The First Five People You Meet In Hell By Tom Leins

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The First Five People You Meet In Hell

by

Tom Leins

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1. The Kerb Crawler

A charcoal-grey Lexus crawls past the Hellton Manor meat-market. Under a blood-red sunset, Paignton sweats.

You used to be able to see used needles glinting in the freshly cut grass, but no one has cut it for years and it sprouts up in unruly, discoloured clumps. I wipe a thick smear of dogshit off my boot and watch the Lexus.

It slows as it passes the most emaciated rent boys, its engine purring as the car navigates the rutted concrete alongside the playpark.

The kid on the swings is wearing silver hot-pants, angel wings and nothing else. His nipple piercings glint under the watery moonlight. His thin face is pitted with acne scars. He’s clearly the star attraction.

The wings are a cute touch. Last month, some fucking maniac started disfiguring local rent boys – carving crude, bloody wings into their backs and leaving them for dead. Five boys to date. All but one boy bled out before receiving medical treatment. The Herald Express dubbed the man ‘The Angel Maker’ – inflaming local hysteria until it reached boiling point.

The kid eases himself off the swings and struts across the park towards the Lexus. He glances at me briefly – a defiant mixture of hostility and curiosity. He’s either got a Stanley knife in his hot-pants or he’s really pleased to see me.

I hold up an index finger to my lips and melt out of the park and into the gloom. The passenger-side window rolls down and the boy leans in to start his well-honed negotiation.

I slip the pig-knife out of my boot and slash both driver-side tyres while the driver is distracted.

The kerb-crawler may or may not be The Angel Maker. Either way, he’s not getting out of Hellton Manor in one piece. 

***

Behind the playpark, Hellton Towers looms large – a crumbling, asbestos-riddled mausoleum with a different horror story for each one of its 14 storeys.

As long as I’ve been alive it has been a blot on the landscape. A dark stain on the estate’s psyche.

The way people tell it, the tower-block was designed by a celebrated young architect called Arthur Hellton-Smythe. His previous builds had won international awards. Been praised for their innovative designs. The building that came to be known as Hellton Towers was commissioned by Devon County Council in 1965, but not finished until 1972. A bold vision of the future rendered immediately out of date.

A pebble-dashed monolith, it was quickly dismissed as a brutalist eyesore. Serious structural problems were identified in the 1980s, but the remaining residents refused to move out and there was never enough funding available for the building’s demolition.

After the backlash, Hellton-Smythe sank into despondency. Grew despondent and uncommunicative. Stopped taking on new work. On his 55^th birthday he visited the building that shared his name. He drank half a bottle of Drambuie on the rooftop terrace and threw himself off the edge of the building.

Locals say that the tarmac where he landed still smells of brain matter on hot days. I take a deep breath as I probe the uneven ground with the toe of my boot. The only thing I can smell is my own rancid sweat.

2. The Landlady

I agreed to meet Heffernan in The Bat & Ball – the flat-roofed estate pub nicknamed the Wrecking Ball. The field behind the estate was earmarked for use as a multi-sport leisure facility, only for the plans to be derailed by a survey which found nine different toxic substances in the soil. The once-lush vegetation now looks withered and dead and not even gypsies use the field anymore.

Nowadays, the only bat you find in here is the cut-down baseball bat the landlady, Lorraine, keeps on a plinth behind the bar. She hammers a rusty nail through the bat every time she uses it on a rowdy punter. As I wait for my pint I count 13 savage-looking nails protruding from the wood at awkward angles.

Lorraine was an ex-Miss Teen Paignton. One of the first – long before my time. As a teenager, people say she was the most sought-after girl on Winner Street. She even appeared onstage at a Radio 1 Roadshow, clinging to the shell-suited arm of a northern disc jockey.

She’s 55, but looks ten years older. Her once-glossy hair looks like straw and her previously smooth skin contoured with age. After a brief modelling career – catalogues not catwalk – she married a safecracker and bought this place with his ill-gotten gains. The pub outlasted the marriage and he perished in a Torremolinos hospital – a parasitic gut infection ravaging his lower intestine.

“Busy night?” I ask.

“Busy enough,” she grunts. “Frankly, I’d serve the devil himself a pint of Carling if he had the right money.”

The one-liner is followed by a harsh bark of bitter laughter.

I pay for my pint with a fiver and get a fake pound coin in my change. I drop it in the collection box for the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary Benevolent Fund – not that you’d ever see a cop around these parts.

I sip my pint and check out the pub. It resembles hell’s waiting room – dozens of chronic old soaks drinking in silence.

In the far corner, Heffernan raises a liver-spotted hand to catch my attention. He used to be a dangerous man. Carried an undercurrent menace, even when he was being nice. Now his flesh is discoloured and he walks with a stick.

I nod and walk past the pool table. The baize hasn’t just been ripped – there’s a deep crack in the table itself.

3. The Client

Tony Heffernan is a foul-tempered drinker who runs a string of bony, jaundiced-looking whores from the safety of his aging girlfriend’s home. He’s notorious for running the kind of working girls that no one else wants. It’s like a Paignton fucking roulette – with venereal diseases instead of bullets. Spin the barrel and take the hit.

“Rey, right?”

I nod and he places a Somerfield carrier bag on the table I front of me. I slip it into my pocket without counting the contents.

He plucks a John Player Special out of his pack with yellowed fingertips.

“Ciggie, son?”

I shake my head and he shrugs.

“You might be too young to remember, but smoking used to be considered good social etiquette.”

Now it’s my turn to shrug.

“I never was big on etiquette, mate.”

Heffernan has a lumpen, oversized skull and deep-set eyes that bore into mine.

He takes a puff on his cigarette and rests it in the groove of the scarred plastic ashtray.

He leans forward and removes a creased photograph from his wallet.

“Sheila’s been gone 48 hours,” he says.

48 hours?

“Shit. She could be anywhere by now.”

He shakes his head.

“No, she couldn’t.”

He gestures vaguely over his shoulder with his thumb – in the direction of Hellton Towers.

“She’s in there.”

I take a swig of my pint.

“You seem awfully confident of that, Heffernan.”

It’s a hot evening and the fire exit has been propped open with breezeblocks, meaning I have to raise my voice to be heard over the cacophony of car alarms, burglar alarms and rape alarms outside.

He offers me a decayed smile.

“Sheila has just got out on licence. If she leaves Hellton Towers after 6pm it would set off her offender monitoring tag, and she’d be back inside.”

 I finish my pint and stand up.

“Why don’t you look for her yourself?”

He grips the handle of his walking stick.

“The stairs play havoc with my ruddy knees, Rey. And anyway, people say you’re good at this shit.”

I say nothing.

“I’ll double your money if you bring her out alive,” he says earnestly.

“And what if I don’t?”

He takes a thoughtful puff on his JPS. The ghost of a smile flickers across his wide, ruddy face.

“I’ll drag you onto a patch of waste ground and burn your fucking body.”

***

Outside, the beer garden comprises a row of fire-damaged patio chairs and a couple of upturned crates bearing the names of discontinued beers.

I sit on the least charred chair and count the money. Heffernan is about as trustworthy as a hooker’s smile, but his money folds as well as anyone else’s.

I take out my hip flask, drinking until it’s dry. I brought vodka, as I knew it would go down easy. These jobs are starting to take more of a toll. Queasy, thankless tasks given to a suburban savage with a grisly reputation. I redistribute the cash, randomly, into my various pockets and toss the faded Somerfield carrier bag into the weeds.

I check my watch. It’s still early. Early enough for almost anything in Paignton. I haul myself out of the chair and trudge down the covered walkway towards Hellton Towers.

4. The Grass

The lift is working, but I take the stairs up to the fourth floor anyway. The concrete stairwell is pissy, but not too pissy.

I bang on the door with the flat of my hand and take a step back. After a couple of minutes, it cracks open.

“Hello, John.”

“Sod off, Rey. You’re bad for my frigging health,” the man grumbles. His eyes look milky. Inscrutable.

I hold my hands up to show I mean him no harm and smile awkwardly.

He deflates beneath his ludicrous hairpiece when he realises I’m not going anywhere. I wedge my 10 ½ boot in the doorway to stop him slamming the door on me, but he’s already shuffling down the corridor towards his dingy living room.

Back in the day, John Munson used to be employed as a ratcatcher by Torbay Borough Council and had a sideline playing a Bontempi electronic organ in the Conservative Club on Monday afternoons. This – together with the wig – earned him the nickname ‘Hellton John’.

Five years ago, he was banged up for mutilating a girl with a promise of a ‘designer vagina’. The business cards he had printed off at the petrol station used the brand ‘Gash Converters’. The girl barely spoke English, but John videotaped the whole grubby affair – damning himself in the process. I’ve heard he was actually watching the video back when the cops came to arrest him.

***

I follow Munson into the living room. Like the man himself, it has a dank, malodorous quality.

“Drink, Rey?”

I nod.

He fetches two tumblers from his small, greasy kitchenette and dries them on his grotty pullover.

“Drambuie alright?”

“It’ll have to be.”

He pours us both a glass and I raise a silent toast to Arthur Hellton-Smythe and his ugly building.

Munson eases himself into his armchair gently, like he doesn’t want to rupture anything. He fumbles for a pair of Ventolin inhalers – one brown, one blue – on the fold-out card table next to his armchair but uses neither.

He drains his drink and grimaces.

“What can I do you for?”

“You’ve lived here a while, right?”

He nods proudly.

“Most of my life. My mother and my grandmother were the first tenants on the fourth floor back when it first opened.”

“So, you know everyone here?”

He nods.

“Pretty much. Not the squatters, but we don’t get too many of them these days.”

“Anyone here capable of abducting a sex worker?”

He squirms in his armchair, his breathing growing increasingly ragged. I prise the inhaler out of his hand and stomp it under my boot heel.

“Next time I break those fat fingers of yours, and you won’t be playing with anyone’s organ anytime soon.”

“Vinnie!” he splutters. “Vinnie’s got her!”

I place my half-finished drink on the carpet and lean towards him.

“And where exactly can I find Vinnie?”

5. The Pornographer

The 13^th floor is where I can find Vinnie. I take the lift this time. It smells worse than the stairwell.

Vinnie AKA Vinnie Porno. Vinnie Videos. VD Vinnie. The name changes depending on who you talk to, and how much they like him.

I’ve never met the fucking bloke, but his reputation definitely precedes him. John Munson told me that Vinnie used to go to Amsterdam three times a year to stock up on new wank-fodder. When the requests started getting more … esoteric, he started making his own movies.

As I bang on the door with my fist, I notice that the ‘8’ in the flat number ‘138’ is hanging loose from one rusted screw. I snap it off and clench it in my fist like a rudimentary set of brass knuckles.

“Who is it?” a voice calls.

“Ganges Curry House,” I shout. “Got an order for Vinnie Videos.”

“I didn’t order any fucking takeaway,” he shouts back, opening the door so he can debate the fact.

To my surprise, he’s wearing a gimp mask and a posing pouch. Ominously, he also has the physique of a power-lifter.

“Oh, sorry, Vinnie. My mistake.”

I lift the fake knuckleduster and punch him where his mouth should be – hard enough to shred gum and splinter teeth.

***

“Where’s Sheila?” I ask him.

Sat on his arse, he moans wordlessly through the mask.

I kick him down the hallway, repeating my question, louder this time.

“Where’s the fucking girl, Vinnie?”

I have kicked him as far as the lounge, when I stop to take a breath.

There’s a heart-shaped bed in the middle of the room and he has tens of thousands of pounds worth of recording equipment and editing hardware stacked against the wall. The room smells of disinfectant and piss, but considering most local porno set-ups involve stained mattresses, Transit vans and second-hand camcorders, Vinnie seems like a pro by comparison.

I slam a sharp elbow into his face, then yank off the gimp mask. Vinnie has a receding hairline with a tufty widow’s peak. He has purple bags under his eyes and saggy, pale skin. His eyes look like deep, dark pools of blood – or some other liquid that won’t come out. No wonder he wears a mask – this shit-bird has the perfect face for radio.

“Come on, Vinnie – don’t fuck me around.”

He gargles hopelessly – blood-streaked syllables sticking to his lips.

Then he clambers to his feet, spitting out loose teeth and clots of viscera as he does so.

That wasn’t part of the plan. Most times they stay down.

His thighs are so meaty they rub together as he shifts position.

I feel my spine pop as he roars and wraps me in a bearhug – his sweaty arms squeezing the life right out of me.

I feel a rib crack. Then a second.

That’s the problem with maniacs – they are about as predictable as a Paignton summer…

***

I club him with my fists, splitting the skin on my knuckles as I make contact with his thick skull.

Despite the blood-loss, the only thing I can really smell is the stink of my own cold sweat.

