, about an itsy bitsy spider that went up the water pulled away. Wally’s hospital, where he’d worked for thirty years. spout. The place where he did a Good Job, where no one laughed at “Peas undercooked again. I’ve half a mind to spit ‘em out him or called him ree-tard or looked at him funny because of his but I’m so hungry...” A spray of peas and potatoes punctuated stutter. Mom had pulled him out of school at sixteen and all the Mom’s comments. Her knife and fork clinked together as she time since he’d worked here. continued. “Don’t forget--spray tomorrow—I want those spiders As the bus bumped and jiggled Wally thought of his plan for dead. I’m sick of living in a haunted house with these damn Bitsy. He had come up with five words, good words that would cobwebs hanging down. This is how you thank me for save the lives of his friends. Wally would focus, and these words everything I’ve done for you—by turning my house into a would not seep out of his head, drop to the ground and vanish, garbage dump? Now don’t start blubbering, just make sure like so many of the words in the books he had tried to read. you...” He settled back in his seat, watching cars and buildings skim Mom’s voice droned on, but Wally couldn’t hear it over the by, hearing snippets of chit chat mixed in with the rumble of the thumping of his heart. Now was the time to say the five words. bus, feeling good inside knowing his friends would be safe. Five words, in the right order, and his friends would live. “Time’s up!” shrieked the host of Mom’s favourite game “Mom ...” he began. show through the front door when Wally got home. He saw Already he’d made a mistake. He’d added another word to Mom’s slippered feet propped up on the hassock. The TV the five, the word “Mom”. audience buzzed together about a contestant. They sounded like “Mom ...” Wally began again, his throat dry, “... tomorrow ... frantic bees. I ... Mom ... Saturday ...” He trailed off, desperate to recall the He waited for a quiet moment, came over and sat across words that were spinning around his head like angry flies, from Mom on the couch. refusing to line up in the right order: At the commercial Mom’s eyes flickered over to Wally. The I—have—to—work—tomorrow. TV was reflected in her blue irises. I have to work tomorrow. She pointed to a dust cloth on one of the end tables--her Five words, one lie, one sentence to save the life of his signal that he’d done a bad job dusting this morning. Wally friends, and he couldn’t do it, he could not lie to Mom. Now his nodded and picked up the cloth. He’d do extra good tonight. friends would die. Mom continued to stare at him. “Pork chops tonight,” she Tears filled up in Wally’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks, said. dropping to his shirt below. The image of Mom in her chair Wally was careful not to bang the pots and pans around so blurred out of focus and all the colours ran together through his Mom wouldn’t yell. He set out the box of instant potatoes and tears—pink housecoat, red curlers, blue slippers, white hair ... saw a spider hanging on the edge. She scuttled down the side of Lucky for Wally Mom hadn’t looked up once since he the box and scrambled off on a fringe of legs. Wally watched as started. She was done with dinner and was watching TV. She she disappeared under the table. hadn’t heard him at all. “Bitsy,” he whispered, and smiled. Then he opened the box And, she didn’t see him now. of potatoes and began preparing dinner. Suddenly Wally’s tears stopped. He was in the kitchen again, though he didn’t remember walking there. He crossed the TWISTED TONGUE 43 kitchen, put the teakettle on to boil, took Mom’s favourite teacup out of the cupboard. While waiting for the whistle he wiped the tears from his face and washed his hands. He added a generous amount of Mom’s brandy to the teacup, then opened another cabinet and took out the bottle that held Mom’s sleeping pills.... Afterwards Wally knew he had done the right thing because Mom took her first sip, looked surprised, and said “Brandy— good. Thank you Wally.” And she had smiled at him. That smile did not leave her face, not when she closed her eyes, not when her head drooped, not when her breathing became ragged and uneven. Not until her breathing stopped. All the lines in Mom’s face relaxed, and the china cup dropped from her hand, rolling to the floor unbroken. Wally picked it up and placed it on the table beside her, then reached over and kissed Mom on her cooling cheek. He’d never done that before. He wiped Mom’s cheek with a tissue, mindful of germs even though Mom was dead. Germs were disgusting,

Mom always told him. Sleep, Mom. In silence. All through the night Wally sat with Mom, watching the livingroom windows go from black to gray to pink to yellow, with the sound of birds singing outside. It was Saturday, he realized. He looked at Mom, and all at once heard his Dad’s tinkling laugh coming out of his own mouth.

Then he got to work.

fter three days of absence and unanswered phone calls some Aemployees set out to check up on Wally. No lights were on in the house but the front door was unlocked so they went inside, calling Wally’s name as they searched empty rooms. In the kitchen they noticed the attic door ajar. A bad smell wafted down from above.

“God,” said the one co-worker at the top of the attic stairs. “Oh my God ...” Wally sat huddled near a corner of the attic. Next to him lay an old photo album, opened to one page, one picture inside. All other photos had been taken out of the book and surrounded him in a circle. Some of the photos had jagged, damp edges. Wally was eating one when his co-workers found him. Behind Wally a lumpy white shape hung suspended in the corner, like an oversize cocoon. This was the source of the bad smell. The shape was wrapped tight in white bed-sheets. Ugly yellow and brown stains seeped through the sheeting. A tuft of white hair stuck out from one end of the lump. “Jesus,” said the other co-worker, before throwing up. Wally looked up then, finished chewing, and smiled.

ally sits on the edge of the hospital bed. His new hospital

W is much like his old one. He would like to go outside sometimes, but the doors are always locked—he lives here now. His room is cleaned, his bed is made, his meals are cooked for him. Doctors and nurses talk to him, but Wally never speaks. He crawls. He spins around and twirls. And when he looks into the mirror he sees his father’s face. Deep inside, Wally feels his friends crawling across his heart. Late at night he hears his father singing the spider song. Try as he might, Wally can’t walk on the ceiling. He can’t spin thread from himself. He can’t even hide in the corner and spin an enemy to death. Not yet, anyway. But soon, Bitsy says.

Barbara Stanley loves her husband, four-legged children, and dark fiction. Read some of her stories at http://www.thuglit.com/zine/thug7/zine7.html, http://www.spinetinglermag.com/library/mybedtimebuddy.html, and http://www.amazon.com/Thou-Shalt-Not-Allen- Howard/dp/0977187101/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263154414&sr=1-1.

TWISTED TONGUE 44 They’re Coming Fermín Moreno González

rapped. Chained. Tortured. Existence is just a brief lapse of lonely oblivion between abrupt cliffs of sheer agony. Maybe there was a different life outside the T darkness of the cage. A life of intact flesh and unbroken spirit. No iron claws, no grim-minded wooden engines, no crunching leather strips. Men of uncovered faces not to be begged desperately. But I lie. I’m not alone. There are eternal companions that never leave me. The Iron Maiden stands still facing me, showing me her sardonic and expecting metallic smile in such an arousing way that I almost miss her stinging and somber inside. Only she deceives me now with another unexpected lover. I can hear his dim moanings into her. The rats plunge in from the blackness of its cover to lick the oozing blood at her feet. After that they’ll desire something more. And they’ll have it. They had mine. The growing rumour of menacingly quiet paces fill the stinking air. They’re coming. They’re coming. Which one will be their prey this time? Perhaps the old no-eye to my left. He cannot hear or see, but has an splendid nose and having already smelt out their arrival, he begins to quiver convulsively. They are really fond of the poor devil. His insane yells dig into my mind as painfully that I do really want him to be tortured. My right side companion is different. A delightful and silent one. His face once and another manages somehow to express to me a myriad of deep and elaborate thoughts, and like that, we are wont to loiter maintaining a morose in-chattering. They cut out his tongue. Then there is the boy. An idle expression of utter madness masters his dumb face. His dripping eyes blaze with an animal-like flame. Long time ago, they took him apart and inflicted him a punishment too hard to be eye-watched. I’m afraid of that. Even torturers can get ashamed. And future blood-lusted sins will do to forgive themselves past ones. On demolished bodies and bent, salaamed wills. They’re coming.

Literary translator -from English, French & Italian into Spanish- and writer. Publisher in Spain of A.C. Ediciones Tusitala: Sable magazine among other publications.One comic-SF novel published: Forastero en cuerpo extraño (Ed. Parnaso, Col. Vórtice, 2005). His short stories and poems can be read at: Antipodean Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, The Eldritch Dark, Horrifique magazine (Québec)... He has also been published at several Spanish mags: Historias Asombrosas, Calabazas en el Trastero, Lhork…

Translator´s Website: http://www.fandb.es (English version available) Publisher´s Blog: http://www.tusitalaediciones.blogspot.com/ Writer´s Blog: http://escribadetinieblas.blogspot.com/ E-mail: info_sable(at)wanadoo.es

My Vaulted Love Fermín Moreno González

Among both bent wooden crosses and the stink of many a tomb therein lies my former love like a foetus in its womb vainly awaiting a birthtime which will never be anymore, decayed the heart and all hopes, rotten to the very core. Beneath a damp ever-mist I toil along the graveyard up to the vault wherein she waits eager for her bard Literary translator -from English, French & Italian into Spanish- and beside somber marbled columns and grim stony gargoyles, writer. Publisher in Spain of A.C. Ediciones Tusitala: Sable magazine hovering wraiths, nightly creatures coming out of weird soils among other publications.One comic-SF novel published: Forastero en to delight its rawboned souls until the selfsame last cuerpo extraño (Ed. Parnaso, Col. Vórtice, 2005). His short stories and of a ballad whose verses are spectres from the past poems can be read at: Antipodean Science Fiction, Bewildering cruelly cloaked with the smiles of the love that once we got Stories, The Eldritch Dark, Horrifique magazine (Québec)... He has before your pale-faced visage still untouched by dry rot, also been published at several Spanish mags: Historias Asombrosas, Calabazas en el Trastero, Lhork… of girlish eternal dun eyes drilling haughtily into mine in quest of an ancient promise of devotion and gold wine Translator´s Website: http://www.fandb.es (English version for which from the close church is tolling a bronze bell available) spreading throughout the night loudly its betraying knell: Publisher´s Blog: http://www.tusitalaediciones.blogspot.com/ many dead to mourn for, aye, so many, so many dead, Writer´s Blog: http://escribadetinieblas.blogspot.com/ from both of us´ sealed lips, past a searing silken bed E-mail: info_sable(at)wanadoo.es to just a foreboded thought of our very own seed mine and yours to beat the ages´ malignant cobwebbed weed.

TWISTED TONGUE 45 TWISTED TONGUE 46 “All I can tell you is what I might feel, the ‘vibrations’…’ Turning Tightly (yeah, I winced almost as much as the trio who faced me), “… if Ralph Greco, Jr. I feel any.” I had staved off from going down to see the body myself, not that I would have gotten all that close to four year-old Jenny va ascended my spiral staircase artfully slow, her soft Kenny whom they found at the bottom of the quarry the night palm firmly cupped around the base of my cock. She before. The pictures on the table before me showed a pretty E didn’t pull as much as ‘lead’ me up those twisty nine black girl, a baby really, eyes open, blood caked around her head, steps, smiling her crooked grin, looking down at me as I looked in her close curls, and these pictures were as far as I was happy up the taut expanse of her impossibly long legs in those black to get. What I feared I’d see and was trying to avert my eyes thigh-highs. Sweating the moments, I knew when we finally from were the two concentric red cuts, one on each of poor finished our metered turning I’d lay her wide bottom down on Jenny’s forearms. As I made the pass over that second picture, the wood floor of my squat attic room and enter the soft Spanish this one concentrated on the girl’s torso, I tried to keep my girl for the first time. But her hold on me, the simple execution breathing still. I didn’t even really look at the third glossy. of ‘bringing me along’ in so aggressively sexual, yet matter-of- “Shit,” I sighed, not telling these guys anything more. Let fact a manner, had me convinced I’d forever be Eva’s slave…at them think I was as least for the next few hours. disgusted as they were (as I really was). “Nothing’s coming.” Without knowing she had, Eva had engaged the spiral. Nothing was as far as it related to any quasi- physic The shocking thing about the victim was where she was vibrations. What I was feeling was the dread of recognizing a found … at least that was the shocking thing to me. The local brother. cops, reporters who showed, neighbours all were titillated and “Give me a couple days,” I said, smiling at the grim faces of sickened by the brutal slicing and dicing. Unfortunately I have the ‘townies’ around me. been privy to quite a few killings in my day, so the manner in I lighted out of Frank’s office barely catching my fucking which the fourteen year-old was cut-up didn’t shock me at all. breath. But like I said, dumping the body on the steps of the local library Spirals I saw and spirals I feared. seemed such a bold act of suburban desecration I couldn’t get Whatever this guy was after with these two killings I didn’t my mind around it. really have a clue. But I was sensing that this killer might love the Of course I decided to spend as little time as possible shape of an in-turned arc as much as I. Since my earliest memory looking at the deep red circles on the kids’ back. Nobody would I had turned my toys in sandboxes, drew conjoined arcs and understand my fascination, or knowledge. But I feared as I tried circles in art class, my mother even said I had a habit of twirling my best to avoid looking, that the killer might be as interested in my chubby baby fingers through her hair when I took my bottle. that round on round shape as I. And I knew like my own desire, it wasn’t the shape that thrilled “You never say anything,” Carol whispered as I dipped my this killer (or killers), it was the sensation of turning tightly that head again. “I never know if you like…” fuelled this bastard…unfortunately he didn’t execute his turns “I like everything,” I nuzzled from between her legs, again with his tongue, or standing and letting his cock be pushed and pushing my tongue flat to the ridged rise of her engorged clitoris. pulled, the killer made his spiral with a blade. Two months after Eva and I, I was locked to Carol’s trim I knew the way we’d catch this sick fuck was for me to sex more then I had ever been to any girl before. Something anticipate his moves by locking into what I knew he was after. about the petite black-haired Chinese bank teller made me want The mayor and sheriff didn’t need to know my knowledge didn’t to thirst off her every time we met. I had thought getting over come from one of my ‘feelings’. Hell, the only success (such that Eva’s dominating sex play was going to be hard, but locked I had had) was finding a little boy three years ago over in our between Carol’s nutty scent I found I could easily put the neighbouring township of Willard Creek. The kid was found enchanting Eva in place. alive, in turn ‘raising my stock’, but I hadn’t had many wildly “Christ,” Carol shuttered, her southern lips drawing back as publicized cases since. I get these feelings time and again, if smiling at me. “Christ.” sometimes I tell somebody (like Mayor Frank) sometimes I Reaching under I crept a finger between her tight cheeks as I don’t; I don’t live and die by my powers. drew back and smiled to the spiral of errant midnight pubic hair Besides, I had to wonder was I simply seeing circles cause facing me. Matted under the gush of my saliva and Carol’s ample that’s what I always see anyway? juices, I always knew I was doing when I saw this defiant circle “I’m afraid,” Samantha sighed. On this admission I poised of hair glistening below me. Carol didn’t have too many spirals the whip over the small of her back. otherwise, her body was white and easy, cut and long even for so “I want this too much,” she continued to my pillow. “I’m short a girl. That one simple hair in a matt of trimmed ones was afraid.” all I needed. “So, we go slow,” I said above her and ‘smip pip pa’ I Once again I dived low knowing I was home in a circle. dragged the read leather tethers down across my new lady’s On this one they called. I’m not so well known that the local backside. Was this my answer to what Eva and I had been up to, cops call me out every chance they get, but a few know me as a or my acting-out from the nice subtle oral sex I was giving Carol? straight shooter and a man with more then a passing knowledge The girl undulated into my bedspread as she always did. I in what they call, ‘the fringe’. It’s not hard to find me either, had executed a perfect arc, a near spiral really, and as I dragged since I am one of the only people not born and bred here. Very the tethers away I looked down with delight on the red streaks few people ever move into or out of Randolph township, it forming on Samantha’s perfect ass. happens to be one of those eastern ‘burbs you’d easily pass by on “You make me so wet with this,” she said, looking over her the map if not living here. shoulder then. I would have done just that if my aunt Helen hadn’t left me “Yes,” I said, shifted my weight and again brought the cat her four-bedroom Tudor when she died five years before. down on her flanks: ‘Ship pa’. “It’s a long shot calling you,” Frank Robbins was saying as I “Ah, God,” the brown-eyed girl below me cried as once stood in his billing office ‘conference room’ with him, Jerry again I swiped a perfect half circle down on her cheeks and Barney and our local sheriff, John ‘I-blink-a-little-to-hard-for- dragged the leather off her to complete a tight spiral. most-folks-tastes’ Guilds. All good men, men I knew pretty well, Executing violence in my sexual play wasn’t something new even though we had never shared a beer and I was one of the for me, but how I was reconciling it to the current charnel house only bachelors over thirty in this town. Men who had heard I reality I was involved in was something heady to be sure. I could was kind of an amateur psychic (very amateur and quite rationalize with the best of them, especially with blood rushing unproven in the light of day). out of my big head to feed the smaller one, but I was getting twinges, hints, little psyche ‘knock on the door’ that maybe, just maybe…. TWISTED TONGUE 47 One again I lifted the whip, readying to overlap my last two knew, but I’d believe it for at least long enough to disprove it. spirals with another and yet another… Again the tight arc, the We all make deals with ourselves that cut deeper then any deal spiral, the execution of the half around held me in an ecstasy we would ever make with Lucifer. greater then any Samantha would later coax with her skilled What I didn’t count on is that in a town as small and tongue. quartered as ours there is plenty of ‘Johnny-and-Jamie’s’ next- “Too fucking soon,” Mayor Frank was saying over his door indulging in spirals a lot deeper or tighter circled then mine. Starbuck’s decafe. Even in a town as small as ours the popular “It’s not a seniority test,” Frank said through the window of ubber-coffee house had found a home. the U-Haul. “What’s Sheriff Guilds th…” “I know,” I said as the kind man’s blue eyes bore into me. “… too fucking soon,” Mayor Frank cut me off and I had to It had been months since I’d seen Frank’s eyes even carry follow him outside as he took his coffee to the brick sidewalk. half of this lustre. The two more murdered kids had killed any “I brought you in, you’re on my dime now,” he began as we sparkle he had carried for this town, his job, his life here (please came to stand on the street. “This kid was one of the Brady clan. don’t ask me to tell you about the marks they found on those last Do you know how much pop her old man has?” two, the marks went way beyond well-grooved circles, believe “I…” me) I had heard of the Bradys but really didn’t know much more Frank’s not the only one moving, but he was one of the last beyond reputation. Some other spud would have thought Mayor holdouts from the mass exodus. He kept at it as long as he could, Frank insensitive but I knew the guy enough to know that this trying to convince himself that we didn’t have an evil in our latest murder, occurring as it had not more then three days from midst so hungry that we couldn’t do anything to battle it except little Jenny Kenny’s had the guy-and the town-in a freaking run from it. If my stilted and brittle spy abilities are good for tailspin! nothing else (and I have been questioning what the hell they are Benita Brady was seven. good for, believe me) at least they have helped me ‘feel’ the evil. “You said you’d ‘give you a couple days,’” he pressed turning “This is my home Frank,” I said, trying to sound defiant and his blotchy wide face to me. sympathetic at the same time. “Yeah I …” I stuttered, trying to bide time. “This is no-one’s home anymore,” he said, extended his “… they’ve got Feds scheduled tomorrow,” he spat. “This hand through the window and I shook it. Releasing my hand, fucking town is up for grabs now.” Frank turned to his wife in the passenger seat, looked over his How could I explain that I knew all too well what this guy-or shoulder at his two quarrelling yet as-of-now safe kids in the girl (I had to consider the possibility the killer could be a woman, back then put the truck in gear and sped out of town. a woman could easily overpower kids as young as these)-was up I knew I wasn’t, but I felt pretty much alone. Ironic as it was, to; that I suspected that he or she was after the form, the I knew the place was safe now; my ego wasn’t such to convince movement, the tight turning. How did I explain how I knew this, me that the thing could sustain itself on just my activities alone how I had come to need this myself? (besides what activities were left to me with Carol and Samantha How I feared that somehow I was responsible. moved out of town and Eva coaxing me more and more over to Remember “The Tempest”, Forbidden Planet? The Id, sexual her place?). That week the girls were out of my life the thing had heat is and can be responsible for many a wandering. In the fever continued to kill. The Feds’d be chasing their tails as long as they nights of our aching over what we need, for what gets us hard, stayed. stains our panties, makes us beat-off incessantly, even with mom Maybe Randolph is on a fisher of some kind, maybe the in the next room, those thoughts, those deep belly desires are so monster decided to live and breed among us for no reason then powerful I truly believed I had created a monster I had loosed on it got tired after all the searching it had done through millennia. Randolph township. How could I get the Mayor to believe me Maybe I was just a ‘filling station’ for the initial killings, my when I really didn’t believe myself, but suspected I might? I truly spirals nothing much more then an interesting fact the killer had no further explanation for what the fuck the killer was up to smelled on the wind and used to announce: “Here I am!”. Or cutting circles in our kids after they were strangled, but I feared maybe those cuts meant nothing more or nothing less then a with my own late night munching on Carol or my whipping of terrible desecration and once again my ego was pulling on my Samantha, or Eva’s quick cupping that I was pushing limits sanity (wouldn’t be the first time). The last two kids certainly here…not to mention tempting my luck. Was my animus loosed bore a more ‘graduated’ signature, one even the F.B.I. had been on our unsuspected little enclave, with my signature spiral the sickened witnessing. telltale sign? There seems to be enough sexual grooving happening in our Or was I just being paranoid and loosing my little grip on little tree-lined community to keep the dog barking for as long as sanity? it likes. That urge to couple is a strong one and the particular way Carol called on Saturday morning to confirm our date for we humans do it has been fodder for countless books, subject of that night. Somehow I managed to convince her I really was sick. innumerable seminars, fuel for late-night arguments and seeds of I heard it in her voice of course, what little self-esteem the girl break-ups. Our needs, our deep fantasies, our animus is a mustered was straining under the rumours she was hearing about powerful force that has led from tears to destruction; Randolph me seeing Samantha-that big blonde from two counties over-and Township just saw a little smidgen of that hurricane. the truth she knew about Eva. Last thing I wanted to do was fuel Maybe we got off easy, to think about it. a competition, but I couldn’t see Carol, nor Samantha or Eva for Eva is scissoring her long bare legs over my head. While I that matter, until this thing was figured out. have never really considered sexual asphyxia, the rush I am With the girls settled as much as I could settle them I took to feeling now, the pull of my balls and the jolt of steel in my cock the task of contemplating how I was going to catch this killer. are unlike anything I have felt before. Three kids were dead and other then the spirals left on their little And Eva’s sweet hips are turning so slowly I’m connected bodies there was nothing else to go on. again. So what did I go on? My theory, crazy as it was, was that since I created the killer-I © Ralph Greco, Jr. was his Doctor Frankenstein, his Morpheus-if I held my libido in check, literally didn’t take my cock out for a while maybe he’d stop his roaming. Does this sound nuts? Yeah, I know it does, Ralph Greco, Jr. is an internationally published author of but at least the week gave me time to think about the killer, short stories, plays, essays, button slogans, 800# phone consider what he had done so far and what he might get into sex scripts, children’s songs and SEO copy. Ralph is also an ASCAP licensed songwriter/performer and Internet next. At least I knew, in my own little perverted way, I wouldn’t radio D.J. He lives in the wilds of suburban NJ, where he be contributing this week; the wacko would have no sexual spiral attempts to keep his ever-expanding ego in check. energy to draw from me. This was pure horror comic drivel I

TWISTED TONGUE 48 Sleeping Stones Jutter Caine

here was an ear-piercing scream, so loud that Jentry spun the police car fast. He and Paul ran to the sound which changed into, “He’s dead, it killed him.” they reached a woman on her knees sobbing. Jentry got her under control, “Here now what happened?” T “We were walking through the park, we stopped under that tree, we were talking, then the sky grew dark, and the tree lashed out. Tentacles writhing, it grabbed Frank. It ate him, turned him into part of it.” “What was it?” “All I saw was blackness, and eyes, and mouths, then voices, they said Young, the young, of the black goat, the goat of the woods, then they were silent, and Frank was gone. The tree became a rock, Frank became stones imbedded in it, and still I hear him screaming.” Paul’s light shined on the rock twenty feet tall, with a pattern of stones in the shape and size of a man. Fused to one stone was a gold watch and a wedding band. The ambulance took her away, Jentry said, “Poor girl, well the doctors will see if she is high, and on what drug, lets get back to the car. Paul turned nodded then glanced at the rock, a pair of eyes opened in the head. Paul never returned to the squad car, and when Jentry looked for him he saw two images of stone men in the rock, so natural it was as if formed that way.

Jutter Caine the horror cat that sits by a door is the pen name of Sir Christopher Stewart star of the movie Pentangle and author of two books of poetry ‘A Knight's Grotto’ and ‘Rebecca’ available at www.authorhouse.com or through your local book store by request.

