Shotgun! Strange Stories by Shotgun Horror Clips

SHOTGUN!

STRANGE STORIES FEATURING

ISOLATED WRITTEN BY KYLE LYBECK

EDITORIAL January 27th, 2017

STAFF

David M. Wilson Editor-In-Chief

his issue is a little shorter than than our other issues; we're short one short story this week, Elizabeth Wilmerding not due to submissions, but due to a change in Guest Editor our policy, and the resulting return emails. We've decided to send out print copies to contributors and forego monetary reimbursement for the time Clayton Croh being. This will change back, I'm sure, once we First Reader harass (er, convince) enough people to advertise in the Zine. Until then, the main focus of our budget is on DeadLights. Kevin Hoover But, we're still giving a lot of attention to Shotgun!, and I'm excited to let you know that First Reader each issue will be featuring an author. We did this for our first issue of the year (after our name Want to join the team? change), and we'd like to continue doing so. Contact Us: In this issue, we're featuring Kyle Lybeck. Kyle is a great guy with humor in fine taste (for a horror deadlightsmagazine@gmail.com writer, that is), and his fiction is fun to read. Like his humor, I should redact that and step back: his fiction is fun to read, for a horror writer ... ... because it's scary. Not just scary, either; it grabs you by a heap of your guts and twists them all around until they're hanging out your mouth; it grabs you in just the right spots (or it grabs you in the wrong spots, depending upon your point of view). That's what makes it fun, but also what makes me say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;For a horror writer ...â&#x20AC;?. I imagine that if Kyle's writing were on the silver screen, showings would be like those you hear about in the news: the footage was so intense, people fainted, or screamed and ran out of the theatre midway through. Kyle Lybeck's writing is like that, only, you don't demand your money back after the flick is over. You thank him. Thanks, Kyle. I hope you enjoy our second issue of the year! And, stay tuned for our next issue, featuring Kurt Newton: 02/10/2017! -David M. Wilson C.E.O. / E.I.C. Shotgun! Strange Stories / DeadLights

Volume 2 Issue 2

SHOTGUN!

STRANGE STORIES

FICTION! FEATURED: Kyle Lybeck

Isolated

A.E. Winger

The Collectors

Leigh Ward-Smith

Blood on the Road

Fred Kracke

The Creature of the Night

Joseph Testa

The Brick House

Tyler Elias

The Boreal Spire

RIDING SHOTGUN! COVER ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Alex Harvey

The Fine Print: Shotgun! Strange Stories ISSN Forthcoming. Vol. 2 No. 2, Whole Number 002. January 27th, 2017. Published Bi-Monthly, unless otherwise stated on our website: www.deadlightsmagazine.com. Shotgun! Strange Stories is a free production of DeadLights Horror Fiction Magazine, trademark pending, ToBoldlyGo LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without expressed permission is prohibited, except by the contributing authors and artists in regards to their original or reprinted works, to which said rights belong. To make a submission to this, or any other publication of ours, please visit our website: www.deadlightsmagazine.com, or email us at deadlightsmagazine@gmail.com. Shotgun! Strange Stories is produced in Pullman, WA, United States of America.

Shotgun! Strange Stories

FEATURED FICTION

ISOLATED Written by Kyle Lybeck

o anyone who finds my body, or for the future historians of this event, I am keeping recordings for not only you, but, frankly, for myself, so I know what damn day it is. “As it stands, this is day three. It is a Tuesday, and I am still safe in my bunker. Safe from what looms outside, safe from what I can only assume is a radioactive and desolate landscape. I am too afraid to go to the door and look outside. I fear all I am going to see is death, and I would like to remain positive until I hear someone else, anyone else, over the radio, that is out there and alive. Someone who could come and rescue me, someone who is willing to come to me and not the other way around.” Paul set the recorder down on the fold-out card table. There was plenty of tape left, so he left the recorder on, taping more of his musings. “I will say this: I miss my family. They always made fun of me for making this bunker, calling me a “paranoid sonuvabitch”, but who’s the one alive? Huh? Well, I guess I can’t blame them, though, not for my being alone; they were out running errands when all hell broke loose. I mean, hell, I barely made it myself. As soon as I heard that the Russian nukes were about to land on the east coast, I ran full-tilt from the house. I heard the first explosion in the distance just as I closed the door to the bunker. I haven’t heard a single peep since, not from underground. Nothing on the radio, definitely nothing coming through on my cell phone. “Just in case you were wondering how a man in rural Pennsylvania could build a bunker to withstand the nuclear holocaust, let me tell you. I have a few friends who work shipping on the Monongahela River and they had two leftover shipping containers that were going up for sale, dirt cheap. I was able to snag a few from them, and they helped me dig out a space on my land just a little ways from the house. After we cut off the ends, we placed them end to end so that we’d have one long piece, covered it back up, and then built in an

