To Be A Monster pt 5 (written by Mark Jackson)

Cheryl not only felt her eyes leave their sockets… she heard them. The pain wasn’t as excruciating as she feared when they swelled and then shot from her skull to dangle on the sides of her down-turned face. The pain was more of an ache, but the worst part was the pop, pop sound and the cold sensation of air entering her head through two new openings that should never exist.

At first, her vision was like watching a TV with a skipping signal. She saw Gwen, then the sky, then back to Gwen, and then the pale faced onlookers, which she registered as moving her way. When her eyes settled on their stretched optic nerves, thin veins sprouted from the dangling orbs like strands of blue thread and fastened themselves to Cheryl’s forehead.

Her head, still in the upside-down position, stretched away from her body on an elongating neck with a series of snaps, crackles, and pops. She pushed herself up on her hands and feet into a rather ugly, yet well formed crab walk position. Her breasts, now pointing toward the sky from her concave chest, burst open loosing a mass of squirming black tentacles while stiff tufts of bristling hair cropped up on various areas of her body. With her mouth now up and the top of her head down, her hair hung in what appeared to be a blood matted beard.

“Damn Cheryl, you really look like shit,” Gwen said, smirking.

Taffy laughed while the crow offered up an unpleasant chuckle.

Things were not going the way Cheryl had planned... no, correction, that was the understatement of the year… this was a complete fuckeroo if there ever was one, and now on top of everything else, her stomach was rolling like a mother fucker. Shaking it off, she tested her mobility. She took a shambling step and nearly fell in a heap, but managed to catch herself with her newly positioned hands / feet.

“I will have to say, George, that is one of the most ridiculous monsters I’ve ever seen.”

Cheryl twisted her head to see the onlookers from the funeral home join the party. She wondered why these crazy fucks weren’t running home to mamma when she realized they were all semi-transparent and in various stages of decay. The one who called her pathetic had a majority of her face sagging down on the front of her black dress. George, whoever the fuck that was, had a hole in the top of his head the size of a tennis ball like he had taken the chicken shit way out of life.

“That she is Gladys, that she is,” George said, nodding his ruined head. The others joined the nodding and Cheryl saw the nose fall off a rather large black man and into the front pocket of his shirt.

She focused her attention back on Gwen. “You fucking bitch. You brought this on me didn’t you?” A stabbing pain racked her abdomen with such force she nearly collapsed. “Don’t even tell me I’m starting my period. Monsters are not supposed to have periods. They’re supposed-” Another cramp hit her with a vengeance and she felt something swelling in her intestines.

“Unbelievable,” growled Taffy. “What an idiot. Of course, I don’t know why that should surprise me after having to live with her stupid ass for the last five years.”

Gwen reached down and affectionately stroked Taffy’s blond fur. “Come, come Cheryl. How can you say I brought this on when you were the one who just rolled over and went back to sleep leaving me to choke on my own vomit.” As if to emphasize this, Gwen coughed spewing pale orange fluid from her mouth in a chunky spray.

“You’re the one who couldn’t hold her booze,” Cheryl hissed. “What was I supposed to do? Take the drinks out of your hand? Pump your fucking stomach?” Another cramp hit Cheryl and this time it was punctuated with a rather large wet fart.

“And classy too,” Taffy said, rolling her eyes.

“You see Cheryl, thanks to you, my spirit was cursed to spend eternity walking the earth with a throat full of puke. You know how hard it is to pick up a cute dead guy when all you can do is gurgle out puke breath? It’s damn hard.” Gwen coughed again, peppering George’s black suit with flesh colored chunks. George looked down, plucked off the biggest piece and popped it in his mouth. But before his could chew it up, it dropped through a hole under his chin and stuck back on his suit. Cheryl grinned and continued.

“However, all was not lost as I was able to make a deal with someone who has become a very close friend of mine.” She winked at the crow, which winked back. “A sort of two for one deal so to speak.”

“Yeah? Well I think that’s bullshit because if you really had a throat full of puke you would just be gargling away like you did that night I left you laying on your back. You sounded like a damn percolating coffee pot, and I couldn’t wait for it to stop so I could go back to sleep.” Cheryl winced as another cramp hit hard below the navel. Despite the pain she was starting to get a feel for her developing form. She took a couple of quick steps to one side, then the other, her hands and feet making dull thudding sounds in the thick grass.

“Oh, that the beauty of it, Cheryl. Thanks to you killing your little brother I was credited with one of the two hell bound souls needed to complete my deal, so now I’m only coughing up puke every few minutes, which is not bad, but not good.” She smiled as if humoring herself, “You know poor Billy never was one to believe in God and Satan, but I’ll bet he has a whole new perspective on it now.”

Cheryl couldn’t care less if Billy was with God, Satan, or the fucking man on the moon. Right now, her situation was the only thing that mattered. “And what if I don’t kill anyone else? What then?” Cheryl stretched her neck, bobbing her head up and down like an ostrich. She glanced at the suited up zombies who all wore smug grins on their rotting faces. She made a quick move in their direction dissipating two back to whence they came and causing the noseless black dude to knock Gladys down to the ground with a squish.

Gwen laughed. “See, you’re starting to like your new self already, and as far as you not killing anyone else… that’s like saying I haven’t been tasting my last Quarter-Pounder with cheese for the last six months.”

Cheryl was only half listening to her cousin as the pain in her guts increased to near apocalyptic levels. She was reminded of the time she had taken on the Eat the guacamole burrito as big as your head and get it for free challenge and spent the next five hours glued to the toilet. She started crab-walking in tight circles screaming and cursing, all to the amusement of the crowd. Stopping suddenly, she arched her back, which was really her stomach, and pushed.

She had never had a baby but if she had, she felt sure this was worse. Other than the fact this was popping from her ass, what appeared to be the top of a head crowned, stretching her bung strings to an impossible diameter. Something brown and hair covered slipped out, shooting from her ass and passing through the spirit of the black noseless guy before he had time to yell ‘you crazy mofo bitch’. Gwen jumped back stepping on Taffy who cursed her existence, and sending the crow squawking from one shoulder to the other.

Grunting and screaming, Cheryl pushed again, this time resulting in a world class episiotomy ripping its way from her stretched-out bung clear to her swollen mud flaps as Billy’s skull popped out and landed on the ground like rotten gourd. Partially liquefied brains spilled from the eye sockets forming a gray pool around the grinning skull.

Cheryl stared at the expulsion thinking how wrong she had been to ever call Billy a little shit.

“Now that looks rather tasty,” Taffy said strolling over the mess.

Cheryl twisted her head and cocked back her neck. She couldn’t believe this damned cat. Oh Taffy, you’ve made two major mistakes in my book. One is having ever been born, and two-

The fat cat walked up to Billy’s skull, giving it a sniff.

-is getting within my striking distance.

Cheryl shot her head forward while stretching her mouth open as wide as a bear trap. With one great snap, the only remaining evidence of Taffy was its fluffy tail dropping to the ground.

“It’s too bad cats don’t have souls,” Gwen said in matter of fact tone. “or my part in these theatrics would be thankfully over.”

Cheryl crunched up the cat, enjoying the hot juices as they ran down her throat and then swallowed it in two great gulps. Best pussy I’ve ever eaten, she thought, licking her lips. She then focused her forehead mounted eyeballs on Gwen and decided she didn’t give two shits if Gwen got what she wanted or not. After all, her own needs were the most important and although she hadn’t become the monster she had in mind, she was still a monster. The urge to kill and the need to feed was quickly becoming a major priority… hell, it was becoming the only priority, and her first order of business was to finish what she’d been dreaming about when this whole idea was conceived. Do away with her pathetic excuse of a mother.

Turning, she ran with amazing speed through the cemetery entrance and onto the road, her hands and feet pistoning in perfect synchronization. She couldn’t wait to see the look on her mother’s face when she tore her throat out with one big bite. As a matter of fact, she might just-

The sound of an approaching car made her stop.

***

Rita Gadowski, aka Cheryl’s mom, turned on to Bird Road, which ran past Fern Cliff Cemetery. Bob, her husband, road shotgun and looked causally out the side window.

“Where can they be?” Rita mumbled, using a finger to pick a piece of Captain Crunch from her teeth. “I know our Billy wouldn’t be out all night unless that girl of yours put him up to it.” She knew this had to have something to do with Cheryl. Stupid little bitch was always causing trouble.

“Now don’t be give me all the blame for that girl. Hell, as far as I know she’s not even mine. Probably spawn of that damned Charlie’s Chips guy you always had making deliveries when I wasn’t home.” Bob said while picking out his own chunk of breakfast.

“Just shut up Bob and keep an eye out for them.” Rita thought about rebuking his statement, but being as the dumb bastard might actually be right about the Charlie’s Chips man, she decided to leave it lay. She pulled around the curve at the cemetery entrance and wrinkled up her face in disgust. “What in the hell is that?” she asked pointing her teeth-picking finger at the shambling thing on the road directly in front of them. It looked like a giant hair-covered crab, but where in the hell would-

“I think it’s a rabid wolf or something, and I suggest you hit the gas,” Bob said grabbing the dash with both hands.