A Moral of Utility John Mark Hauer

lifted Kellputty the tabby’s fluffily shedding tail and inserted beneath it, a virgin #2 pencil. The old cat purred. Disgusting. Once the beloved feline friend of Lillith Skrimm, the original owner of “Skrimm’s Books & Curiousities”, Kellputty now occupied her time I standing stiffly at the corner of the immense oak desk that squats near the front entrance of the shop, waiting to be made useful. In case you haven’t guessed it, Kellputty is a defunct cat. Indeed, she hasn’t drawn a living breath in the 30 odd years Aunt Lillith has allowed me to function as intern? Employed beggar? Servant? Whatever… Anyway, Aunt Lillith could not bear to be parted from the venerable old mouser when it passed to that great field of catnip in the sky. However, Lillith Skrimm was no mere romantic or sentimentalist. There was steel in her spine. She was also a firm believer in the philosophies of John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism. Simply because the cat was dead did NOT mean she should idle about eternity being useless. No … she must earn her keep in death as she had in life. After having Kellputty stuffed by the local taxidermist, Aunt Lillith had tiny roller skates attached to all four feet. Unfortunately, the old cat tended to list if pushed too energetically. And there was the problem of actually catching the mice … various adhesives were tried, but failed. And it wasn’t until Aunt Lillith had her 4th sherry by noon she had the brainstorm of having an electric pencil sharpener sewn into the body cavity of her old friend. After all, you could always lay poison for mice. So often, solutions simply suggest themselves… And so, life, while not exactly tripping merrily along, did advance with a certain affability, until that rainy morning when Aunt Lillith herself rattled her last over the dregs of her afternoon sherry and I was in the uncomfortable position of calling the ambulance. At the funeral I could not help but notice how, well, unsettled with her lot Aunt Lillith appeared. Perhaps later I could have her bronzed? Perhaps she would enjoy eternity as a coat rack? Or, given the pains she had caused me … bent over for eternity as a sternly efficient bicycle rack? Time for sherry! Decisions, decisions! Drat! Broke my pencil! Purrrrr

What can be said about J.Mark Hauer that hasn't already been said? Adventurer, bon vivant, raconteur, conman, lord of darkness, Don Juan? None of these terms have ever been used in the same breath describing this fellow, unless it the author's own hot air that supplies the loft. Supernaturally handsome, yet balding and short-sighted and prone to fleshiness, J. Mark Hauer lives in a small flat in Huntsville, Al. (in the past, he has also lived on friends' couches in several northern states). In spite of a BA in Anthropology (something about as marketable and useful as a vermiform appendix in the job market- or a degree in Public Speaking) he works only fitfully at locating employment suitable for a gentleman genetically gifted only for leisure. He does, however, rise from his habitual torpor to write for a good 2 hrs every day. He is also fascinated by Yoseikan Aikido, a martial art style that keeps him humble and bruised. One can usually find him haunting the library, the bookstore, or, the coffee-shop. He also plays a mean 5 string banjo, a so-so guitar, and trained briefly with 2nd City Improv in Chicago, Il. He is a habitual and tiresome liar. His past publications include Twisted Tongue, Surreal Magazine, Midwest Literary Magazine, Edgar Literary magazine, Goblin Fruit... and several others he will only admit to under alcoholic duress.

TWISTED TONGUE 49 The Last River Pain E. N. De Choudens E. N. De Choudens

I am standing alone Red! At the edge of the mystic river One tear Drop of life Cold waters wash my feet Mirror of pain The sky is dark Blood No moon or stars © E. N. De Choudens A dense mist Covers the surface I can’t see the other side The Shadow of the Night E. N. De Choudens Where A mystery land lays In the middle of Dark horizon The darkness realm Closing, surrounding

A distant sound Chaos, hopeless Travel in the wind Guiding his way

Someone is calling my name Chasing, claiming Someone is waiting me Found me

At the shore Struggling, bounding The old boat is ready to go Taking

I search in my pocket My tears fall The money for the tip A devilish laugh

Because My life is gone The old ferryman My soul is lost I need to please © E. N. De Choudens He is going to take me To the dammed land The Call of the Dark Now E. N. De Choudens My last journey has begun I’m crossing the waters Of the river Styx Searching for my salvation Endless sorrow all my life My soul is going To its final place My impurity existence While I will enter Push me into the obscurity Into the land of the dead Of infinitive pain

I close my eyes I want to escape Searching for reason From this madness The author has Of my own Hell publications in the genera of Sci-fi, horror I beg forgiveness and erotica. Some of In vain, I know The purgatory for a living dead his published works can be founded in Crawling chains Fighting, running Black Petals, Sound of Embrace of hell All in vain the night, Beyond Centaury, Scifaikuest, Eternal fate I’m chained Sinister Tales, Blood I’m bound Moon Rising, the My endless death Justus Roux's Erotic tales web-site and © E. N. De Choudens I succumb to the dark others. He lives in Columbia Maryland © E. N. De Choudens with his wife and his two kids.

TWISTED TONGUE 50 “Well ya gunna have a drink or stand in my fuckin’ door all Swastikas and Boobies day,” the bartender barks. Not wasting any more time I sprint to Adrian Alldredge the bar. The building is about the size of four cubicles. The bar and stools take up almost half the space. On the far side is another y face impacts the sidewalk. I thought it was moving aluminium door. I hope it’s a bathroom. Big red banners line the faster than usual. Struggling against gravity and walls and lead down to a small stage. More sideways Zs and big M alcohol, I slowly upright myself. The pain in my face eagle designs adorn them. The stage is little more than a soap reminds me of the first date with my wife—ex-wife. One shaky box with some red curtains behind. I don’t really know how a step at a time, I position myself in front of the nearest window. band can perform on it; but the bar is decorated in the bands It’s dirty and hard to see my reflection clearly, but between my designs, so this must be where they typically play. In between the black hair and pale complexion, my giant red nose glows like a band’s banners are framed news clippings. Based on how big the stoplight. Trying to get a closer look at my injury, I lean towards word Nazi is, I assume they are all from world war two. Maybe the window. Unfortunately, walking isn’t all that’s affected the bartender’s a veteran. adversely by alcohol. If my head had been a rock, or at least I take the nearest empty stool. Well, the only empty stool. actually made of stone, it would have broken through. I use the The tiny, rusted legs squeak as I sit down. The black leather brief moment of clarity from two hits to the face and a deep covering is torn and almost all of the padding is gone; except one breath to regain my posture and collect my belongings— big chunk that forces me to sit at an angle. I lean forward and belonging. I pick up my fedora, give it a quick dust and return it rest my elbows on the bar. Plywood, or something cheaper. to my head. Pausing briefly to take another deep breath, I “Names Otto, what’ll ya have, mister…” contemplate my recent stupidity. I guess she was right. I need a “Well hello good sir Otto, I will take a scotch, neat. And as drink. And with my newfound clarity I realise I have no idea for my name, I was christened…” where I am. “Easy guy, I’m not gunna toss ya just cus you’re drunk If not for the garbage, the street and sidewalks would be already.” empty. Small buildings line both sides, but most are vacant. “Thangahd you guys ROCK you know THAT. Murals of elaborate spray paint designs serve as the only colour aaaanywhooooo ma names Chesser, chesserthemelesser, HA.” on the drab brick buildings. Another block down the road an For some reason I find that very funny. unused overpass looms over a solitary building. Completely “Man you’re loaded.” Otto’s all too true statement makes me engulfed by the shadow of it, the building is barely visible. But laugh even harder. “Have some more, brother.” He grabs a through the darkness shines a beacon. A single red and blue plastic bottle and a shot glass. There are no markings, but I can neon sign that reads: Bar Open. What luck. Like The American smell the brown liquid a foot or so away. Whisky, strong; and Cross answering the Cross call, I move swiftly and with purpose. without a thought I nock it back. My eyes tear up and the As I get closer, the small, square building emerges from the burning in my throat forces out a PUH. shadows. Before I know it I’m standing outside the little bar “Not usually a drinker, uh?” Otto says with a chuckle. trying to catch my breath. Gasping for air like a fat man in a “Yeah well, it’s complicated.” My best Bogart impression marathon I think to myself, why did I run? I can’t even go a helps me speak clearly. block without getting winded; worthless. Alone, my will to drink “Life’s like that, lay it on me,” He encourages my story with allows me to push on. a free drink. The twins continue to silently stare. The truth hurts The ‘Bar Open’ sign is nailed into the brick wall a foot or so too much to think about, so I do what any drunk asshole would from the door, and is plugged into an extension cord that runs to do. another building. The door to the bar is a little smaller than “Well you see,” I lie, “I used to work for a big time law normal and looks like it was taken from a trailer. It’s metal, firm.” maybe aluminium, with many dents and dings and almost no “Used to?” paint. Drudging up more painful memories, the knob hangs “Yeah, for ten fucking years.” flaccid out of the hole. Useless—that’s what she said. “Whatcha do?” I put my hand on the door and push. It flies open out of “Refused to defend a baby raper.” control, and hits the wall with a force that shakes the building. I Not even close. I got drunk and called my female boss. I also take a large step through the threshold and strike a pose out of a wasn’t a lawyer and it wasn’t a law firm. western. “Thems tha breaks man but…” “Give me a fucking drink.” That’s what I wanted to say but “My wife left me,” it came out a little more like, “GiB mEE uh Fukskin dink.” The “Oh, shit.” three large men in the bar respond only with stares. “Twenty years man, and she leaves with some French If the bartender had hair it would touch the ceiling. Instead asshole.” his head is covered with intricate Celtic tattoos. With such a She left with my sister. worn face I would peg him around fifty. He has a goatee with a “Sorry man.” single braid and a few ear piercings. Although massive, you “Not as sorry as he was, he left with a busted jaw.” couldn’t call him fat. All muscle and almost as thick as he is tall. My sister threw a dildo at me for not knocking and it hit me His white wife-beater is covered in various stains and he keeps in the eye. I ran out crying. an apron with some dirty towels around his waist. He continues “Hell yeah, nothin’ like punchin’ a Frenchman,” He can to clean a glass as he stares. barely keep back his excitement. Just as the silence begins to get too uncomfortable, the “And…” bartender lets out a deep rumbling laugh. “And? There’s more?” One of the twins asks in a gruff voice. “Shit kid, ya scared tha piss out’a me,” he says as he “My mom… died.” continues to laugh. “C’mon, tell me whatcha need.” After what happened I went to my mom’s house, and caught The other two men gesture me to the bar. These two are her with my boss. They played the message I left, and took turns identical. Five nothing, round and head to toe in leather. Long making fun of me. I ran out crying; again. She’s dead to me. dirty blonde hair sticks out form their leather beanies; it is wily “When I got the news she had a heart attack, I couldn’t take and hangs loose just past their ‘ZZ Top’ beards. Underneath anymore and jumped into a bottle of rum.” their jackets, each wares a red t-shirt with some black writing: The rum parts true. Fourth something, their beards block the rest. Must be a metal “Here’s to shitty days,” Otto throws down a few more band; and the sideways ‘Zs’ on their arms is probably the band’s glasses and fills them, “All you, brother.” He pushes the shots logo. Maybe they are ‘Fourth Something’. Cool, I get to drink towards me and gives me a nod. with rock stars.

TWISTED TONGUE 51 One after the other, I pour the brown fire down my throat. This is why I don’t drink After too many to count, I slam down the last. The glass impacts “Ha, you’re a crazy bastard you know that? Names Helmut; the counter with a force that rumbles the bar around me. sorry I gave ya a bit of the Amish treatment but I wasn’t sure “Guten abend,” A sweet voice sings from nowhere. about ya.” He offers me is hand. I take it. “And this is my Someone’s at the door. brother Adolph.” It had started raining since I entered the bar, and she was Silent, the furthest twin raises his glass in acknowledgement. soaked. She stands in the doorway and flapping her hat to get it “So what kind of music do you play?” I ask like a schoolboy. dry. This lets her golden hair flow out and drape over her chest “Wha…” accentuating every feature. A tight, black, leather jacket hugs The door to the bathroom flies open, almost through the every curve down to her waist. A belt of chain loosely circles her, wall. Otto storms back in. My angel follows close behind hanging slightly on one side. As she flings her hat down my eyes stopping in the doorway. follow. Her skirt is black leather and is just long enough to be “Thanks,” Otto quietly says walking back behind the bar. considered clothing. Black fishnets leading down to thick leather A big smile returns to my angels face. Again, our eyes meet. boots cover the rest of her long perfect legs. She is a goddess. As she slinks back into the bathroom a finger sensually gestures I try to play it cool and not look too long, but like everything me to follow. else I try—I fail. “All you, brother.” With a smirk, Otto flicks his head in “You’re late,” Otto says in an oddly serious tone. encouragement. “Give it a rest Otto. I got into a fight with one of the other I stand up too fast. I miss the stool on the way back down. girls at the club and almost killed the bitch. I’m lucky I’m not in With a thud, I land hard; and am almost instantly back on my fuckin’ jail right now.” Most of the words escape me as I am lost feet. The bar erupts in laughter and cheers. in the angelic melody of her voice. She walks over and throws “To tomorrow.” Otto pours twice as many shots as people. her wet hat on the bar. “C’mon where’s my drink?” The Angel I ignore it all and move with purpose. looks deep into my eyes and smiles. Her eyes are of the most “Go easy on him Ingrid, I think our Bogies new to this.” glorious green, a pure and perfect colour. Goose bumps cover Their laughter is drowned out as I close the bathroom door my body. behind me. “Here ya go Chevette,” Otto hands her a cocktail as he holds And there she stands. My Angel. back his laughter. “What’s your name stranger?” Her full lips accentuate every “Ugh, don’t call me that,” She rolls her eyes in disgust, takes word as she gazes into me. the drink and pounds it. “What’s your name stranger?” Full, Everything is spinning and my legs feel weak. Walking with pouty lips frame her perfect smile as she eagerly awaits my her hips, every part of her sensually sways. My head grows light response. as if all the blood were rushing out at once. “Eh, After.” Otto points at the stage as they lock eyes. My mouth trembles. “I lo…” “Aye, aye Admiral,” She snaps up strait and salutes. “Shhh.” She puts a finger on my lips. “No talking, its fun “How many fu…” time.” She takes my hand. So soft. “Here,” Moving my hand for “Eh, just payin’ ya back.” Taking great pride in her victory me, she pulls it up to her jacket zipper. she quickly turns and skips to the stage. A pack of stampeding gazelle has taken residence in my Otto, who was formerly speechless, breaks out into stomach. The deafening thump of my heart silences the zipper as boisterous laughter. He turns and flips a switch on the wall as I I return it to the end of the alphabet. Sticking out her chest, she turn to the stage, and the bar goes black. lets the jacket fall to the floor. A single light clunks on, and my angel stands, glowing centre Taking my eyes from hers, I run them down the supple skin stage. A classical piano sets the mood with a few soft notes and of her neck. She isn’t wearing a bra and her large breasts hang is soon accompanied by a tambourine. I recognise this song. free. Round, perky and full they are perfect. A little slice of Then, an angel sings. heaven you can bury your face in. Her pale skin accentuates the “Tonto el que no entienda.” Sings like no other. Her voice black swastika tattoos that cover each nipple and most of her carries throughout my body and I feel a surge of energy. I feel breasts. alive. After a few beautiful yet in-comprehendible verses the “Uh, wait, are thosh shwaskikas?” I ask very confused. tempo crescendos into the chorus. “Yeah, cool, huh? I thought it would be a fun tribute to our “Hijo de la Luna.” movement.” She giddily shakes them as she says this. Behind me, the tink of a glass hitting the bar grabs my “Butthat woulds makes yousa…” I try to take a moment to attention. Otto dropped it and is heading to the bathroom. When ponder my situation, but before I can, my mouth speaks without the door is closed behind him I lean over to the closest twin. permission, “…Fucks it.” I pull her close. She takes my hat and “Hey, where’s Osttos goesin’?” The alcohol overcomes my puts it on her head; wraps her arms around my neck and leans in acting talent. for a kiss. The gazelle run faster. “This song always gets to him.” He responds in the same I throw her to the side, and make a mad dash for the nearest gruff voice. stall. Unable to hold back the tidal wave of partially consumed “Why? Icantevens understands tha words.” alcohol and burritos, I paint the otherwise clean bathroom an “None of us can.” unappealing colour. “So?” “Oh, shit darlin’ you okay?” She asks genuinely concerned. “It was his wife’s favourite song.” “Of course darlin’,” Without taking my head out of the “Don’t gets me starteds on wives.” toilet, I give her a thumbs up. “Ha, no numb nuts, he loved … loves his wife. More than The door to the bathroom flies open and an odd commotion anything.” can be heard outside. One of the twins says something to my “So … how’d she die?” angel. The music stops playing and the lights slowly come back up A gun shot? in the bar. The twin’s footsteps are hard as he runs ferociously. “If you don’t want to listen to me, get the fuck out. Don’t “Shit, no, no, no. Get up. We’ve got trouble.” Her talk through a performance, what the hell is wrong with you?” demeanour has completely changed. This is serious. She needs Before I can think of an answer she asks, “Aw, did Otto walk me. out again?” Concerned, she steps down from the stage and walks “My Angle, howsmays I serves you?” I hop up and chase her over to the bathroom, knocks, then goes inside. out of the bathroom. As I come through the door she comes up “So how’d she die?” unfazed, I ask again as soon as she is from behind the bar; flame-thrower in hand. out of sight. “You’re a crazy bastard you know that?” She tosses me an “Muder.” AK-47. “Dun, Dun, Dun.” Defiantly gun shots. Lots of them. TWISTED TONGUE 52 “This ends here, Baxter,” I can hear Otto yelling from out “Holy shit,” An officer gets caught off guard. Otto makes front. My Angel and I take cover by the door. short work of him. The cop’s gun fires wildly as he falls; and The twins both lie in small puddles of their own blood. Not Otto moves on to the next target. The power of love. yet dead but soon will be. Otto crouches behind the front of a “Dad, were coming,” My Angel runs out from behind me. squad car. Clutching a large red combat knife, he looks like he Still topless, she strapped on the flame thrower. With tears in her dipped his arms into a big bucket of paint. A cop and his partner eyes, she runs manically into the fray. Too drunk to know better, hang lifelessly out of the cruiser. Those two responded first. I follow right behind. Poor bastards got too close. My Angel and Otto fight efficiently and with skill. I’m not Further down the street the police have set up a blockade. even sure where my bullets are going. But I feel powerful. Step Three cars out front and two behind. Officers line the far side of for step I follow behind my Angel, spitting hell all the way. As the front three cars. Guns pointed our way. Otto hacks like a lumberjack through a forest, Baxter retreats. “Otto, be careful,” My angel yells out the door. My Angel and I flank, sticking him between a torch and a “Just stay inside darlin’,” He doesn’t take his eyes off the tall blender. He fires a few wild shots at Otto, who seemingly dodges officer in the middle. them. Baxter’s attention and gun swing towards us. My gun ran “Oh, look who’s all grown up. You remember me dontcha out of ammo a long time ago, but that doesn’t stop me from darlin’?” Hiding behind three cop cars and more armed officers pulling the trigger. Over the clicking of an empty clip, I hear a than I can count, the tall officer projects his weaselly voice hissing, then a scream. through a megaphone. From this distance I can only see his gray “No, Daddy I don….” Baxter hit one of my Angel’s tanks. suit and the clown like smile on his face. She sprouts wings of fire; and on them, flies to heaven. Never “Quiet Baxter before I cut out your cock sucker.” Otto’s again would I love like that. rage burns brightly. Hidden by the chaos, Otto pounces on his prey. He disarms “Still bitter about the past, Admiral?” Baxter’s voice is him. He cuts tendons in the wrist, making Baxter’s hand useless. unbearable. He punishes him. Like a surgeon of pain he removes a few “I’d be bitter if ya scratched ma car. YOU murdered my wife pieces, nothing important. Otto grabs Baxter by his scrawny and son.” neck and pushes him up against a cruiser. “YOU are scum; nothing. Do you not understand? You can’t “You’ve destroyed my life. If I had known The Freedom murder scum anymore than you can rape the willing.” Fighter would ever have a prick son like you, I would’a killed ‘em “Women and children are off limits. Taking off the mask when I had the chance; or begged your mother to get an doesn’t change that. Your father knew the code. So wh…” abortion.” He emphasizes his anger with saliva. “Don’t talk about my father. He was a fool with a bath towel “Do it, and watch the hell it brings to…” wrapped around his neck. Now that he’s dead, I can do the work The knife slides effortlessly through the soft skin behind the that needs to be done; and get the freaks off the street.” chin. Otto shuts Baxter up forever; and the gazelles start “Luna was a paralegal and Jacob was just beginning to drive. running, again. Why did they have to die?” “We wouldn’t want anyone alive to seek vengeance for dear © Adrian Alldredge old dad, now would we? Besides, it was fun.” “I will carve their names into your corpse; but before I let you die you’ll be beggin’ tha devil to let you live, and I’ll say no.” Adrian Alldredge, was born in Panama City, FL. He has

“But why not say yes. Your wife said it. Over and over; until been writing bizarre nonsense since he could hold a pen and it always had him in trouble (mostly with teachers). He has I slit her throat from behind.” only recently felt his writing was decent enough to be With a roar that makes my heart stop, Otto dashes from public, so Swastikas and Boobies will be his first work to be around the car. With a speed I’ve never seen, He makes it to the published. blockade unscathed. The power of hate.

Back to Writing P.S. Gifford

As I sit here at my cluttered desk, my creativity screams forth to escape my mind's eye. To live on, perhaps for all eternity, in written form. With computer like precision my mind began to tick. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Submerging me further into my delightful madness, and distancing me from the delusion of reality, bringing me nearer that mystical point of no return. Sent to friends- both real and imagined- the internet captures every illusion, conjured by my creative spirit, and thrust forth through the cosmos, To be read by someone just like you....

www.psgifford.com

TWISTED TONGUE 53 Federal Plaza Calvin Seen

hat a day, I am graduating, top of my class in chemistry and electronics and it’s my birthday. Feeling like I am capable of anything, I attend the ceremony for a few minutes and then drive off in to the forest to a latch on the ground. I open it and jump in to my W private workshop and start working on my project. A few hours go by and my project is completed. It is time to pick my daughter up from school. After picking her up, we laugh as we invent jokes on the way home. Upon arrival at home, my wife hosts a party for my graduation and birthday. It is crudely interrupted, when my door is rammed down by uniformed men as my wife and daughter shriek. With rifles aimed at us they yell: “On the floor!” and we all did as they confiscate my firearms. When they were done it looked like a tornado went through my house. Angered by the hostility of the government, I remember how I use to be proud to say the Pledge of Allegiance, believing in my country and its values of freedom. After they removed the right to bear arms from the Constitution, I regret ever serving my country as a soldier. Deciding that I need some time alone, I hug my terrified wife and kids and stop by my workshop again to dress up and finish my party on my own at Federal Plaza. I exit the taxi and fold a piece of gum in to my mouth. Chewing my gum nervously I look up at all the windows of the twelve story federal building towering over me. What a beautifully constructed building, I commend the architects who constructed this structure. In awe of what a human is capable of, I watch crowds of people walk by. On the outside I look like a business man. But under my suit is a vest with hooks and twisted wires stringing together bricks of semtex strapped tightly around my chest. Years of education and hands on experience have allowed me to build such a remarkable device. With enough explosives to destroy the frame of the building so it crumbles, I become nauseated by the responsibility and puke on to the floor. I regain my composure and fix my tie, surprised at how my vest is unnoticeable. Sweating profusely and trying to focus on the mass murder of federal agents and the disintegration of the building, I forget that it’s my birthday and remind myself to take it easy. Now forty feet away from the building, I think about the deaths of women and children in the plaza; does sending this message out to the nation, that I will not tolerate violation of my rights, justify their deaths? Then again collateral damage is all a part of war. I look for the most effective spot to detonate my vest and try to imagine the blast radius. The sun sets behind the building, tinting the entire plaza grey. As I swallow my spit I head towards the spot. Halfway to the spot; I wonder: will I go to heaven or hell? After my final step, my thumb hovers over the detonator. A mother and daughter pass by me and my own family flashes into my mind. I can’t do it. What if they were my wife and daughter? Turning my back against the building I walk away when SUVs screech to a stop in front of me and I am surrounded. They open there doors and aim their guns at me, “Federal Agents! Hands in the Air!” as civilians run away from the scene. I can see the barrel of a rifle sticking out of the high rise window across the street. If I raise my hands to surrender they will see the detonator tied to my palm and the sniper will surely shoot me in the head. What choice do I have now? Either way I am going to die today. I smirk and sing: “Happy Birthday to me … Happy Birthday dear….”

Calvin Seen is 25 and is an anti-conformist from Urbana, MD USA. He believes self influence is the key to freedom. He will defend what he feels strongly to the grave. Some of his works can be found at: http://calvinseen.wordpress.com/

The Creeping Shadow Jason Brawn

ucy sat facing her reflection, on the dresser, waiting for someone. It was during the early hours of the morning, and her perfume was sprinkled over her neck. But she didn’t have any make-up applied. Just perfect for her date. L She waited and waited for his arrival. She even looked out the French doors and still no sign. Then she closed them, after failing to resist the intruding draft. Lucy returned to her seat and resumed waiting. Then, the door handle aggressively moved downwards. Lucy jerked a little, watching her bedroom door, from the mirror, as it opened quietly and in crept an elongated shadow. She continued watching her intruder’s shadow lingering towards her and then it stopped. Lucy smelled its breath and heard its heavy breathing, as it was hungry for her. She also felt its cold and tendril fingers rubbing her shoulders, turning her on. When she got up and turned - A pale and almost-rotted corpse, gingerly cupped her chin with his flaky skin. His ripped clothes were stained with soil and debris. But it didn’t stop her from kissing him, forming a passionate embrace, as this would be the third consecutive night that they made love, since her husband’s death!

Jason D. Brawn lives in London and his short stories have appeared in Horror Zine, WeirdYear, Deathhead Grin, Deadlines, House of Horror and more stories forthcoming in The Third BHF Book of Horror, Estronomicon, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Daily Flash: 365 Days of Flash Fiction Anthology, Daily Bites of Flesh: 365 Days of Flash Fiction Anthology and Daily Flashes of Erotica: 365 Days of Flash Fiction Anthology. Jason also appears as a raver in the Hammer Horror webserial, Beyond the Rave, now out on DVD.

