Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4
Page 21
atrociously macabre.
What’s in his basement?
Chicago swallows starlight,
the plague of a man
stays down below the earth.
What’s in his basement?
He says, goodnight tenants,
goodwife wife,
goodnight mistress,
and hello to the fire light
where he sits like a pyro-hungry
piranha, listening to colorless flames—
an invisible reaper
instructing,
seducing,
slithering
deep inside the doctor man.
He unbuttons his shirt,
holds his arms out wide
embracing his monstrosity
made from ruddy bricks,
and what is it there, inside his basement?
Heat emits from a cavernous mouth
blistering enough to melt iron
inside brick jaws.
Is this man the Devil or a minion,
trading flesh for secrets?
The kiln sings for him
crude oil mouth
mating with death,
delivering steam and atoms
from the ashes inside its belly.
Not even bones remain,
just a man’s coat
hanging upstairs in the parlor,
just a woman’s dress in her trunk
worn only by ghosts now,
bodies without skin,
without skeletons,
flaking bits of dust
tarred, human husks
in the doctor’s basement,
in the Devil’s kiln.
What else is he
building in there?
Holmes vs. The Ripper, Part I
November 1888,
cold metallic tang of blood
billows up in the atmosphere
hovering, haunting
crimson pollution in Victorian streets.
Slightly after the witching hour
a woman cries, “murder!”
Violence is nothing new here,
neighbors turn away, shut their ears
slicing off sound as he slices off
a woman’s breasts.
Around 10:45am,
a landlord goes to collect rent
Mary Kelly’s is overdue,
she doesn’t open the door
blood smears the broken window.
Mary Kelly is nothing more
than a gumbo-stewed organ soup
scarlet flesh pile, skinned down,
inhumanly carved up on the bed
a massacre of mutilation.
There will come a debate after this,
was she truly the Ripper’s last?
Are the following Whitechapel murders
his or someone else’s?
At this stillborn, chilled moment
Jack remains the most brutal
servant of the Devil.
At this stillborn, chilled moment
H.H. Holmes hears
backward whispers slithering
into his small ears
You can do better
You can do better
Holmes vs. The Ripper, Part II
Dr. Holmes folds down the morning paper,
putting away the gooey mess of Jack.
The Ripper had been sloppy,
sexually exalted by thrusting
his hands inside of women,
tearing them inside out
like a blood-horny animal
savage and visceral.
Dr. Holmes straightens the ink on his desk
brushes the lint from his trousers
organizes his files in a slow, neat order.
His workers are building,
adding new passages, staircases,
chambers, chutes, doorways
to his home, his workplace,
his castle where he envisions
beautiful dissections
of beautiful women.
The Ripper had been sloppy
but Holmes will be precise,
careful with his slaughter
his experiments,
clean and quiet
the way love and butchery
ought to be.
The Articulator
Articulation, not of words
not of the tongue
My mastery educates
stripping the flesh
from your loved one’s carcass,
how to arrange bones
back into complete skeletons
for schools and medicine,
it is just business, my friend.
When the good doctor invites me
into his building of many rooms,
I am not alarmed at first
by the dead woman
on the table
because she is money
on the table;
he has already begun
some articulation
of his own.
A fouled up attempt
of dissected slivers,
meat ribbons flayed out
like remains of a tattered rabbit
that had spent too much time
gripped within a hound’s jagged mouth.
Her ruined face is serrated, split skin
rolled and peeled back
like sticking thumbs into an orange,
juicing it dry and shedding layers
apart into unspooled gore
This ripped up corpse, these pieces
of a woman, paid for,
sold for even more
it is just business,
my friend.
The Devil’s Dreamland
How does the Devil dream?