Rita didn’t think it looked anything like a rabid wolf but Bob’s idea of running the thing down was the first good idea she heard uttered from his pie hole this year. Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she jammed the accelerator to the floor.

***

Cheryl heard the roar of an engine jumping into passing gear and spun her head around just in time to see her mom’s 1988 Buick Lesabre bearing down on her. You have to be fucking kidding me was Cheryl’s last thought as the chrome bumper hit her at 50 mph.

Her head snapped forward slamming on the car’s hood before whipping down and under the car’s chassis. A sound like a fifty-five gallon drum of Kentucky Fried Chicken being ran through a wood chipper erupted from under the car while inside, Rita looked like she was about to lose her Captain Crunch. Never slowing, the car bounced its way over Cheryl’s crumpled form and sped out of sight, leaving a trail of gore and skin behind it.

The mass of arms, legs, and worm-like tentacles lay glistening in the sun. Dark streams of blood ran across the asphalt soaking into the cracks and crevices as they went. In a flutter of wings, the crow landed beside Cheryl’s broken neck and looked into her only surviving eye. The orb responded by shifting slightly in the crow’s direction. In its reflection, Gwen could be seen walking up behind the crow.

“Well, is she dead?”

“I’d say about one breath away,” the crow whispered. With that, the dark bird beat its wings together expanding and shifting its form. Before Gwen stood a man wearing long black robes. A heavy hood cloaked his features.

The last ray of life bled from Cheryl as the man in the dark robes reached down a taloned hand and ripped the girl’s black writhing soul from her body. Her essence screamed and squirmed but made no escape from the man’s claws. He tilted back his head and sucked it into his mouth like a cancerous smoke.

“Hey,” Gwen exclaimed, running her tongue over her teeth. “My mouth tastes great! So what do you say Mr. Crow, or whatever your real name is, you doing anything the rest of this century?” She ran her tongue over her teeth again, this time a little slower.

The crow man grinned. “Mr. Crow is fine, and as tempting as that sounds, after making my delivery I need to meet with a couple of teenagers tired of carrying around their heads, which were decapitated in a drunk driving incident. I think they might be interested in a little deal I have in mind to make the man who killed them pay for surviving the accident.”

“Your loss,” Gwen said winking and then shimmering out of existence.

The crow man observed the mess on the road with the look of an artist backing away from one of their finest finished paintings. “I do love my job,” he said. Then in a rustling of robes, he turned back into the crow taking flight over the tall pines stretching up from the cemetery grounds.

To Be A Monster pt. 4 (written by Allison Bohac)

Cheryl rolled over onto her back, groaning, flinging one arm over her face so she wouldn’t have to look up into the bright eye of the sky. She rubbed the scrap of flannel between her fingers, felt the way the blood had made the fiber stiff and dry around the edges. Billy had on a flannel shirt last night, didn’t he? She thought it over, trying to come up with a picture in her mind. Yeah. Yeah, he did. His pajamas. Because she’d hauled him out of bed.

Right. Okay. She had this all sorted out, no problem.

She got up into a sitting position, moving slow, trying to keep anything from protesting too loudly. The muscles in her arms and thighs felt like stretched out rubber bands. A quick check, though, and she was satisfied that none of the blood on the headstones belonged to her. Her skin was smooth and whole, and just starting to turn pink on her bare shoulders from the sun. A line of red bumps, as angry and tender as a rash of poison ivy, twisted up around the inside of her left calf. It itched like a belt of mosquito bites.

So if the blood definitely wasn’t hers, it didn’t bode well for Billy. She tugged the flannel between her fingers, tried to ignore the way her hands trembled from just the effort of sitting up. Christ. What a mess.

Everything after the bird had started up its poetry slam again was one big black hole. She had grabbed for Billy, had crashed landed on the ground, and that was all. If her brother wasn’t here, then what was the next logical conclusion? Even if that was him splattered around the headstones, that still left a lot of Billy unaccounted for. She ran a dry tongue along the inside of her mouth, over her teeth and up around the gums, worked up a pool of spit, hawked and spat it onto the grass. It came out sticky, faintly pink and tasting like a mouthful of copper pennies.

She put a hand on her belly, tried to figure out if it felt fuller than usual, the kind of after Thanksgiving full. It didn’t make a lot of sense—the idea that she had, you know, eaten her brother sometime between blacking out and waking up naked in a cemetery— but it was just behind the talking bird in that department, so...

She patted her stomach, reached down to absently scratch the rash on the inside of her leg. Hey Billy, you in there?

“Wouldn’t scratch that, if I was you.”

Cheryl started, looked up and dropped her arms to cover her chest. It was like in those dreams, when you found yourself naked at school in the hallway between periods. Only she was naked in a graveyard. And covered in blood. Which was technically kind of worse, but in a weird way, kind of better, too.

She expected to see a groundskeeper, or someone arriving early to pay their respects and strangely unperturbed by the sight of a naked girl sitting on the grass. But the only living thing she saw was Taffy, crouched low on the ground some ten feet away, eyeing her, tail twitching and body tense. She was trying to remember what the cat was even doing out here in the first place when comprehension dawned.

“Oh, Jesus, was that you?” She groaned, pressed her fingers into the bridge of her nose, trying to head off the headache that was brewing back there behind her eyes. Her head hurt, sharper and more intense than she would have thought possible, almost like someone was digging their way out of her skull with a pick axe. If she wasn’t careful, she might just have herself a Scanners moment here in the graveyard and join Billy across the headstones. “No. No no no. This Dr. Doolittle shit has got to stop.”

Someone chuckled, and she didn’t bother to open her eyes to see if it was the cat. “Besides,” she said, trying to focus on something outside the pain of the headache and figuring her voice was as good a thing as any, “you’re not the talking animal I need right now. I was hoping for something with feathers and a penchant for shitting on cars.”

“You’re talking to birds?” Another chuckle, and it came out heavy, and fat, and just the fucking way it would sound if Taffy could talk. She opened one eye and the cat was staring back at her. It tilted its head to one side. “That strike you as a little…crazy?”

“Oh, trust me, it’s crossed my mind.” She got her hands under her, pushed herself off the ground. The graveyard tilted and spun, and she had to shut her eyes and pull in a few long breaths through her nose. Her stomach felt like it was sloshing around inside her, and she imagined what it would be like to throw up now, to spray little bloody Billy-chunks all over the manicured grass.

Taffy watched her slow ascent. The cat had that look on its face, that smug cat look. God, she hated cats. “Where you off too?”

“I got a bird to find.” Fuck, her leg itched. It felt like there were ants crawling around down there, under the skin. Had she stepped in poison ivy last night, during their mad run to the graveyard? She thought it over as she bent down to examine the rash. The skin was an angry red, flushed and swollen with blood, the surface bubbled into blisters all along the length of her calf. Scratching it had opened some of them up, and a thin, bright ribbon of blood ran down her ankle and along her foot.

Great.

The world kept pitching and rolling as she walked, so she must’ve been a sad sorry fucking sight, staggering through a graveyard naked and bloody and trailed by a fat housecat.

They—the two of them, cat and girl—were almost at the south wall of the cemetery, a low stone wall topped with heavy cast iron spires, and Cheryl still didn’t really have a plan. Scale the wall and make a break for home, ducking into the bushes whenever a car drove by and hoping that nobody was out early watering the roses? It looked like that was her only choice. She hoped Mom wasn’t up yet. She still needed to come up with a good story for Billy’s whereabouts, and she was just too fucking tired to figure it all out. Maybe she could just eat Mom, too. She really needed an instruction manual for this monster gig, but the bird was nowhere to be seen.

Taffy yowled, low and alert, and Cheryl looked up, startled. Someone was moving among the graves, at the crest of the hill back the way they had come. It was a girl, thin and pale with hair so blond it was the color of milk gone sour. The raven was settled on one shoulder, head bobbing as the girl walked.

Cheryl stared after them. Taffy came up by one ankle, rubbing against the bare skin there. The cat was purring, soft, more of a vibration than an actual sound.

“Must be strange day, to make the dead get up for a stroll,” was all he said, but Cheryl didn’t wait around to ask him what he meant, didn’t stop to question what she was seeing. She was already running, the grass cool and sharp against the soles of her feet, shouting, “Gwen!”

The girl didn’t stop, and didn’t turn around. She was heading north, toward the gates of the cemetery and the funeral home that sat just inside them, an old two-story colonial house with the kind of big wraparound porch you associated with bed and breakfasts. Cheryl saw the wind pick up Gwen’s fine hair, lift it away from her neck and shoulders. The night they’d kissed—in Gwen’s parents’ basement, for the first time and the last time—Cheryl had put her hands on that neck, felt the shift of Gwen’s collarbone under the skin, fragile as a bird’s bones.

When Gwen had shoved her back, her nose wrinkled and mouth twisted up angry, they’d had a fight, the kind that started with shouting and arm waving and ended with the two of them getting royally, stupidly wasted. Gwen, too small to hold the Cointreau well, had passed out on the couch, and Cheryl had gone around the room, with the world spinning just as bad as it was now, picking up her stuff and hurling into a duffle bag. She’d finished off the Cointreau and switched to the Skyy, the only other thing her aunt kept in the cabinet below the bar. Eventually, she’d collapsed in her uncle’s chair and slipped into a weird, heavy sleep herself.