TWISTED TONGUE 54 The Blue Man Dreams the End of Time Michael McIrvin

PUBLISHED BY BEWRITE BOOKS

Page Count: 242 ISBN: (paperback) 978-1906609344 Paperback: £7.99

Sonny, a drunken convenience store clerk living uneasily in a relationship with twin sisters, woke up naked and blue. Not sad, but actually blue from head to toe. A warped warning from a former CIA colleague? A message from a deranged hit man that he and those he loves are marked for death? Or is his blueness a more invidious omen? Sonny’s search for answers will lead him to a perverse reconciliation with his former bloody role in geopolitics—and his destiny—on the bloody trail to Chiapas. Along the way he will befriend a people struggling to survive, reconsider the nature of terrorism and the drug trade, and decipher an ancient Mayan vision of the end of time. He will also meet another former CIA operative who doubles as a jaguar shaman, a Mayan holy man whose prophesies include Sonny, and a mysterious boy whose role in his people’s future is both mythic and deadly. Sonny’s flashbacks to his gore-stained government work in Mesoamerica, including the act for which he was ‘excommunicated’, constitute proof of power’s inhumanity, but his darkest revelation is that violence and greed are the true mechanisms of history. Michael McIrvin’s high-octane, intelligent novel is an immaculately researched, powerful indictment of brutal counterintelligence, including torture and murder, an exploration of how ends are achieved by a nation-state. This book, not merely about Mesoamerica or the recent past, is frightenly timely.

PDF Ebook (limited offer only from www.bewrite.net) £1.00 All other ebook formats from www.smashwords.com £6.00

Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all other major online stores, on order from your local high street bookshop or direct from www.bewrite.net

TWISTED TONGUE 55 TWISTED TONGUE 56 with a pair of the latest locks. They would be impossible to pick, Long Live the King! even if I could find a way out of the ropes. Sean Greenhill The only things on the desk were Jill’s breasts and the broken pieces of the telephone that Oscar had been hitting Jimmy with, and although I didn’t have any great hopes, I aking up beside a dead body isn’t something that decided to check the drawers for an envelope opener, or happens to many people. I’d done it twice now, and it anything else that might help with the ropes. I half-shuffled, half- W wasn’t getting any easier. Drummond had been shot hopped my way to the desk. I was doing okay until I landed in a through the forehead, and died instantly. I came to facing him, pool of Jill’s blood and my shoes lost their grip. and his dull, lifeless eyes stared into mine, shocked and surprised. I sipped sideways and fell, hitting my head on the corner of “You should have just told them the truth, Jimmy,” I the desk as I went down, and lost consciousness for the third croaked. “You should have just told them the truth. If I’d been time today as I hit the floor. I was still alone when I came to in your place, I would have.” again, which was a good start, but the clock on the wall told me Not that it would have helped him. I’d known it the minute it was after four thirty, which meant that Oscar would be back at Oscar walked in with Harry and George the Greek, his two any minute, unless he was stuck in traffic, or English Bob had thugs. He’d had his killing face on, and only one thing was going given him trouble. to make it go away. Maybe Jimmy had seen it too. Maybe that’s For my sake, I hoped both. why he decided go out like a hero by lying to Oscar. Who As I struggled to sit up against the desk my head swum, and knows? I heard the unmistakable sound of metal dropping onto concrete My hands and feet were both tied, my hands behind my echoing inside the warehouse. I froze and listened as hard as I back, and I sat up awkwardly against the wall of the office. The could, unsure if I’d really heard it, or was just imaging it. clock told me it was just after three in the afternoon. I’d been out “You okay, Collins?” I heard a man’s voice call out faintly. for at least six hours. “Yeah, yeah,” another man’s voice answered, closer than the “You bought me some time, Jimmy, but he’ll be back soon,” first. “There’s just shit all over the place.” There was a pause and I told him. “Seven hours to get there and back. Hour to find then I heard him speak again. “Hey, Powers!” he said. “Get your English Bob and work out that you lied to him.” I sighed and arse over here. It looks like there’s an office or something back nodded. “Yes, he’ll be back. He’ll be back and he’ll be pissed and here.” he’ll kill me.” I waited as I heard two sets of heavy footprints come closer I was not actually scared of dying. Don’t get me wrong, I’m and wondered who it was. Not Oscar, obviously, or anyone else not stupid, or some sort of meathead, and there’s plenty left I’d who knew what was good for them, otherwise they wouldn’t be like to do, but I figure that it happens to everyone eventually. in one of Jimmy’s warehouses without his permission. The When it’s your time to go, there’s not a whole lot you can do doorknob rattled and then stopped. about it really. “We’ll have to get a warrant,” the one called Collins said. What I was scared of, was how long it would take me to die, “Call it in.” because I knew what Oscar was capable of. Shit, I’d taught him “Can’t,” Powers replied. “No reception. Roof must be made half of what he knows about torture, and he’d been more than of iron or something.” eager to learn. Too much cocaine meant he couldn’t perform in I didn’t really want coppers, with all their difficult to answer the bedroom with Liz anymore, but he got sure got a big buzz questions to rescue me, but if it was a choice between them and out of hurting people. It gave him a real hard-on. Oscar than I really didn’t have any choice at all. I remember when we’d caught up with Andreas the Swede. “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey! Help me! Help me! I’m bleeding.” He must have known he was in the deep shit when we kicked his “Get away from the door!” Collins shouted. door in. To give Andres his due, he’d been smart enough to tell A shot rang out and one of the locks exploded out of the us everything he knew straight away, but Oscar had decided to door. The next shot didn’t hit the second lock and Collins have some fun. We managed to keep him alive for two and a half cursed. He fired again, and this time he found his mark, then the weeks while we took turns trying to outdo each other. In the door burst in as one of them kicked it open. They entered the end, Oscar had lost. He’d held Andreas’ nose closed, and giggled room in a rush, guns drawn and hyped up on adrenalin, but they like some schoolgirl on nitrous, as he chocked Andreas to death weren’t prepared for what they found. with his own balls. “Jesus Christ!” Powers exclaimed, his eyes moved back and Oscar is that sort of guy, and he’d be back for me soon. forth beaten Jill’s mutilated body and her breasts on the desk. I drew my knees up and used my shoulders to inch up the “Jesus Fucking Christ!” wall until I was standing and that’s when I saw Jill, Jimmy’s wife. Collins knelt down on one knee beside Jimmy and put two Jimmy’s dead wife. fingers against his throat. “This one’s dead too,” he announced. She was sitting in the chair behind the desk, naked and “Hey,” I shouted again. “They’re dead, I’m not. You want to covered in blood. Or at least, most of her was sitting behind the get these ropes off me?” desk. Oscar had cut her breasts off, and they sat on the desk like Powers crouched down behind me. He started undoing the two obscene, novelty paperweights. ropes as he looked me over, then he raised one eyebrow, and “Sorry, Jill,” I told her. “You didn’t deserve to die like that.” stopped. “You said you were bleeding.” She really didn’t. Unlike most of the wives and girlfriends, “I would have said I was the God damn pope, if it would she really had been relatively innocent. I hadn’t believed Jimmy have got you in here,” I told him. “My names Card, Vince Card. when he’d tried to convince me that she never asked what he did I’m DEA. Now, how about the ropes, I’m losing circulation.” and that he had never told her, but when he had been out of “DEA, eh?” he replied skeptically as his hands started town a year ago, so I’d got Jill drunk and slept with her and searching the pockets of my jacket. He struck gold in my inside found out he was telling the truth. pocket and pulled out my wallet. He opened it, turned it around, No, she didn’t deserve it, and maybe Jimmy didn’t either, it and scowled. “How come this says your names Charlie King, was hard to say, but at least they died before they found out that then?” just how I had betrayed them. “Because I’m undercover,” I snapped. “We don’t exactly go I looked around the office for something that I could cut my around with DEA tattooed on our foreheads, you know what I ropes with, and couldn’t see anything that would do the job, mean? Call San Diego, if you don’t believe me. Ask for Wilson. which wasn’t a surprise. Jimmy had it built in a corner of one of He’ll confirm my story.” his disused warehouses near the docks for meetings, and other “Can’t,” Collins grunted as he came over to us. “No things that that required privacy, and enough outside noise to reception.” cover the screaming. As a result, the walls were thick, high, I shook my head as if in frustration. I’d known they couldn’t windowless and the only door was solid oak, three inches thick call out, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have told them to try. Wilson had retired almost two years ago, and who ever had taken TWISTED TONGUE 57 his place undoubtedly had my name on a list, but it wouldn’t be a We came within sight of the warehouse doors and we good one. stepped out from the shelves into the large open space used for “Then how about you undo these fucking ropes, and get me unloading. Oscar was directly in front of us, perhaps twenty feet outside, where you can call?” I asked between gritted teeth. “Or away, flanked a short distance away by Harry on one side, and would you two Neanderthals prefer to carry me out?” George the Greek on the other. Although Oscar stood relaxed, “You got a big mouth, Buddy,” Powers sneered. “You sure his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t have a care the world, sound like those DEA pricks, but if you’re not, you’re going to Harry and George both had their guns out and aimed at us. be in deep shit.” I was more concerned with the man standing beside Oscar. I snorted with disgust. “And if I am DEA, you two will be He was in his mid-thirties, with thick blond hair, and when he the ones in the shit. You might want to think about that.” looked at me, I was a flash of recognition. “Undo the ropes, Mike,” Collins instructed. “We don’t even “Well?” Oscar asked, unfazed by the sight of the two know if he’s done anything wrong.” coppers. “He’s the only one left alive,” Powers countered as he undid I took a deep breath, raised the gun, and shot Collins in the the ropes on my hands reluctantly. Pointedly, he made me untie back of the head. As his body fell, Powers turned toward me, the ropes on my feet myself. “What the hell happened here?” he gabbed for the gun in his belt and I shot him through the temple. asked me. “There,” I said to Oscar as I lowered the gun. “That proof “Oscar Garrett happened,” I told them as I rubbed feeling enough for you?” into my wrists. “And by now, he’s on his way back. If he finds us There was a moment of silence as Oscar studied me, his here before back-up arrives, he’ll kill us all.” face a mask, then he broke into a broad smile, his perfect white Collins shot Powers a glance as he helped me to my feet, and teeth gleaming against his dark skin. “You one sick fuck, King,” for the first time, they didn’t look so sure of themselves. The he laughed. “One really sick fuck.” boys in blue feared Oscar, not the other way around, and their Harry and George the Greek laughed with him as they put fear was justified. A dozen or more of their number had their guns away, but English Bob didn’t join in. He looked at me disappeared for good when they hadn’t accepted the kickbacks with a confused expression, unsure how to interpret what had he’d offered. “Come on,” he said. “These other two aren’t going just happened. anywhere. We’ll go out onto the street and call it in. Let some I couldn’t resist Oscar’s infectious laughter, and I broke into else sort it out.” a broad shit-eating grin as I walked toward them. “Yep,” I agreed But the sound of the metal door being opened at the other as I stopped a few feet from Oscar. “I really am one sick fuck.” end of the warehouse told us we were already too late. I raised the gun again and shot Oscar between the eyes so “Quick,” I whispered. “I’ve got an idea. Give me a gun.” quickly that English Bob, Harry and George were momentarily “No chance,” Powers hissed back. stunned, and it was all the time I needed. I dropped Harry and “Do you want to live or not?” I snapped. “The only way out George before they could move, then turned the gun and of here is if we make it look like I got the drop on you two. I’ll pointed it at English Bob. persuade him I’m going to take you for a one-way ride to get “So, Bob,” I said slowly. “What’s the truth?” back on side with him, then we get the hell out of here.” Bob looked down at Oscar’s body and shrugged. “The King Powers wasn’t one hundred percent convinced, but Collins is dead,” he replied. He looked at me and smiled hopefully. nodded. He bent down, pulled his back up piece, an old .38 “Long live the King?”m Special, from his ankle holster and handed it to me. “Good answer, Bob,” I laughed. “I need another partner. “Tuck your weapons into the back of your belts so they Let’s go and knock over these Columbians.” think I’ve taken them,” I told them. “It has to be believable.” One day, I’ll have to choose which side I’m on. Until then, They did as they were told and filed out of the office ahead I’ll just have to keep looking after number one, I suppose. of me. I made sure I held the .38 in sight, but low, so Collins and Powers wouldn’t get jumpy. “Oscar,” I shouted. “Oscar, is that © Sean Greenhill you?” Deep hearty laughter came from the other end of the warehouse. “Managed to get out did you, King?” he called back. “Have to start calling you Houdini.” Then he laughed again. “But not for long.”

“You got it all wrong, Oscar,” I replied. “People have been Sean Greenhill began his career as a Debt Collector telling you tales. Let me proof it to you. I’ve got a surprise.” at 19 in the transport sector with COMET Express His laughter rolled around the warehouse again. “I got one (a division of TNT) and over the next 20 years he for you too, King,” he chuckled. “I bought English Bob back worked as a Debt Collector, Credit Officer, with me. He wants to meet you face to face. Says he’ll be able to Accounts Analyst, Notice Server and Sub-Mercantile tell me the truth.” Agent. Collins looked back over his shoulder at me and raised one During the late 1990’s, he completed a Bachelor eyebrow. of Arts with a Psychology major at Wollongong University and worked as a pizza deliverer, cleaner, “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “Just stick to the plan. Let me gate keeper, bartender, lost property and parking do the talking and we’ll all be having beers at O’Malley’s by officer as well as a deckhand on Great Barrier reef happy hour.” cruises. “Well, King?” Oscar demanded, the laughter gone. “You In 2007, he resigned from his position of going to down here where we can see you, or you going to make Accounts Analyst to write fulltime. Since then he me come and get you?” has completed numerous short stories and three “I’m coming out, Oscar,” I told him. “But you just make novel-length manuscripts. sure no one shots me before I explain, okay?” To find out more about Sean Greenhill or read more of his works please follow the link below, “Sure, King,” Oscar agreed. “No skin off my nose. I can thank you. always kill you after.” It wasn’t reassuring, but it was the best I was going to get. http://thestorynotthestoryteller.blogspot.com/ Collins and Powers walked ahead of me, each wary, and I raised the gun to waist height, aiming it in the gap between them. It didn’t give me a great line of fire if Harry or George let loose, but it would have to do.

TWISTED TONGUE 58 The Short Life of Liviana Carlie Holmboe

Year 3 ritty. Salty. Sand covered the tips of his great big fingers. They dipped into a pool of blue seawater. They smoothed the leaning castle. Warily. G Her rubbery infant hands kept digging. Digging. Digging. “It needs a deeper moat Liviana, keep on with it.” Furiously. She scooped the sloshing sand. Each wave lapped closer. The moat was full. “Okay, it’s perfect.” With one smooth action he twirled the child onto his shoulders. “Take a good look, Liv, things this wonderful don’t last long.” Grimy. Sunburned. Father and daughter stood. Orange-sun-sinking. Satisfied.

Year 8 ights came when she would twist under her sheets for hours and wait so anxiously to see morning creep over the sea. A child tiptoeing Nthrough every hallway and always staring so deeply into her cereal bowl. The house was too big for the two of them and times of building leaning sand castles were long gone. They were building something else. It was what swam behind her eyes at teachers so full of love. It was what swam within her belly and sent her into the bathroom during recess while noisy black-haired children raced back and forth across the playground never knowing better.

Year 12 n a breezy field Liviana lay, tracing the orange suns that raced back and forth across her sky. She counted days and weeks and months and Ilet her hair grow long and thin

Year 15 rom the side of the algae covered wall two bony legs dangled, swinging back and forth and occasionally tickling the stirring water below, Fthe problem is that these bony legs didn’t lead to a striking Venetian beauty with a toned abdomen and sun-soaked breasts, no they didn’t catch the eyes of passing fisherman or sellers of fresh Italian produce, and it wasn’t that her face was hideous or that her toenails were overgrown, although they did appear to be growing green mould because of the occasional urge to pick at the soft swaying algae, but in the beginning nothing seems like that big of a deal, at least to everyone else, but looking just ordinary without sun-soaked breasts and silly hair can turn out to really be something when it also means that your sweaty, lazy father really believes that you wont attract anyone else, no one else but him, and so he turns your bony legs inside out and runs his fingers through your straggly hair while you pretend to sleep, and it’s especially bad to have a dad like that who goes to church every single Sunday cause then through googly eyes nobody sees the signs and everyone thinks it’s sweet how he must love you no matter how ordinary you look because he rubs his rosary with tears in his eyes and works his fingers to the bone, and so sitting on the side of the bridge and wondering about humans and how their tricky minds work is something that happens naturally, and most people don’t understand how their own tricky minds work or how they are running with panting tongues and ridiculous shoes straight for bogus dreams and futures that promise big trophies, but in the end leave you mangled and sitting in a Lazy Boy remembering that you had forgotten to do all the things you meant to do, but now your arteries are clogged and your air is pumped though a plastic tube and straight into your lungs because they don’t remember how to breathe, yep it’s a perfectly unfortunate time to realize what you’ve done, and instead of telling someone else that they might want to think about what they’re doing before their body shrivels up into a prune and refuses to move, instead of doing that, just gripe about luke-warm coffee and overpriced prescriptions and not that it really matters because people with functioning bodies usually are running toward wheelchairs just to take a break from it all anyway, and so that’s what she thinks while her bony legs dangle and she stares off into the sunset, all the time despising the moles that speckle her thighs, and no one could blame her for wishing he was dead and it’s too late to settle the wars that she charts in coming days and years and all the time wishing that they could be bigger and that her words could become more toxic by reading books that make people at church frown, and thinking, thinking, thinking, about the boy at school with pitch black hair and how he draws blood on his wrists and how he might be the smartest person she knows, but she doesn’t really even know him because his girlfriends are not so ordinary like her and she can never really get her outfit to look just right, but thinks that maybe tomorrow she will, and all the time the sun is falling and reminding her that its almost time to go home, but this time she wont go home, no she cant go home one more time and so she grips the green slime with her toes and vomits into the swirling blue water below while a little creaking boat and a man with bright blue sparkling eyes almost passes by, but then begins to paddle smoothly toward her as she quickly wipes her mouth, and she can tell by his smile and his untidy hair that he has read a lot of books and doesn’t google at the asses of laughing mothers as they make their way down the aisle at church, and he probably doesn’t go to church, but if he does then he’s probably right anyway, and so she clutches his hand and steps into the wobbly boat attempting to cover the moles with her plaid skirt and failing because he’s already spotted them and he says “I think moles are beautiful” and that’s the first thing that he says to her and she thinks its wonderful because he must really be the one who can save her, and she’s right, because they paddle silently toward the horizon as the sun regretfully sinks and leaves them in the wailing black sea all alone, but this is just so romantic and who knew it could happen to such an ordinary looking girl with moley thighs, and she thought it was surprising that he didn’t want to feel of her long black hair or kiss her quivering lips, but he reached under her blouse and she searched for his sparkling blue eyes and couldn’t find them anywhere, and then, suddenly, that all-too-familiar sick feeling crept through her veins and she cried and then she screamed and writhed and the boat tottered, but didn’t tip, and there were no more boats out selling fruit or laughing about bony knees, and no one to notice the splash and how two went out, but only one came in.

Carlie Holmboe is from Oklahoma, but moved to Boulder, Colorado for college. She graduated from the creative writing program at Colorado University this past May. She’s been writing for as long as she can remember, and she loves fiction of all kinds. Her characters usually visit some pretty frightening places before their issues are resolved. Those places seem to be where they find truth, where she finds meaning, she guesses.

TWISTED TONGUE 59 had to tell, she encouraged me to discover all about her. And I Bowl of Cherries did. Every day for three weeks. Sharon Birch Sometimes, as I lay in my bed, laughter rippled through the moonlight into the open attic window. Light music danced into my room, wafting in with the musky smells from her palace. I n 1974 I was eleven, a big boy for my age. I was shipped hugged myself tight and imagined myself there with her, down to Aunty Jenny for the summer and I learnt an awful remembering the soft touch of her flesh, the smoothness of her I lot that year. Actually, it wasn’t all that awful. skin, the curve of her waist and the bulge of her breast. I In our quiet corner of Northumberland, creatures like Aunt shivered at the memory of the lady parts she wanted me to kiss, Jenny didn’t exist. She was colourful and brash and the further lick, suck and enjoy. I fell asleep to images of her and her fingers away from my father, the better he felt he often said. Some bitter lightly tickling my back, the only thing that she’d ever done to family history was all I knew and I guess he didn’t like her. The touch me, despite my pleading for more. only thing he did like was her living so far away. However, he When it was time to leave, to go back to sleepy wasn’t averse to sending me to her. I never understood that. Northumberland, she kissed me full on the lips as her The large beautiful house in Hampshire, bequeathed to her housekeeper prepared the car to take me to the station. Then she when Uncle Jimmy died, was as vibrant and bounteous in its said, “Come back next year to sample the delights of Eros.” furnishings as she was. Abundant and fertile foliage sheltered hidden secrets within the widespread boundaries of the house. y 1977, it was different. I had been a boy but now I was a Magnificent mysteries were mine to uncover, the magnitude of Bman and I had enough seed to scatter the whole of the which I misinterpreted with the ignorance of boyish eagerness. orchard. She hadn’t sent for me as usual, and I didn’t understand. Then I had the first exploration, the first discovery, the This was the year that I could prove myself to her and she was realisation; that first footstep in to an awakening, sexual world. irresistible to me. I persuaded my father to talk to his sister. He We were trying to hide from the hot pelting rain when she compromised his principles, asking her for something, and he’d took me by the hand and led me to her den, the place she called managed to talk her into two weeks in August. I had instructions her play-palace. It was hidden in the depths of her lush orchard, to do exactly what she said and if I didn’t, I’d be straight home. I with rich, ripe cherries dangling down, ready for picking. Inside, promised I would do anything she wanted. I didn’t realise what the fragrance was as arresting as she was, smelling of fruit and she had in mind when I eagerly alighted the train. fanciful perfumes. A miraculous discovery, I loved it. I let my Perhaps I was too demanding, too eager to indulge in Venus. fingers trail patterns in the silks and stockings that were hanging I lay on the familiar bed in the attic, looking up at the glow-in- on the low clothing rail beneath the bulging bookshelf. I blushed the dark ceiling stars she’d given me to remind me of her back rich-red as I saw naked ladies and proud men in the magazines on that first trip to see her. Bright stars, shooting rockets, full she had on display. moons sparkled at me and that first day filtered into view - the She lit a joss stick and pushed it into the core of a shiny hot, rainy day when she’d introduced me to the forbidden green apple perched next to the bursting ashtray on her dressing pleasures of Eve, to the naughty secretive places a young boy table. Ladies’ things covered every surface and I took in the rich couldn’t imagine existed when he was eleven. cacophony of colour; purple, pink and red lipsticks, orange This time I’d brought her gifts; red silk lingerie, shop-lifted powders, rainbow shades of nail varnish and thick black pencils from the store in town, plush silk roses and soft musk joss sticks. for eyes. I loved the fat, soft-bristled brushes that invited me to I’d also brought her some hash as a special gift. I smiled, run a finger through them. I smoothed my hand over the top of listening to the soft tweeting of the local birds in the branches the largest, imagining a purring kitten beneath my touch. I where the sun fell, dappling down into the summer lane. I watched as it sprung forward and back again in slow motion and breathed in the heady, succulent air. I was hot, sweaty and full of I became enrapt with a fleeing image of a bird taking flight, up randy anticipation. and away. I did it again and her low guttural laugh sent a shiver Sweeping myself from the bed, I went downstairs on this, down my back as she came and stood behind me. the first day of August. The housekeeper told me Aunt Jenny “Sit with me ... come ...,” her light smoky breath brushed the was in the garden. She was waiting for me! top of my ear. I hurried to our den, following the wafting, welcoming Sparks of illicit tingling spread down my spine and to my incense as it mixed with the sweet, cloying cherries of the groin as I experienced unknown feelings. orchard. I detected an undercurrent of blow and soft music was She walked across to the corner of the room and she sat playing, an instrumental piece by Vangelis. herself down on the bed, falling into the welcome of the suede Bursting out of my trousers, I pushed the den door ajar. patchwork cover. Crossing her long, smooth legs, she leant back. Naked, she sat up, making no attempt to try and cover Patting the space beside her she fell against plump pillows and herself. Her breasts jangled against the curly head of a naked enticed me. dusky-coloured boy who looked far younger than I. He looked “Rodney ... come hither ... I don’t bite.” up from his kneeling position and his wet mouth grinned at me. She smiled her red plush lips and I watched as a flash of her She asked me to join them, smiling, stoned and full of sex. wet tongue traced them as she crooked a long-nailed finger at “Come Roddy, show him what you have learnt, you’re my me. star pupil.” She leant towards me, full lips pouting. “Come on,” she purred. I unfastened my Chinos and dropped them to the floor. My I looked down at the floor, trying to scuff my toes into the underwear joined them and as I kicked my clothes away, I took joins between the polished wooden floor-boards. I dug my hands stock of the sight before me. deep into my jeans pockets. My face burned as the rain-drops “My, oh my,” she grinned. “How you’ve grown.” we’d tried to avoid evaporated with the heat of the room. She pulled me towards her and it was the first time she’d “Roddy ... come to me,” she ordered again. handled me as a man. Bending her head down, I filled her up and I walked, propelled towards her. I couldn’t help it. I sat it didn’t take long. Wiping her lips on the white tissues, she left a down, clasping my hands between my knees as I crossed my red streak, like blood, like my soul. ankles and shivered as her finger stroked my cheek as light as a “I’ve taught you well Roddy. You can go now. Out into the snowdrop, tickling like a feather. The room was hot, yet I felt a wide world. Shut the door as you leave, I’m rather busy.” chill run down my back. “I thought I could show your friend here how to do it She scooped her arm into the bend of mine and I relaxed a properly before I left,” I said. “I could give him a lesson on little, waiting for her next move. She talked to me like she liked female anatomy, show him how it works ... if you like.” me, like my father never did. She asked all about me, what I I could see her mulling it over as she looked from me to him. enjoyed doing, what I didn’t. She made me miss my mum, even He sat on the floor, like a puppy wanting more, nodding at her, though I’d never known her. Once she’d discovered everything I eyes wide and glistening with the effects of cannabis and cunnilingus that hung stagnant in the air. TWISTED TONGUE 60 Skinning up, I took a chance, “As I’m here, you might as myself. I ran my index finger along the top of the blade and well make the best of me.” Licking the Rizla paper, I stared at contemplated what I was about to do. her, intense eyeball to eyeball. Lighting the reefer, I flopped onto Once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I remembered every time the bed beside her and stroked her left breast. Her nipple turned she’d taken me to heaven and to hell and the passion rose. As dark red like one of the succulent cherries she grew every year in Vangelis played out, I stabbed and stabbed inside her, oblivious her orchard. Melting into my hands, she leant back, closing her to the screaming orgasm. I penetrated her like never before, eyes. finishing with the finale. The paring knife sliced deep inside her “Why not ...” she murmured, fingering the tight reefer from and then I cut out the biggest cherry of all. Holding it tight, I me and taking a long drag. moved up to her face and slit her mouth, like a clown. She wore I told him to sit on the wooden chair and watch. After a permanent smile, rendering her face asunder. sliding the bolt on the inside of the den door, I picked a selection Cory Boy, my alibi, my motive; I slit his mouth too but I of the darkest red scarves from the hangers. I tied her ankles to didn’t want him to die. She’d been the sacrifice, he was the the bed posts and then did the same to her wrists, tying them witness. above her head. Running naked through the orchard, screeching like a squaw, “What do you think Cory Boy?” I had no idea what his name I smeared their mingled blood in tribal warrior style across my was, but Cory seemed to suit him. Especially for what I had in chest, across my cheeks. Whooping and wailing, I collapsed in a mind. bundle of ragged nerves and shredded emotion. Nodding his curls up and down, I could see he was gagging. The cherries tumbled ... fell ... kept falling ... rotten fruit from Positioning him at the end of the bed, facing her splayed legs, I the tree. tied his hands around the back of the chair. “Roddy ... I hope you’re not hurting him,” Jenny said, lifting © Sharon Birch her head to look. “I’m teaching him Aunt Jenny, like you taught me. Remember when you asked me to tie you like this? Remember Sharon Birch (also writing as Effie Merryl) is originally from when you taught me how to explore? Well, Cory has a ringside the North East of England but now lives somewhere in the seat, no extra charge.” Scottish Highlands. With some success in flash fiction and She laughed. “And I thought you’d be angry with me, short story markets, she has been published in a variety of

