volume 5
Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Celeste Paed
Kristen Nichols
Fiction Editors
Nonfiction Editor
Contributing Editors
Typeset
Shannon Barry Hayden Moseley
Courtney Gilmore Anna Moritz
Faculty Adviser
Jeff Barbieri
Celeste Paed
Cover Image
Ann Hemenway
Hector Rasgado
Lab Review Logo
Publishing Lab Logo
Nikki Macahon
Cecsily Bianchi
Editor’s Note Taking on the role of Editor-in-Chief, especially when
you never wanted your previous Editor-in-Chief to leave, is never easy. Thankfully, the pieces that fill this anthology have made the change easier. Nothing sums up my feelings as I approached this issue more than this quote from Dostoevsky: “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” The Lab Review has gone through a few changes over the past few months, some of which you might have noticed immediately and others that won’t make you bat an eye. This is the first edition of the revamped magazine where we knew from the start that we wanted it to be in magazine format. The stories in previous issues were posted as links to our website and while the format was not egregious, something always felt off about it. This is also the first issue that does not have a central theme and any that appear to be there are simply happenstance. We realized that having a theme limited the work we received and as a magazine whose purpose is to give equal opportunity to all students, we were doing wrong by them. Change is not something that is always easily accepted. There is always push back, always a hint of regret. But the changes made to The Lab Review, and in turn the Publishing Lab, were for the better. Volume 5 has proven to be the strongest issue yet and in these pages, you’ll find well-crafted fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art that encapsulates what it means to be alive and to be human. I’d like to thank Ann Hemenway for taking on the role of our faculty adviser; Kristen Nichols for putting up with my not-so-coherent rambles about The Lab Review; my incredible staff of editors: Hayden, Shannon, Jeff, Courtney, and Anna; and the English and Creative Writing Department for keeping the Pub Lab afloat. I hope you enjoy reading this issue of The Lab Review.
Best, Celeste Paed Editor-in-Chief
Contents Fiction
A Warm Winter Can’t Never Leave Far Too Chipper For The Zombie Apocalypse ABCs The Fittest
Nonfiction Night Terrors
Poetry
The Siren Could Mend Hearts Barrel Chest Home Before Dark Breathed in Deep
Contributors
Daniel Bartkowiak Claire Parker Nina Moldawsky
1 13 17
Isaac Escobar Mayan Darby Shire
24 29
Maria Schrater
8
Ashlie Holecek Mayan Darbyshire Sydney Sargis Maria Schrater
6 10 20 28 35
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A Warm Winter Daniel Bartkowiak The day begins with a bang as a two-megaton bomb is
dropped along the eastern coast of North Korea. Casualties, many. Some hundred thousand, but really, it’s hard to discern with all the rubble and ash and shattered glass reflecting the sun’s light, and the rats. God, it appears the bomb had little, if any, effect on the native rat population. The gray rodents scurry through tunnels created by collapsed buildings, that incessant chattering like an electrical fuse gone haywire. In the small Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, the town wakes rather calmly. Joggers bounce along the sidewalk where mothers push newborns in pristinely assembled scooters. The Starbucks drive-thru is seven cars deep. Gleaming seniors wave to their sleepy-eyed neighbors while fetching the Sun-Times. Lawn mowers and school buses and dogs pissing on lawns. A scream comes from Sarah Moodell’s bedroom. Her mother races up the winding staircase and, in a lashing of blonde hair, whips the door open. She finds her daughter lying supine in bed, her iPhone held mere inches above her face. “Sweetie, what is it?” Her daughter rolls onto her side and grips a laced pillow over her neck. She mumbles into the bedding. The ceiling fan clicks like a drum covered in a wet cloth, a soft patter, droning and dependable. Mrs. Moodell, a physically fit woman in her late forties who attends hot yoga four times a week and cooks for her two children—her special being a rice dish with bread crumbs and shrimp—moves across the room in a pair of black leggings. She leans down next to the bed and asks her daughter what’s wrong. “Everything.” “Oh, sweetie, you have to talk to me.” Sarah smears her cheeks as she wipes away the tears. Her eyelashes glisten. The family’s dog barks on the floor below, and the barking is shrewd and piercing and Mrs. Moodell has considered many times removing the football-sized Yorkie’s vocal cords. Sarah’s breathing calms when her mother rubs her back. “There you go. It’s all fine. Everything’s fine.” She sniffles and licks her lips. “I’m sorry.” Mrs. Moodell’s head tilts to the right in a pitied expression. “Sweetie, for what?”
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“I don’t know.” “Why were you crying?” “John and Chrissy.” “Who?” “John Legend and Chrissy Teigan. They got divorced.” Mrs. Moodell blinks twice and ponders her sniffling daughter, a slanted face as she chews her cheek. “Alright, well, I’m sure they’ll get back together at some point.” The fan clicks. A squishing sound comes from Sarah rubbing her eyes. Mrs. Moodell rubs her daughter’s back, circulating her nails around the smooth ravine. “Sweetie, it’s going to be alright.” Her shoulders bounce in slight regressions. Two dogs bark at each other from the sidewalk. Mrs. Moodell sits for a moment longer, then stands and tells her daughter that breakfast will be ready soon—chocolate chip pancakes with a strawberry drizzle—and to get dressed and do something about her hair which looks as if a starved dog clawed through it. Sarah lays back down and stares at the blurred wings of the fan going around and around and around. The downtown wakes in a hesitant tranquility. Businessmen and women mill the train platform in their suit coats and high heels, gripping expensive briefcases, their eyes shielded by Ray-Ban and Maui Jim sunglasses. Only a few passengers check their phones. As if scared of what they might find. The monotonous female voice reverberates over the speakers informing the riders of an inbound train. Circular ringing, the striped gates folding like two crossed arms. Flashing red lights, the train engine chugging along and steam sizzling towards the blue sky. The train halts and the passengers shove while boarding. Little is said. There’s a shared thought amongst the carts that clink and rattle together. Nobody voices it, but for the wandering eyes that linger from leathered row to leathered row, they can see it. Subtle, but look close. The way a pair of eyebrows sit back as the train takes off. How earbuds are getting screwed home with added vigor. In her favorite pantsuit, gray and snug around her ass, Lisa Lucas turns to a middle-aged man who sits next to her and smiles and he smiles too and through the white teeth and peeling lips emanates relief. A cooling to the bubbling anxieties carried by all and spoken by none. Lisa squares around and picks a blonde hair out of her eyes. The train stops and starts a moment later. The man coughs and she looks at him blankly, a silent acknowledgement of his existence. Only their eyes lock and the gaze propels her dark thought into existence. “I’m kind of surprised the train arrived on time.” And the man nods and she sighs and the train bells ring.
