A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre: Halloween Is Going to Be Jealous

by Shane McKenzie, ed.

  He wished Sands had left her veiled in anonymity when he delivered the head. At the same time, he found himself wondering what her body looked like. Did she groom herself for the suicide, knowing she’d inevitably be found by someone, or had a plant-like mesh of hair rested between her legs when the EMT walked in? That was something he dared not ask Sands, nor think about until now, though the thought of her naked body had chipped away at his conscience. He hadn’t been with a woman in almost three years, so long that sexualizing the bodiless head of a woman was not beyond him. He wondered where her body was now, and the idea of her headless corpse sickened him. Strangely, though he had always considered himself an ‘ass man,’ it was the face that allowed thoughts of her body to blossom, and not a headless body that brought his arousal to peak.

  It was about that time that his panic diminished enough to allow him a few hours of sleep. His dreams were not so kind. Since he was young, sleep paralysis had gripped him from time to time. But the fear of asphyxiation always manifested as something else within, a dead body with its arms wrapped tight around him, a heavy beast crushing him underfoot, or sucking the breath from his lungs. Tonight it was the head, staring into him from atop his chest. He woke swatting at the woman’s face until he realized he had been dreaming, and then ran to the window to make sure the greenhouse door was closed. He had left the lights on.

  Reluctantly, he put on his slippers and walked to the greenhouse. That familiar chill ran through him again as he stepped inside. He avoided looking at the head on the table and turned the lights off, rushing back out and closing the door behind him. As he walked back to the house, the sound of shattered glass echoed in the distance. He turned and walked cautiously back to the door. In the moonlight, the head seemed less foreboding. He could see just enough to confirm that it was still on the table. He edged closer, noticing something large atop the table near the head. He grabbed a hoe in the corner and gripped it tightly, taking a hand off it quickly to turn the lights on.

  He expected to see a cat, or a feral dog perhaps. Instead, he saw the root system he had used to sustain the woman’s head. It had sprouted a mass of foliage so thick that it had knocked a beaker from the table. And it was moving.

  The woman’s head turned towards him. Again, it mouthed the words, “Where am I?” Only this time he swore he could hear her.

  He tried to swallow the fear that welled up inside him, but could not. “Vermont,” he replied.

  “What happened to me?”

  He took a step closer. “You’re…you tried to take your own life. I’ve managed to keep you alive.”

  He was close enough now to see the plant life attached to her heaving. She began to cry. “Is this hell?”

  “No.” He put his hand on the tangle of leaves and small branches, pulling away as quickly as he touched it. There, under the surface, he felt a heartbeat, or plant life emulating a heartbeat. He inspected the plant closer. It was forming a torso. Thick branches sprouted from where the shoulders would be. Somehow, the plant was attempting to reproduce her body. “Is… is there anything I can do to make this easier on you?” he asked.

  She closed her eyes. “Kill me,” she said. “I don’t want to live like this.”

  He turned for the door. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

  “Then stay with me,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “I…” he now longed for the comfort of his bed more than ever before, not to sleep, but for a semblance of safety. “Okay.” He pulled a chair towards her and sat down, careful not to look her in the eye. “Do you want to hear more about why you’re here?”

  “I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.” She closed her eyes. “Just don’t leave me alone.”

  THE NEXT MORNING HE woke tangled in a myriad of branches obscuring the daylight. He tore at them until he realized he was not confined, but simply covered. Her body had grown significantly over night. Her arms were now almost completely developed, with thick veined limbs extending into five separate digits. Her legs were beginning to sprout. She moaned and the body began to move. What he recognized as a crude rendering of hands moved towards him. “Thank you,” she said. “For staying with me.”

  He pulled away. “You’re welcome.”

  “And fuck you for doing this to me.”

  “What?”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are? Look at me.”

  He turned away until she sat up and turned his face to meet hers. She stared into him. “What kind of sick shit are you doing up here in the mountains? Am I the first?”

