His hostess appeared in the doorway. She noted his state and her smile appeared--that gorgeous, deadly smile that had made Chet fall in love on the spot. Only now there was no good humor behind it. Now there it held only the promise of wickedness.
“I'm so glad you liked my mustard,” she said, stepping into the room and his terror spiked like scarlet fever. “The recipe is positively ancient, passed down by my family matriarchs for centuries. As you can see, its exquisite piquancy is not its biggest surprise.”
It took effort, but Sarah managed to wheel his chair through a doorway opposite the one leading to the kitchen. Chet's heart shuddered and he began praying it would give out, for the new room was white-tiled and lined with long counters, over which hung sundry cutting utensils. A red rubber hose hung coiled on the wall like some sleeping viper. The floor sloped toward a low central drain. He'd seen a room like this before, at Arch's Market, glimpsing it through swinging brushed steel doors as men in aprons and paper hats moved in and out. It was a butcher room.
Sarah whistled a cheerful ditty as she went about preparation. From a closet, she removed a simple wooden crate containing a trussing needle, twine, and shears. From the same cubby she removed a steel spit taller than she, holding it skyward like a phalanx. Then she tied a heavy leather apron around her waist and laid out the tools she'd need.
Chet could do nothing but stare at her with eyes he hoped begat pity while she carefully undressed him and rolled him onto the cold tiled floor, not to make love but to make dinner. He could do nothing but stare at the grout lines in front of his nose, pink from where a thousand gallons of running blood had stained them.
He felt the point of the spit nudge his rectum and wanted to scream, but his vocal chords were as locked down as the rest of him from the dreadful ingredient she'd used to spike his mustard.
“Still hungry, love?” Sarah asked from above and behind, leaning her weight on the spit. “Me, I'm positively starving.”
***
MEET THE AUTHORS
HAIR SHIRT DRAG - Gordon White lives in New York, but was born and raised in North Carolina. As a result, his tastes are equal parts urban noir and Southern Gothic; bagels and barbecue. His fiction has appeared in venues such as Cease, Cows!, Lakeside Circus, and Dark Fuse’s Horror D’oeuvres. When not writing, Gordon also reads submissions for Kraken Press and contributes reviews to Hellnotes. His own much-neglected website is www.grizzlyspectacles.com.
COMES THE RAIN - Gregory L. Norris is a full-time professional writer, with numerous publication credits, mostly in national magazines and fiction anthologies. A former writer at Sci Fi, the official magazine of the Sci Fi Channel (before all those ridiculous Ys invaded), he once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount’s modern classic, Star Trek: Voyager and is the author of the handbook to all-things-Sunnydale, The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Alyson Books, 2008). You can find Gregory at http://gregorylnorris.blogspot.com/.
NUMBER ONE ANGEL - Allison M. Dickson writes dark contemporary fiction, covering both speculative and realistic realms. Her debut psychological horror novel, STRINGS, released to rave reviews in 2013 and has topped Amazon’s bestseller lists several times. She is also the author of an abundance of short stories as well as the 1940s sci-fi noir Colt Coltrane series. Readers can look forward to her upcoming dystopian epic, THE LAST SUPPER, later in 2014. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found wandering the urban sprawl of Dayton, OH with her husband and two rapidly growing children, or crawling some dungeon in search of good loot. For more information on how to reach Allison or to read her blog, visit allisonmdicksonbooks.com.
UNTO THE EARTH - As a toddler, Patrick C. Greene was creating horrors in crayon and magic marker upon every available surface. Not surprisingly, he soon discovered comic books and immersed himself in the fantastic worlds found therein. Horror fiction and films came next, and despite spending nights of terror hiding under covers, he always found himself drawn back to tales of dark fates. Greene cut his fangs in the screenwriting business but found his true calling in the world of prose fiction of the kind his heroes King, Barker and Koontz create. With the success of his first novel PROGENY, and the upcoming THE CRIMSON CALLING from Hobbes End Publishing, Greene presents a brand of horror as emotional as it is terrifying, as engaging as it is suspenseful. Living at night, deep in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Greene answers the call of his morbid muse when not enjoying monstrous helpings of horror, kung fu and doom metal.
You can keep up with Patrick at patrickcgreene.com or http://www.facebook.com/patrickcgreene
HÄXENHAUS - Nick Kimbro received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Hello Horror, Surreal Grotesque, Space Squid, Heavy Feather Review, Spring Gun Journal, The Yoke, Danse Macabre, and numerous anthologies. His novella, SURFACE INTERVAL, was published by Jersey Devil Press. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his beautiful wife and writes supernatural horror because she doesn’t do gore.
STORIES I TELL TO GIRLS – Michael G. Williams is a native of the Appalachian Mountains and grew up near Asheville, North Carolina. He describes his writing as wry horror or suburban fantasy: stories told from the perspectives of vampires, unconventional investigators, magicians and hackers who live in the places so many of us also call home. Michael is also an avid athlete, a gamer and a brother in St. Anthony Hall and Mu Beta Psi. You can find him here: http://www.robustmcmanlypants.org/perishables/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/perishables.novel
THE RISING SON – James Glass enjoys his privacy, but frequently finds that he plays an unwilling host to Xircon. When not visiting red light districts of red light cities, he can frequently be found contemplating life in the seediest of libraries.
