Category: The Stygian Lepus Magazine – Issue Twenty-Five

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And On the Story Spins – Part Two by S.J. Townend

She’d struggled to lift Gregory down last year—had put her back out for a few days. How hard it’d been to loosen the taut electrical cable noose from his neck; how devastating she had found it, to witness his eyes, bulging, wide open yet lifeless, and his face bent and hardened into an expression of regret—perhaps.

After umpteen rounds of CPR, countless pulse checks, distraught, she’d finally admitted the life in him had gone. A few minutes after she’d dragged him onto the bed, running on adrenaline, she’d dressed Gregory’s stiff, naked body in his wedding suit and tie.

There had been no note, no signs forewarning Ellie of her husband’s intentions to take his own life. She hadn’t even known he had been in any sort of emotional pain. All she had known was that whatever had been so wrong—had been such a source of torment in his life that he hadn’t been able to talk to her or God about it—must have caused him to take such drastic action. The poor, poor man. And whatever agony had caused him to see through such an awful, final decision had not taken away any of the pain—it had simply trebled that anguish, that obsidian suffering, and had passed it all on to her.

On that first sad night as a widow, after she’d dressed him—and then herself in her wedding gown—she’d tried to pull his eyelids down over his eyes before mounting him.

The grandfather clock in her hallway had let her know it was ten p.m., and this was what they had always done, at that hour, for over forty years of what she had presumed had been a happy marriage.

His corpse betwixt her legs, she had rocked gently, had allowed herself to build up to a hard grind. The motion had eventually brought about some relief, at least for her.

And then she had cried.

Her tears had landed on the old man’s blue lips. During her attempt to wipe dry his face, her fingertips spidering over his mouth—forever rigor-mortis open—that’d been when she’d first heard the rattle. It had not been the hauntingly familiar death rattle she’d heard so often in her long-ago work as a palliative care nurse, but more of a spinning sound, a quiet churning—and it hadn’t come from Gregory, not directly. She’d pressed her ear against his chest, had checked for signs of vitality again.

Nothing.

But shortly after the rattling had begun, she’d seen the tumbleweeds—such balls of misery—rolling out from the darkness for the first time.

The weeds had spun out from under the bed, one after the other; then they had flurried out in clumps, knocking on furniture and fragmenting into smaller bundles of whirling dried grass. But she had not been able to source their origin when she had crouched down on her knees and peered under the divan base. On opening the cupboard they’d shared, more weeds had spun out. One, after the other, after the other. But as hard as she’d searched, she still couldn’t find a source.

More tears had followed—tears of grief and tears of frustration—and the more she’d cried, the more they’d come, have continued to come—the weeds—but she couldn’t help herself from mourning. Grief, she knows now, is the extortionate price one pays for love, and she had loved Gregory dearly.

***

And still, to this day, dressed in his gray and white matrimonial attire, his body lies here—or what’s left of it—on stained cotton sheets.

Ellie’s secret.

Ellie hasn’t told a soul what Gregory’s done, for fear of judgement, maybe. What would the reverend think? The church clergy? God? Or perhaps, she keeps him this way in the hope that one day—like Jesus—Gregory too will rise from the dead. But he hasn’t yet, and in her weeping heart, she knows he probably won’t.

She gets up from the bed, dons her lacy, yellowed-white dress, and rides him, for release, relief. The squeak and crack of bone mounts, allegro in tempo, as she grinds her flesh upon his skeletal frame. She swears she hears him whisper their wedding vows as she comes: …till death us do part. Although she’s unsure if it is his voice or a ghost of a memory of his voice—the precise memory of how he had sounded when he had been alive having slipped from her mind many months ago.

“You silly boy,” she says afterwards, as she lifts her right leg back over. “One of us is still very much alive.”

Then she lies back down, by his side, taking his stiff hand in hers, as she has done every night for nearly a year, as flesh has become rot, and rot has divulged into bone.

A tear falls from her cheek onto her beloved’s humerus. The ceiling-wedged tumbleweed spins free, drops to the floor, and burls into the far wall. She curls, sad cashew nut, into his rib cage and cries more, and the churning crescendo she has learnt to ignore begins again, and more tumbleweeds spool out from an unlit space in the corner of the room.

***

She crimps her eyes. After reciting Proverbs 21:15, a prayer for the world, Ellie eventually falls asleep, but her dreams are ruined by bright-colored boxes, ashes and diamonds, and worse.

The Lord, she thinks when she wakes in the night—her room a half-filled pool of bent, burling twigs—is not hearing my prayers: why do the weeds keep coming?

She turns on her side to spoon the cold corpse she so loves, but a spectral image—a hallucination of sorts, she supposes—of the naked, dangling version of him will not clear.

Not up on the ceiling, she thinks, that is not where you belong, dear Gregory. You belong here, by my side, in our bed.

She rubs her eyes then tucks him in gently, bringing the sheets up under his extended mandible. Then she rolls over onto her other side, facing away from Gregory so he cannot bear witness to her grief. There, she cries again, softly, and scratches a sore lump in her left breast until sleep reclaims her.

***

On waking, the light of dawn stealing a little of the darkness from the room, Ellie rises, kicks out the weeds which have accumulated in the night, and closes the window. She does not want Gregory to get cold.

Colder.

***

With her white hair a messy cloud in the wind, her face nearly as drawn as Gregory’s, but with her chest still hurting, Ellie drives back to the store to purchase paracetamol and something in a brown glass bottle—a little nightcap—to help with the pain, to bring about sleep.

Some anchorman on the car radio advises ‘cancellation of all non-essential travel,’ but Ellie presses on.

“May the Lord be with me,” she whispers to no one.

Commandeering her car along the A-road feels like guiding a ship into harbor through kelp-sodden waters; the road—and also the interior of her car—awash with tumbleweed. She leans forward in her driving seat, bringing her face closer to the windscreen, and focuses hard on the route while pushing spun weed out from her wound-down window. Flattened strips other tires have made through the brambly carpet guide her in the right direction.

Once inside the store, Ellie heads straight for the pharmacy kiosk. She asks after Gary, the only other soul she has spoken to in any detail other than the people at church who call her Eleanor.

“Gary quit,” the young man behind the counter—a wall of medicine behind him—says without making any eye contact. “Last packet. You’re lucky. They’ve been selling like hotcakes since the tumbleweeds started.” He slides a packet of sixteen tablets to Ellie and mutters something about paying for them at the other till.

Ellie shakes her head. “How sad,” she says.

The young lad looks up at Ellie, an expression of confusion on his otherwise smooth face. “Uh?”

“I mean about Gary leaving.”

This young lad—his unlined face—knows nothing about change, about grief.

“The tumbleweeds were getting to him.”

“Yes. They get to everyone, eventually.”

Ellie takes the packet, thanks the young lad, and walks toward the main tills.

***

Before long, most of her house is filled with tumbleweeds—especially the living room, where she has taken to sweeping them as they appear, when she is too tired to open the front door and clear them into the streets. In her downstairs bathroom, her spare bedroom, and her living room, the balled weeds are stacked against walls in scratchy piles, looming in corners like wicker obelisks.

She grows tired of maintaining the home, does not use the rooms other than the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, so does the bare minimal clearance work that she can get away with, the pain in her side growing each day.

Her house has largely become dark, full of spun dry grass—apart from her bedroom, a place she tries to keep peaceful for Gregory. The area, she fears, may become a choke hazard or a compression risk if any sort of build-up were to occur within it.

Each night, before donning her dress, attaining relief, she opens the window and pushes them out.

***

On a Tuesday night, when she wakes, she swears she hears her husband asking her for release, relief. There is pain in her left breast as she straddles and rocks back and forth on his dry pelvis, and she finds, because of this, it takes her longer than normal to comply with the release she feels she hears her husband begging for.

Afterward, she carefully gets off, keen not to damage the train of her gown or hear the crack of bone that sometimes occurs, and sits and rests and scratches at her breast tissue, the flesh there tender, red, and swollen.

She loosens the zipper on her wedding dress to make it easier to scratch her side, says a prayer—Psalm 30:2, a verse for self-healing—then drifts off again into fitful sleep.

***

Over the coming weeks, the tumbleweed crisis persists, escalates, but Ellie does her best to stick to her marital routine, despite the mounting discomfort in her left side which radiates now, across her torso and up her neck—despite her husband being more grey dust than firm, hard bone now.

“A twenty-eight-year-old man in Huddersfield, on his way to identify his wife’s body at the morgue, has drowned in tumbleweed in his car.”

Ellie fills up her kettle. The tap blasts out water too fast when she loses her concentration on the task in hand, as she hears the newsreader’s voice.

The first reported death. She cusses as she wipes up the water spray from the countertop.

That man from Huddersfield should have been more careful, she thinks.

Ellie has taken precautions, has said her prayers, has opened and closed windows like clockwork each night to make sure that she doesn’t drown in weeds—in sorrow. Her heart thuds a sad melody in her chest as a ballad comes on the radio.

Poor man. To lose one’s wife. A tragedy.

***

The news she has stage four breast cancer doesn’t come as a great shock to Ellie. Her mother and sister had also succumbed to the disease.

“It has eaten into your chest, your ribs. There are cancerous cells in your nodes. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” the doctor says.

Ellie listens. What he proceeds to tell her is all familiar territory though: palliative care, a hospice, pain management—all phrases she had used in everyday life before retirement.

She nods, her eyes puffy, and thanks him for his kindness as she leaves the small office space and returns to her car, where she cries.

