You like horror? Well, Deadman’s Tome will be serving up some deep fried horror they’ll be coming back for more. But there’s a problem, we need cooks. We have an empty kitchen and the dinner is filling up with people.
We want good, schlock, campy horror with a touch of the bizarre. We’ll pay $10 token payment upon acceptance. The content will be served on the Deadman’s Tome patreon page at www.patreon.com/deadmanstome
This is a call for horror submissions: short stories and flash fiction of 2k-5k word length. Send to Jessecdedman@gmail.com
Deadman’s Tome released a free to read ezine back in September and October and the response has been very positive. We’re talking over hundreds of reads, almost thousands of people reading the content. Why do I tell you this? So you know that your stories won’t be going to waste.
Calling for submissions for the Deadman’s Tome September issue. The theme? Let’s go deep into the realm of sci-fi horror. Let’s explore the claustrophobic corridors of abandoned space ships, the fragmented ruins of distant worlds, and the demonic horrors that watch us from afar!
Theme: Dark horror sci-fi. Gore and adult subject matter welcomed
Word limit: 5k
Payment: Royalties 60% of net earning split evenly amongst the authors
If you follow Deadman’s Tome, then you should ask yourself why aren’t I a patreon? It only take a dollar.
Deadman’s Tome is an online horror zine that publishes dark gritty horror on weekly basis. This, of course, is only possible because of the dedicated work of the contributors. The featured authors have spent hours honing their craft to deliver truly terrifying stories. The sort of stories that haunt you with a chilling sensation down your spine. To reward them for their dedication and commitment, I offer them a publication on a site that strongly encourage community engagement, along with a monetary compensation calculated by the number of views, comments, and likes their story receives.
I pay the authors right out from my pocket. While I do not mind right now, there may come a time where I may not be able to. I honestly do not know when that time will come and I hope it never does.
I’m also looking for artists, and would like to one day publish content with artwork 100% of the time. That, as you could expect, may get expensive. Even the for the love artists want payment eventually.
Please consider becoming a Deadman’s Tome patron. It only takes a dollar, and it does give you benefits and access to discounts, exclusive titles, and insider information. I treat the patrons like a family – a good functioning family, not the Charles Manson style family.
DISCLAIMER: Deadman’s Tome is a dark and gritty horror zine that publishes content not suitable for children. The horror zine proudly supports the freedom of dark creative works and stands against censorship. Hardly any subject matter is too taboo for this horror zine. As a result, Deadman’s Tome may feature content your mother would not approve of. But she doesn’t control your life, right?
I woke to shrill screeching, and my bed shaking like it was the end of the world. Bright sunlight flooded in as the window shade flew up. The digital clock read 2:37 AM.
The rumbling continued, and my heart slowed as I realized what it had to be. I doubted I’d get any more sleep, so I got out of bed, dressed and geared up, and went above deck. I found the Captain of the Norwegian Coast Guard Vessel Svalbard at the bow, looking over the railing to the water, and speaking on a handheld communicator.
“Aksel,” I said to him, interrupting.
He held up a hand, and continued speaking into the walkie, looking over the bow as he gestured vigorously. The engines reversed and the ship backed, turned, and forced its way into the ice at a new angle. It seemed to make better progress.
“Ja?” Captain Aksel Falk was in full uniform, and looked back over his shoulder at me as the ship shuddered as it cut into the frozen sea.
“Situation?”
“We are making progress north; we’ve hit pack ice, about five hundred kilometers north of Longyearbyen, a little over eight hundred from your destination.”
“Satellite data?”
“The North Pole is solid ice this time of the year.” At my look, he shrugged. “This year, anyway. We will have to see how close we can get before you will take a helo from the ship to your goal.”
I closed my eyes and turned my face upwards. I could feel the ‘midnight’ sun warm against my lids, turning them bright red, and the color triggered an awful memory which lay too near the surface. In my mind’s eye, I saw Cerise’s torn body, her blood staining our bed the same color, and I shuddered. My lover, my truest companion upon my mad quest to struggle on against the return of insane, alien horrors had been murdered despite all I could do. Her last reading had brought me to this point, on my way to defeat the Windwalker before its cosmic conjunction arrived and gave it the power to manifest.
I opened my eyes to a sudden sense of dislocation. Aksel was gone. What…?
Cries from far behind me. Calls. Shouting. And then I saw a streak of blood at the railing before me! The ship lurched as it went into reverse, and as we pulled back from the ice I saw the Captain’s body lying on the pack ice, blood splashed around him. I saw a greyish black rope around his chest, and my first thought was how out of place it seemed. Then the thing squirmed and I realized it was a tentacle, come up through a crack in the ice and pulling my friend further away from the Svalbard.
