Fetching Pepé

by K. A. Patterson

In the photo he was holding a large, thick black snake. Three other large snakes encircled his neck and legs.

“That’s me, Zorbo the Great, snake charmer extraordinaire! Now I am retired. No longer working for circus. I do lecture tour now. Talk to children ’bout snakes. Make them no worry that snakes might bite them. Tell them not all snakes are hurtful.”

“That’s wonderful,” Carol said, impressed. “What am I to do for you and Mrs. Dicicco?”

“You help me get Pepé.” Zorbo said, taking a moment to puff on his pipe.

The tobacco he used gave off a pleasant, fruity scent.

“Pepé?”

Civilized Monsters

by Johnny Compton

“You see that?” Randolph asked, referring to the dingy shard of bone within the bag. “Recognize it?”

Before Kyle could answer, a thump sounded through the ceiling.

Randolph looked up but kept the gun aimed at Kyle’s face. “Hanna? Is that you? It’s ten o’clock, I figured you’d be asleep by now. Why don’t you come downstairs–?”

“Hanna stay up there!” Kyle shouted. “Randolph’s down here with a gun and he’s lost his mind.?”

A second later, the red light on the base of the kitchen phone blinked.

“You’re going to call the police?” Randolph asked Hanna. “Go right ahead. I’m sure they’d be as interested as I am to know where you’re keeping the bodies.”

Them Eyes

by Nicholas Ozment

She’s standing in the kitchen. She’s on the phone. She’s got it to her right ear, ‘cuz pulpy head-juice is runnin’ down her left ear. She’s talking into the phone.

“Guess what your son-in-law did this time? He killed me.”

I grab the phone out of her gore-soaked hand, slam it down all sticky onto the receiver. I yell at her.

“You know what you just did?! You just signed your mother’s death warrant.”

Through the Many Corridors

by Douglas F. Warrick

It was weird, wasn’t it? Weird how little it impressed him. It was an alien world, after all, a whole new planet, a landscape that held only a vague familiarity with the world he’d been born in, the atmosphere he’d inhaled for twenty-nine years. Maybe that’s it. It was just congruent enough to orient yourself, to fool yourself into thinking you were okay here. Up was up, down was down, you could breathe the air. But you weren’t okay here. You were drawn into this landscape by a different artist using a different pallet and a different technique and you just weren’t okay here.

Art took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed up ahead. “Chalkie.”

It was at the very edge of the road with its long doughy fingers wrapped over the top of the metal barrier. Its skin was dry, dusty, cracked and curling like old paint, and dull white like chalk. Its tiny black eyes were set deep into its face, which was long and snoutish and bald. Even when nothing on this planet seemed to reflect the glow of that big red moon, the bleeding moon, those eyes picked it up like deep black wells.