In soot-tinted, skyscraper tall clouds
polluted with gothic maladies of the damned
he conjures up the acerbic blueprints
rotating counterclockwise within
his labyrinthine mind
constructing philosophies made of blood-thread
warped into a web where contorted
passageways and secret chambers
fester like a breeding ground of silken torture
from the outside, the fortress’s dead space
seems something akin to normal,
a turreted roof overlooks Jackson Park,
street-level shops line the ground floor,
columns and designs mesh well with
Englewood’s surroundings
hiding the inner den of horror,
double-sided closets adjoin rooms,
bodies stashed between the doors
asbestos-lined walls padded into
soundproof spaces to muffle
the throaty, feral screams
he plans to elicit from expiring mouths
sliding wall panels leading down
slipshod hallways where gas jets
produce light that only reaches so far
into the dark, pocketed corners of his maze
intending to lose you somewhere
among uneven, veering halls,
narrow and curved,
doors that only lock from the outside
dead ends and stairs leading to nowhere
trapdoors and a greased-up chute
ready to propel victims down into
his ultimate paradise,
the basement cellar
dimly lit, and with heavy, earthen air
large zinc tank, vats spread around
meant to store corrosive materials,
acid and quicklime
a table for dissection gleaming
beside the surgeon’s cabinet
stocked full of shining instruments
near the torture rack, sharpened
and waiting to pierce through your skin
in his underground theater of dissection,
nothing is wasted,
in the city of Chicago,
no
thing is wasted
acid eats flesh off bones
every skeleton waiting,
articulation for the sake of culture
all easily sold
hair taken for wigs
clothes donated to asylum patients
you were never anything but
a delicious memory inside
the devil’s dreamland
this building, so innocent at first
breathing and imagining greatness
where doors opened to welcome
weary travelers
such warmth was choked out
strangled into an abattoir
where he paces the halls
whistling the same low tune
over and over as he passes the doors
of guests, inviting them to see
who lingers outside in the darkness
inviting them to come play
in the place of nightmares
a house of horrors,
a chamber of dread
a murder castle
World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair)
1893, we celebrate the 400th anniversary
of the barbaric slaughtering
Christopher Columbus brought
unto a new world,
but you will find no anger
toward his history here
as the fairgrounds take form, as visitors
flock in droves to taste the excitement
flickering in the air like pixie dust
People keep dying,
workers falling from buildings
accidents in the form of skull
fractures and electrocution
all this death contained within
designing the great fair,
yet a madman paces inside
his castle, creating spaces
where supposed accidents
will swallow visitors whole
a madman forges his dreams
into piping hot realities
where his World’s Fair Hotel
promises spectacular service
so very close to the fair itself
Opening Day comes upon the city
in jovial bursts of color,
mouthwatering scents of exotic
pastries and delicacies from themed
exhibits stationed around the park,
thousands of visitors holding their
breath for President Cleveland
to push a button that ignites
a hundred thousand
glowing lamps across the fields,
illuminating neoclassical figures,
the work of men named Tesla
and Westinghouse
Dr. Holmes turns away men at the door,
citing reasons of already being booked
to capacity, yet the young women
stroll right in, are welcomed,
intoxicated by their own freedom
blushing at the handsome doctor
who offers great prices,
who offers warm touches
they do not see how excitement alerts
trembles into his fingertips,
eager to taste innocence, summon
screeches from their tender tracheas
lick away saccharine death from dying lips,
listen to the snapping of a windpipe,
hungry to snuff out light from
wide eyes,
hungry to cut the lights open,
sever the heart to see how it beats
beneath such fine skin,
glowing like the thousand lamps
across the enchanted fairgrounds
Unblessed Excavation
Holy Cross Cemetery, 2017
121 years I have slumbered
beneath a gritty dirt and concrete mixture
intended to shield my body
from the desecration
of grave robbers and greedy scientists
hungering for my brain, my heart
121 years I have allowed my bones
to root into earth,
but along came the tapping, gentle at first
enough to waken me,
enough for empty eye sockets
to peel away grime, try and witness
who has come tapping at my concrete door,
it is not Poe’s raven, not his gentle beak
warning me, nevermore shall I sleep
the noise is…you
My fingers stretch, just bone now
crunching, popping, aching
and you,
you should have let me sleep,
should have let the devil dream inside
his concrete prison
All these dirty layers deep
where dark imaginings scheme
on their own accord
where I play inside hell’s dreamland
designing nightmares
no one before me dared to envision
and
you should have let me sleep
I taste exhumation on my tongue
as avaricious hands steal my skull,
unearth the tatters of my necktie,
the remains of my mustache,
half-alive in the dirt as if waiting
I do not care for the way excavation tastes,
how it presses heavily on my tongue
teeth doing all the work
scraping away the bottom lip
of this mouth, my greatest ally—
my words, my charm,
the way a delicious falsehood forms
If I am to awaken, then I must taste
again the chloroformed flavors
of dead girls in my arms,
must feel the moment
when warmth leaves a body,
replaced by a stiff chill
The tapping turns to bombs
shattering concrete, bursting dirt
disemboweling my old pine coffin to dust
hands reaching,
caressing my skull,
unaware of awakened hunger
You whisper that you want to know me,
but didn’t anyone ever tell you
that when the devil dreams
you best leave him alone
as he thinks of souls to reap,
Your skin,
so fair, so warm
you should have let me sleep
<<====>>
Author’s Story Note
After writing my debut poetry collection, Love For Slaughter, I knew I wanted my next project to be as different in theme as possible. This idea really grew after I watched a documentary about serial killer H.H. Holmes. My muse had come to me in the form of the Murder Castle. I spent about six months heavily researching Herman Webster Mudgett, alias H.H. Holmes. I read articles and nonfiction books about him, watched more documentaries, and listened to podcasts about the killer. So many of the accounts conflict, making it nearly impossible to attempt to understand Holmes. Even his own prison memoir and “confession” conflict and lie, but he really was a brilliant liar. The results of having this madman live in my head transformed into The Devil’s Dreamland, a poetry collection that takes one through my interpretation of his life, misdeeds, and murder. The book is perhaps more narrative than a lot of other poetry collections can be, which I hope appeals to people who don’t always read a ton of poetry. I invite anyone interested in true crime, serial killers, or the gruesome macabre to step into The Devil’s Dreamland.