I looked around as the ship lurched again, this time to a sudden stop. A glance over the side showed more tentacles from the water on both sides of the bow, clutching at the Svalbard, weaving their way up to the decking. They were far too long to belong to a shoggoth such as had attacked Cerise and me just over a month ago, but we were sailing roughly two and a half miles above the Amundsen Basin, the deepest point of the Arctic Ocean.
Home to polypoid deep ones and to their Master, the Great Old One, Othuum.
But it made no sense! First, it would have to be aware of me, and I was only mortal, my successes to this point of minimal impact. Pyrrhic, in fact, considering how I’d lost Cerise–my love, my Oracle only months before.
The ship shuddered again. I heard a helicopter’s blades begin whirling from the flight deck. An alien god’s minions versus a modern, top of the line war machine- I had no idea how it would turn out. But the Captain might not be dead, and I still had to get to the North Pole to stop the Windwalker in order to prevent that catastrophe.
I backed up for a running start, and another disturbing thought crashed into my mind. Had this Old One sent the shoggoth to slaughter my love? Had it known of me? Of us and our war against their kind, and my coming north?
There was no time to consider all this now, not if I was going to help the Captain. I ran for the rail and vaulted it, leaving the deck of the Svalbard for the bloodstained pack ice where Aksel’s body lay.
My right foot plunged through the crumpled ice as I landed, and I sank in up to my thigh. The knee-high arctic muck boots I wore didn’t stop the shock of the frigid water as it soaked through the pants and rushed in to freeze my foot. I braced myself on the slippery surface to pull it back up, then felt something under the ice grab and wrench me back downwards.
I sank to my crotch as the ice crunched beneath me and couldn’t stop the involuntary shout at the pain and surprise. The muscles in my upper leg began to spasm as I fought the pull, and then I heard a muffled *crump* behind me. I turned in time to see a missile dart from one of the airborne helicopters into the water where it then exploded. Blood and chunks of meat burst into the air, and the water boiled angrily around us. Several tentacles, ravaging at the bow of the ship, suddenly recoiled into the water. The pressure pulling me downwards also vanished, and I fell forward onto my stomach with the abrupt release. I crawled along the pack ice and pulled my numbed leg out of the water.
I heard another helo take off, and then the deck guns of the Svalbard opened up into the water as well. I began scrambling towards the Captain, and then a huge explosion slapped the air behind me, pushing me forward in a helpless slide. A fireball rolled in my direction, hissing over the edge of the ice before dissipating far too close to me. When it cleared, I saw one of the helicopters motionless, lying ninety degrees to the vertical and impaled on a scorched tentacle for just a moment before both dropped into the ocean and were gone.
I got to Aksel just as I saw him jerk suddenly upright. Like the doomed helo, he, too, was transfixed on an oozy, grey tentacle.
Then his throat moved and a grotesque parody of his voice emerged:
Sorcerer
This was not so not good. My gaze was frozen on the horror my friend and ally had become, even as the sounds of hyperwar went on behind me.
You have become emboldened by success and your dreams reek of your self-assurance I care not what victories you win over others but your fear and pain and despair taste far sweeter You will fall to chance or to error or to horror or to the elements or to time and your task will remain undone while I endure I offer this gift to feed your nightmares…
… and Aksel’s body fell to the ice before me as the tentacle whipped downward out of his body and into the sea.
I turned back to see the other ropy limps disengage from the Svalbard and also slide into the water. The cutter had sustained significant damage to the upper superstructure and the railing, and fresh scoring along the steel hull was apparent. One surviving helo flew tight circles around the ship, nose down like it was sniffing for signs of the disappeared enemy. I waved to get the attention of its crew, and it lifted to level and flew my way.
The muscles of my leg still spasmed and cramped, but I forced myself upright, and then to Aksel to lift his corpse from the ice. I turned back, unsteady on my feet, to see a harness lowered for us from the helicopter. I strapped the Captain’s body tightly, and it was winched up as I waited my turn. My teeth chattered and my leg ached, and I knew that neither of those things could be blamed completely on just the cold.
Back aboard the Svalbard, the medical clinic was rife with the sound of pain when I reached it. As battered and chilled as I felt, I was in much better shape than several of the Norwegian crew seeking attention. So instead of going in, I went past it to the bridge and walked in on a heated discussion which stopped when the officers saw me.
Since they looked both shaken and angry, I thought it best to speak first. “What’s the current situation, gentlemen?”
