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I first heard about the disease while nursing my broken ribs over the evening news. Some prion thing, a misfolded protein, a bunch of science that I didn’t understand. They said it was like mad cow but instead of making us all drool and fall over, it ate the part of the brain that recognized faces. Family, friends, people you knew for years became instant strangers. It was sweeping across the country. The TV buzzed, the news anchors with their polished faces told sob stories, daughters afraid of fathers, fathers not knowing wives. I switched it off and limped to the fridge to get another cold one. The can hissed open. I took a swig, let the medicine snake its way down. Funny thing is, none of it sounds that bad. I drank until the room spun then fell asleep on the couch. Next day, I woke up with my head hanging over the edge of the cushion, a puddle of vomit stinking below me. The pain was back. I limped to the diner across the street, wincing at the daylight. Everything in there looked the same yet strangely unfamiliar.  The waitress looked at me like I was a five-letter word she couldn’t solve. “You okay, Andrew?” she asked, filling my mug. Her name tag read “Kate.” She had a gentle face and her eyes whispered that she cared. I hadn’t seen her there before. Maybe this is what fame feels like, I thought. I nodded and chuckled, “Better than ever, Kate.” I took a sip of my coffee, leaned back, my eyes scanning the room. Families laughing, old men grumbling about sports, and three black leather jackets occupying a booth in the corner. I hadn’t seen those faces before, but I remember those shaved heads. Those guys jumped me yesterday. Left me bleeding and groaning outside the bar. I can still feel those gold rings. They were scanning the room too, probably looking for me, for Jefe’s money. The disease had made its claim. I laughed, and for the second time the world was doing me a favor. The first being my daughter, she's got the spirit of a dancer. Ever since she could walk, it was all she ever wanted. She had her eyes on a fancy school miles away and light years out of our budget. So, she ended up at Fantasies off 24, twirling around poles to earn her keep. It hurt me, but dreams don't pay for themselves. I found a loan shark, a guy who moved like a wisp in the dark corners of the city. Got enough to send her packing, off to a place where she could pirouette instead of grab bills with her teeth. She hugged me goodbye, a tight squeeze, just like when she was a little girl who had been waiting all day for daddy to come home. For a while, I kept up with the payments. Then, not so much. Sold my old truck, a rusty red bucket of bolts, but the money wasn’t enough to cover my debts. I paid for my tab and left the diner. Faces turned, voices murmured, but it didn't matter. I was free, unanchored. As I walked out, the sun hung high, painting everything in a warm glow. Life looked as sharp as a knife—one that I could use instead of one pressing into my throat. And so I walked on, into a world where every face was a stranger, but every stranger felt like home. Andrew doesn't have a long literary resume, but he has been jotting down thoughts in journals for years (a really long Word document would be more accurate) and only recently ventured into writing fiction.

I’ve had dreams of demons Visiting me under the velvet blanket of night— When most would wake With shivers of fear, These are the least troubling of my dreams, by far. Perhaps I’ve become accustomed to these somewhat romantic, Almost promising visions; I seem to remember experiencing them since childhood, When Hades’ minions would lift me from my bed by the ankles And swing me around until I awoke and landed with a thud, As if it wasn’t a chore for me to shut my eyes in the first place. Nowadays, the dreams are less playful and more grown-up— Perhaps demons enjoy entertaining children like we do. In any case, most of these swirling, fluttering images That I find in my moments of blissful ignorance of the rising sun Are softer than a lover’s cheek or a swan’s down. On nights when I am lucky, The drowse overcomes me as the train clatters by, And soon, the chill from howling winds beyond my view Are replaced by a luxurious sheath, As if I’ve fallen into a lover’s arms Or a family’s snug hold, And for those momentary dreams, as I know them to be, I am suddenly where I belong. Surely, on most nights, I am plagued by the horrors of reality With unrelenting grip and cold cruelty, Otherwise I am stiff and worn in the mess of my covers With marks under my eyes like no veteran has ever seen. Yet, when the demons come to collect me, With their darkness that is soft to the touch And eyes that lack any semblance of judgement, I dare say their presence is welcomed. In such a case, How could anyone propose that my experience be denounced? It must be unthinkable for me to have an idea of such idiosyncrasy— If I should be exiled upon the notion that my blessings are curses, And oh, I will, Allow me the vice of entertaining my whimsy at the cost of my salvation. Ash Muzzillo (she/her) is a 20-year-old writer residing in MA, USA. She is currently a sophomore in university where she studies Creative Writing of varying disciplines. Ash is a non-theistic, agnostic Satanist. She identifies with the gothic subculture, its music and physical/visual representation. Ash focuses her writing on feminine rage, religious trauma, life with chronic pain, mental health, demons, vampires, and all things dark and brooding. Her work ranges from poetry to prose, stream-of-consciousness to surrealism, speculative fiction to high fantasy adventure romance. Upon graduating from university, Ash hopes to pursue an MA/PHD in writing and literature, as well as publish her longer works and expand her writing expertise.

When the deity visited our city, the Cleanliness Corps swept the streets clean of wretched has-beens like me lest the sojourning god be offended by our unsavory presence. No one knew exactly what became of most of us, but there were rumors of tent enclaves erected in the frigid mountains. The Cleanliness Corps was both efficient and secretive. All of us rounded up underwent brief questioning, and when I volunteered that I was a retired circus juggler, down on my luck for the last decade or two, I learned I had a chance to redeem myself. In three days’ time, I was pulled from a holding pen that contained a specimen of every human misfortune, made to don a clown’s suit, and given three apples to juggle before his eminence, who, in silken robes, regarded me as a spider might his next meal. The rules were simple. I had to juggle my three apples for three minutes, or until the luminary became bored, and for each drop, one of my fingers would be amputated. Though I hadn’t juggled in months, I began well enough, and did both simple cascade and crisscross tricks without mishap, the patterns being stored in my arms and hands from long use. But I quickly grew tired and irritable, and at the end of three minutes had made eleven drops, becoming a regular fumble-fingers. I was fortunate, his highness pointed out, in that he was merciful. I would lose all ten of my fingers as agreed, yes, but the eleventh, which might ordinarily be my head, he would spare. Gratitude gushed from me like a stream, leaving me breathless and tearful, and after the Executioner laid my digits upon a butcher’s block and hacked them all away, then wrapped my bloodied hands in two rags soaked in acid, I was released back onto the street, not without my three bruised apples and a chunk of stale bread stuffed in the pockets of my clown suit. I gathered that I was one of the more successful acts that day, since many others perished. On the now spotless street, where I had been living like a mangy dog prior to being kenneled for the majestic one’s pleasure, I at once made my way to the Health and Restoration shop. Old Bremer, a prosperous physician and apothecary for many years, was in, and told me as he unwrapped my hands that the acid in the bloody rags had likely saved me from contagion, but that he needed to act quickly to reverse such digital devastation. As it was, he could only restore one finger on each hand, and unless I was partial to wearing rings or flipping people off, he recommended the thumb or index. I went with the index, on vaguely utilitarian grounds. As Bremer tsk-tsked and bathed my truncated mitts in a special herbal broth, we discussed price. “I’m afraid I can pay you only in gratitude,” I said morosely, my thankfulness already depleted by the amount I gave the potentate for sparing my life. A man’s gratitude cannot be infinite, after all. I waited for Bremer to throw me out with the cure incomplete. “Ah,” said Bremer, undismayed. “With gratitude comes obligation.” He massaged the edges of my palms, where, not without pain, I already felt the buds of two strange new digits beginning to sprout. Bremer then described an old theft that had occurred against his family. “Do you know jade?” he inquired of me, manipulating my longish, just-developed knuckles. “It is an enchanted stone, in whose lucid depths those who live fortunate lives may discern the past and future. Two years ago a small jade elephant of the most splendid opalescent green was stolen from my brother’s house by the man who owns Tor’s Jewelry store on the waterfront, Arnad Tor. Perhaps you are acquainted with this scoundrel?” I looked bewildered to show I did not, and Bremer continued. “No matter. I can show you the ownership papers for the jade piece, if you doubt my veracity. This thief Tor is even now trying to unload the article, but few can afford his exorbitant price. Naturally, when my family members or even the police call on him, the elephant is nowhere to be found. With your practiced palms and supple new appendages, which I will make extra quick and long, almost