Pop-Up COVID Graveyard by Jeff Ronci

Jeff Ronci

A working visual artist and writer since 1983, Jeff Ronci has seen his work published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Forbes, The Long Story, Chameleon Chimera: An Anthology of Florida Poets, Locust Shells Journal, and Stonecoast Review; aired on Miami public TV/radio, among other outlets; and displayed in countless public spaces and private homes. An award-winning speech and ghost writer, he holds an MFA in creative writing (fiction) from Florida International University in Miami, his lifelong home. He and his husband are longtime human rights and social justice activists. Jeff’s photoart is available on his website

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

PTSD All Over Again by Jeff Ronci

Jeff Ronci

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

Time to Cut the Cake by Jeff Ronci

Jeff Ronci

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

Squozen by Jeff Ronci

Jeff Ronci

February 6, 2025February 14, 2025

Mother’s Merry Girls – Part One by K. Wallace King

In the spring of 1967, I dropped out of high school, certain I was smarter than anybody else in that low-slung brick building and departed my Midwest home. I put out my thumb on highways and small-town roads with the poetry of Ferlinghetti, music of the dead. and girls with flowers in their hair, my ultimate destination. Though there were other reasons I left the only home I had ever known, Calvin was the tipping point. Black-haired and red-lipped, Calvin was our new minister—an over large-man with a handsome pompadour and a steamed velvet voice. In the pulpit of Tabernacle Presbyterian, he was mesmerizing. When his big hands gripped the lectern tight and his pretty lips pursed like an open kiss, every woman in the congregation leaned forward in her pew.

But down in the church basement, it was me Calvin’s eyes followed, over those hair-sprayed updo’s as they offered him plates of homemade cookies. He could see I was meant for a deep, abiding, soul-scorching love. And soon, it was me he began driving in his Oldsmobile 98 to the field behind the crumbling farmhouse on the dead-end road.

It was in the cornfield, between the fluttering leaves, that Calvin’s groping fingers got stuck in the zipper of my skirt. “Dammit,” he mumbled.

I told myself his fumbling was just his way of coaxing my soul closer to his. “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips,” I recited as Calvin finally extricated his fingers from the zipper.

“What?”

“Prometheus Unbound. We’re reading Shelley in my English class. He’s chained to a rock, and birds are eating his liver.” Calvin’s sweat was dripping into my eyes, so I closed them. His naked chest made a sucking sound when he got off me.

“Are our souls one now?” I asked, opening my eyes to the sun in my face. All I could see of Calvin was a looming, backlit shadow.

“Your soul belongs to Jesus,” he replied, pulling up his pants.

I looked up at him, my skirt still around my waist. “But I want you to have it.” A stick was poking my right thigh as I pulled my skirt down.

On the far side of the cornfield, the school band kept fumbling through the opening bars of The Saints Go Marching In. “Do you love me as much as Jesus?”

“Don’t talk like that. Listen, remember our secret vow?”

“I guess.” I swatted away a fly.

“Do you?”

“Do you love me?”

“Sure. Now stay here until you hear my car leave, okay?”

“Okay.”

I lay there in the cornfield, stick poking, sun blinding, until the I heard the Oldsmobile rumble away.

***

Only a week later, I heard that Calvin had become engaged to Valerie Wiendensocken, my English teacher. When I was seven, her little brother had tried to drown me in the community pool, and her father owned the biggest Cadillac dealership in the state. I cried so much and so hard that my eyes became slits, and my face puffed up like a pumpkin.

I paced the cornfield where we had merged our souls—or at least where I’d offered mine—until I tripped on a rock, falling hard and biting clean through my lip, chipping my front tooth. I sat there in the dirt, blood streaming from my mouth. I guess I swallowed the bit of tooth enamel. All I could think about was how much I hated every Wiendensocken and how much more I hated Calvin.

On hands and knees, I smeared the blood dripping from my lip all over that rock, cursing Calvin to the blank, dumb sky. Then I prayed—not to Jesus (who didn’t love me)—but to the dark angel who had tumbled out of Heaven (he always seemed more interesting, anyway), for real, true love to find me, soul to soul.

When my mother noticed my broken tooth, I refused to go to the dentist. I was marked forever. A visible wound. Like stigmata.

***

One afternoon, I was forced to accompany my grandmother to the hair salon, where I picked up a magazine. What is a Hippie? inquired the cover. Smiling faces adorned with vivid sunbursts danced under a rainbow of dazzling primary colors. The TV news claimed San Francisco was overrun with drugged-out kids in filthy jeans, running amok and setting fires in the streets. But elsewhere, I’d heard it was the capital of poetry, music, and self-expression.

As I flipped through the pages, it was a revelation. Inside, young people were living free. In that moment, I knew that if I didn’t escape my small town, I’d end up baking cookies for other versions of red-lipped lies.

At midnight—which seemed the perfect time for departing one world and entering another—I climbed out of my window and walked three miles to the highway. Until then, the farthest I had ever traveled was to Cincinnati, which my grandmother called The Paris of the Midwest.

As I walked, fallen leaves crunched beneath my shoes. I was really going. “Here I go, going, going,” I whispered to the night sky. It was so dark—no moon. A frigid breeze blew on that April morning before dawn, but I kept walking, head down against the wind. I would get there, hell or high water. Hell was just fine with me; it couldn’t be much worse than what I was leaving behind.

***

The last eight hundred miles were with a trucker who let me sleep in his semi-trailer on the plastic-covered mattresses he was delivering. I managed to lift myself out of my body in exchange. He fed me and didn’t ask questions. If he saw anything reflected back in my eyes, he kept it to himself.

Most of the details of that journey have faded, but I distinctly remember the day the rear doors of the trailer opened, and he said, “We’re here.”

I climbed out into a world smothered in fog. The tops of buildings disappeared as if forgotten, and distant lights blinked on and off through the mist, like winking eyes. Whenever the fog parted, I glimpsed the mammoth bones of the great bridge, only for them to vanish again, as if I’d only dreamed them.

Then the sun rose, hanging on the horizon like a red eye over the churning bay, black as oil in the early light. The fog curled around me as I threw back my head to the seagulls squawking overhead.

“Here I am. I’m here!”

In my happy delirium, I hadn’t noticed the truck’s engine starting. I turned to see the taillights blink before winking out, leaving me alone in an empty warehouse parking lot. It was then I realized that everything I owned in the world—except what I was standing in—was still in the truck.

The mist had turned into a light but determined rain. Within minutes, I was soaked through.

I began walking. Where else could someone wet, friendless, and penniless possibly go but toward a bridge called The Golden Gate?

***

Shivering, water squishing in my shoes, I discovered that the more determinedly I walked toward the bridge, the more it seemed to disappear. At last, the great span was hidden by streets as steep and winding as a rollercoaster. As the rain and mist grew heavier, my exhilaration faded proportionately.