The First Officer looked at the others before answering me in a sharp-toned, heavily-accented English. “We have sustained casualties, lost a helicopter, and the ship is damaged. What the hell was that thing which attacked us?”
I reached for calm before I spoke. “Arctic sea life.”
“That is just so much shit.” He looked at his fellow officers, then at me with disgust. “We’ve never heard of anything like it, and we’re all career in the Coast Guard.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Commander Adamsen. But Captain Falk did explain the purpose of this mission to you and your men?”
“Only in general terms, I am afraid. That you have connections which made it possible to have our top-of-the-line Cutter available to take you, an American, to the North Pole, was clear enough.”
I didn’t like that past tense of ‘made’. “Do I still have your support?”
“Sir! We must turn back. We have injured who need far more care than we can give them here, and we’ve lost a helo, expended ordnance…”
“No. I’m afraid it’s an absolute priority that we proceed onward to the Pole.”
An angry conversation broke out in hurried Norwegian among the officers. I waited.
The Commander silenced the others and turned back to me. “Out of the question. We have a duty to those who are wounded and to the families of those we’ve lost, and to report what has happened.”
I held up a hand. “Who will assume command with Aksel dead?”
Everyone looked at the Commander expectantly. He collected their gazes, exhaled deeply, then nodded in my direction. “Me.”
“Then I need to speak with you alone,” I told him.
Adamsen spoke to his men, never breaking eye contact with me. “Hold position here. Try again to establish satellite communications with our base, and wait for me.” He then led me off the bridge and into the Captain’s operational room. Once inside, he closed the door behind us. “Now, who the hell are you, and why are we here? When Captain Falk was in charge, I followed his lead, but now I’m the one who needs to know.”
“My name isn’t important, only my mission.”
He folded his arms. “And that is?”
“To stop bad things from happening.”
“You didn’t stop this ship being attacked!”
“On the scale of bad things to stop, this was nothing.” I saw him about to retort angrily, and interrupted before he did, holding up a placating hand. “I’m sorry, Commander; I didn’t mean that to sound as though I was trivializing your losses. Please know that I’m deeply sorry about Captain Falk and your other casualties, but what we’re doing is necessary in the larger scheme of things. Aksel understood that.”
He deflated a bit, mastering his anger, and it made me respect him more. “Then make me understand, too.”
“Okay. That thing we fought; it’s like nothing you ever saw before, right?” He nodded. “It’s too big, too powerful, and far too intelligent. It’s one of a bunch of such…things, beings, what have you… that the governments of the world have either turned a blind eye towards because they’re a difficult truth to acknowledge, or which they ignore because they’ve already been subverted.”
Adamsen’s eyes bulged. “Conspiracies?”
“Or deliberate ignorance. Look, you saw that thing in action, saw what it did to the chopper you lost, and to this ship. Did you think anything natural could have fought the Svalbard as it did?”
He sat suddenly, as though the strength had fled his legs. “My God! What was it?”
“Ancient. Perhaps alien, or at least so I believe from the Book of Eibon.”
“What was this Eibon?”
“Not a what, but a who. He fought against these beings twenty thousand or so years ago; figured out how to use their power against them, left a lot of instructions. That’s what I do, Adamsen.”
“But, I don’t understand! There was nothing twenty thousand…”
I stepped close and put my hand on his shoulder. “I lost someone very dear to me recently. She was slaughtered by a thing much like that-” the Commander blanched- “only smaller, sent to stop us from heading north on this mission. We need to reach the pole on schedule, to prevent something even more powerful than what we fought today from manifesting fully.”
His face paled and his eyes were wide as he looked up at me. “Worse than that?”
“Much. And, Adamsen–the woman I lost… she was Aksel’s niece. That’s why he knew, why he had agreed to help me.”
His eyes took on an introspective, vulnerable look, and I guessed that he was thinking of his dead Captain at that moment. But he was trained military, and his eyes soon focused back on me. “Tell me everything,” he said in a more firm voice.
“I will, but we still need to go north, and we have to go now.”
I saw the decision in his face when he made it. He stood, opened the door to the bridge and gave orders in Norwegian to the crew there. I listened for arguments, but heard none. Adamsen spoke again, more softly, and I heard the sound of the ship cutting into the pack ice began once again. Finished, he turned back to me. Unconsciously, he straightened his uniform before he spoke. “I need to address the crew, see the wounded, explain why we cannot return to base. I’ll have dinner brought here, and then you’ll explain everything–from the beginning, mind–so that I can understand what I have committed my men to as fully as Captain Falk did.”
I nodded. He left.