twice as long as ordinary digits, you will be able to procure the jade elephant and return it to me.” “Of course,” I said, not about to argue with my benefactor. I held before my eyes my now restored hands, eight wounds smoothly healed and two new index fingers lengthy and flexible beyond compare, and was well pleased. After a brief stopover at an old friend’s on the same side of town, where I exchanged my clown suit for more respectable attire, I made my way to the seafront. There I was greeted by the ceaseless cawing of terns and gulls as I walked along narrow streets wet with mist, one damp pedestrian among many. From the entryway to Tor’s I could count the boats in the harbor, or could if I had nothing else to do. A bell tinkled as I entered the shop, and I found I was not the only customer within. A young couple was haggling with a man, undoubtedly the owner by his air of superiority, over the price of a ring. “It’s only a ring, so why shop around?” he demanded of the couple. “Wherever you go, it’s only going to be rings you find. There’s nothing uncanny about them.” The young man then turned to his fiance, as she must have been, and told her, “This fellow is hard-hearted and pushy. Let’s go someplace where romance is appreciated.” Arm-in-arm, the two strolled defiantly out the door. Tor, with a disgusted look on his froglike face, then turned to me. “Foolish lovers,” he sneered. “They expect me to dote on them as if life is a fairytale and I’m a genie who grants their wishes. I don’t have time for that nonsense. What can I do for you?” “Jade, if you have the time,” I replied in a neutral tone. “I’m a collector of small jade animals, the more precious, the better.” “Are you now,” he replied, looking me up and down. He noticed my maimed hands, which I made no attempt to conceal. “Where do you work? I don’t recall seeing you before.” “If you don’t mind,” I said, and nothing more. I glared at him to convey my impatience. With a grunt, Tor disappeared for a moment into the dark rear of his shop, returning with three jade figurines that he laid on the counter between us: a dolphin, a horse, and an elephant. “These are your finest?” I said, knowing nothing of jade. I encircled the elephant with my elongated forefinger and lifted it to my eyes, noting that for some reason–perhaps to disguise it–the carving had been painted white a while ago. “There are no finer pieces to be had,” he said, adding, “They are quite expensive.” “This elephant,” I said, “is it truly jade, and not ivory? It’s quite white.” “It is jade, the finest quality, and came to me in that condition. I haven’t had the time to remove the disfiguring coat of paint yet.” “Perhaps I should return when that is accomplished. I’d like to see all its pristine qualities.” As I studied the elephant up close, I noticed a small chip in the paint. Before Tor could object, I pressed the animal into my palm and widened the tiny window with my sharp fingernail. Next I held the figure up to the ceiling lamp to illuminate its interior, while at the same time I asked the price. As Tor barked out an astronomical figure, I saw enacted in the green depths of the stone a stirring scene: this very shopkeeper pilfering the elephant from another man’s house as the homeowner slept. The homeowner bore a striking resemblance to old Bremer the apothecary, and was certainly his brother. I tossed the jade to the shopkeeper, who caught it on the fly in surprise. I turned to go but hung in the doorway, the tinkle of the bell fading and the owner watching me with eyes wide. “I’ll return in a day or two for a closer look,” I said. “Have it ready.” Just then a seagull flew through the open door, snatched up in its beak the jade elephant from Tor’s fingers, and flew with it out the door before the speechless man could find his voice. I ambled after the gull and vanished into the damp throng of people outside, chuckling to myself. After that incident I refused to revert to the vermin-like life I’d lived when I stood before the man-god as a performer. Regenerated in body and soul by my digital transformation, I taught myself to juggle anew, employing small hoop-like wooden rings instead of balls and clubs. I could insert my two long fingers into the rings with ease, catching and tossing them, and perfected a routine where I ended up with four hoops stacked on each index finger. I also spun plates and basketballs atop my fingertips and perfected a profitable shell game. At the end of a few weeks I joined a small carnival, a commune of dispossessed talents really, that performed in towns close to my country’s border with our westernmost neighbor, Primo Garden Lots, a sovereign democracy. My renewed vigor, together with a sense that freedom lay within reach, all but eradicated my old age and natural fatigue. I soon encountered Taggert, the haggard but enterprising conductor of our flea circus attraction, a dismal affair of shrunken bugs that, under a glass, resembled a miniature uniformed army blasted into submission. Taggert informed me that a trustworthy farmhand, who lived on the outskirts of the town where the carnival was encamped, would lead a group of twelve adults, no children, through a nearby forest into Primo Garden Lots, for a fee. Along with a parcel of gratitude, I paid my portion, which represented all my savings to date, and learned that the clandestine trek was to take place in a week. Why does everyone say, “Gratitude begets indebtedness,” or similarly depressing slogans, and never the more hopeful, “Gratitude breeds opportunity?” I, whose gratitude one might suppose to be exhausted, can tell you. Before I allowed myself to cross the border to freedom, I had a further debt to repay. This was to old Magello, the dying magician and constant friend of mine back on the bay, whose trained seagull had purloined the jade elephant that I needed to repay Bremer the apothecary for healing my hands. That splendid bird, almost as lousy as decrepit Magello himself, had dropped the elephant straight into the magician’s hands, whence it came into my altered ones to pass along to Bremer. I therefore undertook the two days’ journey back to the waterfront where, in a dank cellar below a tavern, Magello coughed out his last hours, to give up to him my spot in the freedom parade, if I may call it that. I did this out of the most profound gratitude, so that Magello might spend the remaining minutes of his life breathing democratic air, in case an arduous trip to the border appealed to him, or he survived the expedition if it did. If I sound sarcastic here, it is not to disparage Magello, for whom I devoutly wished to put on hold or even sacrifice my own freedom, so that he might enjoy his well-deserved own, for however short a time, in all his present misery. It was only that, seen in a certain light, my obligation to him had cropped up as a barrier between me and Primo Garden Lots. Moreover, Magello sensed that I was reluctant to make this offer, because he at once chided me, “Of course I accept! You owe me that! It’s the right thing to do! You’re not so healthy yourself, you know! I’m surprised you made it this far!” Here he coughed explosively into a filthy rag, and I might have joined him in a cough if another rag had been on offer. Though I felt as fragile as dust, I believed a few chest-cracking convulsions might bolster me. “But this is my native country, and I will not forsake her,” the magician declared feebly, his lungs drained of phlegm and air for a moment. He glared at me with shining, wet eyes. “Hear me? So enjoy your freedom, traitor.” Afterward Magello and I shared a few laughs over the grog he served us in tarnished tin cups–I never knew for certain when he was joking, about patriotism or anything else, but he guffawed endlessly over my description of the jeweler’s expression when the gull carried off his elephant, though I’d told him the story before–and then I departed. I went away alone, but absolved of debt, leaving Magello to finish emptying out his lungs in private. I wish I could say I felt like a new man, but I didn’t get far before I started shaking like a prisoner in a freezing cell. I thought I was juggling again, but it was the world swirling around me. I realized I was as ill as Magello, perhaps with the same malady. I would never make it back to the border, not even to reclaim my crossing deposit. Rejoining the circus as a juggler was out of the question now too, even if I made it that far, since on the trip to see Magello my new index fingers had begun to wither and turn an alarming shade of grayish purple. They had become like the flaccid fingers of an empty glove, with only a sliver of brittle gristle inside them, and I knew they would soon fall off like chameleons’ tails. I would then have my two palms to clap with, if I wished to applaud anything. Fortunately for me, our resplendent leader had departed some while ago, and I was no longer in danger of being swept up so as not to offend him. I was free to line the street like litter once more, and that is what I did: begging to survive, also breeding carp in a fetid pond by a canal, and making wine from weeds in an old bathtub, as I had in the past. At one time I had typed correspondence too, on an antique Olivetti machine that still lay in a pawn shop, but clearly my days as a typist were over. Oh, I might have gone back to the apothecary, I guess, and asked for a few new fingers, but Bremer would only want another favor, saying “one good turn deserves another,” or some such burdensome claptrap. In fact I heard Bremer had passed on, and I had no idea what the new man would demand of me. I didn’t care to find out, either. But what could I do but keep on going, until all my puny strengths wore out? I was so charged with gratitude for this life, even run-down and fingerless, that my hand was forced. A fortunate life, beyond doubt. Michael Fowler writes humor and horror in Ohio.