Eventually, I manage to wriggle free – writhing in a mix of blood and sweat. Vinnie grabs me by my sweatshirt and tosses me down the corridor like a ragdoll. I crash through the bathroom door shattering the black mould-streaked tiling. I slide down the wall into the bathtub, covered in broken tiles and ruined plaster.

Vinnie’s laughter is relentless, mocking, as he follows me into the room. I try to regulate my breathing as I work out my next move, when I hear a dull, thudding sound coming from underneath me.

A flicker of surprise crosses Vinnie’s sinister face. This definitely wasn’t part of his plan.

I clamber out of the bath and remove the lid of the toilet cistern before he has chance to close the gap. I swing the ceramic lid into his cranium and it shatters on impact.

Vinnie sways like a Wetherspoons wet-brain on a bank holiday, before face-planting into the edge of the bath, shattering his remaining teeth.

Thank fuck for that.

I crouch down and remove the side-panel from the bath.

Sheila has been stashed under the bathtub – her scrawny body contorted around the leaky plumbing system. She has been gagged with her own pantyhose. I drag her out of the confined space, into the mess of blood, bone and broken ceramics.

She looks horrified as she takes in my blood-splattered visage.

I try to offer her a reassuring smile, but it hurts when I move my face.

“Don’t worry,” I groan. “I’m one of the good guys.”

She slips in spilled viscera as she scrambles out of the room.

Fuck it.

I roll Vinnie’s meaty, unconscious body under the bath and replace the panel.

My work here is done.

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Bio:

Tom Leins is a crime writer from Paignton, UK. His books include Meat Bubbles & Other Stories, Boneyard Dogs and Ten Pints of Blood (all published by Close to the Bone) and Repetition Kills You, The Good Book: Fairy Tales for Hard Men and Sharp Knives & Loud Guns (all via All Due Respect). For more details, please visit: https://thingstodoindevonwhenyouredead.wordpress.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/tom-leins

https://www.amazon.com/author/tomleins1

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Apartment 11A By Katie Brunner

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Apartment 11A

by

Katie Brunner

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The grate of the fire escape bit into her bare thighs. Riley kicked her feet happily, perversely comfortable, even eleven floors up the tower. Her boyfriend’s apartment, the dump that it was, had never been her favorite place, but the fire escape? The poor man’s balcony? It was her home. She’d zip-tied an ashtray – ok, a plastic cup – to it and everything.

It was too cold to be wearing shorts, but Riley wore them anyway. She had great legs, and she thought – quite generously – that the man who lived just above their apartment could use something to look at. Besides, she hated wearing pants to bed and it was just about bedtime. Why would she bother changing into real clothes for a quick smoke?

Maybe she should’ve been more careful with the height and the cold. The wind, which had whipped half the hair out of her ponytail, turned the metal of the fire escape to ice. But Riley liked to feel that sharpness. The sensation made her feel alive. It was a harmless kind of pain, unlike the burn from fallen cigarette ash piling up on her leg. She could’ve hissed and swept it off, but she left it all there, content to let it cool on her thigh.

That, he would’ve yelled at her for.

Riley drew a quick breath through her teeth but otherwise did nothing while she weathered the worst of the pain. She didn’t even touch the little wound once the orange faded. David had hated this part of her – the self-destructive, sensory-seeking, risk-taking part – but she thought it was a treasure. Maybe in a few years, after some therapy or turning to God or whatever people do in their thirties, Riley would stop seeking danger but for now…

Her legs were growing numb and it was not her day to fall off the balcony, so she reopened the window behind her. Resigned to another night of poor sleep in Hellton Towers, Riley climbed back into the living room. The apartment was a shithole but they all were, even the corner “suites.” The whole place had roaches and probably asbestos, but when anyone asked, she told them it held a certain charm. To be fair, to Riley, Hellton Towers was charming. Sure, the building was crumbling around its inhabitants but she liked it that way. She especially liked that it wasn’t worth it – to the city – to spend the money it’d take to “fix” crime in the Towers. Where would the pigs start? All sorts lived there, good and bad sorts, but not one of them would lick a boot.

Hellton Towers had its own set of laws, loyalties, and punishments.

For example, the guy in 11B was a history professor. He used to work at Duke but resigned, probably in disgrace, but she didn’t know the details. Maybe he just wanted to be home. The “boys on two,” Mike’s boys, told her the Professor grew up near the Towers; he even did his dissertation on a nearby church (graveyard). He was too quiet to be infamous in town, but he was definitely a legend in the building. The rumor was that when he moved in, he brought just a duffel bag and an air mattress. Mike said in his first month there, the Professor beat one of his boys so badly he had needed reconstructive surgery.

“But the kid tried to jack his car, so…” Mike had shrugged. She remembered his amused smirk.

On the bright side, the Professor loved to be put to work, so all the kids in the building had a great – if strict – tutor. The Professor was a “valued member of the community,” as Mike once put it. Riley didn’t question that, ‘cause she quite liked the Professor. He had elbow patches like a professor ought to, and wore wire-rimmed glasses. His eyes crinkled when he smiled.

David, despite having lived there for years, was not a valued member of the community.

Grabbing a glass of water, she walked into their bedroom and sighed at the state of it. The sheets needed washing and the bottles of piss lined up on David’s side of the bed guarded it like sentinels. Riley used to have fantasies of pouring their contents into his mouth while he slept. She never had, but he would’ve deserved it.  

It’d be all right if it were just one bottle, you know? At least their caps were screwed on. Riley would clean them up eventually but the idea made her hands itch, so she left them alone. She shook her head, disgusted. Another night with dirty sheets and piss bottles, but what did she expect, with a guy like David in an apartment like 11A? Mercifully, the room didn’t smell like urine. It smelled human, and at night, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She always thought the two of them made a nice scent, or at least a tolerable one.

She rolled onto the mattress, landing squarely in her divot, and reached over to his side, which held a small pile of books. For the last few days she’d referred to it, in her head, as her “little library,” like the ones they had in town. Of course it wasn’t like a real Little Library – her books were definitely not free – but the name made her smile. David hadn’t slept in the bed for a while so she figured she could fill it. Besides, she was keeping its shape for him; it wouldn’t do for the mattress to lose the contours of his bony body.

Riley wiggled in place impatiently; she was waiting on a delivery. She’d ordered it to arrive in “the middle of the night,” and surely 2 a.m. counted as the middle of the night, but her welcome mat was still empty. Waiting was always difficult for her, and to make things extra irritating, her eye started to do that twitching she hated. One time she showed it to David, and he said “gross!” and continued with, “maybe you’re like, an alien. Or there’s an alien inside of you that wants out. Maybe it’s a boy alien. Do you think it’d gay to screw a boy alien?”

The twitch was a stress thing, and Riley was definitely stressed. She was anxious to get the package. And sure, maybe she was a bit possessive about it, but she just wanted it somewhere she could reach. She’d made a nice spot in the closet. There was extra space there; David didn’t have many clothes. It would fit well with his things.

After an hour of waiting, she startled at a heavy knock on the apartment door. Riley jogged to open it and released a breath when she saw the large trunk on her doormat. Whoever delivered it disappeared quickly. She made a mental note to tell Mike; hopefully he’d pass along the compliment.

Dragging the trunk into the apartment was easy but shuffling it into the closet was not. By the time she had it in place, she was sweating. She wasn’t really one to exercise, but she had to admit there was something satisfying about moving stuff and sweating from it. Riley patted the leather twice, thunks nice and heavy.

She pulled David’s trousers over to cover it and smiled to herself. It did look nice with his things. Mike had assured her the trunk would be well-prepared and worth the money, and he’d been right. He often was. It was an expense she couldn’t quite afford, but funerals were more expensive, and David told her once that he thought they were tacky. Who’d have come, anyway? Certainly not their neighbors.

The whole ordeal would have been tragic if he weren’t such a shit.

There are bad people everywhere – doesn’t matter what type of person they are. There are bad kids, bad teachers, bad baristas, and definitely bad boyfriends. There are bad girlfriends, too.

Riley thought girlfriend-badness was often justified, but in Hellton Towers, it didn’t matter either way. You could be almost anything there, including a murderer, as long as you murder the right people. Mike thanked her when she opened the door to 11A, and he got a glimpse of David’s prone body. His thanks was not surprising. The job offer, however, was. Riley was sorry to disappoint him, but she truly didn’t mind being a server. She wasn’t really the murder-for-hire type, anyway.

But when Mike offered to clean David up (for a price), she let him.

That night she learned firsthand that the boys on two were great at a variety of things, including making tea. Riley also learned that Mike charged a discounted rate for in-house cleanup. She didn’t even have to help carry the corpse downstairs.

What a Thursday.

Strangely, she was happy to have David – albeit a compressed version – back in the apartment. Though she trusted Mike, it was nice to put a bow on the whole thing. Or a lock. The trunk had a gorgeous lock.

As she closed the closet, Riley heard another knock. Slowly, she moved toward the entryway. She looked through the peephole. There was nothing – no one – there, so she opened the door.

At her feet laid a small pile of crumpled papers. She recognized them as David’s eviction notices, torn off the door. An envelope with her full name was taped in their place.

Rent due on the first, just put it in your mailbox. Renegotiation possible but unwise.

Riley remembered her first day in the Towers, the day she met Mike. He introduced himself with a wide smile, shook her hand and said, “We take care of our own.” The phrase, normal enough, had been said so soberly it frightened her, which was the point. But she recognized now that in saying that, he’d given her an opportunity. She smiled down at the note and startled when she heard someone clear their throat.

Next door, the Professor was just getting in. He was slipping off his Oxfords, obviously thankful for his night to be over. He lifted one hand in greeting and nodded at her. The corners of his lips were curled up into his ‘hello, sweet girl’ smile. Riley waved back at him happily, with so much fondness in her chest she felt she might die from it. For some reason, seeing the Professor’s socks made one thing very clear: she was home.

Riley ducked back inside her own apartment. She walked into the bedroom and, steeling herself, gathered David’s bottles into an old cardboard box. She’d bring them to the dumpster later. She pushed her books off the bed, stripped the thing of its sheets, and replaced them with clean ones. Finally, she opened the window. For the first time since she moved in, Riley didn’t crave the bite of the metal on her fire escape. She didn’t even want a cigarette. Riley was, for once, completely comfortable.

She belonged in Hellton Towers. She belonged with Mike, with the boys on two, with the Professor, and under the gaze of the weirdo upstairs. Riley even felt at home with the few kids who roamed the building, some of whom visited the Professor’s apartment with angry mothers at their backs.

Riley was a valued member of the community, and David?

David belonged in a trunk.

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Bio:

KM Brunner has been published on some small-time websites and as a scholar in Technical Communication Quarterly. She lives and works in Boston with her three guitars and six tarantulas, waiting for the day she’ll find a wife who’s cool with all of that.

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The Rejuvenation Business By Mathew Gostelow

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The Rejuvenation Business

by

Mathew Gostelow

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We are in the rejuvenation business. The company I work for takes the carcasses of the past and breathes new life into them. This tower block, the one I’m visiting right now, is the perfect example. It’s a tombstone. A grey-brown decayed tooth in the otherwise-pearly skyline of a regenerated neighbourhood. It’s a ghost, clinging on beyond its natural life. A desiccated husk, haunted by the last few stubborn residents – the ones who still refuse to sell.

Thatcher didn’t often put a foot wrong. But that whole “right to buy” scheme created some headaches for organisations like ours. That’s where I come in. I represent a team of wealthy property developers. I’m a persuasive man and I am empowered to offer the clingers-on a more than reasonable price for their property. I can also explain to them just how crappy their miserable lives will become if they continue to resist the march of progress.

The lift in this towering infernal doesn’t work, of course. Just my luck, as the two remaining Klingons are on the upper floors. So I’m slogging up the miserable piss-stink stairs, every footstep echoing off the unhappy concrete. These blocks want to be reborn. I can feel it. And my company has developed a very smart technique for modernising these old relics. We don’t even need to demolish. We just gut them – peel them back to a skeleton and rebuild on top. In six months we’ll have a shiny block of desirable residences, fit for city boys and oligarchs and footballers. Not to mention property developers.

It’s all about progress. Scrubbing out the detritus – the scum that hangs around the plughole long after the bath has drained. Getting rid.

Janet Mogg is my first stop. Standard crazy cat lady. She must be about 95. Arms and legs like fucking Twiglets. Sixteen cats in a one-bed flat and her surname is Mogg. You couldn’t make it up. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m her son. Dotty old walnut. The flat is a hoarder’s hellscape – bowls of rancid kitty biscuits balanced on teetering piles of newspapers, tiny turds lurking beneath every tectonic slide of unopened post. And the cats are everywhere, slinking around your ankles, strutting about on the kitchen counters, pouncing out of cupboards and corners. The place stinks of piss worse than the stairwell.

