Rattlesnake Song

by Josh Rountree

The Last Picture Show came to the movie house on the square in the fall of nineteen seventy-one.  We snuck in with warm cans of Pearl and sat on the back row so we could take quick hits off our cigarettes and snub them out before anyone noticed the smoke.  I fell in love with Cybil Sheppard and figured she could wind me up just like she did all the guys in Anarene.  I recognized that small town that had been something once but was now engaged in a battle with time. Every sandstorm, every gust of West Texas wind stripped away another layer of paint and vitality.  That dying town was our inheritance.

When the movie ended we spilled out onto Front Street with our half-full beer cans stashed in our jackets.  Dean Champion’s dad had been a big hat over at the refinery in Big Spring before he hung himself, so Dean had sprung for the beer.  We piled into his Chevelle and I made sure I was in the back seat, squashed tight against Stacy Bell’s thigh.  Once upon a time that prospect would have excited me, but that time had passed.  

(Continue Reading…)

Cleaver, Meat, and Block

by Maria Haskins

The first thing Hannah learned when she came to live with her grandparents after the Plague, was how to wield the meat cleaver. Grandma taught her, guiding her hands in the backroom of the old butcher shop on Main Street. Showing her how to wrap her fingers around the handle, how to put her thumb on the spine of the handle for extra power and precision, how to let her wrist pivot when she cuts.

“You don’t need to be strong,” Grandma said. “The weight of the blade, the sharpness of the edge, is enough.” (Continue Reading…)

This Wet Red

by Marisca Pichette

I lie listening to a mouse in the wall. Its tiny feet scrabbling across worn boards; its tiny heart beating and beating and beating.

Its not so tiny pursuer winds through the dark, a soft caress of scales over pine. I track the path of the monster unseen from one end of the room to another, steady in pursuit. It knows the mouse cannot escape. It knows there are only so many empty spaces in the house.

Scratch scratch scratch. Squeak. The mouse erupts from the corner and runs down to the floor. I sit up in bed, tracking its progress between my bare feet. From above, I hear the relentless monster drinking the scent of its prey, following it into the open.

Open-ish. It is almost totally dark in the room. In the house. There is no power anymore. (Continue Reading…)

The Sea Thing

by Frank Belknap Long

JULY 16—We are caught in one of the great calms. There is water in the well, and our food is nearly gone. Everything is hid from view by the fog. I confess that I am a hopeless coward. The situation appalls me. What an expressive word is despair. I shall write it large—DESPAIR. Luckily a flying fish came scudding over the rails this morning.

 July 17—The fog has lifted, but there is no relief in sight, and the water in the well has risen several inches. The seven of us worked on the pumps all night. Thompson seemed surly and inclined to rebel. He is a man to be envied. He still retains his egoism and he fancies himself a very shrewd and important person. I hadn’t the heart to be angry with him. Poor devil! He doesn’t know how near we are to the rocks. I speak figuratively, of course. We are at present in the open sea, a thousand miles from land, and our rudder has gone by the board. We drift aimlessly. A fine situation, truly, for the skipper of the Octopus! Three months ago I had a full crew, and full sails, and now… Cholera isn’t pleasant! Damn it all, cholera is not pleasant. (Continue Reading…)