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The lounge area at the Sandville Retirement home consists of three wooden tables used for cards Euchre, Solitaire, the occasional Blackjack game—a chestnut desk where retirees can find coffee dispensers accompanied by a saucer of creams, and a stack of books, ranging from Hemingway to The Cat in the Hat, scattered in the room’s corner. A thin sheet of carpet helps prevent shuffling feet from tripping. There
are leather recliners and linen-draped footstools and fresh boxes of tissues wherever you turn, and specially tinted windows, for many residents struggle with bright lights. The room has two televisions, flat-screen Vizios, mounted six-feet high with an adjustable rack for shorter seniors. A changing curtain separates the two sides. Curtis Wayland puffs on a straw. “Bullshit.” A strange liquid runs from his left eye, green yet translucent at the same time. “Keep it down over there. We are trying to hear the news.” “You call that news? Bullshit.” A Filipino nurse in green fatigues carefully hands Curtis a mug. He holds it delicately with both hands, spider-webbed by bulging veins, and sips the coffee in resounding slurps. The other seniors on this side of the curtain stare wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the blonde newswoman in a red blazer. The newswoman’s head shrinks into the lower corner and the mushroom cloud appears. The video loops over and over, classic dome-shaped smog, bits of debris sprayed thousands of miles in all directions, the popping of muffled static. “Bullshit,” he says. His neck looks like a turkey’s and he wears a Marine cap atop a walnut-shaped head. The curtain slowly peels away and a white-haired woman, whose hooped earrings weigh down mushroom-like ears, frowns with such ferociousness that the nurse has to come by and remind her of her elevated blood pressure. “What do you keep yelling about over there?” she croaks. Curtis sips his coffee and bats a hand and doesn’t turn to face the woman to his left. The curtain draws further away, and the left side of the room looks identical to the right, save a pair of men flipping through vintage Playboys. “I thought someone of your kind would be sensitive on this day, but I guess not.” He obliges and wiggles in his stiff chair towards the green-eyed woman. “And what day is that?” “They’re calling it Z-Day.” “Bunch of bullshit.” The newswoman’s colorful face fills the screen. Someone from the far end of the room calls out for a nurse. Cold air whirs from the overhead vents. Curtis puffs on the straw like a cigarette and taps it alongside the chair. He coughs heavily, wiping away loose spittle with a red handkerchief kept in his shirt pocket. “You ask me, I say none of it even happened. Anyone can put one of these videos together. My first job out of the service was as an insurance investigator and I saw fake films all the time. People trying to scam their way to a living. You ask me, I bet this was what’s-his-name’s idea in the first place.” The woman feigns dramatically and says, “Oh, Lord have mercy.” Curtis nods and his neck jiggles. “Lord have mercy is right. Lord have mercy on all you sorry bastards who are falling for this.” The curtain falls back into place. Curtis holds the straw between his fingers in the space before his eyes. Another voice beckons a nurse. He sips his coffee and coughs and the mushroom cloud billows into the blackened sky. “Bullshit.”
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Coffee shops buzz with excitement over the latest episode of The Bachelor. Continuous streams of workers shuffle off trains where they scuttle to their cars and back home for a warm meal and cold beer. Couples walk their dogs along the gravel path surrounding Prince Pond. Children fly on swings and chase one another atop dampened wood chips, and someone always falls, and that someone always cries as blood trickles out of the fresh cut.
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By sundown, the hallways at the College of DuPage have emptied, save a few night classes designated for working parents. The crème colored walls appear pale and discolored in the patched lighting. Room 3209 sits at the end of a long row of rooms on the top floor. She pokes her head out the door and looks both ways before quietly closing it, twisting the bolt tight. Half of the room’s overhead lights are on, buzzing in insect-like vibrations. At his desk, he flicks on a small lamp and opens the top drawer where he pulls out a bottle of wine and two plastic cups. She drifts across the room silently, weaving through the unfilled desks like a ghostly apparition. “I don’t know, James.” The wine bubbles in the plastic cups. She sits in the front row. Through the shadowed light, he hands her a cup and lingers with his palms flat on the desk. “I thought we went through this already.” She looks up at him with a certain sadness in her flickering eyes. “No, no, not that. Not that at all.” He leans over and kisses her on the dimpled section of her neck, slowly moving his way up towards her ears and cheeks and finally lips. “I love you.” “I love you too.” He kisses her once more and her lips are soft and unresponsive like they are in the mornings right before she wakes. He backs away and walks behind his desk where he reclines in a cushioned seat drinking the wine. She stares somewhere in the darkness. Orange light emanating from the street lamps filters down the drawn shades. They sit and drink and they are in love. “What is it?” “I don’t know, James.” She said it distantly and spaciously, as if never said before. A voice speaks from the hall and he watches the hallway window for a face but none comes. She hasn’t touched her wine. The voice disappears and they are alone once more. “The people, James. Isn’t that what you teach?” Her speech conveys an unsettling desperation that he feels in the backs of his legs. “That’s a fairly romantic way to describe an English professor at a community college.” “Hundreds of thousands. Millions. And that’s not counting the future generations marked by radiation.”
“The kids with three legs.” She pauses. “The kids with three legs.” They sit. He finishes his cup and pours another. An ambulance wails outside. The swivel chair creaks when he stands. He moves up the aisle where he kneels beside the opening of her desk. He looks at her and she stares from a slight tilt but not at him. As if he weren’t even there. As if she were staring not at a place, but back through time. “Hey, look at me. Things are going to be alright.” “Why do people even say that? How did that become a saying? Are we that desperate of a species that we need blind affirmation?” He says nothing for a time that feels like three lifetimes, her words hanging in the dark space between them. He bows his head and sniffles dryly. She picks up the cup and drinks and says, “I don’t know. Maybe they will be.” The lights buzz. Dust floats through the blades of light. His knees click when he stands and he walks to the window behind his desk, gingerly pulling away the blinds and revealing a night sky speckled with stars. He stands a moment then grabs the bottle of wine and wheels his chair up the aisle and next to her desk. They take turns pulling from the blue bottle. An airplane blinks across the sky. She turns and lays her head on his shoulder. “When I was a kid,” she says. “When you were a kid.” “I used to look up at the airplanes and try to imagine where everyone was going. Families on vacation, business trips, a man flying to meet his mistress.” He laughs and smiles. “You were one fucked up kid.” He can feel the tightening and loosening of her face on his shoulder as it curls into a smile. “Maybe. But I’m serious.” “You’re serious.” “I could never get over the fact that there were all these people flying above me whom I would never know anything about. Not if their parents died young, or if they ever got their wisdom teeth removed, or if they ended up with their high-school sweetheart.” “Or their co-worker.” He kisses her on her head and drinks from the bottle. The airplane vanishes and the lights buzz. They are sitting and drinking and an atomic bomb killed millions of people but, fuck the bomb, they are in love. “And now, I just see an airplane.” “Maybe that’s alright.” She spins into his chest and her warm breaths get caught in his shirt. “No,” she whispers, “I don’t think it is.” He kisses her then lays his cheek on her head. “No. Maybe it isn’t.” They lie together in the empty room filled with empty desks save the one she sits in. The halls are silent. The parking lot is empty. The bottle of wine is half-full. “I love you.” “I love you too.”