I follow wobbly, hunched Janet from room to room, dodging cats and belIowing at the top of my lungs about how much money she’d get if she just signed the papers. She’s completely oblivious – deafer than Ozzy Osbourne and twice as bewildered. Meanwhile Mrs Mogg is calling me Trevor and prattling on about how Mr Tinkles is missing. I give up after twenty minutes. Best we can hope for is a short sharp case of toxoplasmosis to carry the batty old dear off. She’s too far gone and too full of cataracts to see sense at this point.

The weirdo though, Mr Clough, he’s pretty lucid, mostly. He’s my next stop. Him and his missus, they’re the only other residents of this block, besides Janet Mogg. And I think, if I play my cards right, they could be persuaded to move on.

I tramp up three more flights of cold grey stairs. Wilson, his name is. I don’t know hers. Willson Clough. I never liked anyone who had a surname for a first name. Same with people who have a first name for a surname. Elton John? Fuck off. Can’t trust them. Weird vibes. But if I can shift the Cloughs, we’re almost done.

Wilson meets me at the door. The flat is spick and span at least. They keep it nice. Or Wilson does – Mrs Clough is bed-bound. So it’s tidy, but it’s a visual fucking nightmare. The place hasn’t been redecorated since the 1970s, which is when the Cloughs moved in. There are deep reds, and vivid greens everywhere. Florals, paisleys, everything is patterned, psychedelic. It’s like being eaten alive by a fucking lava lamp. But that’s not even the weirdest thing about this flat.

He’s pleasant enough, Wilson is. Remembers my name from last time. Offers to make me a tea straight away. He’s an older guy, 75 maybe. Bald. Pretty chunky. Sweaty. Big stout pot belly in a graph paper shirt and a knitted cardigan. He looks like one of those old-time scientists you used to get on TV. Open University. I bet he used to be a teacher.

Mr Clough breathes through his mouth, loudly. Kind of wheezy. And he’s wearing his special glasses. Milkbottle lenses. Wilson wears them for his hobby and they make his eyes look freakishly fucking massive. It’s like coming face to face with an overweight Gollum.

As he’s making tea, I can hear a TV blaring in the bedroom, where Mrs Clough is. The door is ajar, I can see the screen. Daytime game shows. The type of programme that makes no fucking sense the first time you watch it – just random events and people saying numbers. This one seems to involve stopping a giant pendulum with a big red button. Old people love that shit.

“Afternoon Mrs Clough.” I shout, to be heard above the telly.

“Wilson? Wilson?” Her voice comes out through the door. “Is it time for my medicine?”

Mr Clough shuffles across the room carrying a cup of tea on a tray, accompanied by a colourful scattering of pills.

“I’ve just got to take these through to my wife,” he says, in his wheezy voice. “She’s got a condition, so she has to take all her tablets on time.”

While he toddles off, I inspect the shelves. In the living room, there’s a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf taking up one full wall. That’s the weirdest part of this flat. There’s hardly any books on it at all. Instead, it’s packed with the output of Wilson’s hobby. See, Mr Clough is an amateur taxidermist. He takes dead animals, stuffs them, mounts them and displays them proudly on his shelf. Thing is though, he’s fucking terrible at it. Useless. They all look like utter shit. It’s a proper horrorshow.

There’s a hedgehog up there, frozen in an expression of pained concentration, like it’s straining for a poo. Grimacing it is, poor thing, head all flat, mouth too wide, body bunched up. Two of its little legs are poking out at weird angles, not even touching the shelf.

Next to it, there’s a squirrel that looks like a fucking toffee apple. Its swollen, overstuffed noggin sits on top of a stick-thin body. The glass bead eyes are bugging out something rotten – worse than Wilson’s own magnified mince-pies. And there’s big rough stitches all over it, bits of fluffy stuffing poking out. It’s a Frankenstein gone badly wrong.

There’s a few different birds. A pigeon that looks startled – beak wide open, like it just heard some awful news. A crow that’s basically just a black ball of ruffled feathers – its neck and head are all absorbed into the overstuffed body. And a baggy, wrinkled seagull that seems to have its legs on backwards.

There’s also a fox. A full-size fox. But its jaws are set wrong so it has this confused crossbill thing going on. The eyes are on the wonk too, like it’s watching TV and searching for the remote all at once. Jagged lines of clumsy stitching criss-cross its face.

Like I say, Wilson is not great at this.

His workbench is in the corner – a table covered in angle poise lamps, special needles, thread, wire, cotton wool, scissors, and scalpels. In amongst it all is his latest project. Seems like he’s currently working on a cat. Unlucky little bastard – already looks like it’s been twelve rounds with an especially brutal pitbull terrier.

Just then, Wilson walks through, back into the kitchen, retrieving two more cups and saucers. They’re a weird pale green colour, something you might see in an old Carry On film. Throwbacks to a bygone era. Just like the Cloughs. The tea is sweet. I don’t take sugar, and I’m pretty sure I told Wilson that last time I was here. But I’m not going to say anything.

“Sorry about that,” he says, out of breath. “My wife is taking some quite powerful medications and it’s important we don’t miss a single dose.”

“That’s no problem, Mr Clough,” I launch into it, all smiles and big gestures. “It’s great to see you ag-”

“Please, sit down.”

He indicates the brown, stripy sofa. Fucking abomination it is. Looks like it’s made of wool. Bobbly, scratchy wool. I sit down.

“As I say, it’s really great to see you again. I wondered if you’d had a cha-”

“Do you mind if I record our conversation?”

“Err. No, of course not Mr Clough.”

“It’s just, I sometimes don’t remember everything afterwards – and my wife will have questions.”

Of course, he doesn’t just record us on his phone, like a normal person. No, weirdo Wilson is proper old school, so he reaches under the coffee table and pulls out a cassette recorder. It’s already loaded up with a clear plastic C-90 tape. Carefully, deliberately, he presses the chunky Play and Record buttons at once.

“There. Please, carry on.”

“Thank you Mr Clough. I was just wondering if you’d had a chance to consider the offer I made to you last time. Do you recall? The developer I represent would be very keen to acquire your property here.”

I pause. Take a long slurp of tea. Sweet, but strong. I like that. Builders’ tea too. No fancy flim-flam, floral, fruity nonsense.

Wilson’s massive eyes look at me apologetically.

“I’m sorry. Would you mind going over the deal again for me?”

“Of course Mr Clough. And I’m glad you ask, because my manager has authorised me to make an even more generous offer to you than when we last met.

“They would be willing to pay fifty percent over the market rate for your flat. And I’m sure you understand that with property prices in this area of the city, that means you would receive a very significant sum.”

The wheels of the cassette recorder whir. Wilson stares blankly. The twisted menagerie on the shelf sits in silent, ugly judgement. I slurp my tea.

“And not only that. My employers would also be willing to offer you any assistance you require in searching for, and acquiring, an onward property.”

Silence.

“They’ll help you find somewhere else to live, Mr Clough. I really think it’s worth considering. The money you’d make could get you a very nice house in another part of town. Semi detached. Two bedrooms. Bit of a garden maybe?”

Wilson shakes his head slowly. For some reason, his eyes look even more massive than usual.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. My wife and I are very happy here. I don’t even know what we’d do with a garden.”

His wheezy voice seems slow, boomy somehow, like it’s echoing off the walls of a cathedral. Except it’s not. We’re still in the stuffy little flat, observed by several dozen tiny beady eyes.

“Well, Mr Clough, it’s worth thinking about. You must have noticed that you’re almost the last residents in this block. The community that used to live here has moved on, and you’re in danger of getting left behind. Things change and … The thing is … Sometimes we … We all have to …”

I’m losing my thread. This isn’t like me at all. The sound of the cassette motor seems loud suddenly. I’m watching the tape turning, can’t take my eyes off it somehow, and I think I can hear scratching coming from the taxidermy shelf. Little claws tapping and scrabbling on the wood.

“It is a very kind offer.”

Wilson’s eyes are gigantic now – a pair of supermoons beaming across the room. His voice flows treacle-slow. The lava lamp decor is oozing and melting around me in deep red ripples. My mouth is dry, heart racing, hands sweating.

“Wilson? Wilson?” The wife’s voice comes again from the bedroom. “Is it time for my medicine?”

“Not now, my love.”

Mr Clough’s voice echoes wildly. I blink in slow motion. The constipated hedgehog on the shelf is leering down, eyes spinning like children’s marbles in old-fashioned picture books.

“I … I feel …”

Words turn rubbery in my mouth, shaped unfamiliar. I’m afraid.

“Yes, hopefully you’re feeling quite relaxed now. As I say, my wife’s medications are very strong.”

Wilson Clough’s thin voice seems to come from somewhere far away. He looks at me earnestly through vast, watery eyes. Paisley patterns collide around us. The room twists and shifts, collapsing kaleidoscopic.

“Wilson? Wilson? Is it time for my medicine?”

Mr Clough ignores his wife, carries on speaking to me, his words ringing madly inside my head.

“As I said, your employer’s offer is very, very generous, but I really think we have to stay put. I’m just not sure my wife would survive the move. I worry that she’d never be the same.”

“Wilson? Wilson? Is it time for my medicine?”

I’m trying to stand, legs working against me like the twisted limbs of Mr Clough’s appalling animals. I stagger over to the bedroom, the walls and floor spinning wildly, fighting my unsteady progress across the room.

Incoherent, confused sounds escape my mouth as I grab the door frame – my tongue babbling babyishly, beyond my control.

I lean through, steadying myself against the woodwork, and there she is. Mrs Clough, propped up in bed. The TV casts blue light across her leathery skin, the wild lines of stitching, the startled eyebrows, too high. Her face is punctuated by two dead, black bead eyes above a slack-jawed, gaping mouth. White wisps of stuffing pour from ruptured stitches in her throat.

“Wilson? Wilson? Is it time for my medicine?”

The voice comes from a second tape recorder, playing on the duvet, beside one of her withered, twisted hands.

I fall to my knees, legs lifeless.

“You see? I think the move would break her. It’s best for everyone if we just stay where we are. And now you can stay too. Keep us both company. I’ll make you new again, inside and out. That way, nothing has to change, ever.”

Wilson’s colossal Gollum-peepers and cavern-echo voice fill my head. His hands are in my armpits, dragging my flaccid form towards the bathroom.

Before I pass out, I hear the ill-stitched menagerie chirping and chattering, bouncing excitedly on the shelf – welcoming me to the fold.

---

Bio:

Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is the author of two collections of speculative stories; See My Breath Dance Ghostly (Alien Buddha Press) and Dantalion is a Quiet Place (DarkWinter Lit, coming 2025). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. @MatGost

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Honey By Chris Lee

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Honey

by

Chris Lee

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The kid was missing for twelve days before I caught on to where she was. Hellton Towers, shithole in the middle of nowhere, population: limitless scum. I didn’t enjoy wading through shit but my client had paid me a generous sum to pull my big boy pants up and get my floaties on. Kenneth Graham was a wealthy bastard who probably had his pockets lined with gold just because he thought it would look nice. When he hired me, he must have been bored, he definitely wasn’t desperate.

He didn’t seem to care that his only daughter Rose was kidnapped and being held for ransom, and he barely moved when I described what I found and what kind of place Hellton Towers was. I wanted to check his neck for a pulse. When asked how much the ransom was, he said more than she was worth. 

Dominic Honey is my name, or at least that’s what I see written on the door before I opened the office most mornings. Most women called me Honey anyway so it worked for me. Dom Honey Private Detective. Sign even shone gold at night.

The secretary downstairs worked for the building super, my office being in another rundown shithole in the middle of the city. When she buzzed Mr. Graham up, she gave me a warning. “El Diablo está aquí”. I thought that meant big money but I wasn’t great with my Spanish.

Kenneth gave me the usual spiel (I’ll spare the boring details), and I assured him that his money was well spent with Honey. I never turned a client away if they could pay the sweetest Private Detective in this infested city. Mr. Graham, who looked as if he could care less if my name was Dominic Kidnapper, handed me the placeholder fee of one grand and left just as quickly as he entered.

Worked for me, I never researched my clients, I just did the job and got paid. That was why people had an understanding that Honey is sticky.

I don’t pretend to be a hero. 

I took the first bus downtown in the morning to feel out the neighborhood and it was just as I thought. Skuzzheads, bozos, and freaks, the circus came to town and never left. I stood out like a priest in a strip club.

When I approached the vast entrance to the building, I could smell the trouble before I saw it. A gang of young kids hovered outside the front door, some playing dice with each other, some standing back with fistfuls of cash waiting their turn. They all wore ski masks. I think the kids call them “A Sheisty” after a rapper they like.

“Fuck you doing here bro?” One kid said, his fist clenched around three twenty-dollar bills. He watched my hands, eyed my cheap watch.

“Looking for somebody. Young girl. Seen her?” I kept it short; kids nowadays have no attention span.

He grunted and turned away from me, done with our brief conversation.

Or respect.