enclosed door and stairwell down to them. And there you have it. One big bunker for my family to survive in. At least, that was the plan: now it’s just me.” Down in the second, adjoining container a plate crashed, causing Paul to rush up from his seat and fly back against the wall in shock. Heart beating a mile a minute, sweat droplets starting to form on his forehead, Paul pushed himself away from the wall. He walked over to the table and shut off the voice recorder. “Hello?” He called down the long hallway. Nothing answered back and no more crashes were heard. “It’s okay, nothing is there, nothing to be afraid of. It was just a plate that fell. Your fault, too. You left it out.” Paul slowly began his short journey toward the next shipping container, and seventy feet later, he found the shattered plate on the ground. Looking around, he wondered how it fell. The rest of the plates were stacked nice and neat on the shelf of the china hutch, behind the closed glass door. “How the hell …” Paul checked the doors of the hutch, each one secure, just the way he had left them the night before after making himself dinner. He stood a few moments longer, still contemplating the occurrence. Finally, he walked over to the corner where he kept some cleaning supplies and picked up his broom and dustpan. Bending down, he picked up the larger pieces and placed them in the trash can, while he swept the rest of the smaller shards into the dustpan. Just as he stood, he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, back at the other end of the bunker. That’s when he heard a voice echo through the walls. It was a giggle. A little girl’s giggle. Instantly, a tear began to form in Paul’s right eye. “Emma? Emma!” Paul yelled as he bolted to the other container. He searched all sides, shoving boxes and tubs aside, but was left with empty hands, an empty heart. His little girl, he was sure he’d heard her.

Januray 27th, 2017 What else could have made that giggle? There’s no way his head was making these things up. “I’ve only been down here three days; there’s no way I am going to start hallucinating in three days.” Paul sunk back into his chair, staring back down the hallway of the containers. As the tear flowed down his cheek and hit the dusty ground, sending up a plume like that of the bombs outside days ago, he felt suddenly tired, emotionally drained from head to toe. Walking over to his bed against the wall of the container, Paul laid his head down on his memory foam pillow, and before he knew it, he was snoring soundly. While Paul slept, the bunker remained silent, only the snores emanated throughout. The luxury only lasted an hour, though. Paul sweetie, wake up, it’s time to take Emma to school. Paul bolted upright, the words of his wife still clinging to the air around him. “Helen!” He whipped his head back and forth, looking frantically for his wife but saw nobody. Sniffing the air, he caught the slightest bit of Obsession still hanging around his bed. Paul closed his eyes, imagining his wife next to him, somewhere he knew she couldn’t be, but how could he be smelling her favorite perfume? Paul moved his legs towards the edge of the bed. Just as he put his feet on the ground, he felt something wet against his lower back. He reached behind and patted his back, bringing his hand forward to reveal it covered in something red. Blood. “Shit shit shit,” Paul quickly removed his shirt and searched it, finding a patch of bright red sticky blood covering the lower backside. Feeling his back, he couldn’t find any wounds. He ran over to the mirror in the middle of the bunker and turned on a camping lantern. Twisting and turning, he searched all sides of his back and then his front just to make sure. He couldn’t see any wounds, or even blood on his back other than where he touched it with his hand. “Goddammit what is happening?” Paul yelled. “I thought I heard you Emma, but there’s no way you’re still alive! There's no way ...” Paul heard a thump at the door up the stairs. The noise made Paul stumble back against the wall and slide down onto the floor. “No … there’s no way. I heard the explosions

myself.” He continued to sit on the floor, not knowing what to do. There’s no way he could open the door, it was a wasteland outside. Thump. Again, the noise came from the door, there was no mistaking it. Paul took a deep breath and slowly released it through his nostrils. He forced himself to stand, but didn’t make any movement towards the door. He waited to hear another noise, but no more came. “The wind, it has to be the wind blowing some debris around,” he chuckled, a sound of nerves, not like him. Not like him at all ... THUD! Paul’s eyes widened, his heart racing even faster. Maybe there is someone outside, he thought. Finally gaining the courage, he began to creep towards the stairs that led to the door. As he did, he looked back and forth to each end of the bunker, making sure there wasn’t anyone down there, somehow, some way. Reaching the first stair, it creaked under his sandalenclosed foot. Slowly, he made his way up the other nine steps until he reached the door. He closed his eyes, taking in another deep breath, then moved towards the door and the window to the outside world. What Paul saw shocked him. The landscape was gone, trees toppled, fires raging off in the distance as black plumes rose into the air. His home was gone, his truck destroyed down to the frame. THUD! The noise caused Paul to flail backwards down a few stairs, almost losing his footing and going the whole way back down. He grabbed his chest, nearly thinking he was going to have a heart attack from the scare. Cautiously, he walked back the few stairs to the door. Trying his best, he stood tall and looked down through the window. What he saw below at the foot of the door brought him to his knees. At the door were bones and ripped clothing, the remains of his daughter and wife. The wind outside was lifting his wife’s skull up and slamming it back against the door. He stood and watched it as it created another THUD in front of his tear filling eyes. There was nothing he could do and there was definitely no point in going outside to recover their remains. Paul walked back down the stairs, eyes glossing over with more salty tears. He walked over to the table and sat down, placing his arms on the table and lowering

