The Sirens Call Ezine, Following Where the Lost Ones Dwell (Issue #11), the Shadowman (Issue #22) and Playground (Issue # 39)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 Table of Contents pg. 04 - Melissa | Jeffrey Durkin pg. 97 - Dark Temptation | S. E. Cyborski pg. 06 - Sustenance | Naching T. Kassa pg. 98 - Voice | S. E. Cyborski pg. 07 - Slaughter Hill | R.J. Meldrum pg. 98 - Reflection | S. E. Cyborski pg. 10 - Elysium | Tawny Kipphorn pg. 100 - Uncanny Spirit World | George Lee Grimsley pg. 12 - Black Robe | Courtney Leigh pg. 101 - The Dark Trail of Red | Linda Lee Rice pg. 14 - Trenton Lane | Patrick Winters pg. 101 - Lost in Insanity | Linda Lee Rice pg. 17 - Sprinkled in with the Sugar | Michael D. Davis pg. 102 - Moonlight Madness | Linda Lee Rice pg. 17 - Tethered to a Chatterbox | Michael D. Davis pg. 102 - The Monster | Linda Lee Rice pg. 17 - To Make and Care for A Teddy Bear | Michael D. Davis pg. 103 - The Window Behind Me | Linda Lee Rice pg. 17 - Staring is Caring | Michael D. Davis pg. 104 - Some Advice | Eddie Fogler pg. 19 - Five-fingered Lover | Alex Woolf pg. 105 - The World at Your Fingertips | K.T. Slattery pg. 22 - The Dinner Rush | Holly Rae Garcia pg. 105 - A Siren with No Need for a Voice | K.T. Slattery pg. 25 - Big Mouth | Gabriella Balcom pg. 107 - Lily | Ken Poyner pg. 27 - Some like it in the Dark | Alisa Willemse pg. 108 - Only One of the Many Ways | Ken Poyner pg. 28 - The Amulet | Greg Fewer pg. 109 - As I Must | Jack Wolfe Frost pg. 29 - The House on the Hill | Roger Ley pg. 111 - pining for carrion | Eliana Vanessa pg. 31 - Living Will |Roger Ley pg. 111 - fay-bloom | Eliana Vanessa pg. 33 - Requiem in Orbit | Nick Johnson pg. 112 - Toxic | Lesley-Ann Campbell pg. 33 - The Room | Melanie Smith pg. 115 - Story Topper | Michael S. Walker pg. 35 - My Darlings | Joshua Skye pg. 116 - Anrietta Mellowalk, LMHC | Andressa Osta pg. 37 - The Zombie Equal Rights Order (ZERO) | David Lewis Pogson pg. 118 - Snowfall | Sonora Taylor pg. 38 - The Forgivers | Tony Flynn pg. 118 - Magical Moment |Patrick J. Wynn pg. 42 - 1348 | Russell Hemmell pg. 119 - Pregnant |Patrick J. Wynn pg. 43 - When Blood Wants Blood | David Estringel pg. 119 - Ascended Being | Kerry E.B. Black pg. 44 - Victoria's Song | Terry Miller pg. 121 - The Tower at the End of Time | Kieran Judge pg. 45 - Meat Lover’s | S.D. Hintz pg. 123 - Therapy | Susan Snyder pg. 49 - At the Edge of Consciousness | Chris Wright pg. 124 - Eating Habits | Jacek Wilkos pg. 50 - Seeing Things |Wally Smith pg. 126 - Martha | Amanda Todisco pg. 53 - The Ghost of Ghould | Maxwell Gold pg. 129 - Purple Twilight | Ryan Benson pg. 55 - Band Aid | Angela Yuriko Smith pg. 133 - The Intruder | Lesley-Ann Campbell pg. 57 - Hide and Seek | Alyson Faye pg. 134 - Darkling | Melanie Smith pg. 58 - Falling | P.L. McMillan pg. 136 - Night Song | Terry Miller pg. 62 - Skin Deep | Tabitha Thompson pg. 136 - Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Scream | Terry Miller pg. 63 - Keep Moving | Rivka Jacobs pg. 136 - Something Inside | Terry Miller pg. 65 - The Beast | Bill Bistak pg. 136 - Coffin Mates | Terry Miller pg. 67 - Eight Minutes | Melissa R. Mendelson pg. 138 - Getting Nailed | EV Knight pg. 69 - Reality | Mark Steinwachs pg. 139 - Can I Borrow Your Pain | Les Talma pg. 72 - Dignity and Honor | Charles A. Gramlich pg. 140 - Demon of the Winter Gale | Nicholas Paschall pg. 73 - From the Worn Grooves of the Savaged Earth | Charles A. Gramlich pg. 141 - Her Chaos Mouth | Charles A. Gramlich pg. 74 - The Weather There | Grove Koger pg. 143 - Dollification | Emma Munro pg. 74 - The Girl who Loved Spiders | Russell Hemmell pg. 145 - Choice | Charles A. Gramlich pg. 75 - Fear, Fear not | Russell Hemmell pg. 146 - Turn by Turn | Christine Lajewski pg. 75 - A firefly dream | Russell Hemmell pg. 149 - Pretty Deadly’s | Andrew Punzo pg. 77 - The Man in the Ceiling |Brian Rosenberger pg. 151 - Trapped | Maria McCallion pg. 78 - Walk With Me | Stephanie Ellis pg. 154 - Guillotine Man | Ken Hueler pg. 78 - The Deceiver | Stephanie Ellis pg. 155 - Village Courier | James Denier pg. 79 - Creak | Stephanie Ellis pg. 158 - The Holding | Simon Lee-Price pg. 80 - Night Visitations: Les Incubes | Alexis Child pg. 158 - Homesick | Simon Lee-Price pg. 80 - Witch Hammer | Alexis Child pg. 158 - Neglected | Simon Lee-Price pg. 82 - The Sirens Calls | Mathias Jansson pg. 160 - Don’t Murder My Mother | A.R. Farley pg. 83 - Nothing Lasts | David Estringel pg. 164 - And Then There Was The Word | Damascus Mincemeyer pg. 84 - Surgeon | Michelle Joy Gallagher pg. 165 - Roses, Dandelions, Teardrops | Russell Hemmell pg. 84 - Sever | Michelle Joy Gallagher pg. 165 - Prayer Beads for the God’s Acre | Russell