Chapter 2: June 2025; “Friends, Strangers, and Enemies”
How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
Bram Stoker
“Òsùpá fẹ̀fẹ́” by Uchechukwu Onyedikam
dark night, raw & haunting
terror wind sweeping
a lover's abode —
spring cleaning
a night ago
memory sinks her teeth
deeply into the thought
of wild imaginings
making monster
of fairies in my sleep
midnight prayers
evil eyes lurking in the dark
feeding my fears with blood
dragging me to an unholy saviour —
corrupted my salvation
bleeding red moon
vampires out to feast
at my body laying —
fully dead, half living
upon the altar of darkness
a dark shadow drifts
upon my lover's eyes
her shaky voice shrinks
falls deeply down her throat
gasping for air
empty skeleton
sucking on cancer stick
prisoner to her dark shadow
chasing the leftover
of each sour breath
beware of her breast
a twin tower hoarding
unseen horror —
the lure of men
to kiss death's holy place
“A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed” by Emma Steel
Viktor whistled as he hosed down the floor. His red shirt was rolled at the sleeves, top two buttons undone as he worked. His jeans were wet around the ankles as they soaked water from the wet floor as he walked over it barefoot. In his other hand he held a cigarette, half consumed, amber stain in the center of the filter.
James watched him work, grateful the brief break.
“You hang out there, James, Jamesie, Jimmie. I’ll just clean up here a bit before we get back to it, a clean workspace is a happy workspace, yes,” shouted back Viktor to where James was.
The workspace was fairly sparce, and it was impossible to tell if it was a temporary space, or if Viktor lived here. The walls were of painted concrete block, along which ran electrical conduit and water pipes that terminated in a rough sink. Next to the sink was a white polyurethane trestle table which was folded out to give approximately five feet of working length packed with a variety of items laid on it that James couldn’t make out. He could see a twin burner camp stove, and next to that a cast iron skillet and a bottle of cooking oil. Under the table was nestled a white cooler, while on the other side of the sink stood a dehumidifier.
He finished cleaning the floor, all grey epoxy glistening with water and the humidity started to rise in the room as the water evaporated, hanging in the air. Viktor turned on the dehumidifier that whirred into life, vibrating as the internal fan sucked moist air in and after a few minutes started to pump it through the long clear hose into the basement sink, before turning his attention back to James.
“Now, where were we?” he asked, standing in front of James and peering deep into his eyes, examining the small flecks of brown buried in the grey blue irises. “I never noticed the color of your eyes before.” He put his hand on James’ face, running his fingers along the soft part under the eye roughly. “Perhaps I take a closer look later, no?” he said in his broken Russian accent. He stepped back. James hung in front of him, hanging naked from an iron I beam, blue with flaking patches that revealed a brown rusted surface. Viktor scratched his head through the crew cut of dark hair.
“You know in old country, we play this game with friends. You are my friend, yes?” he asked.
“Yes, yes. I’m your friend Viktor,” James replied looking to plicate the Russian, was there a chance he may still escape this?
He took a long draw on the cigarette, the end glowing bright red as the air passed through it, flaring into life. “Is good, everyone need a friend,” he said as he blew the smoke out and then put the cigarette out on James’s arm. James twisted and winced as a new welt was added to several that were already there, blistering the skin. He had been warned not to make any noise, otherwise there would be no need to keep him hanging around anymore and his end would be administered. Viktor placed the dogend in a trash receptacle by the sink.
“Good to keep the workplace clean,” he said quietly to himself.
He stood back, hands rested on his hips as he surveyed his “friend”, his plaything. “What do we play now, huh?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” asked James. “I didn’t do anything to you, just let me go. I won’t say anything, I promise,” he pleaded.
“Why?” Viktor seems confused by the question. “Why,” he repeated, “perhaps because everyone needs a hobby? We should all do something we enjoy, something we are good at. I like to think I am good at this game, and you are good at it too,” he said moving forward and removing a grey metal double edged dagger from his belt, a swastika emblazed into the handle. “This is my favorite,” he said, “My grandfather gave this to me as a gift, it was his favorite.”
He pushed the knife into the skin on James’s arm as it was held vertically by the restraints above him so that the blood started to flow, A trickle of red ran down his arm and then naked, sweat drenched body in a tiny rivulet and dripped onto the floor in a splatter. The drops developed tiny tendrils as the blood spread on the wet epoxy covered floor.
Viktor stared at the blood dripping intently. “See the beautiful patterns. The work of God is in everything, even most insignificant things can be thing of beauty, and you make most beautiful things,” he appeared lost in his admiration, almost like a child seeing something for the first time, drawn in with a mix of curiosity and wonder of a child, although his was not so innocent.
“When I was child, living with my grandfather on outskirts of Zashulan in old Russia I watched him with deer. He do this for our food, and we save everything. All blood, we make something with, to flavor our food. Then we move to America with perestroika. It is so rich here, you in America save nothing. You waste all,” he said, seemingly disgusted by the rabid consumerism he was surrounded by. “But my grandfather teach me well, and it is important to preserve old ways, no,” he said rhetorically. Viktor busied himself with arranging few things on the plastic trestle table, calling back over his shoulder, “but grandfather also teach that these skills are eh,” he searched for the right word for a minute, “transferable, yes, transferable.”
He could remember his time in the woods with his grandfather. His grandfather always used an old rifle from the second world war, a rifle he had owned for decades, since the time that he had served with Stalin. He had been a ‘doctor’ for Stalin, but in the early days everyone had a gun, and everyone knew how and had to use it.
He remembered they would be on the edge of the woods, nestled in the trees and mottled in shadows laid on the damp ground. His grandfather could lay quiet for hours just watching. At some point, a deer would enter the clearing. He would watch it make its progress across the glade, grazing on the lush green grass. He was careful not to act in haste and spook the deer but to take his time, allowing the deer to become comfortable; to let its guard down.
Eventually the rifle would slowly be laid out in front of him, the bolt slid back, the round inserted in the breach, and the bolt slowly locked back into place. His old rifle had no scope, he had relied entirely on the build in sights for the rifle’s entire life, it was a skill he was practiced in. The deer was followed as it slowly moved, it was comfortable and in no hurry. His finger would brush the trigger, tension increasing until there was a shot. The noise would echo through the trees, bouncing from the thick trunks so that it could have come from a thousand directions, and a deer would be laid, lifeless on the ground within an easy walk.
This was all a prelude to the interesting lessons. His grandfather was a specialist with a blade. Every blade was clean, every blade was razor sharp. “Your blade must always be sharp enough to cut tendons and sinew without force,” he would say, “so that you don’t have to push and strike the blade. Scarring the bone with the blade steals its edge,” he would tell Viktor.