Shotgun! Strange Stories his head onto them. Just as he started to doze off, he heard a rattle on the other end of the bunker near the kitchen. His head jumped up like a meerkat in the desert. Looking at the other end, he saw a light bouncing off the glass of the hutch. Paul rose from his seat and slowly walked down the hall once again. As he got closer he saw where the light was coming from. His camp stove was lit and dancing with blue and red flames. “Son of a bitch,” he said, as he turned the knob to OFF. Paul dropped to his knees, staring around the small kitchen area. His thoughts were his own. Now, he was considering if he was going a little crazy. There was no way someone else could be doing this. Was he doing it? And forgetting he’d done it? If not, how could things fall and light themselves, that was impossible. And, he would have remembered doing it. Or would he have? Paul couldn’t think straight any more, he was beginning to question everything around him, his own actions. And seeing his dead family outside the bunker … THUD! “Oh, shut up, Helen!” He began to cry again. Walking back over to his bed, he sat back down, placing his head in his hands. A few minutes later he laid himself down, hoping to shut off the last hour from his brain with sleep. Before long, he was back to snoring. Dad come join us. Paul jumped awake, looking around the room with heavy eyelids. Again, he saw a shape out of the corner of his eye at the other end of the room, again a giggle, once again echoing through the bunker. “There’s no way she’s real, Paul. You need to stop doing this to yourself. She’s dead, there’s nothing you can do about it.” Daddy come play checkers with me. He ran his hands over his head in frustration at the past few hours. Honey, it’s okay, don’t get upset. At the words of his wife, Paul hit the side of his head with his hand. “No! There’s no way I can hear you! You’re dead! Dead!” The lights shut off, pulling everything around him into darkness. Paul sat, trying to see around him to get

his bearings. He didn’t even know where the nearest flashlight was at this point. That’s when, at the other end, he heard a match strike against its box and watched as the flame slowly grew. He couldn’t see anyone to go with the match, it looked like it was floating in the air. Then the flame began to move towards Paul. He could do nothing but stare at it. When it was still fifteen feet away, the light slowly dwindled and went out. The room once again was as dark as a moonless night. Paul heard a clatter from the drawer down on the other end. He stood upright and began to feel around for a flashlight. He couldn’t find one, but stopped still as a hand pinched his cheek. It’s okay sweetheart, we’re here for you. His wife’s voice in his right ear. Yeah daddy, we just want to be with you again. His daughter’s voice in his left ear. That’s when he felt the knife press against his lower back.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kyle Lybeck is a horror author and full time copy-editor at Thunderstorm Books. He has two previous short story collections out now on Amazon, titled Nightmare Reality and Perverse Humanity. This summer, look for his first novella to be released. Kyle lives outside of Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two rambunctious dogs. Contact him! www.kylelybeck.wordpress.com @KyleLybeck

THE COLLECTORS A.E. Winger A.E. Winger earned her BA in English from the University of Iowa and her M.Ed. in English Education from the University of Minnesota and presently teaches at the University of Phoenix and Argosy University. The story written here was the result of a challenge made by two colleagues to write a piece of horror flash fiction showcasing the “end of the rainbow” and a button. Happily married with two teenage children, she is irrationally obsessed with baseball and new to the fiction writing genre. She can be reached at aewinger@gmail.com.

ou can tell a lot about a woman from the buttons that adorn her clothes. My late bride, for instance, chose a wedding gown embellished with satin-cloaked white buttons marching down her spine, like ants marching to a picnic. Her choice was simple and clean, like her love for me. Her love was perfect. I could not risk her love ever being stolen or shared with a child from our union. Her love was a gift only I could enjoy. She never suspected a thing in her adoration of me. Her throat slit easily. It had to be done. Her body, tightly wrapped in her wedding dress and weighted with the silver gifted to us for our wedding, slid without protest to the bottom of the pond behind our home. Before launching her to her watery crypt, I snipped a button from the back of her dress. Such a specimen made the loveliest addition to my collection. You can tell a lot about a man from what he collects. My husband, for instance, collects buttons. And he plans to collect more wives, bastard that he is. Her body will not be found; she is safe from harm, and I take great pleasure in swimming across that pond daily. As I swim over the place where she rests, I can feel her seduce me. I know she seeks my touch, and I know she is happy knowing her perfection has been sealed in the watery tomb chosen in her honor; aging and bitterness will never blemish her. Clearly, she still loves me. She is mine forever. His body will be found; he will never be safe from harm, and I will take great pleasure in his demise.The bastard swims daily over my grave, and I fantasize about what it would be like to snatch his ankle and

draw him down to me for one last death kiss. I wrestle daily with the bindings that keep me wound tightly, my back and the buttons from my gown rubbing against the rough pond bottom. She rests peacefully. My love. Every day. In her grave. I rest tranquilly, knowing nothing will ever harm her. As I swim over her, I crave feeling her feathery kisses and light touch. Was I wrong to protect her from herself? Was I wrong to terminate her life? No, I know if I had let her live, she would have turned on me. It had to be done before she had the chance to poison her own perfection. He swims peacefully. My monster. Every day. Over my grave. I rest fitfully, knowing harm must find him. I writhe more fiercely, trying to break my bonds. My anger mounts. Today the waters of the pond churn more turbulently than normal; the water bubbles. Tiny rainbows in the spray off the pond paint the air as it blows over her burial chamber. As always, my beloved rests at the end of such rainbows, far beneath the white caps rolling across our pond. I will not risk missing the feel of her love as it surges in waves over my body, not even for a day. I have to be close to her. Today, my anger burns more brightly than usual; the pond bubbles with it. As I struggle with my bindings, I see a button, it must have come from the back of my dress, float slowly to the top of my tomb. Oh, how I despise the monster swimming over my grave ...