She’d woken sometime in the early morning, maybe only an hour later, maybe as little as a half an hour. Gwen, passed out on her back with her head titled up to show the pale line of her neck, was making a strange, burbling sound, mouth open, her body twitching like someone experiencing a low grade seizure. Cheryl could smell it all the way across the room; the sharp, sour tang of puke.

She remembered thinking, very clearly, before she drifted back into the oppressive dark of a drunk sleep, Let her. She deserves it.

Gwen seemed impossibly far ahead of her, even though she was walking and Cheryl was running as best as her wonky vision would let her. Everything was shuddering in and out of focus, like one of those indie art films shot with a handheld camera. She caught her foot on the edge of a plaque set into the grass and went down like the dumb blond in a horror movie breaking a heel while running from the serial killer. She scattered the memorial that had been propped up on the grave, the dried up stems of flowers and one sad, scruffy teddy bear that smelled like mold and wet stuffing.

She landed on her elbows, but it was her leg that suddenly flared up, the pain lighting up along the length of the rash like a fuse set on fire. She twisted around to look. The skin was bubbling like a pot of water coming to boil. Underneath the blisters, the muscle was ballooning up, distending, stretching the skin tight across it. Where she had scratched the skin open, something was pushing its way through. She saw thin, dark feelers emerge, waving gently, questing in the air like the heads of earthworms pulled suddenly from the ground.

This wasn’t what she had imagined at all. It fucking hurt, spreading now up her legs and she could feel something inside her writhing around, grinding against the bones of her ribcage and hips. Her stomach bloated, filled out, and the arm she was supporting herself with gave way and left her sprawled on the grass. She could feel her heart beating in her chest, but the rhythm was off, heavy and erratic and not the steady beat she had taken for granted all her life.

And then Gwen was there, leaning down to look at her, her long pale hair curtaining her face. The raven was there, making a low chuckle in its throat, and Taffy, too, twining around Gwen’s legs.

Cheryl found she couldn’t look Gwen in the face, so she focused on the raven instead. “You—this—this isn’t what I fucking wanted! I did exactly what you, you asked for! I killed my brother for you!”

“And ate him, too,” Taffy said mildly. “But that doesn’t trouble your conscience none, does it?” And it grinned the smug cat grin again.

There was a succession of cracks and her ribs gave way, chest collapsing as the support went. Cheryl found she didn’t even have the breath to scream, though she wanted to, more than she’d ever wanted anything. Her vision blurred, went dark around the edges. Please, let me pass right the fuck out. Please.

Gwen reached out, put a hand on the concave slope of her chest. She was smiling. If there was any pressure from the dead girl’s hand, Cheryl couldn’t feel it over the pain. She noticed for the first time that even now, five months dead, Gwen still smelled like the puke that had killed her.

Cheryl twisted as her spine popped, bent her backwards. “Please, Gwen—I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry, I’m sorry--“

But it was the raven who answered her. “Gwen’s not kindly disposed toward you these days.”

It was getting harder to breathe. Lying the way she was, Cheryl could see the feelers extending from the split edges of her skin, over a foot long now and squirming across the grass. She reached out and grabbed one and yanked on it, trying to tear it out. It was soft, and stretched under the pressure. She felt it pull hard at something deep inside her leg, and the pain came on like a flash of summer lightning. She dropped it with a cry, and it snaked away from her.

“This isn’t what I wanted! I wanted to be a werewolf, you assfucking shit!” she howled.

The raven rustled its feathers, settling back on Gwen’s shoulder. “As I recall,” it said, “you asked to be a monster. I think you’ll find, child, that there are many kinds of monster in the world.”

Gwen’s eyes flicked away from her, to something behind Cheryl’s head. Cheryl let her head fall back to follow her gaze, tried to ignore the fact that her neck shouldn’t be able to crane that way.

On the porch of the funeral home, a small group of people had gathered. The men wore suits, the women dresses and skirts in somber colors. One small girl with honey-colored pigtails clutched her mother’s arm. Their cars lined the driveway by the cemetery entrance, parked in neat rows.

They were, all of them, staring out into the cemetery at the twisted, twitching thing on the grass, wide-eyed and with the blood drained from their faces.

To Be A Monster pt. 3 (written by Jezzy Wolfe)

"Mffmmm," Billy mumbled. He squirmed under the covers like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

"Come on, you grunt, get up!" She dodged a comic book that catapulted at her head. It bounced off the door jamb and landed at her feet. A hunched werewolf graced its cover. "I'll drag your ass if I have to."

Billy sat up on one elbow, squinting at her. "Have you been smoking crack? I ain't goin' anywhere with you. Mom and Dad will kill us and I ain't got no death wish. Leave me alone." He fell back on the mattress and pulled a pillow over his face.

Cheryl considered holding the pillow down.

No, that freaky-ass bird wants me to bring Billy to the graveyard. Fuckin’ A! She leaned against the doorway, racking her brain. What could she use to lure Billy out of the house? The damn kid didn't care about anything except baseball, comic books, and the stupid cat.

Taffy.

She tiptoed through the hall to her parents' room, though the surround sound buzz of snores covered her footsteps. Taffy usually slept on her Mom's feet. Lucky for her, both parents slept under the influence of Ambien. She peeked in the room.

Sure enough, there on her mother’s feet like a spewed hairball lay Taffy. The cat's yellow eyes opened slightly, revealing yellow slits that locked in on her. As she approached the foot of the bed, it flattened its ears and a low growl replaced its purr.

"Here, kitty kitty," Cheryl crooned.

Taffy whined and hissed. As she reached for the fat fur ball, it screeched and bolted from the bed, shooting out of the room so fast it threw her off balance. She barely avoided falling on her mom's legs. Punching the air in lieu of a frustrated scream, she trailed the beast through the house.

"Damn cat, where the hell are you?" She sang softly as she searched under the couch in the living room, Taffy's favorite place to hide. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

A smelly breeze whizzed by her head. She stood too quickly and tripped over the coffee table. "Okay, so let me re-phrase that...I won't kill you." She perched on the couch and waited. Taffy would inevitably pass her again, and when she did...

A bundle of fur rounded the corner of the sofa and zoomed past, but Cheryl's lightening fast reflexes went into action. She snagged the cat by its tail, wrestling it into submission, despite its flailing claws. A few scratches were not gonna stand between her and her ultimate goal. Once she transformed, Taffy would be nothing more than a snack.

But for now, Taffy's fate was merely a night outdoors. She opened the front door and dumped the cat on the porch. They stared each other down until Taffy relented, hunched her back, hissed dramatically, and stalked off the steps. The bait was set.

Billy slept with the pillow still covering his head. Cheryl toyed again with the notion of smothering his pesky ass, but aside from the raven's explicit demands, she didn't relish the idea of carrying his dead weight to the graveyard. She pulled the pillow off his face and shook his shoulder.

"Wake up Billy, it’s an emergency! Taffy got out of the house. I need to get her inside, but she won't come to me."

"That's cause you're so mean to her." Billy pulled the comforter over his head.

Cheryl sighed, growing impatient as she tugged it back down. "Yeah, I know. But I'm worried about her. I saw a raccoon out there earlier. She could get hurt."

Billy shot up immediately, springing out of bed. He grabbed a baseball bat and shoved his feet into his sneakers. "Raccoons have rabies!"

"I know!" Cheryl smiled, but when Billy met her gaze she drew her eyebrows together and rung her hands. "I hope we find her in time!"

"Well, come on, slowpoke!" He didn't bother to grab a jacket. Instead, he bolted out the front door before Cheryl made it through the living room.

***

"She's over here, Billy!" Cheryl led her brother away from the house, towards the cemetery. She waved wildly as he crawled from under a bush. He was so intent on rescuing Taffy that he didn't notice where they were until she coerced him through the iron gates.

He stopped in his tracks as she beckoned him from inside the entrance. "Are you sure? I don't know about this—it’s trespassing."

"So?"

"We'll get in big trouble."

"Then blame Taffy! But if she get’s away again…" Cheryl said dramatically. “Did you know if a cat gets bitten by a rabid raccoon, they shoot it on sight? They don’t even check it first.”

So gullible. His big eyes watered and he wiped his nose on his blue flannel pajama sleeve. She almost felt sorry for him right then.

Don’t you want to be a werewolf? Anything worth having is worth the sacrifice. She pulled her shoulders back and recovered her determination. He was, after all, her payment. Soon I will be unstoppable!

“I think I hear her. Follow me,” she said. Retreating to the shadows, she listened for the sound of Billy's sneakers close behind as he crushed fallen leaves and twigs in his pursuit. "Come quick, Billy! I got her cornered!"

Cheryl sat in front of Gwen’s grave as Billy emerged from the trees. He froze.

"Look what I found." Patting the ground beside her, she said, "Have a seat, little brother. Wanna see Gwen?"

"Gwen's dead, you idiot," he snapped. Suddenly his skin drained and his eyes widened. Pointing to something over her shoulder, he whispered, "What's th-that?"

She glanced behind her, and saw the raven perched on Gwen's tombstone. "Just a bird." She shrugged.