I brushed past the kids, who couldn’t care less about my presence, and opened the door to the Towers. The doorknob felt slick with grime and sweat and other bodily fluids. I tried not to wipe the juices on my coat and clenched my nose, entering the towers. Somebody in a nearby room screamed so loud I almost turned back.

The desk where the concierge should have been was empty. Upon further inspection I noticed the wall decorated with bullet holes and graffiti. It’s a wonder nobody tried to tear this place down. We could use more McDonald’s and strip malls on this side of the city.

Straight ahead of the desk was a long hall, elevators with an out of order sign, apartments either side of the hall, and an entrance for what I assumed was steps. There wasn’t much light for me to see. I could see a stained directory on the desk that seemed to suggest there were fifteen floors in the tower.

Shit, I’ll never find the girl. 

“Aye bro. You out of bounds.” A voice somewhere in front of me said. I could hardly make out the silhouette but I could tell he wasn’t selling girl scout cookies.

The shadow of his hand was holding something that looked a lot like the shadow of a gun. My own felt heavy at my side. The shadow stepped forward and revealed a large man with dreads, tattoos and a smile that would make Momma Honey cry.

“Sorry, names Dom Honey. Looking for somebody.” I said.

“Don’t care, Sugar. You can’t be in here, you out of bounds like I said.” Big guy said, this time he made sure to put some inflection on the last few words.

I wanted to tell him it’s Honey not Sugar but he looked like he cared more about hurting me than knowing my name. He was telling me I was in an area civilians shouldn’t be in, probably turf of the Hellton Towers Devil Kings. I decided to try a different approach.

Pulling out the picture I had of Rose Graham, young, beautiful, brown eyes shimmering, dark hair, smile of an angel, I showed it to him.

“You seen this girl around here? Been looking for this chick forever, I know she’s here somewhere with the dude she cheating with. My client has to know.” My tongue slid naturally toward Hellton area dialect.

Dreads didn’t look incredibly convinced but the drama seemed more interesting to him than the beatdown he wanted to give me three seconds ago.

“Look I just need eyes on her, nothing crazy.” I said.

“She up there with Martwan and them on like the tenth-floor bro. Go get her but don’t touch nothin else” Dreads said.

I went from fresh meat to snitching out a cheater in a flash and he moved aside to let me pass. I didn’t let him see me sweat, just passed by and slapped him a handshake like we never wanted to kill each other. It concerned me that he didn’t seem phased about the girl in the picture being more than likely a minor but I let it go.

My assumption the elevator wouldn’t work proved true and ten flights of stairs later I was breathing heavily in the doorway to floor ten. I could hear screaming again but couldn’t tell which door it was peeking from out under, so I walked slowly down the hallway and listened.

The door to 10-3 was wide open, showing some junkies shooting up. They saw me and tried to wave, their hands dead in the air.

The door to room 10-5 was cracked slightly so I let my eyes wander in, saw a couple in the middle of some extracurriculars and wandered past.

The door to room 10-7 was broken, almost in half as if someone had used it for football practice. A small red drop on the door showed where the culprit’s forehead connected. Should have used a helmet.

The final room at the end of the hall, which I assumed was 10-10, had no door. A faint glow of red light painted the hallway wall, and there was noise coming from the room which sent a chill through the air. I wandered slowly along and kept my hands at the ready, sure that somebody was waiting on the other side of that vacant red glow.

When I got to the empty doorway I stopped and processed the scene ahead.

The door was on the floor in front of its frame, a large dent in the center.

The hall of the apartment opened straight ahead with two doors on the left and one on the right, a living room after those rooms.

The red light came from a large TV stuck on a red title screen reading Daddy’s Girl.

In the living room was a couch. On the couch looked to be a body facedown with one foot dangling off the couch arm.

An arm grazed the floor from the body, clutching something tight.

The long, dark hair I knew from the picture.

The red light bathed the body in a bloody glow.

Rose Graham was dead.

I went up to the living room, my eyes grazing over the others as I walked. The kitchen was filthy, the bathroom dark and smelly, the only bedroom a mess of bugs and clothes. The living room itself was no prize, Rose’s body was probably the best décor in there.

The girl’s handheld a syringe, her arm shot to hell with marks where she jabbed or was jabbed.

I held my breath for ten seconds or I would have probably screamed.

On her right shoulder blade, you could make out a tattoo, a sun connected to a moon. Unusual for a teenager.

Everything felt red with danger. I wanted to throw up. The girl was quiet and free, freer now than any plans her father had for her. I took out my phone to call him, snapped a few pictures of the body, when I had the same thought that had been nagging at the back of my mind all night.

This had been way too easy. I walked in here, past a group of kids with no worries or emotions, past a brick wall of a dude into known gang territory and I wasn’t dead. I had expected to be Swiss cheese by now. So, where the hell were Martwan and them?

As if on cue I heard footsteps outside, the sound of more than a few men coming to sniff out the sole intruder standing over the cold, dead body in the room. I swore and reached for the gun at my hip, then moved to the side of the red living room where I could peek around the wall.

Three big guys waltz in, accompanied by the bigger Dreads guy from downstairs. They’re talking animatedly and joking as if Rose’s dead body didn’t lay five feet in front of them.

“So, you said you ordered wings AND pizza? Who got wing money? I ain’t paying so ya’ll can eat it all.” One of the men was saying, as he stepped over the broken door like it was a Lego. They stopped for a second, noticed the body and then, pure quiet.

I felt the gun in my hand. Rabid, wanting to bite.

“Was she dead earlier bro?” I heard one ask.

“Nah. She was breathin earlier.” Another answered.

“I know dude was up here. Sugar or whatever his name was.” Dreads said flatly. “We gotta find his ass before he flips his lips.”

 It became obvious he either set me up, or got dragged up here by whoever Martwan was.

“Okay fellas, let’s not start trippin.” I said as I stepped out from around the corner, gun raised and straight. There was no point hiding and I was ready to shoot my way out of the Towers if necessary.

Dreads looked surprised, the other three not so much. They wore yellow and brown, known Devil Kings colors. I didn’t drop my aim.

“Look chill Sugar, she just wanted to have a good time. We was told to keep her here until shit cooled down.” Dreads said. He was a lot less tough when being threatened with lead poisoning.

“Whose idea was it for you to pick her up?” I said.

One of the three men was holding a cooler and a scalpel. I noticed it glowing red from the TV light behind me. I watched my shadow against the wall and backed up to brace myself against the couch.

“Her’s. Said she wanted to teach her pops a lesson. We gave her dope to keep her cool man.” Dreads said.

“The ransom?” I prompted.

“That’s to piss her pops off man, she ain’t wanna go home.” Dreads said.

She wasn’t going anywhere now.

“What’s the cooler for?” I motioned with the gun. Two of the guys shrugged and one moved quickly behind Dreads. There was a shot and Dreads fell over, blood coming from his back.  

I didn’t hesitate, I put one in the closest goon’s neck while the other jumped into the kitchen on my left. The goon who shot Dreads was the one with the cooler and scalpel in his hand, the other pointed my way with his gun. He shot and I felt the bullet whizz past me, shattering the TV. The apartment was suddenly shrouded in darkness.

I crouched down slowly, watching the shadow of the man in front of me aim again. We shot at the same time, his shot a guess, mine at the flash of his gun. He fell in front of me and I felt my arm burn where he had grazed me.

There was still one man hiding in the bathroom, I could hear his breathing. I crept slowly, careful not to hit any glass or bodies. I opened the door from the side with my boot, and like I suspected shots started rapidly going where I would have been standing normally. When I heard the click of his gun I stood in the doorway and squinted into the dark, shooting him in the chest. There was a grunt and a loss of air. The room became lonely.

Checking my corners, I began the long trek back to the entrance of the Towers.     

When I called Kenneth Graham to fill him in on his daughter’s disappearance hours later, he didn’t sound surprised. He wired me an extra few grand hush money and told me he wished things could have been different between him and his daughter. He turned and looked out my office window for a long time before leaving again. I didn’t believe him.

Dread was dead, most likely a bodyguard for an organ harvesting ring, an unnecessary loss. I must have come during lunch, only four men had been there to protect the site. Hellton Towers. What a shithole. I never heard if the Devil Kings cleared out of that area and I didn’t care.

For the first time in a long time, I felt sticky taking the cash.

Still sticky. I couldn’t get myself unstuck. I counted the cash I earned, closed my office door and watched the letters shine gold in the night.   

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Bio:

Chris Lee is a writer living in Lancaster, PA. A lover of all things mystery and noir, he hopes to one day finish the novel in his head.

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Bottom Dwellers By Fiona Clark

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Bottom Dwellers

by

Fiona Clark

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We are the Bottom Dwellers, the basement dwellers, deep under the high-rise block of Hellton Towers. No-one sees us, no-one knows we are here. The basement was boarded up for many years before I was old enough to remember, Cal told me. When my mother, father and elder brother were lost, on the Outside, Cal brought me and Ama down here. We slid down the old laundry chute, into the cellar with its rows of silent washing-machines, like space-ships ready for orbit, and the dripping tap over a chipped box-sink, our precious source of water. Cal and Ama made our home in the rooms behind this, where people had stored tools and tins of paint. A small grid lets onto the Outside, giving us air and a few hours of sunlight. Ama makes me sit under the grid, to get the slanting rays of sun onto my face, next to the feeble tomato plants, with their pebbly green fruits, which scarcely ever ripen.

Ama tells me we are not really Bottom Dwellers, because below the basement is the ground, and under the ground are caves and tunnels from the Before-time, where people used to live, and before them, the Ancestors, who painted on the cave-walls and left imprints on their hands on the rocky surfaces. Ama uses the tins of paint to decorate the walls of our home. She makes images of bison spirits, of deer running through woods, images known to her own people from the dawn of time. She made me dip my hands in the paint, every year, and press them against the wall to show how I’m growing, my tiny baby hands, until now.

At night, Cal climbs up the laundry chute, and into the upper levels, and onto to the Outside to collect supplies. He takes whatever he can get, sometimes cans of food, a dead squirrel, a bag of rice. If shops are being looted, he follows behind and grabs whatever is left or dropped by the Tribes. But Cal is worried about getting old. He’s always told me that when I’m thirteen, I must learn to climb the chute with him, and to scavenge for what we need. I’m thirteen today and have pressed my handprint onto the picture wall. An adult’s hand, a scavenger’s hand, only I call it ‘borrowing.’

In our home, I have a few old books and lurid comics, full of aliens and superheroes, tattered and worn thin with use. One of the books is ‘The Borrowers,’ by Mary Norton. The Borrowers are tiny people who live in the posh house of some before-time people. Arriety, her father, Pod, and her mother Homily, live under a tall clock called a grandfather clock, and come out at night to borrow small items which the humans will never miss – a safety pin for a gate-catch, a chess piece for an ornament, scraps of food. I can identify with Arriety, and for years she has been my imaginary friend.

Cal, Ama and I sit at the packing-case table, where a lighted candle flickers. Ama cooks in a haybox, and on an old barbecue stand, with a makeshift flue through a hole in the wall to the Outside. As it’s my birthday, she’s cranked open a long-hoarded can and we are having corned beef fritters, which smell and taste delicious. There’s a solemn feeling in the air.

‘It’s tonight, Yol,’ Cal tells me. ‘Your first scavenging raid. You must be brave, silent, and above all, do everything I tell you.’

I nod speechlessly. I’m afraid but manage to control my trembling. At last, I will get to see the upper levels, and perhaps, the great Outside.

We dress in black, with balaclavas Ama has knitted, and black gloves, black scavenging sacks. Ama kisses me, wishes us luck. I can see she is controlling her trembling, too.

Cautiously, Cal and I ascend the laundry chute. It is smooth, dark and slimy inside, but Cal has soldered lumps of scrap metal to the walls to provide hand and foot holds. We scramble up towards the flickering circle of fluorescent light, and Cal helps me out into a gloomy, narrow corridor. He holds a finger to his lips and beckons me forward. We creep along the walls and wriggle out through a tiny aperture. Suddenly, we are in the Outside. I feel a rush of cold air on my skin and look up to the dizzying emptiness of the night sky, arcing above our heads, the cloudy darkness tinged with a bilious orange glow. Into that terrifying emptiness thrust the gargantuan dimensions of Hellton towers. I press myself face downwards on the ground, fearing that the building will collapse and crush me. I feel Cal’s reassuring but urgent hand on my back, patting me, pulling me to my feet. With the other hand, he indicates a row of bins, close to the outside of the building. As my senses clear, I see we are in a narrow yard, enclosed by four high walls.

We move to the bins, take off the metal lids with exceptional care, and begin to probe the contents. I’ve been primed as to what to look for. Banana skins can be scraped for precious potassium. Chicken bones can be boiled for soup. Stale bread can be grated for crumbs. We pick though each bin, methodically, but it’s slim pickings tonight. With his thumb, Cal indicates the wall. My heart pounds. We are going over the wall, into the full world of the Outside. Cal swings his grappling hook, high to the top of the wall. The climbing rope coils downwards.