Shotgun! Strange Stories

BLOOD ON THE ROAD Leigh Ward-Smith If a medical school won't accept Leigh Ward-Smith's body when she dies, she wants to be soaked in curry, turmeric, and cardamom and cremated with copies of The Shining and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In the meantime, she writes and drinks inhuman amounts of tea or coffee. She can be contacted via: Leigh's Wordsmithery (https://leighswordsmithery.wordpress.com/); Twitter: @1WomanWordsmith; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005407248383&fref=ts (Leigh Ward-Smith on Facebook)

y name's Danny. I run over cats. On purpose. Wait. That sounds like a confession, an apology, some stupid step in a program, none of which I'm gonna do. In the end, here's what is important: what I do is borne of caring. It's also humane and necessary. Somebody must do what I do, or we'll be overrun in no time. Don't know if you know much about domestic cats or how much carnage they heap on Nature. Myself, I know more than your average bear—who so happens to've worked at the local humane society for the last six years. Small place. Good people. We even spay and neuter barn cats for free (No lie!). Imagine if certain people could be sterilized. I do. And, it'd be awesome. Kellen, my manager at the shelter, doesn't know I moonlight as an ailurophobic madman behind the wheel. Of course, I don't have a lot of friends, and certainly not my coworkers. I like to keep it professional. Plus, proximity has not made my heart grow fonder of most of them. Athletes like to gloat about their stats. About how fast they went, or how many runs batted-in, stops, goals, assists, or touchdowns. I know my personal best: 11 dead cats in a single day. It was magnificent, and I'm still coming down from the feeling of satisfaction. Although it was only a week ago, it ranks up there as one of the greatest days of my life, as if I'd accomplished something beyond my own dreams and means.

I don't think of this—what should I call it? Activity, pastime, hobby?—as a gruesome thing. No. Calling is probably the closest term. Plus, I have a talent for what I do. For example, there was this one cat I've been trying to take down for a while. It's probably killed thousands of birds if it's lived outside for a few years. I'd always see it skulking around in the aluminum can-strewn canals next to shorn fields. Literally sitting and shitting in a ditch. Mostly white with some patches of brown and black. A calico. Probably with kittens waiting in some nest of grass. I know it's the same cat 'cause she has nice markings. Well, that murderess is no more. Say goodbye to the puddy tat. I nailed her just a few days ago, and it was unusual, to be blunt. The body went floating up in the air, mid-run, like it was some kind of goddamn snowflake. Barely made a ping as it hit my truck's hood and flipped over to the side. In my mind, I can hear it hitting with a sick thump on the waiting pavement. Nature receiving her own. When I looked in my side mirror, it was rocking around back there in the roadway, tangled up in the wind from my wake. This way, it's much more impersonal. Trust me. I shouldn't tell this on myself, but I bawled the first time I helped out with euthanasia. “Who me?” I was just a cage-cleaner at the time, and a volunteer. Regardless of whether it was right, it was necessary. I was called. I answered. With euthanasia, you have to actually touch the animal. Come skin-to-

Shotgun! Strange Stories skin with it. Cradle it. Especially the dogs, if they're not fractious. Maybe it's the former prized pet of some elite so-and-so who brought home organic cat grass for Kitty to munch on. But, oops, Kitty's having a litterbox problem or sheds on the furniture. Yep, she's got to go. Pow! That's where I come into the picture. I can spare the cat that kind of life on the lam. And that ain't no pun. Now that cat doesn't have to genuflect at the edge of the Ganges and lap, lap, lap the shit up with that little pink tongue. The tongue’s got white barbs all along the top of it; that's why it's so rough. Evolution's cool that way. Either I meet them and dispatch them on the road, or I see 'em at the shelter. I guess there's some continuity to that. Maybe humans and cats aren't so different that way. Out of the womb, ready for the tomb. But I don't have the time to daydream about all this. I'm running late. Katelyn's mother called at the last minute. Can I pick her up at the school bus stop after I get off work 'cause she's working late to cater to fanatical Christmas shoppers? “Sure,” I say. Under my breath, “I'm at your fucking beck and call.” I scrape Christine's undercarriage as I pull out of the steep driveway at work and onto the road. Although, I know Christine was King's famous car, the name just fits somehow. The dancing hula girl on my dash ticks time out loud at me. She looks angry as she gyrates. I hear echoes of stiletto heels marching down an empty hallway. Today, the truck's cab is like a too-hot cocoon. I pull at the neck of my scrubs and side-eye the rash thriving just under my wide collar. My reflection paws at its neck in the rear-view mirror. “Damn! Looks like I'm growing my own measles case.” Nobody's listening but me. So I talk aloud as often as I damn well please. 3:27. No, 3:29 now. “Shitshitshitshit! This sucks. I'm never gonna make it, and she'll be standing out in the cold.” I pound at the dash. It and the steering wheel cover show fissures all over, reminding me I'll have to skin and replace them both. Soon. But now I floor it, bouncing above my seat coming down Countryview road. No cops out this far. They don't bother. And no time for cat-whacking either.