***

A few months later, Ellie slips into her wedding dress in preparation for bed, holds it up with one of Gregory’s old belts double-looped around her near-skeletal waist. The robe hangs from her frame—all unpegged tent. She eases her pained body back downstairs, white-knuckle gripping the handrail as she travels. She had nearly forgotten, her brain now not right—not right at all—she must take the fistful of tablets before saying her prayers, before bringing about release, before any promise of sleep will be granted. Exhausted from the short trip downstairs, she passes out in the kitchen.

A care worker discovers her there the next morning, and Ellie—still breathing, still fighting—is blue-lighted into the hospice.

Under harsh strip lighting, a medic slices off the sleeve of her wedding gown. Ellie’s emits a throaty moan in objection, and a tumbleweed burls out from under the hospital gurney, but the sound she makes receives no interpretation—like raindrops on a roof, like tumbleweeds drifting in great matted throngs across a multinational supermarket car park where staff keep walking out.

“Get that thing out of here,” the medic says. A porter hurries in with a mop and shimmies the ball of weed away from the bed and down the corridor, chases it until it is out of the building.

Too weak to speak or lift her hand, her bare arm now exposed, a crumbling vein in Ellie’s arm is plumbed into a device she is just lucid enough to know is a morphine driver.

This is it, she thinks. I’ll never leave here alive, and I’m in too much pain to contest.

Ellie wants to communicate to the kindly male nurse who sits by her side dabbing wetted cotton wool on her cracked lips that she has written a lengthy note. After all, Ellie has no family to share her last wishes with, no loved ones to keep her company and hold her already corpse-frail hand.

Busy nurses and doctors with beds to clear mill around and take Ellie’s vitals.

“All her numbers are dropping,” she hears.

Nothing but a statistic now, she thinks.

The note sits on her kitchen table, held in place by an empty mug. In it, she apologizes profusely to whosoever discovers Gregory’s shattered, weed-smothered corpse, asks for a cremation for them both, a faith-based funeral celebrant—the reverend, if he’s available.

As she closes her eyes and the wave of morphine floods her veins, she recites Colossians 3:13, a prayer for forgiveness. Or she tries to—the words scrambling like foul, dead bird eggs, the short verse tossing there like tumbleweed in her cancer-ridden brain.

She tries to picture Gregory’s smile on their wedding day, tries to recall Gregory’s voice reading his vows—but all that she bears witness to, in her mind’s eye, is him swinging there, from the bedroom ceiling.

She draws a sharp breath, the shock of the thought—her betrothed may not be on the other side, waiting for her with Jesus.

Her breathing becomes labored, and then it slows, to a rhythm which reminds her of rocking herself free, straddling Gregory’s corpse. She finds it becomes more difficult to keep the rhythm of her breathing regular—a chaotic metronome her diaphragm becomes, slowing, rasping, slowing—the air in her riddled lungs finding it harder and harder to gain release.

She is aware, she thinks, as she tries to reach her hand between her legs to bring about some relief one last time, of a voice—the male nurse perhaps—telling her she’ll knock the morphine driver out, as her arm is lifted and placed back by her side.

In a matter of minutes her pain is gone, and shortly after, so is she is.

***

A week later, the council—having paid a visit to her home to put it up for auction—discovers her husband’s body. Both her body and her husband’s recovered skeleton are cremated.

Not a soul attends the service—possibly not even God. No tears are shed.

But the reverend, as he commits their souls to a heaven not even he is sure he believes in, swears he hears the word Release carry through the air as the velvet curtain draws closed and two bodies are burnt to ash.

***

The tumbleweed crisis eases for a while that winter.

The roads clear, people return to their mundane everyday lives, their jobs and commitments, and the news anchors fill the airwaves with other twaddle

And sometime around Christmas, Ellie and Gregory’s ashes are scattered across an oak-rich park in the city by a stranger, as was requested in Ellie’s spider-scrawled final note,—her objections to diamondification strongly stated within it.

***

As January rolls around—as it always does, even after someone dies—from a dank tower block in the east of the city overlooking an oak-rich park, and from a grim hospital room in Southmead Hospital, and from underneath a bridge somewhere deep in the Somerset countryside, platoons of tumbleweed begin to spin forth again.

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S.J. Townend

S.J. Townend is a single mother of two young children, a teacher, and an author of dark fiction. She has stories in publications from Vastarien, Eerie River Publishing, Dark Matter Magazine, and a few other places. Her first horror collection, Sick Girl Screams, introduced by Robert Shearman, is out now (Brigid’s Gate Press) and her second horror collection, Your Final Sunset, is coming in 2025 (Sley House Press).
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Sin Eater – Part Two by Paul W. La Bella

Bill left Pastor Wilson’s as the sun was creeping below the low hills in the west. There was a local dive bar just around the corner, and he thought he’d stop in for a bite—maybe even a drink. Two years of sobriety was something Bill considered a serious accomplishment, something he attributed to Pastor Wilson almost completely. But he decided that if there was ever a reason to take a brief step off the wagon, it was weighing the option to become the local sin eater. Besides, it was just a step. He had no intention of ever falling again.

He walked over crumbling concrete sidewalks, heaping slabs driven from the earth by tree roots and ice, and turned into a doorway. A forgotten classic rock band poured through old jukebox speakers inside the dimly lit bar. The air was thick with fried cheese, stale beer, and the particularly pungent aroma of sweat. There was a group of young men by a pool table, halfheartedly chalking their cues and laughing. Bill recognized one of them from his apartment building. Dave? Derron? He couldn’t remember.

He walked up to the bar and ordered a cheeseburger with fries, one beer, and a shot. He finished the drinks before the food came and ordered another round when it did. He ate and pretended to watch the TV that hung over the shelves lined with dusty liquor bottles. His mind drifted easily enough to the night Pastor Wilson found him. The night he killed Lana. The booze began to do its work, and like beer running out of the tap, the memories flowed.

Hazy memories, images like old black-and-white photos, grainy and unclear, came to him. Lana on the ground, Bill on top of her, pounding her face like a butcher tenderizing meat. Hamburger meat. And wasn’t that the thought that always came to him when these memories surfaced? Hamburger meat. He looked down at his plate and pushed it away.

Bill was knocked forward. Something had struck his back with considerable force. His front teeth clanked on the thick pint glass he was drinking from, and he winced at the pain. Beer spilled down his shirt and onto the polished wooden bar top. He turned his head as Dave/Derron was steadying himself, dusting the front of his button-down shirt, searching for balance.

“Watch where you’re going,” Bill said. He turned back toward the bar.

“Hey, fuck you, man,” Dave/Derron said.

Bill set the glass down and lifted his head. He caught the bartender’s eye. The bartender gave him a look that said let it go. Bill nodded and went back to his thoughts.

Didn’t he love her? Yes. He thought he did anyway, but you couldn’t do that to someone you love. You couldn’t—

Icy liquid ran down his back. His spine stiffened as it trickled down and settled into the seat of his pants. Bill stood and turned. Dave/Derron, an empty beer glass in hand, laughing.

The world melted away. The long wooden bar disappeared as if behind a cloud of smoke. The faces that had been looking at him turned into gray blobs, featureless and lifeless. All he could see was Dave/Derron standing in front of him, laughing like the cocky kid he was—but Bill didn’t hear any sound come out of his mouth. The kid’s lips stretched in slow motion, revealing two rows of neat, white teeth. Bill had the sudden urge to rearrange those teeth.

Bill too moved in slow motion, pulling his fist back behind his head like it was tied to a bungee cord—and then it suddenly shot forward. The cord had snapped. It landed with lunatic force on Dave/Derron’s chin, and the world reappeared. Noise blasted into his ears like someone had turned on the record player with the needle already wedged in the dusty grooves. Beer splattered on the floor, and a schoolyard moan drowned out what was coming from the jukebox. Dave/Derron fell to the floor, sprawled out on his back, looking more shocked than hurt.

“You motherfucker,” Dave/Derron began, but Bill jumped on him.

Bill pummeled his face and chest, and blood stained the rims of the kid’s teeth like red grout around porcelain tile. There was screaming, and Bill thought he heard someone say something about cops. Maybe it was the bartender. Maybe it was one of the kid’s buddies. Bill didn’t know. He kept wailing as the struggling mass beneath him was reduced into nothing more than weak jerks and twitches.

He couldn’t stop. He felt Dave/Derron’s skull indent under his fists. The world was fading again, and when he looked down he didn’t see the kid from his apartment building. He saw Lana. He saw hamburger meat. A voice from outside, from above, from somewhere, from nowhere at all. Pastor Wilson. Get out, the voice said.

Bill stopped punching. He looked up at the horrified bartender. There was a cordless phone wedged between his left ear and shoulder, his eyes like the moon—round and shiny. He was talking, and as Bill watched, his voice faded in.

“..1776 Lundquist Street… I don’t know, six-five, six-six, just hurry, I think he just fuckin’ killed this kid.”

Bill wiped his nose with the back of one bloodied hand, threw a twenty on the bar, and walked outside. The crowd parted around him like they were iron filings and Bill was the opposite pole. He went around back and hopped a chain-link fence that spanned the rear of the bar’s property and landed on brown grass with a thud. A tired-looking mutt tied to a dilapidated doghouse barked at him, but Bill didn’t notice. There was another fence that ran along the side yard toward the road and ran into the back corner of the house. Bill hopped it and walked back to Pastor Wilson’s.

When he opened the door, the pastor saw the blood on Bill’s hands and shook his head.

“My son.”

Sirens rose and fell. Pastor Wilson stuck his head out of the door and looked around.

“I need your word,” the pastor said. “I need you to agree.”