They would drag the deer to where it could be hung, and his grandfather would slice through the skin of a leg with a blade, and gentle pare back the flesh to exposure the bones. This left the skin and flesh intact immediately above the hoof in order to allow the deer to be hung from that leg pegged on a branch before starting the dressing and butchering process.
Viktor cut James’s other arm so that blood ran from that too, adding to the drips on the floor and two streaks formed on the wet grey surface inching their way toward the drain in the floor, running parallel to each other. The Russian came strolling back, as though he was on the way back from walk in the park with a stainless steel syringe, the end capped by a fine needle, and proceeded to inject James’s arm just above the elbow. He pushed the needle in to the flesh with a pinch four or five times. Moving to the other arm he did the same so that James could feel the flesh go warm as it started to become numb.
“I think is time for cloth,” Viktor said. He took a cloth and stuffed James’s mouth, making it hard to breath and James mumbled as he struggled. “Don’t worry, it brief,” he said, “I remove shortly.” He took the dagger and plucked out the eye he had been examining, and the cloth prevented the scream that James tried to make with the pain that removing an eye ad hoc made. Pain seared through every fiber of his body, and he struggled and strained against the bonds. “I keep this one for later, the other, no, is not so nice.”
Viktor put the eyeball, nerves dangling from the back, on a wooden shelf and the moisture; a mix of fluids staining the unfinished wooden surface, turned the dust dark.
“Ha ha, it is looking at me, ha ha,” he was shaking with laughter at the macabre scene. What must it be like in this twisted mind that this was amusing to him? What were the horrors in this man’s childhood that could lead him to this life. “Now my friend you will be able to keep an eye on me to make sure we have fun,” he mused.
“You know the deer make no noise in the woods when grandfather butcher them, but there was always shot to silence them before they come.” He moved close, running his hand up over James’s stomach, feeling the curve of the rib cage under the skin, the ribs individual separate lines. He jabbed at flesh with a finger. “Shot here,” he said.
Stepping back, he removed his shirt, placing it neatly folded over the back of a chair, revealing a muscular torso, and tight abs, very dissimilar to James’ frame that had a layer of fat under the skin that padded it out. It was obvious that Viktor kept himself trim and fit and that had shown with the ease that he had strung James up to the beam.
“My grandfather was great man, both respected and feared,” he said. “Even Stalin feared my grandfather. Is why he was put in East. Stalin died, before he could kill my grandfather, so last laugh on him, yes?" It wasn’t a question, he spoke rhetorically, ending sentences in that way that the eastern European and Russians have when converting to English from their native tongue. James remembered him correcting Viktor the first time their paths had crossed and Viktor in typical form had commented, “You help correct me later, yes?” and here they were.
He poked at an arm, James gave no reaction proving that the injections had done their job and he picked up a knife from the trestle table, it’s edge glistening brightly as he returned to twist James’ elbow to be more conveniently placed. “My grandfather used this many times,” he volunteered.
“Hold the blade like this,” said Viktor’s grandfather. The voice drifting to mind across the years and miles, watching his grandfather grip the knife and turn it so the tip in a figure of eight in the air. “Let the blade move smoothly, cleanly, never hack,” he gave the blade to Viktor, “practice, practice, practice until the blade is part of your hand so that it’s almost like running your fingers over the flesh.” He held the blade in his hand, feeling the ridges in his palm, adjusting his fingers so that the grip was comfortable. He would then turn and swing the blade mimicking the motion that he had watched his grandfather do.
The blade was held loosely, not tight, or rigidly as that would impede its movement. The fingers skated over the grip, feeling every comfortable and familiar irregularity in its surface as he considered his options, where to start and the best path until finally Viktor guided the blade to touch skin. Slowly the edge of the knife traced its way over the surface of the skin, lightly kissing it but such was its edge that the skin peeled apart exposing the subcutaneous fat below, slightly yellow.
James could just crane his head and with his remaining eye see the incision as Viktor worked beside him. Strangely, he couldn’t feel anything due to the injections. He could rationalize what was happening, but it was like it was an event at which he was merely a spectator, as though it was happening to someone else. He knew intellectually that was his arm as the blade worked its way around the circumference of it, just above the elbow on the forearm and then Viktor did the same just below the wrist. Two parallel circles were inscribed on his arm with the flesh split as if it were foam rubber.
The tight torniquet kept his blood at bay, the upper arm swollen with the pressure as his heart tried to pump past the restriction to no avail as the blade slipped down the inside of his forearm. A join was created between the two circles and then Viktor adjusted the blade in his hand so that it was no longer being held like a scalpel but could be used to excise skin from flesh peeling it back like a flap of wet paper.
The surface of the flesh was slick and glistened with pin pricks of clear fluid that exuded from the muscle fibers. A little blood seeped from the incision below the elbow as Viktor examined his work, a smile on his face. He relished the progress and the skill he had exhibited not leaving a trace of the fat there. He moved to the other arm, surgically performing the same procedure as James hung restrained and barely able to see that side due to his missing eye, hanging slightly forward.
When the skin had been removed James hung from two skinned forearms, head slung forward in suspended collapse. Viktor returned to the trestle table and shuffled around with his back to James, blocking his view.
Viktor slipped the blade of the knife between the muscle groups on the first arm and weaved the tip out of slight, snaking up and along the bone. The knife moved by feel alone, years of practice had developed a sense of the delicacy he required to achieve the perfect result. After a few moments he pulled the knife away from the arm and along with it slipped the muscle, intact and a single piece. The twin bones of the forearm were left clean and bereft of the muscles they had supported, the hand stranded on its own like an island in its restraint. Viktor placed the flesh on a wooden board on the table and striped the other arm so that James hung by two bony arms while Viktor worked at the table. First, he picked up a bottle oil and then there was a sizzling sound that rose and fell in intensity as Viktor worked. An aroma rise in the air that made him salivate, it was time to take a break for dinner.
Drawing up a chair, he sat with a plate and floating in its own juices was a steak, tender and cooked rare. As he sat in front of James slicing off pieces of the Ouroboros steak he placed a thin slice in James’ mouth. In his stupor the meat merely merely dropped to the floor in his stupor.
“I know, it needs salt,” said Viktor, and he took the plate back to the table to grind a little salt over the meat before consuming the rest in front of his trophy suspended like a fossilized archaeopteryx.
