by D Kershaw
Facebook: ghoul.demon.orghost.a.r.dean
A Fun Girl
by Virginia Carraway Stark
Every man loved her, except Winston. Vanessa was beautiful and had all the fleeting qualities that many girls had, but she was more useful and fun than she was marriageable. It was likely because he was the only one that she couldn’t have that she fixated on him. Leading her on to get what he wanted was cruel, with a wedding ring on his finger, there was no denying what he had done. Covered in his wife’s blood, he woke up, Vanessa standing over him with an axe. “I loved you,” she whispered, before she brought down the bloody blade.
VIRGINIA CARRAWAY STARK has a diverse portfolio and has many publications. Over the years she has developed this into a wide range of products from screenplays to novels to articles to blogging to travel journalism. She has been published by many presses from grassroots to Simon and Schuster. She has been an honourable mention at Cannes Film Festival for her screenplay, “Blind Eye” and was nominated for an Aurora Award. She also placed in the final top three screenplay shorts as well as numerous other awards for her anthologies, novels, blogs and other projects.
As Far as the Eye Can See
by J.W. Garrett
John, the police chief, stumbled inside, coffee in hand.
“Pretty bad. Might want to finish that coffee first.”
“Nah.”
“Jesus...” John surveyed the scene—two dead males, late twenties. Their bodies appeared to have exploded from the inside. “Perp?”
“In the kitchen. Handcuffed. Calls himself a lucid dreamer.”
John sat in front of the suspect. The man’s leg wiggled up and down, his eyes shut tight. Sweat dripped down his temple.
“Open your eyes, kid. Talk!”
“Can’t! It’s happening again...”
John leaned over the table and plied the man’s eyes open.
Their gazes linked.
The chief shuddered; insides sizzling. “No!”
J.W. GARRETT has been writing in one form or another since she was a teenager. She currently lives in Florida with her family but loves the mountains of Virginia where she was born. Her writings include YA fantasy as well as short stories. Since completing Remeon’s Quest-Earth Year 1930, the prequel in her YA fantasy series, Realms of Chaos, she has been hard at work on the next in the series, scheduled to release June 2020. When she’s not hanging out with her characters, her favourite activities are reading, running and spending time with family.
Website: www.jwgarrett.com
BHC Press: www.bhcpress.com/Author_JW_Garrett.html
Cannibal Lee
by Terry Miller
The woman hung there, her body like a pinata of delectable meat marinated in delicious red steak sauce. Flesh hung from her left thigh, the muscle absent, exposing bone. Lee dipped his fork in the bowl of sauce, the meat dripped as he raised it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, revelling in the freshness of his kill. He stood to remove himself from the table, the afternoon sun blinded through the window.
Lee took another glance at the body then set fire to the bloody uniform in the fireplace. He picked his teeth.
“Stupid small town cops,” he mused.
TERRY MILLER is an author and 2017 Rhysling Award-nominated poet residing in Portsmouth, OH, USA. He has self-published a dark poetry collection on Amazon and one short story to date. His work has also appeared in Sanitarium, Devolution Z, Jitter Press, Poetry Quarterly, O Unholy Night in Deathlehem, and the 2017 Rhysling Anthology from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association.
Facebook: tmiller2015
Soup is People
by Shelly Jarvis
“Soup’s on!”
You ring the bell and watch them race for their place in line. They wipe dirty foreheads with dirtier gloves and sweat-soaked sleeves, smearing filth across their faces with no regard.
That’s the thing that bothers you the most. You detest their filthy bodies, their filthy mouths, their filthy minds. When they look at you, you’re certain they see you as a slab of meat. You’re there to serve in silence, to cater to them, while you pray full bellies deter their sinful desires.
You take the dirtiest to your bed, to wash and prepare for tomorrow’s meal.
SHELLY JARVIS is a speculative fiction author from West Virginia, US. She found a life-long love of sci-fi and fantasy in the 3rd grade when she found Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time.” Shelly is an avid reader, a Whovian, the ideal viewer of dog rescue videos, and undoubtedly Ravenclaw. She currently has three YA sci-fi books available for purchase on Amazon.
Website: www.ShellyJarvis.com
The Body
by Steven Lord
“23 years on the job. This is the worst I’ve seen. No contest.”
“I hear you. Remember that guy we found on the docks in ‘97? Mob spent days on him? Thought that would take some beating, but man, this... This is another level.”
“How’s Pete?”
“Doc says he’ll be fine. Jesus, imagine finding this on your first week. Ain’t no-one gonna take the mick out of Pete, rookie or not.”
“OK, no more stalling.”
“Where do we even start? Was that his face?”
“Wait, let me get closer.
“Shit.
“Shit, did he move?”
“Doc, get in here RIGHT NOW!”
STEVEN LORD is a debut author based in the south of England. He is currently attempting to cram writing in alongside a busy day job, with varying levels of success. While his long-term aspiration is to get a novel published, at present he would be pretty pleased with a drabble or two.
