So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
She was alone when she died. (Continue Reading…)
The Parade music is “Restless Spirits – Underscore – Halloween 2” by Film Composer David Beard. Music from Music Alley.
Trying To Stay Dead
by Richard S. Crawford.
Doctor Bell’s assistant led me into the tiny exam room and gestured at the leather-padded chair in the center. ‘Are you ready to do this?’ she asked, smiling.
I hesitated. I’d been psyching myself up for an animectomy for two months, but now the exam room gave me pause. It reminded me of a dentist’s office: The chair in the center of the room sat benignly beneath a single circular lamp that could be moved and aimed in any direction, while beside it lurked a movable desk with a tiny computer and a single instrument that looked like a dentist’s drill. ‘I suppose.’
‘You’re nervous, I can tell.’ The assistant wore a simple pink smock, the kind dental and mental hygienists all over the world wore. Her teeth gleamed an almost unnatural shade of white, and her silky brown hair cascaded lushly over her shoulders. She looked like a model.
And why not? The tiny scar on her left temple and the ever so slightly unfocused look in her eyes told me she’d already had the Snip. She acted happy and well adjusted and was unaware of anything she or I were saying or doing.
It’s just after midnight when her screams wake me. Loud, panicked shrieks that slice through my sleep-fogged brain like shards of glass.
“Carl! Get down here right now! Oh my God, Carl!”
I roll out of bed and stumble over to the window. Across the cul-de-sac, I see my neighbour, Mrs. Richardson, bathed in the dull glow of a street light. She’s wearing a flower-print nightgown and has a head full of curling rollers.
“What is wrong with you? Get down!”
Nearly half-way up the light pole she’s standing beside is her husband, Carl, his arms and legs locked tightly around the wood. He’s naked, except for a bright red bathrobe, which is untied and flapping in the breeze like a terrycloth flag.
“Help! Carl! Please, someone, help!”
Yardwork
by Bruce Blake
Tim made a special trip to buy the shovel he used to bury the nameless man. It was easy: a lady in a blue vest helped him without a second thought. A fifteen-year-old buying a spade doesn’t raise concern; it’s not like purchasing a gun or machete, though a shovel could be as deadly. The shovel didn’t kill the man, Tim used it to bury the bits and pieces.
In the end, his father’s garden shears killed the nameless man.
Music in the promo is “The Gift” by Joe Mieczkowski. Music by Music Alley.
It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the Northern Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for the sun had been hidden during the course of a weary, breathless week, by a thin haze which had seemed to float above us, about the height of our mastheads, at whiles descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.
With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck. The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forward in their den, while Will—my friend, and the master of our little craft—was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin.
Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there came a hail:
“Schooner, ahoy!” (Continue Reading…)
Kavar The Rat
by Thomas Owen
Translated by Edward Gauvin
But he’d been a skillful artisan, and remained so. At the beginning of his career, his real specialty had been locksmithing. Ah! Nothing to do with today’s dumb little locks, all identical, with grooved keys and four screws to be slapped up any old where, which came apart with a blow of your fist. No. Real locks, ingenious, intelligent, personal, custom-made. He’d built all kinds! Secrets, thief-proof, devilishly clever. But also screaming padlocks that wouldn’t let themselves be violated, latches that struck back, a stack of sneaky, perplexing little mechanisms to turn the most sensible engineer pale.
How long?
I’ve already answered the question a dozen times. How many times must I explain? Once more, it seems, although I assure you my story will not change. The facts are the facts. The truth is the truth.
Four months.
It was nearly four months after Merwin Remis moved into the apartment upstairs when I decided to kill him. It was a rational decision – one that came about only after much careful consideration. In the end, I had no other choice. The man was driving me insane.
Looker
by David Nickle
‘Get in,’ she said, ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
It didn’t occur to me that this might be a trick until I was well out at sea. Wouldn’t it be the simplest thing, I thought, as I dove under a breaking wave, to wait until I was out far enough, gather my trousers, find the wallet and the mobile phone, toss the clothes into the surf and run to a waiting car? I’m developing my suspicious mind, really, my dearest — but it still has a time delay on it, even after everything…
I came up, broke my stroke, and turned to look back at the beach.
She waved at me. I was pleased — and relieved — to see that she was naked too. My valuables were safe as they could be. And Lucy had quite a nice figure, as it turned out: fine full breasts — wide, muscular hips — a small bulge at the tummy, true… but taken with the whole, far from offensive.
I waved back, took a deep breath and dove again, this time deep enough to touch bottom. My fingers brushed sea-rounded rock and stirred up sand, and I turned and kicked and broke out to the moonless night, and only then it occurred to me — how clearly I’d seen her on the beach, two dozen yards off, maybe further.
There lay the problem. There wasn’t enough light. I shouldn’t have seen anything.