5
The Siren Could Mend Hearts Ashlie Holecek This Siren could mend hearts. With just the sound of her voice hearts would mend.
She would imagine having a human life, having legs to walk around on, to have actual air fill up her lungs, to feel the sun shine down on her living on land near the sea, helping those who felt lost. She would give them Joy as well as happiness. To release the humans from the sadness that consumed them. These wants and imaginations made her want to use her voice more, to make the human hearts follow the rhythm of her voice, to make them beat to her song of joy. To maybe one day do that for everyone, not only to those who came close to the water. When she spoke, her voice was warm and smooth. Unlike the other Sirens, whose voices were hypnotic and cold. Those Sirens would drown the humans they hypnotized, for it gave them an edge and they found it hilariously easy a human could get entranced by a voice.
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One day, a human man came close to the water
The siren swam up to the surface before another siren could. When their eyes met, she opened her mouth to speak to sing. Unfortunately, her voice wasn’t strong enough against the other siren whose voice was louder and prouder than her’s. The man was swallowed by the waves. She watched as the siren dragged him deeper and deeper and deeper into the depths of the ocean. She failed to save him. She failed herself.
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Night Terrors Maria Schrater When I was three years old, I was afraid to sleep.
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My younger brother no longer shared my too-large bedroom, and I’d recently graduated from the tiny, comfortable plastic child’s bed to a proper woodframed twin bed. The size of it made me restless, and the height made it perfect for monsters to hide underneath. But the threat of monsters under the bed paled in comparison to the ones in my closet. If I got up in the night, or let an errant hand dangle over the side, the ones under the bed could grab me. Under the blankets, I was safe. But when I slept, the others came out. The light was grey, static, phosphenes crackling occasionally, like I’d just rubbed my eyes too hard. It was lighter than midnight, monochrome; pre-dawn filtered through thick curtains. The closet stood across from the foot of my bed, two folding doors ajar. Black. Open. A mouth. When I was a little older, I was convinced that there were magic words I could use to summon monsters, some guttural phrase in orcish tongue that would bring them pouring out. Morbid curiosity kept me awake at night, peering into the half-open closet doors, mumbling one made-up phrase after another to trick (was it to trick?) the monsters into rushing out. But there, in the half-light, I couldn’t even breathe. My tongue was fast in my mouth, chest unmoving, limbs heavier than granite, and I lay frozen and helpless on the bed as things came out of the closet. A rush, a multitude, and yet slow and singular, so my eye could understand their grotesqueness, each horrific fiber of their being, each monster more terrible than the last. Minotaurs with gleaming horns and brutish, shaggy faces, malicious; green-skinned witches with distorted features and their limbs put together wrong, so they limped and scuttled, hunchbacked or crablike, teeth long and bared; ogres with skin missing and the raw meat exposed beneath, sinew and bone. They moved like slowed Claymation, each movement a little too jerky, abrupt, inexorable, and I couldn’t scream. One by one, they made the few steps from the closet to the foot of the bed. One by one, they clutched the ends of the blankets, brought clicking, jerking knees
to the top. One by one, they pulled themselves up—they had all the time in the world, because my real eyelids wouldn’t open, no matter how hard I fought, and my dream eyes couldn’t close, couldn’t twitch, although not knowing what came next might’ve been worse. But I did know what came next. The sound of tearing flesh. The feel of bloody bone. The scent of viscera. Voiceless. The dreams (visions?) were spaced weeks and months apart, and with each reprieve, I’d practice waking up from happy dreams and bad dreams until I found the trick of raising leaden eyelids from even the deepest sleep and looked around my pitch-black room with exhausted pride. But I still could not wake up from those dreams. And they started to morph. Harmless dreams faded suddenly into the bedroom, the closet, the silent, purposeful exodus and pain, pain, pain— And then one time, one desperate time, I woke up. The dream never came again.
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Barrel Chest Mayan Darbyshire I am a boy with a barrel chest.
My friends haven’t noticed my walk, my slouch at the weight, the cries of water in the distance. Yet it fills me up like the rain in the veins of trees but my bark is not so thick. Nobody judges trees. They shave them bare and worship their skin. My barrel chest has nails as thick as railroad spikes, my bones are railroad ties, have to be, under the pressure of my barrel chest, for it is full. and grows wider with every drink, every bite, every thought about my barrel chest that my barrel-chested mind thinks. I feel six inches too wide. Miles too far from home. The pit of a lover’s chest. My chest.
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My chest is a barrel that I cannot hide in, cannot tuck my flimsy arms and legs inside like poorly painted fence posts. And disguise myself. You see, barrels are for fish markets, for rich white cellars, the coffins of dead people who swim Niagara. My barrel is heavy. Not with wine, or river water, or the guts of red fin tuna, But sweat.
My arms scissor and legs buckle, the staccato of knuckle cracks against the temple walls and I shout. I thirst. I am in an apartment. That apartment is in a city where the streets are lined with over growth and the buildings rise like marble structures. And I I am in a barrel. My chest is a barrel. The straps are made of leather. There are no straps. The straps are my tongue fused to my flesh. Every time I ingest the straps get heavier. And heavier. And heavier. Can I speak without a tongue? Will they worship my skin? Shave me bare? Keep me in their cellar? I fear that fashion is a wicked sickness. When will boys with barrel chests come into style? Like moon boots like denim shirts like ripped jeans flared jeans jeans with rhinestone-plastered asses When will it be? A time for nails thick like railroad spikes for hunches and half smiles. My bones have termites and I fear I cannot wait and the rushing waves I hear in the distance the rushing waves of Sweet Niagara.