Rodney. Seems like I underestimated you.” magazines, ezines and anthologies. Having left public service after twenty years, she now spends her time writing fiction, “I think perhaps you did.” I smiled as I picked up an apple from the bowl piled high with fresh fruit. I peeled it, letting the faction and poor poetry whilst reinventing her life, reading more and browsing the net. skin curl round and drop onto her body. Slicing the apple into pieces, I fed them to her, then him and ate the last sharp slice

Voodoo Hyacinth Ron Koppelberger

he compliment of forceful tendrils in silken sash, the mistress of wayward blossoms and bred betters, passionate tempests in birth, rummaged the bouquet of Hyacinth bloom for the midpoint caste of eternal exaltation and secret fray, it lay undiscovered in the T midst, an amaranth in secret. She chewed the bitter acorn and her lips puckered in response, the blossoms, the tender petals offered a sweet salvation, a mend for the soul of age and lines of concern. She trifled the perfumes of Hyacinth in mists of expectation and desires of bidden allure. “ I must have it,” she whispered in spasms of alum, “ I must have it.” The breech between the umbra and the cares of a mortal end had been tempered by the ceremony, the voodoo promise of eternal night and shaded cure, cure for the doldrums of neat convention and human existence. She shaped an illusion of youth in trespass and bitter acumen as she spit the acorn onto the moist garden soil. “ Where numb in deserts of human lust, in fame of the forestalled question, I resist the tempter of age and senile dirge for the fresh rapture of endless beginnings in youthful season.” She said in autumn breaths of ancient magic. Her wrinkled hands caressed the sacred blossom and she groaned in heights of ease, in tempered release. She heard the riot of age and approaching death, the angels in reason and passage. The Hyacinth beckoned and she sang as she plucked the blossom. “Close trades of life for legend, Of strife for mercies in masquerade Of eternal youth, Point the world in courtly eyes And tender sighs, Spare the suspicion of aged instants And seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days and years To the mischief of…….rebirth and Mosaics in new adventure, A sweet yet bitter mystery in tether to the Shadow behind the light and The silhouette of oneself in youth.” The murmur of her song and dreaming lyric told her the harbingers of elder reason were in recessand the angels were in assurance of others as she offered virgin allure in moments and whispers of contending youth. She found rebirth and life in the drama of the voodoo Hyacinth.

© Ron Koppelberger Ron Koppelberger has been submitting poetry and short stories for the past several years. He began writing when he was ten years old, his grandparents gave him his first typewriter. He has written 92 books of poetry and 16 novels over the past four or five years. He has published 261 poems and 91 short stories. He loves to write and nothing thrills him more than seeing his work in print. The creative process is a thrill for him as is influencing the reader in a positive way, in a thought provoking way.

TWISTED TONGUE 61 Puzzles Gail Taylor

an Webb had been dead less than a month when his wife Nell came down for breakfast one bright morning D and found him sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her. The funeral was long over, the cards sent, the mourners gone, and the flowers donated to charity. This was the real Dan, in his finest sweater and slacks, not the wasted stranger in a hospital or the waxed exhibit at the funeral parlour. This was courtly and contented Dan, sitting in a straight-backed chair, smiling at her. She had been wandering the silence of their Victorian home, packing his things, making decisions, incredulous that she could still breathe without him, eat, sleep, go on without him, when one sunny morning in September, there he was, waiting for her to join him, waiting for her to put on the kettle and open the paper For example, there was a sculpture of a hybrid creature with the so they could read together. body and head of a lion, a snake for a tail, and a goat’s head “Why, Dan,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re back. Been a busy emerging from its back. She remembered Dan had said that the three weeks, I can tell you. The kids were great. They helped a sculpture was “The Chimaera”, usually located in another part of lot, but I’ve missed you.” the Uffizi. For aesthetic reasons, Dan explained, the artist had He smiled again and held out the paper. decided to move the Chimaera into the Raphael Room. Standing Forever young, forever fair, is what they say of an untimely in the soft light of an English gallery on that summer’s day, she death, but Dan’s was not untimely; his was a life played to its last could see Zoffany hoisting the great stonework upon his full light. Together, they had been brilliant, she with her sense of shoulders, moving through the Uffizi’s marble halls. style, he with his quiet poise. They were a unity that neighbours “Artistic license, my dear, artistic license,” he had said when invited to their parties, a smiling hydra that strolled lockstep she asked him why. along the manicured lawns of a summer evening, nodding That was the sort of thing that Dan was doing these days, pleasantries. They floated through a haze of comfort and moving objects around. He would move her knitting from one pleasure, and, as age crept in, they enjoyed the graceful opposite room to another. She might set down her wool and needles in of youth, connected in the settling of affairs, the satisfaction of the drawing room at night and the next day search everywhere, lives lived whole. She assumed they would stay forever in that only to find them by her usual place. Uncanny, the way he knew golden jelly, opening their home to guests, welcoming the years, what she might like to find next. He also straightened the sharing the joys of life and lessening its pains. She would laugh at pictures on the walls, which was good of him. He usually did that his jokes, wonder at his wit, and he would praise her garden, her at night while she was sleeping. knitting, her cuisine. It would always be that way. Their second line of attack with the jigsaw puzzle was to sort “Yes, Dan, I’ve missed you.” She filled the kettle and pulled the rest of the pieces by colour. This they did, tackling the job out his favourite tea. And so began, that lazy morning in autumn, with the tenacity of miners. Jagged bits of red and gold and teal the next phase of their lives together. grew like little mounds of ore around the edges of their card Sometimes, she felt him reading over her shoulder as she table. Next, they launched their age-old competition: they would lounged on the big sofa in the living room. Or she might be outdo each other in the number of pieces they placed in the watching for birds at one of the many picture windows in the puzzle. Dan would show Nell the ones he wanted to fit and she house and she would know he wanted a turn, so she’d place the would do the job for him, keeping careful track on a bridge score binoculars on the table, just leave them there so he could pick sheet of how many pieces each had accomplished by day’s end. them up and look when he wanted to. During the second week that Dan was back, the Library ot only could Nell remember seeing the original painting in Guild dropped off a glossy square box the size of a serving tray. Nthe gallery in England but she could also remember the “Mr. Webb asked for this some time ago,” said the slim Raphael Room itself in the Uffizi, a rich red-velveted chamber librarian from the bookmobile. “So sorry for your loss. We choked with treasures. But she could not recall the myth of the thought you still might want this, nevertheless . . .” The young Chimaera. woman’s voice trailed away uncertainly and she wheeled and “Dan, I remember you told me about the Chimaera, but I retreated to her library van. forget the story. I know the three heads are important, but I can’t “Why, Dan, how thoughtful of you,” said Nell as she peeked remember why.” inside the box. “It’s a jigsaw of that painting we saw in London, Dan guided her into the study where his art books still stood the picture of pictures. Remember you named all the famous on the bookshelves, not yet packed. Using his little step stool, painters and I was so impressed?” they found the one on Zoffany and pulled it down. They sat With the jaunty moves of a boy, he bounced over to look. together on the loveseat and looked up the painting in the index, They retrieved the card table from the basement, set up in the then read the ancient stories of the Chimaera of Arezzo. For a drawing room and dumped the chunks of colour on the soft felt long time, they were silent. of the surface. First, they had to develop a plan. There were “So, Dan,” she said, when they finally closed the heavy twenty-five thousand pieces in this complicated puzzle of a volume as the afternoon light dimmed in the large picture painting of a great room full of paintings. They began by picking window, “I think . . . I guess . . . the Chimaera is a symbol, is it, a out the border pieces. symbol of everything important?” Nell vaguely remembered the original canvas. She and Dan Dan nodded, happy that she understood. had seen it many years ago, while on vacation in England. “There’s nothing missing, is there? It has everybody’s According to the puzzle box, it was a painting done by Johann greatest fear, snakes; it has everyone’s desires, like fertility and Zoffany in 1778 depicting the Raphael Room in the Uffizi gallery vitality; and it’s also about conquering evil spirits. Amazing. I in Florence, Italy. It was part of the Windsor Royal Collection, loved those vacations with you. I always felt grander when we displayed in one of the public galleries. Ever the careful came home.” academic, Dan had pointed out that the painting contained Dan patted her arm and went back to the jigsaw puzzle. objects not normally found in the Raphael Room at the Uffizi. TWISTED TONGUE 62 The memory of grandeur now inspired her. She put aside her her. While alive, he had always been interested, yes, but he had black blouses and skirts and switched to the outfits Dan liked. also busied himself with his photography, his painting and his Soft sweater sets and rich scarves came out of the boxes in sculptures. There was none of that now that he was dead. His storage. She began wearing jewellery again, but understated— projects sat packed in boxes, ready for the grandchildren or the Dan did not like ostentation—and dabbed on rouge before they Brothers of Hope. But his interest in her never waned. She felt set out, even if it was just a walk or a drive to the pharmacy. He she could talk to him about anything, anything at all. let her know he appreciated these little touches on her part. He He would tease her with the rise of an eyebrow, with the held the door like a gallant, bowing with a flourish. She sailed out wink of an eye, with the shrug of a shoulder, with the pursing of as in all the years before, a duchess linked with her duke arm in lips, a silent clapping of hands, with the slight movement of a arm, strolling through thought and time. trim foot. He never actually said, “I love you” or, “You are very dear”, but then, he had never said those types of things when he hen he was alive, Dan’s approach to problem solving was was alive, so why should he do so now? But he did seem more W usually artistic rather than scientific, and more or less passionate somehow. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but she effective. One spring early in their marriage, a snake settled into thought he was more attentive. Indeed, he appeared only for her. the garden and she and the kids discussed at length what to do, Their cleaner never remarked on his presence and the grocery researching snake elimination and snake poison and snake boys did not comment on him sitting in the car. Passers-by did management. Dan, on the other hand, disappeared downstairs not seem startled when he took her arm as they walked down the and emerged a while later with a sign that said, “Beware of street to the florist. Snake.” That was his solution. No histrionic thrashing about He was especially conversational in the evenings, when they with a hoe, no calling of the authorities, no extensive sat together in the living room. She might be knitting, reading, or consultations. He just set out a tastefully lettered sign that he watching television and he would sit down on the sofa opposite, created in his basement workshop using calligraphy and special usually in slippers and dressing gown, and he would perhaps paints. The sign stood in the garden for years and kept away have a cup and saucer balanced gracefully on one knee. There annoying children, at least those who could read, and was a would be the click of her needles and the soothing rustle of his conversation piece at garden parties long after the snake had favourite atlas or the intriguing flash of prints in one of his many gone. art books. Comfortable noises. He helped her choose the music, usually Bach fugues or ell noticed that Dan did not play the piano much anymore. Mendelssohn slumbers, but he loved more recent things too. NHe used to send waltzes and serenades wafting through the Infused in both their minds from repeated playing was Joni house like sweet perfume. Now he barely touched the piano and Mitchell singing, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now.” He when he did, the sound was so faint as to be virtually silent, not would nod when she spoke and gesture with his hands, or wag a the vigorous attacks she remembered. In the old days, he would slippered foot at certain statements. He seemed more relaxed render Rachmaninoff and Chopin with robust relish, a kind of now that he was dead and did not have to deal with the stresses Russian panache. She found that his music books were more and strains of daily life. likely to rest opened at pages of pastorales—soft, gentle tunes However, despite these wonderful attentions, Nell found that could lull a person to sleep. He also did not create the old that sometimes Dan was more of a pest than when he was alive, elaborate dishes: special vegetable soufflés, or his specialty, hectoring her through subtle gestures to be more tidy, more cassoulets, dense cakes stuffed with fruit and nuts, concoctions methodical. As for him, he never made a mess, never spilled a that took weeks of planning and preparation. Years ago, he drop. His place at the table was always pristine; his side of the would make his onion soup and the house would bloom with the bed never rumpled. It made her feel slightly rebellious. She even scent of caramelizing onions. He would prepare the ingredients caught herself one night skulking downstairs in the dark to cheat the night before and then assemble the soup on the following on the jigsaw puzzle. What had gotten into her, what day with the care of an artist. Even so, he was still the same Dan: naughtiness? He would be indignant in the morning when he just as when alive, he left the dishtowels neatly folded and found out. And what if he came downstairs while she was positioned at clever angles on the counter. She appreciated these cheating? He didn’t, but she pried away the pieces she had fitted little touches. and arrayed them on his side of the table the way she had set his He also did other thoughtful things around the house when soup for over sixty years and sneaked back to their bed like a she was sleeping, or away on errands during the day, or just child who had eaten all her mother’s sweetened coconut. outside on the veranda. She would think he was there all the There used to be a time when he would play tricks on her, time, sitting beside her taking in the autumn sun, and later she and he did so now, mercilessly. She first noticed it with the would realize that, no, he had been busy in the house, newspaper’s daily crossword puzzle. She and Dan always set up straightening pictures, positioning flower vases and finding stray the same competitive game as with the jigsaw: he would tell her puzzle pieces. the letters to place and she would keep track of which words Always sophisticated and ever poised, he guided her were hers and which were his. One morning, he was waiting for imperiously, directing her through the morass of daily chores her at the table, grinning. He had won the crossword puzzle, just with unerring focus. She was most grateful for his help when she by reading carefully and calculating the answers down and across had to drive into the city to see the eye specialist. Usually, she in his head. That was the amazing thing about Dan: he could do took the bus or a taxi for these trips, but one day she had many complex problems mentally, never had to write them down. errands and decided to keep on going right downtown. It was Then she noticed similar antics with the other puzzle, the jigsaw. while she was at the pharmacy that he must have gotten into the Some evenings they would search everywhere for a last piece to car, because he was there when she returned and prepared to complete one of the little paintings within the painting. She turn down to the city centre. All the way down, he helped her to would lift the cushions of the Chesterfield and Dan might poke negotiate the traffic, warning of a yellow light here, pointing out around beneath the furniture. They would give up and go to bed. cyclists there. The next morning, she would see he had found the missing piece There were so many little tokens of his kindness. She would and placed it on the edge of a chair or a corner of the rug. He find the newspaper opened to her favourite sections. She would was such a tease. But he was a wonderful advisor, just as always. see his bookmark in a book at a page he wanted her to read. He She consulted him, for example, about the disturbing moved silently through the house. He never shuffled his slippers greenery beside the house. Although their neighbours were while alive, and he certainly did not shuffle now. generally friendly and helpful, there was one exception. The He liked to hear her chattering, she knew, because he Sutherlands had moved in next door a year ago and proceeded to followed her around like a puppy, leaning against a doorframe landscape what had once been an airy space of grass and with long legs crossed, fingers caressing a champagne flute and flowerbeds. For years, from their kitchen picture window, the smiling at her, watching to see what she would do next. He Webb’s had enjoyed the whimsy of birds and butterflies. Upon seemed endlessly fascinated by her activities and that delighted arriving, Mr. Sutherland promptly dug up the flowers and TWISTED TONGUE 63 arranged for a large and ugly bush right beside the Webb house. never told her. What arrogance. When she walked in the door, Their view was consumed by this ragged green monstrosity. The she blurted straight out what she thought. thing had arrived full-panoplied, stately waving from a flatbed “Daniel.” She pronounced all three syllables so he would truck like a diva on parade. The workers grunted as they muscled know she was serious. “Daniel, you should have trusted me. I’m the plant into place and into the cavernous hole they had dug. not a child. Mr. Perry had to explain all this”—she waved a Dan and Nell had watched the tree thrive for several months collection of papers and brochures in the air, out of his reach— before Dan became ill for that last time. He had always shared ”and he said I caught on quickly. He might as well have added, her horror of the thing, but there hadn’t been an occasion to ‘for someone who’s never been shown these things’.” A discuss what, if anything, they might do about the problem. The wounded tone crept into her voice. tree was overstated, an expression of bad taste. But the Dan stared intently at her, stolid and composed, unmoved. neighbours were stubborn, and, at the time, Nell had her hands She continued, trying to avoid looking at him. “I never full anyway. She had to prepare Dan’s medications, and take him overran the household accounts. I always kept a prudent budget. to his doctors’ appointments. After he went into the hospital, You said I was a marvel in those early years, remember? Surely, pretty much everything in the house went into stasis. But now in my old age, I could handle a couple of trusts and a term that the funeral was over and Dan was back, she could discuss deposit.” the matter with him. She finally met his stare and weakened. “The thing is ugly, dear, you have to agree.” “Alright, maybe not. You always say I’m flighty and Dan arose from the table and went to the window to look undisciplined. I suppose you were right to place it all in the out. He jutted his jaw to one side in thought. Then he shook his hands of the bank. But, damn, why didn’t you teach me, show head in disgust and went back to his chair at the table. me?” “We need to kill it,” she said, surprised at her own bluntness. When his only response was that lofty look of his, the way “You’re always telling me, Dan, ‘For every problem, find three he gazed sternly down his nose, she gave up, stomping out and solutions.’” slamming the door in a dramatic flourish. This was not her He agreed, she knew, because his eyes crinkled and that normal behaviour; she was just that angry with him. dancing smile came back. Thankfully, he stayed put all day and did not reappear “So,” she prodded, “what’s the first thing we could do?” upstairs or later in the car. She went for groceries and when she He stretched his long arms, looked up at the ceiling, came home to him, they were both still in a frosty state. He pondered a while, and then softened his face into a mischievous shrugged his shoulders when he saw her and turned his chair look. He stared fixedly at the watering can in the corner by the around, squaring a rigid back to her. In the evening when they door. She laughed at the blatancy of the suggestion. sat at supper together, he did not look at her. It was only much “Why, that’s a good one, Dan: feed it a soothing drink of later, while reading in the living room, that she was able to vinegar. Slow and gruesome. How mean. What would be a reason out his motives: He had always treated her like a princess second method?” and she had never resisted. She decided to draw him out. A boy’s mischief sprang in his blue eyes and his face opened “Dan? I was wrong, Dan. As usual, you were right.” in a wicked grin. He stepped beside the stack of newspapers in He smiled knowingly and went back to his book. the recycling box and pointed to an issue deep in the pile. Sure enough, this was the one featuring an ad for Broadleaf Weed ife with Dan had never been dramatic, but certainly Killer.” She read the captions, muttering some of the claims Linteresting. She remembered the accumulation of years less aloud for him to hear: “Place a drop of our product on a leaf of as a roller coaster and more as a gentle glide through time, each weed in your garden and they will meet their demise within sometimes soaring in a breathless arc through the sunny seasons weeks”; “Virtually undetectable”; “Won’t harm your lawn.” and at other times swooping down to touch the evening dew. “Excellent, Dan. Positively diabolical. Now, what would be a She had loved him, that was certain, and she loved him now in third way? Something completely different?” his present form as much as she had loved him then. And he had He went to the window and looked out, staring intently at loved her. Their offspring, she reflected, was one proof. the plant. It took her a moment but then she saw that he was Ah, yes, the child. She remembered that night. She and Dan focusing bad intentions. What fun. Dan favoured the last of the were a young couple with promising careers and a beautiful three methods; he could fully participate in that one. And so that home and had just hosted their first party. All the guests had is what they did. They stood there each morning at the kitchen departed and there were the two of them, in their finery. They sink, side by side, directing malevolent thoughts at the ridiculous scampered up the stairs, giggling like fools. Later, all that plant, he with his face in a mighty grimace and she with the summer, she was proud of her pregnant belly. That child was sternest frown she could manage. And indeed, over the next now the tall, accomplished pianist, Geraldine, aged sixty, with weeks and months the tree yellowed and sagged despondently as children and grandchildren of her own and a busy professional the autumn days shortened. life. At night when it was dark, they couldn’t see the plant. “Remember, Dan, that first party we threw? How everyone Instead, Nell could see her reflection in the broad kitchen came and had a wonderful time?” window. When she turned around to look at the clock on the He smiled and looked at her. And then he winked. opposite wall, she could see an image of the window in the clock “Why, Dan,” she said, tilting her head at a girlish incline and face, and even a reflection of her own reflection. Dan stood off turning away like a coquette. “I think you’re flirting with me.” to one side, just out of sight, so that she couldn’t see him. How His smile grew proud. Any broader, and it would be a leer. strategic of him, she thought, making sure that no one outside And indeed, he folded toward her in their bed that night and her could see him, and especially not the Sutherlands next door. womb once again throbbed as when life was new and young and After Dan had been home for about five weeks, Mr. Perry, early. Ever caring, ever knowing, he was a wise and gentle lover. their bank manager called. They slept like treasured children, warm, well fed and safe, their “Mrs. Webb, we’re preparing to flow the trust funds to you bodies curled like hands in a worn and wrinkled apron at the once the Will has been through probate. I’m calling to see which close of day. The next morning, they lingered over breakfast and account you wish to be used.” did not talk very much. She was confused. Dan had never spoken to her about a trust fund. he sun rode low. The leaves were on fire. Squirrels were “Account? Trust funds?” Tfrantic, working hard at fattening up. Nell and Dan sat She had to make a special trip into the city to see Mr. Perry quietly sometimes now, no conversations, just watching the birds at the bank and learn about term deposits and dividends and through the picture windows. They continued their routine of tea common shares. She drove back home in a daze. It was and meals and music on the stereo, and worked steadily on the unbelievable that Dan could have arranged all these things and jigsaw puzzle in the afternoons. As the sun slanted into late fall

TWISTED TONGUE 64 in November, they were almost finished with the sculptures in “Chimaera,” she whispered, aware that Dan could no longer the foreground. hear her. “Creature of myth, creature of fear, but also of vitality, Dan would sometimes appear rather faded, while other times of triumph over evil.” he would be squarely visible, large as life, sitting in his chair, When the phone rang, she picked it up vacantly. waiting for her, smiling and expectant. Much of the time, though, “Mrs. Webb?” The voice of the eye specialist came over the his touch on her arm was becoming faint. line. She was half-listening, mesmerized by the Chimaera’s gaze. “Your test results are in. Nothing serious—just a little debris n early December, her eyesight began bothering her again. in the vitreous fluid, something to be expected at your age. IDan must have overheard her phoning the clinic to make an ‘Floaters’ and ‘flashers,’ we call them. No need to come in now appointment, because when she returned home, he greeted her at until your next regular check.” the door with a worried look. He helped her out of her coat and Nell knew she would no longer travel the rooms of her life followed her into the kitchen, staring intently. She shrugged and wondering when Dan might appear in the door and shake his began to hum a ditty from their early years, something about head sternly at some opinion she might put to him, or peer over silver and gold. But he was not fooled, she could tell. He paced her shoulder pointing to things she needed to change, or test her back and forth, one finger on his top lip. Then he stopped, knowledge with complex riddles. placed his elegant hands on his hips, and looked at her firmly. The Library Guild answered the phone right away and she “Right, Dan,” she agreed. “It’s just a test. Nothing definite. arranged for pick-up on Tuesday at ten. Then she broke the You always say I slay so many mythical dragons for nothing that puzzle into a pile of jagged jewels—part of the commons, held conquering a real one will be a romp.” She smiled at him and put by all—and swept the bits into someone else’s future. the kettle to its gleeful task for tea. © Gail Taylor On the morning of the winter solstice, Dan wasn’t in his usual place. Somehow she knew better than to go searching through the house as if she had misplaced him like a fine watch or a special pen. She knew he had gone. Silently in the night, he Gail Taylor is a new Canadian writer who earned the had left, leaving all his projects, his books, his rare wines. He had Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto in 2009 with Honours and completed the writers’ no doubt gone on one of his jaunts, possibly to Spain to study program at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Her fiction was sculpture, or to Mexico to paint, or to Austria for the concerts. a winner in the Random House Canada student contest in He had things to do, other people to see. Wherever he was, she 2007, short listed for the Random House prize in 2008, knew, he was having a perfectly lovely time. and short listed for the Marina Nemat award in 2009. She She went into the drawing room absent-mindedly, their daily has written corporate reviews for government, published ritual of the last few months. There in front of her was the last non-fiction articles, and has several short stories appearing piece of the puzzle, on the corner of the card table. Dan must in literary reviews in 2010. Her first book, a collection of have found it before he left in the night. She put the piece in short stories published by Punkin House Press, will appear in the fall of 2010. place then stood back to admire the completed puzzle, Zoffany’s painting of paintings. The last piece was the eye of the Chimaera’s lion head.