"It's creepy. Make it go away."

"Don't be a baby, Billy. It's harmless. More afraid of you than you are of it." She swatted her hand at the raven, but the damn thing snapped at her finger. “Hey! What’s the big idea?”

"Now now, my dear, this is not the time for games. You are almost ready for your induction. Bring him closer so the ceremony may commence." Its eyes glowed red as it rustled its wings impatiently.

"Shh!" Cheryl hissed. "Are you crazy? Don't tell him that! He'll run away!"

"Who the hell are you talking to?" Billy clenched the bat with both hands, taking one step in her direction. His eyes were twice their normal size and she could see the bat trembling across his shoulder.

"He cannot hear me, dear. I was summoned here at your bidding. By your desire do I orchestrate, and only your ears are tuned to the correct frequency."

“Uh, hate to break this to you, Bird Brain, but I didn’t summon you.”

“Indeed? And what of the blood you shed? Such powerful lust is hard to misinterpret.”

“But that’s not why I killed Gwen!”

“You killed Gwen?!” Billy’s voice was a prepubescent squeak. “I’m telling Mom! You’re gonna be in so much trouble!”

“Billy, wait!” Cheryl jumped to her feet as he stumbled back.

He swung the bat twice, so fast it hummed. “You’re crazy! Stay away from me!”

“It is time,” the raven called. “You know what to do now.”

Billy bolted, disappearing into the shadows, forcing Cheryl to give chase. A sharp stabbing pain lanced her chest as she charged after him. I really need to start exercising, she mused. The air thickened as her hands closed over his shoulders. So thin and fragile in her palms, like the wishbone on a Thanksgiving turkey.

I could rip him in half.

She pulled him against her chest and wrestled the bat from his grip. He screamed as he struggled against her.

“Shut up, you little asshole! Someone might hear you!”

“Good! Poli-”

She clamped her hand over his mouth. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, “Calm down and listen, will you?” He stopped squirming and she uncovered his mouth. “ I didn’t kill Gwen.”

“But you said…”

“You take everything so literally! Damn, lighten up already!” She loosened her hold and he shrugged out of her arms. “You need to relax,” she snapped.

“You need to get your head checked, you psycho!” He lunged for the bat.

“Uh-uh, tough guy. I don’t think so.” Cheryl rested the bat on her shoulder. “It's not polite to hit your sister.”

“It’s not polite to kill your cousin!"

Billy turned to run, but this time Cheryl anticipated his move. She snagged his elastic waistband and he toppled over as his flannel bottoms wrapped around his knees, pulling her off balance. The ground shifted and lurched, and she fell, losing hold of the bat.

She was stronger and bigger and could easily overpower her brother, but he was faster.

The raven’s voice cut through the trees, chanting the familiar verse with lilting rhythm:

“Blood, it calls for blood.
Through thick, through thin
The Centuries’ crawl begins…”

***

Warmth woke her. Not just any warmth, but the delicious sensation of laying directly in the sunlight naked. Cheryl moaned, stretching lazily, and relaxed. She cracked open her eyes.

Her bedroom ceiling had been replaced by a crisp blue sky. The glaring light stung her eyes. Shielding them with the back of her hand, she pushed up on one elbow. She was laying in thick manicured grass. Limestone and marble markers all but glowed in the daylight, jutting out of the ground around her at displaced angles. Rusty burgundy smudges painted many of the tombstones, trailing drips pooled in the grooved letters. A rotting metallic odor assaulted her nostrils, forcing her stomach to flip-flop with nausea. I think I’m gonna be sick.

She sat up and winced as a sharp pain squeezed her skull. Her arms and legs protested with throbbing aches. Eyes clenched tight, she sat still until everything quit spinning. God, I feel like I died. What the fuck happened? Looking down, she realized she was completely naked.

And covered in blood.

She yelped and searched the ground around her, but her clothes were gone. Breathing deep to fight down the vomit bubbling in her throat, she crawled on all fours. Encountering strangers while she ran around a cemetery bloody and naked was not an idea she particularly relished. Mercifully, the cemetery appeared deserted.

In her disoriented and queasy condition, she didn’t realize she was clutching something in her hand until she pulled herself up against a granite cross.

It was a scrap of bloodied blue flannel.

To Be A Monster pt 2 (written by Zombie Zak!)

Was it digging? Or scratching? Or was it something else slyly creeping through the brush? Or maybe it was something overhead?

Cheryl was unsure, but the night was so rife with potential for opportunity and change that she figured she had to find out. Besides, it could be somebody spoiling her cousin's rest; and that would not be cool.

"Blood, it calls for blood.
Through thick, through thin
The Centuries' crawl begins."

It was softly spoken, simple in tone and tenor. She heard it clear but at the same time, thought just as easily that it could have been the wind. It made no sense. Why would anyone be out here other than Cheryl and Gwen? This was their special place.

She thought it came from over there; but then, a second later, it was over here. She couldn't see anything clearly within the woods, the wan glow of the moon hidden by the overhead canopy. The faint shimmer of a distant light left on in the chapel was cold solace in the deep absence of contact within these dreary woods.

"Blood, it craves the blood.
Renewal, rejoice, resurgence
As the red rain begins again."

"Fuck me running; where are you? What are you trying to do here? Get yourself whooped? I'll do it; just try me! I ain't afraid of you, you ignorant piss-ant! I'm a monster and I'll rip open your chest and feed on the bits inside! Show yourself." Cheryl didn't yell; it was obviously unnecessary, but the need to speak forcefully was very compelling.

"Blood, it is drawn to the blood.
By birth, by death, in this life
And beyond the veil it crawls."

For a brief moment, she glanced back at Gwen's resting place. No sign of movement, not a blade of grass out of place; but she needed to be sure. She had to know that Gwen was still safely nestled in her bed of dirt, neither waking nor moving about, nor sharing this night with her. Moreover, she had to know that it wasn't Gwen who was the one talking right now. And if it was Gwen who was unlimbering with the lyric content, what would Cheryl think she’d do? She gave it a brief thought and marked it as unknown.

"Blood, as it flows from the living
To the labored lands below the moon
We flock to this moment, Morrigan's Boon."

Morrigan? What?

Her History teacher, Mr. Mondrose, liked to throw out drivel like that every now and then; was that it, some anime type character goddess of something or other? Wasn't she something to do with those fallen in battle and their lots cast in life? Maybe it was he who was out there with all this weird rhyming crap? Cheryl wasn't sure, but she didn't want to wait for long to find out what kind of perverted old fart he was.

"Blood, we feed upon the spoils of battle
These wicked souls we predate upon
And birth of the monsters we drum on."

Monsters? Now that sounded more interesting.

"I'm curious. You had me at monsters. Please tell me what's going on. I don't understand; but I would like to." She looked calmly through the trees and the underbrush, trying to find a source for the voice and the quiet commotion.

"Blood, thick as tar and filled with bite;
Simple tricks this creature for this night.
Stay far, far, far from the blind light."

"OK, I'm all for the weird and wacky what the fuck thing you've got going on right now, but for the life of me, I can't understand a word you're saying! All this poetic sing songy stuff is making my head hurt. Could you just talk in plain English? Would that be so hard?"

"Blood, in time, the die will be cast,
The bones rolled and the deal struck,
By evening's end, the light will be aghast."

"You should know, I've always hated Shakespeare and all the rest of that crap that they make you lap up in high school! It's a crock of craptacularness, is what it is. So, lallalalalalalal, I can't hear you …" Cheryl moved closer to her cousin; the close familiarity of family soothed her taut nerves in this unfamiliar game of cat and mouse.

"There is no end, but in the beginning, one wonders what will be after this cast has been put upon us." The voice came from a very specific source, she could tell. It was above her, and to the left. There; on the branch, there was a raven. She could see it, clear, precise, outlined by the splatter of moon glow through a break in the trees. It cawed once to mark its point.

"Can you feel the pall, child? Can you feel how it pulls at the strings that you call your life? Can you feel how it digs into you and rips apart those simple things that you once called happiness? Can you see the dark, crawling monstrous manifestation sliding beneath the soil of your time? The terror, oh how it must eat you up."

"Terror? What are you talking about? And besides, you're a bird, what do you know about anything except pecking?" Cheryl stood cautiously eyeing the creature that had manifested itself in this grotesque manner. Barely keeping a grip on her nerves she waited for the next thing that it might have to say. It was a freaking talking bird, and worse, it was talking to her. This was bad, really bad.

"Child, I know many things; I am many things. I am the wind, I am the dust. I know of the secret things that children harbor like lust beneath their breast. These secrets are like pages from a book, for I; and I read them with avarice. Would you like to know the story that your life reads?" The raven swiveled its eye to regard young Cheryl closely.

"No. As a matter of fact, I just want you to go away and leave us alone." She looked around for a rock, anything that she might be able to throw at this obnoxious bird.

"Soon enough child …"

"And stop calling me that!"

"Indeed, very well. Soon enough, my dear, you will leave this place. But there is going to be a price. The question thereupon, will be will you pay it? You've come so close to the truth, but do you have the strength to go all the way to find its conclusion? Will you be willing to take the next step to becoming what you want to be?"