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Distans by Hector Rasgado
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Can’t Never Leave Claire Parker The girl sat on the bed and stared at her reflection in the
cracked mirror barely hanging on the wall across the room. Her broken reflection was a perfect representation of the way she felt inside. There was no light in her young, blue eyes, and her blonde, straw-like hair laid limp against her damp skin. She barely recognized the person she saw. Her face was smeared with her mother’s makeup. She wiped smudged lipstick onto the sleeve of her shirt. She rose up from the untidy bed and walked into the small hallway leading to the kitchen. Her fingers skimmed the dusty walls and her bare feet picked up dirt from the floor. Her dad sat at the kitchen table cleaning his rifle, a half-empty bottle of beer in front of him. She reached for a burnt-out lightbulb that hung above the table. “Your ma’s gonna be back tonight,” he said gruffly. She paused, hand in midair. “Again?” she asked apprehensively. He stood up quicker than she could move and slapped her across the face. She didn’t react. She barely even flinched. “It’s not up for discussion. Now go to your room and don’t come out until you can show me more respect.” She looked him in the eye for a second, the fire long since extinguished, before stalking off. “You want her here more than you want me,” she said as she turned back. It wasn’t a question, simply an observation. He stared at his rifle, not looking up. “I need her.” The girl went to her room and shut the door. She came slowly through the door. The house was completely dark except for the sliver of light coming from the crack in the door of the bedroom. He was inside, waiting for her. “Darling?” he said as she opened the door slowly and poked her head around it. He got up from the bed and reached for his wife. She cautiously approached him and he kissed her roughly. She could taste the alcohol on his breath and she pulled away hesitantly. “What?” He asked angrily. “I just don’t feel up to it,” she said in a small, childlike voice.
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He grabbed her arm roughly and shut the door. “I do.” The room went black with the click of the door. The girl laid on her neatly-made bed, her hands clasped over her stomach, still as a statue. She stared at the ceiling, watching the dust float in the beams of light coming from the window and counting the turns of the fan. Five, six, sev— The door swung open, hitting the wall and deepening the hole already made from its handle, and her dad stood on the other side. His eyes were huge and wild, his hair unkempt, and a few scratches had formed on his arm. She knew where they came from. “Where is your ma? She wasn’t there when I woke up,” he asked, out of breath. “Gone,” she answered simply, still looking at the fan. “Don’t you ever do that,” he threatened as he glared. “What?” She demanded, sitting up and looking him straight in the eye. “Leave,” he said and slammed her door shut. —en, eight, nine. She laid back down. She heard the shuffling of his boots and the creak of the old, wooden screen door as he went outside. She got up quickly and dug around her closet until she felt the familiar worn, folded up paper taped to the back wall. She tried to smooth out where it had been crumpled and refused to smooth out again. The map was thinning with age and tearing at the sides, but it was the only thing that made escaping seem possible so she continued to touch it, wearing it out with useless dreams of leaving. She stretched it out on the wall, lining up the holes she had memorized. Bus routes connected and expanded endlessly. Her finger traced the route that led farthest from her small town, a route she knew by heart. She didn’t care where she went, as long as it was a million miles from this place. Her head jerked up as she heard the screen door snap shut. The sound of her father’s loud boots was coming closer and closer. It rang in her ear, closer and closer still. She roughly grabbed the map and folded it quickly. She had just finished stuffing it into the back pocket of her pants when he opened the door. “I want to see your ma tonight.” She didn’t reply. “Did you hear me, girl?” He asked loudly, annoyance clear in his voice. “Yes.” “Your ma, tonight.” he demanded. “I’ll make sure she’s there.”
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She came slowly through the door and walked along the dark hall. Her bare feet barely made a sound as she tiptoed, her hand trailing along the wall. She stood behind the door, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes. The world seemed to stop. She could feel her racing heart as it tried to break out of her chest. She ran scenarios in her head. He was waiting for her. She took a deep breath in and swung the door open. The light temporarily blinded her. He yanked her hand and pulled her into a kiss. She jerked out of his grasp.
“Why are you wearing this?” he asked roughly. He grabbed her arms so hard she could feel the bruises forming. “I wanted her. I told you, I wanted her.” He snatched her wrist and dragged her to his closet. “Put this on,” he demanded as he shoved a dress at her. She let it drop to the floor. “Put it on,” he growled. “No,” she said meekly and he slapped her, hard. “Put it on,” he screamed. “I’m not her. I’m tired of being her,” she screamed back at him. “You’ll be her if I tell you to be,” he said as he advanced dangerously toward her. “Not. Anymore.” She said with as much courage as she could, and she ran out the door before he could grab her. She started running faster than she ever imagined possible, the map still in her back pocket. She threw open the front door and raced on the long dirt road, rocks cutting into her feet. There were miles to go, but she would run forever if she had to. She passed her mother’s grave, which she hadn’t visited since she died five months ago. She turned to look at it as she passed, memories of the day her mother died flooding back. It was the day she died too.
The rain pounded down on her as she walked back from her mother’s grave. The rain hid the tears that were flowing freely. She walked up the porch steps and took off her rain boots. She walked into the house, the screen door slamming behind her. “Daddy,” she called out. There was no answer. She noticed the empty beer bottles sprawled on the table. She walked along the dark hallway towards the room at the end. She opened the door hesitantly. A light shined behind her and she knew he was catching up to her. She willed her legs to go faster. She veered into the cornfield and disappeared into the tall stalks. The corn engulfed her and the leaves whipped at her and pulled her clothes, almost like they were trying to trap her too. She reached for the map in her pocket. Its mere presence was comforting her and guiding her to where she knew she needed to go. She was running blind, but she kept moving forward into the darkness.
She wandered into the dark room. She could smell the stench of alcohol. She could barely make out the outline of her father laying on the bed. She walked to the window beside the bed and pulled open the curtains to let a little bit of light into the room. The rain was coming down harder. It was all she could hear. She turned around and was startled to find her dad standing behind her, a strange look in his eyes. He just stared at her, making her feel uncomfortable. “You know, you really look like your ma,” he finally said.
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Suddenly he pulled her into a kiss. She jerked away from him roughly, but he held onto her arm. “You’re her now,” he kept repeating as she struggled to get out of his grasp. “You’re her now. You’re her now. You’re her now.” She heard him calling behind her; she propelled her legs faster still, her heart pounding in her ears. His voice was getting farther and farther away and she kept running until she couldn’t hear him anymore. She wandered lost for what seemed like hours into the night. It was silent except for the breeze rustling the corn. She came to the end of the fields and stopped. She could see the road from where she stood. It was so close. She smiled with relief. She could feel the freedom she craved in her grasp. She burst out of the corn, her sanctuary. A rough hand grabbed her by the ponytail and spun her around with an excruciatingly painful yank. He grabbed the map from her shaking hands, balled it up, and threw it into the field of darkness. “I told you, you can’t never leave.”
