Howls From Hell

by Grady Hendrix

  Praise for Howls From Hell

  “Quality horror by true believers—who can write. What more can you ask for?”

  * * *

  —Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

  * * *

  "No two stories are alike in this carefully curated anthology—a chorus of fresh voices unafraid to search the depths of hell for the darkest horror and gouge it onto the page."

  * * *

  —Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads

  * * *

  “An anthology for horror devotees by horror devotees, Howls From Hell first pays homage to horror’s venerable tropes, then blows them away.”

  * * *

  —J.D. Horn, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The King of Bones and Ashes

  * * *

  “Howls From Hell gifts us with sixteen imaginative nightmares from some of the freshest voices emerging in horror and dark fiction. The stories in this collection are fierce and delightfully wicked. I’m certain we’re going to be reading a lot from these writers for years to come.”

  * * *

  —Cynthia Pelayo, two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated poet and author

  Copyright © 2021 by HOWL Society Press

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to bark@howlsociety.com.

  * * *

  Editing by HOWL Society

  Formatting by Alex Wolfgang

  Cover art by P.L. McMillan

  Cover design by Molly Collins

  Foreword illustration by Joe Radkins

  * * *

  Visit our website at howlsociety.com

  Contents

  Foreword by Grady Hendrix

  1. A Casual Encounter by Quinn Fern

  2. The Pigeon Lied by J.W. Donley

  3. Manufactured God by P.L. McMillan

  4. Red Punch Buggy by B.O.B. Jenkin

  5. She’s Taken Away by Shane Hawk

  6. Suspended in Light by Alex Wolfgang

  7. Gooseberry Bramble by Solomon Forse

  8. Clement & Sons by Joe Radkins

  9. Possess and Serve by Christopher O’Halloran

  10. Duplicitous Wings by Amanda Nevada DeMel

  11. It Gets in Your Eyes by Joseph Andre Thomas

  12. Red and the Beast by Thea Maeve

  13. The Intruder by Justin Faull

  14. Sprout by M. David Clarkson

  15. Junco Creek by S.E. Denton

  16. A Fistful of Murder by Lindsey Ragsdale

  Acknowledgments

  About the Horror-Obsessed Writing and Literature Society

  End Page

  Whenever we slept over at Matt Gibson’s house, we always played the game. His house was rickety and wooden, perpetually leaning to one side, surrounded by tacked-on porches, and sunrooms, and sheds with a small forest crammed into any remaining gaps. As soon as we arrived, someone would make popcorn, or find apples, or grab bread, and we’d pour outside into the late afternoon, a squad of 11-year-old boys, disappearing into the bushes and under the house, spilling out across the street, climbing the big magnolia that grew through the sidewalk, ready to play the game.

  We called it “Rehash” and it was tag, except whoever got dubbed the Rehash Monster ran after you with a mouthful of food, chewed it into mush, and instead of tagging you, they spit a gob into their hand and pegged it at you as hard as they could. Apples weren’t so bad, bread was nasty, popcorn was the worst.

  Being disgusting was the point. No one wanted to wash regurgitated popcorn out of their hair and so when you rounded a corner and ran smack into the Rehash Monster your adrenaline legitimately spiked. When you found a hiding place only to realize it was also a dead end and the Rehash Monster was closing in behind you, your panic and terror were real. Who wanted a mushy blob of chewed-up hamburger bun splashed across their face?

  We’d play as soon as we arrived and play again later that night, and between the daytime and nighttime game we watched horror movies. We watched Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn and thought it was hilarious, then we made the mistake of watching Evil Dead thinking it would be funny, too. We watched Re-Animator and Dawn of the Dead. We watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hitcher. And so we discovered horror movies the way everyone does: in a pack, at a slumber party, with our friends.

  After high school, we headed off into the world and when we got lonely we watched the same movies all over again for comfort, and sometimes someone saw us do it, and that’s how we made a new set of friends. Horror sparks questions: Fast zombies or slow? Fulci or Argento? Name a good Stephen King book from the ‘90s? Questions start conversations. Conversations let us know who our people are.

  We don’t have to agree. Someone makes an argument for The New York Ripper as a feminist manifesto, or claims that Joyce Carol Oates is the only American horror writer who matters and I may not agree with them, but I’ll listen, because it’s part of the running argument we’re all engaged in, the one that started before we were born and will go on long after we die: the horror argument. Outsiders aren’t welcome, because it’s a family argument.

  Of course, to go from being an outsider to being part of the family, all you have to do is care. You have to care that someone hasn’t read Shirley Jackson so now you have to buy them a copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. You have to care that they’ve never seen Martyrs so now you have to show it to them. You have to care that you’ve never seen a Korean horror movie, or read a translation of a Japanese horror manga, or heard of this anthology of South African horror stories, but this person you just met at a party is going to give you a copy and you’re going to read it because you care. You care because you’re family.