Find James Glass on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesRGlassII
BEAUTIFUL, BROKEN THINGS – Rose Blackthorn writes speculative fiction from the high mountain desert of eastern Utah.
She has published online and in print, including “Stupefying Stories”, “Necon E-books”, “Cast of Wonders” podcast, “The Wicked Library” horror podcast, “Interstellar Fiction”, “BuzzyMag”, “Books of the Dead” and “Jamais Vu”. She is also included in the anthologies “A Quick Bite of Flesh”, “Horrific History” and “Shifters” by Hazardous Press; “New Dawn Fades”, “The Ghost IS the Machine” and “Fear the Abyss” by Post Mortem Press, “Eulogies II: Tales from the Cellar” by HorrorWorld, and “Equilibrium Overturned” by Grey Matter Press. She has stories scheduled for release from Sirens Call Publications, Sekhmet Press and Eldritch Press. She is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association.
Visit Rose at: http://www.facebook.com/RoseBlackthorn.Author
or at: http://roseblackthorn.wordpress.com
or on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/rose_blackthorn
NOT THIS TIME - Mike Lester is the author of An Occasional Dream, published in 2002 by indie crime publisher UglyTown. His story "The Courtier" will appear in Aaron J. French's upcoming expanded edition of The Shadow of the Unknown. He currently lives in South Carolina.
INTO THE LIGHT - Solomon Archer is the 2014 Masters of the Macbre winner for his short story SURFACE TENSION. A criminal psychologist by day and writer by night, Archer is currently the Chief Psychologist of the XXX State Department of Corrections. He spends much of his time working with serious and dangerously mentally ill offenders, some of whom are not so disorganized that they couldn’t figure out a way to free themselves from their restraints and stab him in the head with an altered food tray. (Incidentally, the going rate for shanking a psychologist is two pounds of coffee and three bags of Top tobacco. You know, just in case you were curious).
Archer’s short stories have appeared in Wrapped In White: Thirteen Tales of Spectres, Ghosts, and Spirits and the new Wrapped In Black: Thirteen Tales of Witches and the Occult. His book PSYKU: A Work of Forensic Prose will release later this year by Sekhmet Press. Follow the liv
es of criminal offenders, as distilled into 17-syllable snapshots of dark humor and morose commentary, by a forensic psychologist with a Disciple Complex and a rampant case of cynicism
You can find Archer here: http://psykubook.wordpress.com/and here: https://www.facebook.com/psykuofficial
SHE MAKES MY SKIN CRAWL - Shenoa Carroll-Bradd lives in Southern California and loves writing horror and fantasy stories.
Short stories were her first love, but she’s currently working on several novels, screenplays, and a graphic novel series.
Her writing idols are Joe Hill, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Tamora Pierce, Terry Pratchett, and George R.R. Martin. Shenoa can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sbcbfiction
PIGEON – Eric Nash writes dark speculative fiction. As yet he has not won, or been nominated for, any awards for his literary works. However, he is working on this and will be sure to let you know when he does. He lives in the south-west of England, possibly with his wife and children but he can’t be sure as demons have lashed him to his writing desk and bolted the door.
He has a website, http://eanash.wordpress.com, and can also be found on social media at http://www.facebook.com/EricNashauthor.
PIG ROAST - Aaron Gudmunson lives and writes in the Chicagoland area. He has worked as a contributing writer and columnist for local and regional periodicals. His work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Apex, Dark Moon Digest, and Empirical Magazine. His debut novel, Snow Globe, is available now in Kindle and trade paperback formats, as is Emma Tremendous, his first novel for young adults (written as A.D. Goodman). Visit him on the web at http://www.aarongudmunson.com.
www.sekhmetpress.com
OTHER BOOKS FROM SEKHMET PRESS
Wrapped in White: Thirteen Tales of Spectres, Ghosts, and Spirits
Wrapped in Red: Thirteen Tales of Vampiric Horror
Trick
By Patrick C. Greene
The Metatron Mysteries
By James Glass
www.sekhmetpress.com
Table of Contents
HAIR SHIRT DRAG by Gordon White
COMES THE RAIN by Gregory L. Norris
NUMBER ONE ANGEL by Allison M. Dickson
UNTO THE EARTH by Patrick C Greene
HÄXENHAUS by Nick Kimbro
STORIES I TELL TO GIRLS by Michael G. Williams
THE RISING SON by James Glass
BEAUTIFUL, BROKEN THINGS by Rose Blackthorn
NOT THIS TIME by Mike Lester
INTO THE LIGHT by Solomon Archer
SHE MAKES MY SKIN CRAWL by Shenoa Carroll-Bradd
PIGEON by Eric Nash
PIG ROAST by Aaron Gudmunson
MEET THE AUTHORS
Wrapped in Black: Thirteen Tales of Witches and the Occult Page 18