Not to be all misty about it, but just seeing that telltale sign—a vermilion smear written like, I don't know, some kind of scrimshaw carving on the road—puts me in mind of my big middle finger to the world that says, “Look at me! I did amount to something, you assholes!” Soaking up the excitement of the moment, I feel my motions becoming automatic. The ice-dangling trees and Christmas lights are a passing blur. I haven't felt the greatest today. I've been sneezing a lot. Maybe I've got the flu. The cat flu. I snort some phlegm and swallow. 3:31. I'm late. So late! My ex's gonna kill me. And the hula-girl's shaking her brown ass off, and I'm watching that instead of the road. I don't come down this far south often. More suddenly than seems humanly possible, a fearless blue-white specter dashes into the street not far in front of me. Has to be a piece of garbage, maybe a blowing trashcan. And then my mind, my tires, everything's rolling and skidding. Losing grip. Should've replaced the wheels 70 cats ago or more. Now I'm stomping the brake instead. I spin into something soft sitting in my blind spot, smacking it aside. If I'm still on the road, it's a bloody surprise to me. A sound of pulsing in my ears. Orange light beaconing, a yellow sign saying school zone. There, gone, gone, there. Gone. I can't focus for the dizziness. I think I hit a sack of wet sausages back there, but I see the truth when my car finally rests way off the shoulder, now a good 50 feet from the road. I'm now diagonal from the school, but about where the kids cross over to the bus shelter. It's a two-lane road; shouldn't be treacherous. There's a red streak I see to my left as I stumble out of the truck, almost slip and crack my skull open like a rotten egg. Thin-shelled, I'm teetering between berserk and giddy with discovery. The blood returns to my extremities and my balls creep back down as I walk, although the cold starts to bite my big paws and ears more. This winter air has teeth, but I slide through it, shouldering aside the winds. Over to the sparkly lump lying in the snow. What I've hit. It has to be something inanimate. It's not ... it's not a sack. With dread gnawing at

my stomach, I start to turn it over, to face-up, and simultaneously dust off the snow. As I do, a gush of fluid blossoms on the snow, turning it pink. Good God, I think of a snow cone when I first see it spreading as a tributary would. When I get itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;herâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;over I confront my own daughter's dripping face, crystal-blue eyes too wide open, long lashes, bruised nose, a princess coat swaddling the body. Her face, her last thought had to be abject shit-faced fear. And it won't let me look away. I bury my arms further, ignore the copper clotting the air, suddenly dense and wicking away from me. I'm still wailing, and when a red-blue light strobes across the snow, a din like a gladiator's arena encloses me. My tears are frozen to my brown curls, and they have to pull me off the body, an animal mourning its own.

CREATURE OF THE

NIGHT

Fred Kracke I am the prince of night. I watch far from the light. For the life blood I bite. Man created , Devil bought. My conscience matters not. In eternal thirst I dwell. Like a falling star to Hell.

F red Kracke has previously had short

stories published in Digital Dragon and A Flame in The Dark magazines to name a few. His literary inspirations are Edgar Alan Poe, Bram Stoker and Ted Dekker.

LINKS! Twitter - @bigfredman

THE BRICK HOUSE Joseph Testa From the man himself: Writing has always been a passion. I do it mostly to express myself in ways I cannot when communicating with normal humans, but I never really made much of an effort to do anything with it. For decades people told me that I am a good writer and that I should try to make some money at it. For reasons unbeknownst to me, still, I remained complacent. In addition I was told continuously that my writing was “dark”, as if that were a bad thing. I recently turned 63 years old. I am semi-retired and have decided to embrace my natural darkness and to take a shot at stroking my ego through the publishing of my words. I'll let you know how it all turns out ...

very time I walk by the house, it haunts me. A brick house, sitting at the top of a hill, run down, window frames rotting, trim crusted with flaked paint. It shows no evidence of life, no evidence of care, but I know for a fact that someone lives there. They are almost invisible. I rarely see them; don’t even know what they look like, or how many live there. Once in a great while I’ll walk by, and someone will be riding a tractor cutting the grass in the pasture-like field. Always with his back to me. One time, there were a couple of guys working on a broken down truck in the yard. One of them knew me and called out my name. I recognized him, and know for a fact that he doesn’t live there, but for some strange reason, I could not see the other guy clearly. I so rarely see them that I fantasize them as vampires, flitting about the neighborhood at night, secure in their invincibility. I live in the country and go for walks to settle my nerves. My work schedule is erratic. I’m a low-wageearning part-timer, so I enjoy the privilege of being free at times when others are shackled to jobs and schedules. My road is peaceful, thickly bordered by trees. Birds sing, faceless animals snap twigs in the woods, a couple of horses idle in a field. Sunshine makes the setting brilliant. A talented painter would profit from capturing the essence of my road. On my way out, I pass the brick house on my left

and always inspect it carefully, observing the worn condition, and the window that is always partially open. At least it seems like it is always open, raised about six inches, with a screen discouraging adventurous insects. It is an upstairs window and gives the appearance of opening onto a small, isolated room. I imagine a dungeon or interrogation chamber. In my lighter moments, I picture a room stylized by The Marquis De Sade. I never see movement in the house. The house sits opposite a stream, and the comforting gurgle of moving water seems at odds with the menace the house projects. On my return trip, I round a bend and look up the hill at this house. I do it every time because the image is so poetic. The road curves in an S-shape, surrounded by woods, bounded by the stream, and the house sits at the top on the right. I have always wanted to peek in the windows. Signs of life are so infrequent that it is convincing to believe that the risk is minimal. But I never had the guts. Until today. I recently realized that I just don’t care anymore. That I have nothing to lose. My job is going nowhere, I am flat broke, and there are no opportunities. My life is alien to me, hope is dead, and cynicism thrives. What is the worst that could happen if I peer into the window and come face to face with a face? I could care less.