  Horror is always about families, sometimes biological, as in V.C. Andrews, but mostly found. Poppy Z. Brite and Anne Rice made their careers writing about outsiders banding together to form ad hoc families that watched out for, and sometimes murdered, each other, just like real families. Every band of scrappy humans standing down a zombie apocalypse, every group of parapsychologists investigating a haunted house, every motley gang of vampire hunters or creepy flock of vampires form a family.

  The stories in this book were written by a branch of this family tree. The HOWL Society are a 1000-strong bunch of horror pirates sailing the Discord seas who grew out of a once-defunct subreddit, r/horrorlit, that I stumbled across back in 2011. At the time, r/horrorlit had about 300 subscribers which seemed a shame, so I started posting content, blowing on those few sparks, trying to build a fire that would last. We had some AMAs and slowly crept up to a few thousand subscribers, and they all gathered more fuel for the fire, and it became a massive blaze. I checked the stats last week: 185,000 subscribers.

  That’s a big family.

  There are writers in this family, and readers, there are people who start arguments, and people looking for the name of that book that made them pee their pants in fourth grade. We’re there for all kinds of different reasons, with all kinds of different attitudes, but we all care. We care that the end of Haute Tension doesn’t make any sense, and that Norman Bates is fat in the book of Psycho and maybe Hitchcock should have cast a fat actor, and whether or not found footage is over, and which is the best horror novel set in colonial America. We care an unhealthy amount.

  We care about each other’s birthdays, and bad days, and the size of our to-be-read piles, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood at a con with members of this family while someone without social skills dominated the conversation and when they walked away everyone else shrugged
and simply said, “It’s cool to see them. They don’t have a lot of friends.” And in that moment we were that person’s friends, just for that moment we were their family.

  We all love horror so we all know the one thing we have in common: we’re all going to die, memento mori, etc. What will live on after us is the argument.

  Whether we’re huddled around a crackling campfire after the electricity runs out and civilization collapses, or whether we’re gathered around a warm VCR in a room full of kids who’ve just washed chewed-up popcorn out of their hair, whether it’s by email, or snail mail, or subreddit, or the dark screens of Discord, the argument will always go on. We’re just here to keep the flames alive and pass them down the line. We do it in books, and stories, and opinions, and hot takes, and anthologies like this one. As long as there are people who care about horror, the argument will outlive us all.

  xxxman_eaterxxx: looking for a good time with a bad boy ;P

  ProfCunnilingus69: Watch out, she’ll chew you up! Ha ha! ;-) Hello there, lovely lady. Your photo is breathtaking! I think I can provide what you’re looking for, as long as you don’t mind a more “refined” gentleman.

  xxxman_eaterxxx: afternoon professor. how much pussy did u have to eat to get a doctorate?

  ProfCunnilingus69: Ha ha! Beautiful AND funny!

  I rolled my eyes. Old dudes always have the corniest lines. They’re easy catches, though—almost guaranteed. Younger men want to call all the shots, and women of any age are much too wary, so I tend to stick to the older guys. I’d had a few no-shows in my day, but not nearly as many as you’d think. They were so desperate to break the mind-numbing monotony of their middle-aged, middle-class lives. Maybe it was the relentless grind of work and kids and a sexless marriage, or maybe the crushing loneliness of a second or third divorce. They told the same old stories, but I always listened with a sympathetic little pout on my face.

  xxxman_eaterxxx: lol ur sweet :)

  ProfCunnilingus69: I’ll bet you taste pretty sweet, yourself. ;-)

  xxxman_eaterxxx: why don’t u come find out?

  We agreed to meet at a motel in two hours. It was my go-to place—a mildewing dump, but cheap, and the staff had the wonderful ability of taking notice of absolutely nothing their clientele got up to, so long as the rooms stayed intact. That hadn’t been a problem for me in a long time. I’d learned to be very neat.

  I got to the room a few minutes early and tossed my sundress over the back of a chair with fraying, faded blue cushions, revealing the silky black slip I wore underneath. Above the lace-trimmed neckline, there was a deep, vertical groove in my skin that began just below the dip between my clavicles. I’d hidden it in my photos with practiced poses—torso turned and arms angled forward, pushing my breasts together in such a way as to disguise it within the shadow between them. Not that a little thing like that would be enough to scare away desperate men on skeevy forums.

  I looked over at the door when three quick knocks sounded over the drip and clank of the air conditioner. Right on time. I put on a sexy smirk as I crossed the room and opened the door.

  “Professor,” I cooed, leaning against the door jamb.

  “Wow,” he said, watery eyes blinking at me from behind his wire frame glasses. His hair, a nearly translucent strawberry blond, was combed ineffectually over a receding hairline.

  “You’re even prettier than your picture.”

  “You like it?” I said, running a hand over my satin hip.

  “Oh, it’s g-gorgeous,” he stammered. “I mean, I’m sure anything would look amazing on you.”

  I giggled and bit my lip. I touched a finger to the knot of his paisley-patterned tie. A tie! What a nerd. A prominent Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as I trailed my finger down his chest. He laughed nervously.