In the morning when Viktor came down to the basement James was laid out on the floor where he had crumpled as he had fallen during the night. His hands remained pinned in their restraints and as the flesh had dried the elbow joints had become weaker and incapable of supporting his weight. Finally, the elbows had given up and the body had come crashing down leaving the bones of the forearms dangling from the beam like a carnival skeleton.
“This is not clean workspace,” said Viktor to himself as reached the bottom of the stairs. He pushed the body with his foot. It was stiff and unyielding, so this had happened several hours ago.
He spent the rest of the morning splitting the body down, joint by joint, before rinsing the floor with the hose, just as he had the previous morning except this was after work rather than before fun. He would need a new ‘friend’.
“Large Americano,” ordered a man in a dark suit, hair neatly trimmed, and moustache waxed into compliance.
A man behind the counter wiped his hands with a dark blue towel. “You drink here, or drink away, my friend?” asked the barista.
“Drink here or take away,” corrected the suited gentleman.
“Ahh, thank you my friend. Perhaps you help correct later, no?” asked the barista as he made busy pressing the coffee grounds into the attachment before twisting it into the machine to push the steam through it to create the espresso. “My grandfather have moustache like this in old country,” he said by way of conversation nodding at the hirsute attachment.
“What country would that be?” asked the gentleman as other customers looked on waiting for their orders to be delivered.
“Russia,” said Viktor, “I am from Russia. You know, sometimes no matter how many friends you make you need to leave a country. It is sad to see how it has changed. Now,” he said “now, I make a life and make new friends in America. Perhaps you can be my friend?” he enquired.
“Slumming” by Jay Goldin
most wouldn't be caught dead here
not if they had a choice --
the filth, the stench, the disrepair,
and most of all the hopelessness
so thick it's almost palpable
leaving them more or less resigned
to anything that comes along
including me and my sharp friend
i never specifically target
denizens of the demimonde;
they're just victims of convenience --
out at night and easy to approach;
i have nothing against them
or anyone else; also nothing for --
the world with slightly fewer soft machines,
with slightly fewer specimens,
is still the world, of course
but killing's not enough these days,
when it's so common, most of all here;
that's why i like to sign my work,
and for that, i have monty to thank:
he taught me all i know but then
had to flee london, just my luck,
though i don't blame him, given
what he did; still, how disappointing
not to have a partner in crime;
last i heard he went to some island
to help out with experiments
as assistant to a so-called genius
here, meanwhile, my work has gained
a popular following -- wonderful,
except for the name they foisted on me;
i guess they had to call me something
but "jack the ripper"? really?
how absurd, and based on some
letter i never even wrote;
guess i'll have to live with it
why bother, though, at all
with the whole bloody business?
(not that the blood bothers me;
and my batty cousin from abroad --
quite the night owl, just like me --
drinks the stuff, or so he claims)
to solve a crime you need to think
like a criminal, and what better way
to do so than committing crimes?
though when scotland yard detectives
consult with me about this case
i'll put them off the scent,
leave this one unsolved (and rest assured
they won't get far without my help);
a blemish on my record, sure,
but some sacrifices are worth making
as for the dear doctor, i doubt
he'll write this up, as he insists
on recording my successes only,
making me seem superhuman,
which of course i'm not:
rather, just another soft machine
that likes to take walks late at night
”The Crust of the Sun” by JW Wood
TW: Discussion of rape
(Charles "Carl" Panzram: June 28, 1891 – September 5, 1930)
Late summer, 1930. The man shuffles forward, each step deadened by iron bars that trap his legs. Ten-pound weights drag on his arms. He rests his forehead against the cell door. Then he raises his head and shuffles back to bed. He searches in the pocket of his prison shirt for a cigarette – the last he’d smoke in this world.
He turns to where the sky lightens between the bars on his window. Not long now before his longest walk, his final journey…
He was fourteen and drunk. So they locked him up for being incorrigible. That’s what his charge sheet said. Well, it turned out the guards and the inmates were the incorrigible ones.
By the time he left that place he’d been taught new uses for his body. Stuff he’d seen his mother doing for money, but never dreamed men would do to boys. They held him down and took turns, then beat him senseless.
When he got out he jumped a freight train heading West. Threw himself off as the train slowed down and robbed a farmhouse of apples, a cake and a pistol. He used the pistol to get some new clothes from a youngster passing by. He left the kid by the side of the road with a gaping skull – never anyone deader than that kid. Head like a bust watermelon.
In that time spent drifting, he learned how the world worked. Most of all, he came to know the hypocrites who lived in it, their real desires hidden behind the warped morality society had rammed into them as children. Preachers and teachers chattering about Jesus and the Bible while they screwed and drank and drugged behind them dusty lace curtains.
Jesus never came when he was held down and raped. Or when three hobos set on him in a box-car after he’d left home. They left him bloody in dust, clothes torn and the smell of axle-grease as the wheels ferried wheat out to San Francisco. All that wheat, and one mean and angry boy.
Such experiences taught him might was right and the weak suffer. Unlike everyone else, he went on to practise what he’d learned. He believed humanity wanted to rape and kill, just most of them lacked the guts to do it.
After that last rape he rode the rails for months working for day wages beneath a hellish sky that didn’t care what he did. He robbed an Oklahoma farmhouse and snagged seven hundred dollars in cash and jewels and a shotgun. So he stayed there for a while.
After work one night, he went out drinking in the red light district of a mining town. He wanted a woman and the more drunk he got the more he wanted one. So he met a whore but instead of bedding her he kept her talking and drinking, cigarette at his lips and one eye on a chance to thieve some drunk’s pocketbook or watch.
The next morning he woke up in an alleyway with blood caking his neck and an empty billfold, ribs bruised and his pants round his ankles. Half his seven hundred, the half he’d brought with him from his rooming-house, gone. Soon he found she had given him gonorreah as well. After that, he left town and rode the rails, seeking men. Sodomy, whisky and murder – everything at which he excelled.
Now he’d learned his trade, the man determined to exercise it in earnest. He got his sailor’s papers and worked on a steamer, paying his passage down to the tin and copper mines in Chile. He didn’t stay long, but lit out for Europe, where he robbed his way through Glasgow and Bremen and Dublin. Spent three weeks in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison for theft.
Then he grew tired of travelling the seas: he had seen too much of the world and its abuse. So he headed to Angola where he would be free to abuse Mankind in earnest. He shot six men dead as they rowed him up the Cuanza River and he turned their bodies into the water just to watch the crocodiles eat them, water churning red and the crunch of bone.
One night in a pensão in some shanty town outside Luanda he took hold of a man. He did what he wanted to do to him then beat his brains out with a rock, being out of ammunition for his gun.
