Bones in It

by Kristina Ten

Besides the vedma who lived behind the stove in steam room three, the banya in Grand Lake Plaza was the same as any other budget day spa on Chicago’s West Side. It had deep-tissue massages and signature facials, plus day passes for the communal baths and steam rooms. There was a cucumber water dispenser in the lobby, and a little sign on the front desk that invited guests to “nama-stay a while.” The robes and slippers were cheap, scratchy polyester, but enough people tried to steal them that the owners figured they couldn’t be that bad. Mother’s Day specials, wind-chime music through the speakers, punch cards to get your tenth foot rub free. Yes, the banya in Grand Lake Plaza was the same as any other day spa—except for the vedma who lived there, of course.

The vedma had long black hair and two wide mouths: one for talking, cackling, snoring, singing, and casting spells, and the other exclusively for eating. The first mouth had a wet, gray tongue that flopped wildly like a caught fish. The other had countless teeth, tall and pointed, which stretched in every direction like a dense forest. She crouched behind the stove, her many breasts sagging to the floor, pinked by the warmth of the burning coals, until it was time for dinner.

The former owners, Pavel Korneliev and Masha Kornelieva, had opened the banya in Oak Park on the last snowless day before the longest, coldest winter on record. The vedma moved in that very night. (Continue Reading…)

Oni in the Box

by M.M. Schill

Now, Sobo was our late father’s mother. By our mother’s accounts she was mad, if not wicked. Gossip ran muddy in our family. One relative, now deceased, told me she was once the personal Tay? of the now equally dead Abetake Risu; former, and most honorable, Daimyo of Ouja-jo. Another cousin was far more grandiose in his anecdotes–better known as rumors–claiming that she was a river-witch that bedded Tengu in exchange for the Fortunes’ secrets. Notwithstanding, I never met her, or knew her as I knew our mother’s mother. As our father’s mother, she was distant; only slightly more distant than our late father was.

So, you can imagine our surprise when her steward arrived at our little hovel to announce that we were mentioned in her will.

Even still, knowing what I know now, I would not doubt my Sobo’s wickedness after seeing the long, hideous shadow she casts even now in death; maybe from the shadowy belly of Yomi itself. Perhaps even down in The Realm of Bloody Murder where wayward spirits are eaten, excreted, and eaten again by the Oni King himself. (Continue Reading…)

A Short Trip Home

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was near her, for I had lingered behind in order to get the short walk with her from the living room to the front door. That was a lot, for she had flowered suddenly and I, being a man and only a year older, hadn’t flowered at all, had scarcely dared to come near her in the week we’d been home. Nor was I going to say anything in that walk of ten feet, or touch her; but I had a vague hope she’d do something, give a gay little performance of some sort, personal only in so far as we were alone together.

She had bewitchment suddenly in the twinkle of short hairs on her neck, in the sure, clear confidence that at about eighteen begins to deepen and sing in attractive American girls. The lamp light shopped in the yellow strands of her hair.

Already she was sliding into another world — the world of Joe Jelke and Jim Cathcart waiting for us now in the car. In another year she would pass beyond me forever. (Continue Reading…)

Two Black Bottles

by Wilfred B. Talman & H.P. Lovecraft

Not all of the few remaining inhabitants of Daalbergen, that dismal little village in the Ramapo Mountains, believe that my uncle, old Dominie Vanderhoof, is really dead. Some of them believe he is suspended somewhere between heaven and hell because of the old sexton’s curse. If it had not been for that old magician, he might still be preaching in the little damp church across the moor. (Continue Reading…)

Browdean Farm

by A.M. Burrage

Most people with limited vocabularies such as mine would describe the house loosely and comprehensively as picturesque. But it was more than beautiful in its venerable age. It had certain subtle qualities which are called Atmosphere. It invited you, as you approached it along the rough and narrow road which is ignored by those maps which are sold for the use of motorists.

In the language of very old houses it said plainly, ‘Come in. Come in.’

It said ‘Come in’ to Rudge Jefferson and me. In one of the front windows there was a notice, inscribed in an illiterate hand, to the effect that the house was to be let, and that the keys were to be obtained at the first cottage down the road. We went and got them. The woman who handed them over to us remarked that plenty of people looked over the house but nobody ever took it. It had been empty for years.

‘Damp and falling to pieces, I suppose,’ said Rudge as we returned.

‘There’s always a snag about these old places.’ (Continue Reading…)