  He nodded. “A firm paid me. I didn’t know you’d end up like this. You were clinically dead.”

  “You should have left me that way. Look at my body.” She looked at the hand that cradled his chin. “I want to see my face.”

  He walked to the far corner of the room and brought back a small mirror plate. “Your head was the only thing the firm gave me. They asked me to reproduce the results of my thesis experiment. I thought they’d bring a finger, or a hand at the most. I never thought they’d ask me to do this.”

  She looked at herself in the mirror. “I want to be alone.”

  “Can I bring you anything?”

  “Go.”

  He complied, returning to the house to check his messages. Sands had called. Dick played the message:

  “Dick, I’ll have someone up there this evening. It’s the best I could do. They’ll bring a ticket for your flight back to Indiana and clean up for you. Hope you’re holding up all right.”

  He deleted the message and tried to wash himself of everything in the shower, the evidence and the memories of the last few days. In less than twenty-four hours it would be over. The head would be in Sands’s custody and he would be on his way home. He rinsed the soap from his scalp, holding his eyes shut to let the water run over his face. Then the shower curtain opened.

  It was her, body fully developed. Large flowers emulating the pigment of her original skin tone had blossomed across her torso.

  “Jesus!” he shouted.

  She grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall, stepping in beside him. “I want to feel human again. I want to be human again.” She kissed him forcefully. His hands worked their way around her waistline gently. She reciprocated, drawing him close to her. She pulled his arm away from her waist and guided it between her legs, pressing his finger inwards.

  He pulled away. “Shit!”

  He held his hand up. Blood spat from thorn-covered wounds. When he looked up again, she was gone.

  After searching the entire house, he dressed and made his way to the greenhouse. He found her crouched in the corner. She cowered. “Stay away from me!”

  He knelt down beside her. On the floor, the mirror he had given her earlier lay shattered. One of the pieces was covered with thick mucus-like strands of green. A puddle of the same substance gathered nearby below her wrists, which were riddled with deep gashes.

  She hid the wounds. “You should have let me die.”

  He lifted her off the floor. “Come on.”

  They went back to the house together. He wrapped the wounds in gauze and led her to his bed, where she slept throughout the day. He sat at the edge of the bed watching her grow, not larger, but she was beginning to fill out. The thin vines that had made up her appendages were now of greater substance. A thick, white moss began to grow over them like skin.

  Her body continued to develop as night drew in. Dick watched until he heard a car pull into the driveway. Sands’s man had arrived.

  Dick met him at the door.

  The man handed Dick a plane ticket scheduled for departure the following morning. “Agent Brody. I’m here to clean up.”

  “What are you going to do with…with the head?” Dick asked.

  “I’ll take care of that. You just pack up. I’ll take you to the airport first thing in the morning.”

  Dick pointed to the greenhouse. “It’s in there.”

 
As soon as Agent Brody started for the greenhouse, Dick ran upstairs. “Wake up,” he whispered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s here. They’ve come to take you. They don’t know what you’ve become though. They still think you’re just…they think it’s just your head.”

  She sat up. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We have to go.” Dick rose to check the window. Brody was already on his way back to the house. “Shit.”

  Downstairs Agent Brody let himself inside. “Dick?”

  Dick hurried down to meet him. “What’s up?”

  Brody eyed him suspiciously. “There’s nothing out there.”

  “Really?”

  Brody waved him to the greenhouse. “Come on.”

  Dick followed him, looking back at Tara through the upstairs window.

  Brody waited at the entrance for Dick to open the door. He passed through the threshold and turned the lights on. “She’s right over here.” He pointed to the dish, feigning surprise. “She’s not there.”

  A familiar sound pierced the air behind him, like the subtle, singular snap of a jaw closing. Brody had drawn his gun.

  “Where’s the head, Dick?”

  Dick slowly turned around with his hands in the air. “I buried it.”

  “Bullshit. Sands said you wouldn’t go near that goddamned thing after the experiment. What happened?”