Abandoned for years, the red farmhouse became a landmark in my childhood, glimpsed from the school bus. It sits well back from the road under slim trees that blossomed white in spring and turned gold in autumn. The town calls it haunted. How else to explain the bad luck that collects under its eaves, the flickers of movement where no birds sing? But despite the rumors, Max and I fell in love with it when we decided to move to the countryside. It was easy to see the future. Elaborate meals for dinner parties, our kids playing in the swings, a long-legged setter watching out for them like Nana from Peter Pan. I come home to it now, greeted by the gradually receding smells of new paint and wood varnish, the dry coolness of its interior world. As soon as the front door shuts, the quiet encloses me and strips away all sense of time. Like a snail curled up for sleep, surrendering to the night. It’s taken months to restore the farmhouse, choosing the brass fixtures, navigating the rot in the beams. But the living room is nearly finished, Max’s turquoise couch and bronze flamingo lamps already set in front of the big bay windows. A moving box still holds the most fragile things encased in bubble-wrap. I reach for a bowl of takeout ramen and start on the noodles, leaning against the accent wall. We chose it as much for the name, robin’s egg, as for the color—the palest blue just tilting green. On the other side of the glass, gusting wind set the trees to dancing in threads of dusk, shedding their white blossoms all over the grass like careless stars. Most of the farmhouse noises are not yet familiar, but I identify the creak of the shutters and the drip of the kitchen sink. When my bowl is empty, I carry it into the kitchen, leaving the lights off. The copper pans hang on the wall but mostly it’s still a disaster, cluttered with unopened boxes. The hulking shadow of the fridge is empty, none of Max’s handmade orecchiette pasta, no jars of cheese-flecked pesto or glossy lemon curd. Rachel, a voice whispers like a breath against my neck. Every evening at the precise instance of nightfall I feel it—the proximity of two separate planes nearly touching in the dark. The voice sounds like Max’s, but I know that isn’t possible. Max is gone and I’m here alone in a house meant for a family. Faith Allington is a writer, gardener and lover of mystery parties who resides in Seattle. Her work is forthcoming or has previously appeared in various literary journals, including Honeyguide Literary Magazine, Hearth & Coffin, Crow & Cross Keys, The Fantastic Other and FERAL.

His sword shone brightly, as I drew my own. May God forgive me. I had never fought one, so bold, and so knightly who held the throne. His sword shone brightly I looked upon him contritely. Greed, jealousy, lust for power twisted through me, ingrown. May God forgive me. Our duel had been decided, and when the sun had begun to set, he fell to the floor, and left me alone. His sword shone brightly The years have made me frail, as now I am sixty. But my deeds, I will forever bemoan. May God forgive me Now I hardly have honor, forfeit, as it is rightly. How I miss my dear brother, the only friend I have known. His sword shone brightly. May God forgive me. Jared T. Wilkerson is a freshman at UVU, completing his associate's with an interest in English. He is a prose editor by day, writer by night. Despite his busy schedule, he likes to study physics and read fiction.

I will tell them about the delectation, the solar burst of my heart: how twice it softly jolted me out of the sleep-verge like a glowing end-of-summer firecracker sprung from the place where my eagle’s talon had rested, bent at waist, eyes closed. I will not tell them about the two watchers on the ski hill that are conjured in sleep: the ones that are taller than trees, thrown black shadows and shapeless, except for hunched shoulders, singular and forever, taking forty yards in soundless stride. Donna Kathryn Kelly is the author of the paranormal horror thriller, THE DESCENT: A Halloween Novel, which was a semi-finalist in the 2023 Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Manuscript Contest. She is also the author of THE CHENEY MANNING SERIES, a collection of suspense novels featuring a public defender turned amateur sleuth who investigates murder cases in northern Illinois. Kelly's poetry has appeared in literary journals and anthologies such as Bowery Gothic, Pasque Petals, Southern Arizona Press, Oakwood, Snapdragon, and North Dakota Quarterly. In 2022, she received an Honorable Mention in the 91st Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition (Non-Rhyming Poetry Category). You can learn more about Kelly and her writings @donnakathrynkelly.com.