Januray 27th, 2017 I was sweating lightly as I tiptoed towards the even conceive. window. It was warm, and the climb up the hill had I suddenly realized that this was my home now. me slightly winded. I was moving slowly so as not to I would never leave. attract attention, which seemed absurd considering that I was about to spy through someone’s window in full view of the road. But it satisfied my sense of drama. I tried to look through from a distance of a couple of inches but the sun reflected off the window and obscured my vision. Cupping my hands around my face I pressed up against the glass and looked in boldly. I jumped back in horror. As I stood trembling and eventually realized that my heart didn’t explode, I somehow convinced myself to take another look. Actually, there was no convincing involved. I had no choice. I saw myself sitting in a chair. The chair was rickety and wooden with cobwebs running between the legs. It was so worn, with chipped paint, gouges, and broken rungs, it gave off the impression that it could not possibly support me. Then again there didn’t appear to be a lot of me to support. I looked horrific. Missing teeth, with the remaining teeth colored yellow or worse, deep grooves cutting through my sagging face, a diseased pallor to my skin, patches of missing hair. My hands were trembling, my back was hunched, and there was a two-thirds empty bottle of whiskey, uncapped, sitting at a careless angle in my lap. My eyes were haunting. They were vacant and lifeless. Red rimmed as if a million tears had been shed to the point where tears could be shed no more. The image was of a beaten man, a man destroyed. It was a deathly image, a surreal vision of a corpse infused with the barest suggestion of life. I fainted. I awoke to see my face squinting in the window. I was sitting in the chair. My body was overcome with revulsion. I shook violently, moaning and shaking my head, spraying bloody saliva to the side. The chair creaked ominously as my brain scrambled frantically to understand. There was nothing to understand. My face pulled away from the window as if I had not even seen myself, and I began to scream. Shattering screams of pure terror, begging myself not to walk away, pleading for help, help in a form I could not

THE BORIAL SPIRE Tyler Elias From the man himself: I'm a senior writing major from the Univeristy of Pittsburgh at Bradford originally from Wilkes-Barre, PA. As a member of the editing staff for my school's literary magazine I aim to continue writing well past my graduation. From the Journal of Nathanial Moore 6th November 1937

he stream wove through that stretch of the forest that had been my guide, leading me deeper and deeper into the maze of withered foliage, but no visual aid could penetrate the blank veil that the snowstorm had conjured. The snow only grew deeper around my ankles, and any trail markers that may have existed were reluctant to reveal themselves. The only sight that I could make out, the only one that survived the rage of the winter squall, was that of the spire that rose in the distance, its mass surrounded by the wind and brighter than the snow-blinding haze that fully engulfed me. A tower of near pure white that had not existed in this world before that very day, of that I was certain. But, it was so close. I first spotted the sight only moments after the first snow fall earlier that afternoon. Against my instincts and knowledge of the wilderness, I abandoned the familiarity of the beaten trails to the allure of some notion of adventure and plunged into the brush, which was little more than a spattering of bony shrubs that clawed at my pant legs and coat. Some still possessed a handful of brown leaves, but the majority huddled together, dead and bare. The vision of the spire led me further into that graveyard landscape, even as the snow ceased to be a casual dusting and turned into the first blizzard of the season. After what felt like a few brief moments, I stood atop a hill that would grant me my last sight of any manmade structures, but the wooden cabins that dotted Eaglesmere and the warmth that lay within them could not turn my curiosity from my destination. Only now do I wish I had turned, if only to look back, as it would have been the last glimpse of normalcy that I

would see in the swiftly encroaching future. There was no power that came over me other than the fascination that precedes any great discovery as I single-mindedly plunged into an unknown vastness of Pennsylvanian forest, which was both exhilarating and near cripplingly frightening. As the hours passed and the sun slowly retired, the wind began to whip viciously, bringing life to the otherwise placid forest floor in the form of unsettling wisps of loose snow that spiraled up around the trunks of the trees, fluttering the spindly tips of the branches before dissipating with the next lash of the wind. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t much longer before I came across the stream, its concealed presence betrayed by the tell-tale trickle of its icy waters over the slick rocks that lined its banks and made for an excellent path to journey beside. The struggling crick, which had frozen over in many places, led generally in the same direction of the spire. I became aware of my thirst at the first sight of the stream, the first human urge I had felt since laying eyes on the image that still taunted me with its distance. I knelt beside an unfrozen portion of the crick and lapped up a few small mouthfuls, careful not to dampen my clothes, but more careful never to let the spire stray from my sight, as the thought that it would not remain much longer had begun to haunt me. It was this thought that led me onward quicker than before, but not so quickly as to overcome the snow, which would soon nearly reach the tops of my boots, as well as my shins or even knees if my choices of footing were unfortunate. It was around that time when I presumed I lost the trail of the stream, for the wind had all but stifled the ambience of the forest, and the snow buried the remains of the smaller foliage. I could not say for certain if the way I had travelled had lessened the final distance. The