Have a Cuppa
by Crystal L. Kirkham
Barb poured tea for all three of them, but she didn’t sit down to drink. She busied herself with other things as her husband slumped and her daughter fell. She grinned, poured her tea down the sink, and called for help. They were rushed to the hospital, but her husband didn’t make it and her daughter barely clung to life. A note in her daughter’s pocket claimed responsibility for the murder and suicide.
Barb would have gotten away with it if her daughter hadn’t recovered. That’s when the truth came out—it wasn’t the first time Barb had poisoned another.
CRYSTAL L. KIRKHAM resides in a small hamlet west of Red Deer, Alberta. She’s an avid outdoors person, unrepentant coffee addict, part-time foodie, servant to a wonderful feline, and companion to two delightfully hilarious canines. She will neither confirm nor deny the rumours regarding the heart in a jar on her desk and the bottle of reader’s tears right next to it. Her paranormal urban fantasy series, Saints and Sinners, is available on Amazon and her YA Fantasy, Feathers and Fae will be released October 11, 2019, from Kyanite Publishing.
Website: www.crystallkirkham.com
Unforgivable
by C.L. Steele
Silent, she pressed her sweaty spine against the cold basement wall. This place, dank with mould, would hide her crime. His sin without respite must end tonight. The creak of wooden stairs transformed to silent shuffles across the dusty cement floor. Her heart beat loudly in the darkness, as her brain raced, and panicked breath prayed in the roar of silence...don’t miss, please. She raised the crowbar high overhead. He tuned her way. Sunset light through a small window betrayed her silhouette. The hammer on his pistol spoke. No crowbar crime; his bullet set her free.
C.L. STEELE creates new worlds and mystical places filled with complex characters on exciting journeys. Her typical genre is Sci-Fi/Fantasy, where she concentrates on writing in the sub-genres of Magical Realism, Near Future, and Futuristic worlds. Published in numerous anthologies, she looks forward to the release of her debut novel. In the interim, she works on other novels and continues to write short stories, novellas, and poetry. She is featured as one of five international authors in ICWG Magazine through Clarendon Publishing House and is a contributing author to Blood Puddles Literary Journal. Follow her career at:
&n
bsp; Facebook: author.CLSteele
Instagram: @clsteele.author
Petty Theft
by Susanne Thomas
Stanis wiped his hands across his khakis, oblivious to blood and gas streaks left by that casual action. He glanced around the room, satisfied that the accelerant had been distributed properly.
He walked out, into the dawn. The crispness cooled his face and he ignited his spark when he reached a safe distance.
He’d been so sure that his little thefts of chips and candy had been missed. He clenched his fist. Then that kid had followed him to his car. Such a harmless holdover from childhood. That man should have backed off and ignored it. Well, he would now.
SUSANNE THOMAS reads, writes, parents, and teaches from the windy west in Wyoming, and she loves fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction, poetry, children’s books, science, coffee, and puns.
Website: www.themightierpenn.com
Facebook: SusanneThomasAuthor
Cigarettes and Whiskey
by Terry Miller
Bones. Piles upon piles of bones, every tooth extracted for trophies. It was the perfect crime.
Cigarette smoke was thick outside the trailer. Martin fancied himself a dragon exhaling smoke from his nostrils. A celebratory whiskey on the rocks is what it called for; a cold, stiff drink. The coldness shocked his sensitive teeth, but he’d be numb soon enough.
Detectives combed the crime scene. A couple feet from the bones lay a single cigarette-stained tooth. The killer was so thorough, it’s hard to believe him that careless. Strange that none of the missing people were smokers, Detective Harris conceived.
TERRY MILLER is an author and 2017 Rhysling Award-nominated poet residing in Portsmouth, OH, USA. He has self-published a dark poetry collection on Amazon and one short story to date. His work has also appeared in Sanitarium, Devolution Z, Jitter Press, Poetry Quarterly, O Unholy Night in Deathlehem, and the 2017 Rhysling Anthology from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association.
Facebook: tmiller2015
Left Hand
by Vonnie Winslow Crist
All the alligator left behind was a bloody puddle and a left hand—but Detective Carroll hoped it’d be enough to identify the victim.
He watched techs make casts of footprints and tyre tracks, bag the hand, and gather blood samples.
Then, it hit him—he’d seen a man wearing a wildlife management uniform feeding roadkill to gators here this spring.
Probably got overconfident, thought Carroll, ended up falling into the water when he was tossing the gators a dead opossum.
He was about to write this one up as accidental when a tech hollered, “Detective, I’ve found a knife!”
VONNIE WINSLOW CRIST is author of The Enchanted Dagger, Owl Light, The Greener Forest, Murder on Marawa Prime, and other award-winning books. Her fiction is included in “Amazing Stories,” “Cast of Wonders,” “Outposts of Beyond,” Killing It Softly 2, Defending the Future - Dogs of War, Midnight Masquerade, Chaos of Hard Clay, and elsewhere. A cloverhand who has found so many four-leafed clovers she keeps them in jars, Vonnie strives to celebrate the power of myth in her writing.
Website: www.vonniewinslowcrist.com
Pimped Out Ride
By Stephen Herczeg
The call came in late. Some fishermen had snagged something just off the river bank. As they tried to release it, they saw tyre tracks leading down into the water.