Lagnogard, balancing on her scaly tail atop one of the many sandstones jutting from the beach, stretched out each of her stubby green claws as wide as she could to play with the dog. The dog’s eyes kept steadfast on the fireball bouncing from hand to hand. Her dad had called the tan, sleek thing a “Mastabull,” whatever that was. His name was funny, too. Scureeb was one of those new-fangled breeds, but this one seemed to be too eager to please to be able to do the job. They had been waiting for a long time: Lagnogard tossing the ball to herself, and Scureeb intently staring. And drooling. She was careful not to swipe her ever-moving tail close to his mouth. His teeth were impossibly sharp, and he was too immature to know not to playfully nip his owner. Her dragon’s scales protected her, but she knew that those dagger-teeth could penetrate even her armor. A long slob stretched from his tongue to the ground. The eyes, coal black mixed with deadlights, never left the fireball. The girl’s lips creased into a grin despite herself. A gal and her dog. Except, of course, she was no mere gal. And the dog was no dog. Time to test this little hound, she thought. “So, Scureeb, is that your name?” Scureeb gave no response, save for a happy drool and tail wag. The drool dropped onto a stone, which hissed and spat as acid dissolved the rock. “Dad doesn’t think I can handle my first one alone, does he?” she said, perhaps to the dog. Perhaps to nobody at all. This time, along with the drool and tail wag, the dog jumped at the ball as she tossed it from one claw to another. He was ready to play. Glaring over the expanse of lake that surrounded them on three sides and stretched endlessly, Lagnogard lifted the ball of fire high into the air. The dog’s deadlight eyes honed in, saliva dripping freely and haunches tightened in anticipation of the throw. The ball sailed for an eternity – although such a concept was relative in this place – and finally settled into the lake with a faint splash beyond a mere human’s capacity to detect the point of immersion. She was afraid for the dog, as she had hurled the ball much further than she had meant. The dog was gone as soon as it took flight. “Scureeb, don’t– ” Lagnogard yelled. She knew the dog heard her but didn’t respond, so intent was he on fetching the fireball. He would need training, after this first job was over. Much training. He yelped as he entered the lake and was quickly lost awash the flickering of fire at the surface. “That’ll teach him,” Lagnogard muttered, her grin expanding into something predatory and animalistic that contorted her face like only those of her kind could do. Then again, Dragonkind was ancient and almost extinct. She was the last of her kind, she and her dad. Then, thinking of her dad, she finished her sentence only in thought, fearful that he was overhearing her insolence. Even this far away from the city, she could not be sure he was out of earshot. That’ll teach Dad to send me some inferior breed of dog. She knew the special hounds weren’t available. Even if they had been available, her dad had said that this dog would help for her first delivery from Hornac. The moments for the dog’s return passed slowly, and he did not return, so her thought slid into regret. The waves swept the beach around her in deafening torrents, and the fire crackled all around. Still no dog. So much time had passed, Lagnogard thought she heard the faint strokes of Hornac rowing in the distance. She stretched out a well-tuned, pointed ear, but Hornac had not yet come. I’m so ready for my first! Come on, Hornac. She was not ready to admit, though, that it was her dad for whom she wanted to prove she could do this job. It still bummed her that he thought so little of her ability that he would send a dog to help! Slowly, she became aware that her furry companion was pulling himself ashore from the murky waves lapping onto the beach. The drenched creature dragged itself to its master, and dropped the ball at her feet. Flicking out a twisted, overstretched tongue, he quenched a final flame from his back. Reaching down to pick up the ball, Lagnogard gingerly rubbed the tight muscles of the dog’s back. She grinned, and the dog’s tail thumped the sand so hard it created a deep tail-shaped hole. Its deadlight-eyes once more trained onto the ball, and fresh saliva flowed. Perhaps the swim hadn’t worn the dog out, after all. Lagnogard lowered the ball to the dog. Like a vice the dog’s jaws gripped around it, and despite her tugs she could not wrench it from the creature’s mouth. All mouth and leg muscles this dog was, and more powerful than she had at first given him credit. Much more powerful. While she waited for Scureeb to release its grip, she thought about why her dad had given her this creature. Lagnogard padded over to the landlocked side of the peninsula and peered over the cliff to an expanse of mountain below. The mountain descended almost infinitely, and – again beyond the capacity of human sight – the girl admired her father’s golden city far below. Time for the final test for Scureeb. Lagnogard raised the fireball high and threw it off the cliff’s edge toward the great city below. The dog, never hesitating, jumped off at the highest point and sailed after it. For a second time, the girl lost sight of the dog in the tall licks of mountainside fire. No way the dog could survive that. Even the best hounds of this world can’t fly! And yet, before what was known as minutes in the human-realm had passed, the dog eased itself back again from the cliff edge, ball gripped tightly between powerful jaws. It dropped the prize at the girl’s feet and thumped its tail. Despite the dog’s size, Lagnogard was impressed – he was tough, loyal, and indeed worthy. “All right, Scureeb,” the girl said. “Think I’ll keep you.” Scureeb slobbered all over the girl’s outstretched claw in approval. Scureeb, stiffening and growling, sensed the new soul well before Lagnogard could see the boat. Hornac, the figure dressed entirely in shroud, poled the ancient boat along the flaming water. Hornac’s sole passenger looked as hideous as she’d ever seen of a human. The man, initially sitting, stood when he spotted Lagnogard and the dog. He was dark, all angles and muscles, and actually towered over Hornac when he stood. The boat – really not more than a raft – docked and Hornac pointed his pole to direct the man onto the beach. Without a word, Hornac poled away. Up close, Lagnogard could see the death-wound. A bloody hole was torn through the man’s chest, and a thick crust of dried blood was smeared throughout the chest hair. She felt nothing for the human, though, except the excitement that he’d be her first soul. The man did not cower. Instead, when he saw Scureeb he ran up to it and kicked at it. The dog was faster and dodged the clumsy kick. With lightning speed, Scureeb turned and caught the man’s leg and pulled him down. Sand and fire spun around them. Lagnogard raised a claw to assist and then remembered what her dad had instructed. Do nothing to assist. Your job is to supervise. She balanced with her tail on a nearby rock and watched. Scureeb had shifted his attack to grip the man’s throat. The man and dog struggled. Teeth clamped the throat, while the man’s hands gripped either side of the dog’s jowls. They scuffled, the man flipping on top of the dog, then the dog reversing the position over the man. Slowly, the man positioned an arm around the dog’s midsection, with his other arm in between the jaws to loosen the dog’s deathgrip. Picking up Scureeb, the man stood. Lagnogard wanted more than anything else to help but was stayed by her dad’s remembered instructions: It is the dog’s fight. The punishment must fit the crime. The man walked Scureeb over to the cliff. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, green gobs of sweat slid down her face. She could do nothing but watch helplessly as her new best friend Scureeb flew over the cliff and howled all the way down. Thick red liquid came from her eyes, and she wiped it away. She’d never cried before but knew somehow that was what these were: tears. Instructions or no instructions, I need to do what’s right. I need to punish. She stood. And he turned to face her. In the human face that turned to confront her she saw an evil, tormented soul. He smiled, and it made her scales crawl with disgust. When he spoke it was as if he were talking through chunks of soot. “Been dealing with hounds like that my whole life. Fought ‘em against each other. It’s why I was shot. Made too much money at it. S’pose it’s why I’m here.” He paused, stuck a thumb out behind him to the cliff. “But you’ll have to do better than that.” Lagnogard stepped toward him, then stopped. And grinned herself. The man before her couldn’t possibly hear what she did coming back up the mountainside. The howls in pursuit would have been frightening if she didn’t know what they were. It was Scureeb. He was coming back – and bringing friends. J. J. Sherman was born a Yankee, raised a Rebel, and nurtured into a writer of suspense and dark fiction. His stories read differently. Off-beat characters slide through the pages. The story might turn strange, maybe even wicked, and craziness will always ensue. His successful publications include the novel Scorching Secrets and short-story collection, Unmasking at Midnight. He has also published short stories in Hadrosaur Tales, Eldritch Embraces, and a dozen more magazines. When he is not teaching pharmacy, he strums his guitar with clumsy fingers, jumps off two-story rocks, and transcribes the stories swirling in his head. If only a medicine could be invented to cure that.