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Far Too Chipper for the Zombie Apocalypse
Nina Moldawsky
Her name was Pamela, and she was far too chipper for
the zombie apocalypse. She was the kind of person you expected to die, or at least be left behind to fight off zombies with her own, weak, muscleless arms. She wasn’t tall and strong like Erika, hardened and agile like Jan Di, or buff and burly like Isaiah. She was a petite woman with a pastel aesthetic—silly and squishable, but alive nonetheless. With the daily prospect of disaster, most everyone kept their priorities straight. They focused on hiding, fighting, and running. They raided evacuated homes to look for weapons and equipment. Her pre-disaster housemates-turnedsurvival-faction, those impressive and protective friends of hers, were no different. They kept their eyes on the necessities. When they stalked through the dark, empty homes, they broke into cabinets and safes, rummaging through the memories of a forgotten domestic life for flashlights, dry food, medical kits, walkie talkies, and the likes. Pamela too tiptoed about, looking for survival amenities, like polkadot socks, cotton balls, mismatched LEGO figures, and stickers that said “Good luck!” Her faction, like everyone, scared of the undead and scared of human desperation, scrounged for weapons in tool sheds and gun cases. Erika equipped herself with hunting rifles and metal baseball bats, Jan Di with fire axes and no-longer-vintage swords, and Isaiah with sharp shovels and garden hoes. Pamela too chose an instrument, but hers was from the woodwind section. Crouching along the traffic barriers of abandoned highways, Erika would point her rifle at abandoned cars until she thought they were safe. She’d wave the group forward, and say, “Keep an eye out for bloody faces and an ear for groans.” Pamela would reply, “tweetleytoot,” on her salvaged flute and do a little jig. Isaiah would shush her and she’d give him a playful pat on the arm. Every day she’d say, “Where are we going to camp tonight, I wonder?” or, “What are we going to eat for dinner?” Then, when nighttime fell, they were hunkered in the creaking carts of an overturned train, balancing on the beams between cracking panes of glass. A dinner of dry, uncooked rice was served to her in an origami bowl of folded newspapers, and she’d say, “Yum!”
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Everyone contributed to the group. Jan Di folded the bowls and found the most supplies. Isaiah plotted their paths and scouted out danger. Erika commanded their movements and inventoried their needs. All three fought off the undead. Pamela, on the other hand, gave them Hello Kitty Band-Aids for their bloody wounds and always made sure to point out graffiti that could be a puppy if you looked at it the right way. Sometimes they found safe houses, places where dozens of glum faces had gathered to rely on and be suspicious of each other. Safe houses were riddled with theft, blood, and hunger—exactly the right kind of cesspool for disease to spread. They made some people feel safer, in an irrational way. Others used them as pit stops to trade what they needed before quickly getting the heck out. Her faction was the latter. Pamela walked into safe houses with a grin, plopping herself between bleeding men and women to say, “Hello!” Fervently, she shook hands, gave unprompted hugs, and told jokes. Jokes like, “Who did the zombie take out to dinner? His ghoulfriend!” or “What does it take to become a zombie? Deadication!” And she’d slap her knee, say “Ayo!” and bubble over with laughter. Sometimes people would grin a little. Maybe. Pamela was equipped with numerous travel games for moving from one spot to the next. She’d look around and spot an object with a name beginning in A. Then, for one beginning in B, then C, and do so until the end of the alphabet. It took coercing, but maybe when she got to D, Isaiah would join in. Around M, Jan Di would buckle as well. Sometimes Erika joined near S, but sometimes, she never joined at all. Before the world got this way, Z was the hardest letter to find an object for. Now, it was only the most dreaded. “She’s far too chipper for the zombie apocalypse.” Some would say it with an amused grin, some with a scowl, some with an unsettled cringe. Some, like Isaiah, would say it as a genuine question. She’d always been bubbly, but not like this. Back in the days when their lives were not plagued with violence, they all lived in a pale yellow house on Oak Street. Pamela would draw them from their rooms with the aroma of freshly baked cookies. She would make jokes when they watched movies on Saturdays and initiate the first attacks of popcorn flicking wars. It was Pamela who cheered for Isaiah when he and Jan Di would practice in the backyard for his landscape company’s softball games. It was she who welcomed him home with a hug when they lost. They had all watched that house torn apart by the bloody hands of their undead neighbors, searching for their living flesh. Now, constantly running on the verge of death, Pamela made twice as many jokes, and wore twice as many smiles. Isaiah wondered how? Why? One time, Pamela woke him in the night, shaking him from where he lay beneath a strung up tarp. With pleading whispers, she begged him to follow her. Through groggy coughs, he asked if it could wait and rubbed his tired eyes. She insisted it couldn’t. Not once since the disaster began had he seen her so serious. So he agreed, and together they snuck out of the precautionary traps they’d set around their camp atop an old office building. She led him down to the alley, and from there to another alley. They scurried between the shadows of tipped dumpsters and dilapidated buildings,
each new destination based on Pamela’s vague pointing. When they reached the back entrance to a strip mall, Pamela proclaimed they’d arrived and jimmied through the door. It was party supplies—probably one of the only stores still fully stocked Isaiah noted, since everything inside was useless. Pamela shuffled passed the unlit racks of gift wrap and paper lanterns, her eyes darting about the merchandise with focused vision. It was up to Isaiah to notice the pungent smell of rotting flesh, and the fresh trails of blood dripped across the tile. It was up to him to notice the skinless, oozing zombie lunging at her from the wedding aisle. He jumped into action, smacking Pamela into the plastic cup stacks behind him. Wielding a shovel, he clocked the zombie in the face. When it fell, he shoved the tip of the blade under its chin and kicked it down like he was digging a hole. Its head bopped away with a spurt of blood. Another came from the dark and he took it out. Two more after that one, Isaiah had eliminated the danger. Panting and stained, he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked to her and said, “Go get what you came for, Pamela.” She scurried out from behind him, swiftly snatching a stack of cone hats and several purple balloons. “Balloons?” he asked, appalled, “We came here for balloons?” Pamela nodded. “Tomorrow is Jan Di’s birthday.” The color drained from his face. In this frenzy of violence, sweat, ash, and carnage, he’d forgotten his best friend’s birthday. The next day Pamela surprised Jan Di with balloons and made everyone wear the hats and sing the song. Jan Di cried, and Erika pretended not to. They took back to the road, this time with a bit more spirit. This act was second nature to Pamela, and it was one she constantly repeated in a similar capacity. With Pamela there, Isaiah wondered if they had ever truly left their home on Oak street. He realized, for every zombie that he and Erika and Jan Di killed to avoid their own death, there was an outshining action from this quirky, chipper girl. So he wondered, of them all, who was it that kept them alive?
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Home Before Dark Sydney Sargis I saw
you, boy. Lingered, and lost in the night, lit by the street, no lamp just moon. Piano keys under each step, strangled from your soles, collected like blood stains on the sidewalk. I want to tell you to keep your eyes on me, weak knees, follow me.