Ruff Trisha S. Maloy

ood try,” he growled. With only mild disbelief, she watched him turn “Gtoward her. The bullet from her 22 handgun, shot point blank at his temple, had spread upon impact, making only a mild indentation in his flesh. He raised his hand and brushed away the compound. She shot twice more, but like before, neither bullet so much as broke his skin. “Why would you bother bringing that pathetic thing?” He sighed, slowly walking toward her. She clumsily backed away, trying to avoid his passive reach. “The rifle was much better.” He referred to their brawl the night before. As he walked toward her, the skin of his face grayed. Fur began to ripple across his jaw line. His facial features contorted as bone structure grew, his nose pulling out into a snout and his forehead becoming larger and more pronounced. With awe, she stopped walking to watch his transformation. His clothes shredded and fell away from his form as his body fluctuated, growing muscles pulling skin taut. “Lover, it’s beautiful.” She admired, heat rising within her. He stood before her, a wolf of unnatural proportions. His yellow eyes still locked on hers. The jagged claws that had grown from his fingertips were extended toward her, summoning. With a snarl he charged. With her left, she pulled a 45 from the holster on her thigh; with her right, she pulled a small mace from her belt. Her smile broadened as she pointed the gun toward his chest and raised the mace, ready for him to take her. With a smile she hissed: “What’s wrong that we like it so rough?”

© Trisha S. Maloy A writer since high school, Trisha S. Maloy spends her days in the writer-appropriate lull of someone only half existing in modern society. While her body goes through the menial tasks of physical survival, her mind is usually off fighting demons, solving mysteries, or saving the world. Trisha's work consists primarily of fantasy, psychological thrillers, and horror.

TWISTED TONGUE 65 Gypsies Mike Walsh

he young cop’s nametag says “Dunion”. Pale skin and a spray of freckles across cheeks and nose. Freckles the same colour as his eyes, which are blinking fast and refusing to look where his trembling finger points. T “End of the knoll,” he says to Angelo and me, “in the pine grove.” A white mass shows between two pines, an unnatural colour, an affront to the blue crystalline sky and the emerald forest around us. The knoll is a grassy fairway, product of a WPA project that carved a public garden from Ocean Park’s rambling forest. The lawn rises in steps to the tree line, a half dozen large plateaus. Angelo nods and we leave Dunion. Angelo’s wingtips whisper through the grass. His shoes are immaculate and his trousers have creases that are as straight as swords. His cuffs fall perfectly on his clean shoes like crowns. He’s impatient with me for lagging, but refuses to slow. He turns twice, just a twitch of the neck, to show his displeasure. I won’t hurry. A battle of wills. As we climb one of the plateaus, I picture a burly Irish foreman barking orders to an army of immigrants who wear suspenders and scally caps. They battle with picks and shovels, wondering why they’re building steps that only a giant could use. We’re almost there. The white grows. A sudden gust teases the branches of the twin pines and they wave as if in welcome. The wind carries the rich, earthy smell of nature to us, along with something else. The small sound of water moving across rocks murmurs from the opening. The blowing branches are hiding the white thing now, so Angelo parts the pine boughs with his manicured hand. A girl lay in a foetal curl on a small rise next to a meandering brook. She’s naked. Her skin looks as soft as the ferns that serve as her bed. Her folded hands form a pillow like a sleeping child. An ugly colour circles her neck, a tattoo blue. Sticks protrude from her eyes. The broken branches reach crookedly toward us, like spells cast by a wizard. Angelo retrieves a small notebook from inside his trench coat. When he speaks, he’s talking at it. “What do you see, Timmons?” he says. I cross the water, skirt the body, place my feet carefully. “Body’s neither stiff nor swollen. She hasn’t been here long.” He writes. “Young, I’d guess twenty,” I say. “No evidence visible at the scene.” “Except the sticks.” The sticks. I know about the sticks, but I can’t tell Angelo because he wouldn’t understand. I can’t tell him that I know she almost lived, know her pleas were useless because her killer was prepared for them, had hardened his heart to shut words out, to ignore cries. He wasn’t ready for the eyes, though. Something in those young eyes had almost convinced him, so it was easier to reach above his head… I look over her and see the yellow inside of a branch, a broken, jagged end. …easier to reach up and snap off a piece of wood, and put an end to those pleading eyes. Easier than letting her go. Voices carry from the bottom of the glen. Others have joined Dunion, and two crime scene techs are walking toward us. Back to the girl. I know her killer’s weakness. He still has guilt, hasn’t made the transition to total darkness. Next time he will. My visions aren’t something for Angelo to record in his leather-bound book. He deals in facts, not the dark movie that plays in my mind. I tell him facts. I describe her thick black hair, unblemished skin, lean body. I sound like her lover—until I describe the eyes and neck. The techs are almost here, porters carrying heavy bags. A hummingbird fights through a thicket nearby. It escapes, bullets past my head, and a flurry of its lost feathers float to a path that is almost hidden. I leave Angelo to his pen and follow a serpentine trail. The trail is a mulch of broken pine cones and rotting leaves. A small animal scurries away from me into the underbrush. The path winds through dense forest and opens on a rose garden, more of FDR’s busywork. I walk through a shower of sweet scents and stop at a road made of gravel and ruts. On the other side, on a modest hill, the sun glints. An old man stands near the top, canvas sack slung over his shoulder like a newspaper- boy’s. The sun catches him again, and I realize he’s wearing an earring under his porkpie hat. Movement behind me, and suddenly Angelo’s at my shoulder. “Gypsy,” he says in my ear. “What’s he doing?” “Foraging,” Angelo says, and I wonder how he knows. I’ve never seen a Gypsy, except in picture books. Campfires and tambourines. Bandanas and fortune-telling. “Carnival pulled out of town last week,” he says. “Bunch of them stayed and camped down by the reservoir.” “What’s he looking for?” “Roots, berries, herbs. For potions.” Potions. The idea intrigues me. A potion for love. A potion to cure disease. Maybe a potion that carries a curse—or lifts one. “Damn Gyps,” Angelo says. Porkpie hat disappears over the hill. “God’s curse,” he whispers. He steps ahead of me, stares at the air where the old man stood. “Let’s sweat ‘em,” he says. We head for the Gypsies’ camp.

Mike Walsh has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University and has had articles published in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and The New England Journal of Engineering. His fiction has been published in Askew Reviews and he won the Jacksonville Writer’s Festival short story contest. He’s currently living in Florida and writes mystery novels set in the gritty old mill towns of New England. Gypsies is an excerpt from a novel seeking a publisher...

TWISTED TONGUE 66 Interview with Cally Taylor James Hazlehurst

Before we get to deep—tell me a bit about yourself (where you’re from, family, old jobs etc.) I was born in Worcestershire but spent my childhood flitting between the UK and Germany (my dad was in the army). I went to University to study Psychology in Newcastle, lived in London for two years after I graduated and moved to Brighton after I was made in redundant from my job with a medical publisher. I’ve lived here for thirteen years now—the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I currently balance writing novels with a full time job as a Learning Technologist for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

You have published your first novel, Heaven Can Wait, Where did you get the idea for the plot. I was inspired to write “Heaven Can Wait” after a friend died and I ended up thinking about death a lot (I know, cheery subject for a romantic-comedy writer). That, and a question from my then boyfriend—if he died how long would I wait before I moved on?—sparked an idea for a novel. I started to wonder what would happen if the dead person refused to move on. What if they refused to go to heaven and insisted on being sent back to earth instead?

How difficult do you find it to think up new characters and what advice would you offer to aspiring writers about keeping characters fresh? In terms of coming up with new characters I think it helps a lot that I wrote short stories before turning my hand to novels. When you’re churning out a short story a fortnight (which was the goal I set myself) your brain is forced to dream up new characters all the time. My novels tend to be character led rather than plot led (I like the character to get me from A to Z rather than have it all plotted out otherwise I get bored) so it’s important that I create characters that a) I like spending time with and b) interest or fascinate me. When I’m trying to flash out a character I ask myself the following questions: Do you have any plans to write a sequel? • What does the character want more than anything in No. ‘Heaven Can Wait’ is very much a stand-alone novel. If the world? you read the ending you’ll see why a sequel would be pretty • What is the character most afraid of? impossible to write! • What flaws does the character have? Which of those flaws does the character have to overcome to achieve If you could have any job other than writer, what would you his/her dream? i.e. how does the character change over the choose? course of the novel? Oh there are loads! When I was a teenager I flirted with the • What happened to the character in the past to make idea of becoming an actress but, at nearly six foot tall, my drama him/her the person they are now? teacher told me I’d have a hard time getting a leading man who • Who/what is most important to my character? was taller than me. Other dream jobs I’ve had over the years In order to keep your characters fresh they have to feel like include chimpanzee researcher, police detective and a singer in a real people rather than stereotypes. If you give them real flaws rock band (although I can’t sing so that one’s pretty much out!) and foibles and a distinctive voice (it helps if you can ‘hear’ them before you write them) they’ll feel fresh and real. It’s very You’ve written for many women’s magazines and important to me that I get the character’s voice right (particularly anthologies. How does this kind of writing compare to as I tend to write in the first person) and I won’t start writing novel writing and which do you prefer? until I can hear that voice in my head. Writing short stories is tremendously satisfying in that you can create a completed piece of fiction in a relatively short time Would you like to see your novel turned into a movie? period, and then move on to something else. You can dip in and I’d LOVE to see ‘Heaven Can Wait’ turned into a movie. out of people’s lives, create brand new worlds and you don’t When I write I really ‘see’ the action in a film-like way and a few have to wait long before exploring a new idea that just popped people have told me they think ‘Heaven Can Wait’ would make a into your head. Novel writing is much more of a slog. You spend great movie. I think it’s fantastic that my characters come alive in a very long time with the same cast of characters (which is why I my readers’ heads but I’d love to see them come alive on screen mentioned earlier that it’s so important to find your main too. character likeable/fascinating) and there are times when you want to ditch a novel to follow up a new idea that seems so much

TWISTED TONGUE 67 more interesting. That said you can go into a lot more depth in a Who are you currently reading and do you have any novel than you can in a short story—you’re not just sketching favourites who inspire you? out characters you’re really exploring them – and the sense of I read allsorts. This year I’ve read “One Day” by David satisfaction you get from completing a novel is incomparable. Nicholls, “Twenties Girl” by Sophie Kinsella and “The Truth About Melody Browne” by Lisa Jewell. I’ve also started, but not Previous to writing your novel you took a creative writing finished, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, “The Elegance of course. How helpful was this and would you recommend it the Hedgehog”, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and “My So- to other aspiring writers? Called Afterlife”. I will finish them—my problem is trying to The creative writing evening course I took at Brighton City find the time to fit reading in with writing, a full time job and a College was great in that it introduced me to lots of different social life. There just aren’t enough hours in the day! I’m inspired kinds of fiction and motivated me to write but it didn’t teach me by any writer who moves or amuses me. to write a novel. I learned how to write a novel by studying lots of ‘how to’ books (there are links to the ones I recommend on Many writers say that reading a lot is important in learning my website), reading and analysing novels written by authors I the craft of writing, do you agree with this or do you think admire and then attempting to write one myself. I think courses as they say “Everyone has at least one book in them?” can be great but you really need to find one that a) is taught by I definitely agree that reading is important to the craft of an experienced teacher and b) fits your requirements but I don’t writing. Earlier I mentioned that you should read books by your think you need to go on a course to be a writer. That said I’m favourite authors to try and work out why they were so currently attending a screenwriting course, learning loads and gripping/moving/entertaining/successful. You need to read with hugely enjoying it. Writing is such a solitary profession that a more critical eye and work out what devices that author used. attending a course with other writers can help break up the hours It’s also a good idea to read books that you think are ‘rubbish’— spent alone! why are they rubbish? What did the author do wrong? I think everyone has one autobiographical book in them— You mention on your website that you don’t write poetry, but it doesn’t mean it would be any good! why? Because I’m no good at it! I wrote a lot of terrible, angsty If you could achieve one thing from being a writer other poetry when I was a teenager (all destroyed years ago, thank than being paid for something you love, what would it be? god!) and it was self-obsessed, terrible tripe. I’m not a big reader That one of my books changed someone’s life - or had such of poetry and I’m sure that was part of the problem—I didn’t a great impact on them that it stayed with them forever. I’d love really get, or understand, it. Fiction is my ‘thing’—I’ve been someone to say, “My favourite author EVER is Cally Taylor.” reading stories and novels since I was a young child—and it’s That would be amazing. what comes most naturally to me. Finally, you are trapped in a pub with a few friends, What are your plans for the future, more novels, short story Zombies are surrounding you and you fear that one of the collections or a movie script maybe? Any ideas? group may have already been infected through a Zombie I’m currently editing my second novel which is due to be bite, what do you do? published in January 2011. I’m also working on the script for a Shoot them! I’ve seen “Shaun of the Dead”! 10 minute screenplay for the course I’m doing. Once novel two is done and dusted I’ll get started on the first draft for novel Many Thanks Cally, Twisted Tongue wishes you all the best three. and great success with your writing.

Heaven Can Wait Cally Taylor

ISBN: 1409103234

‘What would I do without you, Lucy Brown?’ he said, and kissed me softly. I held his face in my hands and kissed him back. I felt that life just couldn’t get any more perfect. And I was right, it wouldn’t. By the end of the next day, I’d be dead. Lucy is about to marry the man of her dreams - kind, handsome, funny Dan - when she breaks her neck the night before their wedding. Unable to accept a lifetime’s separation from her soulmate, Lucy decides to become a ghost rather than go to heaven and be parted from Dan. But it turns out things aren’t quite as easy as that. When Lucy discovers that Limbo is a grotty student-style house in North London she’s less than thrilled. Especially after meeting her new flatmates: grumpy, cider- swilling EMO-kid Claire; and Brian, a train-spotter with a Thomas the Tank Engine duvet and a big BO problem. But Lucy has a more major problem on her hands - if she wants to become a ghost and be with Dan she has to complete an almost impossible task. How the hell does a girl like Lucy find a girlfriend for the dorkiest man in England? IT geek Archie’s only passions are multi-player computer games and his Grandma. But Lucy only has twenty-one days to find him love. And when she discovers that her so-called friend Anna is determined to make a move on the heart-broken, vulnerable Dan, the pressure is really on...

Website: www.callytaylor.co.uk Blog: http://writing-about-writing.blogspot.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Cally- Taylor/349178898704?ref=ts Twitter: http://twitter.com/callytaylor