He remembered how the man’s brains oozed out of his ears even as gouts of blood ran from his nose and mouth. So he threw him down in the dust at the bottom of a ravine, a long way from the prying sunlight, as the dawn was breaking over the southern Atlantic. As far as the man knew or cared, his victim’s body was still there.
After that he went back to the United States because the spirit of war was in the world. 1914: he prayed humanity would kill itself and take him with it, leaving this earth to innocent animals and a God he was certain did not exist.
With the war came opportunity and time. He was not fit for the draft given his rap sheet. That made him laugh, for sure – society wouldn’t let him go and kill in its war, but wanted to lock him up and control him instead because he was a killer. Riddle me that.
Sometimes he got put inside for a few months but he always escaped. Factory oil and coal dust were his friends: they hid the cuts he made in the bars on his window at night. Hours spent after lights out cutting and chipping, ears alive to the sound of a guard passing.
After one escape he had his best-ever heist. He robbed the estate of some fancy politician up in Newport, Connecticut. Someone who’d been responsible for the laws that had put him inside so often. Of course, the politician wasn’t there – but the man robbed him anyway, taking $40,000 in jewels and money he’d cracked from the safe. Then he unmoored the politician’s yacht and sailed up to New York, where he paid for a berth on the East River with the cash he’d stolen.
In the bars by the Hudson he’d meet off-duty sailors and buy them drinks and promise them big wages to come and crew his yacht. Make out he was some big swell who’d made his grease in mining or oil. Then he’d sail out to sea with them, rape them shoot them and dump them in the sea, their bodies sinking under the waves without a sound, only the hiss of the wind and the slap of the sea against his boat.
Then he met the prettiest man he had ever seen in his life. A blue-eyed, fat-cheeked little beauty, the cutest man he had ever known and he had known a few. So he took him on his yacht intending to show him the sights of New England and introduce him to the fine art of love between men.
Well, it turned out the youth was already an expert at that art – and him just nineteen years of age. So the man and his pretty wifelet spent a few weeks sailing and spending his money.
If ever there was a happy moment in the man’s mean existence, that was it. One day when they were docked near Long Branch, New Jersey, the youngster disappeared – but not before he’d told the New Jersey State Militia that the man had abducted him. He also told them about the man’s talent for the rape and murder of sailors.
No doubt Pretty Boy had grassed to get himself off any charges he thought were coming their way. So the man had a shoot-out with the police and surrendered. He didn’t kill any of them – but they knew the yacht was stolen.
He was given eight years. He escaped after twenty months. Ran out with the man he was chained to after busting a guard in the mouth with a shovel. They ran forty miles over two days to get someplace they knew people who could unbind them.
His friends gave him ten dollars, a gun and a suit of clothes. He headed south, riding the rails as he’d done when a teenager. Only now he was the one raping and robbing other hobos: black, white, old, ugly or pretty. He didn’t care – what mattered was damaging others. Giving back to humanity what it had given to him. Give, and it shall be given unto you, like it said in the Bible.
By now the war was done. His skills had expanded during the war from straight robbing and killing to safe-cracking and explosives. He stole some explosives from a mine and set them under a rail bridge with a detonator and a long wire. Then for sport he waited until a train came along the tracks under the hot sun.
He lit the fuse on his explosives and watched as it ran down the yellowed, sandy path from his hiding place between two big boulders. Down and down the slope, he watched the spark race the train as it rolled on to the bridge.
He thought he might have missed because he couldn’t see the fuse sparking, its trail having disappeared out of his sight down to the bridge. But when the train was half-way across the bridge he heard a huge explosion. His timing was ideal. The carriages fell a hundred feet into the gully beneath the bridge. He heard the tearing of metal as the carriages uncoupled and slammed into the dry earth of the riverbed below.
He thought of the mothers and children and men lying in the tangle of glass and wood and metal and blood and bone, dead and dying, the maimed and disfigured, and he laughed to himself, laughing like some demented prehistoric, his laughter echoing off the rocks in the desert air. Then he lay on his back as the dust settled and the cries and screams began.
He lit a cigarette from the same box of matches he’d used to murder the train passengers. Lay there looking at the sun that looked back at him from the depths of the blue heavens and didn’t care a damn what happened down here on Earth.
War was good business for the man, so he wanted another to start. As he idled down there in the South-West, he thought about how to bring about a war. After doping it out a while he headed for San Francisco.
He planned to board a British warship in the harbour and blow it up. Then get caught and tell everyone he was an agent of Germany. Start another war in the hope that this time round they’d get it right and kill every last disgusting, cretinous human.
But they caught him trying to board the British warship. And the British Navy officers marched him down to the Police Station on Third Street. Suspecting espionage, the police treated him serious: they fingerprinted him and photographed him and sent the records away.
Then when they got the reports from New England, from Minnesota, from the South, they knew he was no German spy but one of the wickedest men in America or the world. And they told him this time they were going to lock him up and throw away the key.
One night as he dozed in his cell he dreamed his mother was not a slut and his Daddy not some drifter he never knew. And he dreamed he hadn’t lived in a backstreet rooming house with an outdoor privy but on a big farm with buttermilk and bacon and eggs from your own hens for breakfast.
And in his dream everyone listened to him and loved what he did and said. He imagined he moved among the stars, and that he broke open the sun like a loaf of bread and scattered the pieces among the galaxies so they glowed like honey. But he was still all alone even though he ruled the universe, so he was sad. And angry. Angry at humanity, at his parents for birthing him, angry at existence.
He woke up and was marched off by four men to face the Warden. The Warden stared at him in his prison suit of rough grey cloth with arrows on it, arrows that accused the world. The Warden told him this was his last time and if there was any more trouble it would be the drop or riding lightning in the chair.
So the man said he’d kill the first person who crossed him and to hell with the consequences. Then they led him back to his cell.
Three days later, he kept his word. He’d been put to work in the prison laundry with some old supervisor, a civilian not a prisoner. This supervisor was about sixty, skinny with spindly arms and a bald head. This supervisor knew the man was on his last warning and thought he could mess him round. But after two days of being cursed and shouted at the man’s patience snapped.
He took a four-foot piece of wood with iron nails in one end that they used in the laundry for hooking clothes out of the steamer. And he came up behind the laundry supervisor and bounced it off his skull a couple of times, splitting his head open, blood gushing out like vinegar from a bust barrel.
The man kept battering until he could hit no more and the supervisor lay in a bloody mess on the floor. Then the screws came in and it took all six of them to get him down and throw him in solitary. While he was in solitary they told him what was going to happen.