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That heart don’t stand a chance against the blacktop when the sun seeps low, the ground heats and burns like a hell you haven’t met yet.
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Overfora by Hector Rasgado
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ABCs Isaac Escobar Anne lay on her back, her childhood bedroom rising
around her like the images of a pop-up book she vaguely remembers reading, vaguely remembers caring about. Down the worn-out carpeted stairs and past the hallway she used to be frightened of as a young girl, when the night hung heavy on the house, she could hear her mother vacuuming the levels of dust that had collected everywhere over the years. Anne had spent the morning, like her mother, cleaning the old place, checking the list over and over again. 1: The library, her dad had turned it into a smoking room. The books would never lose that smell now. 2: The kitchen, layers of spilled beer and leftover take-out surrounded the corners of the counters. The fridge was empty, but it still smelled. 3: The bathroom, she didn’t even want to think about it. 4: The lawn, grown past her knees. 5: The shed, she would stay away from there as long as possible. That was where they had found him, she was told, hunched over his workbench. The lights were all burned out around him, they said. The neighbors didn’t think anything about it for a long time. They were always left on when he was awake, because the trees that crowded the backyard always made the place seem dark, even during bright days. They thought everything was normal. But days passed and the mailbox got close to overflowing. His friends tried calling, but he wouldn’t answer. And one by one, every light in the house went out. Funny thing, that was probably what did it, the lights; went out and got cold. People started noticing then—Anne’s dad had been the first to get cold. Now Anne was back, almost ten years later, at the old place with her mom, cleaning up her dad’s mess like they said they never would again. Strange enough, he left them the house. It was a good house; they’d be pretty silly to let that go. “Do you think we’re ready?” Anne had asked, and she meant ready to see the house again. “I guess we’ll just have to see,” her mom had said, softly, like a prayer.
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When they had opened that front door, Anne thought it was like they had opened another one—a deep, blackish door—into their memories. It was as if with every window washed, Anne could see her own past a little more clearly. With every layer of dust removed, she could see the shape of her own childhood becoming more visible. Now she sat in her old room again, freshly cleaned, and everything just as she had left it so many years ago. Even the alphabet wallpaper that her dad had used to teach her to read, back when she was too young to notice his smells as drunk. When they used to lie on the carpet floor and stare up at the wallpaper and she would say each letter in turn, and they would come up with a word that began with it. And as the memory played out before her, she wondered if she really missed it. When does a good memory become a bitter one? Are good memories only ruined by the mind that remembers it? Anne scrunches her nose in thought, she stares at the wallpaper. A: For apple. She remembers the sound of his breathing when he slept on the couch. Suddenly, she realizes, that was very often. B: For boat. He had taken her on a boat before, had taught her to swim, now that she thinks about it. C: For caramel. He used to comb her hair. Her long, curly, black hair—just like his. She looked a lot like him, same button nose, same olive skin, and the hair of course. When the brush hurt her head he would give her a small candy to chew if she didn’t cry. That was another thing they shared, caramel was their favorite. D: For dangerous. That’s what her mom had said he was. Anne remembers the expression on her mother’s face when she had said that, a hurt and guilty look, as if she was admitting for the first time. To the man in the black suit, to Anne, and to herself that he really was dangerous, and that there was nothing she could do about it anymore. They were in the kitchen of the old house still. Her dad was out, he wouldn’t be back for hours if they were lucky. Sometimes he didn’t come back at all. “Restraining order,” the man in the black suit had said back to her, that was the best idea. “Ok,” her mom had said, and Anne remembered how she had glanced her way for a moment, and it was like her eyes were saying, I’m sorry for the pain this might make you feel later. But then she signed the paper that the man slid across the table. E: For escape. They had escaped this place. And now they were back. Is a prison still a prison if no one is keeping you there? F: For funeral. They hadn’t made it back in time for his, but they visited the cemetery the day after. There weren’t any flowers around his tombstone, and at the time, Anne didn’t feel sorry about this. But now, she wondered if he had been very lonely.
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G: For garden. The one they had planted together. The garden with the tomatoes, and the peas, and the dirt they had collected on their hands. She remembered when he would spray her with the hose, and she would run around the house, dripping wet, and laughing. He'd chase her all over, holding a towel at arm's length in front of him, looking like a ghost, maybe. Anne allowed her mind to linger on that thought, to relish in that good feeling, as her eyes glazed over more letters. H: For hills. I: For igloo. J: For jelly. K: For the kisses he would give with his scruffy face, much like the feeling of the towel on her skin when he'd finally caught her. L: For—love? Did she love him? It was something like that. Something they didn't have on the wallpaper. A letter without a word to go with it, or maybe, a word without a picture. Something, maybe, he had never taught her. But she supposed there would be a lot of things he could never teach now. M: N: O: The vacuuming had stopped. Her mother would be coming up the stairs soon. Were those her footsteps already, coming up the stairs? It had been a long time since she had memorized the sounds of this house, the sound of its floors and walls. P: Q: R: But she couldn’t think anymore. The memories came and were gone, too quick to categorize. Brief scenes, as if seen from a moving car. She remembered broken bottles on the front porch, when he’d smoke out there, how he’d smash things when he got mad. She remembered the last present he ever gave to her, when she turned eight. It was a teddy bear with an eye missing. She was so sad about it. And then he made the bear an eyepatch and they called him pirate bear. She remembered it all, one faded memory at a time, the police lights, her mom applying makeup to a purple colored eye, her father’s big, belly shaking laughs. S: T: U: Anne could definitely hear her mom’s footsteps now; she would be there soon. She got up, walked to the mirror, and studied the red, forming at the corners of her eyes. V: W: X: Y: She swiped at her damp eyes with a tissue from an old box. Maybe I loved him, she thought. Maybe, despite it all—and then the door opened, and her mother
was there, and Anne turned, smiling. And they were both convinced that everything was fine. “How’s it going?” her mother asked, wiping some sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “It’s really coming together, isn’t it?” Anne said, and she meant it. They walked out together, mother and child, the two who had escaped so long ago, only to return again one day. They would go out to eat, to celebrate the clean house. And the only tears Anne had ever shed for her father’s sake, were already drying on the tissue, on her old desk, in her old room. Z:
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Breathed in Deep Maria Schrater I have aged
I didn’t mean to Frown so much, smile so much I tried to be granite Or marble But even granite cliffs wear down By wind and water And marble stays pristine Only in museums Glass cases for the dead At least I’ve breathed the air Of different cities Tornado-torn, sea-salted Blooms and rot Spring and summer and fall Biting winter And though I saw no mermaids Ghosts, or fluttering fae I have a mind That writes them in So I’ve lived rich life Perhaps enough
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The Fittest Mayan Darbyshire The hatchet lunged forward, hitting the table with a dull