TWISTED TONGUE 68 harbouring such lust kept me pretty much erect around her. And The Coffin Door and a Few as I looked at her then, recalled her tongue in my ear and how Amy had literally raced to show me this window (and seemed to Other Things for the Death- be chomping at the bit to explain it) I realized the sexual heat Catcher was once again coaxing flames around us. It was a fire I both courted and feared. Ralph Greco, Jr. “Mmmm,” Amy purred. “Amy wh…” I attempted closing the gap between us by talking two steps to my girlfriend’s arched back. ee that…” Amy whispered in my ear, adding the tip of She sighed, literally pushing back into me so I could do her anxious tongue. nothing but crush my pelvis into her bottom. “S “Yeah?” I asked, staring with her at the vanilla- Amy bent far forward, her top half bending far out the coloured clapboard house. window. I could just make out the back of her upper thighs “… that side door?” coming into view from under the bunched-up skirt. I knew all I’d I looked to where my girlfriend was indicating, or I assumed have to do was lift and expose her, catch the heat coming up off she was, to the front of the little house, left of the front door and her flanks as it always did when I rubbed up against her like this. at a long vertical window, shuttered and hidden partially by the “Amy …” I tried but I was stuck there … ok, I wasn’t truly single drooping tree on the front lawn. stuck, but my lower half would have it no other way. “You know what that is?” Amy purred, stepping lightly up “I’m gonna co …” she squealed as reached down and lifted the front lawn. her skirt, exposing her wonderfully halved butt in a bright pink I offered no resistance; she had told me we were welcome. thong. Still, I felt slightly uneasy as we made the front stoop, something Orgasmic Amy was, more then any girl I had ever in Amy’s voice, the way her big chest was rising and falling so known...shit, more then any girl I had ever heard my friends brag quickly, the way her blue eyes seemed still yet so intent as she about! She simply stood in that window while I pushed into her, looked at that house-and that window-rose a caution in me. And clutched the walls and faced the slanted sunshine coming as this was not the first time I had felt this way around her, I through that big tree in the front yard. As was per her usual, her stepped as calm as I could to the front door … which Amy just knees began shaking and then she arched her back as she let go simply pushed open to my surprise and a well lit, well-kept living fully. I would have liked to have bolstered my ego with the room. rationalization that it was I who was making my girlfriend so hot, “C’mre,” she said, dragging me across the doorjamb. but I knew even as she turned from the window a minute later, “Amy, aren’t we …?” smiling and red cheeked, her tiny nipples poking out of her shirt, “Cece always leaves the door open.” that what ever it was she had to tell me about this damn window, I had yet to meet Cecila but supposedly this had been her it was that that had got Amy off so fast with me then. grandmother’s brother’s house. Amy, and by extension I, had been invited the two hundred miles south from our north New t’s a coffin door,” Cecila said as I stood there facing the Jersey homes and I had taken this Saturday anticipating a nice “Ivery place Amy had orgasm-ed fifteen minutes before. drive with my girlfriend, finally meeting her friends and spending After Amy had turned to me, she and I had fell to the floor, some time in what Amy described as a ‘wonderful old house, tangled in kisses and fast rubbing, but when we heard the car right out of colonial times’. So far I hadn’t been overly impressed door slam we hustled back into our clothes. Amy closed the with the quiet, slightly buggy suburban sprawl nor the outside of window and we stood as if we had simply just arrived, in the the tiny house, but as we stood there inside it, the clean smell center of the living room, as Cecila and Barney came into the and the well-stitched floral furniture created a welcome-ny air. I house. Introductions were passed, Barney mumbled something began to ease into the thought of spending the afternoon talking about starting the grill out back, Amy excused herself to the with Cecila and Amy’s other friends and whoever happened to bathroom and even before I had the chance to offer with the own the house now (I assumed it was still Cecila’s family, as we ‘manly duties’ of helping Barney, Cecila took me by the arm and wouldn’t have been given such access). walked me to the window again, which I was now learning was a But Amy had another agenda as I was dragged across the ‘coffin door’. It had been built standard with the house, way back high polished wooden floor to that damn window. when it was common practice to have wakes at home. “See,” she prodded as we stood at the inside of the thing. “They used to believe transporting a dead body out of the Still not that impressed with it, regarding it as I had before: a house through the front door was bad luck,” Amy’s friend long vertical window, evidently an anomaly in modern homes, continued to explain. “The front door was supposed to be only but one I thought well suited for this older model. The window for the living.” ended at the floor and ran to the ceiling. I smiled at the petite black girl standing before me, trying to “Amy!” I exclaimed when she released my hand and walked concentrate on what she was saying. over to the window, pushing it open. We might have been If the house sported such an oddity I was damn sure Cecila expected but I really thought she was taking a few too many had told Amy about it, if even only in passing and the idea of liberties. ‘doing it’ in the coffin door doorway evidently made my “You know what this is?” she asked again, standing there in girlfriend hot. Again that feeling of unease crept up my spine; I the open window. With the noonday sun lightening her blonde was challenged by Amy’s obvious fetishistic nature, but just as bob and her perfect skin nearly glowing I tried to look anywhere fascinated by this piece of Americana and the idea that my at this girl who had and was transfixing me so much these past girlfriend would be so enticed she’d come while literally standing months. in ‘death’s doorway’. Shit, now that I thought over it, the first Amy was the archetypal busty southern bell (she had moved time Amy and I had had sex was on one of the low horizontal from South Carolina when she was fifteen) with a light cream gravestones in the Elizabeth Township Cemetery. complexion, long legs and high cheekbones to a fault. But what “I’m the first friend of Amy’s you’ve met,” Cecila said, fascinated me about her, ever since that first night I spied Amy at suddenly changing the subject. This didn’t sound like a question, a friend of a friend’s party, was the muted glint of naughtiness in more a confirmation and before I had chance to reply Amy her eye. walked back into the room. These past two months of our dating the sex had not “Show him the coffin door?” she asked, knowing full well stopped; Amy was voracious. Truth be told at twenty-two I had she had as we were standing almost where Amy and I had only not had as much experience with the opposite sex as I would minutes before. I smiled at Amy, letting her know I was well have been comfortable have had meeting a girl as sexually aware of her premeditation. I wanted her to think I was as aggressive as Amy. But God was I loving every minute of her thrilled by the idea of standing in the coffin door’s doorway attentions. The dichotomy of such a willowy American beauty TWISTED TONGUE 69 doing the friction and bump-a-bump when actually it unnerved “Hi!” was all I could manage, trying to catch up to the joke. me. The girls literally sprawled around the picnic table to our right “I was just asking if he’s met any of the others,” Cecila and Suzette reached for the plastic bag she had been holding and asked, turning to Amy and flashing her a blinding smile. I hadn’t noticed until I sat down at the table across from her. “No … he … has ... not,” Amy mockingly scolded her “For you Barney,” she called, opening the bag and producing friend, walked up to Cecila what I could only describe, in my shook and disgust, as a and punched her lightly on the arm. “And don’t you go flattened-out possum, blood caked from its dead tail and mouth. spoiling it.” Amy, Cecila, Janet and Suzette stared at the thing as if it was “Rokay,” Cecila sang, walking away from us then. “You have a Gucci purse; I nearly threw up. Barney reached over, grabbed the rules set as usual.” the road kill by its still warm tail and threw it on the grill! “Yeah, like you don’t with Barney?” Amy said and like “Jesus fucking Christ!” I said, jumping from the table. fourteen year-old cheerleaders the pair chattered quick laughter Nobody seemed to hear me. Even as I moved to Amy she at each other while I considered this odd exchange. simply sat with her friends as Barney then came to the table and I know what it’s like when old friends get together, there are dropped steaming plates of redder then red stakes on their a whole host of secret handshakes never shown, innuendos, lost plates. The girls tore into the undercooked meal and I turned to time made up memories and snippets of conversation that would see Barney scoop the sizzling rat from the grill, flop it into his take a translator weeks to decipher. I had to give the girls their own plate and sit down at a corner chair and dig in. moment, but still I didn’t like being on the outside of things. As Dig in! uneasy as I was around Amy,-and despite how much that thrilled I ran for the screen door. me-I wouldn’t get through this day if it was all snickered asides “You should stay and see this,” Amy said, getting up from and knowing glances. the table and coming up close to me. She had meat juice, more I made to leave the room to give the girls their moment as to like blood, at the corner of her mouth and for the first time since give me a break. Barney had looked like a nice enough guy, I ‘d known her I didn’t rise an erection with her that close to me. maybe a bit sullen, but who was I to judge? I wasn’t sure if he She turned to look at Barney as all the other girls did. He was was Cecila’s boyfriend, or just a friend, or how close he was in munching sweetly into his ‘meal’, not looking up. I could hear the circle of ‘the others’ I was supposedly meeting. He was crunching, lip smacking and sucking as he pulled around gristle another guy and that was all that mattered right at that moment and into coarse hair. I again had to fight back the urge to wretch. of this sloshing sorority-like silliness. Amy was on my lips then, running her tongue into my “Tell him we’ll be ready to eat when Janet and Suzanne get mouth to taste the bile, as I broke from her too shocked to say a here,” Cecila said, seeing me sneaking off. “They’ll want to eat so word. he should have it ready.” “That’s enough,” Cecila said, evidently the mistress to “Ok,” I said over my shoulder, heading straight through the Barney’s humiliation; he dropped the possum and stayed where house, even though I wasn’t sure where I was going. he was at the table hunched over breathing heavily. I wasn’t going to add the ‘have it ready’ part. It’s always the I could be into the kinky power play of dom/sub games as sweet, smiling one’s I thought as I made my way through the much as the next guy, but this was out of my league. But just kitchen and to a screen door that faced me in the back wall. when I thought it had gone too far, Janet stood from the table “Hey,” I said stepping up to a brick patio at the back and walked over to Barney. As she had done to me, she lighted of the house. Barney was at the eastern lip of the spacious back on the man, straddling him as they both sat with a ‘hurmph’, yard, meandering around the grill, slapping what looked like running her dark hands through Barney’s hair as he arched his mighty huge steaks onto the heat and wiping his big alabaster back and she took him to her mouth. brow in the process. The couple ate at each other, Janet’s skilled mouth over He didn’t look up. Barney’s lips, the poor guy bucking to get breath as much as “Like ol’ home week back in there,” I started, taking a few control of himself. I looked at the other girls and was not cautious steps to the guy. “Thought I’d give them some time amazed to find Cecila leg’s on either side of the bench, she alone.” rolling forward hard with the her crotch against the wood; “Yeah,” Barney said to the grill. Suzette playing with her hair with one hand her right boob with His chin was to his chest but when I reached him he the other and Amy turned to rub back against me again. I afforded me a glimpse of his eyes and his stare stopped me cold; watched, transfixed as they all were, as Barney enjoyed-or I there was nobody home behind the dude’s bright baby-blues. He assumed he did-the lap dance of his life. was vacant, holding me in a two second moment stare that Janet opened her blouse as she French-ed Barney, then drained the blood from my still pretty heavy penis and stopped getting the halves of her shirt out from between them, she took me dead in my tracks. her face off of Barney’s, lean back and presented her chest to the “You know what you’ve got yourself into,” he said, like man. Barney suckled, clutched there, feeding as he had only Cecila not a question and I just looked at his bent head, the way seconds before on her lips. Janet screamed in what sounded like his curls lifted off his face and ears and tried to still my pain, Cecila smacked her crotch against the bench and Suzette breathing. starting bopping up and down on hers. Amy was close again too, Just then I heard another car door slam and Barney went rubbing her ass into me but I managed to push away from her. back to the grill, working like a master, or a fiend,-I wasn’t sure Janet was leaning back even more, getting her hands down which,-over the spit and sizzle. into her crotch, ripping at the snap on her long jeans shorts. Like “Hiya,” I heard a loud voice call from behind me and I an automaton, Barney stopped suckling the girl, let Janet lean turned not realizing that more then a few minutes must have back on his knees even more and then simply thrust his right passed as I watched Barney’s bent back and Janet and Suzanne hand down the front of the writhing girl, his eyes not moving or evidently made their way into the house and to us. The girls who registering what was happening. Cecila sighed, Suzette gulped walked in front of Amy and Cecila were a matched set, perfect and Amy sat back. Barney was now touching Janet with the very opposites in every way. hand he had held the steaming possum with! I got the “Suzette,” the tall red head said extending her hand. She connection; his soiled mouth and hands getting the girl off, but it fixed me with a thin-lipped smile, rosy red cheeks and what still didn’t make me feel any better about what I was seeing. seemed like quite the discernable stare. I hoped I wasn’t still “Guys, it’s been nice but ...” I tried, the girls turning to me, hard. rising off of picnic benches, Amy turning to me, even little Janet “Janet?” I asked as the petite Spanish girl with the impossibly came off of Barney with a reverse squat that would have made round hips sauntered to me and literally jumped in my arms. She any stripper jealous. Barney just sat in his chair smiling. had me lip-locked and as I heard the girls around me snicker “Amy said you’d be worth it Kyle …” Cecila began. (Amy most of all) it was all I could do to retrieve my tonsils I was shit damn scared, not just with the eating dead possum when we came up for air a minute later. mombo-jumbo but the way in which these four girls looked, all TWISTED TONGUE 70 needy yet at the same time like they were about to go for my Then I’d be gone for good! throat … my girlfriend looking about as hungry as the rest of “We offer a variety in our foursome. You can experience them. everything you’ll ever need with our mix of body types, talents “… hung,” Cecila began to list as in union the girls looked at and approaches.” my crotch. “Intelligent,” she continued. “Open to new This was Suzette waxing egotistical. experiences.” “We will give you everything you want, from food to shelter “He’s perfect,” Amy cooed and turned fully to me as if I to companionship. In return we only ask you do our bidding. should thank her for the compliment. You experience death, from the small like road-kill to the “Sorry …” I said stepping to the side of the house. “… can’t gigantic, like fucking Amy now. All we ask is that you let us feel go there with you guys. Amy, it’s been real, but …” it through you.” I was trying to keep some levity in the situation, scared as I Did she say fucking Amy? was. I knew if I could get out of the backyard I’d leave Amy like “The sexual urge heightens senses, so we much prefer to do a drying come stain here in south Delaware and never see her it …” again. Whatever these four friends and Barney, the dead meat- Did she say fucking Amy? eating slave, were into was not my gig. Coffin doors, eating road “Amy,” I sighed to the girl lying prone and not a foot from kill, my big cock notwithstanding, I couldn’t travel the paths me. these chicks were travelling. “Do it,” Suzette said, coming to the edge of the bench at me, “You really should stay,” Amy said and she was up into my Cecila was at my back and I knew I couldn’t retreat. arms then. “She’ll die if you don’t,” Suzette offered. “She allowed me to I tried to fight her off, I really did, but I felt her fall into me stab her with the hope you’d agree.” hard. As I struggled I happened to look up and over her bent “Nobody’s taking her anyplace unless you fuck her Kyle,” shoulder to see Suzette advancing, Barney’s big carving knife in Cecila added what I already obviously knew. her hand! Before I had a chance to shuck my hips, drag my There had been calm in Janet’s voice. Her explanation was girlfriend from harm’s way, Suzette plunged and Amy lay into my one I truly wanted to hear, to make sense of all I had seen this embrace not only like she had been expecting the attack, but past half hour, maybe ever since meeting Amy, but there was my more like she welcomed it. soon-to-be ex girlfriend lying at our feet soon-to-be ex! I hadn’t “Kiss me,” she said, the pinpoint pain registering across her forgotten about her in the least, but for the moment my mind pretty wide features. For extra emphasis, the girl locked one leg allowed the conversation with Janet to take me from the horror up around my hip and began to dry-hump me, as we stood of all this, as if a pretty girl explaining things would make it all go clutched there. away. “Kiss me until I pass out,” Amy said, her lips brushing my “Amy,” I said kneeling to her. Her usual liquid blue eyes ear. “They’ll get me to the hospital in time. Kiss me, let me were closed. She lay motionless if, like she said, they would get feel…” her to the hospital I knew the time had to be now. I left the girl sputtering there on the patio bricks. I turned “Do it and then we’ll take her,” Cecila said. “It will be from them all to make my leave. your first real step.” “Kyle…” Cecila said from behind me. “…you leave and I knew I had no other choice to save this girl’s life. Amy dies, simple as that.” As I bent down, eased my body over my prone girlfriend I I turned to them as the trio took their respective seats at the had a moment of fear that maybe I’d not be able to get it up cherry-wood picnic table and my girlfriend lay still on the ground under this scrutiny and circumstance. under us. This was not the moment for finesse. I rolled and pulled at “I can …” I tried. my jeans, had them down just enough to roll my half-mast self I went to Amy but I knew nobody he would let me just drag over my underwear; somehow I was hard enough to get myself her out. They wanted me to stay for some evil reason and if I did in hand. Amy was lying with her eyes almost closed, but there then and only then would they let me or take Amy themselves was smile playing across her lips as Cecila bent and lifted Amy’s for help. skirt; I wasn’t shocked my girlfriend had come out of the “You ever wonder about extremes?” Janet cooed and I bathroom sans thong. What had once been the most delightful turned to the girl who I had not really heard speak before. I sight to me for the past two months now looked like the maw of guess I was so shocked she was, coming to regard her as a mad- death … but still I was hard. Amy’s creamy taut thighs were eyed, lip-locking cocoa-skinned slut, that I actually listened as she calling to me to spread as they always did, and at any other time I continued. would have wrestled my face down into her…at any other time “That whole Goth movement, the Ann Rice vampire before this twisted summer afternoon, that is. wannbe’s, that’s all suburban brats chasing hollow extremes. For my own perverse pleasure or my mocking of this crowd What we are after here is of an altogether higher order.” of harpies over me I ripped at my jeans once again and got them Something in Janet’s voice was soothing me to listen, as if good and off my white little ass so I’d be flashing a firm moon at she gave this calming well-articulated lecture often. I was looking them. I’d fuck her to fuck them, I reasoned. How else could I long at her pretty wide face, trying to imagine her locked on have rationalized my cock getting hard right then; I’d not think Barney only minutes before, offering her mouth, tits, pussy to about any other reasons. him, so she could feel the gristle and stink of dead possum. Amy was ready, silky wet. I entered her in a heat of insanity I “We found one another because we all crave death,” the little feared I’d never lift my mind from, let alone my body. Amy had girl continued. “Not to feel it, to die, but to touch it, tickle it, been counting on my moral centre to perform this most immoral coax it. And while we live our lives as much on a razor’s edge as of acts knowing when faced with the proposition of her dying if possible we have enlisted …” (and here the little girl stopped to I didn’t fuck her, I’d fuck her. I was as weak as they all wanted smile across at Barney) “… and attractive and willing man to and needed me to be. show experience through.” My girlfriend gulped as I thrust three times, then I was out “Willing?” I spat. of her, rolling full foetal next to the picnic table. I began to dry- Dude, Amy is dying at your feet. heave as the girls moved quickly around me. I looked hard at Janet tried to will her words to sense, to “Let’s go,” Cecila said, reaching down with Suzette and Janet ignore what I had just seen, to really like Amy’s friends now that to grab Amy. I had met them. “It’s Steve’s shift, right?” Suzette asked. Dude, Amy is dying at your feet. “Amy’s not stupid …” Cecila mocked the taller girl as they “In time, yes,” Cecila said at my side. “As you will be willing got Amy up into their carry. “… he knows we’re coming.” in time.” I heard but did not hear this exchange. It was becoming clear I doubted that but didn’t protest. I’d hear her out if it meant to me that these girls had escapes routed, contingences figured, the chance of saving the bleeding girl at my feet. perverse strategies planned. I was a baby. I was a crushed and TWISTED TONGUE 71 broken thing. My head was spinning and I felt tears coming. But This cruel? as I lie there, smelled the citronella and high flowery air, felt the If this all was as I was starting to understand it might be, thin grease from the grill in the air I managed to look up. then Barney was most probably the strongest willed person I had I caught Barney smiling at me. ever met, and definitely the most perverse. Jesus, was he mocking me? Was he taking pleasure in Careful what you wish for indeed, I thought to the girls as another slave born today? they opened the screen door and I stood and pulled up my pants. I never wanted to hit somebody more in my life. To wreck The submissive is truly the dominant, since the seeming slave his stained face, to … actually dictates how much they will allow or be available for. Shit! Barney was available for it all: the girls were doing his biding, yet Wait! Shit! he had convinced them of the opposite. It was literally like a light bulb flickering to light over my God, talk about being one up on Amy’s seeming sexual supplicant head. expertise and perversity! Shit. Shit! “They’ll be plenty to get to tonight,” Cecila said over her No. shoulder closing the screen on her high round butt. “Better clean Was it fucking possible? Did I dare even dream it?! up, when we get back we’ll continue with your initiation.” No! “Yes we will,” I said under my breath. In Barney’s smile, his wide-expression across the patio at me I smiled back at Barney as the girls dragged Amy through the I suddenly understood. I can be dense, certainly with what I had house and out the front door, or so I hoped and assumed. just been through, but Barney’s intent was coming through loud “You know what you’ve got yourself into,” Barney said, as I and clear now. walked across the patio to him. Again it was not a question. My God! “I certainly do,” I said and stood at the grill ready to help Forget Janet’s try at an explanation, I suddenly understood him clean up. this entire late afternoon … and what’s more, my role in it. Beyond what Cecila, Janet, Suzette … even Amy had informed © Ralph Greco, Jr. me of, beyond probably what even they could understand, I understood in a way that no-one at this party could have informed me, except quiet, seemingly broken Barney, the Ralph Greco, Jr. is an internationally published author of strongest one of us all. short stories, plays, essays, button slogans, 800# phone sex scripts, children’s songs and SEO copy. Ralph is also an His wide smile was speaking volumes. I was centred. I ASCAP licensed songwriter/performer and Internet radio suddenly understood why he had seemed so disconnected on D.J. He lives in the wilds of suburban NJ, where he first meeting, why his eyes showed no depth, no hunger or soul, attempts to keep his ever-expanding ego in check no light. Could one man really be this crafty? This inspired?

The Last Roast Eugene Gramelis

arl, get the door,” Fran said. She was standing at the sink peeling potatoes, and thinking how unusually dark and hazy it was outside for a Sunday morning in the middle of spring. “I thought I heard someone knock.” “E “There’s no-one out there,” Earl replied, looking up from his game of solitaire. Since his retirement from the postal service last July, he seemed to enjoy spending his free time arguing with her about everything, from the right way to fold a tablecloth to the wrong way to fold a hand in a game of cards. “I bet it’s just that stupid cat scratching at the flap again. Thing’s blinder than you are. When is that roast going to be ready? I’m starving.” “You just had breakfast.” “I’ve spent the last forty-five years of my life—” “—serving your country, and now that you’re retired you’re going to damn well enjoy your last few years on this Earth anyway you damn well please. I know, Earl. I know.” There was a loud thud, and the front door shook. They looked at each other. Earl’s eyes narrowed. Abruptly, he pushed his chair away from the kitchen table and stood up. “It’s that damned paper boy. You know how many times I’ve hollered at him about throwing the paper at the house? One day it’s in the water fountain, the next on the roof. Mark my words: he’s going to break a window.” Earl walked to the front door in long strides, looking a little like Hue Hefner, still dressed as he was in his pajamas and robe. “I’ll fix the little vandal.” “Leave him alone, Earl. He’s just a kid.” Fran watched as her husband reached for the door, saddened by the realization that the gentle, though sometimes excitable, twenty-two- year-old she had married all those years ago had finally made the transformation into a grumpy old man. She turned the leg-of- lamb over and gave it a generous sprinkling of rosemary and thyme. How many of these had she cooked for the old grouch, she wondered. At least he got to retire. What did she get? She got to make the Sunday roast until the end of days. “You ever tried reading the sports page when it’s soaking wet or smeared in dog turd?” he asked. “If I want to spend the last few years of my life reading …” Earl swung the door open and was shocked into silence when it fell off its hinges. Long, charred claw marks ran along the outside of its stained wood paneling. There was no cat, no paper delivery boy, and no neighborhood. The landscape beyond his porch steps was a writhing chaos of smoke and flame. He saw something skitter from the corner of one eye; something else chirruped menacingly from deep within the inferno. “Oh, stop your whining, Earl,” Fran said over her shoulder. “It’s not like it’s the end of the world.” Eugene Gramelis is a widely-published, award-winning author of suspense and dark fiction. When not writing, he practises law as a barrister in Sydney, Australia, where he resides with his beautiful wife and three gorgeous children. He invites you to walk with © Eugene Gramelis him at http://gramelis.blogspot.com

TWISTED TONGUE 72

TWISTED TONGUE 73 Still spinning, she recalled Captain Cook’s 2-anomalies in gimbals’ stati d’animo foolish South Island survey: anchored in Sound he named Queen Charlotte, Cook learns of ancient 6-toe inhabitants. Finding 6th- resolution toe to South Island’s east-coast, he enhanced by leaving

hinterland access uncharted, & attached rudder. “1816+142=1958’s X-factor 1968 Wahine disaster The “Time for your shot!” Tempest,’ the Joker continued. ‘Ballet Incunabulum’s the destiny of Spinning, the ballerina concentrates upon the spot. Faster & Prospero’s Books, as 222 “Right-&-Left Feet” configures New faster goes the prima-dona of spin, but the blur’s stationary, Mod Zealand’s 6th-toe & Australia’s 2010-alignment. 41st-blueprint Turin’s inner ear fluids register perfect balance in the brain’s propositions one of Shakespeare’s 38-plays, 2-lost plays or focus. unknown play encodes a master plan. Unlike Fonteyn’s Panama “latitudinal” spin, you’re “longitudinal” satellite. We’re now

testing your vestibular system.” “Whose we?” the ballerina bemused swapping tutu for space-suit, as her shoulder’s swabbed. “Mission Control,” she heard & felt a syringe eject cold-fluid in her ear. Suddenly her balance & spatial orientation’s threatened. The prick in her arm went straight to her head. Nystagmus: her eyes want to drift-off. “Can’t feel my toes,” she yelled. Her spin 777-rendezvous 3-rows@7; 3-columns@7; 421-configures unhinged, wobbles a twisted groove. Head over heels, crash, 1588+421=2009, but Panvax-phobia sets-in. burn, the ballerina fights to regain re-entry “spin” trajectory: Idol Dame Margot Fonteyn’s jailed for a day in Panama, April 21, 322+223+232=777 Janus Triangulation New Year Resolution. 1959 as police accuse her Panamanian husband of plotting a coup, reveals Aporkalypse immunity Canberra’s 23-drums of copper-wire theft, April 21, 2009. Heat shield disintegrates, but not before splashdown: a my Legend alchemists’ holy grail of lead to gold conceals copper space posting Comet’s 2-tails: blue=gas & yellow=dust. transmutation base-metal & suddenly Mod’s spinning in th Police intelligence sets-up spin, as those who’ve felt its uncharted territory. April 21’s 111 -day-of-year; 111-diagonal’s authority know. secret number Magic 6-Square The Sun, alchemy’s Gold. Monday 28th December 2009 reality-scripting Lost-hand Mathematician-astronomer Regiomontanus’ 1476- blastoff Hemphill: a burnt body is discovered at Wilga Road, summoned to Rome, but died, possibly almond-poisoned, & the Willbriggie outskirts of Griffith, with T-shirt the only identifier, calendar wasn’t corrected for another 106-years is unless you decipher the news. For starters, a horrific accident on Regiomontanus “doomsday-prophecy” Comet 1588. Protestant the South Coast’s Princes Highway, when a Kenworth tanker England’s in its grip, even after defeating the Spanish Armada, as carrying diesel crosses to the wrong-side of the road & Harvey-Nashe pamphlet “Shakespeare” controversies testify. th incinerates the Bridges family Sabaru travelling north. Tanker- “1588+421=2009 precedence’s 4 -centenary 1988 Uncanny driver David Carolan & 2-children died, the parents fight for A*Topia Fiction international architectural program_” their lives. “Where am I?” she asked. Mod Turin’s seen it all before, over & over. “You’re the Riverina Ballerina’s Incunabulum: early printed 2010 Aporkalypse immunity N”wire” is last chance to Montreal books pre-1501 Southern Cross rediscovery Amerigo Vespucci 1990’s Contact: Computer Modelling. For 20-years she’s failed the named Almond, is ‘Right-Angle’ with 2-pointers Alpha-&-Beta 1+2+3+4+5+6=21-year Tee-6 Time Pyramid. Her naivety Centauri.” avoided Tee 4+7 Time Pyramid the Law as programmed, only to “Incunabulum?” How’s she spin a ballet about the Almond? 0 find a bigger mess. And now she’s being projected into Don “ALMOND=L-MONAD as L=90 & MONAD is heartland as-per The Mafia “L12” Misfit. Pythagorean God to American secret foundation’s Incunabulum,” “Didn’t hurt, did it,” said the Joker in white-coat. “Sign the said the person in white-coat. dotted-line, & we’re finished.” “Unbelievable,” she’s can’t stop spinning. rd “What is it?” she asked. “53 -Prime Number’s 241, I’m the Joker to Bronte sisters’ “Legal-wavier_ You’re supposed to sign the Pandemic southern hemisphere transition. Only Charlotte, born April 21, H1N1 2009 Influenza Vaccine Consent Form first, but you’d a 1816, equator dips Neptune, as Anne & Emily died before ACE- rd psychotic-reaction, so I gave you the jab.” penmanship’s Bell revelations. Charlotte’s 193 -birthday April Swine-flu surfaced Mexico City, April 23, 2009. Mod believes 21, 2009: New Zealand’s English names, North Island & South its out-of-lab activation’s April 21. 20th-anniversary 1989 Island, were never made legal. Ballet Incunabulum’s to Charlotte Newcastle earthquake’s 10.28am timing reflects date’s 28th ‘bottom-row to top’ intercontinental-shift.” December’s [Decagon=10], as Australia’s only killer earthquake

claims 13-lives. 1989-2009=21-year Time Pyramid’s before acquiring MI6-&- 5’s numbers, instead allocated PO Box 407. States of mind are an occupational hazard when 1989 foreplay’s 1990 as Uncanny A*Topia Fiction remainder. Facts are highly dubious when Elizabethan “oneninety” Mystery Theatre espionage’s spilled into the world at large.

Fiction isn’t proof. Is your NYR Aporkalypse immunity?

The Joker explained. “777-reconfigured diagonals total 6-&- © Barrie Walsh 7, with 222 aligning LF=January 26, 1788 Australia settlement as British penal-colony’s 1788+222=2010 codeX2000 of Templar 1308+36=1344+666=2010 diabolical plot. 2-MR’s Cook Strait storm to Wahine ferry disaster April 10, 1968, manifests TOA- wahine. Wahine’s the female suffix to male-dominant Maori For the last 2-years Barrie Walsh has been working a language & Toa’s warrior, so TOA-wahine’s female warrior.” collection of conspiracy architecture short stories while fruit picking in Griffith NSW, Australia.