"I'm all a-twitter, waiting for the punch line, here. My expectations are all tingly and full of moistness."

"Hahaha; sarcasm, chi.., dear. I am amused; this is good. Now, what is it that you want most?"

Cheryl thought about it for a second. She knew what she wanted; she knew that it consumed her with a passion that would strike others with cold dread. But what she didn't know was what admitting it to this creature would do. Alone, in the night, with Gwen and this bird that couldn't be a bird, amongst the trees, with the moon shining balefully bright. What the hell …

"I want to be a monster. I want Gwen to be proud of me. I want to shake up the establishment and make a mark that no one will forget."

"Very nice, younger one; very nice. I believe I can work with that."

"Hunh?"

"Well, I see that you've already taken the first step. You have committed to the womb of Earth, the sacrifice of both blood and love; of someone dear to you. Are you ready to take the next step?"

"Uh, yeah; sure, I guess." Cheryl tripped over her words, trying to stay connected to what was going on.

"Excellent. Do you still hold a measure of her spirit in your hand?"

"What?"

"Ahh, yes, I see that you do. The tears shed earlier upon remembering your friend will nicely do. Now, just stand over there, yes, yes, by the headstone. And we'll begin." The eyes of the raven began to glow a garish red. It was an odd sort of color, a deep red buried beneath furrows of black; it stood out quite cleanly against the night sky.

"By the pricking of thy brittle bones
By the soundless screech of thy horns
Be they silent or foregone
Be they full of fear or scorn
Know that this here vessel
Becoming born
Is the kindred
I have torn.

From a womb of blood and hate
To this creature I can relate
That no other of this land
Can take this creature by its hand.

And thus, as I have said
A monster you shall be.
This creature all will see,
Your friend, surely Dead."

The night air felt cold and coarse, as the bird's chanting came to an abrupt stop. Cheryl stared at the bird, inquiring with a look that wanted to shout out: "What, that's it?" But she held silent. There was the possibility that this creature would actually be able to help her, and that was a good thing in her book.

"And that would be ..?"

"Done, yes indeed; we are done. Now, there is but the task of my asking my boon, my price, payment for services rendered."

"Uhm, ok. I’m confused. You haven't done anything yet. What price could you be asking for?" Cheryl looked around, down at herself, and found nothing had changed. She felt a drop in her gut with the thought that she was being played for a fool.

"Too true. But you have yet to agree upon the price. How can I give you the benefit of my Gift, if you have yet to agree upon the exchange? We deal fairly here, in the Woods, the Sacred Grove as it were."

"Uhm, alright. So, then, what's the price?"

The Raven paused, cocking its head, "Your brother."

"Oh, fuck, go ahead; you can have him. It's not like I want him anywhere near me. He's a gimp."

"No, dear; not like that. Like Gwen. Here. In the Grove. As you have done your girlish friend, so too, I would like your brother; and not as neat as you had done with her. He needs to be messy, full of angst, angry fearful energy. It needs be wet and scattered bits everywhere. Loud, even. It needs be tonight, before the sun rises."

"Uh, so let me get this straight. You want me to lure my brother back here and splatter him all over the place?" She shifted where she stood, looking carefully into the trees trying to see if anyone else was also about. She decided to play along. Besides, Billy needed a good scare anyways. This would do nicely. And it would be funny.

"Precisely, my dear. Do you think you'll be able to do that?"

"Uh, OK; what the fuck? It's not like I'm getting anything else done tonight."

"Excellent. I will look after your friend here."

Cheryl turned around to head back the way she had come. She paused for a moment, with a brief caress of the stone marker before leaving; making sure that Gwen was resting comfortably. She took the long route, avoiding the possibility of meeting anyone out in the open. It took some time longer than she expected, but she got home without event. Quietly, she snuck into her room, the lights were off and she was sure that her mother was already asleep, conveniently having forgotten about her daughter for the time being.

Without making any noise, she crept to her brother's room and opened the door. In a soft, almost hissing whisper, she asked, "Hey, Billy, do you want to come with me and see Gwen? She's in the woods waiting for us. It'll be like a picnic. Come on, let's go."

To Be A Monster pt. 1 (written by Gregory L. Hall)

Cheryl always loved monsters. That’s why she didn’t mind it when the giant spider reached down from the ceiling and bit her mother’s head off. Its drool-covered fangs dug deep into the twitching woman’s shoulders and when it pulled, there was a simple clean pop that briefly echoed in the kitchen and down the hall. Her mom spun in circles, neck spewing thick waves of blood as her arms reached for what was no longer there like a man trying to hold his hat on in a wind storm.

Even when the body hit the floor, Cheryl didn’t react much beyond quiet boredom. So her mother was dead now. The bitch was always yak-yak-yakking away as is. Clean up this kitchen. Please go get a job. Where is your head, girl?

Well, it’s not down a mutant spider’s throat, that’s for damn sure, Mom.

Cheryl stirred her tomato soup with her finger. It burned but pain kinda turned Cheryl on. It made her feel alive. She stared back up to the ceiling but the spider was gone now. The teenager wasn’t sure where it came from or how such a hideous creature even existed but that wasn’t her problem. Explaining to the world why her mother’s decapitated body was laying in a blood pond located on a cheap linoleum floor was going to be the issue. Why did these slaughters have to be so goddamn messy all the time?

“Are you listening to me?” that old familiar voice cackled with disdain. “I am your mother! And your father and I are sick and tired of you doing nothing with your life! This is your senior year in high school…if you pass! And you don’t have any friends. Any hobbies. Any ambition. What are you going to do with your life, Cheryl? Certainly not stay here for the rest of your days!”

“I won’t be, Mom,” the detached girl almost said loud enough to be heard. “I think I’m done with my soup.”

Cheryl got up from the dinner table and shuffled out of the kitchen purposefully denying her mother any eye contact. Where was a real giant mutant spider when you needed one?

She crossed through the living room which always smelled of cat piss and Febreze. The cause of both lay on the heavily cushioned chair before her. The fat feline hissed at the sloped shouldered girl making it clear who truly owned the household. While it was common knowledge even to visitors that this was Taffy’s chair, and could only ever be occupied by Taffy, Cheryl thought differently. To her, it was always an opportunity to play her favorite game. Cats in Space.

Cheryl scooped up the round and squishy furball and threw it across the room. It banked against the far wall with a loud thwack and bounced ass first on the floor disproving the rule that cats always land on all fours. Skip a meal or two, you fat fuck, and you might be able to find your feet, Cheryl chuckled to herself.

“Oh my goodness!” the voice cried from the other room. “Was that Taffy that hit the wall? Cheryl! Was that my Ms. Taffy?”

The grinning teenager hit the stairs before Mother could burst into the living room full of confrontation. She heard her mom’s whining voice coddling and cooing comfort to the disgusting orange beast in a way Cheryl had never heard herself even as a child. The cat meowed melodramatically which amped up Mother’s concern. Next time I aim for a window, Cheryl sneered. She slammed her bedroom door to block the soup opera out.

No hobbies. No ambition. Her parents had no clue. Cheryl picked the copy of Necrotic Tissue off her bed and gently filed it with the rest of her horror fiction collection. She flopped down on the old mattress and stared at the night through thin yellow curtains. Forget about imagining monsters around every corner. They weren’t getting her anywhere. The spider didn’t eat mom’s head in the kitchen. The silent serial killer didn’t drive a machete through her math teacher’s torso outside in the parking lot. And Jason Wolter, the most gorgeous guy in school, didn’t get devoured by a pack of chupacabras after gym class. It was all a waste of time.

Cheryl made a crucial decision then and there. She would do anything to become a monster herself.

The Goth kids in her town seemed cool but the whole vampire thing was so overdone. Now it was more about undead prom dates that looked like a Jonas Brother with fangs than it was about true blood draining hell-creatures like in 30 Days of Night. Witches were beyond cliché. Zombies were always awesome but who wanted to be a shambling decaying corpse on purpose?

Werewolves. That was what she wanted to be. Lycanthropic bliss. That way she could have the best of both worlds. An invisible high school nothing during the day. Carnivorous killing machine at night. She could spend her time simply taking names as people shit on her day in and day out. Then as the moon rose, she would hunt them down and ‘correct’ their view of her over a nice meal.

Her bedroom door burst open. “Dude, did you throw Taffy again?”

“Don’t you ever knock?” Cheryl cut at her little brother with monotone angst.

“Mom is on the phone right now with Dad. You are so going to get it when he gets home from his business trip. I mean like ‘grounded for life’ and ‘kicked out of the house’ trouble.”

“I can’t be condemned to both, asshole. Just get out of my room…”

Her brother flipped her the finger and quickly spun around to make his exit before he fell victim to the wicked girl’s next attack. Cheryl hopped up in bed.

“Wait! Billy! Come here for a minute. I actually have a serious question to ask you.” She waved him closer. The boy hesitated, trying to read her intentions and compromised on putting his weight on his back leg in the doorway.

Cheryl smiled. It hurt her face but she did it anyway. “You’re into science and stuff like that. Have you ever heard of a case where someone could actually um, transform into a more animal side of their self?”

“Like rabies?”