I have not felt the comfort of sleep since my third death. It’s been twenty, maybe twenty-five days since I last tasted the stain of the Sacrament pass my lips and seize my heart. Twenty-five days since anything bought me peace - honey-water, valerian root, melatonin, oxycodone, benzodiazepine, hot brandy scented with lemon…even meditation. All worthless. Insufficient. I offer a thousand prayers every night, but Brutus does not answer. This is not the insomnia I knew before, when the little shameful moments accrued over a lifetime decide to come marching in all at once and take my consciousness for their battleground. The thoughts that plague me now are different. Are they my thoughts or his? They flit by too fast to comprehend, nauseating flashes of colour on a reel that refuse to resolve into an image before the next frame arrives. But it’s more than just that. At times it feels like I sense the heaving of incomprehensible mechanisms within, the construct of thought unmasked to allow a glimpse at the primordial chaos of firing neurons. Have I seen something not meant for mortal eyes? Is this what is destroying me? I’m forgetting things…and remembering things that never happened. Mosquitoes the size of dinner plates smash into the windows of my apartment and leave putrid violet trails on the glass as their carcasses slide down. Those can’t be real. A purple mould pulsates in the corner where the wallpaper is peeling away. Through the layers of glass and insect residue, the sunlight filters in blue and the mould sprouts hands to catch it. I turn on the television and I recognise the face on screen. It’s her, one of the Others. The one who calls herself Jupiter. She’s a senator and on the TV she’s giving a speech where she compares immigrants to parasites, while red rivulets gush from her empty eyes and soak her suit. The more impassioned she gets in her diatribe the more blood comes out, but she keeps talking as if she doesn’t notice. Click. Now Carthage - the one who first invited me to join the Sacrament - is on the screen. “You don’t want to disappoint God, do you?” he whispers to the camera. The ground under him fissures, torn apart by the tectonic claws of a buried Leviathan. He screams. The melanin drains out of his skin to reveal bruising. No, it’s not bruising. It’s…moving. Squirming under his skin. He is swallowed by the earth. Click. I don’t have to touch the remote this time, I just think and the channel changes. Master Carver appears on screen in his crimson robes. He wears his usual jester’s mask but the white porcelain doesn’t cover his lips, which stay motionless while he speaks. “You’re not supposed to know who the Others are,” he scolds, “they can’t help you anyway.” “Am I being punished?” I reply without moving my lips either. “You know who to ask. You know where to go.” An explosion of static. Crimson tendrils reach out from the scream to grab me. I flee to the hallway and exit. He’s right. Another death will fix me. Fix all of this. Yes, just one more. I must descend the Veins of Brutus. It is my first time making the journey alone, but I remember the way. Or, at least, my legs do. A manhole cover pushed aside, a path taken to a disused metro station. My body is a marionette dancing on strings, an automaton following its code. Am I the one doing these things? They are happening with or without me, but I can choose to be the one doing them. A hidden gate is found - no, I find the hidden gate - twenty metres down the tracks. There is a vertical decline that leads to another door, a grotesque thing made of uneven flesh that oozes an orange fluid that smells like battery acid. It is flanked by a pedestal. Here. I must make the offering. The skull is oddly warm when I take it from my backpack. Where did that come from? Usually Carver handles… Never mind. I place the thing down and watch the bone evaporate. The door groans like a wounded creature as it opens. Foul air assaults my lungs when I step in, fouler than I remember. The slime on the walls retreats from the light when I shine my torch on it. Something comes towards me from beyond the torchlight. Noises. Whispers. A voice - Master Carver’s. “Come, child of Brutus.” But Carver cannot be here. This is an echo - this is what he said during my first visit. The past leaks into the present over my shattered synapses. I am reliving my first visit. Click. As I descend down the tunnel, I feel like the walls are about to contract and swallow me. Pull me deep into this gargantuan gullet. Carver’s gentle whisper still beckons forward. Down towards the core. Closer to the explosions of a heartbeat that drown out the squelching of boots. I reach the room of the first ritual, both in the past and the present. There is another flesh-door, from which protrudes an obsidian bowl. To my right, Jupiter places her hand palm-down on the rim. Carver brings down a hatchet and a few of Jupiter’s fingers drop into the bowl. She screams. Now I am screaming. I drop the hatchet and wrap my bloodied hand in cloth. God, it hurts, but it will be better soon. The bowl glows sickly and emerald. The door dissolves in both whens. My brain screeches, my skull shakes. At first I think it’s bifurcating under the strain of two realities. As I close my eyes, I feel the thunder in my head - this comes from within. I need the Blood. Now. If my brain gives out before I reach the final chamber… I take a deep breath and gag on putrid air. Then I enter the core. But something is different - something is wrong. I stare down two sets of walls, but only one of them is moving. In one, the resounding thud of colossal atria and ventricle is silenced. No. I place a hand on the wall. To my left, Carthage does the same in the past. “Incredible. Every brick is a strand of living tissue. The circulatory system of a God.” It doesn’t feel alive now though. In the present, I walk through the corpse of my God. I am doomed, then. It is a calming thought, one that strips me of my panic, my tortured urgency. Still, I want answers, so I stroll to the final chamber. The door is open already. I cross the threshold. Click. I am sucked into the past more fully. Carver makes the rest of us sit in a circle around the wound in the floor that bleeds darkness. “This goes straight to the centre. The purest blood, completely unfiltered.” Did his lips move? I can’t see them clearly. He fills our jugs from an old blue bucket, the chain tethered above and its other end trailing into the abyss. “Now drink. Complete the Sacrament,” he says. We all obey without hesitation. It tastes like petrol and gin, like the nectar of eden drenched in arsenic. It tastes of everything and nothing. Of death and suffering and salvation. Approximately two minutes later, we all die. This death isn’t peaceful. Muscles shrivel, tendons and ligaments snap, bones crack and break. Flesh melts off us like butter in a frying pan. We are conscious during most of it, since the nervous system takes a while to dissolve, and it’s the most horrifying pain any of us have ever experienced. At least, until thirty more seconds elapse and the resurrection begins. Tissue fuses and reforms. Whatever magic lies in the blood now courses through us, our liquid selves. What was destroyed takes shape again. The tissue becomes rigid, organs take shape. The nervous system comes back in a perfect, visceral torrent of blazing agony. A heart. A heartbeat. Lungs. Violent heaves as air comes into us once more. When the pain subsides, Jupiter looks at her newly grown finger in astonishment. Carthage says that his shortsightedness is cured. But none of us need these physical changes as proof to know that we have come back changed. Each sense is stronger than before, everything is so fresh. We are more alive than we have ever been. With the Blood of Brutus in my veins, I can do anything. The euphoria fades and the present returns. Past is discarded. I’m in the chamber, in my usual place. To my right and left are Jupiter and Carthage, their masks on the ground before them. Both of them are dead, Carthage has been stabbed hundreds of times and Jupiter has red ruins for eyes. They gesture at me accusingly. Across from me is a corpse missing its head. Carver. The skull in my bag... But I won’t think about that now. There is a jug beside my spot. How did I miss it before? I drink deeply. Petrol and gin, cinnamon and rust. I sit and wait for death to take me. But my stomach curdles. Something is wrong with the blood. It is…stagnant. Harvested from a lifeless heart. “Well God-fucking-dammit,” I say to the dead. My words hang in the air like a veil. Before I can decide what to do next, the headless Carver sits up. He pulls a skull out from beneath his robes and attaches it to a protruding vertebra. His skull. The one I offered at the door. “I am pleased at your return, though I regret the circumstances,” he says. It is not Carver’s voice. It is the baritone of bumblebees drowning in honey. It is the echo of an organ in a cathedral. The voice of a God. “What…what happened to me?” I say. It’s the best question I can think of. “Alas, little of you remains. It is rare for me to say this to a mortal, but in this case it is warranted… I am sorry.” “Brutus, what do you mean? I need your help. I–” “There are many who need my help, and few who receive it. Alas, I am beyond helping, or being helped.” “I know. You’re dead,” I say. “But then how are we speaking?” “My essence is contained in blood, and you have just drunk the last of it.” Even without tissues or muscles to form a facial expression, the skull looks remorseful. “Every time my children drink my blood, I speak to them. And I beg that they stop and leave me in peace. I tell them that I am dying, that I need to recover. Not even a God can survive such bloodletting. But something in the resurrection erases the memories of our talks, and you return, as greedy as before for the product of my veins.” “Is that why you killed Carver and the others?” “No, it’s why you killed Carver and the others.” “What?! I–” “While you were under the fugue of my blood, I tried to implant something of myself into the circuitry of your brain. A subconscious directive that would survive the violence of resurrection. I had attempted it before, but it never worked. Until I tried it with you.” Memories returned suddenly. Suffocating, poisoning, burning. Cutting a bloody swath across Paris. So much blood. And beneath it all an alien buzzing in my head. Instructions for the Champion of Brutus. “I…remember now. It was too late to save you, but not to avenge you.” “Indeed. You were my Archangel Michael.” “And that’s why I’ve been going insane. There is something of you in my head. Something beyond what a mortal mind can sustain.” Brutus nodded. “You are the last Child of Brutus. And soon there will be none. Once the blood wears off, I will cease to exist. And so will you.” “But how…what happens after?” “Even I cannot say, Champion. I’m new to this too. But for you I have a final gift. Listen…” Click. “I don’t hear anything.” “Exactly.” Understanding washes over me. The thudding in my brain has stopped. Peace. No more blood and whiskey, no more suffering and salvation. Just peace. “Thank you, Brutus.” Thank you, I say, not bothering to wipe tears from my cheek. “I’ll be ready to go soon. I want to enjoy this a little bit longer.” “Believe me, Champion, I’m in no rush.” A single red tear trickles down Brutus’ cheekbone. I sit for a while, and enjoy the silence while my God prays beside me. Nick Badot is an Irish/Belgian author, poet, and reformed computer scientist currently living in Montenegro. He has a predilection towards speculative fiction, hopeless romanticism, gothic horror and history, and has published poetry in the Provenance Journal and the Rabble Review. He is also writing a gothic horror novel.