TWISTED TONGUE 74 TWISTED TONGUE 75 Hack Town Gretchen Van Lente

PART ONE

oil is moist near the river, like black pudding. My shovel cut through the tall Sgrass, into the moist black earth. The digging went easy and fast. Six feet down I sifted among the small fragments of bones. The detritus of human forms looked at first like a harmless midden for a native tribe or a westward wagon train—something remarkable about the every day in our history. But as I dug deeper the refuse took on the sinister look of certain bones, the ones used for telling horrible secrets, bones shot like dice to discern the evil among us. Bones carelessly crushed and pumped. New malls had already crumbled from neglect. Most fragmented within the black earth. Intertwined with threads of businesses and even some county buildings had been boarded up cloth not yet rotted over the century. The fragments were as long ago, and nature engulfed these buildings with a rich, tight numerous as pebbles, the skulls barely intact but decapitated, coat of weeds. By the age of fourteen I realized that a person lying every which way, staring up, gasping at a side glance, or with a dream--any dream—fled this town as quickly as they face down in shame, or still encased in the moist walls of the pit could drive or steal a car or pay for a Greyhound ticket to like some morbid idea of decor. anywhere. In my case, I remember the day I stole the gardener’s Then I knew it was true. I looked back toward my house truck and drove to Mexico, where I could hide from my family. I with the exhaustion of someone outrunning a locomotive. The new a child could live there on her own without anyone Goth kids pressed their noses against the window, tittering, questioning it; I could even find honest work selling flowers on enjoying the panic in me. Fear and dread seemed easier than the street. What a young selfish girl I was. I can make it death at that moment. A fact they hadn’t counted on. And the anywhere, I told myself to justify the stolen truck. Anywhere but only thing that could save me now was the very thing I had here. I will kill my dreams if I stay here. suppressed all my life—a fear, a dread, a healthy aversion. All my I had never intended to return under any circumstances, life I had played at games, toying with the lullaby of death. But because of the gloominess of the city—gray, slushy winters and this was no flirtation with death and death was not an appealing dark, woodland streets like sleepy hallows, the gray pallor on friend anymore. Not a gentleman at all, more like a hungry everyone you saw—a populace drained of human blush, walking demon intent on burning me alive—just for fun of a demon hunched over in slow motion down deserted streets. When I kind. drove through the town that first day back, these were the clues A plot had been launched against me from beyond the grave that told me nothing had changed in thirty years. The town was more than a century ago, and what was I guilty of, besides being and always would be, in my opinion, a necropolis. related to Sebastian Hack? There was a time when Lumber When I got the news I was startled, first, by the fact that any Barons like my Great, Great Grandfather ruled this town and one in my family knew where to find me. Still, it was my Aunt bled it dry, making the loss of any one human life a bother. The Dizzy writing to me, begging me to come home, to say goodbye curse I had inherited was no less horrific, and when I cried in self before she died, although she could not, in an obsessive amount pity to my God, when I insisted on my dumb innocence, I found of letter writing, describe to me why she was dying. “You will no one listening. arrive to inherit,” she wrote, “a selfish curse. You come from selfish, greedy people. It’s the love of things that haunts us so efore this event I considered myself an outsider, having fled much. We love our things more than people. We cling to things Bat fourteen to live in bigger cities, Chicago, Miami, Los as if things can save us, and I am no better than the rest. Even I Angeles, The Bronx, Guadalajara, anywhere but the little Gothic would betray you. I would betray a new born child for my right City where I was born. The rich Lumber Barons of the previous to things.” My Aunt Dizzy had been philosophical. I understood century had left behind their fortress-like red brick mansions, her to be confessing some unease over transgressions she could along with a Victorian Library, a court house, and an never have been guilty of; at the same time she was hinting at administration building—all towering brick edifices with turrets some secret about my family. But I felt no sense of responsibility and spires and clock towers like belfries. The Library clock no matter how she shaded the matter. I hardly considered myself bellowed on the hour like a grumbling, high flying beast. Circular to be in the same case as my family. Unlike them, I was not a stair cases, tenuous as strings of iron lace, rose like endless flights railroad person—not steeped in the dull filth and environmental through the stories in each municipal building. And while the disasters one associates with the industrial age. I thought of wood floors shined with a century’s worth of yellow polish, the myself as more enlightened than them, if dirt poor. After all, I floor boards creaked and echoed with each step you made in the worked for the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. sparsely populated buildings, where you sought out a hunched I could not get any more clarification from Aunt Dizzy over, grunting bureaucrat to sign your deeds and variances. The about the nature of her illness, and I assumed that, though she sombre portraits of the Lumber Barons who once ruled the town clearly had dementia, somehow she could write and address an like an oligarchy hung large and kingly about the buildings, and I envelope—or maybe she had a secretary. I understood that she always had the sense that these masters of the lumber era were was in trouble, and maybe if I arrived in time, I could make her somehow stuck inside their ostentatious, larger than life well or see to it that she found a good doctor. When I ran away paintings—that they hadn’t gone on, hadn’t transcended. Would at fourteen, I left a small fortune behind. My Great Aunt Dizzy remain obsolete for an eternity. had been someone to remember out of a dreadful past. So for Statues of proud Civil War heroes from the old North and the sake of Aunt Dizzy, I walked off the set of a boring and South over looked the large grave yard in the middle of town, treacherous stunt—a human fire ball which not that many where mausoleums and elaborate tomb stones and obelisks were women in LA were called on to perform. Not because it was present, along with countless cherubs, suggesting a large infant dangerous. More because it was hideous, watching a woman mortality rate at some point in our history. One could see at a flailing her arms, lumbering, engulfed in fire. The cast had to glance that the graveyard held more people than the town. There attend and applaud and they didn’t like it. were no restaurants that weren’t shuttered. No gas to be TWISTED TONGUE 76 I left L.A. immediately, but by the time I arrived, my Great She floated off into the arms of my father, who was waiting to Aunt Dizzy was already dead and buried in the family place a satin shawl on her shoulders. They were off to a fraternity mausoleum, and the coroner would hardly speak to me. I caught dinner with other railroad people. The look my father did not him gazing out the dirty window of his office. A dull man with give me said it all--he had overheard and registered nothing. I wild eyes and paste for skin, he touched the glass as if he were had a feeling he was focused entirely on fantasies of the women touching air and stared into the street outside his shop. He he would meet at dinner. Women more ready to laugh than my noticed me banging on his door. He walked to the door and mother. (My mother could only grimace.) For my father, that opened it, backing up to let me into a dark room. His skin shined transitory hope took precedence over the fact that my mother with a light but he seemed opaque and milky, even shifty like a had just invalidated my existence. What was survival to me then, haze. His soiled clothes were just gray—no suit, no decorum, except to be the very opposite? I had no choice in the matter. I just plain ill fitting work clothes, and, funny of all, no shoes on could not survive in things. I needed a heart. And yet I grew up his bare feet. He had me sit on the opposite side of his desk. He to be solitary none the less. And I kept my own little collection stared above my head and told me that my Aunt Dizzy had been of tacky shot glasses from all the places I had passed through or cremated, her ashes poured into the mausoleum like the rest of lived in as a child on the run from the fact that no one was my family. She died of freight, he said. looking for me. I laughed, “That’s your professional opinion?” I understood There was a catch to owning more antiques than an auction him to mean her heart gave out. “Did she have a heart house: the city taxes had not been paid in ten years, or so the condition?” I asked. ragged, pale clerks at the old county building told me after I “She just died,” he said, staring over my head. He sat so still woke them from napping with their eyes wide open. I wondered it was hard to see his own heart beating. As I walked away from at the time if they had made up a figure just to dismiss me. the coroner’s office, even annoyed by the lack of answers to my Certainly they were not interested in working, or doing anything questions, I laughed to think he verified what I had always said— behind occupying a chair. When I asked for their help for the that my home town was only fit for the walking dead. fifth time, one of the clerks swivelled his head and said without Figuratively I meant those with out imagination. Isn’t that what blinking, “ten years” as if he’d pulled a figure out of his head. Flannery O’Connor meant? The small minded are already dead? “Can you update me on the current charge?” I asked him. He stared at me, and then he looked away in a solid daze. I o Aunt Dizzy left me alone to sit in one of those enormous asked another clerk sitting at a desk, “Can’t you calculate the cost Sred brick mansions with spirals and towers and belfries—my for me? Today? Tomorrow? Any time in the near future?” I inheritance, along with all of the other priceless antiques that always try for humour when I am annoyed, but no one got my went with the house. Looking around myself on my first visit, I joke. I had to walk away without an answer. did not think I’d have to work again. Odd stained glass windows, “It’s your money,” I said over my shoulder, and when I dimmed by a layer of soot, reflected pools of muted colours on made my parting glance a hard lake breeze swept in through the the floor. The pictures represented both mythical beats and window, making a flurry of old yellow forms which sailed off the angels, as if when the sun made a rare appearance, a fight desks like dead leaves in an updraft—still the clerks did not between good and evil raged on the floors of our house, blurring move or blink, and I left hoping one of those yellow sheets was and dimming with the exhaustion of the battle. As the sole an account of my ten years of unpaid taxes. remaining relative of my Aunt Dizzy I was now in possession of I found the house in good shape for its age, but it smelled the house and a crowded fortune in antiques. Where one chair of must. Every room felt damp. Some of the velvet curtains had could have stood, I saw ten. Three carved dinner tables crowded pea green mould, while the gold tassels hung half rotted and a hallway. The house was heaving with things wrought in gold drooping on the floor, looking at a glance like dead mice in the filigree and gilded bronze mounts, such as the countless, un- corners. My Aunt Dizzy--so named for her dizzy spells, had a inventoried Louis the XVI commodes and writing tables. There library of leather bound books in various stages of rotting. Even were medieval reliquaries and chalices, tapestries from Brussels the priceless books were in bad condition. And yet she had a with foliate patterns, cabinets signed by Court Cabinet Makers. fortune in fire insurance, I could see, looking through what few There were Porcelain vases from both the Ming and the Manchu papers she had. The library had twelve shelves from floor to Qing dynasties. Much of the decorative items had Marquetry ceiling, plus a moving wrought iron stair case with rollers. I had veneers of ebony, tortoiseshell, ivory, and coloured woods. so little memory of the creepy mansion. As a child I left in the Clocks and telescopes sat untouched, still snug in their velvet early morning to fish or swim in the river and never returned lined cases. Lapis Lazuli inlay decorated the texts of early until our late suppers, and my parents let me do so because I was Christian manuscripts. But nothing was for display. Priceless deaf to everything they said, and because they really had no “things” were simply crammed into every corner. Carelessly feelings for me at all. Sometimes, disguised as a boy, I camped in cared for. As a small opinionated child the lack of space in a four the woods alone for weeks or months to forget who I was and story mansion annoyed me. My Mother, appalled to be criticized, who they were: people who only knew themselves in things. We forced me through humiliation to sit down one day to hear a had hobos when I was a child, parked along the train tracks that harsh talk about reality. She sat me in a rocking chair rumoured ran through the woods, and I heard my family talked about in to be built by Benjamin Franklin himself. bitter terms. There was never any love in that town for the “Just sit and listen.” She said, and I did, though I rarely descendents of Sebastian Hack. listened to anything my parents said. “So you don’t like us,” she “Who’s your family in this town boy?” The hobos quizzed went on with a tight, bland face. “You think that matters to me? me sometimes, and added, “Life can’t be that bad you gotta live I will do this much for you, and probably nothing more, since on the rails.” you are a drain more than a help. One day the railroad will be I’d shake my head, pull my cap down, “My family is nobody gone, just as obsolete as the Lumber Barons are now. The trains in this town,” I’d say. will stop dead in their tracks and move no more. That time is “That’s better for you,” I often heard after a pause, and coming. But this house will always be rich in the things that no that’s how it went in the woods beside the railroad tracks. I never time or era can erase. Put your trust in things. Things that outlast knew, or wanted to know, the story of my family. each century. It is the only way you can trust the future. The One old hobo dressed like a lumber jack from the old days-- future is always brutal. And that is what I mean to tell you, to with a wool cap on the top of his head, old heavy boots, a dirty prepare you for. That is all I can or ever will do for you. Trust in jacket with rolled up sleeves, and a hatchet at his side. He was a things. Do you trust me? Do I trust you? Not on my life,” my big man, like the lumber jacks I had seen in old pictures, and he mother said. “But you can trust in things. Ageless, priceless looked the part to perfection. Pressed up next to him sat a small things.” And then, floating away, she spoke more to herself, “I woman I took for somebody’s maid in a starched uniform—she wish you had never been born, because you could be the one to snuck out to greet her hobo boyfriend in the woods, I imagined, end it all, for all I know. It’s been predicated. And that is why I and risked getting fired for it. hate you, why we all hate you. You could ruin it for all of us.” TWISTED TONGUE 77 “I peer into that fire,” the old hobo said, “and who do you Perhaps I would finally write that screen play that would make think I see? I see old man Hack, screaming from hell.” There was me somebody. I was young enough, but as a stunt performer I a heavy silence, pregnant with the lumber jack’s hatred and had cracked ribs that would never heal right. I had sore joints bitterness, and then his little lady at his side added, “I think I do like an old woman, and an incurable bad back. I had some nerve see the old bugger!” And then there was an explosion of damage from human torch stunts that had gone off wrong. Stunt laughing and heaving and falling down backwards onto the floor performing was a young person’s career. I needed to move on. I of leaves, slapping each other’s backs. Such was their exuberance would write a screenplay about this town I called a necropolis, at the thought of my Great, Great Grandfather burning in hell. and describe my ancestors as the city founders since my Aunt The night continued to be jovial, one long drinking party out of Dizzy always claimed it was a “fact I would recon with some control. Some several hobos took the “child” and threw “him” day.” in the air over and over until I begged to be left alone. My cap I would hunt for dirt on the Lumber Barons who had made came off and my hair cascaded and they howled to see that I was this a glamorous city with opera and vaudeville houses, fancy a little girl, not a boy. Their bone thin fingers began to grasp and horse and buggy races through the muddy streets, and lighted tug at my clothes until I wriggled free and fled home through the walks along the river that ran through out town. One could stop woods. Glancing back as I ran I could see the fire blazing, but no and hear an organ grinder with his monkey, or pay a penny to a shapes sitting around it. dirty child. On Ottawa street, the main road in and out, the Lumber Barons kept their favourite singers and dancers and had a memory of Dizzy’s stare, how she could slip off into mistresses and whores in good style. This much of the story I Ithe nebula for a long space of time. A few times I sat with knew from Dizzy. Perhaps I would find valuable research in her, waiting to see if she was more or less alright—a child’s idea Aunt Dizzy’s library. I would find where she fit into our family. of vigilance. I remember her waking up, looking at me startled, It seemed I mainly recalled her carrying plates to our Sunday smiling. “You’re the one,” she’d say. And she’d looked at me table. She may have instructed the maids. I would work all of with too much exuberance, too much hope, which is that, somehow, into a screenplay that would make me somebody uncomfortable for a child. I’d shrug and walk away, just as I did important, thus allowing me to retire from high dives and human with anything weird having to do with my family, and everything torches—which after all was only a Kafkaesque need for about them, to me, as a fourteen year old girl, seemed repulsive. attention and self deprivation at the same time, I had recently Perhaps it was my mother’s desperate social climbing. Or my concluded. A check and balance. A negative to cross out the father’s many secret lives. Or the bland children they had raised positive. But now I was rich. My family was dead. I would move and then indoctrinated, as if children were born to a life of in one direction. A lonely woman, I could buy friends if I needed objectification. I hated the slavish way my seventeen siblings to. I could buy bliss in a cottage at the ocean. I could buy respect took their every cue from my parents, knotting their ties so as an art collector. Or I could write one screenplay and become a perfectly, buttoning up, and walking with their shoulders back famous recluse. It seemed to me that options were endless, and their behinds up high. I had cousins, uncles and aunts, too infinite, like Aunt Dizzy’s paper thin dimensions. numerous to count that camped at our mansion. They all owned When I explored the town outside my fortress walls, I a stake in the railroads, and around our dinner table the only talk discovered the skeleton of an old dead industrial beast. was about paying people less and making more. They talked Everywhere one saw them, and they looked nearly identical— about driving trains through pristine wilderness, extending their abandoned factories with shattered windows and smutty coal fortunes for as for as the continents stretched. They had a dust creeping up the old brick walls—a sand coloured brick singleness of purpose, to make more, have more, be more in the which now looked mottled and veined with coal dust. Someone eyes of other people. Everyone had to do their part to procure once thought they could sell these dilapidated factories as condos more money. Money and beautiful things were the barriers by doing nothing more than putting up a fancy sign to cover the against something they could not stand. And there again, I never worst damage from sooty rain and vandals, but that was many learned what it was they feared more then hell’s gate. But I can years ago, and the bright new signs selling the condos were the still see them, my countess relatives, sifting through the house, only evidence of hope. meeting in secret cabals, shadowy figures, mumbling, nervous, Mountains of coal dust covered much of the town’s counting their bills in their purses and wallets in plain sight, landscape like small dunes of filth, and trains full of coal still shaking their weary heads as if all the money in the world could weaved through the town occasionally--rarely. But the rails had not fill the holes left behind my some mental explosion as no gates or warning bells. From the window of your car, one had destructive as a dynamite blast. And I heard that whispered to listen and peer down the tracks before a crossway. It was about too—the casualties from dynamite explosions. But these almost as if the trains expected no one to be there waiting for the conversations were not sympathetic to anyone. They were about bell and the gate to signify a safe crossing. cover up and cost. Other Victorian mansions surrounded mine, but they were in states of disgrace and decay if not boarded up or condemned all f anyone had helped me to see differently, Aunt Dizzy did. together. Plenty had been abandoned by the county, as the ISecretly, she was a cartographer, an expert at hidden trails, sheriff’s notice still hung from the door, the words written in a such as the Lake Michigan Underground Railroad, or the map to ghostly hand with a cloudy penmanship like disappearing ink. Montezuma’s treasure, or the secret locations for the vestal From the moment I arrived with a single bag, I began virgins of Atlantis. But much of her map making was about observing the people walking the streets with nothing to do. Men escaping the inescapable. Certain of those maps were not and women strolled arm in arm with their heads down in a comprehensible. She described a better set of circumstances, solemn mood. When they passed along the sidewalk in front of occurring simultaneous on another, identical universe, which was my estate they looked up, peering with derision and confusion. It really a paper thin dimension. “It’s because you don’t deserve seemed to me that these people were circling the house, even this life. Why, in this life, your own mother would sell you if the zeroing in on it as they walked around and around the block and trade was right.” sometimes paused at my lofty iron gate to stare into my She was a great enthusiast, a great talker, and as a child I half windows. I thought perhaps it was a theatrical club doing some believed that somewhere, our doppelgangers sat for tea in bliss, kind of exercise, or people on their way to an opera. They wore in a sunny room, in a sunny world, in a paper thin dimension. muffs and long coats and fur collars. The men dressed in tuxedos with coat tails. They wore sleek toppers. The women’s he library is why I stayed. I would pay the taxes and spend a hats projected long black stylish feathers, or some actually T few months reading and writing and soaking up the cradled entire bird’s nests, and black lace wrapped their faces up dampness in the library, which had an enormous concave like pretty packages. Some of them even dressed poorly, like fireplace I could stand in without hunching down. The small lumber jacks and scullery maids. I wondered if some Victorian fortune Aunt Dizzy left me would give me a space to write for a festival were in town. If traditionally Aunt Dizzy had allowed while as I prepared the house and the antiques to be sold. them to use the house, then perhaps someone neglected to TWISTED TONGUE 78 inform me, and here the poor people were nervous and anxious house. Once again I thought of Aunt Dizzy’s fire insurance. It to get in and start their show. covered every imaginable scenario. There was even a funny My mansion was also a favourite place for teenage vandals, clause about spontaneous combustion, and I remembered a bit unfortunately. I’m speaking of the Goth kids now. They wore of Aunt Dizzy’s hysteria at our Sunday table, the way she insisted black lipstick and smudges around their eyes intentionally, as if a on bright lights being installed, in place of our tradition of using black eye were a fashionable thing. The girls wore black lacy candles like our lumber baron ancestors. I could picture her bustiers, can-can skirts made of black taffeta, and black torn scrunching her hair with two hands, as if holding her brains in, netting on any thing beyond that--legs, necks, arms, midriffs. and threatening to faint if she did not get her way. Even the boys wore black netting on their arms and chests and In order to prevent further property damage I greeted these sometimes covering their long perfect teenage necks. I assumed Goth kids at the gate and invited them in to see the house. it was cultish for them. They wore heavy chains like Christmas Somehow I knew they were merely searching for an end to their ghosts. Some of their clothing seemed to be original antiques— boredom. Not that they didn’t take advantage of me as they their hats, especially--the boys in bowlers, and the girls in wide toured the house. Beds creaked in lots of upstairs rooms. brimmed hats with feathers from the Great Crested Grebes—a Objects, as I tried to trail the young unruly Goths through the bird that signified one of the first extinctions due to vanity, back many floors and landings, turned up missing, as if they floated in the Victorian age. Those hats made me think the Goth kids into the pockets of their incredibly wide black pants. The Goth had plundered our local museum of the Lumber era, which was kids seemed to shuffle on air through the house. I understood built to demonstrate the Great Lumber Barron’s wealthy their psychology of dress was to seem other than human—that extravagance--as if that were the soul of the town. they were making a statement about feeling dehumanized by the Little thieves. That was my first impression of the Goth kids machinery of life. Still I laughed to myself at the way children go when I looked at how they dressed. Perhaps they had plundered about things. a lot of stores, especially fabric stores, to come up with their odd I convinced them to assemble with me before the fire place costumes of black taffeta and lace. in the library, a pit so wide and deep one could hold court inside The Goth kids wore coal dust rubbed into their skin. I with a cauldron and a few witches. I had prepared a large fire to suppose the isolation of the town made them an odd, outdated take out the chill in the room, and they plopped themselves sort of Goth clan. Or perhaps unique in some way, a synthesis comfortably around the fire and became quiet, mesmerized by with the gloomy town. I estimated some fifty that congregated at the flames, and they became manageable, more or less. They my iron fence, which was odd, for I had heard that Goth kids talked comfortably with me. They claimed they loved the town if were solitary and, well, suicidal. Morose, sullen, even morbid. But others hated it. Because others hated it. And because it was never gregarious. I always assumed they were intentionally creepy and ugly. What they liked best though, and why, they said, gloomy. I sort of understood and related to that. Had I been a they would never leave “for an eternity,” was the lore of the younger woman, I might have been a Goth myself. But this large town’s lumber era, and the horrific story which overshadowed knot of kids did not move about as solitary cynics. They met the town’s history in more ways than one. In fact, the town was regularly, coming back and forth to my fence throughout that badly cursed, they said, and they explained in detail, using a very first day I took possession of my house--like an overgrown casual, off hand tone, as if horrific things happened every day to pack of wild piglets you might encounter in the woods, running people. fast and pressing against each other like one body. It’s not as if I didn’t know the story. I’m sure there were It seemed that someone was always out there, on the other historical documents of a personal nature in my Aunt’s library side of the imposing iron fence surrounding my mansion. If not pertaining to it. But the Goth kids seemed to have made a hobby the theatrical troupe, it was the Goth kids. In a small town there out of knowing everything to do with the tragic chapter in our is not much to be curious about, but still, I hoped soon I would town’s history—as if it was an integral part of who they were. have moments of privacy and that my novelty would wear off. I The history which predated the curse had to do with a famous felt them circling and congregating every minute. It never let up. log jam in the river which runs through the entire town. After If it wasn’t the Goth kids and their cynicism and their rude four weeks of intense competition among the barons, the behaviour, it was the theatrical group, whom I decided never to wooden corrals on the river began to burst one after another on let in, regardless of what ever long standing arrangement they a hot spring day, because the snow melts had made the river may have had with my Aunt Dizzy. To hell with tradition in this pregnant and forceful. The corrals from the various camps all town, I thought. These theatre people creeped me out seriously; popped under the pressure and the velocity. Every corral burst I had the clear sense that if I was nice to them, they would beg to open under the laws of physics, which no amount of arrogance stay too long. They weren’t going away as it was. They hung their could supersede. Every last baron saw his corral spill logs into heavy bodies on my gate, peering in, heaving against the metal, the river by shear force of weight. Wild jets of spay shot into the or clinging to it and shaking the bars violently to get my air as the logs lumped into one force rushing toward the mill— attention. I felt a greediness in them that was almost bestial, and one impossibly dense wall of logs. No one could stop a force I developed a fear of walking out to the gate anytime they were that great or massive. The heavy logs sped inexorably toward the there, but they were there every day, through out the day, on and mill so fast that some jumped the banks with the speed of off—when they weren’t circling tightly around my block. javelins. And unfortunately many in town had come to the banks My wrought iron fence was an imposing twelve feet high to watch the spectacle. Some of those people, many of them, had with one giant rusted lock on the gate. The key that Dizzy had been taken by surprise, and they had not been able to run fast mailed me before she died was also rusted and looked like a enough, or dodge a massive log travelling like a torpedo. The skeleton key, what ever that is, or perhaps it reminded me of a Goths kids explained, the Sunday strollers did not even have skeleton. When I first arrived, weighing both the key and the time to turn their heads, but stared full on at the logs shooting lock in my hands, I was surprised they held the gate after all through the sky in their direction. Most of the children were too these years, but the lock opened with a hard click and the gates stunned to run at all. No one could calculate the number of dead groaned to let me in. Once I had locked myself behind them and children except to say that the amount was “obscene,” as the behind the large imposing bars, they appeared as if they had just local Lumber Town Chronicler reported. The blunt heavy logs had dropped from the sky, and it chilled me to look at them through mowed the children down, as well as those few Sunday strollers. the black bars—these oddly dressed neighbours all set to stage a But mostly it was the children who lived on the river, the urchins performance. They shook the bars of my fence with something who belonged to no one. And when, weeks later, all the logs had like fiendish jealousy. met their destination at the mill, the city stank with the littered The Goth kids hung at the fence a little down from the gate. bodies of the dead. But they were even more annoying, wrecking any chance of “You’ll find the story in that library,” said Sara, who was peace. They laughed with haughty teenage distress as they lodge pregnant and squatted before the fireplace to warm her tummy. firecrackers over the fence, or cherry bombs, or more often just She wore her black hair in tight short pig tails, and she jerked her sticks of fire in a contest to see who could throw closest to the head toward the books as if she were too lazy to lift a finger. TWISTED TONGUE 79 “You’ll probably find several accounts of the curse too.” She can morph and change and they cannot. They can be constant rubbed her naked belly under her black t-shirt, a rag with an and persistent. But that is all they can do. They can wait for oddly luminescent skull, as if the cloth was rotted but the skull centuries and feel a grudge. But they are waiting for us to fix was new, even imbedded into skin, a fashion I had never seen, things. It doesn’t feel right to have to fix things for the adults. I even on Hollywood and Vine. A skull impressed in the fabric as think it’s rather ghoulish on their part. In over one hundred years if tattooed onto the skin. I didn’t know such things in fashion they haven’t changed a thing. That’s your failing, you adults. were possible. Right away I knew I did not like Sara, who Children of any sort, even dead ones, can morph and change reminded me of a Prima Dona, a soulless, spoiled little girl. It with the times to a degree. And that makes us, well, a much finer seemed to me that, if things did not go her way, she could grow sort of people than the likes of you.” indifferent and supercilious like my mother. “Of course,” she “If I had the slightest idea what you were talking about, I went one, “You know about the curse. That according to some probably would disagree,” I stared back at him with as much court of law in another dimension this town belongs solely to the intensity as he stared at me. He broke into a laugh, but I was the dead.” first to look away. When I looked back at him, he too had “I think you mean the bored to death,” I tried to joke with wandered off in his mind, staring up at the flickering images on her. the ceiling. “Yes, I’m the educated one. I try to make sense of it “Todd can tell you best,” she said, again too lazy to connect for the others, although it’s quite senseless, really.” with me. Her dreamy eyes swept up the walls. She stared at “What is?” elongated shadows on the ceiling made by the children sitting “Why, the curse. It has its own odd logic. See if you can motionless before the fire—for while they remained stationary, follow me.” their shadows didn’t. Their shadows trembled, grew, and swelled, “I’m not promising anything.” flickering like tongues of flame. “Let Todd tell you.” Sarah Todd laughed again. “The barons were business men, so brushed past Todd, tapping him affectionately on the head. they made a business man’s agreement, a gentleman’s agreement “Todd knows the details of the curse better than anyone in town. they called it. Each of the barons would bury the dead found on He can read.” properties owned by them, and not another cent would they “Thank you very much,” he said. He twisted his neck to look spend. But they wanted some credit for doing something up her can-can skirts. humane. So they bought fancy headstones and especially stone Sara swiped at him, and then she began talking as if he were cherubs for the children. And they placed them in the rich not in the room, “Todd was not one of us. He went to school, people’s grave yard in the centre of town instead of a corn field did important things. Unlike us, he had privileges in society. We or some place in the woods. I think if they had placed those saw the back of a hand if we asked for so much as a crust of graves in the camp yards they would have had a riot on their bread. His luck. Ditching church to hang out with the dirty little hands, for the common people were sick of their excessive ways. urchins who played dice on the river walk--that is, when we And so the Lumber Barons felt they had struck an agreement weren’t being chased away by the constables, or knocked on the which exonerated them and hardly cost anything. They sent their head with a filthy broom by someone’s skinny kitchen maid.” wives to attend the funerals—the women went unwillingly, of She spoke haughty, disgusted by these imaginary things. course, and held themselves to the back of the service with their I understood their game. They were pretending to be the faces veiled in dark netting. No one remembered that they spoke dead children killed in the log jam. I almost admired their to anyone. But still, some decorum had been met. Those dead structure for alienation. And I had a strong visual, like vivid were lodged in the rich people’s grave yard in the center of town, dreaming, of children rolling dice; children huddled, but it was under respectable tombstones. Therefore, those dead did not not beside a river. It was in an alley off a squat in the Bronx. It become the ghosts that populate the town today.” was me at sixteen. “Oh. So the curse is about a haunting. Who haunts who?” I Todd’s enormous pants pockets were bulging, probably with asked, more snotty sounding than any of them. My composure some of my Great Aunt’s more expensive heirlooms and paper had left me and I felt mean. weights. He lay in front of the fire, his long body stretched out as “I’m getting to that,” said Todd. He felt for something in his he leaned his head in his hand. He stared at me relentlessly, his pocket. He pulled out a small oval picture frame of my Great eyes like unblinking glass in a dolls head, and I could see that he Aunt Dizzy’s father. He erected it on the floor where he could was older than the rest, almost a man, and that he seemed look at it. “You’re not going to like this,” he said. secretive. He spoke with a hostile, needling voice like some children who despise all adults. “Children are resilient. Don’t To be continued ... they say that? They can change with the times. They can adapt to anything. Unlike the old ones. They are stuck walking in circles, © Gretchen Van Lente peaking into windows. Waiting for us to save them because we