Three weeks later, a posse of six screws brought him to this place of execution – right after a last cigarette.
Now four of the screws hold him. One on each arm and leg. Hell, he’d skip up those gallows if they’d let him. He is so sick of this world he wishes it had just one neck and he could get his hands around it and kill the whole human race at once. Then there’d be nothing left on this ball of rock but animals, plants, trees, fish and the oceans.
And maybe he’ll move among the stars again, loved, scattering pieces of the sun to light up the dark corners of the universe. Or maybe he’ll rot. Or most likely there’s nothing, just endless blackness. The man wants that blackness more than anything – for himself, and for every other human being too.
They put the bag over his head and tie it in place. It stinks inside and gets hot fast. The smell of fear, the smell of repentance. The smell of death. There’s darkness and silence. He feels something hit his head then slip off. The fat screw chewing a cigar when he got dragged in – he was holding the rope.
He tells the fat man to hurry up. Says he could have killed a dozen men in the time it’s taking him. That does the trick and the rope goes round hs neck real easy. He feels it loose, hanging down around the collar of his shirt. Inside the black bag the man’s breath turns to droplets on his face. He sucks the stinking black cloth into his mouth by mistake, smells the pigfat they used to grease the noose.
One of their god-damned priests starts chatting. To shut him up the man screams and stamps his feet like if he stamped hard enough he would break through this hollow Earth and find another world, one less messed up, less full of lies.
He kicks and screams. They shove him forward and the priest keeps talking the man hears something about may the Lord have mercy on your then the ground gives way beneath him as the trap door opens, then—
“Lady in the Fog 1856“ by Jacqueline Zalace
As the dark harbor winds choke through my coat,
My own eyes slice clean through the heavy mist.
But God unveiled a beauty that seemed to float,
Skin sparked with Boston’s glow, I hope to kiss.
Though dusk, the maiden remains; I jump o’er,
Clasping a chemise of silk, moth-pocked grey;
She looks down, hollow eyes ooze wan liqueur,
Oily threads blow from the breath of the bay.
She peels away silk, paper skin flakes off,
Decayed strawberry lips pull unto me.
A stench so fetid, I begin to cough
But still, she floated out, beyond the sea.
Reaching down my maw, she grabs my heart tight,
Pulling veins, she throws me into the night.
“Abandon All Hope” by JB Polk
Some people believe that life is a series of random events, which is probably true because the outcome of this story and many others would have been very different had it not been for chance.
Consider Will Alva's case... He wouldn't have embarked on his incredible journey if he had been born in a town with a common name, such as Madison or Greenville. His fate was sealed, however, when his parents relocated to Ding Dong, Texas.
Although its population never exceeded 100, the town rose to prominence when Ripley's Believe It or Not included it in one of its programs. This brought year-round tourist traffic from domestic and international tourists posing for photos with the town's sign in the background. One could also buy goofy souvenirs like keychains, t-shirts, and postcards with Ding Dong emblazoned in gold lettering.
Growing up in a community with an odd name piqued Will's curiosity about what lay beyond. But it also put him in some pretty difficult situations. Not only did he have to cope with the typical teen issues like zits and body odor, but he also accidentally spilled the beans about his birthplace while attending college. His subsequent efforts to explain that the town’s name came from two bells painted on the awning of a country store owned by Zulis and Bert Bell were usually met with a chant of "Ding Dong, the Wicked Will is Dead!"
When he finally graduated and became a photojournalist for National Geographic, he put the ridicule behind him and traveled to far-flung corners of the globe, capturing superb images and collecting stories about other cultures and civilizations.
Then chance intervened again. Will and his editor, Susan Hathaway, went to El Rinconcito one evening for tacos de pastor and tequila margaritas. Despite their age difference, he felt comfortable with her, so against his better judgment and most likely due to too much drinking, he told her his hometown's ridiculous name. Susan's eyes lit up rather than mocking him as she encouraged him to tell her the whole story.
"What we've been through can truly motivate us to do incredible things. They actually teach us some valuable lessons and insights that we can use to keep going forward. Your unusual upbringing and the struggles you've endured have shaped you into the outstanding photographer you are today," she said after he wrapped up his story.
"You know what? I just thought of something! How about writing an article about your town? You could make it more fun with lots of pictures of the sign and the residents," she exclaimed with enthusiasm.
"You could also add some quotes from the people to really make their stories come alive."
Will thought Susan’s idea could make for a compelling story.
“It could work! And while I am at it, I might stop by Cut and Shoot, which is just a stone’s throw away from Ding Dong!”
"I think we have a winner on our hands," Susan agreed.
"It might even grow into something more than an article and make a fantastic book! And you wouldn't have to limit it to Texas. I know there's an Eggnog in Utah and a Boring in Oregon."
"And a Saint-Louise-du-Ha in Canada!" Will added.
They laughed so hard that they could barely keep their third margarita from tipping over.
Will met Susan for one more round of drinks a week before embarking on his fact-finding mission.
"I can't let you go without a gift," she said, reaching into her handbag.
“It’ll get you back into the old-time habit of writing in longhand. I know it helped my creative juices flow.”
She handed him a box with the Cross logo. Inside was a beautifully crafted fountain pen with a glossy finish and a sterling silver nib.
"This pen has been by my side through all my crazy adventures. It's like my best friend," she continued, her eyes tearing up with nostalgia.
"I really hope this inspires you to capture every moment of your journey with the same passion it inspired me."
That's how it all began, and it's why he was in Santiago, Chile, waiting for a connecting flight to Puerto de Hambre, or Port of Hunger, in the Province of Last Hope, only a few kilometers from Desolation Island.
The three names sounded so gloomy that he decided to have a few stiff cocktails before boarding. He was anxious about what was ahead as he waited for his guide and interpreter to join him.
The project he started over a year ago had taken him to places with amusing rather than somber names. He never made it to Boring but instead visited Dull, its Scottish counterpart. Although it had only one street, it was full of charming cottages and picturesque vistas, providing an uplifting departure from the usual urban settings. As he explored the village, he was grateful for the unexpected detour that led him to this hidden gem, where residents were happy to share stories about Dull’s traditions.
“You might think that it means boring,” one of the locals explained, “but it actually means meadow in Gaelic.”
His next stop was Nlanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogoch, a Welsh community with Europe’s longest name, meaning "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave.” He took dozens of photos of the signboard and recorded the residents pronouncing this tongue-twisting wonder.
During his year on the road, he also visited Crapstone in Devon and the Australian Lake Disappointment, a salt lagoon named by an explorer who expected to find a freshwater source. He passed through Batman in Turkey and boarded bus 666 to the Hell Peninsula in Poland.