Alone in the Captain’s operational room, I reflected on how I’d just recruited the next pawn in the war against the Ancients that I would never stop fighting. Not if it cost the lives of everyone on this ship including mine, and especially not even after the shoggoth had murdered the broken girl who’d been my lover and Oracle.
The costs of my war against the Ancients had already been beyond my once-naive reckoning, and would only escalate from here. But I also knew that the stakes were too high to give up striving against Them. For if I failed to stop the Old Ones from achieving their return to full power during their cosmic conjunctions–as painstakingly laid out in Eibon’s text–all of humanity might end up paying a horrible price.
However painful, victory was necessary, so I’d go on regardless of the toll.
Deadman’s Tome is a growing horror zine that publishes terrifying horror short stories and horror flash fiction whether it’s ghost stories, zombie invasions, bigfoot sightings, slasher sprees, bizarre fiction, classic horror literature or erotica. The darker and grittier the tale the better. If you enjoyed the horror short, or even if you didn’t, leave a comment below as it helps the authors.
“You’re such a freak.” His words dripped with anticipation. Spread eagle on a cheap hotel bed and down to a wife beater and boxers, the man observed as she walked over to the other side of the bed. The metal rim of the handcuff dug into his wrist, he shook his hand as if it would help. “Most girls charge extra for this treatment.”
“Well, I’m not like most girls,” she said, as she cuffed his other arm. “I thought you said you don’t normally do this sort of thing.” Her eyebrow raised, blue eyes pierced through him. She snapped the handcuff to the headboard.
“I..uh, I mean, I uh.” He squirmed like a worm on scorching pavement.
“Don’t worry,” She said as she shushed him. “Lotus will be taking care of you tonight.” She shot him a kiss. A Japanese sexdoll with milky skin, long dark hair that fell on her bountiful mounds, and a plump ass with thick thighs. Her pornstar bust contained by a black bra, and a sweet and sour spot behind a thin layer of silk. She stood beside the bed like a perfect goddess. A goddess corrupted by the vile hand of the night life.
“That’s good and all, but I think these things might be a bit tight.” He tugged on the restraints, and the anticipation on his face faded. His cock, however, did not seem all too concerned. A fat stump of Italian sausage formed a tent in his boxers. “You could loosen these up, right?”
“Oh, but what fun would that be.” Lotus removed her bra. Her pale busty ladies freed from the patriarchal restraints. She glanced at him while she pinched an erect pink nipple. “Lotus wants to have fun, don’t you?”
“Oh, course baby.” The man’s eye fixated on her bust. “Now, why don’t you bring those milk bags over here.”
“Milk bags?” A driblet of white leaked out from her nipple. “Oh look, I’m still lactating. You wanna taste?” Lotus climbed on to the bed and he begged her to get closer as she approached. She straddled him. Her plump and cushioned ass pressed on his erect member like stack of weights, as she leaned forward. “Damn, baby. You’re crushing my balls.”
He bucked, and she slapped him. “Not yet. Lotus wants to have fun.”
“Hey, baby doll, why don’t we just get to fucking,” he stated.
She closed in on his face and a cascade of dark hair enclosed around him. “Because Lotus wants to give you the best fuck of your life.”
“That’s great, baby. Believe me that no one likes a good fuck more than Johnny, but…”
Teeth nibbled on his earlobe. Warm breath poured heavily out from wet lips. “But nothing. Lotus is going to give you the best fuck of your life and you’re going to enjoy it.”
“Fuck,” he gulped. “Hey baby, I only got a fifty on me.”
Big mounds glazed with the slightest hint of sweat. Pink nipples aroused and ready. She teased him with a taste. A bead of milk splashed on his bearded chin. “Consider this on the house.” Lotus lowered her milk sacks. A mouth cupped her breasts. A tongue circled her nipple. The man sucked as if trying quenching an insatiable thirst. “That’s right,” said Lotus. “Drink every last drop.”
The man bucked, again. Lotus responded by pressing her breast into his face as he continued to drink, but the man bucked, yet again. Lotus pulled away from the man and gave his face a red palmprint. “Not yet,” she ordered.
“But, baby, c’mon,” he begged. “I want that sweet Chinese pussy.”
“First of all, I’m Japanese,” She retorted. She sat on his chest and unveiled an freshly shaven, tight, pink clam. “Second, if you want to fuck it, you first got to lick it.”
“Baby, bring it on.” His mouth gaping wide open, tongue punching the air.