Bio: Once I saw that I could publish I realized that what I had always wanted to be was someone like Mary Shelly, creating the best monsters and the most gripping psychological intrigue to go with them. With “Hack Town” I had an advantage. My hometown really was much like the town in the story, an old lumber capital where the lumber barons had done well. Walking the streets of my home town, one can come across many of their fabulous old Victorian mansions, and the archives in the local library aren’t bad, either. In fact, I think the story of a log jam is real—all except for the lethal part of it. Education: I studied Creative Writing as an undergraduate at UCLA, and then I wrote my creative thesis with Tobias Wolff at Syracuse. Occasionally I would read a ghost story to the class there at Syracuse, which was a nice change of pace from New Realism. List of awards: Graduated magna cum laude from UCLA, 1985; PEN LA Most Promising Student Writer Awards, 1983; Atlantic Monthly student awards in fiction and poetry, fourth place in fiction and honorable mention for poetry 1974; Cornelia Ward Creative Writing Fellow at Syracuse, 1987; Graduate of Syracuse Creative Writing Program, MA in Creative Writing, 1988; Finalist in the Pan literary Awards, Drunken Boat, 2006 The 1997; Rosebud Contemporary Writing Awards; Nomination for 2010 Million Writers Award. Short Stories: CellStories: Mr. C.I.A., Jan 29, 2010; The 2nd Hand Review, Mr. CI.A., Fall 2009; Black Petals, Her Sins Sit Neatly on My Chest, Fall 2009; Femme Fetales of Fear, We All Hate the Fortune-Teller, June 2009; Inthemist, The Fog at the edge of the Cliff, January, 2009; Drunken Boat, Pancho Villa Goes to Heaven, Winter 2008; Cezanne’s Carrot, Stone Tears, Crying Statue, Spring 2008; Elsewhere, Sissy Aphrodite, Winter 2008; Blood Lotus, The School for Bullies, February, 2007; Midnight Lullabies, an anthology, The People from Juarez, November 2007; Harrow, an Anthology of Horror Stories, Sātān in Paradise, Winter, 2006; Thieves’ Jargon, Hyena Girl, Summer 2005; storySouth, More and More Perfect, Winter 2004; The Mangrove Review, Maps to the Stars’ Homes, 2004; The Mangrove Review, The Face Lift, 2003; Rosebud, How I Solved Crime in L.A. and Saved the Universe, 1997; The Seattle Review, Lena’s Generation, 1992; Writers’ Forum, Before This Thing Happened to Me, 1992; The Jacaranda Review, We Understand Each Other, 1990. TV and Film: Villa Allegre, BCTV, Scripts and Animation for Children’s Educational-Bilingual Television, 1985; Freelance work as a story analyst for several Los Angeles studios, 1990. Ghost Writing: a chapter on business and the arts for an accountant for notable L.A. Artists—the chapter was published by Prentice Hall and The National Endowment without the knowledge that it had been ghost written, 1987; forwards, statements, and story critiques for public figures and TV personalities, 1980 to 2000. Book Reviews, features: The Malibu Times, weekly, 1990: Santa Monica Independent Journals, 1974.

TWISTED TONGUE 80 The Writer’s Expanded Collection of Season One

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TWISTED TONGUE 81 gang ducked in their attempt to miss the stray bullet they Really BAD Shakespeare assumed was headed their way. Several members of the gang Weeb (R. E. Heinrich) laughed at their comrades actions. The humiliated boys turned toward me… sizing me up, whispering, and preparing for the possible attack against me. Episode 1: The Telephone Call Ignoring them, I turned from the bank of phones and started walking toward the street. My heart beat madly and my hands, covered in a pair of black leather gloves, shook with anger. don’t care if you believe me or not—there’s never been an There was no going back. innocent who didn’t want to die. You, the so-called The call was made… intelligent and God-inspired opposable thumbed mammals My nemesis would get the message loud and clear on I Monday morning when his sweet old secretary presented him who rule this planet, will ALWAYS fight for survival. Don’t let anyone tell you different. No matter the reason or cause, how with the morning’s messages: “Good morning Mr. Shepherd, real or petty, we will die happily for our beliefs. Eventually, hope you enjoyed your weekend. Not many messages this everyone will reach their limit… right down to the weakest, most morning… There is one though that I think you should listen to passive loving member of the tribe. And, once that imaginary yourself. The caller didn’t leave a name or a number but, to line of “no return” is crossed and the final insult thrown and condense the message into reasonable terms, he basically said not daggers drawn, we will ultimately take the proverbial bull by the to ever contact him again. The truly amazing thing is that he horns and wrestle him to the ground… or die trying. managed to say ‘fuck’ sixteen times in less than 15 seconds.” And why is this?

Opposable thumbs. ndings are a curious thing. E They are like horror movies—just when you think the I have a request. film’s over, and the last big busted brassiere clad high-heeled It’s an unusual request, but I have to make it anyway… Do babe has been killed, it all starts over again with yet another big you have any liquor in the house? Marijuana? Prescription pills busted brassiere clad high-heeled babe running for her life that can be abused? Anything, anything at all that can alter your through a darkened, supposedly haunted house from a present conscious state? cannibalistic leather clad fucker with a chainsaw in one hand and I can wait while you gather these necessary materials… a really big hook in the other. In such situations, no one is … …. actually safe until the credits roll and the screen goes black. Only … … … then can you sigh in relief, knowing fully that the ending has … arrived and it’s time to stand up and brush away the crumbs of Back already? memories better left in the theater, and walk out that revolving I see you poured yourself a cocktail… hey, you going to hold door to face the strange and disturbing “Beginning” that’s that joint all night or light it? We need to get this reality started. waiting for you outside… in reality. While you induce and indulge, let me explain why I’ve requested this. See, from this point forward, I’ll need your mind The first ending is usually the hardest. altered… altered beyond what members of the opposable thumbs tribe perceive as reality. In order for you to understand That’s when all the pain and suppressed suffering is the complicated simplicity of one man’s life as he reaches the released… when every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, end of his rope, your reality needs to be viewed through a dense year, decade of emotional decay surges forward and is spewed fog of alteration to qualify the distorted facts, images, and venomously with no thought of recourse. It’s an emotional need memories needed to obtain an honest experience. to hurt the other party. To watch the sickening realization that Go ahead… I’ll wait for you… something serious isn’t right—something that an “I’m sorry, … … … … … … there, feeling won’t ever happen again” will not repair. good now? The eyes tell it all. Just watch as the first verbal slap is delivered: “Every fucking thing wrong with my life is directly associated with you. You t starts with a man’s voice on an answering machine: have caused me nothing but pain and hurt since the first day I I met you. I can’t do this anymore. I can not allow this to happen BEEP anymore. You are nothing more than a cancer in my life… and I am cutting that sickness away.” “It’s me—just letting you know I’m fucking sick of all the Watch closely… fucking head games you fucking asshole. Really fucking sick of it! here it comes: We fucking could’ve had a real fucking thing going here but no, you fucking decided to stick with your Father. Well, the fucking Hurt… pity… anger… love. line has been fucking drawn now! I feel like you fucking played me. Listen, I’m fucking sick of all the hurt and lies and bullshit you keep blowing up my ass… As far as I’m concerned, from emories are a precarious thing. this fucking point forward, you’re fucking dead in my eyes! Don’t M Throughout our lives, we embrace these mental fucking ever call me or try to fucking get a hold of me… just fabrications as fact with never a hint of question. From the tragic fucking die already.” innocence of birth to the disgrace of liberating death, we allow these remembrances to form our greater character… shaping us from formless masses of clay into something distinct, something ith one final display of overtly dramatic and extremely REAL. W stereotypical non-heterosexual behaviour, I raised the It is because of this that we begin to repress, and then deny, black and pitted pay-phone receiver above my head, stretching the reality of our memories. the twisted metal cable to its entire length of two feet, and Over time, these experiences become selective. We learn brought it down forcefully onto the metal hook. how to savour the agreeable and contradict the offensive. BAAAAAMMMM!! The sound reverberated in front of the Through subconscious deception, our memories become what convenience store like a gunshot. we wished. We create false memories to replace the ones The late night crowd of about ten Latinos gathered outside repressed; we begin to contradict, to reject, to sabotage; then, we the Seven-Eleven, who were enjoying the mid-summer night, begin to forget… allowing the replaced to become true. jumped at the sound. Several younger members of the teenage We are nothing more than prisoners of our memories. TWISTED TONGUE 82

t’s the middle of the afternoon. Repress and deny… I I’m five. The curtains in my parent's bedroom are closed. A thin band of sunlight breaks the darkness, dividing it… We crouch in a o stopping “it” now. distant corner, the darkest in the room. I stare in wide-eyed N With a sense of accomplishment, I held my head high amazement at the dim illumination coming from the glow-in-the- and nonchalantly approached the thugs. As I got closer, I could dark wristwatch. That's one reason for the closed curtains - to hear their disjointed conversation: “That dude just told someone see the novelty of the watch. to fucking die… Damn, that’s cold… let’s rob him, looks like The owner of the watch is a twenty-something male he’s got money… not him… look at those eyes… wonder if he neighbour. He shares the darkness with me. We huddle together broke that phone… am sure we can take him… ya’ if the phones and stare at the glowing timepiece. His arm tightens around my broke we’re the ones who’ll be blamed for it… fucking white shoulder. people… no, leave him alone… look at those eyes… bless us, "Pretty cool, huh?" He says, his face rubbing slightly against Jesus…” mine. "Just got it yesterday and knew you'd love to see it." Directly in front of them, I stopped… turned toward them, "Neat," I grin in admiration. The attention thrills me. I move and smiled. closer, pressing against him, wanting to savour the moment of Not knowing why, every single one of them stepped back. having an adult treat me like an equal. He is my friend, my very Several of the devout even crossed themselves. special friend… After several silent minutes, I look up and ask: "Can I touch it?" lease allow me to introduce myself: My name is And, that’s the other reason… P Shakespeare…

Really BAD Shakespeare Then there was good-ole Adolf Hitler, another prime Weeb (R. E. Heinrich) archetype (Rule the World—CHECK; Do Anything to Accomplish this Goal—DOUBLE CHECK), followed by Stalin (CHECK, CHECK, CHECK), and recently ending with Mr. Episode 2: The Long Walk Home Rogers (CHECK to the nth degree. With the popularity of television and children’s programming, Mr. Rogers became the n my walk back to the apartment, on that fine mid- true Master of Antichristdom!). summer’s eve, there was a spring in my step. I felt accomplished—on top of the world, so to say. Nothing Hey, it’s not like you never suspected. O could have made me happier. A new emotion coursed through my system, an emotion I have never experienced before… an But, you see, all of these men were only a precursor to my emotion known as Pride. creation. They were the ones who tested the waters of human evolution, plotting and perfecting the best way in which to lead Pride goes before destruction all of you opposable thumbed creatures to the slaughter. They (Proverbs 16:18-19) handed this information down from generation to generation… from Alexander, to Hitler, to Stalin, to Mr. Rogers… By making that telephone call, I set in motion the start of Which brings us full circle and back to me… Armageddon. The bluff was played and I was walking home a winner… you know, sometimes an antichrist has to do what an Shakespeare Williams. antichrist has to do. There’s no “official” rule book here when one starts Armageddon. am 25 years old and live in the third largest city in Illinois, There are times when we must draw inspiration from our IPotter’s Field (under the shade of Megiddo Mountain and the forefathers, the antichrists before us… and there has been many banks of the mighty Kikawa River). Potter's Field is the largest before me. corn producing city in southern mid-central Illinois, with a Look through your history books. Every generation has growing population of about 167,831. Although the city teams faced its own antichrist in some form or matter. with as much history as Chicago, geologists and historians We—the bringers of Armageddon—each generation moves continuously often overlook Potter's Field shadowy existence. it forward, learning from the mistakes of our forefathers... Take The city's roots date back to 1789, when Roberto La Salle for instance—France. There was Napoleon. He was the perfect founded a discount trading post along the banks of the Kikawa antichrist archetype: He wanted to conquer the world and create River. With the strategic placement of the store at a pass where a endless wars, while deceiving his believers of his God-like, natural trail lead through the Megiddo Mountain and ended at totalitarian rule; he was an influential speaker that people the Kikawa River, business at the Kikawa Discount Outpost and followed without question as they lost the ability to discern thrived. He befriended the neighbouring Kikawa Indians between the truth and lies; his supporters followed him into through massive bottles of whiskey to keep them under control; battles that he declared, boldly and without humility, were for the he supplied the travellers headed west with dry goods and flints betterment of the world—anyone not believing in HIS beliefs, and other necessary equipment needed for their travels through HIS world vision, were killed without remorse; and, in layman the heartland; and, if the price was right, he would even let you terms, he was just not a nice guy. fuck his wife. At the time, he was a real modern day entrepreneur. The only thing missing from making him the TRUE Within years, a town formed around the Discount Outpost antichrist was that he didn’t have seven heads and ten and it was called Kikawa. The town grew about 100 strong and, horns. Though, honestly, that could all be figuratively for almost sixty years, they coexisted peacefully with the Kikawa speaking and not an actuality. Indians. But all good things must eventually come to an end. TWISTED TONGUE 83 In the summer of 1848, there was a drought on whiskey. No hanks to the tourists’ artistic talents, this nightmarish piece one knows why, but the Kikawa Discount Outpost ran out of Tof history was immortalized in standard pen and ink the precious liquid. Blame it on the suppliers or whomever, but drawings and watercolour. Many can still be seen today displayed this was definitely not a good thing to happen. proudly in the history section of the Potter’s Field Museum of For some strange, unknown reason, the peace loving Natural History. Kikawa Indians rose up and, in a bloody and violent confrontation, killed all 153 of the townspeople. Leaving the town a… ow don’t get all religious right-wing on me here… potter’s field. Nall of you knew Armageddon would happen one day. I guess you just didn’t think it would be happening NOW. So sorry… y trek home brought me to the intersection of Sunrise M Highway and Brooklyn Avenue. On a light pole on the opposite side of the dark deserted highway, a red “don’t walk” was five when I discovered that I was to be the TRUE sign flashed. I stopped and waited for it to change… transfixed Iantichrist. by the rhythmic pulse of the image… lost in the flash… flash… I was hiding under a bush… tears in my eyes and blood flash… the symbolic meaning, line through a man, the wars, the running down my nose. The educational system on the farm was deaths… getting more intense. Armageddon was coming and so many were going to die! Suddenly, the limbs of the bush parted and an older man dressed in 1700’s French attire stared down at me. The smell of Hallelujah! Praise… ME! sulfur filled the air. He smiled, his painted red lips seemed to stretch from ear to ear. He spoke in a heavily accented voice: “I I laughed, and continued to wait for the light to change. am pleased to meet you Shakespeare. We have so much to discuss.” We stared at each other, studying, looking for weaknesses. here are many forms of abuse. Finding none, I stood and approached him. T There’s verbal, physical, mental, economic sexual… just He took my bloodied face in his hand and shook his head to name a few. disapprovingly. “This will not do,” he said. In a flourish of When you are the antichrist you LEARN about abuse at an disapproval, he brought out a hand stitched kerchief from his EARLY age. It always starts subtly, an offhanded degrading jacket pocket and cleaned the blood from my face. comment here… a gentle, but firm slap there. You learn from it. “This will all make sense soon enough,” he whispered. New emotions form, creating and moulding, always changing. He took my hand… You find ways to deal, to understand, to grow with this and led me deeper into the woods. forbidden knowledge buried deep within you. This is the pain you suffer when you are the antichrist. on’t walk “I’ll be your God…” you tell them, “Just don’t leave bruises.” D Don’t walk Flashing red My mind going a hundred miles an hour… group of twenty tourists (out with their charcoals and paper Every emotion one could possible experience coursed Ato sketch the natural beauty of the Midwest) found the town through my body… of Kikawa three weeks later. The artists could smell the stink of the dead for miles. I was – pardon the expression: Without thought of their safety, the tourists captured the in complete heaven. Kikawa Chief and questioned him about all the death and destruction. In a voice filled with shame, he said that the Great So, when the light changed, Dark Spirit of the Earth had come forth and overwhelmed almost every member of the tribe. Over a period of increasingly without a care in the world… hot days, the tribe members started having hallucinations and bad dreams. They became fatigued and easily excited. Anxiety I stepped into the street. filled every waking hour. Soon, fever and convulsions gripped the serene people. The Shaman blamed the neighbouring French-Canadians—saying they were the ones who brought the To be continued ... Dark Spirit that plagued them. If they were to survive, they needed to defeat the white intruders and take back their land. © Weeb (R.E. Heinrich) Only then would the Dark Spirit be appeased. So, without further delay, they did. They killed every man, woman and child without remorse. Though the Indians were very, very apologetic, the tourists My real name is R. E. Heinrich (but generally go by decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to wipe Gene—yeah, a junior) and I live in upstate New York. I the tribe completely off the face of the Earth. All 59 members of created the persona of Weeb as my writing name so that I could get away with writing about things that most would the Kikawa Indians were shot and buried in a mass grave on the find either too outlandish or bizarre for the average reader. banks of the Kikawa River… in the shade of Megiddo Mountain. I am a co-founder and creator of the website, Through a reporting error at the time, this backwater town WritingRaw.com, which caters exclusively to new and soon became known as the town of Potter’s Field instead of emerging authors. Season 2 of “really BAD Shakespeare” will Kikawa City. Reports told how the once friendly Indians of the be starting on July 1, 2010. area rose up and killed all 212 of the God-fearing French- Canadians for no reason whatsoever. Read Shame: A Novelette, by R. E. Heinrich: http://writingraw.com/shame%20Novelette.pdf

Read Words From Rib, by Rib: othing was ever mentioned about the whiskey http://writingraw.com/files/Words%20from%20Rib.pdf Ndrought of that summer.

TWISTED TONGUE 84 REVIEW: The Wannabes by F R Jameson

The Wannabes is F R Jameson’s debut novel. And what a debut novel it is! Okay, so the book was published in 2008, and I only got my hands on it this year, but from what I can gather the book is still going very strong. The publishers should be proud of this book. The quality of the book is very good.. As for the cover work, it has a simple but attractive style that catches the eye. There’s nothing better than reading a good mystery that is surrounded by sex, murder and ruthless ambition and of course blood splattered horror that makes your skin crawl. I found it very hard to put this book down. I couldn’t wait to read the next chapter. What made this even more special to me is the supernatural twist—I don’t want to say too much about that, I do hate spoilers. Jameson has created strong believable characters, some of them you will detest with a passion—there are a couple I would enjoy killing... So, you’re wondering what this book is about? Where shall I start ... John Clay, the main character, returns to London after an absence of two years. Clay ends up having a passionate night, maybe passionate is not the correct word ... raunchy, with his beautiful ex, she’s a little on the naughty, wild side—okay so she’s ‘bad news’. That night Clay has a very vivid, violent dream about an old friend of his, Raymond. He dreams that he has murdered Raymond. The following morning Clay learns that all that is left of Raymond is his burnt, bloody carcass. Could Clay be having pre-cognitive dreams? Is Clay the Killer? Desperate to find the answers that his dream has caused he investigates Raymond’s death; however he learns that his old friends hold many, many secrets. The secrets evolve around resentments and murderous motives. The trouble is, these friends seem to have lost touch with each other, however due to the horrific murder they are forced to meet. Tension and rivalry boils. They are simply a group of actors, musicians and also artists in their thirties with dreams of making it big in Hollywood—they are the Wannabes. It becomes apparent that their dreams are fading fast and they are unhappy with their decaying London flats as well as their own old looking bodies. The murders continue and Clay continues to dream that he is the killer. Clay gets deeper and deeper into his friends mysterious lives. Will Clay ever find the truth behind his dreams? What is the motive behind the murders? You’ll have to read the book to find out. So why don’t you pop on over to Jameson’s website: http://www.frjameson.co.uk

REVIEW: Duncan’s Diary: Birth of a Serial Killer by Christopher C. Payne

I would have really liked to read this story from an actual book rather than PDF. I’m one of those people who enjoy the feel of books. The further I got into the novel the more I wanted to read, but my poor eyes couldn’t take lengthy reads. I even tried playing around with the zoom function but I ended up getting stressed. Why did I go through all of that hassle? Because I was captivated, I HAD to know what was going to happen next. I strongly urge you to buy the book version of this tale, unless you’ve got unnatural, super, strength eyes that don’t tire easily. I was very eager to dive into Duncan’s Diary: Birth of a Serial Killer as I have been fascinated with serial killers from a young age—maybe that’s something I shouldn’t brag about. I was not disappointed. From page one I was enthralled with Duncan’s life as a serial killer. Due to the realism I did question a couple of times whether I was reading fact or fiction. Was I inside of a true serial killer’s head? The author certainly created a realistic world. While reading I couldn’t help but think of the TV series Dexter—another killer that I adore. Duncan is a completely different tale, but the connection of a seemingly normal man that becomes a killer was striking. The majority of ‘real life’ killers do appear to be normal guys, the typical guy next door ... does this mean that we are safer to be alone with crazy looking men than the norm? I’m going off track here, no doubt this novel will evoke many thoughts. The title more or less explains what this book is about. The first person narrative is based on the main character, Duncan Moron—an exceedingly, realistic, psychotic character. Duncan is having a mid-life crisis, so he begins the search for his own identity. Just like many other men out there he is going through a divorce and worrying over his children. Quite a normal life ... but he soon learns how to feel complete ... torture and death by his own hand—something that he alone can control, unlike his life. Duncan shows the reader the many stages he goes through with planning a murder. He opens up his mind and takes us inside. We, the reader, begin to care for him. His psychotic thoughts entice us. Adrenalin rushes as you read the gruesome, graphic scenes. By now you’re either scared or shocked, but you don’t care, you need to read more, you need to understand his guilty pleasure. The diary entries reveal all ... his psychological thoughts ... his cries for help ... his pleasures ... the deaths of his victims. However, if you lived next door to Duncan you would have no idea of his dark, sordid secret as by day he leads a normal life, but by night, well, by night he becomes a predator. Will Duncan ever be caught? Should his friend, Sudhir, a detective in the Palo Alto Police Department, follow his gut feelings? I’m fairly confident that you will enjoy this self-published story. There are a couple of editing issues which is expected with a self- published book, however I’m sure fans of serial killers will adore this book. Big thumbs up for this disturbing, lovable novel. I simply adore Duncan! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Duncans-Diary-Birth-Serial-Killer/dp/1440175160

TWISTED TONGUE 85 FREE COPIES of THE TOR

BeWrite Books has sent me two paperback copies of Liza Granville’s newly released The Tor to give away and will also offer three free eBook downloads in the format of choice to the Twisted Tongue readers who are first to email me with the answer to this question:

Liza Granville has a personal body guard—who or what are her minders?

Here’s a hint: Go to BeWrite Books’ bookstore at www.bewrite.net, click on The Tor cover and then read Liza’s short biography, linked from that page. The answer’s in there somewhere, a little bird told me.

So—first two TT readers to request paperback and the first three to request eBook will get The Tor hot off the press. Simply email me at: [email protected]

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Recommended writers’ sites: Bibliophilia—http://www.bibliophilia UKAuthors— http://www.ukauthors.com/ The Grail— http://z3.invisionfree.com/The_Grail/index.php?act=idx Café Doom— http://www.cafedoom.com/forum/index.php Sally Quilford’s—Forum— http://sallyq.2.forumer.com Smashwords’ Digital Formats—http://www.smashwords.com

If you know of any other good writer’s site simply drop me an email and we’ll add it the listings.

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TWISTED TONGUE 86