The Eater

by Michael J. DeLuca

I’ve seen the Eater crawling back to his hut from the darkness, contorting and shuddering. We owe him for that. I’ve heard the madness that boils on the Eater’s tongue when he drinks of the froth from the bone-rattle tree. He is the only one who dares to taste it. I’ve seen him walk across the village as though he’s forgotten in which direction lies the earth and which the sky. He goes into the woods alone. After a time, his body has always returned. But he–the Eater I know or think I know, the laughing Eater with his clever tricks and dances–he stays away for even longer, unable to speak or unwilling, somewhere we can never go or see.

Never, that is, unless one of us follows him.

Blue Eyes

by Jay Caselberg

The man with the dog collar came the other night, standing sweating at the door, thin black hair plastered across his head. Me Mam has dog collars, but he brought his own. He always does. It was too late to go out, not that me Mam would’ve minded, but the streets aren’t safe when it’s dark near our place. So I had to watch.

Me Da wasn’t home. He never is. Or when he is, they fight, the stink of the booze hanging heavy in our two-roomed house.

He stayed for maybe an hour, the man with the dog collar. I watched as he sweated and strained, me Mam’s spiked heel pressed hard against his back, the black leather around his neck cinched tight, stained blacker where the sweat runnelled down from the back of his greasy head. Me Mam caught me looking once or twice and waved my looks away. So I watched the wall instead, pretending to read the old newsprint behind the places where the wallpaper peeled. I asked her once why she did it, but she called me a brat and a stupid little bitch and told me to shut up.

“How else we going to live?” she said.

Bruise For Bruise

by Robert Davies

Sometimes there would be something of the mother in the child, and sometimes something of the father; there was always something of the town. Leathery wings sprouted oftentimes, as common as fingers. Fur of every hue. Horns and scales were plentiful, too. Lots of feathers and thorns and glass and steel. Beneath the apple trees and the pine, anatomy was negotiable. Anything was probable. Every now and then, though, the tired wet nurses, long inured to the strange fecundity of flesh, would whistle in awe as they lifted a newborn from the amniotic slime.

Something truly special would be seen.

Corps Cadavres

by Neil John Buchanan

Mayor shuffles in circles; his reins hang from his butchered mouth. His clothes have disintegrated, and his swollen legs have been reduced to black stumps. Doc sways in his saddle, gives a gentle sigh, and slips from his mount.

Doc is already half-turned. We can’t have him go wild. Captain orders Mayor for dispatch, and Sarge steps up for the job.

Mayor looks to the middle distance with cataract eyes, oblivious to his impending ‘second’ death. Sarge unclips Mayor’s head and without preamble removes his brain. Mayor looks confused as if he’s just been told a joke he half-understands and pitches forward to lie dead in the dirt. Captain sets about the body with his ‘taming’ knife, stripping free skin with a practiced hand. When finished, he and Sarge roll Doc in fat so only his face can be seen. He looks like a giant maggot. The wild won’t smell him that way.

The 7 Garages of Kevin Simpson

by Alan Baxter

‘Seven garages?’

‘Yes, Mrs Baker. Your father’s will identifies each one and dictates that they have all been left to you, along with the family home.’

Claire sat stunned for several seconds, staring across the solicitor’s desk. ‘Seven garages?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The solicitor was smiling. ‘Mostly on industrial estates, commercial lock-up garages, in suburbs around northern and western Sydney, though there is one on a farm property just outside Burrawang on the Southern Highlands and one in North Bondi.’

Claire looked at Ben. Her husband shrugged. ‘You don’t think this is weird?’ Claire asked him.

‘Sure, it’s weird. But not really any weirder than anything else your old man ever did.’

. . .

Continue reading here.

In Bloom

by Caspian Gray

Willy was waiting for me with his hat in his hands, pinching the brim and rolling it back and forth. I tried to smile to show him how it would go, but in the dark I don’t know if he saw anything but teeth.

Papa keeps the gate greased, so it opened real silent, and Willy only took a moment to follow me in.

“Are those them?” he asked, pointing at the flowers that keep the dead down.

“They are. You’re lucky they’re just buds now, though. Once they bloom they’ll smell something awful.”

The window in my bedroom faced the garden, so all August I had to smell them flowers. They was big showy things, with a stink like jasmines and gardenias and lilies of the valley all tied up with twine and then tossed in the river to rot. They said it was the smell that warped my family into thinking it was okay to handle the dead, but the truth is it wasn’t so bad, and you never had to be warped at all just to dig a hole and put something in it.

Songs For Dead Hearts

by Mandana Faridani

“What do you want him for?”

“Um…” Mr. Amoon recovered himself and cleared his throat. “My wife would like to have a word with him.”

“You cannot ask him about the other world.”

“I know.” Said the wife in a trembling voice. “I only need to talk to him.”

“And he has to go back, I might add.”

“I know. I know.” Said the weeping Mrs. Amoon. “Do it. I beg you.”

The young man looked at Salem’s body again.

“Of course I need not tell you that he will be in the physical condition in which he spent the last hours of his existence. And judging by the way he looks, I dare say, it is not going to be a pleasant one.”

The Amoons only nodded at him eagerly. The young man sighed.

“Very well then,” He said. “Bring me water.” And then, as if he’d just remembered an unpleasant matter, the corners of his lips twitched downward. “And close the door for heaven’s sake.”

The Line

by Grady J. Gratt

“I bet you to cross The Line!” Tommy Carlson says.

The crowd of boys goes quiet, Mikey Sloan’s eyes widen, Samantha Hammond gasps, and Tommy Karlson knows that he has just gone too far.

The Line is located on the other end of the park, past the playground, past the baseball field, just at the far end of where the park slides into a steep ravine. It is a small patch of concrete. The adults know it to be part of an old drainage ditch, or a fill-in for a sinkhole, or some kind of marker that the city placed, a long time ago. The story is never consistent. The truth is that none of the Adults can remember why there is a 7 foot long, 5 foot wide rectangular patch of concrete at the far end of the park, right next to the ravine that is the park’s boundary. The cement itself is light grey and ordinary. Cool to the touch, except on warm days like this, and slightly buried, so the perfect 90° edges and corners won’t scrape anyone who passes by. The cement patch is only an inch or two thick; a child could spend a day slowly digging a small hole at the side and wiggle their finger underneath the slab and feel the rough underside. All children are in agreement; there is nothing wrong or special about the grey slab that The Line is on.

The Line itself is a different story. It is a long, bright red stripe that divides the middle of the slab. At 4 inches thick and 5 feet long, it doesn’t cross the entire slab. A child can stand on the cement patch and walk around it. (Of course, everyone knows that that does not count as crossing the line.) The Line has not faded or peeled since it was painted. The children say it was painted long ago, before the dinosaurs. The mothers say that The Line has just been there since ’82, when the city did some construction. The fathers agree with the mothers, but then they would start to mumble about how that particular area of the park is dangerous, and all children should stay away from it.