We arrived to find a couple of uniforms standing around and a tow truck pulling the wreck out of the river.
We knew this car. It was a totally pimped out muscle car that had been reported doing doughnuts in a nearby suburb.
Stolen and abandoned.
Then we opened the boot. The stench hit us straight away. The body wasn’t pretty.
Looks like someone didn’t appreciate this guy’s burn outs.
STEPHEN HERCZEG is an IT Geek based in Canberra Australia. He has been writing for over twenty years and has completed a couple of dodgy novels, sixteen feature length screenplays and numerous short stories and scripts. His horror work has featured in Sproutlings, Hells Bells, Below the Stairs, Trickster’s Treats #1 and #2, Shades of Santa, Behind the Mask, Beyond the Infinite; The Body Horror Book, Anemone Enemy, Petrified Punks and Beginnings. He has also had numerous Sherlock Holmes stories published through the Belanger Books - Sherlock Holmes anthologies.
It’s Harder with Kids
by Jason Holden
Working in forensics is always difficult. To find truths you must delve into the seediest parts of crime. Grizzly murder scenes like this, they stay ingrained in your mind forever; the images of what the psychos and freaks get up to as they carve out their nightmarish fantasies on a living body.
It was even harder when kids were involved, like now. Her tiny hands sheathed in blue latex gloves, covered in blood. You could see the horror on her face at what she faced.
Take Your Daughter to Work Day had been a big mistake. She wouldn’t sleep tonight.
AFTER GIVING UP A FULL-time job as a quarry operator so that his wife could follow her dream career as an academic in the field of chemistry, Jason Holden and his family left England and temporarily moved to Spain where they currently reside. While there, he took on the role of full-time parent and began to create stories for his daughter. Now that she is in school, he creates stories for himself and hopes to share those stories with others.
Injustice System
by Raven Corinn Carluk
Officer Reedus stood in the dark, listening to the young men on the front porch, gripping the shotgun and working up the nerve for the task.
“Yeah, dog, if that Purge movie were real, I’d be in charge.”
“Shit, you’d be the first dead. You already got caught beating your bitch.”
“But I got off.” The pair laughed.
Reedus drew a deep breath. The girl in question was sixteen, hooked on heroin, put in the hospital by her pimp who had been released on a technicality and now bragged about it.
Stepping from the shadows, he prepared to deliver punishment.
RAVEN CORINN CARLUK writes dark fantasy, paranormal romance, and anything else that catches her interest. She’s authored five novels, where she explores themes of love and acceptance. Her shorter pieces, usually from her darker side, can be found in Black Hare Press anthologies, at Detritus Online, and through Alban Lake Publishers.
Twitter: @ravencorinn
Website: RavenCorinnCarluk.Blogspot.Com
Hot Lunch Buffet
by Shelly Jarvis
“Why?” I ask.
He laughs.
And laughs.
When he stops, his eyes are wide, his mouth stretched into a cartoonish grin. “You don’t remember?”
I try to shake my head, forgetting the constraints for a second before the motion reminds me I’m tied to this table. Panic colours my voice as I say, “Remember? We’ve never met.”
“Three weeks ago. You threw your lunch at me because it wasn’t hot enough.”
The words click in my head and I remember him from the meat station at the buffet. He withdraws a knife, slices across my abdomen, and carves, carves, carves.
SHELLY JARVIS is a speculative fiction author from West Virginia, US. She found a life-long love of sci-fi and fantasy in the 3rd grade when she found Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time.” Shelly is an avid reader, a Whovian, the ideal viewer of dog rescue videos, and undoubtedly Ravenclaw. She currently has three YA sci-fi books available for purchase on Amazon.
Website: www.ShellyJarvis.com
Three Suspects
by Cecelia Hopkins-Drewer
Three suspects; the husband, the stalker, and the angry client. Such an ugly crime, and who would mutilate a beautiful female lawyer?
“You didn’t love her,” Inspector Fineas said to the husband.
“I surely did,” he objected.
“You didn’t know her,” Fineas said to the stalker.
“I feel like I did,” sobbed the man.
“You owed her your settlement,” Fineas said to the divorcee.
“Which ought to have been larger,” she snapped.
Laura Fineas had forgotten about the caretaker, a large man in charge of building security. He had an axe, and was waiting outside to dispose of the witnesses.
CECELIA HOPKINS-DREWER lives in Adelaide, South Australia. She has written a Masters paper on H.P. Lovecraft, and her weird poetry has been published in THE MENTOR (edited by Ron Clarke), and SPECTRAL REALMS (edited by S.T. Joshi). Her novels include a teenage vampire series comprised of three volumes, MYSTIC EVERMORE, SAINTS AND SINNERS & AUTUMN SECRETS. Short stories have been published in WORLDS, ANGELS & MONSTERS (Dark Drabbles anthologies edited by Dean Kershaw).
Amazon: amazon.com/Cecelia-Hopkins-Drewer/e/B071G968NM
Website: chopkin39.wixsite.com/website