“No. Not like being infected and acting crazy. More like growing hair all over their body and getting fangs. Being able to see at night or track down prey with their sense of smell?” Cheryl shrugged in an honest attempt to connect with her younger sibling.

“You mean like a werewolf?” he asked with a crack in his voice.

“More like a were-woman…”

A chuckle escaped Billy’s gapped teeth. “Geez, Cheryl, that’s a whole different kind of animal! I see them all the time down in Mount Vernon! You can go to Sweden and get an operation for that! ‘Werewolf’ means a man who’s a wolf. ‘Were’ meaning ‘man’. So a were-woman would be a man-woman. Is it someone you have a crush on in school?”

“Shut the fuck up, retard!” Cheryl hissed. “Get the fuck out of my room!”

“That’s two of the #1 Bad Word on Mom’s list! You are so in trouble now!” Billy screamed as if to send a direct message downstairs to the matriarch of house law. He saw Cheryl reach for her lamp and he was down the hallway screaming even louder.

Fuck this and yes I said it again, the dark teenager muttered to herself. In seconds her mother would be yelling her name soaked in venom at the bottom of the stairs. It was a dance the family never seemed tired of doing. Well, tonight was different. Cheryl knew her purpose now and when she found out how to achieve it, they all would be sorry. She only had one other stop to make. She had to see her cousin.

She was the only person on earth Cheryl could trust. Gwen was the only person who knew and kept Cheryl’s one big secret.

She grabbed her jacket off the bedpost, climbed out the window and was gone.

***

The night was colder than Cheryl expected. October chewed through her clothing as the full moon threw a frigid spotlight on her. But this was the only place Gwen would meet her. Cheryl found her cousin was even colder than their surroundings.

“Look, I’m sorry about coming out here so late. I’m sorry about a lot of things.” Cheryl’s chin dropped to her chest. “We don’t talk near as much as we used to. I guess that’s my fault.”

Gwen said nothing.

“We used to have good times, remember? Getting high out behind your dad’s shed or stealing my mom’s booze from her liquor cabinet? We shoplifted a lot of great stuff from the Mall. Snuck into the movies all the time…” Cheryl hoped her only friend would laugh or at least smile but she was left talking to herself. “I know. You really didn’t want to do most of those things but you did them for me. I guess I’ve always been a bad influence.”

Cheryl broke from Gwen’s masked emotions and stared off at the surrounding trees. They looked like lanky eavesdroppers eager to hear her confessions.

Vulnerable tears welled up as she kicked the dirt at her feet. “Please don’t hate me anymore, okay? Just say something. Anything. We were soul mates, Gwen. We were. Want to know a secret? An embarrassing one? I know you’ll keep it because that’s one promise you’d never break, no matter how much we’ve drifted apart. You’re still the only person I’ve ever kissed. You know, romantically. That’s pretty sad isn’t it? I’m a high school senior and I’ve only ever made out with my cousin, who just happens to be a girl as if I wasn’t pitiful enough.”

Gwen was like a stone.

“I’m such a loser. No offense to you.” Cheryl felt the blood rush into her cheeks and the sweat pool in her palms. “Look, the reason I came here is because I need advice and you’ve always listened to me and you may be the only person who can give me the answers I need. Okay, I’m just going to say it. I want to be a monster. Don’t laugh…”

Cheryl sucked the air deep into her lungs to compose herself in front of her cousin’s ridicule. “I’m a nobody. I want to change that! And I know you already think I’m a monster but I mean being a real one. But it’s okay. I understand. I just figured with where you are now, you’d be able to help me.”

The young girl pulled her jacket tighter and stared down at the tombstone. “I’m sorry I killed you. I really am. Thank you for never telling anyone it was me.”

As she turned from her cousin’s grave, a faint sound caught her ears. The sound of someone digging.

They Aren't Funny pt. 5

Randy’s heart hammered in his chest, threatening to burst out. The knuckles of his right hand were bloodless and white as he clutched the tent stake in a death grip. Tents streamed by, one after another, looking so much alike he wasn’t sure if he was actually running or perhaps caught in an endless loop of film. Now he could hear the pounding of Ticket’s oversized shoes thumping down in the grass behind him and the light jingle of the small silver bells attached to the frilled collar on his billowing white jumpsuit with the fuzzy red balls.

“Come on Randy, wait up. You know I can’t run as fast as you.” It was Binks’ voice. Binks! Randy’s heart fluttered and he slowed. Binks is gone, an inner voice told him, and unless you want to join him in whatever horrible world they took him to, you have to run. You have to run now! The jingling of bells and thumping of long heavy shoes intensified. In Randy’s mind, he could see Ticket closing in on him. Ticket with his black sharks’ eyes set deep in the red triangles painted on his white face- his way too many teeth, needle sharp and clicking together- his white gloved hand reaching out for him.

Randy jumped forward in a burst of speed and felt something just touch the collar of his tee shirt. “Oh you little whelp,” Ticket cried. “Do you really think you can out run me in my world? Do you even think I have been trying to catch you?” Ticket let out a shrill, cackling laugh that made Randy’s veins clog with ice. “Once I catch you, which I will, I have some friends that will just looove to play with you, and if they get a little rough, or maybe I should say when they get rough, your new mother will be right there to comfort you in her own special way.”

Randy thought of goat woman, her rectangular pupils and four sagging breasts. The strength began to leave his legs as he watched her pull him into her embrace while snake boy and the world's fattest man looked on with greedy, hungry eyes. From behind him, almost in his ear, Ticket laughed again, and Randy knew he wasn’t going to make it. He also knew he would rather die than be trapped in this insane world with lunatic clowns and mutant freaks.

Randy gripped the sixteen inch tent stake with both hands and pointed it toward his chest. He could feel Ticket’s hot, stinking breath on the back of his neck. Squeezing his eyes shut, he planted both feet and came to a skidding stop. At the same instant, he removed the point of the stake from his chest and slipped it under his arm. Still holding onto it with both hands, he pushed it back.

Unable to stop in time, Ticket slammed into Randy and screamed as the stake drove into his body. Randy, thrown forward from the impact, hit the ground, and then rolled to his feet. He looked back at Ticket who lay writhing on the ground, pulling at the stake and snarling like an animal caught in a trap. Blood ran from his mouth in dark streams, turning his white beard the same black Randy had seen it at the ticket booth. Blood ran over the frilled collar, dripping off the small silver bells, and staining the front of his white clown’s jumpsuit. Then, Ticket let out a long gurgling howl, rolled over and went still.

A contrasting silence followed, broken only by the snap and pop of tent flaps pushed by the unnatural wind. Randy took a step back from the imminent decay he knew was coming, but it didn’t come. Ticket continued to lay face down in the grass, one blood soaked hand sprawled in front of him, the other tucked under his chest, but his body remained intact.

Randy remained motionless. He knew he had killed him; no one could have survived a sixteen inch steal stake going through their body. Could they? Randy could even see the point of the stake trying to push through the back of Ticket’s jumpsuit. But when he had killed the other clowns, they had dissolved like melting snow. Randy took a step forward. He had to know, had to be sure.

Keeping his eye on Ticket’s body, Randy went to the closest tent stake, kicked it loose, and pulled it from the ground. He walked to Ticket’s prone body and stopped. He reached down again and felt Binks’ shoe dangling from his belt loop. Tears stung his eyes and he raised the stake with both hands. “This is for Binks you son of a bit-” But before Randy could bring the stake down, Ticket’s bloody hand shot out and gripped his left ankle.

Randy watched in horror as Ticket twisted his head to look up at him. “I’ll be waiting for you Randy- waiting in your closet, waiting under your bed... waiting in your dreams.” He smiled his way too many teeth smile at Randy and began to laugh.

“No!” Randy screamed and brought down the stake with all of his strength. The point of the stake entered Ticket’s black, shark’s eye and pushed out through the other side of his head, pinning him to the ground. His mouth froze open in a silent scream, thin white lips pulled back, exposing blood stained teeth. Small tendrils of smoke began drifting up from his gaping mouth and ruined eye. The coned shaped hat finally let loose and rolled to the grass, taking a rotting flap of skin with it.

Randy felt his head start to spin and a loud buzzing filled his ears. He pulled his ankle from Ticket’s dead hand and stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet and landing on his back. Watching the star filled sky spiraling above him, the sound of far off circus music whispered in his ear as he slid helplessly into the dark world of unconsciousness.

***

“Hey, are you all right?” Randy’s eye’s fluttered, then opened. The voice sounded distant, but familiar. He looked up into the face of a woman bending over him. His vision cleared and he recognized her as Mrs. Bitterman.

“What happened?” He heard another voice ask. He looked around and could see a crowd of people gathering around him.

“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Bitterman said, “He just came running out from those tents and nearly knocked me down.” Mrs. Bitterman pointed toward the line of tents separating the midway from the open field beyond. She looked back down at Randy and put a hand on his arm. “Aren’t you Randy McCombs, Helen and Paul’s boy?” Randy nodded his head dully. He felt disoriented. Blurry images of clowns running between endless rows of tents drifted through his mind. A dream. He had had a horrible dream. Mrs. Bitterman looked around. “Weren’t you here with Mark Binkus?” Something about Binks’ shoe flickered across Randy’s vision. Suddenly the fog cleared and he sat up. He looked down at his waist and felt relief wash over him. There was nothing tied to his belt loop, which meant it really was a dream, which meant-

“Excuse me.” The pink haired lady from the cotton candy stand pushed through the crowd. “I think he may have lost a shoe.” She handed Mrs. Bitterman a red Converse All-star. Mrs. Bitterman took the shoe and looked down at Randy’s feet.