metallic bang. “Go ahead boy,” Walter said, “Take it.” His voice was coarse, whiny, his lungs like large quarries of gravel. The day of the hunt had been long and all three men were tired and weak in the legs, retiring to an old surveyor’s cabin as the daylight started to wane. They had gone deep into the Appalachian hills; the snow clawed its way up to the knee, where the trees were thick and black and there were no trails to speak of. Chris alone would never stray too far from the trails, a rookie at best. However Walter and his brother Clive were true hill folk; born in caves and in big nests in trees—they were hardened. The day had taken its toll on Clive, but Walter, Walter seemed bittered by it. “Take it, boy,” he repeated. He hated to repeat himself. But Chris couldn’t respond, sitting at the small oak table, a mess of shoulders and hunches. He was frail, and the sound of the axe clanging in front of him had brought his pale mint green eyes to attention. He straightened, and a cold sweat overtook him. “For what?” he asked Walter, who stood across the table with a stiff posture. For a moment there was hope of quiet as Walter began to think, but Clive had slipped into a somnolent state and began muttering odd things. Personal things about women he’d met in a collapsed pile of old blankets in a dark corner of the cabin. Walter was unfazed by it, pausing only to scrunch his face and squint his swollen black eyes tighter. “Hell you mean ‘for what?’” He was practically spitting. “Pick up that damn hatchet, go outside, and finish that buck. He ain’t healin’.” A knot formed in Chris’ stomach and the images he tried to forget were put upon him once again. He fell back into the bend of the old wooden chair, unable to carry himself under the pressure. The deer they shot hadn’t died, hadn’t come close. The bullet ricocheted, a flat crack against the animal’s skull, and as the buck shook and staggered to its feet, they saw the head: caved in, the left eye forced shut. It wandered for a moment, confused, had no idea what had just happened to it. Its squeals of pain had leapt into the cold air.
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Walter put both hands on the table, and pushed the axe further. It eyed Chris as he eyed it back. It was old and had a handle of light brown wood. It had been used quite often, and the wood had begun to scuff and scrape and dent, with dirty black marks up and down it. The blade was hammered steel, looking almost dull in the dim lamplight of the small cabin. Chris’ vision was locked, his eyes wide and pulsing as the edges of his vision began to tighten and sink. The light rimmed around the hatchet, and the sounds of the howling afternoon wind, and Walter and Clive saying something about “those kind of bitches” fell flat in his ears. He couldn’t, he thought. All he wanted was a clean kill, something to show his buddies back in New York, but the deer, and its head...Fuck, it’s all bent and sagging. He was shaking, biting his nails in reflex, picking loose skin from his cuticles. “Time to bloody your teeth, boy,” Walter shouted in a crooked half-smile. His teeth were stubby and few. All in all, he looked like a bulldog, face swollen by the cold, a meanness in every wrinkle. Chris looked up, saw Walter’s jagged dogjaw smile and his dented, bald head and exhaled. He took the hatchet in hand, felt the nodules of rough oak and the dents of the blacksmith hammer, and for a small moment, felt in control. He puffed his chest, and Walter puffed back. “There ya go boy, take control. Get the blood in your veins, in your eyes.” It was basically gibberish to Chris, a hiker from upstate who had nice hands and a look to him. A look that gave Walter and Clive butterflies. He was, above all, their prey. But Chris couldn’t move. The image thumped again in his mind. The rifle still rang in his ears, the meaty boom that hit the air and collapsed into a crack, like a rock hitting the water’s edge. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, he repeated in his mind. His hand shook violently, and he flung the hatchet back on the table. “I can’t do it,” he said, his chest hurting under the weight. “Dammit, boy.” Walter gritted his teeth and bent his brow. His face was rabid and he began pacing at the other end of the table, edge to edge and balling his fists. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Chris’ voice was wet and weak, and Walter halfthought about killing him right there. But the back and forth was cut in two, by dull thuds against the wall. Their eyes darted left; it was faint, but the sound seemed to come from out in the cold. “Damn buck!” Walter shouted. “Clive, shut that thing up, make sure it don’t up and run away on us ‘fore we gut it.” He threw an empty shoe behind him, hitting the wall right beside Clive’s head. Clive darted up. His muffled rant about the cashier lady came to an end, and he wiped the opioid drool from his mouth. “Pre-sent,” he mumbled. “Clive, calm that buck down, will ya.” Clive gave an exaggerated nod, his long wisps of grey hair moving like pine brush in the wind. He stumbled to his feet, bone skinny, his flesh like an overcooked turkey leg, and he stammered out the heavy door and into the cold. His mumbles continued, and the two went silent as the door slammed shut behind him. The wind had begun to swell as the sun sank within the hills. They could hear his heavy steps, the crunching of the snow, and then silence. Chris wiped his forehead of sweat and ran his hands through his hair.
“Blond boy like you,” Walter said, “Ain't built for these hills.” Chris tried to rebut, but was cut off. “All you soft boys from the coast, you'd die in these woods, tore up by wolves.” Walter leaned in over the table. “You ever seen a wolf, boy? Bigger than you might think, buck twenty at least. Take your little ass down, no problem, and that's just one.” Chris looked away, at his feet. Walter’s beady black eyes burned holes in the top of his skull. “They travel in packs, ten, sometimes twenty. Run you down no problem. You see, they got these paws that keep ‘em from sinking in the snow, teeth like razors, eyes like sunspots.” The wind began to whistle through the crack in the door. “They were built for these hills. And you? Built for anything else.” Walter chuckled and Chris tightened to an almost fetal pose in his chair. The rustling picked up again, along with crunching snow, but there were also grunts of exertion. Then came the cracking. Loud and wet, with torn blood vessels and severed ligaments, Clive began breaking the bucks legs—one by one. “Jesus!” Chris shouted, looking to Walter for any affirmation; he received none. Outside, the breaking continued, a snap at the upper leg bone of the deer, and guttural squeals and screams and heavy breathing. As Clive went, the buck began to struggle, and the bones moved freely in the tube of intact skin and muscle, grinding against other bones. All of this pierced the small windows and aching logs and felt loud in Chris’ ears, and he begged Walter to make him stop. But Walter’s bulldog face didn’t move, not a wrinkle out of place. Chris could feel a pain in his legs, something hot and throbbing within the marrow, and he cupped his ears in reprieve. But the ringing of the rifle and the howl of the wind followed him into that place of silence and pain and refused to give him quiet. Walter looked upon Chris with cold eyes, saw nothing but the well trimmed college kid, barely old enough to drink, who happened upon them for help, now drowning in agonizing thoughts. Behind his stone face, he cracked a wide smile: butterflies again. “Clive!” Chris began to scream, “Leave him alone.” But Clive paid the boy no mind, and the breaking moved along. First, second, now third: crack-only a half break. Clive mumbled louder and took a bended knee to the top of the buck’s leg and wrenched the foot toward him. It was the loudest yet, a crunch of shattered bone, fragments lodging in the muscle, severing arteries, the light tan fur turning black with internal bleeding. The deer let out a gurgled howl into the cold dark, and Clive breathed heavily. The howl was then matched. Somewhere in the dark, echoing from tree to tree. Then another, and another. “Clive, knock it off!” Walter’s voice was stern through the walls of the cabin. Clive responded, “What?” unable to hear through the bounding howls and the whipping winds against the pine. “Get inside, quick!” Walter turned his voice to the wall, projecting it to his brother as he grabbed his rifle. His hands were rough and leathery against the wooden stock and the black steel barrel. Chris looked up and un-cupped his ears. Walter had his rifle in hand, clutching it tight, his knuckles turning white. His face followed suit. The breaking stopped, but with it came a short yelp and the crunching of more snow, a pitter-patter of tens of footsteps.