I descended yet another street into a forest of buildings. People rushed past me on the sidewalk, but none wore flowers in their hair. The glimpses of faces under umbrellas were harried or blank. No one paid me the slightest attention. I had been walking for what felt like hours, and by now, I was so drenched I wasn’t sure I hadn’t started to melt.

I was sloshing past a café, its lights glowing bright behind a rain-streaked window, when a young, bearded man with an umbrella stepped out and, astonishingly, spoke to me.

“What a wet little bug you are. Come inside. Let’s get you something warm.”

The rain dripping into my eyes rendered his face a damp blur, but the golden glow from the café window backlit his head like a saint in stained glass. Too tired to argue, I didn’t resist as he guided me by the elbow.

Inside, the café was crowded nearly to bursting, a deluge of chattering voices rising, ebbing, and rising again. People smiled as the bearded man wove me through the crowd, mostly young, though we squeezed past an old woman perched on a stool, smoking the very end of a cigarette. She sucked in deeply and exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. Her dress was dirty and torn, and I couldn’t help but turn my face away at the smell. She was rank, fetid, fusty—but confusingly, after we passed, a faintly pleasant scent lingered. I thought of my grandmother’s old-world roses, so dark red they could almost be black.

The woman didn’t seem to notice me, and I soon forgot her as I was guided to a booth near the back of the café. A tall, eely girl flopped down beside me and began drying my hair with a cloth napkin.

“Drink this,” said someone at my elbow, and I lifted a tiny teacup to my lips. The steam rose into my nose, and I hesitated, overwhelmed.

“Give her sugar.”

Someone dropped a cube of sugar into the strange, thick coffee. I took a sip and almost spat out the bitterness, but the people in the booth were watching, smiling. I forced myself to swallow, though the lump of sugar was still in my mouth. My tongue curled around its sweetness.

“It’s good, real good, isn’t it good?” asked a Black man with glasses, the lenses pink as grapefruit. The people at the table clapped.

“Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine, sunshine,” sang the Black man. “You are my sunshine.”

“Stop rubbing her head, Peppermint,” said a woman in cowboy boots and a green dress. “She’s not a doll.”

“She is, though. Yes, she is a doll,” said another man who had scooted next to me—or more of a boy-man. His head was crowned with an explosion of tight, bright blond curls, and he had only a bit of fuzz on his upper lip. His eyes were so shiny, I wondered if they were made of glass.

“Give me your hand, Doll Girl. I want to marry you.” The boy-man grabbed my hand.

“Dolly Girl,” said the Black man, leaning over my shoulder. Behind the pink lenses, his eyes glittered golden.

“Dolly Girl,” repeated the eely girl, smiling. “I’ll braid your hair with ribbons.”

“Dolly Girl,” whispered the boy-man in my ear. I wanted to pull my hand away, but he was holding it even tighter.

The lights overhead began to flicker, and someone shouted, “It’s time!”

“Lock the door, lock the door,” people chanted. “Time for Her.”

A girl with a red flower in her hair stood up from another table. The crowd parted as she crossed the floor. She placed a hand on my shoulder and looked down into my upturned face. She was beautiful.

I watched, mesmerized, as her lips formed words. They seemed to float in the air, carried by her breath.

I’m your momma

I’m your poppa

I’m your grandma too

I’m breakfast, supper,

Dinner,

All your dreams

Coming true.

You were going

She

Is coming

Coming,

Doll Girl,

For you.

The girl’s hand cupped my chin, and I couldn’t look away. I stared into her black stone eyes. In my mind, the words never and always formed.

“What poems are inside you, Dolly Girl?”

“I don’t—”

She let me go, and it felt as if everything keeping me upright tumbled—click, clack, click—like bones reduced to sticks dropped carelessly on cold, hard ground.

When she moved away from the table, I started to follow, but the boy-man grabbed my wrist.

“Let’s go,” he whispered. But my stomach was fluttering oddly, as though I’d swallowed a jar of moths.

“That’s one of those weird chicks that comes with the old lady,” he said, still gripping my wrist. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Something’s wrong with me,” I tried to tell him, but he pulled harder.

I turned as he opened the door, searching for the beautiful girl with the red flower and black stone eyes. Just before the door closed, I saw her standing beside the raggedy old woman.

K. Wallace King

K. Wallace King’s recent short fiction appears in the August '24 Issue #50 of Cosmic Horror Monthly, The Opiate, Underland Arcana, Chthonic Matter, Nightscript, Orca, and the 2024 double Shirley Jackson Award winning, Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic, an Anthology of Hysteria Fiction, among others. She lives in Hollywood, California, where the handprints of dead dreamers are pressed into the sidewalks.

February 6, 2025February 8, 2025

Acherontic Abyss by Ayaan Fahad

I open the windows,

Welcome the agonizing cold breeze—

It blows

Within my soul.

It casts spells on my mind,

Shows beauty futile to my eyes

For I have gone blind.

I refuse colors,

Poisoning the lavender hyacinths

On life’s barren land.

I snatch a dagger

And stab your pathetic helping hand.

My fingers twist and break,

Refusing to write

For my sanity’s sake.

With my bruised palms I carve

Each verse, a prayer for solace.

A saint worshiping words.

My mind: a labyrinth.

I carve perplex pathways

Leading to chthonic depths;

A vexed abyss

Of an insufferable mind.

I weave mosaics in lunacy.

Seduced by insomnia’s ecstasy.

Starving in famine,

I bathe in sanguine.

Fragments don’t constitute poems,

Call not a heart a home,

Turn yours to stone.

Flesh, Tears, Bone.

Call not a heart your home

You will turn to—

Flesh, Tears, Bone.

Turn to; my beloved graveyard,

Tombstone.

Cut warmth,

Weren’t you born in fire?

Plead paradise,

A demise to unearthly desire.

A tantalizing glimpse.

Walk among shadows—

The light will burn your skin,

Your crimson-stained white linen.

Specter’s entwine my soul.

I step deeper into the void,

Fiat tenebris: dim the light,

Suffocate brains pleading paranoid.

Dismal.

I step deeper into the void—

I fall, paranoid.

Ayaan Fahad

Ayaan Fahad is a poet from Lahore, Pakistan. He aims to write poetry that emotionally resonates with people and captures things left unsaid, incorporating raw emotion within his works.

February 6, 2025February 8, 2025

Man with a White Cane by Christopher Woods

Would you mind if I shared your park bench? No? Thank you, then. Yes, this is quite nice. I love Chapultepec. You must also love it. Am I right? Yes? It keeps us coming back, don’t you think? Like an old song. Yes, that is how I like to imagine it. Like an old song. A kind of lure about it.

Tell me, do you know parks in Europe? No? Well, I’m sorry that you don’t. But if you are very careful, there is still time for that.

Why? Because I have to tell you something. If a bus stops here, pretend you were expecting it. Yes, I am quite sure that this is no ordinary stop. You see, at my age, the unusual becomes the pattern. I have seen or heard most everything.