His last destination, the little-known harbor with rugged cliffs near the Magellan Straits, was supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful and would provide the perfect backdrop for his journey’s final chapter.
He was on his second gin and tonic when someone tapped on his shoulder.
“Will? Will Alva?" A baritone boomed behind him.
Will turned to face a tall man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sporting a scruffy beard. His blue eyes seemed to hold a hint of mystery as if they had seen more than their fair share of adventures.
The man introduced himself as Juan Stokes, followed by a firm handshake.
"Commander Pringle Stokes' descendant, the captain of the Beagle that dropped its anchor in the Magellan Straits nearly two centuries ago," he boasted.
Will was thrilled to know the rugged-looking man would take him through uncharted territory and potentially help him discover the secrets of the Pacific Ocean's chilly waters. He gathered his luggage and followed Stokes to Gate 15, excited to begin the last leg of his journey.
Three hours later, the JetSmart Airbus 320 landed in Punta Arenas, the world's southernmost city and the closest to Antarctica's perpetual ice.
"Get your stuff, and we’ll grab the jeep. I can't believe you picked winter for your first trip to Puerto de Hambre! The roads can be pretty tricky, and the weather's all over the place, but I guess that just makes it more exciting, right?” Stokes said as he walked ahead of Will to the parking lot.
He remained silent for the first hour and a half, his attention fixed on the dirt road while Will slipped in and out of a shallow slumber as the Jeep heated up. Before drifting off completely, he wondered if Stokes' warnings about the dangerous roads were starting to make sense. He couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that their expedition might be a bit more complicated than anticipated.
"So, why pick the end of the world as your spot?"
Will was jolted awake by Stoke's voice.
"Not a typical place on a tourist's to-go map," the guide added, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Will glanced out the window at the desolate landscape, with a few leafless bushes bending under the force of the wind. He could see now why Stokes referred to it as the end of the world—it felt like they were driving through Tolkien’s Middle Earth rather than a real place. The untouched beauty of the surroundings was unlike anything he had seen before, and he felt that this one-of-a-kind setting would be the ideal climax to his book.
“It all started as a kind of random idea and simply turned into something that I really think has a lot of potential. I thought since I’ve already visited a dozen places with quirky names—like Eggnog in Utah—I might just find myself in Port of Hunger, in the Province of Last Hope! Precisely the kind of spooky that fits perfectly with the book’s ending!”
As he finished the sentence, something in the Jeep's belly wheezed, coughed, and grumbled, and Stoked stopped the car abruptly.
"Well, that doesn't sound good," he remarked, pushing open the door and jumping out.
He stared under the hood, trying to figure out what was making the noise. A cloud of smoke billowed out of the engine as he inspected it.
"Looks like the engine's running a bit too hot. This isn't the best place to be stuck. Puerto de Hambre is still about a half-hour drive from here. We can't hang out here for much longer. It's getting ready to dip below freezing,” the guide murmured before pulling out his phone, hoping to pick up a signal and call for assistance.
"Not even one bar," he grumbled.
"Let’s head out and see if we can make it to town before it gets dark. We'll stick to the road. It's not exactly a great place to hang out until morning,” he reflected, scratching his chin.
Will nodded as he peered up at the darkening sky.
"Maybe we can flag down a passing car or find help nearby?"
Stokes roared with joyless laughter.
"A passing car? It looks like you didn't do your homework well before the trip. What kind of journalist are you? We could wait a week and not see a single car on this route. Remember? This is where the world ends. The Province of Last Hope! Have you read Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy?” He inquired unexpectedly.
Will shook his head.
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate,” Stokes quoted in Italian.
"It means Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Why do you think this place is called the Province of Last Hope?”
Will looked at the desolate landscape, devoid of any signs of life. The name suddenly made sense. It was a place where hope came to die!
“Get your rucksack, and let’s start moving,” Stokes ordered.
"We must get to town before it's dark, or..."
"Or what?" Will prompted.
“Or we risk getting more than we bargained for," Stokes responded, sounding a bit on edge.
"And I’m not just talking about the cold,” he added, hinting at something sinister lurking in the shadows.
The guide's urgent tone fueled Will's desire to reach Puerto de Hambre before dusk. With each passing minute, the sun sank deeper into the horizon, leaving lengthy shadows that appeared to warn of monsters with glowing eyes and sharp teeth prowling in the darkness ahead. As he reached into the boot for his backpack, he was startled by a howl. It was like nothing he had ever heard before—a mix between a hyena and a wolf, prolonged and haunting.
"Get back into the car! Now!” Stokes shouted.
Will hurried towards the Jeep’s passenger door and dove in.
“What was that?” he asked breathlessly.
Stokes twisted the key in the ignition, but the engine coughed and failed to start.
"It's no use! They've already seen us!" Stokes yelled as he peered out the window at the fading light.
Will's heart raced, a nervous drumbeat resounding in the car as he struggled to decipher the meaning behind Stokes' words. The howl echoed through the night, a chilling sound announcing that something immense and scary was approaching the vehicle. He clutched the edge of his seat as the ground beneath the Jeep trembled. Stokes twisted the key with a frantic urgency.
"What is it? What is out there?" Will repeated.
Stokes returned his stare. His face was blanched with fear.
"We've got to get out of here! Quickly!" he shouted.
The darkness seemed to close in on them as they waited for whatever was outside to show itself. Something or someone was rocking the Jeep, trapping Will and Stokes inside like sardines in a can, desperately trying to get them out.
Will was not religious, but he prayed to return to one of those towns with weird but harmless names, even if it were only Ding Dong in Texas.
“What’s going on, Stokes?”
"Why do you think this place is called Port of Hunger?" Stokes yelled back.
“You think it was just pulled from a hat? Come on, it's not just some goofy name like your Bacon and Eggs! People around here say that folks and animals have vanished without a trace. I’ve heard some wild tales about huge footsteps that must belong to a giant. No one's actually seen it, but people say it lives out here...Old wives tales, I used to think, but now…"
Stokes held the steering wheel tightly, trying to keep his cool as the Jeep kept rattling. He pressed the gas pedal and twisted the key but got nothing apart from a grinding noise.
“Start, you bastard!”
With a thunderous crash, the driver’s window shattered, and an immense, fur-covered arm reached into the vehicle, seizing Stokes by the collar. He let out a piercing scream as he was dragged out, the creature's razor-sharp claws ripping his clothes.