Cal climbs first, skilfully, but slowly. I can see the effort it takes for his aging limbs to scale that vertical surface. Then he’s astride the wall, and the rope curves my way. I brace my body, and step by slippery step, I scramble and haul myself to the top. Cal goes first, scurrying down the other side like a spider in the darkness, landing softly as a cat. I follow behind him, and we are creeping past giant scrap heaps, crashed cars, broken appliances, loops of electrical wire. Some of this may prove useful, on the way back, but food is our priority. Suddenly, there’s shout, and a flashlight beams our way.

‘Run,’ whispers Cal, ‘To the railway bridge. I’ll find you there.’ He points my way, I duck and scurry past the mounds. I hear him throw a can in the opposite direction, to create a diversion. A taste like iron in my mouth, I keep on running, crouch down on the rusted rails inside the railway bridge, which is festooned with graffiti, bubble writing, genitalia, slogans, in fluorescent spray paint. I wait, heart thumping like a fist against a drum. Surely it’s audible? I try to calm my breathing. But Cal doesn’t come. I can hear shouts and a clatter of metal objects cascading, a clamour of raised voices. Then silence. I try to remember the plan, which has long been part of my training and preparation for this day: in an emergency, head for the safe house, by the river, a green-painted shed, with a corrugated-iron roof, with the white-washed words: Denton’s Nautical Supplies. Find the river by the smell. Follow the river. The safe house lies beyond on the left bank, if anyone still maintains the post.

I clamber up the mud bank beside the bridge. In one of my old comics, there is a picture of hell fires, with skeletons dancing in front of them. That scene comes alive before my eyes, here in the patch of scrubland, littered with cans. Orange, red, yellow streaks of flame, manic bony figures with empty eye-sockets. Music pumps out from some unseen source, throbbing, beating, drumming, drumming.

As I’m quivering here, a skeleton leaps towards me, his face bone-white, his gap-teeth grinning with ferocious intent. He grabs my throat, pulls me down the mudbank, flattens me with his angular limbs.

‘Who are you?’ He runs a hand down my body. ‘A girl?’

‘Don’t touch me!’ I spit back.

He lets me go, scrambles away a little. It’s a skinny boy, dressed in black, the bones sprayed onto his mask and clothing with luminous paint.

‘Who are you? Which tribe?’

‘No tribe,’ I falter.

He peels off the skeletal mask, a black hood, painted with skull markings. Greasy red hair, hollow eyes in an emaciated face. He seems almost as frightened as I am.

‘I came from over there,’ I gesture vaguely, ‘With my grandfather, Cal. But there was a flashlight, some crashing, and he disappeared. I’m to wait for him at the safe house.’

Naïve of me, I know, to blurt out so much information, but the Outside is huge and terrifying, and this boy is another human being.

‘Safe house? Denton’s Nautical?’ He scoffs. ‘Not been ‘safe’ for years. Security found it, caved the roof in.’

‘But… where shall I wait for Cal?’

The boy’s voice is gentler now. ‘Look, Cal’s not coming back. That flashlight… it’s Security. They’ll have … dealt with him.’

‘Dealt..?’

‘Not coming back.’

Hot tears spill down my cheeks, there’s a burning coal in my throat.

‘Look, where do you live? Which level?’

‘No level. Under all the levels. In the basement. I’m a Bottom Dweller.’

‘But Security boarded up the basement years ago.’

‘It’s a secret…’

‘Safe with me. Listen, I’m from Level Seven, halfway up. The Top Dwellers on Fourteen, they own me. I run their drugs for them. But I slipped up, lost some cash on a raid. They’ve said nothing, but it’s just a matter of time. I need somewhere to hole up, where they won’t find me. I’ll get you back there, stay with you out of sight.’

‘No’ – I imagined Ama’s grief-stricken face: to lose Cal and inherit this intrusive stranger, all in one blow.

‘What choice do you have?’

It’s true. It takes two to manage the grappling hook and rope. Plus, I am an amateur in the ways of the Outside. I glance up at the full height of Hellton Towers, its prison-like walls, its thousand windows, blank, blind eyes. I think of the flashlight, of the unseen power of Security, of Cal, who is not coming back. What choice, indeed?

Suddenly, along the top of the mudbank three or four more skeletons appear, grasping spears.

‘Keep still!’ hisses the boy. We crouch in the shadows. The skeletons are stamping, performing some sort of war dance, brandishing their spears.

A small creature streaks across the top of the bank. With blood-curdling yells, they are on it, stabbing it with their spears. One of them holds the creature aloft. It’s an urban fox, red fur dripping with blood. The others catch the blood in their hands, smear it on their bodies and faces. They set off with whoops towards the flickering orange flames of the bonfire.

We breathe out.

‘It’s now or never,’ whispers the boy. ‘They’ll roast that but be back for more.’

In an incongruous gesture, he takes my hand, shakes it. ‘Ben.’

‘I’m Yol.’ I beckon to him.

We creep back past the scrap piles, dreading the flashlight, the footsteps of Security, but nothing happens. We skim towards the walls, the rope still dangling from the grappling hook. We look up together, move slowly forwards, into the darkness, or the light.

---

Bio:

Fiona Clark is lucky enough to live in the beautiful and historical county of Suffolk, UK. She writes poetry, playscripts and short stories, and is currently planning a novel. Fiona is an active member of Suffolk Poetry Society (SPS), and of Suffolk Writers’ Group (SWG), and an Associate Editor for SPS online magazine, ‘Ripples.’ Fiona performs her poetry at Poetry Aloud poetry café, and SPS poetry festivals. Fiona was among the winners of Fast Foreword Festival short story competition, 2023, and was first prize winner in SWG Angry Ghosts poetry competition, 2022, Offtopic poetry competition, first prize, May 2023, highly commended, August 2023, November 2023, honourable mention in Norwich Café Writers competition, February 2024. She is a frequent poetry prize winner in ‘The Oldie’ magazine. Other publications include: SPS ‘Twelve Rivers’ magazine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Dreich magazine, Littoral press magazine (digital), Bridge House publishing, Offtopic (digital) and Silver Birch press(digital). Her writing focuses on the natural world, memories, mythology, human relationships and history. Her writing can be found most easily at poetrywivenhoe.org, 2023, under the headings ‘Fruit and flowers’, ‘Rivers and lakes’, and ‘Fishes and sea-creatures.’, and many other titles.

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The Acquisition By Jacko Pook

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The Acquisition

by

Jacko Pook

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Negotiation? Didn’t need it, did we? Talk about a takeover – that tenement was just waiting for us to make it ours. Easy-fucking-fleasy.

But buildings are for beginners.

Dynasties, Monopolies. Turning towers into towns and cities into ubiquities. Really we’re just getting started. But even we, with all our worldly ambitions, won’t deny it; taking that tower and the powerless, peasant tenants within it was a bit of a scalp. Hope they like their new owners.

Actually… we couldn’t give a shit.

***

It takes a shove from the shoulder but the door… my door… opens easily enough. Upon entering I take a moment to mentally retract all those times that I criticized Frank for not getting the locksmith out, for being in breach of contract, and his negligence to the tenants. Even so, as I wonder where he is now I hope he’s suffering, the old cunt. Maybe you have to be an old cunt to be a good accommodation manager, but the new housing agency don’t seem to think so – they’ve replaced him with literally nobody.

I close the door behind me and the lock clicks, the latch-bolt reaching just far enough to make a noise but not covering enough distance to actually secure the door. While it looks and sounds convincing the lock may as well not be there. Shit. Perhaps the lock is Frank’s kindred spirit. The lack of locksmith is beginning to make sense.

It’s just as I left it. Not that it shouldn’t be since I’ve only been gone a day. Though the intervening time plays like a chasm in my memory. The panic, chaos and failed problem solving that they retain seems to stretch those elapsed hours into a remembered eternity. Letters still lie on the side, piled up like extinction prophecies. Comets that I watched fall with an unblinking stare. New company. New utilities. Rent upped and bills spiked. I can see the eviction notice on the topmost layer of post.

***

Hosts, hostages, helpless-whatever-you-wanna-call-thems holed up together all crammed and crowded. Crawling with chances to chews whatever we choose. Arrogant enough to think they’re owed a housing. How humble they might feel if they knew that their lives are the ‘hows?’ and wheres?’ to our living. They’re on our planet anyway so they can pay the fuck up.

***

It’s become routine to watch from the window for the branded estate agent’s cars. The blazered bastards come between nine and five, normally with one or two prospective renters meeting them at the door. I have a system;

One – spot the car.

Two – spot the visitors.

Three – make one final check of whatever sabotage I’ve chosen.

Four – get the fuck out, making sure to check that the door is pulled to and appears locked. The days of me wanting the locksmith called are long gone, after all.

Five – hide in the stairwell and wait for the sabotage to do its magic.

For what it’s worth, I feel kind of bad for the tattooed couple. They have a baby on the way and must really be in the shit if they’re looking at this as a potential family home. They drew the line at the massive puddle under the sink. Next time a logoed car appeared in the car park it wasn’t a client the agent was meeting with, it was a plumber. They weren’t long in the apartment and, luckily, after a sweary conversation between the two in the corridor the plumber fucked off, leaving nothing behind but wet footprints in my kitchen and a vape pen next to the sink. I don’t usually like tobacco but since it apparently reduces hunger cravings I decided to give it a go. I emptied the thing and continued to daydream about pizza. It’s still in my pocket and I still pull on it here and there because it at least tastes of something. Got to love that berry-flavoured air.

Today it’s an agent I’ve never seen before who drives the company car and greets two guys at the entrance. I’ll never see him up close but from the window he looks early-twenties, and has possibly lost a fair bit of weight recently since his suit is kind of baggy. Recent graduate vibe. It would be business as usual, except today my surprise for them is a good one. So this time I follow my system steps one through to three but then, rather than going to steps four and five, I enter the crawlspace. This is a simple matter of pulling the fridge forward, climbing in behind it and through the ugly gap in the wall that it covers, and then pulling the fridge back to its original position. It’s not made to fit a grown man, and it’s cobwebby and dusty.

The lock clicks pointlessly. I realise that abandoning the plan is no longer an option as I hear three voices and accompanying footsteps. I unexpectedly recall the day I was shown around and thinking that that Frank guy seemed solid. My radar for arseholery was clearly on the blink that day. Oh well – he’s in accommodation manager heaven now, which I suspect is like regular heaven, but instead of angels with harps and halos it’s just endless cunts with clipboards.
The three of them enter the kitchen and my pulse goes double-time because suddenly they seem so much closer than I had imagined. This idea now seems much less funny and far more stupid. I’m sure they can hear me breathing. What was I thinking? The risk of what I’ve chosen to do hits me in one terrible moment. Tense jaw. Gritted teeth. Noticing them does nothing to relieve the rigid strain in my face. My head seems to be screaming out to be scratched and I’m sure they can hear the sounds of my fingernails digging into my skull.
I pinpoint the estate agent’s voice – he speaks in a rehearsed way like he’s reading from a website.

‘Large window. Nice view…’.

…Of the car park. My thoughts finish his statement with my own embellishment. My stomach has become a twisting, turning stress-nest.

They’re going to find me.

One of the voices says ‘Nice’ to pretty much everything the agent says. They start talking about doing Keto which I eventually ascertain isn’t a drug but some kind of exercise thing. The spiral of conjecture seems to ease with the passing moments. It occurs to me that these three people are likely as stupid as I am.

They know.

They don’t know.

They know.

They can’t know.

The word ‘gym’ gets thrown around a lot and finally I permit myself to believe that I’m safe. I’ll get out of this and then it’ll be like it didn’t happen. I pledge to never forget that the feeling I get from living here (the feeling like I’m getting away with it) can dangerously obscure all judgment. I zone out a bit as they discuss cutting and bulking. My fear returns with sudden violence when the fridge gets opened. One of them is talking about a smell but the other two don’t think there is one. Either way they all agree it’s not the fridge and leave the room. I breathe and my whole abdomen becomes comfortably fuzzy.

‘Nice.’.

I hope he shuts the fuck up.

For a few minutes I hear a lot less, until their voices raise, the tone of revulsion clear even though the words are obscure. Before long two people walk through the kitchen and out the door, one of them gagging and the other now repeating a new mantra.

‘Fuck that, mate.’.

For a moment I was worried he’d think it was nice. The estate agent stays for a while. He walks around and checks some things. Looking for me? I discount the thought when he eventually leaves and allows me to come out of hiding. I stretch and let my eyes adjust to the brightness. Upon checking I see that the cat has gone and I wonder if the agent had to pick it up using a bag like I did. I hope he didn’t use his hands – it was old roadkill by the time I’d found it.