Lotus sat on his face, spread her pussy, and moaned just slightly as his tongue slithered around. “You make Lotus happy, Lotus make you happy.” Her clit tickled. Her pink flesh aroused. Her pussy widened and a gaseous burst funnelled into his mouth. He squirmed. Handcuffs knocked against the headboard as he desperately tried to reach her. He rocked his head and kicked wildly. Lotus squeezed her thighs, and drilled even harder into his face. A stream of acidic gases flowed through her, green vapors seeped out from her tight grip.
His reddened face, flush with blood, boiled. Bulges of flesh expanded like inflated balloons only to pop with a gory rupture. Blood and pus sprayed from his body as he contorted and convulsed under her. Lotus tightened her grasp as much as she could, and a let another acidic stream rip right through her. The hairs along his melting flesh burned, and released an odor of rotten eggs that permeated the air.
Lotus rode his face until the last convulsion. “Hope that was the best fuck of your life,” she whispered to him. “You actually made me moan for moment.” She stood over his scorched and melted remains. Johnny’s face looked like a five layer dip poured over a skull. “And for that, I’m gonna give you a parting gift.” A brown log of shit squeezed out from Lotus’s sphincter and splashed in a thick globs on Johnny boy’s face. Not a savage, Lotus wiped her ass on his boxers, using his still erect dick as a shit stick of sorts.
Lotus climbed out of bed, and put her breasts back into captivity. She slid her arms into a denim jacket that remained unbuttoned, and pulled up a pair of skintight jeans. Lotus searched Johnny’s slacks and found a rough leather wallet. A few hundred dollars, some crumbled receipts, a condom, and a picture of an Asian girl smiling. She pocketed the cash in a small purse, and paused to examine the photo.
“You won’t be fucking anymore. Will you, Johnny boy?” she said, as she placed the photo in her bra. She went for the door and paused. “You’re less than shit you fucking kid fucker.” She shook her head, took a deep breath, and somehow managed to maintain her shaking fingers. He’s dead and though the wrongs he committed could never be reversed, she could find peace knowing that the bastard couldn’t harm another. She searched her thoughts, closed her eyes, and found comfort in that she killed him.
She walked out into the hallway, closed the door behind her. A stale emptiness intertwined with desperation clung on to the weathered walls of the narrow corridor. Doors lined in rows like prison cells. Auras of light feather from the hanging light fixtures and offered a pathetic fight against the overpowering darkness.
She pressed the flesh just behind her ear. “I got em, Momma,” she whispered.
“Did everything go well? You seem a bit shakened,” said Momma, her synthesized tones formed a harmonic, calming chorus.
“No. I’m fine. Just the motherfucker knew how to use his tongue.” Lotus pressed on her left breast, and a tiny compartment opened at the top.
“Why did you give him the chance? Did you use the Cytotoxic Milk?” Spoken like an overbearing mother.
Electronic circuitry encased a small vial with milky streaks. She pulled out the vial and tossed it. “I forgot. But I had backup.” She lodged a finger into her bellybutton and pulled out a small vial with a faint green glow. “It’ll be the last pussy he’ll ever eat.” She slid the vial back into her bellybutton until she heard a distinct click.
“You girls need to be more careful,” said Momma.
“Hey baby.” Words reeked of beer flung at her by a passerby dressed in clothes at least a week old. “You could feed the homeless with those titties.”
“Hold on a moment, Momma,” said Lotus. She forced a smile at the drunk and motioned for him to get closer. “Today’s your lucky day.”
“A momma’s girl, huh.” He grinned with yellow teeth.
“Yeah, something like that. Momma always said to feed those in need.” Honeyed words poured out from her lips. She pulled on his stained shirt and endeared a waft of dried sweat and garbage.
“Your mom is a wise woman,” he said, mesmerized by Lotus’s cleavage.
“Come here, let Lotus make it better for you.” She buried his head into her pale fleshy chasm. He pulled back for breath. She pressed harder. The long red nails of her other hand pierced into the side of his neck. The tips of her fingers latched onto his flesh and created a crude seal. Blood flowed through him, drained like a vacuum through grated fingertips. Lotus smiled as he struggled to escape from her grasp. Her smile grew wide while his face grew pale.
His head exploded like a rotten pumpkin loaded with blood bags hit with a baseball bat. Her nails sliced through his neck as he collapsed to his own weight. “What the fuck!” She thought. A man dressed in black on black stood in the shadows with a smoking gun. Cliche as fuck. He stepped into the light, revealing himself as a Hispanic man with such stereotypical features he looked like he came off the Tapatio hot sauce bottle.
“El Turbo Slut,” he said, with a sly smile. “I’ve finally found you. El Jefe del Culo wants to talk.”