Bill fell to his knees. The world threatened to come undone like it had so many times before. Bill struggled to keep the tears from falling.

“Yes, yes, whatever you say, whatever you need, I’ll do,” Bill said, jerking his head in rhythm with the approaching sirens.

Pastor Wilson looked down at Bill, and for a moment Bill wasn’t sure if he would be welcomed back in. He brought his hands up and realized that the pastor had been looking at the blood—looking at it like a disappointed father looks at an F on a report card. Panic flooded him.

“Please, I need your help. Anything you say, anything you need,” Bill said.

Pastor Wilson sighed.

“Your sins poison the very air you breathe. You, you wretch!” he spat, narrowly and expertly missing Bill’s face. “Say yes.”

***

“Bill, I’d like you to meet Julia.”

The three of them sat in the Hall. The day was exceptionally hot, and the ceiling fans that hung above them only succeeded in moving the warm air around the room.

“Hi,” Bill said.

Her skin was yellowish and taut. Her hair was black and wispy like smoke, and she avoided his eyes. Bill studied her face, trying to place how he knew her.

“Julia is a whore,” Pastor Wilson said. His words were often blunt, but these were sharp, and Julia winced at their bite.

“A whore and a junkie. Show him your arm, sweetheart.”

Julia pulled her sleeve up above her elbow and showed Bill her forearm. It was scabbed and bruised and lined with rows of pockmarks. The skin looked thin and brittle like tissue paper, and Bill wondered if it crackled when touched.

Bill nodded his head, and Julia pulled her sleeve down.

“You two have a lot in common,” Pastor Wilson continued, standing. “You both walk the same path—the one that, unfortunately, leads straight to the Devil’s doorstep.”

He climbed the stage, raised his hands above his head, and spoke to the ceiling.

“Julia stands shrouded in darkness, my Lord, doomed to suffer in this life and the next. Bill, on the other hand? Well, Bill stands in limbo. One foot in darkness, the other in light—something the Chinese might call the yin and the yang.”

He turned and faced them. Bill saw something in the pastor’s eyes that he hadn’t before. They looked blank, two-dimensional.

“But they know not the path to salvation. They would say that the mind of a man straddles that line between light and dark, and that this is good! That this is the way! But the Lord tells us that it is not. Only He can show us the way, and only He stands in the light.”

Pastor Wilson sat on the stage and let his feet hang just above the carpet.

“Bill has made great strides on his journey with the Lord, haven’t you, Bill?”

Bill nodded his head, but in his mind he saw hamburger meat.

“Sure you have, but you aren’t perfect. Far from it. Do I have that right?”

He nodded again.

“Sure, and that’s just fine. After all, to sin is human.”

He laughed at this—raucous, almost lunatic squeals. Bill and Julia smiled awkwardly.

“Bill is trying to pull his foot out of the darkness, but he has met resistance. Murder. The sins of his past are too great—they taunt him, they push him further from the light. They are what keep his foot stuck in the mud. He must make a sacrifice, and he must help others. That, my dear Julia, is why he has agreed to consume your sins.

“Why don’t you tell us about it tonight, Brother Bill? Tell us the story of you, of your sins. How you got your foot stuck so deep in the mud. You know about Julia’s sins—enough to work with, I think. She should know yours too.”

Bill twisted his hands into a knot and stared at the carpet.

“Sometimes I lose control. I see red. That’s all.”

“Is it?”

“When you scrape away the fat, yeah. It is.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes.”

“What about that boy in the bar? Did you love him, too?”

“No, I—”

“Was it easy to kill them? What is it, Bill? What is it that sets those murderous hands of yours to work?”

The pastor was smiling.

Bill’s hands tightened around each other like a knotted doorstop. The world began to fade. His eyes were locked onto the carpet now, and he tried to imagine himself riding along the waves on that Seussian ship—that impossible ship with its impossible shapes—bobbing in the sea, far away from here. He mouthed the words, heard them in his head as if someone were screaming to him from above the crashing waves, high on the mast of that wavering ship.

Pastor Wilson stepped down from the stage and stood before them. He tapped Bill on the shoulder. His head snapped up, and he met the pastor’s eyes. He was holding a manila folder under his right arm, his gray hair shining in the dim light like a thundercloud.

“Let us begin.”

***

Bill had never seen the rest of Pastor Wilson’s home. It had the pleasant smell of cinnamon and something else that Bill thought smelled like smoke, but sweeter—autumnal—like burning leaves. They walked through a dimly lit hallway with crucifixes hung next to prints of Christ and his Disciples. There was one wooden frame among the cheap plastic ones. Hung in the center of the wall: Mother Mary weeping over Christ’s limp body.

They walked into a room with a chair beside a small table. There was a copy of the Bible on the table. Its edges were tattered and worn, and the gold-stamped words on the cover were faded, blending with the soft black leather. They went into the kitchen.

There was a table off to the side with one wooden chair and two folding chairs from the Hall. There was a plate on the table with a butter knife, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and grape jelly. Pastor Wilson pulled the wooden chair out from beneath the table and offered it to Julia. She smiled faintly and sat.

“Is that it?” Bill said. “A sandwich?”

Pastor Wilson smiled and sat. He pointed to the arrangement on the table and nodded to Julia.

Her birdlike hands were steady as she scraped the jelly onto a slice of bread. Her hair fell over her eyes and covered the acne that lined her forehead like red granite. She worked with the concentration of a surgeon and the skill of a painter, carefully applying the layers of jelly and peanut butter on separate slices of bread, making sure they didn’t spill over the crust and onto the plate. She finished and married the two slices together. Finally, she dug the knife into the bread and cut the sandwich into two triangles. She slid the plate over to Bill, but Pastor Wilson stopped her.

“This is an ancient ritual, one that predates even the papacy. It is powerful—sacred. There are words that must be said. A short prayer, or a pledge, if you will, that will urge the Lord to forgive the sins of both parties.”

He set the folder on the table and removed a sheet of paper. He handed it to Julia.

She cleared her throat. Her voice was as thin as her hair, and she spoke with the confidence and assurity of a recently beaten child.

“By thy grace, by thy will, by thy mercy, and by thy spirit, I come to you, my Lord, as an unworthy sinner, and I beg of thee: allow your servant to absolve me of my sins by consuming them as the disciples consumed your flesh. On my life, I beseech thee. On my knees, I beseech thee. On my—”

“Hold on, girl,” Pastor Wilson interrupted. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that actions speak louder than words? Perform in action what you would say with your lips. Only then can the Lord see, as well as hear, that you mean what you say.”

She slithered down to her knees and sniffled, and her voice broke as she read on.

“On my knees, I beseech thee. With my soul, I beseech thee. My blood—”

She looked up. Her eyes wide. Almost beautiful.

“Go on,” Pastor Wilson said, twirling his index finger impatiently. “Go on.”

“My blood I offer up as a sacrifice to the sin eater.”

She spat the last line out like poisoned candy. The silence that followed was brief, broken suddenly by a metallic sound. Bill and Julia looked up at Pastor Wilson. He held a switchblade in his hand and offered it to Julia by the hilt.

Light danced on the polished blade and caught Bill’s eye.

“Hang on a second, you said—” Bill started.

“What did I say?!” The words flew from Pastor Wilson’s lips like a bullet. His voice was rough—glass pulverized in a stone mortar—and his head spun round until his eyes landed on Bill’s.

“You have a dozen lifetimes of sin hanging over you, boy, and unless you wanna wander through this life drunk and alone before you spend the rest of eternity in hell, you’ll do as I say.” Pastor Wilson turned from Bill and spoke to Julia through gritted teeth.

“Go on,” he said.

“I—I can’t, I, you said the food—”

Pastor Wilson took a deep breath, exhaled through his mouth, and spoke more calmly.

“Food is a stand-in for flesh. But blood is where the sacrifice lies,” he scoffed. “Did you think it’d be that easy? Make a man a sandwich and then all your whoring and drugging would be forgiven? If that was the case, all you’d have to do is find yourself a husband and await the Lord’s eternal embrace.”

He forced the hilt into her palm and closed her fingers around it.

Julia held the blade against her skin and took a deep breath. The knife flashed, and she yelped. A brilliant red streak crisscrossed the lines on her palm and grew. Blood fell onto the linoleum, and she moved her dripping hand over the sandwich. The white bread quickly stained. Bill looked on in horror as it dripped like sap from a tree.

She shook her hand and waited until the blood stopped falling. Then she looked at Pastor Wilson. He nodded, and she stood.

“You’re up, Bill,” he said.

But Bill didn’t move. He stared at the sandwich as if it were a pulsing pile of maggots. Pastor Wilson stood from his chair.

“Now!”

Bill took the sandwich and ate.

Picture of Paul W. La Bella

Paul W. La Bella

Paul W. La Bella lives in Dutchess County, New York. He’s a father, husband, and budding author who spends his days drawing maps for a small land surveying company. At night he likes to hide away in the basement and write stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, playing with his three children, and watching movies with his loving wife. His work has been featured in Bewildering Stories (August 2024), The Genre Society (October 2024), and Sally Port Magazine (April, 2025).
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The Final Voyage of the Venerable Saucy Nancy – Part Two by Glynn Owen Barrass

Thomasina’s sleep was thankfully dreamless, though her awakening was a rude one. An insistent rapping against her cabin door startled her awake.

The memory of the other day’s dream returned. It had started just like this.

“I am coming,” she replied to the repeated knocks. Climbing from her hammock, she quickly pulled her boots on.