Will watched in horror the screaming guide's desperate struggle to cling to the car. With a surge of desperation, he seized his legs and yanked with all his might. Despite their combined efforts, the guide's strength waned with each passing moment. Knowing that Stokes's life was on the line, Will searched the Jeep for a weapon, panic taking over every thought.
Then he remembered Susan Hathaway's farewell gift, which was supposed to unleash his creativity and make his creative juices flow. With one hand still clutching Stokes' leg, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the pen, unscrewing the lid with his mouth. Gripping it firmly, he lunged the silver nib toward where he assumed the creature's face might be, looking for a vulnerable spot in a last-ditch attempt to release Stokes. He thrust hard, once or twice, but the thing's rough, furry skin seemed impenetrable. He took aim and unleashed one final strike, putting everything into the attack. This time, he aimed higher, where he thought the creature’s face should be.
The roar of pain echoed through the air as his weapon finally pierced the beast's defenses, releasing Stokes from his grip. The beast staggered back, clearly shaken by the impact, while a viscous slime trickled onto Will's hand, followed by a sharp wail as the animal thrashed around, trying to pry out the pen lodged in its flesh.
And as suddenly as it had begun, the attack was over. They heard the monster move away, its heavy footsteps fading into the distance. Will sat panting heavily, his heart pounding. The silence hung around the vehicle as if the world held its breath, unsure of what had just happened.
"Stokes? Stokes?" he called.
"You OK, Stokes?"
Stokes moved weakly, then sat up, his face ashen.
"I think so," he croaked, then looked down at his jeans, torn to shreds by sharp claws.
"We must get out of here before more of them show up!" he cried out, frantically trying to locate the car key that had been lost in the struggle. His hands grazed the Jeep's floor as he searched, glancing anxiously in every direction, bracing himself for another assault. At long last, his fingertips made contact with the cold metal.
He spun around to face Will.
“If it doesn't start, we'll just have to walk. We must get out of here. There could be more of them hanging around!”
He turned the key, his entire body tensed. The engine roared to life, a welcome sound in this desperate situation.
"That's one hell of an ending to my book," Will exclaimed relieved.
Stokes raced to Puerto de Hambre, a place they almost didn’t make. As they approached the outskirts and glimpsed the buildings and empty roads, it struck them just how near they had been to a disaster - the echo of their close call a palpable reminder of how swiftly things can change in a heartbeat.
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate," Stokes whispered.
"Abandon all hope," Will translated unnecessarily.
"I swear I'll never again complain about minor inconveniences. And from now on, I'll only visit towns called Eggnog and Ding Dong," he remarked, laughing but with very little mirth if any at all.
“The Shadows of Our Minds” by Claudia Wysocky
“Beguiling Cries” by Barlow Crassmont
The neighbor child’s cries were loud.
Composed of high, intermittent shrieks, they reverberated through the walls like a mountainous echo.
They came at various times of day, but were especially raucous at night, when my insomnia was already testing what was left of my cognizant existence. Of the child’s mother I knew little; of his father, even less. They were not from around here, that much was sure. Some have speculated their roots to be in Budapest, a place abundant with goulash and paprika, but low on camaraderie.
My only encounter with the mother was last autumn, when we passed each other on the stairs. Our building’s bi-monthly elevator maintenance made it unusable in the late afternoon. As a result, tenants were subjected to spending more time with their neighbors than they would have liked.
The woman’s pale, ashen skin immediately caught my eye. Frail, with a face more skeletal than mortal, she was a spitting image of a starved ghost. On her neck, and just below her chin, red scratches were fresh and raw, emblems of pain in lieu of make-up. She smelled neither alive nor dead, and emitted no aroma I could identify. To my muted, passing ‘hello’ she responded not at all. I assumed she didn’t hear me, and said nothing else. We both exited on the same floor, and as she walked away, it was with a nonchalance of being led, rather than leading.
Later that night, I tried picturing her face as sleep eluded me. She appeared as a seductive nymph, greatly improved and enhanced. Her flesh had resumed the color of the living, and her tongue resembled her lips in color and glow. The softness of her fingers entwined in mine aroused me in ways spiritual and physical, and I prayed never to wake.
But her ocean blue eyes, and golden, sparkling hair, soon took the form of a fading sun and a fistfull of snakes. She flashed her horrid teeth, and leapt at me with the ferocity of the fiercest predator. I screamed, panicked, and, flailing like a madman, woke with a dreadful sensation in my stomach. Darkness consumed my vision, and the smell of kung pao chicken from yesterday grounded me back to reality. If I was to resume functionality among the living, I had better keep such frightful images from thoughts both waking and sleeping, regardless of how enticing they were for my libido.
Our units shared the same floor, if not the same sides of the hallway. Still, their vent was connected to mine, and I often picked up odd aromas that traveled through the labyrinth-like valve. In the mornings, the aura was rich with a musty, moist dampness, like laundry left undried for too long. In the afternoons, the whiff emitted was that of semi-rotted food decay, whose emanation fluctuated from rancid to bitter and ultimately, to sweet, as if on a wave. In an unexpected twist, I was drawn to this particular scent, and looked forward to moving my chair to wherever its flavor was most potent.
But it was at night that the rustic, dry smell was most perceptible. Strong, but repellant, almost bothersome. Try as I might in narrowing down its exact source (baby vomit, spoiled eggs, or a corpse of a neglected turtle?), I could not. Lack of sleep and an extended solitude will do that to a person, or so I’ve been told. At length, I chose not to complain to the management on the first floor. I endured it with the aid of several air fresheners of tropical and ocean aromas that I sprayed thoroughly, as if it was a narcotic.
Winter soon arrived. As the seasons shifted, I saw less leaves on the pavement, and more snow where grass used to be. The air was generally stiff, lifeless, and absent of any flavor. Not even the saltiness of the nearby ocean, if one walked alongside it, could be sensed. It may have been my imagination, or maybe the dropping temperatures contributed to the impression, but during this period, the child’s cries became enhanced. Whereas before I would have equated them with waterboarding torture for the ears, their current acoustics morphed into gentle hymns and chants most melodious. Their intonation and pitch were that of a trained professional, skilled and taught about harmony, timbre and pitch. That they belonged to an infant was all the more miraculous. Surely his parents have noticed, and would take the necessary steps in ensuring the boy’s development as a future world class tenor.
I tried to picture the baby’s facial features on the basis of how high pitched its crying was. If projected in Bass vocal range, I saw it having a square face and noticeably dark eyebrows. When it belted in the Alto, it appeared as a smiling, wide nosed infant, not unlike a common primate offspring. But it was the Soprano pitches that painted the child’s features as angelic: the halo over its head an unreachable hoop for its tiny playful hands.