“Tell El Jefe he can reach me at 1-800-eat-shit,” said Lotus. She kicked the bleeding heap of bum. The body flew towards El Jefe’s puta, and Lotus seized the opportunity. She ran towards Mr. Tapatio’s blindside, and went to deliver a face destroying kick. A bullet slammed into her, somewhere, shaking her off from the attack. She collapsed and felt a burning on her right upper arm. The sleeve of her denim jacket ruined. Her flesh punctured, but the metal beneath was unharmed.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” said the cliche Mexican. He approached the downed Lotus and placed her under the barrel of his forty-five. “You’ve been costing us a lot of money when you could be making us a lot of money.”
“What are you going on about?” Lotus groaned as the flesh on her arm reformed.
“You’re our property, and El Jefe del Culo wants you back.” He spoke behind the protection of raised iron sights.
“Bullshit.” Lotus rose from the dirty carpet.
Mr. Tapatio fired. A slug slammed into her chest, chipping away a handful of flesh. “Read it for yourself.”
Lotus regained her composure, and glanced down at the exposed titanium alloy.Product of Tokyo, Japan – property of Chivo Cortez AKA El Jefe del Culo.
“You must be stupider than you look,” said Lotus, as she peeled off the hanging bits of flesh from the wound. “You seriously think I give a single fuck what this reads?” Lotus stepped towards him.
“Stay back,” he said, steadying his aim.
“You don’t want to play with Lotus?” She pulled her left breast out from her bra and rubbed her erect nipple. “Please play with Lotus.”
“I know what you do,” he retorted.
“Please play with me, papi.” Her hips swayed with each step as she advanced.
Mr. Tapatio fired a barrage of rounds. Stray bullets whirled by. A slug chipped her shoulder. “Ai Papi.”
“Get away from me you evil puta.” A bullet punctured her right breast like a blood balloon, and a yellowish vapor seeped out from a metallic opening.
“Ai Papi,” she said, with “fuck-me” eyes.
Mr. Tapatio backed into a corner, while she approached as if unphased. With shaking hands, he pulled the trigger only to hear a click.
“Don’t tell me you blew your load already?” She stood over him. Blood dripped from the damaged flesh. Exposed metal shined in the faint light radiating from a flickering florescent bulb. “I don’t have five minutes to wait while you reload.”
“Get away from me you freak!” His voice demanded that she leave, while the bulge in his pants asked for her to stay.
“Are you lactose intolerant?” She played with her nipple, rubbing her blood splattered breast.
“Those are lovely.” His eyes darted from hers to her voluptuous breast. “Perhaps I could have one lick before I go, por favor.”
“Whatever you say, Papi.” She squeezed her nipple and milked her boob. A stream of yellow liquid splashed in burning waves on his face. His hands clawed at his throat while he gasped and convulsed.
“Lotus,” the motherly voice bounced through her skull. “What happened?”
“Don’t worry, mother. It was nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said, while she pressed her fingertips against his exposed flesh.
“You turned off the comm and then your vitals drop, why shouldn’t I worry.”
“He shot my boob,” said Lotus, as she remembered to cover her other one. “But he’s dead now. The pervert couldn’t resist even a one boobed Lotus.”
“How’s it healing?”
A mess of bloody punctured flesh hung loose from a damaged bra. “It’s coming along. The blood I’m taking should help finish the job.”
“I’ll need you to head back so I can run more tests.”
Lotus found a cell phone. The dim glow of the screen illuminated before her like a gift. “No can do,” she said, amazed that the cliche Mexican didn’t bother locking his phone. “El Jefe del Culo is trying reclaim his property.”
“Not likely,” said Momma.
“Not likely? I’m staring at one of his thugs. Dead, of course.” She flipped through the screens on the device and located a thread of prior messages rich with details. “This fucker tried to send a message and I think the professional thing to do is to reply.”
“El Jefe is not a threat. Let him suffer the loss of one of his goons.”
“I’m reading communications that say otherwise. Look, I’ll send it to you.” Lotus placed her palm over the screen and closed her eyes. An explosion of noise rushed through her.
“Is this legit?”
“Pulled it from the fucker’s phone.” Lotus swiped through various tabs until she found a gallery of stills. She found her face smiling back at her among other faces. Most were known associates, familiar faces of the nightlife, but there was one that held her attention. A latina female with blonde highlights smiling back at her.
“Lotus,” Momma alarmed. “They’ve put a hit out on Loca.”
“I’m on my way,” said Lotus. She took the Mexican’s phone along with his wallet and went for the nearest exit.