As Thomasina headed for the door, a sudden trepidation made her change direction. She went to her coat rack, retrieved her coat, and shrugged into it. Then she removed her sword belt and tightened it around her waist. She noted the brace of pistols on the rack, nodded, and dropped them over her shoulder. The weight was a comfort. The rapping came again —more insistent, more urgent. She rushed forward and pulled the door open, wary of what awaited her outside.

William Bell stood there, an expression of fear on his wrinkled features.

It was not the fear of disturbing her; the blanched pallor of his usually drink-ruddied cheeks told her that. And he appeared surprisingly sober—not a good sign.

“Bill—”

“Come swiftly, Captain,” he said, then headed away from her across the quarterdeck.

“What in all hell?” Thomasina was quick behind him.

She grimaced as she passed the abandoned wheel. Where was Jonas? How long had she slept, anyway? As she headed down the steps, she saw a crowd on the main deck, gathered before the ship’s longboat.

Bell paused before the crowd. As she neared him, she saw First Mate Ashby Jenkins at their forefront.

Mutiny? No!

Bell shuffled uncertainly in her presence. From the corner of her eye, she saw Helmsman Jonas rushing over from portside, a rifle in his hands.

“Got your back, Captain,” he said upon reaching her.

Jenkins held a sword in one hand and a flintlock in the other. He was also staggering—very drunk or getting there. His glare was steady, however, his beady eyes glinting. Thomasina had three pistols in her brace, two of which she retrieved. She pointed the one in her right hand squarely at Jenkins.

“The bitch is here!” he said with a cackle.

“Is this to be a mutiny, then, Ashby Jenkins?” Thomasina kept her voice level, hiding her fear.

She felt Jonas lay his rifle on her shoulder. Like her, he was aiming at Jenkins.

A commotion distracted her. It was Second Mate Barnaby Collins, dragging the twins across the deck toward the crowd.

Archibald looked confused. He had welts on his face, his clothes in disarray. His sister was unmolested, but her cheeks were streaked in tears.

“You see? You see the cause of this terror?” Jenkins said in a gloating tone. “They have been making ungodly congress with each other. Ha ha! Should have known—from these Innsmouth devils.”

The rebellious crew gasped. Some cackled.

“You all with him then, you traitorous bastards?” A few of the crew looked away. Good. They were undecided.

Thomasina aimed her other flintlock at Collins. “Damn you, William Bell. Could not keep your mouth shut,” she said from the side of her mouth.

“I am sorry, Captain,” he mumbled.

“Captain knew. Captain did nothing,” Jenkins continued. He was certainly enjoying himself. “Doomed us all to nightmares and this white limbo.” He waved his free hand to starboard, indicating the mist still licking at the ship.

“Sorry,” Bell whispered in her left ear.

Thomasina took a deep breath. “Are you challenging me as captain, Jenkins?”

Laughs and jeers issued from the crowd.

“Jonas, on my mark,” she whispered.

Jenkins pulled a face—mock sadness. “Oh, do I hurt your feelings, lassie?”

“On my mark, Jonas. Take the swine’s head off.”

Then, she had another thought and switched her attention to the twins.

“True, I did not believe Bell’s drunken ramblings. So I shall deal with this cursed pair before you all. Back away, Barnaby Collins, or the lead will find your body along with these demons.”

Collins grinned widely. He gave her a nod and released the pair. The twins slumped to the deck. Archibald fell face down onto the wood.

She returned her attention to Jenkins. He looked less confident with himself, and his gun arm wavered.

“Kill him, Captain!” someone shouted.

This was followed by laughter, and “Kill him, Captain!” from others.

Oh, how their loyalties waver, she thought. But first—

She scrutinized the prisoners. There was a puddle of blood around Archibald’s face, seeping into the deck. Abitha was on her knees, staring down.

And… was she laughing?

The laughter became a scream—so piercing it stung Thomasina’s ears. The men nearest Abitha covered their ears, looks of distress filling their faces.

The girl’s screech was like nothing Thomasina had heard before. While moaning, cursing men stumbled away from the twins, Thomasina aimed her flintlock at the girl’s head. Lead shot would put an end to her ungodly hollers.

A moment later, the ship lurched heavily, sending Thomasina staggering forward—her men too.

Run aground? Attacked by another ship?

As Thomasina gained her footing, she realized The Nancy was still moving—and slightly suspended from the water, as if something had rammed the stern.

First Mate Gideon appeared at her side, steadying her.

Thomasina said, “Thank you,” then shouted, “We are under attack! Head to stern—repel the boarders!”

She saw men scuttling around in confusion, more with swords and pistols in their hands, following her orders.

Then she looked down, found the now silent Abitha gazing up, her expression filled with maleficent glee.

“See! My husband comes for me.” That mocking, bold expression disgusted Thomasina. “Perhaps he will be your husband too!”

Abitha started laughing. Thomasina, enraged, kicked her in the face. Then she turned to face the stern.

Nebulous shapes moved there—her men, most surely, but also something else. Something larger. Thomasina shoved her pistols into her belt, drew her sword, and charged forward.

Shouts and screams reached her ears as she mounted the quarterdeck steps. Thomasina hoped the latter came from the attackers, not her own crew, for those screams were bloodcurdling.

Jonas, ever loyal, joined her. The movements and sounds were much closer now.

“What is happening up there?” Jonas asked.

Thomasina had no answer.

A hurried dash across the quarterdeck followed, up the steps to the poop deck. As she mounted the deck, the fog cleared—unmercifully.

She released a choked gasp and lowered her sword as all strength departed her limbs.

Jonas screamed and fled back down the steps.

Part of Thomasina wanted to join him. This was no ship—but damned it, she wished it were.

The abomination—a giant, ungodly thing—was taller than the top mast. A mass of black, liquid horror, it was covered in eyes and mouths, and other organs less recognizable. Writhing tentacles held around half a dozen screaming men. More crewmembers lay beneath it on the poop deck—some dead and broken, others on their knees. Were they praying to God, or this thing from hell? Three of her crew had better luck and were slashing at it with their swords.

Thomasina went to go forward but found her legs immovable.

Fear. Fear overwhelmed her. The fine hairs stood up on the back of her neck. A low whine escaped her mouth—something involuntary. It was no way to act for a supposed leader of men.

Are you predator or prey, Captain Collins? she asked herself.

Thomasina gulped, shook her head, and stepped forward.

“Anyone who can hear me, man the cannons,” she yelled. “Just fire—fire! Every able-bodied man join me… NOW! Hack it down, blow it to pieces!”

A new sound left her mouth—not a whine, but a roar. She sheathed her sword as she ran towards horror unbound.

Thomasina slid the flintlocks from her belt. She did not waver, not even when the abomination’s shifting surface produced a gigantic eye—green, bigger than her, bigger than a dining table. The pupil was huge, black, and horizontal. It scrutinized her as she charged, widened as she raised her flintlocks.

The boom of the guns filled Thomasina’s ears, surrounded her with powder smoke. The eye popped with a loud crack, sending foul black liquid hissing across the deck. She skidded to a halt on the befouled boards, dropped the empty guns, and withdrew her sword and last flintlock.

The abomination shook, roared from a hundred mouths—a foghorn bellow that wracked her ears with pain. Its sudden movements made the ship lurch.

Pistol and rifle fire sang around her. The rest of the crew had obviously rallied.

The abomination’s eye was gone. In its place, a charnel-red chasm led to darkness.

Thomasina ran toward it, sword raised with grim intent.

She saw something roll toward her from the chasm. The next moment, she was flying through the air, tumbling backward toward the main deck.

A massive red tongue had struck her—a slimy, flickering thing thick with purple veins.

She hit the deck hard, banging her head. Lights flashed before her eyes as stabbing pain tore through her body.

“Uh.” She tried getting to her feet, but failed. Slumping back, she reached for her head. It felt wet. The dark shapes of the sails swayed in and out of focus above her.

By some miracle, she still gripped her sword, but her flintlock was gone.

A pair of hands pulled her up. Dazed and dizzy, Thomasina took account of her situation.

Of all her men, it was Jenkins helping her to her feet. He smiled, nodded.

She had no time to thank him, for two men were dragging Abitha past her.

“Feed her to the Devil!” Jenkins heckled.

This time, Thomasina did not disagree.

“Follow me,” she ordered.

Composing herself, she rushed after the trio on unsteady legs.

The ship lurched again—this time, the impact came from the bow, followed by the loud crunch of distressed wood.

My ship. No!

Everyone on the main deck staggered. She used their disorientation to catch up.

“Step aside, Simon. Gawen. I’ll take the girl from here.”

There was no resistance. Abitha appeared dazed, her face bloody from the nose down. Whether this was from her earlier assault or something else, Thomasina did not care. She seized the girl by the collar and dragged her forward.

Another impact rocked the deck. Unperturbed, Thomasina pulled the girl up the steps like a sleepwalker.

She dragged her prisoner’s stumbling form onto the quarterdeck, then toward the poop deck. The crew had stopped shouting and firing, making this section of ship eerily silent. The clearing mist revealed the abomination in full monstrous glory—closer now, its horrible leprous bulk having mounted the poop deck.

Its hideous lack of solidity took Thomasina aback. Of the men recently battling it, there was no sign.

Oh, sweet Jesus. All gone.

The eye had returned—or perhaps it was a new one. It stared with inhuman malice. The mouths surrounding it gibbered silently. Tentacles thrashed the deck.

A commotion of footsteps told her the men from the main deck had followed.

“Stay back!” Thomasina ordered. She pulled the girl to her chest, raised her sword to her throat.

“Do you understand me, beast? Sea devil?” she shouted. “Call off your attack or you’ll get a bride without a head!”