For now, I can tell you this. I feel quite certain the infamous bus will make a stop here soon. Why? Because I know. Last night, I dreamed it stopped again. Oh, it’s always stopping somewhere, you might say. And I would agree.

This time, however, I saw it. I was, in fact, a kind of witness. I see very well in my dreams. The tired old brain doesn’t forget all the things it has lost. Memories, sight itself, the all of it.

My dreams are the colors of carnivals. I don’t know how it is for the rest of the blind, but when I dream, colors are an electric bright. They intensify. You cannot imagine. Trees are a glowing green fire. Buildings pulse. A compensation, you say? Maybe. You could say that.

But let me tell you about my dream. I was walking down Reforma, taking my usual cane-tapping stroll through the kaleidoscope. Everything lovely. Beyond loveliness, really. A song in my heart. Then, I heard the bus coming. It came close by, then veered away. Passed on.

No stopping for me, of course. But listening to it pass, I decided that, in an odd way, it reminded me of an ambulance. They are always around, you know. They pass you for someone else most of the time. But there’s no doubt that one day or night, one will stop at your door. Or at your feet.

As I was saying, I was old news for the bus. But I knew it would stop for someone else. Unexpectedly, always. But if it should stop here today, there is something I need to ask you. A small favor. Would you be kind enough to lead me up the stairs?

You’re very kind, thank you. Oh, and one more thing. An even smaller request. Don’t lead me so quickly that I might miss a step. Some do, you know, always ready to be rid of a blind man. No, I ask you to do it calmly, like you’ve done it before. A thousand times. There is salvation in this, I assure you.

Salvation? No, the temporal kind, you might say. Some say it’s just as good. But remember this. When we get on the bus, don’t look anyone in the eye. No one. I warn you, don’t look at anything in particular. Do you understand?

No matter how much you might want to look at something, say a woman’s thighs, try to resist.

Why? Because it’s a giveaway, that sort of thing. And the thieves are wise to it. You must be on guard. Always. You must be very careful. If you’re not…

Listen to me. I am not just another madman who floats through this park. I tell you all this for a reason. Once, I too was young. It’s not so impossible to imagine, is it? In fact, I was about your age when it happened. You don’t mind me touching your face, do you? Hands, in my case, are like map readers. It happened, like I said, when I was still young. And on the bus. I had been sitting on a park bench on the other side of Chapultepec. Thinking too much, probably. Worrying. About money, and the fact that I didn’t have much. Or, considering ways to patch things up with my girlfriend. Oh, we were a battlefield, but it kept things molten between us.

Thinking I would buy her some flowers or take her to a film. Thinking so hard that I only vaguely heard the bus approach. The tires squealed and the door swung open. I was young, muddled, and naïve. Unsuspecting. I stood, an uncertain general making plans for peace with my girl. I stood and got on the bus, by God.

By then it was already too late, but I couldn’t know that. The bus pulled away. We moved through the traffic. I saw the park outside the window. Every blink a postcard. Couples walking hand in hand, birds landing in trees, the venders, the very pace of this place. I took it in, the film of it all.

I was such an easy target. They came up on either side of me and held me down. I was powerless. And they did it. They cut out my eyes.

Quickly, so quickly. The film I was watching suddenly turned on its side, blurred, then was gone. There was nothing but blackness. And the promise of much more blackness to come, of course.

Now you understand these dark glasses, and this white cane I call my staff. Who knows, maybe I am some kind of prophet. But this staff doesn’t divide an ocean. No, this staff divides the darkness.

Last night, as I told you, I dreamed about this. About you. I walked through the kaleidoscope of the city. In the park, I decided to sit down and rest. I found a bench, like this one.

I sat and listened to the sounds of traffic. My hearing is so intense. At times, I feel like the avenues are inside my head, that cars are driving on the inside of my skull. It is another kind of compensation, I know.

Then, I heard someone approach. A youthful gait. A young man came and sat down next to me. His greeting was slight and muffled. Uncommitted, so like your own.

I could tell he was thinking hard about something. I could almost hear his thoughts. Money? His girlfriend? We didn’t discuss it. We were both so busy watching our own films. Then, I heard the bus. Coming at us, bearing down hard.

Oh, I knew it wasn’t stopping for me. I was old news. But this young man was unsuspecting, always the best prey. When the bus stopped, he stood, not thinking where he was going. Or what would happen after he took a seat, and the bus began moving again.

That is how my dream ended. Me wanting to tell him, to warn him. I wanted to shake him loose somehow. But I couldn’t. My dreams, no matter how brilliant their colors, always leave me tongue-tied. So, my only choice was to go with him, follow him onto the bus. Later, when the eye thieves were done with him, I could console him. Maybe I could lead him home.

Now, do you understand? Good. Here, take my glasses. I won’t need them. Wear them when the bus stops. Keep looking straight ahead, like I told you. Don’t give yourself away.

With any luck, they’ll think they’re already done with you. Why, if God smiles, they’ll go after someone else.

Christopher Woods

Christopher Woods is a writer and photographer who lives in Chappell Hill, Texas. His photographs can be seen in his Galleries. His photography prompt book for writers, From Vision to Text, is forthcoming from Propertius Press. His novella, Hearts in the Dark, was recently published by Running Wild Press. His poetry chapbook, What Comes, What Goes, was published by Kelsay Books.

February 6, 2025February 8, 2025

The Bones by D. Bedell

One

September rains christened the old cemetery with a bleakness that blackened the gravestones, tumbling among the trees that had grown wild with neglect. The sporadic communion of sun did little to dispel the clinging mist and refused to warm the ossuaries of the once proudly provident, now in impoverished exile. To Vasquez, a Sage of the Charon Order, it felt like the breath of a lover in a dream.

The crumbling house across the narrow dirt road leading from the cemetery to the town still had remnants of furniture. Vasquez sat in a tattered brocade loveseat he had pulled to the unbroken window. The rivulets of the day’s drizzle etched the glass, blurring his vision of the stone sentinels marking passages. His damp clothes added to the mustiness of the deserted homestead, avoided by the righteous as an unnatural place, likely cursed by sins it had witnessed. He did not believe in curses, nor that the unnatural was suspect. Still, he always felt some uneasiness with the dead—the province of his Order.

Maybe it’s all the same. Fifty-fifty.

Long shadows wove light and rain into ominous veils. It was twilight, and the fire he had made from broken furniture scraps sent tendrils of steam rising from his clothes. The fireplace drew well, and flickering light cast his outline on the parlor wall, a note on a score unplayed.

He waited.

Two

The cemetery’s namesake began as a rough clapboard village. Six months after the first board was nailed, the cemetery made it settled country. The town disappeared after a virulent flood, and graves routed by the Acheron torrent testified to the diaspora, the dead unsettled in their wandering, unmoored without the stones above to anchor them.

Vasquez felt welcome in the parlor—built by a prominent pioneer as a practical display of the prosperity of the time. Over the years, it was a house beset no less by the elements than the eccentric excesses of its occupants. The cemetery across the road completed its reputation as a place where haunts quibbled in the darkness.