Deadman’s Tome is a growing horror zine that publishes horror short stories and horror flash fiction. The online magazine publishes dark and gritty content from professional horror writers, Bram Stoker award nominated horror authors, along with talented newcomers of the horror writing craft. Deadman’s Tome features chilling, terrifying horror shorts ranging from ghost stories, zombie invasions, bigfoot sightings, monster horror, and even horror erotica. Deadman’s Tome is one of the best online horror zines to publish horror short stories, horror flash fiction, and dark flash fiction. The darker the tale the better. If you enjoyed the story, or even if you didn’t, leave a comment below as it helps the horror authors.
“How long’s it been there?” asked Shirley, her flabby arms akimbo.
Tina, seventeen, scrawny and wearing too much eye make-up, was jabbing at the dead creature with a broom handle. Her face was contorted in disgust. “Well how am I supposed to know?”
“You’re supposed to know because you’re supposed to clean that popcorn machine every night,” said Shirley, her brow heavy over eyes narrowed by fat, puffy cheeks.
“We do clean it every night but not back there,” snapped Tina, chewing a piece of gum that had long since lost its flavour. “It’s joined to the glass. Ewwww it must have got melted on.”
She gave the dead creature a few more jabs and succeeded in dislodging it.
“You’ve left a bit on the glass,” Shirley noticed, pointing to a small ring of flesh.
Tina sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. She reached behind the popcorn machine with an old rag in her hand and scraped the last traces of the dead creature from the back of the popcorn machine.
“What was that?” Shirley asked, leaning in to get a better look.
Tina jumped back. “What?” she shrieked. “Is there another one?”
Shirley frowned. “No you twit. Something fell out of its…its butt and landed in the popcorn.”
Both women brought their faces up to the glass and examined the inside of the glass cabinet.
“It’s drilled a hole through the glass,” Tina observed.
“There it is,” said Shirley, ignoring Tina’s statement of the obvious. “What is it? It looks kinda like, like an egg.”
“Look there’s more of them,” said Tina. “Yuk Shirl! How long has that thing been laying eggs in the popcorn?”
Shirley’s face turned a pale shade of white – not because of any concern for the cinema going public but because she been rather fond of picking at the popcorn when no-one was watching. Tina wore a matching expression of horror. The problem was that there was no way of telling how many eggs each of them had ingested since the eggs themselves looked remarkably like pieces of popped corn.
Shirley tried not to think about what may be lurking in her intestines but the harder she tried to push the thought from her mind, the more vivid the images became. But as they do, one thought led to another and soon she was imagining what might have been growing inside the eggs, growing inside her at this very moment! A wave of nausea swept like a tsunami over her, giving only the shortest warning of what would happen next. With her mouth stretched wide she leant forward and a stream of popcorn vomit sprayed the glass cabinet and the floor beneath. Tina, who had a weak stomach at the best of times, caught only a whiff of it and started throwing up herself.
Even when she arrived home, the stench of vomit still strong in her nostrils, Shirley could not get the creature and its eggs out of her mind. She hurried into the bathroom, turned on the bath tap and while she waited for it to run she brushed her teeth.
The warm water flowed around her bulk as she settled into the bath. She rested her head back against the end of the bath and closed her eyes. A long sigh slid from her lips.
As visions of the dead bug stole into her consciousness she pushed them away, replacing them with more mundane thoughts. What did she feel like for dinner? Remember to buy some sponges for work. They had used the last two cleaning up the vomit. Keep the receipt.
While her mind was occupied on blocking out all memory of her nightmare discovery at work her fingers were kept busy scratching an itch on her leg and then another one on her belly.
Buy more milk. Did she need cat food? She’d have to check.
The itchiness persisted; her thigh this time, and just above her left breast. Another itch just above her hip demanded her attention. Only then did she realise how itchy her whole body had all of a sudden become. It also happened that at that precise moment the itchiness turned into pin pricks of burning white heat.
Panic radiated from her eyes. Splashes of water jumped the side of the bath and flooded the tiled floor as she struggled to alleviate the pain.
Then her wide eyes became wider still as a tiny head, all tiny, jagged teeth and throat, punctured the flesh of her stomach. She screamed and started slapping the worm-like intruder with the palm of her hand. It disappeared back below the skin while another of its kind appeared above her left breast and another on her thigh. Tears streamed from her eyes as more and more of the toothy worms ate their way through her vast stores of flesh. Rivulets of blood poured from each wound, staining the water a pale red.