Thomasina meant it. She pressed her sword hard against the girl’s prone throat, finally eliciting a yelp.

“Save me, Father Dagon,” Abitha whimpered.

Did it understand? The behemoth’s tentacles seemed to waver. The thrashing subsided to something less violent.

“You do understand me, do you not?”

The monster started to back off. Its massive form shifted slowly from the deck, leaving behind a trail of noxious-looking green slime.

“Captain!” said a panting voice. Gideon. She did not turn. Her eyes stayed locked on the retreating horror, sword still pressed against the limp girl’s neck.

“Bowsprit and forecastle. Completely crushed. She’s going down for sure.”

So the damned devil had pinned them against some rocks or reef, killing her ship. An overwhelming sadness replaced her fear.

My ship. My heart. What shall I do?

All thoughts and feelings were quashed suddenly as The Nancy’s stern began to drop. The abomination’s weight—or removal of it—was sending her down, hard.

“Everybody back away!” Thomasina yelled. “Abandon ship. Launch the longboat and get yourselves upon it!”

She only hoped enough men were left even to do so.

The abomination retreated into the fog’s remnants. Subdued, it left her with a sinking ship–and a crew in their watery graves or, worse, rotting away in its foul belly.

***

They launched the longboat at around the same time the abomination departed the ship. Twelve men out of forty-two had survived—not including her and their female prisoner.

Of Abitha’s brother, Thomasina did not know. Did not care.

The fog had completely lifted as they abandoned ship.

Now, some minutes later, Thomasina watched her venerable ship sinking hard to stern. Half of her was underwater now, the rest protruding from the sea from the main deck forwards.

The abomination had rammed them into Innsmouth’s Devil’s Reef.

Ironic really. Losing the ship there. Probably not by accident.

Thomasina shed a tear, watching the hungry black waves swallow her ship and her livelihood.

At least she—and what remained of her crew: Gideon, Jenkins, and a handful of others—had their lives.

“Destination, Captain?”

The words shook her from her trance. Helmsman Jonas had addressed her. Good man. A survivor. He stood opposite her at the stern, a sentinel against the clear night sky.

“Steer her to port—toward Falcon Point.”

That way, they’d give Innsmouth a wide berth. Then she’d have them row inland, toward Ipswich.

Innsmouth. Cursed place!

This thought turned her gaze to their prisoner.

Sat to starboard, crouched, arms and legs tightly trussed. All their lives depended on Abitha’s continued presence.

“Abitha,” she said. “Your Order of Dagon—it must have deep pockets, yes?”

The girl had been staring downward, her expression sullen. She looked up, eyes fiery, her expression one of disgust.

“You already have our gold,” she said, and glared at the space between Thomasina’s feet.

Thomasina leaned forward.

Oh, my lord. The gold! The jewels!

The old, crumbling chest had been shoved under her seat. Perhaps some mutinous bastard had stashed it there during the chaos. She had not seen anyone carrying it during their panicked exodus from the ship.

“Bless you, you mutinous dog—whoever you are.”

Footsteps distracted her from the chest. It was Jonas, walking across the deck toward her spot at the bow.

He sat himself to port, facing the Innsmouth girl.

She was a fine ship,” he said, smiling sadly.

Thomasina nodded. “That she was, Jonas. That she was.”

Farther away now, The Saucy Nancy had sunk down to the forecastle. Soon, it would be the forepeak—and then?

Then she would be home to the fishes.

The fishes…and the other ungodly things that roamed the black waters beneath Devil’s Reef.

Despite her sorrow, Thomasina smiled. She had treasure enough to sail again.

But never again these waters.

Not for all the gold in Innsmouth.

Picture of Glynn Owen Barrass

Glynn Owen Barrass

Glynn Owen Barrass lives in the North East of England and has been writing since late 2006. He has written over two hundred short stories, novellas, and role-playing game supplements, the majority of which have been published in France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Portugal, the UK, and the USA. To date he has edited and co-edited ten anthologies: Anno Klarkash-Ton, Atomic Age Cthulhu, The Children of Gla’aki, Eldritch Chrome, In the Court of the Yellow King, Murder Mystery Madness and Mythos, Steampunk Cthulhu, The Summer of Lovecraft, Through a Mythos Darkly, and World War Cthulhu. He has been the co-recipient of two Ennies awards for his gaming work.
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Verdugo – Part Two by Elliot Pearson

Manuel

I untethered Oscuro and watched from my hotel room window as Manuel approached her—gazing around to see if he was being watched—attempting to stroke her as she huffed and puffed. I closed my eyes and spoke softly to Oscuro, telling her that everything would be all right. She calmed down and Manuel eventually led her away to the stables.

“Good girl,” I said.

Oscuro was no regular horse. Manuel had no idea what sort of creature he was dealing with—what he’d let into his life.

I left the hotel and pursued Manuel, keeping to the morning shadows.

I went around to the side of the stable and heard him yelling at Oscuro.

“Damn beast! You will listen to me, and you will obey! I don’t care who your master was before me. That old, decrepit son of a bitch should have kept a closer eye on you. Obviously didn’t care about your welfare. I’m your master now. I’m the best damn horse master there is. You’ll regret ever disobeying me, and you will learn how to behave.”

The other horses in the stable started whinnying.

I crept around to the entrance and watched in anger as Manuel started whipping my horse, drawing blood on her rump. She cried, but I knew it was all an act. Nothing could make Oscuro cry. Especially not a pathetic little specimen like Manuel.

Oscuro shot up onto her back legs and towered over the little man. He jumped back in terror, but not far enough, as Oscuro brought her front hooves down on him and trampled him over and over again, crushing his bones into jelly as he screamed in agony.

I entered the stables. Manuel looked up at me with mad eyes. His head was but a bloated purple mass, and his skull was half-caved in.

“That’s no way to treat a beautiful animal,” I said.

Manuel tried to speak but could only muster a spittle-flecked whimper. He let out a great gasp when his lungs were punctured by his own split ribs after Oscuro descended for a final plunge. Manuel was still and silent after that.

Oscuro shook her head and stepped away from the body. I stroked her head and put mine against it, rubbing her rump as the bloody slashes started to heal by themselves.

She was as good as new again.

“I’m sorry, girl. But you’ll be alright.”

I led her into an enclosure. “Stay here until I come back for you. There’s plenty of hay to munch on. Be good.”

I dumped Manuel’s bloody body in another empty enclosure and went in search of the next soul who needed guiding into the beyond.

Flaco

The irony was that Flaco was not skinny at all, as his name suggested. He was grossly overweight. He’d just come out of one of the whore’s rooms licking his lips, either in pleasure at the carnal act he’d just committed, or at the prospect of the meal that awaited him. I hoped it was the latter, having bought a laxative for him from the pharmacist.

I went into the kitchen and waited. An order finally came through for Flaco. A plate of chilli. I slipped the Chinese chef two gold coins and told him to make the chilli as usual, but to empty the entire laxative vial into the mixture. He nodded rather nonchalantly and got on with making the dish.

I sat at the bar and ordered a whiskey, waiting for Flaco’s dish to be served. It arrived, and it wasn’t long before Flaco’s bowels started to writhe. I downed the whiskey as he rose to his feet, yelling abuse in Spanish directed at the kitchen staff that the meat in the chilli was off and that it was just too damn hot.

Gabriela winked at me from the balcony and watched as Flaco rushed out of the saloon.

I followed him and found him squatting between two adjacent buildings with his backside to me. He unleashed his bowels in a vile brown barrage that splattered down his legs and onto the ground. He cried out in anguish as I pulled out my Dragoon from its holster and put a bullet in his head—his cries drowning out the sound of the shot—dropping him instantly in his own mess.

I left him where he was to fester in the darkness of the alley. The others wouldn’t have the time to find him. What time they did have left was running out rapidly, and they’d have better be spending it wisely.

Lefty and Abel

I’d been watching Lefty and Abel far too long for my liking and I was growing tired—sat in a rocking chair on the hotel porch, wishing I was back home, in peace and quiet with nothing but the desert and the occasional majestic sound of distant eagles soaring overhead.

The boys had done little but run up and down the main street, knocking off passing men’s hats and kicking them away so that they couldn’t retrieve them, and pulling up women’s dresses, trying to cop a feel. The women tried in vain to pull their dresses back down again but were constantly thwarted by the rising wind.

Lefty was a little younger than the more handsome and strapping Abel—and shorter—covered in unsightly spots excreting pus. He had, indeed, been a victim of the mythical ugly tree. I figured a little envy would quite easily stoke his fire.

They stopped to catch their breath in front of the hotel and started giggling when they saw me and pointed.

“Who the hell are you?” Lefty asked.

“Hell just might be the right word, kid,” I replied.

“You don’t frighten us, old man,” Abel said.

“No?”

“Not one bit,” Lefty said.

“Fair enough,” I said.

Lefty eyed my holstered Colt Dragoon.

“That’s quite a piece you got there, mister,” he said.

“Yeah,” Abel said. “And you’re gonna give it to me.”

“Is that so?” I asked.

“Damn right it’s so,” Abel replied.

“Fine,” I said. “Have it.”

I unholstered the revolver and threw it underarm to a visibly shocked Abel. He grinned maniacally as he caressed the revolver with both hands. Like a kid on Christmas morning.

I looked at Lefty. Something sinister was stirring in him. Sinister and infantile in nature.

“You son of a bitch,” he said to Abel. “I saw that mighty fine piece first!”

“I’m older. Therefore, I’m in charge. Remember?”

I sat, crossed-legged, watching the drama unfold.