ALL GOD’S CREATURES GOT REASONS
Frank Oreto
From Hinnom Magazine #005
Editors: C.P. Dunphey & Caleb Stephens
Gehenna & Hinnom
The heavyset man in the red tank top did not look like a monster. He squatted in front of the stroller and waved at the child inside. The young mother, a pretty woman in a green blouse, smiled with pride.
Across the street, Lonnie Phelps took in the scene from where he sat in front of Java Jive. "Mighty nice ki
d you got there, ma'am," he said, filling in the unheard dialogue. The kid did look cute, from what Lonnie could see—little sailor hat peeking from the stroller. Probably only a bit older than my Ryan, he thought.
Lonnie sipped his coffee. When he looked back up, Tank Top was holding the baby. He had a big grin on his face, but the mother wasn't smiling anymore. She put her hands out to take the child back, but Tank Top ignored her.
"What the hell?" asked Lonnie.
The mom put a hand on Tank Top's forearm, her mouth moving fast.
Give back the baby. Lonnie willed the action from where he sat. But his thoughts were no more effective than the mother's words.
Tank Top winked at the woman. It was that slow kind of wink where you get your whole face involved—a get-a-load-of-me sort of wink. Lonnie could feel the teasing contempt. Then the man opened his mouth wider than should have been possible and shoved the crying baby's entire head inside.
The mother screamed and grabbed at the baby's flailing legs, but the man in the tank top whirled away. One heavy arm lashing out at the woman while the other shoved the child further into his mouth. His lips and jaws stretched wider to accommodate the narrow shoulders.
Lonnie ran across the street. Scene details popping in his mind like flashbulbs: a stroller turned on its side. A bottle of formula rolling toward the traffic.
The baby-eater now lay on the sidewalk in a fetal position, protecting his meal from the horrified onlookers. A single leg protruded from the man's mouth. A tiny blue sock hanging half off the foot
Lonnie reached the sidewalk with no idea how he could help. He pushed through the growing crowd. The mother clawed bloody gouges in the baby eater's face. A bike messenger kicked the man, yelling, "Stop it, dude," each time his worn Timberland connected.
As Lonnie got close, the baby-eater rolled and scrambled back from the crowd on bleeding elbows until he had pressed himself against the wall of Pizza Sola. Between his wide yellowed teeth poked five pink toes—all that remained of the child. Tank Top pushed them into his mouth. His hand disappeared up to his forearm, tamping down his obscene meal. Lonnie could hear the wet, rhythmic sound of the man swallowing.
Lonnie grabbed the man beneath the armpits and hauled him to his feet. "You sick bastard," he yelled. He launched his knee upward into the man's gut, hoping somehow to make him throw the child back up. Where were the police, an ambulance? Could they cut the kid out?
The man lurched forward, wrapping Lonnie in a bear hug. He shoved his drool-slick cheek against Lonnie's. "Forget it, man, I finished," he said. "What the hell's wrong with you?"
"Me?" Lonnie bellowed, pulling away.
The baby eater let go and shoved Lonnie with both hands. Lonnie stumbled backward straight into the mother in the green blouse.
"Watch it," she said.
Lonnie froze. The woman wasn't screaming anymore. She just looked annoyed. "Your baby," said Lonnie. "I'm so sorry."