  “You want to know what happened to her?” Dick asked. “Look behind you.”

  Brody turned around and fired one shot into the wiry humanoid before him. She didn’t flinch. He fired again and her hands encompassed his, crushing them around the gun. As she loosened her grip Brody’s arms dropped to his side. Tara straightened her fingers and drove them through his eyes, deep into his brain. They danced on the back of his skull, eventually piercing the other side. As she held him there suspended above the ground, she drove her other hand into his entrails, spilling them onto the floor.

  “Stop!” Dick shouted.

  She dropped the agent’s body and started for him. “He was going to shoot you.”

  “You didn’t have to kill him.”

  “What would you have done?”

  Dick shook his head. “They’ll send more now. I’ll never be able to go back to the university.”

  “Don’t you want to stay here with me?”

  His head continued to shake. “We can’t be together.”

  She started towards him. “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you. You’re not even human anymore. We’d have to spend the rest of our lives in hiding. You can’t be seen. They’ll kill you, or tuck you away somewhere and keep you alive to experiment on you.”

  “Like you did?”

  “I didn’t know it’d turn out like this.” He backed against the wall. “You were right. They should have let you die.”

  “It’s not so bad, Dick. You’ll see.”

  She lurched over him and drove her hands into his chest. He felt her gnarled fingers work through his heart as she drew him close. Blood pumped through the holes forged by her fingers until everything around him went black.

  A DAY LATER HE woke face-down in the greenhouse. He tried to lift himself, but found he couldn’t move.

  “I followed your notes as closely as I could.” Tara leaned down to address him. “Your body isn’t growing as quickly as mine is, but I think within a few days you should be as good as new.”

  Dick’s jaw snapped wildly as he tried to speak.

  She put her finger to his lips. “Shhh. Rest now.” She walked to the doorway and turned off the lights. “Tomorrow’s Arbor Day. We’ll celebrate.”

  I *HEART* RECYCLING

  by Lesley Conner

  Matt slammed the door of his stepdad’s Escalade, looking around the graveled parking lot surrounded by the forest and one shadowed path. There were no other cars in the small lot, no buildings, no people. Just Matt, his mom, his stepdad, and his two half-sisters.

  And a rabbit, perched just off the gravel, staring at Matt with wide, moist eyes, completely still.

  I have to spend all day pissing in the woods with a bunch of bunnies just because Tucker thinks we should plant a tree for Earth Day. Matt could hear his stepdad’s voice in his head—It’ll be good for Brooklyn and Dallas. In his opinion, it was the biggest waste of time. If you’re going to plant a tree, why would you do it in a forest? There are already trees there. And he was sure their town had planned some Earth Day festivities anyway, like cleaning up the park or something. Why couldn’t they’ve just gone and done that instead of wasting the entire day out here? But he’d come along without too much complaining to keep his mom happy, drawing the line when she wanted him to wear a t-shirt with a picture of Earth hugging itself. He was here; he didn’t have to look stupid, too.

  Stooping, Matt picked up a chunk of gravel, skipping it across the lot towards the rabbit. The rabbit jumped high in the air as the rock came skittering towards it, twisting and bounding into the dark undergrowth. Matt shook his head as he crossed the lot, following his family into the forest.

  Brooklyn bounced down the path. There was a sapling under one arm, twirling like a tornado in its plastic pot with each step, and Matt was certain the poor thing would be toast before his family decided to put it in the ground. They’d already killed one by forgetting to water it, and had to buy a new one on the way. He watched his sister trailing the fingers of her free hand along the vegetation growing at the side of the path, yanking handfuls of leaves out every few steps, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He’d never understand kids.

  His mom Jenn and Tucker were walking with Dallas a little behind Brooklyn. Jenn had a leather backpack hanging low on her back, stuffed with goodies for a picnic. Tucker swung a small spade, he liked to call a shovel, from his hand, pointing out the birds in the trees to two-year-old Dallas.