The first guests glimmered by the fireplace—a couple flowing in and out of the flames with practiced familiarity. Vasquez watched the parlor fill with ageless apparitions, gathered for their appointment in the ruins of Samarra. He wondered if he should move the loveseat out of the way so the dead would conduct their orchestrations unimpeded—a poltergeist parody of indifferent serenades, unheard in the susurrations of the living. With languid jest, Vasquez crossed himself, a nod to the old traditions of the Order.

Not serious, yet.

Still, the prescience of a prudent seer led him to pull his necklace from under his shirt, letting the reliquary rest above his heart. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a pack of Chesterfields and a book of matches. The exhaled smoke bloomed into the parlor, wavering among the glimmers. He placed the pack and matches on the loveseat, an offering should any guest want a smoke.

The rain had stopped, and the night grew cool, anticipating the coming October frost. Vasquez added another chair to the fire, and the glimmers seemed glad of the glow, gliding in the aura unfelt. Moonlight remained elusive, hidden behind clouds lingering on a small wind.

Peaceful.

It was time to dig up the guest.

Three

The graveyard was wet, the shovel hissing softly as it cut through the damp layer of leaves. The dirt got drier closer to where the coffin should be. Opening the casket was the least favorite part of the ritual for Vazquez. Most remains were bare bones and dust, but sometimes the desiccated skin cling like parchment, crumbling and tearing in his hands, leaving a taint that lingered. There was only one guest to free tonight; the parlor was already crowded with gossamer revelers drawn by his invitation.

His shovel struck the rotting wood of the temporary tomb. Clearing the dirt away, he found the lid’s edge and pried it open. It disintegrated in his grip, collapsing into the box and showering its contents with debris. He reached inside, pulling the remains from the grave and stacking them carefully beside it. The bones gleamed white through shreds of tattered, moldy clothing under the fleeting moonlight. Satisfied, Vasquez climbed out of the hole, carrying the bones across the road to the parlor, leaving the shovel behind for next time.

The fire had burned to embers. He placed the bones on the loveseat, then added a table leg to the fireplace. The wood began to smoke, and he leaned in, blowing softly on the coals. Three breaths, and a flame flickered to life. He fed it more wood, stoking the fire in preparation for the ritual.

It was the ritual to establish a place for the unsettled dead to anchor their essence. The glimmers in the parlor bore witness to his success in the unnatural awakening. Vasquez worked with quiet confidence, preparing the bones and cleaning them to bareness with his hands.

The bones cracked as they burned, releasing the spirit from the last stygian tentacles of mortality. Vasquez settled into the loveseat, his gaze falling to the empty pack of Chesterfields and the spent matches scattered on the floor. He smiled.

Good to know.

D. Bedell

D Bedell is a former naval officer and defense industry technical editor. He has a B.A. in Writing from Missouri State University and an M.S. from the Center for Defense and Strategic Studies. He lives in Florida and writes expository fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in Floyd County Moonshine, Susurrus-A Literary Arts Magazine of the American South, Veterans’ Voices, 7th Circle Pyrite, and SciFanSat.

February 6, 2025February 8, 2025

Niece by Jennifer Ruth Jackson

I see her. The mirror’s mouth yawns into the past. She’s twirling from the ceiling (no chandelier, all necktie) looking forward like a motivational poster. I touch the gilded edge; reflection becomes a photograph, becomes an invitation, becomes temptation. She runs her swollen tongue over blue lips. She croaks out a word, then cackles. The glass begins to crack. I trace the lines and cut my finger. I repeat the motions twice more. She rocks like a metronome, swaying toward me. Her palms reach out to tap the wall. A bang, a firecracker of a knock, sounds near my head. The shards rattle and tinkle in their positions like ice in bourbon. One more swing and she’ll be free. I see her face through my blood smears, track her flowing dress and waggling tongue, and grab the blessed pendant just out of view. She pauses like a VHS tape, palms inches from the mirror. She careens backward like a wrecking ball, and her wordless shriek sets off my tinnitus better than a gun fired in a vehicle. Her red-lightning eyes bulge with rage and lack of oxygen. Her hands clench into fists. She thrashes like a fish on the line. But I can’t free her. I mouth the words she knows by non-beating heart, the words she’d rip from my vocal cords if ever she is out. Forgive me, Aunt Josephine.

Jennifer Ruth Jackson

Jennifer Ruth Jackson is a poet and fictionist with cerebral palsy. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Algebra of Owls, Apex Magazine, and more. Domestic Bodies, her literary poetry collection, came out in 2023 from Querencia Press. When she isn't writing (or engaging in activism), you can find her crafting a variety of things or playing video games with her husband. Follow her on Bluesky and Instagram.

February 6, 2025February 14, 2025

Not an Exorcism by Martin Lochman

The house didn’t look like the kind of place one would imagine could be haunted. Sure, it wasn’t that malicious supernatural elements resided exclusively in decrepit manors, generational farmhouses in the middle of the fields, or abandoned psychiatric hospitals built at the turn of the last century, but the idea that they would manifest in a modern, two-story, cul-de-sac building with solar panels on the roof, a perfectly trimmed yard, and a newly laid driveway was simply difficult to accept. On the other hand, the mere existence of ghosts was, by definition, a largely unexplored territory, so closing your mind to eventualities, however improbable, was a pretty short-sighted strategy.

Robert pulled into the driveway behind a brand new Škoda Kodiaq that made him feel a little more self-conscious than he would have liked, and switched off the engine. Pulling down the sun visor, he checked his appearance in the little embedded mirror. Bloodshot sclera, dark circles under the eyes, hair that stuck out in all directions—he objectively looked like crap. For a fleeting moment, he caught himself wondering what the clients were going to make of his appearance, but then dismissed the thought as inconsequential. They were desperate—they probably wouldn’t care if he showed up buck naked as long as he helped them get rid of their problem.

And he was dead certain he could do that.

He pushed the sun visor back up and flinched. A man in a plain white t-shirt and black sweatpants stood right in front of his car, staring through the windshield at Robert. It took Robert a good couple of seconds to realize that the strange look in the man’s eyes was actually unabridged hopelessness.

“Mr. Kadlec?” Robert asked carefully as he got out of the car.

The man frowned as if he was trying to recall something important, then blinked and slowly nodded.

“Hi, I’m Robert. We spoke on the phone?”

Kadlec’s features brightened, and he started toward Robert with his right hand extended in front of him. “Oh, yes. You are the exorcist.”

“Not quite,” Robert said as he accepted his counterpart’s hand. Kadlec had a firm grip, though he clearly didn’t know when to let go. He would probably have kept shaking hands forever if Robert hadn’t indicated the house behind him with his chin and suggested, “Shall we?”

“Of course. Please, come in.”