Maybe we were better off When gods and monsters walked among us. When evil walked the world, But we knew it when we saw it. And the monsters would destroy villages But not souls. And the gods walked among us, And we knew their names and faces. It was humbling to walk with the gods. They might demand a sacrifice, But it was a price we could bear. Until we drove the gods away And killed all the monsters. But evil still walked the earth, And it slipped more and more into the hearts of men. The gods no longer heard our cries, And the heroes all left town. Now the monsters walk among us But we don’t know them when we see them. So we fear so much more now. Maybe we were better off When the monsters and gods Walked among us. Kelly Winget grew up on the coast of Massachusetts, believing in mermaids and fairies and the old magic and never really stopped. For as long as she can remember, she’s always had stories and pictures running through her head. She lives in the Blue Ridge mountains of Western North Carolina with her husband and their two crazy pibbles, Lou and Patch. She can usually be found dancing, playing with paint, hiking, chasing waterfalls, or seeking out the magic all around her and trying to share it with the world. She self-published her first book of poetry, art, and photography, Madness and Grace, in 2023.

1867, two years after the war ended, five years after Antietam, 22,700 and more dead at Sharpsburg, arms and legs scattered around me like fireflies at night, bones still singed from flash powder, three years after I escaped Elmira POW camp, "Hellmira" more like it, us eatin' roaches and maggots. I hightailed it for the Indian territory and Robber's Roost Peak near Black Mesa, burrowing in like a mole, and I wasn't coming out, no way, no how. One night, dark as a witch’s maw, huddled over my campfire for warmth, I started slitting my catch, a squirrel 'bout as big as a prison rat. Here I was, hungrier than a rainbow chasing rain, my rawhide shirt, as holey as Palm Sunday, hanging on my bones like I was a scarecrow out on my paw's milo field back home in Chicksaw, Tennessee. I just wanted to eat, lay back by the fire, and look at the stars. Though they seemed to be moving closer to me. That coulda' been due to the rotgut moonshine I was drinkin', probably half snake venom, half turpentine. I'd bought a gallon jug off a traveler for maybe four chunks of gold I'd panned out of the Cimarron. I sliced through the varmint's gullet, them stars still gettin' closer, and saw it, inside the squirrel. Something red, glowing like an ember but pulsing. I plucked at it, hoping for a heart, good eatin'. Out it came, hard as a ruby gem, in my hand, still pulsing, and attached to the squirrel by wires, green, red, and black. So I pulled, damn fool that I was, and its innards unspooled, now metal, like clockwork. And it started talking. Don't know what language, not mine, maybe Cherrokee or Sioux, but nothing like I'd ever heard when I'd stumbled upon tribes. The damned squirrel started humming like a machine afire and buzzing and vibrating and chattering like a telegraph transmitter. Next it said in English, sort of, part growl like a rasp file, part machine like a thresher, "I am not of this time, nor should you be. I can show you a life of plenty." Suddenly, a light from above shone on me, pulsing like mother's blood amidst a whirr as if from a thousand hummingbirds. I was lifting like Jesus on the third day toward who knows where. Home? And the voice spoke again. “Come. Let us depart." Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in CafeLit, Panoplyzine, Crack the Spine, Decadent Review, Vermilion, In Parentheses, Wingless Dreamer, Big Bend Literary Magazine, Coffin Bell, and more, plus his chapbooks Once Planed Straight; Viral; and The 13th Floor: Step into Anxiety from Spartan Press.

Outside it’s snowing. Again. Hard. Already new-white blankets the off-white of last week’s storm on the campus of our mid-sized college in upstate New York. Flakes tap against our dorm windows. The forecast calls for eight to ten inches. Lights out and our talk — mine and RanShack’s — drowses toward nighty night with references to, perhaps, Aristotle or Diogenes. We’re philosophy majors, after all. But still basically kids. So, maybe we talk about R.E.M. or U2. Or perhaps the Rangers or Islanders. Or even who should win the best picture Oscar: Shawshank Redemption or Forrest Gump. I can’t really remember the exact subject because of what comes next. Just before our drifting words sputter into sleep’s rhythmic breathing, Theo, our other roommate, jumps out of bed and screams in such terror that the sound charges me from all sides, expressing human, animal, and otherworldly agony all at once. I grasp my ears and yell “Stop!” But I can’t hear myself. “I am dissolving!” Theo bellows. “Help me!” The night light etches his silhouette. He stands, arms imploring heaven. I can’t move. “Theo, it’s OK!” RanShack cries. Too late, for Theo dashes out of the room. We hear him stomp through the hallway past the elevator and clamber down the stairwell, still screaming. Somebody yells, “Call security!” Though in minutes, he can no longer be heard, Theo’s agonized cry lingers in my ears like tinnitus. I take deep breaths, try to calm myself. RanShack flips his lamp on. He’s stunned, like a boxer taking the eight count. “He’ll freeze his ass off!” I say. “He’ll have to come back!” He says, “At least he didn’t crash through the window.” Windows, actually. We’ve got two that we now stumble toward, each to his own. My hand shakes as I lift the roller blind. But not just my hand. I’m trembling all over. “There!” “Where?” “There!” Theo slip-slides across the quad wearing nothing but sweatpants, a flannel PJ top, and socks. His spindly, 6-foot-5-inch frame collapses about a half dozen times as if he’s a puppet whose strings keep getting cut. He struggles into upright, runs a bit more, falls again. How long can this last? Long enough for Theo to turn a corner and disappear behind a building across the way. “Holy shit,” I whisper. On the peripheries, red and blue flashing lights appear and float through the storm toward each other. Two golf cart-type vehicles of campus security, back tires no doubt in triangular snowplow mode, meet right below us where Theo’s footprints begin. The guards confer for a moment, and then one rolls off retracing Theo’s steps, while the other heads across untrampled snow toward where they must have decided that Theo most likely will be now if he hasn’t zig-zagged into the woods that surround the college. “They’ll get him,” RanShack decides. Maybe, I think, because the storm kicked up a few notches. Its intensity already erased most of Theo’s footprints, while only three of the etchings of his falls remain. RanShack turns toward me. “Don’t you think they’ll find him, Trotsky?” “They should.” That’s not the question, though. The question is will they find him alive? The weather people underestimated this storm, and instead of eight inches we eventually get 18. That’s not unusual in this part of the state, where nothing short of an atomic bomb would make administrators cancel classes. Students carry on the next day knowing that a search — complete with cadaver dogs — takes place on the edge of their cocoon of higher education. And they do find Theo — that’s a nickname, by the way, his real name’s Maximilian Nola — as twilight scatters muted colors along the horizon. He’s dead. Hypothermia. We give statements to school security, administrators, and the local cops. RanShack — real name Randal Shackleton — and I, Trotsky — real name William Trotter — know that the worst thing to do would be to fake an emotional response. So, no tears, no mourning. Shock’s OK. Shock is real. Detectives with the town’s police department seem inclined to like us. Maybe that’s just a technique, but I don’t think it’s entirely put on. We’re not trust-fund babies, RanShack and me. We’re work-study. I do shifts at the cafeteria, and RanShack makes rounds with maintenance. We’re not part of the contingent of