“Well, it must not be his. He’s got both his shoes on.” Then Mrs. Bitterman frowned and pulled up Randy’s left pants leg exposing a white sock soaked with blood. “Oh my. What happened to your ankle Randy?”

“Noooo,” Randy groaned. He felt his head start to spin again and grabbed Mrs. Bitterman’s arm. Startled, Mrs. Bitterman instinctively tried to pull back, but Randy’s desperation didn’t allow it. “Please don’t let me pass out Mrs. Bitterman. Please, don’t let me pass out.” Even as Randy said this, his eyes rolled back in his head and from the deep reaches of his mind, the sound of small silver bells drew closer.

The End

They Aren't Funny pt. 4

“Randy, help.” It was Binks' voice coming from outside. Randy pushed aside the flap and ran into the grass between the seemingly endless rows of tents. “Randy, hel-” Randy looked to his left and felt his throat tighten to a point of making the simple act of drawing breath almost impossible. He tried to yell for Binks, but only a small unintelligible squeak escaped his throat. Ten yards in front of him, Ticket towered over Binks' struggling form.

The red ball on top of Ticket's cone bobbed gleefully. His white braided beard hung just above Binks' head, the red ribbon perched on the end as if a mutated butterfly had landed there and then died from the poisons oozing from the course hair. His thin white lips bulged and stretched as if they fought to contain the needle sharp teeth residing behind them. He had one gloved hand covering Binks' mouth while wrenching Binks' arm behind his back with the other. Even in the fading light of the sun's final moments of the day, Randy could see with perfect clarity huge tears running down Binks' cheeks until they were absorbed in the cotton fabric of Ticket's glove. A large dark stain grew in the crotch of Binks' jeans.

“Oh oh, I think Binky just went tinky in his pants,” Ticket said, smiling his way too many teeth smile. Beside him, Butcher and Baker reared their heads back with evil laughter.

“Ah... ah,” Randy croaked. He tried to move toward Binks, but it was as if the grass had reached up and spun itself around his feet, planting him fast to the ground.

“Listen to him, he sounds like the goat bitch,” Butcher said.

“Maybe she's his mother,” Baker replied. With that, they both rolled with laughter again.

Randy wheezed as he tried to suck in air through his constricted throat. It's like a nightmare Randy thought. That's right, this is a nightmare. Right now, I'm sleeping in my bed dreaming all of this, and all I have to do is wake up and this will all be over. I will be fine, Binks will be fine, now wake up. Wake up! Only he didn't wake up. He only stood there, planted to the ground while Butcher and Baker stepped into a tent and pulled its flaps back while Ticket drug Binks into its black gaping mouth.

Randy felt his stomach roll and thought he might puke as he listened to the haunted thumping sounds Binks' feet made on the ground and the muffled cries from behind Ticket's white glove. The moment before they disappeared into the tent Ticket looked back at Randy, gave him a big wink and bowed. The red triangle around his black eye- the shark's eye- compressed, then relaxed. His cone shaped hat with the fuzzy red ball, stayed magically in place and his greasy white beard hung from his face like a dead albino snake. Randy looked on through tears of his own, while the horrible memory of Binks' red sneaker popping off one kicking foot burned into his mind forever. Then they were gone.

Randy heard a loud honk from inside the tent and whatever had been holding him in place released allowing his throat to relax. He fell to the ground, sucking in huge gulps of air. He looked up, saw Binks' sneaker resting in the grass and scrambled to his feet. He ran to the tent, ripped back the flap, and looked inside. The tent was empty. Randy put his hands on his knees and let out a stream of cotton candy colored vomit. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand, and then reached down, picked up Binks' shoe and hugged it against his chest. He ran a finger over the grass stains on the white rubber toe and felt a large lump forming in his throat.

Before the lump could mature into sobs, the sound of small engine starting and backfiring erupted from behind him. Randy's eyes widened and he felt a surge of energy rush through his body. He quickly tied the shoe to a belt loop on his jeans and ran toward the twinkling lights of the midway. The light in the tent with the goat woman was gone, or at least Randy thought it was. With so many tents all looking the same, he wasn't even sure what tent it had been now. Lights flashed on his back, causing his shadow to suddenly appear, running in front of him, urging him on. He could hear laughter and yells from behind him and the incessant roar of the small engine.

Randy felt Binks' shoe slapping against his thigh, and with each stride, with each smack of the shoe, Randy's fear began to turn. Turn to a sense of loss, turn to a sense of being wronged, turn to anger... turn to rage. Sensing as well as hearing the car closing in, Randy turned between two tents on the right, turned again, and backtracked down another row. He stopped close to the edge of a tent and watched. Sweat ran down his face and back, his chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. He saw the small white car with the flapping ear doors and bug eyed hood roar past. He had time to see two of the clowns were riding on the car's top, but couldn't tell who they were.

“There, there. He ran down there.” Randy recognized the voice. Listen to him, he sounds like the goat bitch. It was Butcher's voice, Randy was sure of it. He heard the car skidding in the grass, and then accelerating again. He looked down at one of the tent's long tie down ropes looped to a steel stake. He grabbed the rope with both hands, and then putting his weight into it, pulled it free. He darted behind the tent and stuck his head out in time to see the car about to go past his row.

“Help,” Randy yelled, ducking behind the tent.

“Down there. Go, go!” The Baker's voice.

The car accelerated while Butcher and Baker screamed gleefully as they raced down the row. Randy watched the lights bouncing up and down in the grass as it approached. Reaching down, he rubbed his hand over Binks' shoe and gritted his teeth. The instant before the car went past, Randy darted across the row, holding the rope as high as he could. When it pulled taunt, he spun around, leaned back, and held the rope loop with both hands. Butcher and Baker barely registered the rope's existence before it caught them both across the throat. Randy heard the satisfying sound of snapping bones just before he was jerked from the ground by the weight of their bodies being pulled off the car. They all three landed in basically the same spot. Butcher's body lay stomach down, but his face looked up at the darkening sky. Baker lay crumpled next to him with his head at an equally ridiculous angle.

Randy heard the car slide to a stop twenty yards ahead of him and he pushed himself up. His hands felt like they were on fire and he thought he may have broken the little finger on his left hand, but the pain felt... well, somehow good. Like the time he nearly broke his ankle in last year's summer little league championship when he dove to catch a fly ball that would have allowed Coates Crew to win the game. It hurt like heck, but the sweet feeling of victory dulled the pain into a sort of personal trophy. 'No pain no gain' his coach would always tell them.

He looked at the car. The back window was too dark to see in, but he could hear the snarling voice of Ticket yelling at Baldo to turn around. The corner of Randy's mouth twitched in a small yet triumphant smile. He glanced back down and took a step back, repulsed. Butcher and Baker's bodies were in the process of rotting away.

Skin melted and slid off bone in wet bubbling splats. The tall white hat fell from Baker's disintegrating skull, wobbling to a stop by the wooden rolling pin. The whole scene reminded Randy of a nature show he had seen on TV where the body of a water buffalo seemed to simply melt away because of some kind of trick photography. The foul stench of death filled Randy's nostrils and he put a hand to his nose. He was about to turn when he bumped into to something... someone.

“Got ya!” Randy felt a long cylindrical object press against his throat and smelled a rancid mix of paraffin, urine, and sour whiskey. He threw his hands up in an attempt to free himself, but the pressure of the candlestick threatened to crush his windpipe. “Oh you might as well stop struggling sweat meat. You've just earned yourself a front row ticket to your own execution. Ticket... get it?” Candlestick threw his head back and laughed, the red ball hanging from his pointed sleeping cap bouncing merrily.

Randy gasped for air, clawing at the candlestick and the gloved hands holding it. Candlestick jerked back on his two foot wax rod, forcing Randy's head up. “Maybe the ol' run down gag will get you to quit squirming,” Candlestick said, pushing Randy in front of him as far as his arms would stretch. Baldo managed to get the car turned around and pointed at Randy. The engine revved, causing the small car to rock on its equally small frame. Randy could see Ticket and Baldo grinning at him through the windshield. Ticket brought his hand down in a chopping motion, pointing at Randy as if to say 'hit it James'. Baldo stomped on the gas, sending the car lurching forward. Dirt and grass flew from the tires. Randy felt Candlestick's arms tense and he knew was preparing to throw him in front of the speeding car. The car's once comical bug eyes now resembled the same black, shark's eyes planted deep in Ticket's head.

Randy reached down, untied Binks' shoe from his belt loop, and wrapped his fingers around the strings. Using all his strength, he brought the shoe up and over his head. The toe of the shoe hit Candlestick squarely in the left eye, and even over the roar of the car's motor, Randy could hear the sickening popping sound Candlestick's eye made when it ruptured.