Kadlec led Robert through the main door and into a spacious living room with the view of a small garden behind the house. The first thing Robert noticed—was assaulted by, really—was the smell. Rather than being localized in one specific spot, it permeated every cubic centimeter of air with the same unyielding intensity. Robert recognized it, naturally—it was the stench of the world beyond seeping into our dimension—though that didn’t make it any more bearable.

The second thing that came to his attention was the overall state of the room. It stood in stark contrast to the meticulous facade that could be seen outside. The walls and the ceiling were filled with scratches and stains that resembled mold, the furniture was cracked and splintered, with the upholstery on the couch slashed open. In a nutshell, Robert had been to drug dens that looked better than this.

Finally, his eyes rested on a woman who stood in front of a large painting suspended on one of the walls. She was facing away from both men as they entered the room, and since she was wearing a tank top, Robert easily made out scratches and bruises across her upper back and neck.

“Honey?” Kadlec said gently.

She recoiled as if he had just touched her with a hot iron, but didn’t turn around.

“It’s looking at me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

The two men approached her from the side. Robert glanced at the painting—it depicted a rural house by the river, with lush green forests and snow-covered mountains in the background. A beautiful, evocative work of art by any standard, but the exquisite detail with which its author treated the canvas wasn’t the most notable thing about it at the moment.

No, that label belonged to something that had never been part of the painting in the first place: a terrifying, distorted face in one of the windows of the house. Robert leaned closer without obstructing the woman’s view, and several seconds later, the eyes, as red as blood, slowly blinked and looked straight at him.

The woman—future Mrs. Kadlec, if Robert remembered correctly from the frantic conversation with her fiancé—finally broke her intense gaze and registered Robert.

“Hi. My name is Robert Wain, but please call me Robert.”

“Hello,” she spoke, a bit louder than before, but still below what Robert considered normal conversational loudness. As she met his eyes, he was only slightly surprised by the empty, detached look in them. Trauma had a tendency of extinguishing life, hope, and everything positive, stripping people down to mere shells of their former selves, and by all indications, this poor woman had been through a great deal of it.

For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something else, but she remained quiet.

Robert waited until her stare passed the uncomfortable mark, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, I am here to—”

“He’s the exorcist!” Kadlec exclaimed, and Robert stifled the urge to roll his eyes. No matter how many times and in how many different ways he tried to explain that what he did had nothing to do with sending evil spirits back into their natural dimension, people just didn’t seem to understand.

“Sure,” he said, forcing a reassuring smile.

Kadlec shifted from one foot to the other and licked his lips.

“Thank you again for coming,” he said afterward. “We have tried everything we could think of—spilling salt everywhere, putting up crystals and tokens, offering sacrifice. We even had a priest from the local parish cleanse the house. Nothing worked. And it’s only getting worse.”

He paused, wrapping his arm protectively around his fiancée, careful to avoid the bruises.

“It attacked us last night,” he continued. “Pulled Milena straight from the bed and dragged her around. I tried to stop it, but…”

Robert nodded. As much as what his clients were experiencing fell into the category of unknown and unknowable, there was a pre-established pattern—or a timeline, if you will—that these supernatural occurrences largely followed. They began as something that could be easily dismissed or overlooked: sudden drafts, flickering lights, knocked over vases, or brief sounds that couldn’t quite be localized. After this introductory period, the duration of which was contingent on, among other things, the number of people living on the haunted property, the symptoms intensified to the point where the presence of an otherworldly entity became undeniable. It wouldn’t affect the inhabitants physically, at least not directly, but it would certainly test the limits of their mental health (plus, if someone had a weak heart, the consequences could indeed be tangible).

The third stage was when matters turned from bad to worse. Depending on the degree of malice toward the ordinarily living (there was no such thing as a good spirit), an entity would either “only” stick to a systematic destruction of the dwelling or also start harming its inhabitants.

The Kadlecs were clearly suffering from a particularly nasty case of stage three.

“Maybe we should sit down,” Robert said and indicated the dilapidated couch and armchair on the other side of the room.

Kadlec nodded and gently steered his fiancée away from the painting. Robert gave the horrifying face on the canvas one last look—it blinked again and grinned, showing shark-like teeth—and followed them.

The couple collapsed onto the couch, which squeaked in protest, only for Kadlec to get to his feet again.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners?” he told Robert, who sat down in the armchair. “Can I get you anything?”

Robert shot a glance at the liquor cabinet in the corner. Unlike the rest of the furniture, it appeared to have been spared the spirit’s rampage, and its content was clearly of the expensive variety. He could do with a glass of something neat and strong to numb the nerves for what lay ahead. Two fingers, or maybe only one, just enough to—

He shook his head, using every ounce of his willpower to stifle the growing urge.

“I’m good, thanks,” he said, smiling amiably.

Kadlec wordlessly acknowledged his reply and sat back down. He put his hands on his knees, rubbed them for a couple of seconds, then folded them across his chest. Nervousness competed with impatience in his features.

“So, how does this work?” Kadlec asked after shooting a glance at Milena. “Do you have specialized tools, like the board—what’s it called?”

“A spirit board?” Robert said and shook his head. “No. I am not here to negotiate with the spirit, or send it back to where it came from. I am here to destroy it, once and for all.”

Kadlec frowned.

“But how can you do that if you can’t—”

“Touch it?” Robert smiled. “You’re absolutely right. Nothing can hurt it in its current form, because it’s not playing by our rules. But if I make it play by those rules, make it obey the laws of our reality, then it will be just as vulnerable as you and I.”

The frown on Kadlec’s face eased somewhat, but the narrow line between his brow remained.

“The reason…” Robert wracked his brain for a better explanation. “…the entity can operate in the way it does is because it’s not fully in our world. It’s reaching in, but it’s still anchored in that other…place. I can pull it here entirely, make it tangible, and most importantly, killable.”

“How?” Kadlec asked dubiously.

“In short, I have a gift,” Robert said, hoping it hadn’t come out sounding too sarcastic.

The truth was that while it paid his bills and maybe even allowed him to save some money for a rainy day in an economy that saw unemployment reach unprecedented levels, his ability was far from a positive aspect of his continuous existence. Ever since it had first manifested in his early twenties, he couldn’t sleep—at least not without external help, which was problematic in and of itself—and he couldn’t hang on to a meaningful relationship for longer than a few days. The unorthodox nature of his exploits also tended to attract the attention of unsavory characters on both sides of the law, forcing him into situations he didn’t have a lick of interest in being in.

On the other hand, he would have hesitated to call it a curse—at least for the time being.

“Like a sixth sense?”

Robert chuckled despite himself—four out of five of his clients referenced the famous film when he was explaining what he could do. Personally, he didn’t understand what the fuss was all about. Sure, there was a nice twist at the end that almost no one saw coming, but other than that, it was a rather mediocre horror flick.

“More or less,” he said. “Except apart from just seeing the ghosts, I can also punch them.”

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his hunting knife, its blade hidden in a worn-out leather sheath. Alarm flashed in Kadlec’s eyes; Milena, conversely, didn’t so much as flinch.