  “Come on in, Professor.”

  I closed my hand around the tie and pulled him over the threshold. He muttered a surprised “Oh!” as he stepped inside. I shut and locked the door behind him. He stood there, fiddling with his tie.

  “You’re new to this, aren’t you?” I asked, sliding my hand down his arm as I stepped in front of him.

  “Am I that obvious?” He laughed again. I took his hand in mine and lifted it, rubbing my thumb over his bare ring finger.

  “Not married, though.”

  “Oh, no,” he said quickly. “Not anymore.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s hard to start over, at my age. It gets . . . lonely.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be lonely tonight.”

  I stepped forward and placed my hands lightly on his skinny biceps. He was a bit leaner than I liked them, but I was hungry for whatever I could get.

  “So,” he said, clearing his throat. “Do you—is this something you do often? You’re so beautiful. I just . . . I’m surprised I’m your type.”

  I shrugged.

  “I enjoy the company of older men.” I lowered my voice, as if revealing a secret. “Must be daddy issues.”

  He chuckled. “It’s, um, Ron, by the way. My name.”

  “Ron,” I said, and then told him the truth, since it didn’t really matter, one way or the other. “I’m Amy.”

  “Pretty name,” he said, hesitantly placing his hands on my waist. I stepped a little closer to him, letting my breath play against his neck. There was a small nick from a hurried shave, just beginning to scab.

  “Are you really a professor, Ron?”

  “I am, actually. World history.”

  “Mmm,” I purred. I tapped the side of his glasses. “I could’ve guessed. You have the look.”

  He took the glasses off and tossed them onto the seat of the chair that held my dress. His defenses fell as his arousal heightened, breath deepening and eyes becoming heavy as they traveled over my body. His hands slid up my sides, less hesitant than before. Wordlessly, I lifted my arms, and he followed my lead, pulling the slip over my head. I was naked underneath, and he looked at me with a hunger of his own. His eyes narrowed with curiosity as they traced the line that bisected my torso from chest to groin.

  “Your turn,” I said, reaching to undo the buttons on his shirt as he removed his tie. When we were both undressed, he cupped a hand around my breast and then, with the other, touched the deep, scar-like mark.

  “What happened here?” he asked. I looked down, as if I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about.

  “This?” I asked, placing my hand alongside his. I shrugged. “I was born with it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope I didn’t offend you.”

  “Not at all.” I draped my arms over his shoulders and caressed the back of his neck. “Hmm. You really are sweet, aren’t you?”

  He must’ve heard the little pang of regret in my voice. I held no moral qualms about what I did, having needs like everyone else, but it was more fun when I could be sure they deserved it.

  He lifted his eyebrows.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “No,” I said. “Just a shame.”

  The line he’d been tracing with a gentle fingertip opened with the soft, wet sound of parting lips. He flinched and tried to pull away, but my hands clasped tight around the back of his head, nails digging into the scalp beneath his thinning hair.

  He opened his mouth to scream when he saw the teeth, but I yanked him toward me, and there was time only for a startled gulp before his face disappeared into the carnassial cavity that had just split the front of my body.

  One of a thousand teeth slid into an eye socket, and I slurped at the jelly inside with one of a hundred tongues. I wrapped myself around him, sinking into him like the mouthful of ribeye on the end of that cheating businessman’s fork last week.

  His muffled shrieks and agonal thrashing vibrated against my spine. The deep, unreachable tickle made me gasp and giggle. His hands fluttered against me, too lost in his pain to strike with any real strength or precision. When his skull split inside me with a hollow melon thud,
they dropped limply to his sides.

  I was able to savor the rest of him. I chewed slowly, shredding meat and cracking bones. I allowed the flavor of each part to linger—butter-soft marrow and viscous vitreous. Sour bile and copper blood.

  I barely spilled a drop.

  I sank onto the bed with a sated sigh when I was finished, smiling with one mouth while the other closed.

  A loud, drunken laugh from the other side of the thin walls woke me a few hours later. Still groggy from my meal, I stumbled to the bathroom and showered, washing away the scant remnants of the professor—some strands of hair clinging to a smear of dried blood on my torso.

  Once dressed, I did a final inspection of the room and used a handful of toilet paper to wipe the few drops of blood that had fallen to the fake wood grain of the laminate floor. I left with the professor’s glasses and clothes balled up in my purse. I would toss them in the dumpster on my way out.

  At the bottom of the stairs leading to the parking lot, two men kissed furiously beneath a glaring yellow light. I felt a sudden gurgling in my gut as I approached them.

  I belched. One of the men stopped to look at me, a curl of hair tumbling over a black-smudged eye, and I laughed, pressing a hand to my mouth.

  “Excuse me,” I said. The man’s twisted frown went slack as he noticed the vertical line above the low scoop of my dress, a noticeable shadow in the harsh light. He smiled crookedly and turned as I passed, just enough for me to see his chest, visible above the deep V of his shirt.