I doubt university prepared him for that, but at least he’s not hiding behind fridges in his own home. The stretching makes me less ache-y but even so I’ve scratched my head to hell. I google if panic attacks can cause itchiness and I skim read an article.

What a fucking idiot. Next time I’ll stand out in the stairwell and for once be happy to be stood in the stink of weed and cooking heroin.

***

We only seek more, more, and more, which of course we always get. We’ve been taking a fantastic yield from the lovely, new acquisition. Surviving? Surviving is fine but rife with life is better, surfeits of scratching doesn’t scratch the surface of what we can do. We see our brand spreading to wherever human life is brave enough to go.

***

The recruitment agency are sending me to a warehouse to load up lorries from tomorrow. Thank fuck as another day at the chicken factory and they’d have realised that my bags were leaving a little fuller than what they were arriving. It’s more shifts too so more money. I’ve marked my random uptick in fortunes by emptying the last of my money on nit treatment. I really hope I passed it on to Frank before he left. Or maybe it was him that gave it to me, the horrible, crabby fucker. There’s no way they really expect people to use a comb this tiny, is there?

***

Flood. Fire. The liquid burns and many perish.

Death, however, is impossible.

Our legs are legion and our eggs hide under nails and hatch on hands, hats, and here-there-everywhere. Snaring new sufferers to rake their wretched hairlines and feed our hungry numbers.

One host lost is a temporary set-back. Unless the acquisition cleans up and changes his sheets we’ll get him again, this time forever. Better get scrubbing, fucknuts.

***

The first payment from the lorries comes in on Friday, and so I can start looking for a permanent solution to this living situation. I will not be giving the new owners here my custom, and I wouldn’t even if I could afford to. Blazer-wearing pricks.

***

He didn’t change his pillowcases. Now our sweet, little acquisition will realise that he was never going to make it very far before we caught up to him. We incubate while he sleeps. We hatch. We taste, some amongst us for the first time, while he dreams freely.

***

Those little fuckers have left scabs. Flakes fall from my peeling head where the treatment burned me. This louse-ridden squatter can add dandruff to his list of problems. Great.

I leave for work and grab a beanie to hide the dandruff. I’ll bin it when I get home. I get a really good scratch in and find my fingertips coloured by blood.

***

Feast. Fuck. Fuck and feast. That’s how to make epidemics into pandemics -with epic feeding, breeding all stemmed from believing – faith that we can infect.

***

Well Frank will be fuming on high in Accommodation Manager heaven.

I come home from work, and discover that the door no longer opens, even with a proper push. I realise what’s happened when I see my stuff outside, including the doomsday post that had been on the side. I’m glad they left that for me to collect in case I ever want to look back and remember this happy time.
They must have replaced the old lock while I was out. I imagine a faceless locksmith at work on my door, putting the new lock in and taking the old one out. They wouldn’t have known it, but they have removed the final useless thing from the tower. A disgrace like this would never have happened in Frank’s day.

I have to try one more time, and so I really put my weight into it, but the lock and the door do their job. Pain courses through my shoulder and I grit my teeth.

That’s it. It’s over.

I take a moment or maybe a millennium, and then I press the button to call the lift, although as soon as I do a strange and unbidden impulse guides me to take the stairs. One last look at the place I had waited out all of those viewings? Perhaps… only this time I’m not returning.

I feel something move inside my beanie – one of those dirty little bastards eating my head, probably. I take the hat off and slap it against the wall a few times, but put it back on when I realise that once my head cools down it might be a while until it’s warm again. It’s cold outside and I’d better get used to it.

I realised while I was at work that I’d need another round of treatment, but that’ll have to wait. Right now I have much more pressing issues, like where the fuck I’ll sleep tonight, shower, charge my phone, and other minor inconveniences like food and water.

I think of my now empty apartment. Just like Frank, the housing agency has deemed that the presence of nobody makes a better contribution that me. I am literally worse than nothing where they’re concerned, and even though the hatred is mutual the insult still lands.

Every couple of floors I smell weed. It no longer smells like shit, it’s kind of got a warm feel to it now. I’ve been bracing my body for the outside and every step has become reluctant, and I am only pushed on by my preference to face what lies ahead on my own terms.

I set my morning alarms and switch my phone off. Whatever state I turn up to work in tomorrow it’ll be worse if I’m late. Maybe I can hang back after my shift and stay without anyone realising. Sleeping in the break room is likely a bad idea, but nothing else is occurring to me.

On the ground floor of the stairwell there’s two doors, and as I am about to take the one leading into the lobby, I look through the safety-glassed window on the fire exit door and see a guy having a smoke. It takes me a moment to realise where I recognise him from. This time his suit is slightly more well-fitting but it’s definitely the estate agent (from the visit with the two guys). I’ve heard this man’s voice from behind a fridge and seen him from my flat window. This weird thought might be enjoyable if I didn’t have to sour it by reminding myself that the flat is no longer my flat.

I find myself walking now not through the door I had opened, but instead to the fire exit door – towards cat man. Somehow, as though from out of my body, I know what I am about to do. I am certain of the actions I am being drawn towards, though I am too remote from my reason to intervene. Like when the letters first came and I watched on as my ruin unfolded, I now observe my actions, absent from them and yet here all the same. Active and passive.

The door bangs behind me and he looks up, but down again quickly. He doesn’t know me so there’s nothing to see. When I stop in front of him he holds my gaze a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cigarette. I recognise that he is holding it out to me. I deduce that by holding my focus on him like this he thinks that I too want to smoke. A misinterpretation. He doesn’t know of course that with my empty vape I can make the air taste like berries an infinite amount of times.

He retracts the proffered cigarette, the withdrawal of this generosity signalling his realisation that something is wrong. At last, he is understanding things correctly. He is still too slow as I make my move.
We wrestle on the ground and I learn that he is stronger than me, but he is not being drive by the impulse – this guiding impetus that puppeteers my movements and turns my body into a vehicle for whatever this warped justice is. I don’t know how long I was able to hold it, but eventually he fights the hat off his head – my grip weakened when his elbow made contact with my top teeth, and this gave him a window of opportunity. I’ve done what I need to do, and I scoop up the fallen hat and bolt. I don’t look back, I just cram the crawling, cradle of infection back in my pocket, and keep running to nowhere.

***

Another day, another acquisition. We find ourselves moving in, yet again. No time to stop and celebrate – tomorrow will be the same. We’ll crawl on – one side of the world to the other, befriending bedbugs, palling up with pin worms and taking scalp after scalp. What we start our eggs will finish – heirs to the hair who will find a feast in their decadent inheritance.

There are only debts… and those debts yet to get.

---

Bio:

Jacko Pook is an artist living in East Anglia. He writes, performs, and makes music mostly through the south-east region and sometimes in other parts of the UK too. When he’s not working, he’s usually watching sports, gaming, or spending time with his family.

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A Punk Noir Interview with Aubri Kaufman

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A Punk Noir Interview with

Aubri Kaufman

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“We’re all just doing this because we love it, so we should be having fun.”

Today’s Punk Noir interview is with talented poet, indie zine editor and all-round queen of cool — Aubri Kaufman!

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Aubri, thanks a lot for agreeing to an interview with Punk Noir. Been a fan of yours for a while now. To start off, can you tell the Punk Noir readers a little bit about how you got your start in writing and the Literature scene? Your origin story if you will.

I think I’ve always been a writer and I think that’s probably true for a lot of us, even before we understand anything about craft or how to get it down on paper. I’ve written poetry my whole life and have always tried to feed that compulsion by staying involved with school lit mags (shoutout to my community college for letting me be an editor when I had no idea what I was doing) and going to local readings. Throughout grad school, I kept writing but hadn’t really known what to do with it all. It wasn’t until 2020 that I really found the Twitter literature community, which greatly improved my confidence and skill set and desire to branch out into trying different genres. Punk Noir was actually one of my first publications in this space!

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You’re best known for your work as an editor over at Icebreakers. How did the mag come into fruition and what were your aspirations when you started out?

Oh man, this mag has been one of the most fun and rewarding experiences for me. My co-editors (Danny DeRock, Terri Linn Davis, and Lauren Theresa) and I met during a collaborative sub call for HAD and felt instant creative chemistry. After working together once, we knew we weren’t ready to stop. I think the mag was simultaneously an excuse for us to keep working together while also creating a playground for other writers to experience the chaotic good we got to experience together.

Check out Icebreakers Lit here and follow them on Twitter for your daily dose of minty literary goodness.

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How do you like being an editor?

I deeply love it. There’s no better feeling than watching other creators come together and make art. I’m really lucky to be able to do this.

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What advice would you give to up and coming indie authors?

Two things: Find community and don’t take it too seriously. Talk to other creators. Don’t be afraid to learn from them and try new things. Play in spaces you haven’t before. We’re all just doing this because we love it, so we should be having fun.

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What are your plans for the future and what are you working on now?

Do Icebreakers for as long as people want us around. I’m currently working on a collaborative poetry manuscript with one of my co-editors (and close friends) Terri Linn Davis. We’re really excited about how it’s coming along so far. I’ve also been feeling an urge to write more CNF lately, so I’m leaning into that. Learning as I go.

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What are you reading right now?

I have been exclusively reading books by indie publishers lately! I just finished Leasing by D.T. Robbins which will be out with House of Vlad later this year and oh my god, if you want to feel like you’ve been swallowed up into a fever dream (in the best possible way), this is the book for you. I can’t get enough Autofocuscontent, either. I finished Aaron Burch’s A Kind of In-Between a few days ago and it is so incredibly thoughtful; it kind of feels like the blueprint for essay writing. Mike Nagel’s books (Duplex and Culdesac) are unreal. There’s a surface tension in his books that feels like it could dip into full existentialism, but he maintains this buoyancy because he’s just so fucking funny. I think I’ve got The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney with Two Dollar Radio up next in the TBR pile. Big excited for that one.

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What music are you listening to now?

At the time of this interview, the new Vampire Weekend album is only a couple weeks old so it’s heavy in the rotation. I’m also listening to a lot of The National lately, mostly at my two-year-old’s request (he’s a lot cooler than me).

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Have any favorite punk or noir media?

Kirsti MacKenzie’s Better to Beg is one of those books I could read over and over. It’s sex, drugs, and rock & roll. It’s indie sleeze. Her voice is so powerful…she makes you feel like she’s been there. She makes you feel like you’ve been there. It’s reckless and consuming and you’ve got to read it.

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What is an issue you care about deeply?

Accessible mental health care. 

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If you could go on a drinking binge with 5 writers alive or dead who would you choose?

I can’t whittle it down to five, but I can tell you it’s just the people in this weirdo little lit world we’ve carved out for ourselves. So if you see me at an AWP or something in the future, you’re one of my five. Let’s have a beer together.

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Aubri Kaufman is a writer and a therapist from New Jersey. She is the co-founder and co-EIC of Icebreakers Lit. Her work can be found in Pidgeonholes, HAD, Rejection Letters, The Daily Drunk, and elsewhere. She wants to talk to you on Twitter – @aubrirose.

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(Interview by Stephen J. Golds)

Stephen J. Golds was born in North London, U.K, but has lived in Japan for most of his life. He speaks the language pretty well and makes great takoyaki.

He writes primarily in the noir and dirty realism genres and is the editor-in-chief of Punk Noir Press.

Betrayal Submissions

Hi All,

Due to the unforeseen deluge of truly outstanding submissions I’m going to have to close this submission theme down on Friday 26th of April.
Had no idea I was going to receive over a hundred submissions in the first 24 hours alone with half of those submissions being accepted because they were outstanding.

Truly sorry.

Love to all,

Steve

Sad Sorry After Party By Paige Johnson

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Sad Sorry After Party

by

Paige Johnson

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“Scummy but they have money.” That’s how my date, Olive Eyes, explains the party we’re going to, who he’s going to sell cocaine and benzos to.

Scummy but they have money. Well, I’m one of those things who would like to have the other, so maybe my date is as good an investment as my friend says. Olive Eyes’ ambition and ability to rub elbows with any crowd is already appealing. But maybe my friend is just trying to buck me out of our situationship, keep more sugar money to herself. Then again, she didn’t rise from sex slaving through Philly’s Little Italy to draining D.C.’s lusty elite off bad advice. So, I’m optimistic to take this guy outta the friendzone and into something more meaningful—or monetary.

Olive Eyes and I walk past the part of town with many fenced-off construction sites that never seem to make any progress. He stares up at the asbestos-brown apartment block, saying, “Guess it’s a trap tower—not a trap house. Just stay close. These guys are decent enough but they’re…”

“Throwing a rager at 4PM on a Tuesday?”

He shrugs, eyes sliding from his slacks to his hard shoes, never not looking ready to pick up a pharmacy shift. “Well, I mean we’re also here, so…”

“You’re on the clock,’ I say, making sure he sees my smile. Instagram skinfluencer is the most glamorous job I’ve had since blowing johns behind a bank, so I won’t snub my nose at someone lifting pills to sell to the fun-pressed. “I just hope they’re not grabby or gun-totey.”