Januray 27th, 2017 tower yet seemed so far, but I quickly discarded the thought or possibility of mirages, illusions of any kind, or the maddening of one’s mind, which I had known to occur to some under extreme duress. The viciousness of the forest was nothing compared to the stresses of years past, years that left wounds so deep that only isolation could numb the memories. But during that evening in the forest, with the spire in my sights, I never felt truly alone, and the whispers on the wind reminded me of another forest far away that claimed men better than myself. The windswept snow around me had begun to obscure vision of any more than several feet. Even the trees became fleeting images and the bushes simply dark figures that flittered in and out of sight. The only constants were the wisps that still drifted up with the gusts, which had now become fuller, perhaps due to the increase of snow or perhaps something else utterly unknown to me. But all was overcome by the spire, still visible amidst the torrent of white and creeping darkness that had begun to spread throughout my surroundings. The sun was finally deserting me. If it had not been for my thick attire, which had been admittedly too much for earlier that same day, I would have succumbed to the chill hours before. The cold only then began to slip past the layers that had been my armor up until that moment. Fatigue would have taken me first, before freezing to death some hours later. I had seen it before. Hours were the only unit of measurement to describe the distance I had covered, and even still I cannot truly say how long it had taken me just to make it so far. I didn’t dare look back, afraid of seeing just how short a distance I had actually come. I kept my eyes straightforward, dedicated to taking in the ghostly light that seemed to emit from the spire’s surface, as if it would not leave me without a source of light as the sun had. It was then that I could make out the motion about the spire. The wind seemed caught in the tower’s immediate presence. Originating from the utmost peak of the spire, the wind and the snow drifted slowly down and around the surface, which at that moment I believed to be somewhat curved, if not perfectly cylindrical. Phantom images circled the spire and writhed indescribably until they slid past my field of view. But it was not the end, for as each tentacular

snowdrift along the spire faded, another cascaded down, beginning the cycle anew. While beautiful, I could not help but feel sickened by the sense of unease that had dug in deep within me, one that, for the first time, willed me to turn back. But despite the urge, my legs carried me forward, until I sighted something that freezes the blood in my veins to ice even to this day. The wisps around me seemed to take on a greater sense of realism, their forms less of a fading shadow and more of a uniform image. Perhaps they had always been that way, or perhaps, as I neared the spire, something else had taken hold of my perception, twisting what was visible into what was not simply recognizable, but deeply terrifying. The wisps, which now appeared to follow one after another, floated forward toward the tower, which had by now begun to loom overhead rather than sit idly as a still image in the distance. The snow, which I willed myself furiously to consider it to be so as to not give in to the prospect of the unbelievable or otherworldly, resembled humanoid shapes, although only by the loosest definition. The images’ legs, if they could even be called that, shambled along one step at a time at the familiar pace of cold and starved soldiers, sometimes remaining visible for a whole second before the entire form dissolved into the air, only to reappear some feet ahead. The rest of the apparitions’ forms, alongside which I reluctantly ventured forth, were indiscernible, save for the gangly, horizontal appendages that floated weakly at their sides, which my pragmatic mind discerned to be arms. Occasionally, these arms would cross with another, and both forms would appear to sputter and struggle, intermingling wisps until losing all recognizable features and amalgamating into an image both horrific and indescribable. At the precipice of my dread, the fear broke for a flash moment and pure human curiosity flooded in where reason would have normally taken hold, and I found myself with one gloved hand outstretched, inching it within reach of one of the nearest figures as it passed close by. I held back my breath and pushed my hand forward. The figure’s reaction was that of smoke caught in a swift motion. The swipe of my hand spun the interior flakes of the snow around one another in a fierce frenzy, and the shape remaining distorted for all of a few seconds before another crack of the wind sent it sputtering forward and beyond my sight.

Shotgun! Strange Stories A searing pain began to creep into my hand, from my fingertips to the bones of my wrist. It was the unmistakable pain of cold, as if I had plunged my hand into some subarctic pool. I clenched my hand tightly against my chest. Sometime later, the pain subsided, only moderately, and as I crossed into the final expanse between myself and the phantom tower, I kept my arms tucked in and my steps short as to avoid any and all contact with the things that I had found myself sharing an unfortunate reality with. As the last of the evening light faded, the forest, caught in the light of the spire, underwent a transformation around me. The darkness shriveled back, and the wind which had remained forceful and rhythmic at my back as if shepherding me to this very place eased to a near halt. The spire loomed before me, colossal and perfect, its width easily that of a small house. Its smooth, cylindrical surface, as I had previously assumed, stood impossibly high, with the blank, overcast night sky offering no way to guess the titanic structure’s true height. Just as well, there were no markings of any kind, no trace of craftsmanship or physical deformity of any kind. Even the space which it occupied as unnaturally. The snow no longer gave way beneath my footfalls, but instead had become a solid sheet of reflecting ice that caught the pale light cast by the spire and illuminated the entirety of the open space, with the tower at the dead of its center. The apparitions which I had followed and had followed me continued to pass me by, their surreal features twisting in inaudible anguish as they too finished whatever journey they had been set upon. In no discernable order, they approached the monolith until they were caught up in the same cascading snowdrifts that I had spied earlier. One by one they vanished without a regard for what outcome existed for them beyond the pale light of the spire. No more followed, and with the vanishing of the last one, the spire’s engulfing tendrils of snow ceased. As if exhausted of all breath and power, the world that I had stumbled into sat silent. Whether from the cold or primitive fear, I could not stop myself from shaking violently. But even having finally reached my destination, I could not turn back, not yet. I took one step forward, and then another. The footsteps that led