“Don’t mean a damn thing you being older. I saw it first, and I want it. It’s mine. It belongs to me!”

“I’m getting real sick and tired of you, boy.”

Abel raised the gun at his friend.

“Abel—what are you doing? We’re brothers. Blood brothers. We cut our hands and made a pact for life. Just this last week. What the hell is wrong with you?”

I spoke to Abel in his mind. “Kill him.”

Abel fired at Lefty’s chest. He fell to the ground and groaned. His eyes were wide in shock.

A look of horror filled Abel’s eyes. “What have I done?”

He ran over to his bleeding friend and held him in his arms and began to weep. “Someone get help! Please! Get help.”

But no one did. Everyone passed by or went indoors.

Whatever light remained in Lefty’s eyes faded away—a glimmer of once innocent, spritely youth—and perhaps that’s all it was. He was still.

I spoke again. This time through my mouth. “What’re you gonna do now, kid? You just gunned down one of Pincho’s crew. He won’t be happy about that. You’ll be punished. You’ll suffer. You may as well just kill yourself.”

Abel turned to face me, still on his knees, clutching his friend’s lifeless body.

“Who are you?”

“Someone you ought to listen to. There’s no way out now. Nowhere left to run. Time’s up, amigo.”

Abel appeared utterly hypnotised by that point. “I know. You’re right. I can’t live with myself now.”

He raised the revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. His brains shot out the side of his head and landed with a splat in the dirt.

I got up and walked over to the dead boys, retrieved my gun and holstered it, before making my way back inside the hotel.

Four down. Three to go.

Cesar

It was the next day, and Pincho was away on business as Gabriela said he might be, but he’d only taken one of his best men with him—Arturo. He’d left Cesar to protect the town until his return later that day, as he was on high alert after Flaco had gone missing—yet to be found—and since the deaths of the boys.

No one suspected me of a thing. I was practically a ghost, haunting the ghost town.

I noticed Cesar leave the saloon and make his way toward the sheriff’s office—Pincho’s new base of operations in the sheriff’s absence.

I stalked him until he went inside, and then I waited under a store canopy. He came back out holding a canvas bag. He threw it over his shoulder and looked around before making his way to the stables.

Damn it. He’d find Manuel’s body in the enclosure.

I pursued him to the stables.

He was in the process of mounting his horse and stopped to sniff the air. The body was starting to decompose, and no doubt covered in flies. He shrugged and continued. I let him leave, taking cover behind a wall, before I went inside and got on Oscuro.

Cesar was already quite far ahead in the distance, having left the town. But Oscuro was faster than any horse known to man—unnaturally fast.

I caught up to Cesar in the desert among scorched shrubs. He turned and drew his gun—a small revolver. He clutched the canvas bag tightly with his free hand. His horse seemed a little on edge, kicking its back legs out anxiously.

“Don’t move,” he said.

I didn’t.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“What’s in the bag, Cesar?”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know more than just your name. I know that you don’t have much time left to walk on this earth.”

“Screw you, pendejo!”

Cesar fired off a shot. I didn’t feel it, but I looked down to see a gaping hole in my chest.

Cesar’s horse bolted at the sound of the shot and Cesar was thrown from the horse, but he didn’t land clean. Instead, his right foot got caught in the stirrup. I heard his ankle break before he screamed. The horse took him with it.

I waited a moment and sighed before I followed.

I came to Cesar’s mangled body. The canvas bag had split open, and gold coins were strewn about the cracked earth. His horse was a few feet ahead, still as anything now that Cesar was gone. I approached it, gave it a pat, and removed the saddle. I gave it a light slap on its rear to get it moving.

“Go on. You’re free.”

I watched the horse go until it was but a tall, thin shape in the distance.

I collected the gold coins and put them back in the bag, holding it tight where it had split. I had no use for them, but I knew someone who would.

Arturo

Pincho and Arturo returned that night, side by side on horseback. They left their horses and tied them up outside the bodega where Pincho resided on the edge of town—Gabriela’s former family home.

They went inside.

I stood in the dark and listened. Nothing.

I looked up at the full moon—silver surrounded by drifts of charcoal clouds in a navy-blue sky.

Then the sound of a woman crying out after being struck came from within the bodega. From the second floor. Gabriela’s younger sister.

Two to go.

I entered without making a sound, moving like a mantis—slow and controlled.

The sister’s screams grew louder, and she began to wail and cry.

I closed the door behind me.

I heard a yawn coming from a long, dark corridor. I peeked around to look down it, my back flush against the wall.

It was Arturo. He was making his way to an open area, trying to stifle another yawn.

I waited until he was on the other side before creeping after him, keeping close to the wall.

Arturo was standing in the middle of the open area, a staircase ahead of him. He looked up and listened to Pincho cursing at the sister as he beat her.

Arturo chuckled and scratched his groin before smelling his fingers. He was wearing a hip holster which held a revolver. He removed it and placed it on a small table.

He wouldn’t be needing it whereever he was going.

He passed into another room. A vast lounge with a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging above. He sat down on a plush red couch below the chandelier and stretched his legs out in front of him, before throwing his head back and closing his eyes. He yawned again, and it didn’t take long before his mouth was gaping open and he was snoring.

I stepped further into the room and took out a small knife from the inside of my coat. I threw it at the chandelier’s cord, and it cascaded down, landing with a crash on Arturo’s head, splitting it open like ripe fruit. Dark gore poured from the cavernous wound.

The screaming continued above. As did Pincho’s yelling and cursing.

I retrieved the knife and made my way upstairs.

Pincho

I entered the bedroom where the noise had been coming from, but it had since ceased, replaced by Pincho’s grunting. He was on top of the sister, thrusting with a firm grip on the back of her bruised neck. She wasn’t making a sound.

I snuck up behind and held the knife to Pincho’s neck. I removed my face cloth with my free hand. Cold ooze from my mandibles dripped on to Pincho’s naked shoulder. He shivered. His skin was covered in goosebumps.

“Make a sound, and I’ll slit your throat,” I said.

I dragged Pincho off the bed. The sister turned around and fumbled to cover herself with the sheets.

“Now, this is what’s going to happen. Arturo’s dead. No one’s coming to help you now. The only soul who can do that is me. And it’s just your luck that I don’t have one. So, you’ve only got one place to go. Straight to hell. Far worse than the one you’ve created. I’m going to give this girl a choice, and you’re simply going to go along with it. You no longer have any choices. No agency. Your fate was decided several days ago.”

“Who—”

“What did I say? Hush now.”

I turned my attention to Gabriela’s sister. “Chica—what’s your name?”

She was shaking and said nothing.

“I know your sister. What’s your name, honey?”

“Lupe.”

“Lupe. Do you wish this man dead?”

Lupe nodded. Pincho gritted his teeth and scowled at her. I pressed the knife into his neck, drawing a line of blood.

“Lupe. Do you wish to kill this man?”

She nodded again.

“Do you wish to kill him yourself? And before you answer—know that to take a life is a heavy burden. It will stay with you until the end of your days. Understand that.”

Lupe didn’t move.

“Speak now or forever hold your peace, sweetheart.”

Lupe shook her head. No.

I cut slow and deep into Pincho’s throat, blood spraying across the room, showering the white sheets. Lupe leapt from the bed.

Pincho gurgled and tried to resist, but I held him close in death’s embrace.

“Shhh… Quiet now. Be still.”

Pincho eventually went still as the blood drained, and the life left him. I let him drop to the hard wooden floor like a sack of potatoes.

I held out my hand to Lupe. She was hesitant. Afraid.

“Take it.”

We left the bodega hand in hand. We must have looked a sight as we walked across the courtyard—the ghoul and the sun-kissed, tanned naked girl.

Beauty and the beast.

***

Gabriela held both of my hands. “Thank you. For everything. How can I ever repay you?”

“You don’t. That’s the end of it.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s the deal, young lady. I left something for you in your old house. In a canvas bag. And it’s not Pincho. You’ll never see any of those men again.”

I got up to leave.

“Where are you going now?” she asked.

“Home.”

“Where’s that?”

“On the border between life and death.”

***

I gazed up at the cloudless sky, smoking a cigarette and rocking in my chair, back on my porch in peace and quiet again. At last.

An eagle was soaring high above. It called out. I took my hat off to it, before taking another bite of one of the limbs of the seven men—cut up and piled up in a bucket—whose souls had left their bodies in La Ventosa.

They were in Beelzebub’s black hands—or paws—now.

I was never hungry or thirsty. Desire had left me long ago. But those bodies had to go somewhere, and the way I saw it, the void was the best place for them.

Besides, I had a hibernation to prepare for.

I hoped this one would be longer than the last.

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Elliot Pearson

Elliot Pearson is a writer of speculative fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in such publications as Star*Line, The Banyan Review, and The Stygian Lepus. After working as a teacher in Spain and Mexico, Elliot now lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and is working on his first novel.
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Phaëthon – Part Three by Tyler Whetstone

Bursts of static began to appear on the dimmed viewscreens—small squares on a grid seeming to die, fuzzy at the edges and black in the center of each, blooming across the “windows” like a checkerboard. No doubt a section of the module’s armor had been damaged or pried loose—either by the lightning or the debris caught in the high winds—and now the acid rain was taking out the microcameras, not all at once but one by one by one.

With each square that went out, the remaining portions of the grid glowed brighter, but with large areas riddled with black, the room stayed dim. The color of the displays remained gray, as more ash blew into the clouds.

The videoconference had been closed from the other end, but Townsend reached into the projected screen again and opened it back up. “Icarus lander to Daedalus VII,” he announced. “Anybody there?”