“I wouldn’t let you come if—”

“Chill. I practically invited myself. Promise I can hang.” I throw up a peace sign and pre-game a blackberry White Claw.

***

The 14^th-story door opens to a sausage fest. They stroll blunt-burnt carpet, slinging back Bacardi bombs and clamato bullshit. Some dudes cheer, shooting clear red dice in the corner. Others nod offbeat to the drill rap that cuts out every other verse.

The pile of glickers on a side table makes me stiffen. But then I see a teenie fluffbutt of a dog darting between saggy pants, merrily yipping and munching croquetas from snapback-clad chillers. Before I can pet the wagging weenie, Olive Eyes  presses his palm against my back as the offhand frat scans me. Well, they scan my club dress. I shrug. It’s conservative in color if not coverage. I follow Olive Eyes into the kitchen, where a racially ambiguously burnout with a tagged hat and pencil beard awaits.

“Puma,” he introduces himself with thoughtfully pouted lips as he inspects the array Olive Eyes lays out for him. “Like the cat but not the shoe.” His slim Nikes confirm this.

“Cool. I’m Cherry. Like the fruit but not the soda ’cause my mom says cherry cola only comes up in gay songs like ‘Lola’ or that Savage Garden jawn.”

Olive Eyes shoots me a look, but Puma laughs, numbing his gums with powder from a tiny envelope.

“When Olive Eyes said he was bringing a girl, I expected a stuffy bookworm. Glad we got a real one instead.” Puma elbows him and offers me a bump from the tip of his butterfly knife.

“Yerp, no books or worms on me,” I promise, tossing back my hair as I lean forward. “Though one time I did drink the tequila worm from a bottle of mezcal. But you don’t think those are real bugs, do you?”

“It’s the larva of a moth, actually,” Olive Eyes murmurs.

“I don’t feel much better about that then…” I sniff and straighten up. “Woo, this beats sketchy coke from Broward, right?”

Puma nods, forking over fat bills rolled into an orange prescription bottle.

Olive Eyes sifts through them Terminator-fast, nods, and produces a few more baggies of notched rectangles. “You’re cleaning me out of Bromazolam, so—”

“Don’t hit you up ’til the fourth. Got it. Why don’t you and your chica go mix with the crew, make deals until next time?” Like a trophy, Puma holds up some loot to his amigos before they start cracking and stashing them in their pockets.

Back in the smokey living room, some skinny Cubans start sorting out thicc lines of Colombian fire. Playing cards crown around a red solo of dark liquor on an adjacent table. The group offers to teach us the game King’s Cup. The only objective seems to be to drink and clink, and I’m a champion of that.

For real. By the time all cards are drawn, I got boys gagging by my feet while others shuffle in from the kitchen, offering me extra Caribbean punches.

On the sly, Olive Eyes won’t let me accept any unseen pours, but slides over cups of seltzer. I guess there’s no real winner, but we’re not losers. Guys keep coming up to pat Olive Eyes on the shoulder, ask him how to potentiate highs, can he drop off acid in Kendall sometime, if grad school is going okay or can he write their sisters’ bio 101 reports for cash.

As he answers them all, I crouch to pet the ebony pupperino jumping on my knees. “A weinerdoodle!” I cheer, booping his twitching li’l sniffer.

A goof crowded around the foosball table pauses his bet in Spanglish to inform me, “That’s Gus—o Gustavo. I got him from un dumpster behind Flanigan’s. He’s un doxiepoo. Like un dachshund and un poodle put together.” He wipes smudge from his glasses, looking like someone Olive Eyes goes to school with but maybe got kicked outta the dorms.

“Oh, really? Never hearda one. How cute.”

His eyes linger on my hourglass. “Do I know tu from somewhere? Don’t tu rave en Wynwood? Dance at Club Madonna?”

He seems so preemie with an unfilled beard and pan con chicharrón pudge, it’s funny to imagine him making it rain at a strip club. “Probably just your dreams,” I laugh off with a wink, then occupy my mouth with an awkward sip.

A gringa in orange drawstring pants appears from behind him with narrowed, bushy brows. “What’d you ask her, Javi? You seen her before?”

“Eh, no, no, nada. I just—”

Her voice revs up. “If you think you seen her before, she’ll be all you’re seeing besides my ass walking out t—”

“We’ve all gone to the same school. Relax,” Olive Eyes cuts in, turning from Puma.

“Or at least dropped out from there,” I add for credibility.

The girl’s still as pink as the punch her man handed me earlier. “Then why’d you bring up a strip shack, Javi? I told you to stay away from those clubs. Don’t need you bringing home anything from those skank-ass p—”

“I’m sure he was just joking,” Olive Eyes mediates, maneuvering us out of the ring of fire. “Cherry’s with me and would never—”

“Cherry!” the girl shouts. “What kind of name is that?” She pushes Javi, causing the dog to bark. “I bet she is one of those stripper girls you see!”

Puma cuts in between the couple, pupils planetary, nose as raw as the lobster in ceviche. “Mirar, mirar. You can’t be disrespecting the ladies here. Either of you. What’s going on?” He waves Olive Eyes and me away.

Scrappy li’l Gus takes our place, leaning defensive against the girl. Yap! Yap! Yap!  

As we make it halfway across the room, a guy with shades and a fresh fade grips Olive Eyes’ elbow. “Don’t leave yet, man. Still have questions ’bout the next drop-off.”

A smaller guy with a sagging backpack peeps, “Yeah, and I wanna find out if the Somas I bought off the pier are real.”

From a room away, another chimes in, “Yo, lemme cop a K-pin off you, schoolboy!”

“Smoke break,” Olive Eyes excuses, pointing upstairs as gustoy Gus nips at the grumpy gringa’s sweatpants.

Walking back into the cocina, the last guy groans to his buddy, “Aw, they’re letting the guapa one leave. Su perra blanca siempre está causando problemas...”

***

“Must feel lighter now, huh?” I laugh, tugging on Olive Eyes’ pockets before twirling into the rooftop patio. The sunset colors the chalky rock floor and lonely web chairs in marmalade and sapphire shades.

Olive Eyes shrugs. “Nice to sell inventory, but I don’t feel great about what just happened. I should’ve defended you better.”

I roll my eyes, walk backwards to the ledge. “What, I’m gonna be offended by strangers thinking I work the pole? I am a stripper. Just a virtual one.”

He blushes like he might’ve any of the hundred times he’s logged onto my cam shows. During any of our dozen midnight conversations as he studies pharmacology outside our motel’s café deck.

“The only reason I don’t wanna talk about it with them is ’cause I don’t wanna shade your spotlight.”

He smirks, links his hands behind his back. “Yet your ability to steal a spotlight is why I like you.” The smile disintegrates until he’s frowning at the floor. “This is a lousy first date. I’ve waited all this time to officially ask you out somewhere and it’s to a lowbrow high-rise in—”

“Oh, hon bun, if anybody can stretch the idea of what a ‘date’ is, it’s me.” I wink, pulling out a chair to fall into. “You know what I do. So, I wanted to see what you do. Now we’re even.”

“Even,” he repeats, pulling the other chair close to me. “You know, we make a pretty odd pair for being even. I hope next time you’ll join me somewhere nicer.” He tugs at his dress shirt sleeves. “Somewhere less humid.” He stares down into the miles of abandoned construction pits like they’re mouths on Mars, make him a li’l motion sick. “With a better view.”

“Well, we can have that here.” My voice dips seductive as I trace the wrist seam. “You got some molly left, don’t you?”

The smirk returns. “Always. But I didn’t think you’d—”

“Didn’t think the love drug belongs on a first date? Pretty backward of you.” I giggle and tickle his palm until it drops a tablet in mine.

***

Maybe we’re imagining it or maybe we really didn’t notice until the sky went from gunshot-black to florescent, but behind the roof access room is a trampoline. A circle as big and bouncy as our pupils on ecstasy.

It’s hard to tell if the jaw-clamping is from the roll or all our kissing. We sprawl on the elastic mat, nipping each other’s ears, lips, fingers. Even the beats from downstairs’ pussy-ass Drake tracks slap. I can feel the pulsations beneath my back, behind my eyes, bound in my cells. The energy is so electric that every time Olive Eyes leaves to grab drinks or bum a cigarette, I have to spring it out with backflips.  

Uninebriated, I might not have the confidence to land those, but stratospheric, I’m a showoff in new ways. Yet I still keep the classics, hypnotizing him on return with my jumps, my bobbing breasts and a risky hemline.

“Hey, try this,” he says, offering a menthol and an arm for me to steady out on.

“Whoa, it tastes like candy but tingly.” I puff again and an invigorating breeze shoots down my throat like a Peppermint Patty. The feeling fans out to the rest of my body, cooling me down as kinetic energy seems to pirouette from my fingertips to his wrist.

The last hour’s been more than just “I feel that” stoner-talk trauma-bonding; I feel phantom veins connecting us, intertwining our circuitry. I plop down to stare into his sage eyes, pet the tawny cowlick coming out of his side-part.

“If you like that, try this.” He pulls a little jar of lip balm out of his pocket, war-streaks the top of my cheekbones with white jelly. Leans down to gently blow upwards.

It’s like my eyes are kissed with sparkles of sex, deliciously slick as they bump side-to-side and roll back into my skull with the serotonin kick.

Olive Eyes laughs. “Now you’re both types of e-girl.”

“Again! Again!” I cheer, already crouching up to make my own airwaves. Igniting what smells like a eucalyptus fire, I jump, lashes fluttering, happy tears puddling. With my moon pupils hiding behind my head, the jump is as exhilarating as schoolyard swinging. I’m edging by the ledge of this 14-story, could lasso up stars like Wonder Woman or swoop down the streets for—

The roof hatch opens with a rusty squeak. In my streamy neon vision, everybody is a fuzzy smear. One bursts through the door, complaints impossibly loud but blended into one word.

Unibrow bitch, I think and giggle myself silly, unattached to any actual hate. I see Olive Eyes flinch, shrink to the side. He extends a hand, cupping like down, get down.

But I’m so fucking high, I wanna shout it from this dingy-dank rooftop. Spring to the rings of Saturn and parachute into the call of the void. Want to wade in the smoggy stardust down there an—

“Her!” The downstairs drama queen charges toward me in an orange blur, her boyfriend lagging behind with supercharged tracers.

Me! I think, enraptured by waves of forgiveness and childish enthusiasm. I even make room for her on the trampoline. Could hug her, I’ve got so much energy to give. Love. Compliments. “You! Come jump with me! Your Naruto sweats look so cute.” I wave my arms and so does she.

But close to her chest. Wielding something. I squint. Never cease the jump even as Olive Eyes paws at my leg.

The boys yell back and forth, try to redirect the girl as glitter and anguish pour down her cheeks. They react so shoulder-stoppy, plead-eyed, it must be…a vase? A bottle? A gun!

I jolt, stiffen midair. Bite down my breath. By the time my feet flatten, I realize my nerves misunderstood. That black blur’s not a gun—it’s Gus!

Wiggling in her grasp like a curly worm. I laugh out my relief, fall to my knees, too light-headed to make kissy noises.  

Grr, BARK! A fake-out chomp against her arm.

“Give him back, Vivi! Go back downstairs,” her boyfriend demands, hoarse like they’ve been debating for hours. Olive Eyes nods, posture pushed-down and consoling.

“No, Javi, you wanna act like a dog with other bitches, you don’t deserve one!” Chica jukes around Olive Eyes. “You don’t appreciate anything you have.” She stares bitterly at the ledge, out to the miles of metal could-bes but won’t, until her eyes burn up again, dripping like magma. “So, watch it leave!”

The screech that comes off the poor little pooch is so hauntingly echoing, record-scratch scathing, I don’t think a psychedelic could magnify it. Override its sobering effect. Make me forget the floppy ears flapping in the wind, the stumpy legs flailing down stories of and to charred concrete. Big, black button eyes gleaming like glass. As breakable.

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Bio:

Paige Johnson is EIC of Outcast Press, which specializes in transgressive fiction. She is the author of Percocet Summer: Poetry for Distancing Dates & Doses, with its sequel Citrus Springs shortly on the way. She has also had stories in many anthologies including Urban Pigs’ HUNGER, Cowboy Jamboree’s MOTEL, Anxiety Press’ Mirrors Reflecting Shadows, as well as Outcast’s Slut Vomit, Diner Noir, and In Filth It Shall Be Found.

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Rent Party By P.M. Raymond

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Rent Party

by

P.M. Raymond

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The sour tang at the back of Ellie’s throat had come back from its retreat a few hours ago. Her mouth watered from the acidic notes as crisp dollar bills flicked from the latest guest’s fingers into Ellie’s hand. “Enjoy,” she muttered through a tight, clothesline smile. She sipped on ginger ale to calm her stomach as the door closed.