Candlestick screamed in pain, and Randy felt the wax rod on his neck loosen. Letting go of the shoe, he grabbed the wax rod with both hands and spun around. Candlestick, blind in one eye and reeling with pain, stumbled forward while Randy ducked under the rod and fell back. Baldo tried to swerve, but it was too late. Randy heard a loud metallic bang as Candlestick's head hit the hood of the car before he was pulled underneath in a crunching tangle of arms and legs. The car jerked in Randy's direction and he rolled to his left, barely avoiding the tires. It continued past and into the side of next tent, forcing the canvas to first billow upward in a mushroom shape before collapsing around the car.

Randy jumped to his feet and picked up Binks' shoe lying beside the dissolving body of Candlestick. He quickly tied it to his belt loop again, then as an afterthought, reached down and grabbed the tent stake that had been knocked loose by the car. He ran past the crumpled tent and saw the thrashing form of Ticket fighting his way out from under the canvas. Putting his head down and pumping his arms, Randy ran as fast as he could toward the distant midway lights. Behind him, he heard Ticket screaming.

"You come back here you little bastard! Oh you will pay for the bad things you've done, oh yes you will.”

They Aren't Funny pt 3

With most of the people still in the big top, the midway was relatively clear. The young evening sky had a slight pink hue, promising another beautiful sunset. Some of the booths were already closed in preparation for tomorrow's tear down and move on routine, a routine many of the circus workers had known all their lives. The cotton candy booth was still open, drawing a short line of people vying for their last bit of the puffy treat for who knew how long. The lady with the pink hair looked up and waved at Randy and Binks as they walked past.

“Are we going to try to sneak a look at the freaks?” Binks asked, looking at the line of tents now partially hidden in shadows. That was the last thing Randy wanted to do and was happy to see the look of relief on Binks' face when he told him it was getting too late.

“You know I'd like to,” Randy said, “but it's starting to get dark and our parents would kill us if they found out what we've been doing.” Randy looked back at the freak tents. The platform along their entrances stood empty. The tent's openings hung open and dark like the gaping mouths of huge canvas corpses. He felt his heart jump when he saw something moving, slithering, just beyond the loose flap of the tent housing Snake Boy. He was just about to challenge Binks to a race to the exit when Binks yelled out.

“No way! Check it out.” Binks pointed about ten feet in front of them where among the sawdust and crumpled candy wrappers, a fifty dollar bill lay on the ground shuddering restlessly against the wind. Randy looked at Binks with wide eyes then they both looked around, sure the owner of this spectacular find would be right behind them ready to tell them 'Excuse me boys, but I seemed to have dropped something' but no one was even looking their way. The closest person was man, dressed so much like Baldo it was scary, rummaging through a trashcan. If he had had the red face, Randy would have sworn it was actually him.

They started toward the fifty, wanting to run, but afraid that would draw attention. When they were within reaching distance, Randy bent down to pick it up. As he did, a gust of wind rolled down the midway, picking up the fifty and sending it fluttering ahead of them. Now, not caring if they drew attention or not, both boys took off in a full run after the escaping prize.

The wind shifted, blowing across the midway instead of down it. The fifty lifted a foot off the ground and seemed to fly like a magic carpet as it dipped and looped its way between the tents. Completely forgetting about the fact it was getting late and that this distraction might very well get them caught, Randy and Binks found themselves laughing hysterically as they gave chase to what could bring them both happiness... at least for a while.

***

The wind abruptly stopped and the fifty settled to the ground in a seesawing motion. It landed at the corner of a camel colored tent under the angle of a tie down rope stretching out to a steel stake. Their laughing died along with the wind, and Randy found an unexplainable uneasiness creeping into his stomach. They stepped toward the fifty. It lay there unmoving as if it had finally given up the chase and decided to allow its own capture. This time Binks reached down to pick it up. Just before his fingers touched the thin green paper, it jumped away and skittered around the corner of the tent. Binks jerked his hand back and Randy felt his heart leap to his throat.

They looked at each other. “I say if we go around this tent and it isn't just lying right there, we forget it,” Randy said. At the sound of his own voice, Randy became intensely aware of the contrasting quiet surrounding them since the wind had stopped. It was quiet, but not silent. He could still hear canvas rippling and tent flaps snapping, which made no sense if the wind wasn't blowing.

“I'm with you,” Binks whispered back, his voice quavering. Randy didn't know if Binks felt the same sense of unease, but guessed he did.

They stepped cautiously around the tent in almost animated synchronization, subconsciously being careful to make as little noise as possible. Randy found himself wanting to reach out and take Binks' hand, but told himself he was just being stupid. Stupid and scared. He wasn't a baby, he was almost eleven. He took in a deep breath and let it escape his mouth in a slow hiss as they stepped around the steel stake and looked on the other side of the tent.

The fifty lay motionless on top of the ankle deep grass, beckoning them to come and pick it up. They took a step forward, and the bill slid across the grass making a dry scraping sound. Randy's brow creased and he squinted. It couldn't be possible they missed this before, but he could see a thin fishing line tied to the bill, pulling it along the grass. Their eyes followed its progress until it stopped ten yards in front of them. Randy felt his head start to spin and the thudding of his heart threatened to burst his eardrums. The fifty stopped just under the front bumper of the same miniature clown car they had seen roaring around the hippodrome. The car's huge bug eyes stared gleefully back at them, and as Randy watched in utter horror, a white gloved hand attached to a billowing white sleeve with a ruffled cuff, reached from under the car, plucked the fifty from the grass, then slid back out of view.

“Oh shit Randy. Oh shit, shit, shit, shit.”

“Come on Binks, let's go. Let's just turn around and get back to the midway,” Randy said putting a hand on Binks' arm. Randy's dad wasn't one of the most loving dad's on earth and babying Randy was never part of the program. There had been many times Randy had gone to his room with tears in his eyes because his dad never seemed to have time to play with him. His dad would tell him boys didn't have time to play when they should be growing into a man. Sometimes Randy even felt himself having to fight back the urge to resent or maybe even hate him. Today however, all of the toughness his father had forced into him suddenly didn't seem so bad.

***

They slowly turned around, but instead of running, they froze. Randy knew what he was seeing was impossible. It had to be. They had chased the fifty a good bit off the midway, but not this far. He could just make out the lights of the circus twinkling on the horizon against what had turned out to be a blood red sunset. The flags fluttering on the big top were barely visible at what seemed like a mile away. And the tents... there looked to be hundreds, maybe thousands of them between where they stood and midway.

“This can't be real,” Binks breathed.

Randy couldn't answer. His mind fought with his eyes as they sent impossible images to his brain. Suddenly, a figure carrying something that shined in the last rays of the sun darted between two tents twenty yards in front of them. This time, Randy did grab Binks' hand.

Something that sounded like a rubber ball bouncing off the clown car made them both spin around. Nothing was there but the white car with its grotesque red ears. The grass moved and the canvas of the tents rippled against a silent, unfelt wind adding to the surreal atmosphere closing in around them. Randy felt the skeletal hand of terror tickle his spine, wanting to wrap its probing fingers around it and paralyze him with fear. He squeezed his eyes shut. No, please don't let me get scared- don't let me be a baby. Using all his will, he pried at the bony fingers of fear. He felt its grip first loosen, then fall away, but knew it lurked in the inner recess of his mind, waiting... waiting for him to let his guard down, even if only for a second.

“Come on,” Randy said. They turned and ran toward the distant lights. Binks, being the slower of the two, started to drop back and Randy pulled him forward. “You have to stay with me Binks.”

“I'm trying,” Binks said in a shaky voice.

Tents flashed by on both sides of them. Randy caught movement in the corner of his eye and looked to his left. A row over, and easily keeping pace with them, the Baker ran through the grass, ratcheting his rolling pin at them in a hammering motion, his oversized shoes making thumping sounds with each step.

“Randy.” Binks squeezed Randy's hand and nodded to the right where the Butcher jogged along, grinning and slashing his cleaver through the air in sharp arches. The unnatural acoustics allowed Randy to hear the slicing sounds the cleaver made cutting through the air.

“I know, just keep running.” Looking in front of them, Randy suddenly felt hope surge through him. Five tents up, the dim glow of a light spilled from an open flap. “That tent up there with the light.” Binks looked and nodded. “There may be someone in there that can help us.”

“But what if there isn't? What if-”

“We don't have any choice.” Randy let loose of Binks' hand and cut to the right. He prayed he was right as he ran into the tent, but knew instantly this was at least one prayer unanswered. On the far side of the tent, lounging in something like an oversized couch, the goat woman lay stretched out, stroking Baldo's red shiny head. Baldo's head was resting below her flabby arm, and Randy felt his stomach roll when he realized he was suckling on one of her four sagging teats. The Candlestick Maker stood at her other side, grinning at Randy while tickling the underside of her double chin with the wick of his candlestick. She giggled, an 'ah ah ah ah ah' sound like what you would expect from a goat, which caused her chins and the scraggly beard to jiggle. Her rectangular pupils glinted in the flicker of the kerosene lanterns hanging from the wooden poles supporting the tent's canvas top.

Randy reached a hand back to Binks, but felt nothing. “Binks?” Randy turned around. Binks was gone. “Binks!”