Captain Sviderskas drifted into view and sat. “How are you holding on, Commander?”

Townsend sighed. “You know, I’ve been here five months, and I’ve never actually set foot on the surface or seen it without the aid of an electronic viewscreen.”

“It’s Venus, Adam. It’s ninety atmospheres of pressure, 380 degrees in the shade, and it rains sulfuric acid. No matter how good our technology gets, we’ll never have a suit that can withstand those kinds of conditions.”

“I know. Just the kind of thing you get to thinking about. I’m not saying it’s unfair. It just would have been nice.”

Sviderskas just nodded quietly, letting him have his moment.

“Considering how far we’ve come, 380 degrees doesn’t sound all that hot,” Townsend said, turning to look as another square flickered off on the windows.

“Would it make you feel better if we called it ‘over 700 Fahrenheit’?”

Townsend scoffed. “Not really, but thanks for trying.”

An alert bloomed on the display next to the videoconference; the temperature was starting to overwhelm connectors in the pneumatic system that diverted his air from the airlock.

Without acknowledging it, Townsend swiped it away.

 

As they descended further through the atmosphere, the drones detected a favorable tailwind. ARMORER recalculated the transit path based on this new information, and the estimated time to destination dropped from 88 minutes, 20 seconds, to 83 minutes, then again to 80 minutes, 47 seconds.

***

“You’re applying for Icarus, aren’t you?”

After the video had wrapped up, Diggs had smiled the whole way back into the Grand Hall, through the booths for asteroid-mining missions, specialist positions at companies looking to develop comet-skimmers, and one particularly impressive display for a pair of deep-space telescopes that would orbit Phobos and Deimos. At the far end of the hall, two new booths—proudly displaying the Ariadne and Icarus insignias—had opened, and crowds of cadets were starting to line up in front of both.

“Are you telling me you’re not?” Townsend asked, surprised. “I’d have thought you and I would be competing for this the same way we’ve competed for top honors for four years.”

“This will be more like sports, then. You take the gridiron; I’ll keep the diamond.”

Townsend laughed. The AIAC competed in American collegiate sports, and had even developed something of a storied rivalry with the Air Force Academy based out of Colorado Springs. But while Townsend had taken to American football—and the strapping blond quarterback would have been idolized at most conventional universities—the football games were still wildly overshadowed by the Army–Navy grudge matches fought out by West Point and Annapolis. AFA–AIAC baseball, though, was hotly contested and widely publicized, and Diggs—a lefty first-baseman with a record number of double plays under his belt—was the one who ruled what passed among cadets as a social scene. He never missed an opportunity to remind his roommate, whose team had, four years running, scraped by with barely more wins than losses. He’d even started to keep a collection of balls used in playoff games just to display them around the dormitory quarters.

“Well, if you go in for Ariadne, then that’s space for both of us. Can you imagine—one of us the first person on Venus, the other the first to return from Mars?”

“Well, who else are they gonna give it to?” Diggs playfully threw a punch at Townsend’s arm.

“I don’t know, I think Xochitl Tan has a shot, given that she managed to make it to morning corporate more often than you did,” Townsend said, laughing as Diggs shot him a dirty look.

Both shrank back as they realized Xochitl was within earshot in the Icarus line. She was petite and slight, a year younger than her fellow cadets, but she wore the results of her perfect attendance at corporate exercise in an immediately apparent way. From beneath the severe-cut bangs of her black hair, she shot both boys the dirtiest look they’d ever seen.

Not daring to laugh, Townsend promptly turned away, back to his roommate. “That really would be pretty amazing, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Nah,” Diggs said, approaching the line for the Ariadne booth. “I think it’s about fair.”

***

Another alert flashed on the projected display—the platinum rings that served as connectors on the airlock system had failed, some bursting at the welds, others melting entirely. Only just visible was the tiny plume of air venting from a puncture in the seal. A camera still focused on the airlock showed the glint of platinum on the floor—a puddle that had once been a coupling—indicating that superheated gas had gotten into the system. Warning screens suggested the temperature was already rising to dangerous levels inside the damaged room. Again, Townsend swiped the alerts away, looking instead at the mess of items behind the projected display.

There hadn’t been space in his belongings to try to bring a football with him into space, but Townsend had managed to sneak along a baseball, an old game ball that Diggs had given him before his flight to Mars. He leaned forward to snatch it from the back corner of the desk and noticed his handkerchief still lying on the floor. Setting the ball aside, he picked up the hanky, and then the photo from underneath.

“You still with us, Adam?” came Bayless’s voice.

Townsend gently set the photo back down on the desk and called up the video feed. “I’m here,” he said.

“Darwin thinks we have a workable repair plan,” Bayless said. “We’ve got signoff from Control, and we’ve got a program inbound from coders in Kyoto we’re going to transmit to ARC-2 and ARC-7.”

“All right, let’s hear their plan.”

“It’s my plan,” cut in a Xhosa-accented voice Townsend wasn’t expecting to hear.

“We needed to route comms through Mesektet,” Bayless clarified, “and Nwende’s the only one who had the common sense to suggest a brute-force solution.”

“The danger to the lander comes from exposing the damaged door to the outside atmosphere, yes?” Nwende asked—but rhetorically. “Then your best bet is keeping the evac capsule against the airlock, even if it’s inoperable. ARC-2 is going to push up against the lander from the other side and just run its thrusters, pressing the lander against the airlock as tightly as it can.”

“It can’t keep that up for long,” Townsend started, but Bayless was ready for that one.

“It only has to hold it in place long enough for ARC-7 to deploy its plasma cutter and melt the edge of the seal. You give it a final evacuation order to flush out any outside gases by remote from right there, and then we seal the airlock shut permanently. Everything until the next Icarus capsule gets run through the supply platform.”

Nwende picked up the thread again. “ARC-2 will nearly deplete its fuel supply this way; we don’t think it will be able to make it to the Armadillo, much less back to the orbiter. So the program from Kyoto is going to teach Seven to dismantle Two for parts. The thermal shielding is going to be stripped off the armor and mounted above any other damaged areas of the hull for additional protection.”

“Priority has to go to the flanking panels alongside the commander’s residence to keep acid rain out of the electrical conduit,” Bayless added. And when Townsend tried to give him a clueless look, he dismissed it. “You turned down the brightness, Adam, but I can see the window from here.”

“It’s a good plan,” Townsend said, giving in, then checked the estimate from ARMORER. “I just have to hold out here another forty-one minutes.”

“I did want to take just a minute to talk about Launch Site Beta itself,” Gleason said, her eyes just barely glancing across the prepared notepad resting on her knee.

“Of course,” Ferreira responded, leaning back in comfortable conversation.

“Specifically the fact that nobody here on Mars has actually been calling it ‘Launch Site Beta.’”

The commander chuckled. “I suppose we had that coming, didn’t we? The lunar launch site always felt pretty institutional, so it didn’t really occur to anyone to call it anything other than Launch Site Alpha. But here, we’d already had a little more fun naming our settlements after Martians from literature.”

“Dejah Thoris from Rice Burroughs, Gekko from Heinlein, Ylla from Bradbury—”

“And Oyarsa, guardian angel of Mars in Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet.”

“But those are all pretty formal references.”

“Still, it was our own fault for overlooking perhaps the most famous fictitious Martian.”

“And that’s why, informally, Launch Site Beta is…?”

“Cape Marvin.” Ferreira couldn’t help smiling.

“And are there plans in place for a Gamma site, on Ishtar Terra?”

That question threw the commander, and she took a moment to answer thoughtfully. “As much progress as we’ve made ahead of schedule, the idea of using Venus as an outbound launch point to get any further than Daedalus is still severely premature. Commander Townsend is giving us a lot of great data on the effects of Venusian gravity on our crew, and the psychological toll of a four-month day, but he’s still unable to set foot on the actual soil. All construction work is done by autonomous armored drones.”

“But if need be, he does still have the option of the evac capsule.”

“He does,” Ferreira conceded, glad to see the clock indicating the interview was nearly over. “But if he should use it, that’s the end of his time planetside on any planet. He’s the first data we have on the effects of Venus residency, so we have no way to prep him to reintegrate with Earth standards. Just like you and I are here on Mars for the long haul, he’s got Venus or he’s got space. And we’re grateful for that sacrifice.”

***

On the fiftieth anniversary of the completion of Launch Site Alpha, a full media cadre had shown up at the Beta facility to witness the first launch. They crowded near the jetway for the chance to catch a brief interview, even though a massive viewing deck had been set up for a crowd of spectators.

As Landon Diggs approached the entrance to the Ariadne spacecraft, Riahann walked with him, squeezing his hand as the small gaggle of media specialists that acted as the Martian press corps trained their cameras and microphones on them. Both smiled and waved for the images that would be beamed back to Earth.

One of the writers, a fresh-faced woman in a suit, called out, “Mr. Diggs, how does it feel to be the envy of cadets back on Earth and of the people here who won’t get the chance to return?”

Diggs took a moment to look at his wife, returning her wistful half-smile. Having graduated the academy two years before he had, she had been on Mars when the Ariadne missions were first announced, making her ineligible for a return trip. Diggs kissed her softly on the forehead before turning back to the reporter and answering in his Alabama drawl.

“To be honest, it’s weird for me to think that anybody would be jealous of me, even now. I’m just one of six mission specialists selected for Ariadne, and we’ll all be making this same trip in the next few years. I fully plan on coming back at the first opportunity anyway.”

“Still, the first person to make the return flight—it’s a historic accomplishment.”

“I was already the first man to get married on Mars,” he replied, smiling broadly. “You know the only cleric on Mars last summer was a Jesuit monk?”