She scrambled to her feet nearly slipping but saving herself from falling by landing against the wall, pressing her bulk against it as the worms bit back into her flesh, tunnelling through it, eating flesh, muscle and nerve, and growing at an alarmingly exorbitant rate. Her naked body was streaked red. Her vision started to blur. The worms were now tearing meat from her bones, attacking each other beneath her skin. By the time Shirley fell, splitting her head open on the side of the bath, the largest of the worms were making their way up the tiled walls to the cornices.
By first light the following morning the worms had cocooned themselves in the space where the wall met the ceiling, stuck there by a mesh of thick, grey silk. Shirley’s body was cold and purple, riddled with holes turned black by congealed blood; her eyes open, staring into forever.
Within two days Shirley’s body was swarming with blowflies. Already maggots wriggled and slithered inside her slowly rotting carcass. Yet the buzzing and wriggling wasn’t the only movement in the small room. The cocoons were pulsing with new life. Hour after hour the silken sheaths swelled and ebbed as the creatures within strengthened themselves, preparing for life beyond the bathroom.
By dusk the flies had deserted the body and the bathroom was filled with tearing sounds as tiny teeth bit through the silk casings; then clicking sounds of communication as the fledgling creatures stretched their gossamer wings and flexed their giant mandibles. The abdomens of the females throbbed, a pinkish hue behind pale skin which attracted the attention of the males.
Weak but driven by an unstoppable urge to breed the males climbed onto the females and fertilised them. By instinct or by some other sense the females thanked their mates by turning on them and devouring them. As new life grew already within them they feasted on the flesh of the males, much needed nutrients for the long flight ahead.
Night fell. Electric light from the street lamps outside filtered in through the frosted glass of Shirley’s bathroom window. Sensing it was time, one of the creatures flew into the glass, creating a cobweb of cracks. Another of the creatures flew into the glass and the cracks grew longer, larger. Then another and another flew at the window until the tinkling of glass falling out onto the concrete footpath below signalled departure time.
The creatures sped into the night sky, their senses honed to detect the slightest traces of hot butter and salt, for that’s where they would find the popcorn that would camouflage their eggs and the popcorn machines that would incubate them. As they flew their razor sharp teeth bit into any of their number that they encountered. A vicious breed, it was sure that only the strongest and most voracious would survive to breed.
At The Astor cinema Margaret who was both the owner and manager slammed the phone down.
“I can believe it of Tina but not of Shirley,” she ranted to her husband. “I always though Shirley was dependable. She always calls me if she can’t come in.” She shook her head mournfully, her silver-grey ponytail scraping across her back. “Well, pull your sleeves up, baby. We’re going to have to do this shift. You go and open the doors and I’ll add some more popcorn. It doesn’t look like I put enough in.”
Margaret counted the money in the cash register as her husband unlocked the double doors of the small cinema, dropping the keys in the process.
“Damn it!” he cursed, bending down to retrieve them and not noticing the two insect-like creatures flying into the cinema.
Margaret had her head in a cupboard as the two intruders found a narrow gap behind the popcorn machine and set to work drilling a small circle of glass out of the window. Fuelled with the meat of their mates, the creatures made light work of the glass; pushing their ovipositors through and then falling into a trance-like state. By the time Margaret had found the bag of popping kernels the creatures were already pumping eggs into the popcorn that was already there.
She had no time to refill the machine.
“Can I help you?” she asked, brushing her fringe away from a sweaty forehead.
“Two tickets to “Small Mercies”, please,” said the woman. “Oh, and a jumbo popcorn.”
Deadman’s Tome is a growing horror zine that publishes horror short stories and horror flash fiction. The online magazine publishes dark and gritty content from professional horror writers, Bram Stoker award nominated horror authors, along with talented newcomers of the horror writing craft. Deadman’s Tome features chilling, terrifying horror shorts ranging from ghost stories, zombie invasions, bigfoot sightings, monster horror, and even horror erotica. Deadman’s Tome is one of the best online horror zines to publish horror short stories, horror flash fiction, and dark flash fiction. The darker the tale the better. If you enjoyed the story, or even if you didn’t, leave a comment below as it helps the horror authors.
Horror authors Brian J. Smith and Matthew Johnson join Mr. Deadman to discuss their stories, influences, and other projects. Brian J. Smith is the author of Caught In The Act, a short, dark, and gritty flash in the pan fiction of lust, revenge, and murder that lingers like the smell of gunpowder. Matthew Johnson is the the author of Scuttle Bug, a gruesome and haunting tale of a bug from Hell determined to borrow deep inside Amanda. Scuttle Bug is also featured in the latest anthology Deadman’s Tome: Book of Horrors.
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