  Chirp-chirp. Digging around in his pocket, Matt pulled out his phone.

  How’s Fucker?

  Reading the message from his best friend Jacob, Matt couldn’t help but smirk as he slid his gaze toward Tucker.

  He’s wearing loafers. Who wears loafers to go hiking?

  He really is a fucker.

  “Matt, you are not going to be on that phone all day. Tell Jacob you’ll talk to him later.”

  Hearing his mom’s voice, Matt’s fingers flew over the keypad.

  Yeah. Let you know how it goes later. Mom’s cutting me off.

  He snapped the phone shut without waiting for a reply. Looking up, he saw Jenn staring at him over the top of Dallas’s head. The toddler was balanced on one hip, wiggling to get down. Setting the girl on her feet, Jenn kept her gaze on her son, silently reminding him of the conversation they’d had the day before. Don’t mess up the day. Tucker had gone to a lot of trouble planning it; it was important to him. Matt nodded his understanding and shoved the phone deep into his pocket. Quickening his steps, he hurried to Dallas, who was bent down, pushing in an anthill. The bugs struggled out of the collapsed earth, spinning in confused circles as Dallas poked again and again at the soft dirt.

  “Come on, Dally. Walk with Bubby.”

  Dallas looked up at him, one finger poised to thrust downward again, her hair pulled in two tight pigtails, a brown, “I *Heart* Recycling” t-shirt stretched over her belly. The heart was made with pink recycling arrows.

  “Hi, Bubby. Look. Bugs.” A toothy grin spread across her face. Pulling Dallas to standing, Matt pushed more soil on top of the swarming ants with the toe of his sneaker. Their antennae waved angrily as they scrambled up and over the shifting dirt.

  “Yep, sweetie, bugs.”

  He walked a few feet behind the rest of his family, Dallas jerking on his arm with her tottering steps. His mom went over and put her arm around Tucker, leaning her head on his shoulder, and Matt could hear the cadence of their conversation, as slow and steady as breathing. Brooklyn twirled around them at a dizzying speed only young children can keep up, her higher voice int
erjecting among his parents’ lower tones. The sight should’ve been reassuring, a happy family, something he knew wasn’t common, but it only made Matt realize how much he didn’t fit in.

  His mom had him at sixteen years old. She’d never told him much about his real dad, other than he was a huge loser who couldn’t handle having a baby. They’d lived with his grandparents the first five years of his life. Then Jenn managed to scrape enough money together between her two jobs to pay for a lousy, one bedroom apartment and a couple of night classes at the community college. It’d only been about six months after moving in when Jenn met Tucker. The relationship moved quickly, and before Matt was seven, he had a stepfather and his own bedroom in the suburbs. Brooklyn had been born when he was twelve, and Dallas when he was fifteen; his mom finally had the perfect family. Her only reminder that life had ever been unsavory was Matt.

  She liked to tell him he was her surprise; something she didn’t know she wanted until she got it, but he knew he was a mistake. Christ, his mom was younger than him when he was born, and he definitely wasn’t ready for a kid of his own.

  The fact was Matt knew he had it good. Tucker was a goofball, but he was fair and loved his mom. Brooklyn and Dallas were the best. It’d been lonely growing up without any siblings, so he was glad they had each other. Sometimes he just got tired of acting like he was a part of everything. I don’t even need to be here. I could be home playing Call of Duty and no one would even notice.

  Picking up Dallas, Matt jogged up to the rest of the family. Giggles burst from the toddler with each jostling step, sounding like shrieks bouncing off the dense trees. She grabbed his face, squishing his cheeks forward painfully, and he scrunched his lips together, blowing a raspberry on her arm, making her laugh even harder.

  “Here. Walk with Mommy for a minute.” He handed her over to Jenn, who unwrapped herself from Tucker’s side. Dallas immediately reached for him.

  “I want Bubby. I go you.” “I’ll be right back.” He hated seeing the tears welling in her eyes, but he had to walk away for a minute, take a deep breath.