The reporter nodded. “Father Jorge Cantàn, who founded the ‘Mission to Mars.’”

“We’re both Southern Baptist, so he had to get special dispensation from the Vatican to preside over the ceremony. I think that’s still my proudest accomplishment—and not because we got a blessing from His Holiness Francis III—but because it gives me one very compelling reason to make the biggest journey of my life all over again.”

Someone behind a camera actually let out an “aww” sound, and Diggs nearly laughed out loud. Riahann blushed and turned away.

“If you want to be jealous of anyone, I’ll confess, I’m still jealous of my old roommate at the academy, Adam Townsend.”

“What’s he done that rivals this accomplishment?” a cameraman asked.

“You should know as well as I do,” Diggs said. “Commander on Daedalus VII, pilot of the Icarus lander. First man on the surface of Venus. I envy him a little when I think of the way he’s a true pioneer in a way that I never could be. He’s the one flying off into the sunset; I’m just the first guy to catch the boat back home.”

A technician came down the ramp, signaling that it was time to embark.

Diggs turned, whispering, “Do you know if they’ll be able to hear or see this in Venus orbit?”

“We haven’t heard from Darwin today, but everything’s being buffered; I can guarantee it’ll be available for them.”

“Great, thanks,” he replied, turning back to the cameras. “Adam, if you’re listening, this trip’s for you, brother.”

With that, he walked away from the crowd to the base of the ramp, pausing to turn to Riahann before he had to let go of her hand. “The next trip is just for you,” he said quietly.

“Just come back safe,” she whispered, and then stole a kiss from his lips. “And say hi to sunny Florida for me before you blast off back here.”

The technician took Riahann’s arm and started walking her back down the corridor, back to the viewing deck for the launch.

Diggs watched her go, holding his left hand up and giving a little twist to his wedding ring, a white gold band that matched her own engagement ring, both smuggled in on a previous supply drop. He looked down, smiling as he considered it, then looked up to make sure she had seen. As she slipped into the elevator that would take her to the viewing area, she held her own hand to her collarbone and flashed her ring back. The doors closed, and Diggs climbed into the command module.

T-minus thirty minutes.

***

An alert tone sounded on ARC-7, triggering ARC-2 to synchronize its systems. In order to adjust from atmospheric transit to overland navigation, the drones would need rapid deceleration. So, in perfect unison, hatches opened in the back and something akin to a parachute deployed. The materials necessary to stand up to the Venusian atmosphere dragged the drones down as they caught air and buffeted them back, rather than hanging up as they would have from fabric on Earth, but ARMORER had adjusted for that.

Time to destination: twelve minutes, thirty seconds.

Townsend grabbed the baseball, experimentally tossing it hand to hand. “Braeden, buddy, are you there?” he asked. He’d left the comms open from his end, and it took almost no time for the video feed to be reestablished.

“I’m here,” Bayless confirmed. Then he cocked his head, showing the first sign of amusement in the past three hours. “Where did you get a baseball?”

“It was my roommate’s, back at the Academy. He collected these, just to rub them in my face, because they’d actually been used in playoff games. He gave me this one the day we got our assignment letters.”

“You didn’t play yourself?”

“No, I played football.”

At that, Bayless tried to suppress an actual laugh. “American football? Like, competitively?”

“Backup quarterback. Is there something funny about that?”

“Besides the fact that you’re not built for it? And you’re Canadian?”

“Yeah, well, I heard it was what the girls were into.”

“Sviderskas said once that you played football—I figured she meant soccer, and when she tried to set me straight, I assumed she was joking. I think I owe her twenty quid.”

After a moment considering the quiet, weighing his thoughts, Townsend sighed. “Listen, I was wondering if we could get any of the communications from Mars. Not the Houston comms—I mean the press feeds, the stuff they’ll be watching on Earth.”

A few seconds went by, then Bayless turned back to him. “You know Mars is behind the sun right now—we’ve got flares interfering with the video. We can get the audio feed from Launch Site Alpha, but there’s a lag time of more than ten minutes.”

“I don’t really care. I just want to be able to hear them get away.”

“All right, hold on,” Bayless said, his face disappearing from the display. With a hiss and pop that harkened back to the days of AM and FM radio, the sounds of the Martian press corps filled the small room. Townsend mopped his brow with the handkerchief one more time as he moved back across the chamber to his bed and stretched out to listen.

With only thirty minutes to go before liftoff is scheduled, Mission Specialist Landon Diggs is coming down the jetway now, accompanied by his wife, GP Officer Riahann Miranda.

With a silent flicker, the last bit of picture from the outside blinked out, leaving the “windows” black and dead. Townsend clutched the baseball and closed his eyes. Beyond the sound of the transmissions from Mars, the squeal and shuddering of the module in the storm echoed from one end of the chamber to the other.

Today’s launch will be the culmination of more than a decade of preparation, and will usher in a new era of space exploration that signals it is now safe for our explorers to live on a distant planet and still return home.

ARC-2’s optical sensors picked up a metallic object in the distance that radio triangulation indicated had to be the Icarus lander. It dipped slightly to the right, course-correcting to aim directly for the end housing the damaged escape pod. Beneath, the former lava flow that had been unbroken for thousands of miles leapt skyward, and both drones briefly rose over the crests of the hills before navigating back down.

At seven minutes from destination, Icarus began transmitting data from inside the damaged zone. ARMORER immediately relayed its warnings to Daedalus: the failure of the cooling system had turned the airlock into an oven, and the atmospheric gases that had managed to leak through the seal were expanding.

The drones plunged into a smoke-gray cloud as it rolled over another ridge of hills, losing visual of Icarus. As they dropped below the cloud, they had to adjust to the darkness cast from above, bright yellow fog settling into the color of tarnished gold. Lightning blinded the sensors again every few seconds.

At four minutes, eighteen seconds from destination, audio sensors began to register the shriek of straining metal echoing through the valley. The whole craft shook as the defunct escape pod faltered, fell away from the airlock, and crashed to the ground in a bronze- and copper-colored cloud of dust and ash. Even as it fell, the doors on the other side collapsed inward under the atmospheric pressure. Dents popped, panels sagged, and conduits twisted and wrenched aside, venting air explosively as the atmosphere blew its way inside.

Aboard Daedalus, a cascade of catastrophic system warnings bloomed over every viewscreen as the audio feed continued to stream toward the surface of the planet.

Mr. Diggs, how does it feel to be the envy of cadets back on Earth and of the people here who won’t get the chance to return?

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Tyler Whetstone

Tyler Whetstone identifies with no one in history so much as the author of the Pangur-Ban poem—an Irish-German monk who kept pets and claimed to spend his nights working on books. An instructional designer, occasional voiceover artist and Los Angeles Dodgers fan, he currently lives in Oklahoma with a senior rescue dog and a tabby cat. His short fiction has appeared in DarlingLit, Stygian Lepus magazine and an anthology from Wicked Shadow Press.
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Ω Editor Kara Hawkers

Kara Hawkers

Kara Hawkers is a poet and author of short, dark fiction.

As Editor-in-Chief, Kara devotes most of her time to operating The Ravens Quoth Press, along with her partner.

If left unsupervised, you’ll find her dabbling in other arts.

Just three ravens in a trench coat.

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Ω Editor Dean Shawker

Dean Shawker

Dean Shawker hails from Bracknell, UK, and now lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Dean is co-founder and editor of Black Hare Press.

Having found that his BSc in Bioengineering and BA in Digital Media were as useful in real life as calculus and geometric proofs, Dean now works in commercial non-fiction during the day and moonlights as a minion of the hell hare, Captain Woundwort, in the dark hours.

He writes speculative fiction and dark poetry under the pseudonym Avery Hunter, and edits under the name D. Kershaw.

You’ll usually find him hanging out with the rest of the BHP family in the BHP Facebook group, or here as a servant to the Stygian Lepus.

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Ω Editor Jodi Christensen

Jodi Christensen

Small town Utah is where Jodi calls home. She spends her days in a turn-of-the-century farmhouse, reading, writing, editing, and mentoring other writers. Her daily companions consist of her rambunctious and adorable six-year-old grandson and two rowdy dogs, all of whom bring her great joy.

Jodi has had a love of books for as long as she can remember. As a child, she filled her backpack weekly at the library, devouring story after story and returning the books early to trade for a new stack. She wrote her first adventure at the age of nine, a fanfic Boxcar Children story, and since then, has let her imagination be her guide.

As an author, Jodi writes time travel romance and dark speculative fiction. As an editor, she works on anything and everything that finds its way across her desk. Some of her favorite stories to read, write, and edit include; post-apocalyptic fiction, dystopian stories, and end-of-the-world adventures. She also enjoys dark romance, time travel romance, historicals, and horror stories, particularly the psychological kind. Above all else, she’s a sucker for a great character.

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Ω Editorial Associate Janet Wright

Janet Wright

Janet Wright lives in the wilds of North Yorkshire, UK, where foxes shriek and owls hoot at the bottom of her garden.

An avid reader since childhood, she loves nothing better than to curl up on the sofa and lose herself within the tactile pages of a physical book. She’s open to any genre, though her favorites are historical crime, time travel, and Gothic horror.

She writes short stories and micro fiction under the pseudonym Rosetta Yorke.

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Ω Editorial Associate Elliot Ansell

Elliot Ansell

Elliot Ansell is originally from England, has lived in Argentina, Spain, and Mexico, and now lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico where he is yet to see a flying saucer. He writes speculative fiction and poetry under the name Elliot Pearson. You can find him on Instagram.

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