“What are you going to do with that?” Kadlec asked.

“I did mention I was going to kill the spirit, didn’t I?” Robert pulled the blade out of the sheath, checked both sides, and put it back in. “I’d prefer to shoot it, but it’s difficult to get a gun these days. The new laws and everything.”

Kadlec nodded, but Robert could see the doubt gnawing at the man as clear as day.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” Robert said, setting the knife on the coffee table in front of him. “It’s not murder. Yes, the spirit will look and possibly sound like a human being, but trust me, it’s far from it. Hell, it doesn’t even bleed—at least not in the conventional sense.”

Kadlec looked at Milena, but the woman’s gaze was fixed on the painting again. He licked his lips, then sucked in a breath through his teeth. He was clearly one of those people who was afraid to take any action for fear of potential consequences, even if the said action was bound to make their life considerably better.

Robert frankly hated working with those—not because they balked at the slightest sign of difficulty, but because by the time their nature became apparent, it was too late for him to back out of the deal.

“Listen,” Robert said sharply. “This thing destroyed your home, attacked your future wife. And it’s only getting started. If we let it, it’ll do much, much worse.”

He wasn’t exaggerating, at least not by a lot—though less common, spirits were known to cause mortal injuries or drive people to suicide when no action was taken against them. Some experts in the field (as much as the paranormal and everything surrounding it could be considered as such) were also convinced that there was a stage four of the spectral incursion, during which the spirits actually possessed their victims, suppressing or completely annihilating their consciousness, but to date, none of them had been able to provide a shred of concrete evidence beyond poorly documented cases that could be easily explained as temporary mental episodes.

Robert himself wasn’t sure which side of the debate he was leaning toward more. Lack of legitimate evidence aside, possession didn’t make much sense from a practical perspective. Why would a spirit want to confine itself in a meatsuit that, by design, severely limited its options in terms of influencing the world around it when it could remain intangible and continue building its power and reach? Then again, wasn’t it a mistake to assume that the spirits’ motivations were anything like those of humans?

Robert’s stern tone finally snapped Kadlec out of his indecisiveness. He clasped his hands together and squeezed until his knuckles turned white, then said, “Okay, so I stab the thing when it appears?”

“If everything goes well, I’ll be doing the stabbing,” Robert said. “But the spirits struggle, and sometimes, it becomes very difficult for me to pull them in. It drains me both physically and mentally. If that happens, I will need you to step in. Either kill it yourself—I recommend going for the neck—or hold it down long enough for me to get my bearings. You are a big guy, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Kadlec slowly nodded, evidently trying to visualize the scenario in his head. He looked around the room, then at Robert, that crease between his brows making a comeback.

“Where will it appear?” he asked.

“Somewhere close,” Robert made a wide sweeping gesture with his hand. “I cannot materialize it in a precise location, down to a centimeter, but it will definitely be in the living room.”

“Okay,” Kadlec said, his voice considerably firmer than before. He exhaled loudly and stood up. “Should we get started then?”

Look at that, there might be some fight in you yet, flashed through Robert’s head, but the smile he gave Kadlec was nothing but sincere. Robert briefly considered Milena—she had been quiet throughout their entire exchange. Last night’s incident that Kadlec had mentioned earlier must have really done a number on her.

With Kadlec standing next to the couch akin to an attack dog ready to be let off his leash, Robert cracked his neck, relaxed his arms and legs, and leaned back in the armchair. He took a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, then closed his eyes, focusing on blocking out the stimuli of the physical world around him and opening his mind to everything and anything that wasn’t part of it.

He reached out, carefully at first, like dipping his fingers in water of an unknown temperature. The spirit was there, just at the edge of his grasp. It was small—smaller and weaker than it had any right to be, considering both the damage it had caused and the aura, for the lack of a better word, that surrounded it—but that wasn’t the only thing that made Robert pause. The supernatural entity also didn’t react the way it was supposed to upon contact. It didn’t recoil, retreat, or push back, and there was no discernible feeling of surprise or curiosity from its side that usually accompanied the reaction. Whichever it was, it simply remained in place, like it didn’t care what Robert intended to do to it.

He shifted closer, ready to drive his mental hooks into a body that wasn’t really a body, but the spirit still didn’t move. What the hell was it doing? Playing possum? That didn’t make sense. Why would it feign death or incapacitation when it could easily fall back to its home realm?

Unless it’s bait.

The thought manifested somewhat lazily, a gentle suggestion somewhere at the back of his head that first struggled to get the full attention of his conscious mind, but ultimately hit him like an avalanche.

A chill ran down his spine, and his focus slipped. For a moment, the lines between physical reality and the world-in-between-the-worlds blurred. Kadlec was saying something, and even though Robert was unable to make out the words, the mixture of surprise and horror underlying his voice was enough to let him know that something was really wrong.

He opened his eyes.

The scene made no sense to him at that moment, but his lizard brain identified the impending danger a split second before the knife made contact with his body. He didn’t have time to evade it completely, but he managed to shift in the chair just enough so that instead of his heart, the silver blade ended up in his shoulder.

The pain was excruciating, nonetheless.

While he cried out in agony, Milena, her blank stare completely disconnected from the current situation, yanked the knife out of the wound. It hurt even more than when it went in a moment ago.

She was about to stab him again when Kadlec grabbed her knife-wielding arm by the wrist.

“Milena, honey, what are you doing?” he asked, and it dawned on Robert that this wasn’t the first time Kadlec posed that question.

She turned to look at her fiancé, and while Robert couldn’t see her face from where he was sitting, Kadlec’s was an open book. Shock mixed with disbelief and the first echoes of unadulterated fear, and when he addressed her again, his voice took on a whiny undertone.

“That’s. Not. Milena,” Robert said through gritted teeth. His shoulder was on fire, rendering his entire arm completely unusable.

“What?” Kadlec looked at him, his expression a textbook definition of dumbfounded.

If they had time, Robert would have gladly explained at length what he himself had realized the moment his knife had ended up lodged in his body. That there were two spirits, not one, hence why the aura had felt so off. That possession as a stage four was a real thing. That his ability clearly had limitations, because he hadn’t detected the spirit currently pulling Milena’s strings.

And most importantly, that for the first time since he could remember, he was, without a shadow of a doubt, way in over his head.

But there wasn’t time for any of that, because not-Milena was taking advantage of Kadlec’s confusion. Instead of wrestling her hand free of his grasp, she reached for the knife with her other hand, and in one fluid, horrifying motion, drove it just below his ribs.

Contrary to Robert’s expectations, Kadlec’s only audible reaction was a quiet gasp, though admittedly, that small sound perfectly encapsulated the slew of emotions he must have been experiencing at that nerve-wracking moment. Surprise turned to incredulity, turned to horror, as not-Milena withdrew the knife and he staggered back, looking down at the wound that was already bleeding profusely. He had enough presence of mind to put pressure on it with his hands before he collapsed on the floor in the middle of the living room.