Of the three images, the last one struck me as the most likely, for when it cried at that range, it brought a smile to my face, and occasional tears that were dissociated with heartache. The commencement may have been an unpleasant acoustical jolt, but it was soon followed by an intense low-to-high consistent scream. The chant reverberated the eardrums, crept through the cochlea, striking the auditory nerve, and produced a semi-euphoric sensation whose fervor increased with each new performance.
This new interest turned into an undesired addiction, and did little to improve my physical health. In the following days, I avoided the outdoors entirely, and, due to my boss' kindness, was allowed to work from home extensively. I ventured outdoors only when absolutely necessary: to stock up on necessities for the most meager of existences; and to occasionally indulge into fresh air.
Scarcely had I seen any of the neighbors, and wondered if any of them had heard the child’s cries. Were they also charmed by the mysterious hymns? Did they keep them up at night, making them curse the parents and their family tree entire, as heavy bags developed under their eyes? Had its shrieks previously pierced their walls, devouring any tranquility that was to be found? And didn’t his present sounds mirror an elated musical arrangement of the highest order, challenging even those of the enticing sirens, who’ve led many a sailor to their doom?
In late-December, as colorful lights flickered through windows across the metropolis’s skyline, the child’s cries had modified into a timbre that chilled me to the bone and left the hair standing on my arms. I tried to sit still, ignoring their beguiling call, which injected my soul with jubilation more orgastic than ever. Before I even realized it, I found myself in the hallway, walking towards the child’s apartment, against my primal instinct.
The door to their Unit 808 was slightly ajar, and all I could see from the narrow opening was a light reflection on the white wall. I knocked once, waited, and knocked again.
Twice, thrice.
But all went unanswered. So I entered, slowly, methodically, but cautiously. I hoped my friendly hello would reach someone before the sight of me did. But what greeted me was nothing I could see or hear. At least not yet.
Yet my nose recognized it at once. It was a familiar smell: dry, metallic, repugnant. Covering my nose did little to appease the discomfort, for surely I wanted none of the stench in my mouth.
A gurgling noise reached my left ear before I turned the hallway corner.
Mr. Ashby, the neighbor from Unit 817, lay on the floor, unconscious. The child, crouching over the old man’s shoulder, feasted on Mr. Ashby’s neck, the blood sprouting from it like a sprinkler into the infant’s mouth. I stared in bewilderment at the unexpected carnage, unsure of what to say or do. I didn’t know if taking a breath was even appropriate, since the old man would unlikely ever take another.
There was no sign of anyone else, not even the mother. The room consisted of a large, brown crib, with a beige colored coffee table, and large red chair as its solitary accompaniments. The child turned its ghoulish face at me, and emitted a growling sound that made me shiver. Its sinister red eyes pierced through mine, like a flash of lava from the underworld. The pointy ears gave it an impression of a tiny elf with a long, acute nose, and as its countenance changed from confusion, to acknowledgement, and finally, to defensive apprehension, my sudden nervousness rendered me speechless.
As blood dripped from its puny mouth, the child flashed its teeth once again. At first invitingly, then, ultimately, in a manner that I could only interpret as menacing.
In an instant that was shorter than a thousandth of a microsecond, my memory of its former melodies faded, like a flame in the bleakest of winters.
Author Biographies
Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a poet whose work graces Petals of Haiku: An Anthology, an Amazon best-seller now permanently displayed in the Treasure House of Rinsen-ji Temple, Japan, a revered institution with over 500 years of history. With 8 works screened at the global HaikuLife Haiku Film Festival 2025, by The Haiku Foundation. Editors' Choice Everscribe Magazine. Nominated for Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and Touchstone Award.
Emma Steel (she/her) is originally from the UK and now splits her time between Maryland and Western Central Pennsylvania in the US. She writes fiction in the genres of horror and fantasy, with a leaning toward the quirky twist!
Emma's interests and inspiration for fiction often come from the myths and folklore of the British Isles, where she was born and grew up. Her work has been published in Trembling with Fear, Hawthorn and Ash, and Holiday Spirit(s).
Jay Goldin works in academia and journalism. He has published poetry, fiction, film essays, book reviews, and photos. He blogs at www.random-stranger.com and can also be found at jayg1973.bsky.social.
A 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Award and International Mystery Writers Association Award nominee, JW Wood the author of six books of poems and a novel, all published by small presses in the UK. He has reviewed for The Times (UK), Daily Telegraph (UK), National Post (Canada) and more, while individual stories and poems have appeared in Short Story Substack, AGNI, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Pulp Literature, The South-West Review, Who Let The Stories Out? (Australia) and many other titles world-wide, including horror anthologies from Horror MTL (Canada) and Ink and Quill Press (USA). Awards include Canada Council for the Arts (2022), Strands International Fiction Award (India, 2024), Scotsman Short Story Award (UK, 2008) and British Columbia Arts Council (2018). He is a dual citizen of the UK and Canada currently resident in a tiny hamlet in North-East Scotland. Two weeks ago, my first book of short stories, a collection of satires about life in the digital age, was published by AN Editions in London.
Jacqueline Zalace is a poet based in Austin, Texas where they live with their partner and cat. Their first chapbook, Snow Angels, was published in 2024. You can also find Jacqueline’s work in places like Magma Poetry, Superpresent, Fast Flesh Literary Journal, Juste Millie Zine, and Molecule. Aside from writing, they love to play video games, paint, and read. For more information, visit poetryjacquelinezalace.wordpress.com
JB Polk is Polish by birth, a citizen of the world by choice. First story short-listed for the Irish Independent/Hennessy Awards, Ireland, 1996. Since she went back to writing in 2020, more than 100 of her stories, flash fiction and non-fiction, have been accepted for publication. She has recently won 1st prize in the International Human Rights Arts Movement literary contest. In March, her 150th piece of work was accepted for publication in Sweden.
Claudia Wysocky is a Polish poet and photographer based in New York, celebrated for her evocative creations that capture life's essence through emotional depth and rich imagery. With over five years of experience in fiction writing, her poetry has appeared in various local newspapers and literary magazines. Wysocky believes in the transformative power of art and views writing as a vital force that inspires her daily. Her works blend personal reflections with universal themes, making them relatable to a broad audience. Actively engaging with her community on social media, she fosters a shared passion for poetry and creative expression.
Barlow Crassmont has lived in the USA, Eastern Europe, Middle East and China. When not teaching or writing, he dabbles in juggling, solving the Rubik’s Cube, and learning other languages.