Hemmell pg. 85 - You | Michelle Joy Gallagher pg. 166 - Darkwater | John C. Adams pg. 85 - Coffin | Michelle Joy Gallagher pg. 169 - The Liquidator’s Son | Elizabeth Fox pg. 86 - Skeleton | Michelle Joy Gallagher pg. 86 - The Devil | Jonel Abellanosa Featured Artist pg. 87 - Crawling Through the Cracked Shell | Jason R. Barden pg. 61 Francois Vaillancourt pg. 89 - She Was Only Ten | Heather EM Barrett 03 - Beetles; 34 - Dark Angel; 54 - Halloween Land; 71 - Rust; pg. 89 - Kew Oaks | Heather EM Barrett 88 - You Are Returned; 110 - Long Way Home; 132 - Sparrows; pg. 90 - To Shadows Cast | Heather EM Barrett 148 - The Ones Who Never Came Back; 171 - The Witch pg. 91 - A Peculiar Song | Heather EM Barrett pg. 92 - Let You Go | Holly Rae Garcia Featured Author pg. 93 - Bump in the Night | Joseph VanBuren pg. 172 - Kealan Patrick Burke pg. 93 - From Ashes She Has Risen | Joseph VanBuren pg. 175 - Excerpt from Sour Candy pg. 94 - Within This Darkened Forest | Joseph VanBuren pg. 96 - Monster | Andressa Osta pg. 178 - Credits pg. 97 - Web of Lies | S. E. Cyborski 2 pg. 97 - Dark Temptation | S. E. Cyborski 3 Melissa | Jeffrey Durkin George Larson stood in the parking lot of a windowless MacDonalds on the outskirts of Clarence, Iowa. His pickup truck was a few meters behind him. He was at the edge of the Zone. He knew this because of the metal stakes topped by faded red flags that ran across the field next to the parking lot. There was one stake every meter along the perimeter of the Zone. 160934 stakes drawing a line between the living and the dead. He had been driving for days. His journey to the Zone started in Seattle. He had left his tiny apartment in the middle of a downpour, the weather reflecting his mood. He had driven through the Rockies and across the Great Plains. As he entered Iowa, the population grew sparse. He had passed through Des Moines earlier in the day. The only people he saw were the soldiers manning a check point on Interstate 80. He had been concerned at first. If they searched his pickup, the trip would have been for nothing. But, the bored looking men had waved him around the concrete jersey barriers. No one wants to go near the Zone. Why would they? A cold drizzle started falling. George thrust his hands into his pants pockets and shivered. It would be dark soon and he didn’t relish having to navigate over the poorly maintained roads at night. He was about to finish the task that had brought him halfway across the country, when he saw movement in the Zone. A woman pushed through a skeletal tangle of leafless brush. Her grey skin sagged from the rot of connective tissue. The left side of her head was a jumbled mass of mangled flesh and jutting bone. She was leaning to the left, dragging that leg behind her. She walked towards him in a slow, deliberate manner and stopped in front of him. She was only a few meters away. If I were just a few steps closer, the Reanimate would tear me apart. I stand here and I live. I walk into the Zone and I die. He took a step closer. The woman cocked her head to one side. A bit of pulped brain slipped free, falling to the ground. “What are you?” At the sound of his voice, she straightened up. A soft keening sound drifted over her tattered lips. After 15 years, no one can answer that question. Watching her watch him, he thought back to the arrival of the Sphere. It had come from outside the Solar System. NASA determined it would strike the Earth in less than three months, impacting somewhere in North America. Billons of people followed the slow procession of the Sphere through space. After a month, it was large enough to be visible in the night sky, a blazing white pinpoint of light. After two months, you could see it in the middle of the day, a tiny second sun. When it was only hours from the end of its journey, the Air Force tried to intercept it. George had watched it all on TV. The missiles rising into a clear blue sky. The nuclear warheads detonating at the edge of space, creating a blazing red and gold aurora. The Sphere—a kilometer-wide glowing sphere—descending unscathed through the nuclear fire. To everyone’s surprise, the Sphere—after first cutting a blazing path through the sky—rapidly slowed. It gently landed at the intersection of Interstates 88 and 39, obliterating the town of Rochelle, Illinois. Twenty minutes after landing, while the skies over North America still pulsed nuclear fire, every dead body within 160 kilometers of the Sphere reanimated and attacked the living. Those who were killed revived within minutes and joined in the slaughter. The Reanimates were almost impossible to destroy. They had no weak spots. Whatever brought the dead back infused every piece of them with restless life.