Not-Milena looked back at Robert. There was something in her gaze that hadn’t been there before—a glint that he couldn’t quite decipher—but it disappeared with her next blink. She raised the knife, her intentions crystal clear.

“Shit!”

Out of options, he pushed off from the floor with his feet and leaned back, knocking the armchair over. The maneuver didn’t go exactly as he wanted it to—he slammed the back of his head against the hard ceramic and painfully twisted his injured arm when rolling out of the armchair—but at least he hadn’t ended up being stabbed again.

Still, by the time he scrambled to a somewhat upright position, not-Milena had crossed the distance separating them and was thrusting the weapon in the direction of his abdomen. Fortunately, the spirit didn’t seem to have a lot of experience with knife fighting, or driving the meatsuit wasn’t as easy as one would assume, because its attacks were rather straightforward so far. That, of course, didn’t mean they were any less lethal, just that he had a fighting chance to evade them.

As he staggered back, the blade having narrowly missed his torso, he risked a quick glance around. The door to the small hallway and the main entrance at the end of it was diagonally to his right, too far away to reach safely, but the door to the adjacent kitchen combined with a dining room was basically within an arm’s reach to his left.

Kitchen it is.

The room, which was, just like the rest of the house, equipped with ridiculously expensive furniture and appliances in varying degrees of damage and decay, featured, among other things, a rectangular table with chairs surrounding it in the middle. Robert learned of its existence by first bumping into it with his back, and once he pivoted to the side and recognized what it was, its tactical value became instantly apparent. He knocked over one of the chairs to slow not-Milena down and rushed around, putting the table between himself and his assailant.

Twice she lunged to the side to get to him, but in both cases, he mirrored her movement, maintaining the stalemate. As far as he could tell, the spirit was indeed limited by the physical characteristics of the body it was inhabiting, which was also probably why it had waited for the right moment to attack Robert, rather than doing so on sight. Not that it would do him much good now—he basically had only one usable arm—but at least not-Milena wasn’t going to jump over the table in one leap, or throw it aside.

So, if she can’t do anything…

He realized he had completely forgotten about the other spirit a second before a porcelain mug with the words Finish Me Off written on it took off from the table and bumped into his head. The impact wasn’t strong enough to shatter it, nor cause Robert real injury, but it distracted him long enough for not-Milena to get halfway to him.

He swore again and attempted to gain the lost distance, only to trip on a wooden cutting board that most definitely hadn’t been there before.

He landed harder than from the armchair earlier, but he knew he couldn’t let the agony shooting through his upper body paralyze him. Breathing hard, he rolled onto his back. Not-Milena was already advancing toward him, the knife—his goddamn knife—raised in an icepick grip above her head.

He waited until she was almost on top of him, then kicked as hard as he could, connecting with her midsection. The spirit inside Milena might have been immune to kinetic energy and laws of physics in general, but her body certainly was not, and she was knocked back, crashing into the chairs by the table and onto the floor.

Robert allowed himself a long second to feel wrong about his counter-offense—after all, he had never hit a woman in his life—then scrambled to his feet. He wanted to run, but his lungs were on fire, his legs full of lead, so the best he managed was an unsteady wobble.

Heading back into the living room, then the hallway with the main door beyond, he was intent on getting to the relative safety of his car. He had no idea what he would do after that—call the police, or an exorcist, since this actually was right up their alley—and he didn’t care, as long as he got out of the house alive.

He made it five steps before the second spirit tripped him again, this time with a small wooden statue of Buddha he remembered seeing on a shelf next to the painting when he had entered the living room. To add insult to injury, as soon as he fell on the floor, beside himself with pain, the little Buddha clocked him from the side right below the eye. Stars erupted in his vision; he blindly reached out to seize the statue and break it to pieces, only to find something soft and pliable instead.

He withdrew his uninjured arm and used it to prop himself up. Blinking rapidly got rid of the stars enough that he could see more clearly, and he discovered he was lying next to Kadlec’s body.

The big guy lay on his back, his face frozen in a permanent expression of disbelief and panic. His hands were still on the wound—the poor bastard had probably fought to the last moment to stop the bleeding, even though he must have known that absent external help, he had no chance in hell succeeding.

Get up and go, get out of here, a voice inside Robert’s head yelled at him, but despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he reacted somewhat reluctantly. He was halfway through the motion when not-Milena appeared right in front of him and knocked him back down. Before he could do anything, anything at all, she was on top of him, pinning him to the floor, the blade on an unmistakable descending trajectory.

Time seemed to have slowed down, and Robert’s perception of the situation shifted—he was suddenly an uninvolved observer, watching himself from an unspecified angle. An arm was raised to meet the knife above the body, but it wasn’t his arm or body, not entirely. There might or might not have been a sharp sound originating in his throat. A cry, a curse, or something else? He wasn’t sure. It felt as if the body on the ground wasn’t his, yet at the same time, a thread stronger than the universe itself bound him to it. Was this what dying was like? Where was the highlight reel of the defining moments of his life? The light at the end of the tunnel? Were those going to manifest only once the knife found its way to the vital organs beneath the laughably delicate tissue?

The eerie experience lasted until it became clear that he was wrong, and he wasn’t going to die, at least not just yet.

“Jakub?”

Her voice, filled with terror and a half dozen related, wholly negative emotions, snapped Robert’s senses back to the status quo. He hesitantly lowered his hand, while keeping his eyes on the knife that was now suspended in midair, like a physical manifestation of the sword of Damocles. Milena—and Robert was sure that it was really her in the driver’s seat at the moment—followed his gaze, her expression growing even more petrified as she scanned the weapon.

“Oh, God!” she whimpered, looking back at Robert and then at Kadlec’s body next to him. “Oh, my God. What have I done?”

“It wasn’t you,” Robert said gently and wiggled around slightly. She took the hint and moved off him, sitting on the floor.

“I killed him,” she said quietly, and the rise in intonation at the sentence made it sound like a question.

“It wasn’t you,” Robert repeated, a bit more firmly this time. “Listen to me, Milena. It. Wasn’t. You! You were under control of a malicious…entity. A spirit. It killed Jakub. Not you.”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowing in focus, and it was as if he was seeing her for the first time. The dim lighting of the room—it was getting dark outside—cast shadows under her eyes, yet she somehow appeared more alive, more genuine than before. Fragile. Robert felt a sudden urge to embrace her, but she was still holding the knife, and he didn’t want to do anything that might prompt her to use it, even if unintentionally.

“They are angry with you,” she said in a low voice, and a sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. “So angry. They…” She looked away from Robert for a moment, then back at him. “They want you dead.”

“Why?”

It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say, but the syllable got out of his throat completely on its own account. An instinctive reaction, like hands going up to meet a punch.