Ellie threw these ‘rent parties’ to pay for this dump. Not even a fresh coat of paint could hide the mold or deter the rats from sneaking in through holes in the baseboards. But shortly after taking possession of the unit, circumstances made it impossible to leave and make money outside of these walls.

From her apartment on the eighteenth floor, she entertained a sweaty collection of minglers and drinkers. The cover charge granted each guest a red plastic cup with refills on the spiked fruit punch and shots of Popov vodka. The hand-delivered bodega chicken wings sold by the plate for an additional charge disappeared within an hour, but no one seemed to mind. A steady supply of alcohol brought to her doorstep by the newfangled gig workers of the world was always the most important.

Low, thumping bass boomed from the speakers connected to the laptop against the wall. She stared coolly in Davis’ direction as he walked over.

“You have my cut?” Davis asked, in a low voice. As her building supervisor and part-time fuck, he threatened to shut the parties down if money and other things weren’t forthcoming. Not her choice on either count but soon, it wouldn’t matter.

Ellie took another sip of ginger ale to soothe her roiling stomach. “What the fuck do you think?” she said to Davis, avoiding his beady eyes. She sullenly surveyed the room. Choosing who would live or die was also not her choice.

A hard tap on her shoulder followed by “Hey” startled her. She turned around to find a tall dark-skinned man with a megawatt smile and a Kangol cap covering his bald head. He launched into a conversation with her as he shooed Davis away.

“See Ellie, you need to ramp these parties up.” He licked his lips as Ellie crossed her arms and leaned against the front door.

“Really, Nils.”

Nils Carter from the seventh floor had no shortage of harebrained schemes. She learned some of them when he started delivering her monthly grocery order five months ago. He’d been delivering a lot more ever since. Ellie figured if any of his ideas were worth a toss, he wouldn’t still be on the seventh floor.

“Yeah, girl,” Nils swiped a finger down Ellie’s bare shoulder. He grinned and said, “Maybe some ladies, the coffee and cream variety, like yourself, to…spice things up. We could make a killing.” He licked his lips again as he stared straight down Ellie’s tank top, stretched to its limits over her chest. She didn’t stop him.

Ellie sighed but not with annoyance. “You’re a real Gordon Gecko, aren’t you?”

Nils was handsome. Ellie would give him that. The kind of man she used to run with down at the juke joints and pool halls down in their part of town. The side of the tracks where it was safe for them to let loose, where the police came around mostly for a handout to keep trouble at bay.

There was something about Nils, she had to admit. But he was a means to an end. “I’ll take your offer under advisement, but until then, enjoy the party.” She motioned toward the living room.

Nils shook his head, a Cheshire grin spreading across his face. He glanced over his shoulder at Davis maneuvering the crowd, his pot belly leading the way. “If you ever get tired of that pasty Mister Fix It…” he said winking, then disappeared into the assorted group around the room.

Ellie’s smile faded as the voices swirled around in a drumbeat of deep laughter and chatter. She turned to check her reflection in the mirror next to the door and her eyes lit upon a framed picture of a young woman sitting in a high-back wicker chair, hair in a beaded braid hairstyle cascading around her brown almond face. Taken at the downtown mall that had died ten years ago, the sepia photo was of her daughter, Dren. Her hopeful smile made Ellie’s heart ache—it was a smile she hadn’t seen in almost five months.

Ellie’s eyes landed on her own grey coils peeking from behind her ears, then traveled to the sunspots peppering the back of her hand.  Her skin still looked moist and dewy, but Ellie knew that was a matter of time before that faded too if things didn’t get started soon.

Davis approached, making his way past CeCe from the sixth floor, her butt propped on the edge of the faux leather recliner where Nils created new life inside her. Just as Davis reached Ellie at the front door, she walked briskly away but not before she saw the flash of anger in his eyes.

She scooted past the folks, standing and seated, acknowledging the ones she knew and nodding at the ones she didn’t. She flung the kitchen door open, walked through, and shut it, leaving the world behind.

The kitchen was outdated. The faucet water ran brown as often as it ran clear. Rust stains patterned the sink. Cabinet doors didn’t exist, a good thing as far as Ellie was concerned. She wanted a clear line of sight into any rodents eating through her pasta and bread.

Ellie approached a cupboard located at the end of the row of doorless cabinets next to the wall. The pantry door, sturdy and ornate, wasn’t always there. It was NOT there when Ellie moved in.

A carved face in the middle of the door peered back at her; the lips fashioned in a grimace. But…sometimes it was a roar. Sometimes it was a shriek.

A single milky white bulb dangled from the ceiling. Ellie stepped toward the cabinet. The light was behind her, the darkness in front.

Ellie reached for the etched face’s mouth to grab the handle pierced through its nostril. She jerked her hand back as the lips moved. “For Christ’s sake,” she whispered under her breath. Ellie steadied her stance, breathing deeply before reaching for the handle again, and opening the gorgeous and grotesque pantry door.

A blackness blacker than anything Ellie had ever seen loomed inside the pantry. Music bumped on the other side of the door, but no one ever heard the ravaged grumbling deep inside the hole. The blackness had a way of sound canceling its appetite. Ellie peered into the blackness but not too close. “You said I’d get what I wanted,” she huffed cautiously. “A deal is a deal.” The blackness moaned as a rush of air blew into her face, her wiry curls flying out from behind her ears. “You owe me a new life outside!” Her words were husky and fearful on her lips. “I get to leave here. Still. Young.”

Ellie’s transformation back into a fuckable state started with a cup of tea five months ago. Back then, she was a lonely 76-year-old, and what family she did have…

#

“Mama, I got to live, you hear me?” Dren said arms crossed as she sat next to Eloise, before she became Ellie, in the loveseat near the window.

Eloise’s milky brown eyes stared at her daughter. Her frail hands shook as she picked at the tuft sprouting between the cushion’s braided seams. “You can’t leave me here, girl. This place…” her voice trembled.  Dren was her only child, the only kin left in her life. The fear and loneliness that Dren proposed with her departure fell like thick stifling waves over Eloise and it angered her just as much. “You gonna, what, fly off to Florida with that lump of a man?” she yelled.

“Ma!” Dren got up and paced across the dingy carpet. “This is a good place,” she waved her arms like a Price is Right hostess. “You’ll be good here.” She sat down again and took Eloise’s hand. “I’ll call all the time.”

“Don’t lie to me, girl,” she spat. Eloise looked away. “You’ll be gone like the wind and never come back if you can help it.” She sniffed with defiance. “Maybe when I’m dead you’ll pop back in.”

Dren offered to make a final cup of tea as if that could heal this wound. Eloise sat on the loveseat, rubbing the arthritis in her joints. When she called out and Dren didn’t answer, she slowly walked her brittle bones to the kitchen.

It was that day when Eloise saw the cabinet for the first time.

The blackness inside the cabinet held Dren’s body suspended in its grasp. Black fingers formed out of the dark, squeezing her until blood dripped into the blackness then sucked Dren into its slice of hell.

Eloise covered her mouth, backed out of the kitchen, and ran to the bathroom, gagging the whole way. It was when she relieved her stomach contents in the toilet, splashed her face, and looked in the mirror, that she saw her youth shining through.

She wanted to run screaming from this devil’s place, but she couldn’t. From that day forward, everyone else could come and go but for Eloise, the door opened to another dimension—a molten landscape of searing heat.

The blackness called to her from the kitchen.

The murkiness spoke to her; sounded like a perfect conversation to Eloise’s ears. The blackness said it wouldn’t hurt her; it needed her. It moaned, Bring us flesh, and she would. The internet could deliver just about anything. And, little by little, the darkness gave her youth in return. Eloise…Ellie demanded a new life. Demanded to never be alone again. That day, Nils delivered her groceries.

That night, for the first time in twenty years, she had an orgasm.

#

A rat scurried on the floor near the stove. With a nimble spin on her heels, Ellie crouched down and snatched the rodent by the tail before it could squeeze between the warming drawer and the fridge. Its body wiggled and jerked in her grasp, moving in stop motion. Ellie dangled the furry rat in front of the moaning door. “A little snack.” She threw the rat inside.

The blackness held it suspended, enveloped in its murkiness. The rat’s whiskers twitched, staring at Ellie like the betrayer she was. The darkness moaned, transmitting its foul banter to Ellie. She shook her head, translating it to a simple, “Okay.” The bleakness behind the kitchen door indicated the sacrifices could begin.

She rubbed her stomach and walked back into the party.

Ellie strolled over to the laptop and closed it shut. “Hey, y’all, I got a few bottles of Crown Royal in the kitchen. Help yourself.”

“Hiding the good stuff?” CeCe chided. “Shame on you!” She said from the arm of the leather recliner.

“Check the cabinet with the door.”

“Now you’re talkin’” Nils said, slapping his knees and standing up.

“I heard that,” CeCe seconded. She bounced from the chair and practically skipped to the kitchen door, the remaining handful of guests following close behind.

Davis headed for the front door as Ellie intercepted him.

“You’re staying, right?” Ellie grabbed his arm and gave what she hoped was a convincing come-hither stare. She didn’t need him trying to escape and raising the alarm.

“Yeah, sure,” Davis said slowly, a leering smile crossing his lips. He turned and followed the herd to the kitchen door.

Ellie’s breath caught in her throat as she watched CeCe’s hand grip the kitchen doorknob and twist. The creak of its hinges sliced through the chatter. The light from the kitchen ceiling glowed as normal. The space was normal. The others trailed into the kitchen behind CeCe. Ellie braced herself, almost squinting.

 “What’s wrong with you?” David asked. She realized he was watching her.

Cramps began racking her midsection. “Nothing. What are you? WebMD?” she hissed. “Go, go and have a drink.” Ellie whooshed away Davis hoping her shortness would conceal the pain growing in her stomach.

Davis shrugged. “Whatever,” he said in a clipped tone and walked into the kitchen light.

Ellie stood for a beat, alone in the living room. The intensity in her belly scaled up from her stomach to her chest. She shuffled in quick stumbling steps toward the bathroom. “Please don’t let me lose the baby.”

She flipped the switch next to the door and light shone upon her face. Ellie gasped. Her eyes squeezed shut as another cramp rocketed through her stomach. “Breathe,” she mumbled through clenched teeth. Ellie panted through the spasms, leaning on the porcelain sink like a crutch. Her muscles ached as she struggled to stay upright, sweat drenching her forehead and dripping in her eyes. Ellie gasped for air that smelled stale and slightly moldy.

But it was her face that alarmed her the most. Its wrinkles and sagging that came back meant only one thing to Ellie. The blackness lied. “You promised!” she howled. Tears welled – the baby inside her must also be suffering.

A pop and muffled shouts buffered against the other side of the bathroom door. Ellie halted. She cracked the door as smoky tendrils floated past. Her legs were weak, and her muscles throbbed as she struggled to navigate the hallway, her hands acting as her guide through the haze.

Upon entering the living room, the scene was utter carnage of broken furniture and blood-soaked walls. The blackness had never breached beyond the pantry before.

Nils and CeCe along with three more scared shitless guests shivered in the corner encircled by the bleak cloud. One by one the entity sucked them like peppermints into its black lair.

“Why?” Ellie demanded, her voice cracking, weeping. She stopped in front of the ripped recliner as the last body taking shelter in the corner flew past her, the hapless victim ripping the sunflower curtains away as they surfed into the abyss that engulfed the kitchen.  

The darkness curled around Ellie’s ankles as her legs gave way. She crashed to the floor, the snap of her arm ringing in her ears.

She moaned, “Ohhh,” as her limbs lifted into the air and her body followed. The inky black stamped out the light inside the dump that was her prison. Ellie could see nothing as she entered the void behind the cupboard door.

#

The nurse handed Ellie the baby and ran away. The darkness kept its promise after all. The soft cooing from the infant’s blackened lips soothed Ellie. The pools of darkness in the babe’s eyes did too.

Ellie left the eighteenth-floor apartment with a new life, and she would never be alone. Ever. The blackness would always be with her.

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Bio:

As a New Orleans native, mystical undertones are the roux in P.M. Raymond’s crime noir and horror writing. She was named to the 160 Black Women in Horror and is a 2024 Finalist in the Killer Shorts Screenplay Competition. Her work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Kings River Life Magazine, Dark Fire Fiction, Pyre Magazine, The Furious Gazelle, and Dark Yonder, among others. 

P.M. Raymond hails from New Orleans but currently lives on the East Coast with 27 cookbooks and an imaginary dog named Walter. You can find her enjoying a café au lait and indulging in the storytelling mastery of Shirley Jackson, M.R. James, Tananarive Due, Nuzo Onoh, and manga maestro, Junji Ito. http://www.pmraymond.com

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