snot-nosed spoiled college punks who number too many at our school. That should count for something with these bootstrap puller-uppers. “I didn’t really know him that well,” I tell a detective. RanShack is in another room being interviewed. They separated us just like they do on cop shows. “Maximilian keeps — kept — to himself.” “Even in a dorm room with two other roommates?” “We tried, you know, to draw him out like you do with people with social anxiety,” I say. “So, that didn’t work. Then we more or less ignored him. We didn’t want to crowd him. We wanted to give Theo the chance to get used to us.” “Theo?” “Yes, sorry, detective. That’s our nickname for Maximilian. He minored in theology.” “And all three of you major in philosophy?” “Yes, detective. What are the odds? You can wind up being roommates with anybody with any major. But we’re all philosophy.” “And did Maximilian take that initiative?” “Initiative?” “To be friends with you and Randal.” This with a tinge of annoyance. “No. Not really. Then me and Randal just….” I shrug. He says that “some things need to happen organically.” Three long beats before I respond. Organically? I don’t expect such a word from a cop. “We did try,” I finally say. “I know, young man.” They didn’t press it because — surprise, surprise — it turns out that Theo battled mental illness his entire life. Even with all the confidentiality laws surrounding somebody’s health records, that fact wanders loose. About two weeks after the incident, the maintenance guys clean out Theo’s belongings to store in boxes somewhere in case someone comes back to claim them. I don’t know if anybody ever did. RanShack and I hadn’t gotten to know Theo better because he only started rooming with us at the beginning of the second semester, replacing a guy who dropped out. We were not impressed. Theo always bumped into things, stumbled, or flat-out fell. He wasn’t on good terms with his motor skills. He wears glasses with thick black frames that somebody with ’tude could possibly turn into a retro rebel look. Theo doesn’t have ’tude. Then there’s the hair: totally gray since his early teens. A young man’s face under an old man’s hood accented by pitch black eyes in which the voids of the pupils dominate. Also, he could be staring at the world from inside a fish tank, thanks to those Coke-bottle lenses. He blinks slowly, rhythmically. Seemingly too aware of what should be an automatic bodily function. Creepy. Now, I don’t say Hollywood keeps me and RanShack on speed dial for leading man roles. But at least we blend, maybe too much. At a party last semester, one girl asked if we’re brothers. We waxed jivey about each other’s ugliness, but we’ve fielded the question before. I suppose we could be twins. Brown hair, blue eyes. About the same height and weight: 5 feet, 11 inches, and 175 pounds, give or take. Similar build reflecting gym time and also a tendency to blow off a workout the same way we’re a bit too ready to cut class. Over winter break, Shackleton grew a Van Dyke, and I’m working on a mullet. We silently agree: enough with this “you look like brothers” bullshit. When Theo moves in, we try to balance the new dynamic, but balance keeps its distance. He’s quiet and either extremely fragile or extremely violent, but holding it in. We can’t decide. “He’s all right,” RanShack says. “Is he?” I say. That night, Theo thrashes in his sleep, crying out sometimes. “Nope,” RanShack says. “Not putting up with that.” That morning he hands Theo one of those tins that breath mints might come in. Theo plates it on his palm, stares at it. “It’s zolpidem,” RanShack says. “For sleeping.” “Deep sleep?” Theo asks, still gazing at the tin as though it could be an archeological find that might crumble. “Puts me out,” says RanShack. “One pill right before bed.” “Deep sleep,” Theo says, like a mystic who’s finally found enlightenment. It works, too. That very night. Theo sleeps drama-free. “Thank you,” he murmurs to RanShack the next morning. “Is it…?” “Yeah, it’s my prescription but go to town. I don’t need them, really. Just now and then.” Translation: RanShack likes his beer but his beer doesn’t always like zolpidem. “You should get your own prescription, though,” he adds. “I should.” But Theo never does, and when he runs out into the snowstorm that night, RanShack right away grabs the tin, pockets it. He tells me later that he tosses it into the piles of trash that he collects as part of his maintenance crew gig. “That’s that,” I say. “Really?” This isn’t the response I’m after. We’re both disturbed by what happened to Theo, but RanShack gets physically ill. I hear him barfing a few times after the incident, and he now and then wanders about the room like a geezer who has forgotten what he’s looking for. I lay it out for him a week later over beers at McStew’s, the off-campus dive where college kids and townies sometimes brawl. “Theo was mentally unhinged,” I say. “He probably would have wound up killing himself.” “How do you know?” RanShack asks. “Look, we’re young.” “So’s he.” “He’s gone, Randy. We’re still here. We have our futures.” “Yeah.” “We did something stupid,” I say. “A prank.” “Yeah, right. Just a prank.” “No,” I say. “I take that back. Not just a prank. If you remember our intentions were sort of decent. Loosen that zombie up a bit. Get him to enjoy life for a change.” “Then why not just tell the cops?” “Because good intentions or not — and you know a lawyer could make it seem diabolical to a jury — it’s against the law. We’re talking a Class A drug here. That’s possession and distribution. It’s involuntary manslaughter. It could even be considered third-degree murder. And there’s no statute of limitations for third-degree murder. Confessing does nobody any good.” “It gives Theo’s family closure.” “Theo’s family’s got closure. He ran out into a blizzard and froze to death. See? Closure.” Distractions abound in a place like McStew’s but the workers and bouncers tend to notice mainly two things: people yelling at each other, and patrons leaning into each other having what appears to be a quiet argument that too often leads to punches getting thrown. The waitress suddenly appears and asks, “You guys OK?” We lean back. “As a matter of fact…” I order buffalo wings, emerald chips, and another pitcher of beer. We’re careful to keep up the appearance not too far from reality: two friends hashing out a scheme. “Can you live with what we did?” RanShack asks. “We?” His head snaps back as if I slapped him. “What?” “Look,” I say, satisfied that he knows who’s mostly to blame. “We will not only live with it, we will bury it and move on. And we will have happy, productive lives.” What happened — what we did — was this: While cleaning a lab in the Empsonelli Neural Perception and Psychedelic Science Building, RanShack came upon LSD pills. He suspected right away because someone had helpfully printed in black marker “LSD PILLS” upon the little plastic bottle that lay on the floor and which RanShack scooped up and dumped into his trash can. When he finished cleaning the space, he rolled the trash can down to the dumpster room and fished out the bottle before tying up the bag and tossing it onto the heap. Mission accomplished. We Netscaped like crazy that night to certify as much as possible the tablets’ authenticity. Bottle says “LSD,” but is it? “There’s only one sure way to find out,” I say. We discuss it, finally deciding that I’ll babysit in case something goes wrong as RanShack guinea-pigs himself. “For science!” he says, before popping the pill and chasing it with a wincing swig of tequila. RanShack’s eyes water, and he wipes his nose as he coughs. Deep breath and he says hoarsely, “We have liftoff.” In about 30 minutes, he bolts up onto the edge of the couch sitting straight as a gymnast, and talks about beautiful exploding colors, sentences in different languages floating by, streaking lights. He points to my head: “You have a halo, Trotsky.” Then, he whispers, “I am one with all things” and collapses back into the couch in an open-eyed trance. None of this is unexpected, more or