me to the surface of the spire made no noise of their own, but I became aware of a subtle groan coming from myself. I stopped at arm’s length from the thing that had dragged me to a place beyond comprehension. In one swift motion, I pressed my hand to its surface, the same hand that had reached out to one of the apparitions. The texture was unlike anything conceivable. Despite its solid appearance, the spire was almost soft, as if pressing my hand against it any harder would leave and irremovable mark. But the more strength I exerted, the more solid it seemed to be, until finally I dropped my hand back to my side and gazed up. The spire remained frustratingly stoic, but a new element had been introduced, or, at the very least, I had only then discovered it; a gentle resonance that filled the air. A single, flat note that grew with each passing moment until it shattered the silence I retreated from the immediate vicinity of the spire to the security of the tree line as the snowdrifts from earlier reappeared, faster this time and with more ferocity, but again surrounding the dazzling spire just as elegantly as before. Their origin had altered, however, now rising from the foundation of the spire and quickly climbing to its peak, where the overcast clouds overhead gave way to the unearthly force of the gale, revealing the starless and barren darkness that was the night sky. There, I spotted the utmost end of the spire, the point where the solid luminescence ceased and only the violent updraft of snow continued, until even that was indiscernible within the opaque void overhead. Around me, the forest was aglow in the light of the spire, the branches of the trees reaching frantically toward it, their leafless forms helplessly caught in the strength of the vortex, the weakest of which snapped and splintered, disappearing into the light of the spire as they were pulled upward. I pressed myself against one of the nearest trees, fearing that I too would be pulled from my footing and lost to whatever lay beyond the spire’s reach. The sound had become deafening, but all my senses were devoted to the sight of the spire, which, even as I watched wide-eyed, lost its corporeal appearance and began to wither and fade, taking with it its coiling torrent and splendid light, which left the forest floor and added some illumination to the sky overhead. The forest settled and what remained of the spire was

Januray 27th, 2017 simply color still caught in the wake of the preceding storm that drifted listlessly upward between the gradually closing gap in the gray cloud coverage. The clouds, still barely illuminated by the glimmer, closed in around the wound in their otherwise complete mass, shutting off the world from what lay beyond, only not soon enough to deprive me of my last sight of something that writhed and twisted against the solid black background, and like so many of those apparitions that the spire carried with it, there was a ghastly liveliness to its appearance. In those fleeting moments, the image took shape; a conglomeration of serpentine limbs that unfurled from a coiled state, all the while emitting the same light of the spire. But on that being, the tantalizing splendor of the spire was lost and all that was cast in the last light of the scene was the form of some hellish thing as it slithered back into the blackness beyond the clouds, which finally closed, cutting me off from the last of the light.

waiting with its back to the stars. It is on nights like those that I pull the blinds firmly shut and huddle closer to the fire until the wind ceases its beckoning and the lure of the spire passes once more.

*** A party of four hikers stumbled across me in the early hours of the following morning, my back firmly pressed against a tree that loomed over a glade devoid of all life and any semblance of anything having ever existed within it. Upon awakening, I recoiled at their attempts to help me, fearing the pain that would come from any contact with my hand. But the pain had subsided completely, and a quick glance beneath my glove revealed no injury or mark of any kind. Overhead, not a cloud could be seen. The hikers helped me to my feet and over the course of several hours led me back to the familiar smell of campfires and well-worn paths of Eaglesmere. *** After many years and many more storms, I have not set eyes on the spire again. But on some winter nights, when the wind begins to howl at my door and the snowfall turns to a thick blanket on my windowsill, I feel that pain creep back into my hand and an icy grip take hold of my heart, willing me to gaze outward toward the forest, toward where that boreal spire stands, and toward what horror waits beyond the spire itself,

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SPOTLIGHT ALEX HARVEY STRANGE STORIES: What got you into art, Thing (1982), and Donnie Darko. how long have you been an artist, and what forms do you use and love the most? SS: What is one of the strangest stories you've ALEX HARVEY: When I look back, I cannot ever read? Or, what is one of the strangest pieces recall a time I wasn't an artist of some variety. of art you've ever encountered? For years, I was a traditional Ink artist, but, more and more, I find myself enjoying digital painting. AH: It's difficult to recall the strangest, but I've never been able to replicate the raw fear 15 year old Alex felt when reading Frankenstein and SS: What got you into horror art and/or what Dracula for the first time. I was unprepared, to inspires your darker drawing(s)? say the least. AH: I was lead to the Horror Genre by my own curiosity. Mike Mignola's Hellboy was the first Contact Alex Harvey! time I believe I ever had a name for it, though. Like Mignola, I find that I take my darkest inspiration alexharvey000@gmail.com not from death as I find most do, but rather the idea that there is a realm of madness just beyond www.alexharveyillustration.com instagram. reality. com/alexharvey0000/ SS: What are your favorite horror authors/movies? AH: H.P. Lovecraft is, by far, my favourite author. As far as movies go, I'm a big fan of Alien, The

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Issue #1: 02/01/2017 Featuring: Brian Knight Issue #2: 04/01/2017 Featuring: Jack Ketchum Issue #3: 06/01/2017

Double Feature!

Richard Chizmar & A Serial Story by: Mark Allen Gunnells

january 27th, 2017

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