You know why, a part of him—the part that he didn’t at all want to listen to—said, and he gritted his teeth to prevent nausea from overtaking him. Over the years, he had spent more than enough time thinking about his ability and exactly what he was doing with it; he had considered both from every angle and in every context imaginable. One thing he had always glossed over, however, had to do with the consequences—not for him or the people he helped, but for the other side. After all, the world, his world, had stayed exactly the same whenever he was done. Nothing had been added, nothing had been subtracted, so why worry?

Except the other side had clearly had enough.

Milena snapped her head to the side, as if she had just heard a particularly intriguing noise.

“Milena?”

She ignored him at first, and only as he addressed her again, his voice tinged with urgency, did she turn back to him. Her eyes were wide with fear and something much more sinister.

“It’s still in me, isn’t it?” she said slowly.

“I…” Robert hesitated. The truth was, he didn’t know. It made sense that the spirit was indeed still in the meatsuit, having been momentarily stripped of control by Milena for one reason or another (the sight of Kadlec’s corpse providing a spike in willpower seemed most likely), though he had no way to confirm that. Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely true—if the entity was actually out of her body, he would be able to sense it with his ability if he focused hard enough, but he was extremely hesitant to do it, with the knife still very much in play.

“Yes, it is,” he said and quickly added, “But don’t worry. We’ll figure something—”

“It killed him,” she said, and Robert was taken aback by how firm she sounded all of a sudden. “But it won’t kill anyone again.”

She looked at the knife, and he felt his pulse quicken, adrenaline once again kicking in. It was only when she transferred it to her other hand, switching to the point-up grip with the sharp edge facing her, that he understood she wasn’t planning on attacking him. Just as he yelled out, “No!” she raised her arm and in one fluid motion ran the blade across her neck.

Robert had stabbed and slashed dozens, if not hundreds, of spirits in the past two decades. He had felt them struggle and writhe and thrash in his grasp as he delivered the killing blows. He had gotten pieces of the weird approximation of flesh and guts his ability manifested on him countless times. None of that compared to the horrifying, visceral reality of watching Milena bleed to death right in front of him. This whole thing had gone wrong, so terribly fucking wrong, and he couldn’t deal with it.

Bile rose in his throat, and he vomited around the same time Milena collapsed next to her fiancé. When there was nothing more he could expel, he dragged himself to the nearest wall and leaned with his back against it, his throat raw and his mind empty.

He had no idea how long he stayed like that, a living statue in the company of the dead. Space and time had lost all meaning, and the only thing that remained was the steady sound of his breathing.

What eventually roused him out of this state of timeless non-existence was the pain in his injured shoulder. He ignored it at first, but it throbbed and burned, pressing uncomfortably against his awareness. He relaxed his arm completely, hoping to mitigate the agony, but the effect was minimal.

Coming to the inevitable conclusion that the injury wouldn’t get better on its own, he got to his unsteady feet. He had never felt so awful, not only physically, but especially mentally. Two people were dead, and as much as he tried to reason otherwise, he had played a significant role in their demise. If he had decided to sit this gig out, or if he had paid more attention to Milena’s unusual behavior after his arrival, then maybe…

“I’m sorry,” he told the corpses. He barely even recognized his own voice—it sounded hoarse and dry, like it belonged to someone much older.

“I am so sorry,” he repeated, and it dawned on him that he had no idea what he was going to do next. He was tempted to simply leave; get into his car and drive as far away from here as possible, but his fingerprints, blood, his damn puke were all over the place. Hell, it was his knife that had killed two people. On the other hand, how was he going to explain any of what had happened to the police? It’s not like he could tell them the whole truth—that would earn him a one-way ticket to the nuthouse at best.

At worst? He didn’t even want to imagine.

Desperation welled up within him as his mind frantically scrambled for a way out, even though intellectually, he knew full well there was none.

Then his eyes landed on the little Buddha on the floor a handful of steps away, and that desperation mutated into rage. The big spirit might have been out of play, dead along with Milena, trapped in her corpse, or otherwise incapacitated—Robert was convinced it was one of the three simply because if the otherworldly community was indeed as angry with him as the future Mrs. Kadlec had said, he should have had loose objects from the entire house falling down on his head the second she had taken her last breath—but maybe the little bastard that had baited him and tripped him was still around. If that was the case—and he really hoped it was—he was going to pull it out and beat it into oblivion, if that was the last thing he would ever do.

He picked the statue up, feeling its weight in his hand. It wasn’t as heavy as he had originally thought, but he didn’t mind—it meant it wouldn’t be over too quickly.

He walked over to the sofa, ignoring the knocked-over armchair, and sat down. Giving the Buddha one last squeeze, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Using his ability wasn’t quite the same as flipping a switch, but there was a reassuring familiarity to it that made the process smooth and almost soothing, regardless of the circumstances.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

The pessimist in him had braced for disappointment, but the small spirit was still there. A rush of excitement swept through him as he reached for it—this time, however, it scuttled away at the last moment. Robert didn’t mind. On the contrary, it appealed to the blood-thirsty hunter in him.

He repeatedly attempted to seize the spirit and yank it into the real world, yet every time, it evaded his efforts. What had begun as an exciting game became an exercise in futility until he had to begrudgingly admit that it wasn’t scared or trying to escape. It was toying with him.

And that made him even angrier.

After the spirit had slipped from his grasp once again, he furiously followed it, pushing his ability to the absolute limit. He reached out further than ever before, way past what he thought himself capable of, until what was connecting him to his body and the world, his world, was nothing but a footnote at the edge of his consciousness. Even though he couldn’t use his senses, he knew he was getting closer to the boundary between the dimensions. Perhaps the spirit wanted to flee back to its native realm after all?

Not today, flashed through his head as he finally seized it, a feeling of triumph briefly overshadowing everything else. Just one more moment and he could express the volatile concoction of emotions impatiently bubbling under the surface.

Just one more moment and—

Robert was about to materialize his catch when something impossibly strong breached the boundary, enveloped his mind, and in one swift motion, pulled him into the world beyond.

***

If he still had lungs, vocal cords, and a mouth, he would have yelled himself hoarse. If he had his arms and legs, he would have kicked and punched and scratched, until his fingers and knuckles bled. In the non-space where he currently found himself, which was defined by the absolute absence of everything he could conceptualize, he couldn’t do anything but simply be. He was a soul without a body, an abbreviated version of himself that was as undefinable and uncountable as his surroundings.

The worst part—orders of magnitude worse than the form his entire being had been reduced to—was that he wasn’t alone. They had appeared almost immediately after the transition, a rather swift, if not painless, process was over. Swarming him like ants swarm an unfortunate beetle, they pushed and poked at his very essence.

And they were indeed very, very angry.

Martin Lochman

Martin is a Czech science fiction and speculative fiction author, currently living and working as a University librarian in Malta. His work appeared (or is forthcoming) in various venues, including New Myths, Kzine, Theme of Absence, XB-1 (Czech SFFH magazine), and others. His debut collection All Quiet in the Milky Way: Ray M. Holler’s Adventures vol. 1 was published in 2023. You can find him on his website