less matching accounts we’d read about acid’s effects. None of it causes alarm because RanShack’s experiencing a good trip. For now. Could it go dark? I don’t know. The responsibility for my friend’s well-being that I’d so casually accepted now triggers panic. Should I take him to the clinic if he doesn’t snap out of it in another hour? What would I tell them? The body hides LSD, but this soon after ingestion? There’d be questions. I began to roleplay what those questions might be and how I should answer them when RanShack shakes his head as someone might when breaking the surface of a cold lake. “Wow!” “You OK?” He smiles blissfully. He’s OK. “This is incredible!” he says. “What do you see? Tell me.” “That wall. It’s breathing.” “What else?” Floating globs of color, sudden bolts of light, sparkler showers, corners of the room growing and shrinking, shoes melting into the floor. “Astounding!” RanShack says. “Just astounding! Like they said, my ego dissolved and I became part of everything. I became you, Trotsky. I hung on to you — your existence — as a way to tie myself to reality. And you were saying something.” “I don’t remember.” “But I took over you. I not only heard your thoughts I became you thinking your thoughts. It’s crazy. Paranormal. Religious.” RanShack’s a Catholic of a sort. The sort that doesn’t go to church. I’m agnostic of a sort, the sort who doesn’t want people thinking I’m hedging my bets by not plunging into atheism. We’re learning about Camus in one class and Camus said that “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, then live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.” Nobody ever called Camus a chickenshit. Also, true atheists don’t believe in anything paranormal. Nothing exists except the material universe, right? No ghosts. No sprites. No banshees. No angels. No afterlife. No. Yet, I have experienced incidents that cannot be easily explained without having a belief in the power of coincidence that borders on the supernatural. Once upon a midnight dreary, I agonized over a term paper that should explain the nuances of one of the more famous existentialists of the last century. I recalled a teacher that I’d had freshman year in high school who specialized in just this philosopher. I hadn’t even thought of her in seven years. I considered reaching out but discarded the idea, thinking, “Are you really going to chase her down after years of no contact? She probably won’t even remember you.” The next day — and, I mean, the very next day — who should contact me asking how college life goes and offering to help if I need it? I never even found out how she got my email address. And one night years ago, I dreamed about a favorite uncle — Uncle Jim — whose body started to shut down. He stopped eating. Could hardly move because of arthritis. Doctors gave him another year, because Uncle Jim didn’t have cancer or heart disease or anything else that might take him fast, and the nursing home he wound up in always made the 10-best lists of such institutions in the state. In my dream, Uncle Jim wept as he listed everything he’ll miss in this world: the Mets and Jets, a favorite restaurant, morning prayers, family, watching the ocean. And as I listened to Uncle Jim recite these things, I actually became Uncle Jim. I thought his thoughts and felt his sorrow, a sorrow that I would recall years later when reading T.S. Eliot’s “Preludes,” which talks of our world’s connection to “some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing.” I awoke to a phone call telling me that Uncle Jim had just died. Coincidence? I don’t know. But RanShack’s talk of thinking my thoughts seemed somehow plausible. RanShack’s LSD tablets didn’t exactly match the size and color of the zolpidem pills, but close enough, especially since Theo usually dived in after we’d turned the lights out. RanShack dropped a few in the pill tin, and because of a few unused zolpidem, this gave the prank a Russian roulette flavor. But on the first night, Theo dropped acid. And that’s how Theo — Maximilian Nola — died. Age 20. RanShack recovered. Guilt can corrupt. Yes, you do something wrong, you should feel guilty. Wallowing in guilt, though, means wallowing in self. It’s a form of narcissism, I told him. It can stand in the way, especially for two young guys getting into law. Oh, yeah. I’m an attorney. What the hell else are you going to do with a degree in philosophy? Stay a student until 40 and hope to land a tenured position somewhere? No thanks. I’m a deez, dooz, and dem kind of lawyer. The people’s lawyer. Criminal law. Shackleton’s practicing law, too, somewhere. We drifted apart as people do. Why? Just life. Kids. Career. Ups, downs, sideways. We keep the pharmaceutical experimentation in college just between us. Nobody needs to know. Oh, yes. I dropped acid back then, as well. About a month after Theo. RanShack’s turn to babysit. That’s when I freed him of guilt. My ego did indeed dissolve, and I saw faces of people I’d cared for but who’d died. I talked to them. They became more present in my life. The dead aren’t really dead, and the living aren’t always living. You can get away with murder because, in essence, there’s no such thing. “You talked to Theo,” RanShack told me after I’d come out of it. “I did. Most he’s ever talked.” “Does he forgive us?” I lied. “Forgive us?” I said. “He thanks us. He’s so much happier now.” “So, there’s a heaven?” “He forgives you, RanShack.” That should have been the end of it. We never again dropped acid. RanShack stopped feeling guilty. We became quintessential college knuckleheads, joining a frat and limiting substance abuse to beer and an occasional shot. We saw the future and the future looked good. Except, except, except… It is now nearly 30 years after college, and I’ve built a reputation as a kick-ass criminal attorney that prosecutors don’t want to tangle with. About six months ago, however, he returned. Theo. He stands by my bed pointing at me. His black eyes seem to have taken on an appearance of coal heating up, a trace of red seeping from below. His gray hair whips about in a wind I do not feel. “What the hell do you want?” I shout, thinking that my words stay within the confines of dreamland, but my wife shakes me awake. “Are you OK?” I know that LSD can sometimes cause flashbacks, and this must have been one of them. It wasn’t hallucination because I knew that it wasn’t real. Then — after an admittedly fraught few days and nights — I thought, “Well, that’s that.” No. He returns. Sometimes in my sleep, and sometimes when I’m awake. I’ve learned how to pretend he’s not there because, well, hell, he isn’t. I talk to him when I’m alone, but he says nothing. I’m trying to decide what to do. See a shrink? Or maybe I’ll track down Theo’s family. I haven’t figured out what to say to them if I do, though. Or how to explain why it’s taken me so long to say it. I must do something, though, and soon. Because lately Theo’s image begins to betray the shadow of a smile as he continues to point at me. A frozen smile. A mildly sadistic smile. A prankster’s smile. Frank Diamond's poem, “Labor Day,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize Award. His short stories have appeared in RavensPerch, the Examined Life Journal, Nzuri Journal of Coastline College, the Fredericksburg Literary & Art Review, and the Fictional Cafe, among many other publications. He has had poetry published in many publications. He lives in Langhorne, PA.

I nearly set the date— I always put great stock in astrology. And with our planets so aligned I moved with a false confidence. My bouts with this affliction have always been proper and without pride or medicines. My anticipation has been the subject of many essays in Gothic literary journals. My disappearance provides little comfort but I will heal and return sometime before the Harvest Moon. R. Gerry Fabian is a published poet and novelist. He has published five books of poetry: Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, Wildflower Women as well as his poetry baseball book, Ball On The Mound.