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Then nothing. “Clive?” Walter asked the open air. It returned nothing. “What the fuck, man?” Chris said, his heart and voice racing. “Shut up, boy!” He asked again, “Clive, you got your wits?” But again, nothing. A newfound weakness crawled into Walter’s throat. “C’mon, Clive, don’t fuck with me like this, not with this coaster around, you’ll scare him.” He began to fake chuckle. Nothing came back to him, nothing but the wind. “Fuck.” His face went purple, his words landing with spit once again. He paced with heavy footsteps up and down the width of the cabin, shaking his head, mumbling obscenities, much like his brother. Chris’ eyes followed him, and the images of caved in skulls and the crack of the rifle and the crunching of bone seemed to fall away. His mind was empty, a serenity he hadn’t felt since he had arrived. His breathing fell to a calm pace, but his eyes were wide as he whispered for Walter’s attention. “What, boy?” he said through his teeth. Chris looked into nothing for a moment, then returned. He mouthed a word, a ‘W’ word, a question. Walter looked Chris up and down, sweaty and weak, and nodded. The howls came again. Their muscles tensed, and Walter cursed the open air. He moved to the door, slid the iron slot at the top open to see what he could. It was black; he saw nothing in the dark. The howls got louder, sharper, and the crunching of snow surrounded the cabin. “They’re hungry,” Chris mumbled and Walter agreed. He stepped away from the door, held the rifle like a rope ladder, tighter and tighter. The howling surrounded them and hung in Chris’s ears, digging deep. It banged a thumping beat against his eardrums. A blond boy like me, he thought, isn’t built for these hills. “Teeth like razors, eyes like sunspots.” Teeth like razors, eyes like sunspots, he repeated, over and over. Teeth like razors, eyes like sunspots. He eyed the hatchet on the table, wondered if it would be sharp enough, reasoned that it had to be. He took it in his hands, the nodules, the hammer marks. He began to speak the words, over and over with Walter, still eyeing the cabin door. “Teeth like razors, eyes like sunspots.” He rose to his feet, pushed the chair to the floor. “They travel in packs, ten sometimes twenty.” He then mumbled. He was scared, but sharp in the eyes and on the surface. “Shut up, boy,” Walter commanded in a harsh whisper. “Keep your voice down.” But Chris had long gone deaf to Walter’s commands. He walked calmly around the table, to Walter’s back. He kept quiet for just a moment; he reasoned he had to. “I’m sorry,” he then whispered into the open air, and took the hatchet to the back of Walter’s leg. He swung quick, deep into the bend of the knee and into the joint. There came a loud snap, the ligaments popping like stretched rubber bands. It took Walter to the floor, dropping his rifle out of reach. He minced his screams through his teeth, and held the back of his knee tight. His hand was soon a deep red, and as Chris reeled back once more, Walter stretched out his other hand. Chris
took his middle and his index off with a heavy swipe, ripped the bone and cartilage free like a pull tab. He was glad in that moment that it was indeed sharp enough. Walter began to shake violently, pulling in his hand and curling his body. His blood began to pool; it felt warm against Walter’s face—nice even. Chris swung again and again, until the writhing mass of bloody flesh stopped writhing altogether. He breathed deep and put the hatchet in his belt loop and carried the body by its collar, close to the cabin door. He was careful and opened the door slightly, pushing the hand with three fingers into the cold. And he waited. Chris held the door steady, and as the mass of meat was ripped into the snow, he rammed the door shut behind it. He was safe. He collapsed against the cabin wall, slid to the floor. The smell of pennies was heavy in the air, and Chris began to cry. He cried for a long while, as the howling disappeared into the dark and the snow. He had survived.
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Contributors Daniel Bartkowiak is a fiction writing junior at Columbia College in Chicago. His work has been featured in issues of The Write Launch and Drunk Monkeys. He lives on the north side of Chicago with two dogs and three copies of Infinite Jest. Mayan Henry Darbyshire is a writer, reviewer and essayist. He was born in London and raised in Sydney, where, by way of his parents, his artistic and aesthetic influences took hold. Mayan then moved to the US at the age of 9 in search of a less turbulent upbringing. He specializes in literary fiction, surrealism, and horror writing and currently attends Columbia College Chicago, pursuing a BA in Creative Writing with a minor in Journalism. Isaac Escobar is a writer, a poet, and an indie musician. Currently he is a senior, Creative Writing Major at Columbia College Chicago. However, all art interests him and he has tried his hand in a variety of other forms as well, including: scriptwriting, animation, and film. Ashlie Holecek is a senior fiction writing major at Columbia College Chicago. She loves many things, but mostly books, writing, coffee, video games, and World of Warcraft. When not writing, she can be found playing World of Warcraft with her guild or staying up late to write a book review for her blog, AshweeReads. Nina Moldawsky is a freshman creative writing student at Columbia College Chicago. She has had an active writing career since age 14, when she self-published her first novel. Since then she has self-published a secondary novel, written two musicals performed at the Reel Kids Theater in Boulder, CO, and become a member of the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators. In the 2017 Scholastic Awards, her novel manuscript “Writing the Future” won a Gold Key and her memoir “Day and Night” won a Silver Key. Beyond writing, she is a passionate postapocalyptic LARPer and musician.
Claire Parker is a freshmen at Columbia College Chicago, studying music and songwriting. She has been writing short fiction for several years. She was a part of the journalism club at her high school and wrote for her school’s online newspaper. Her style of writing is suspenseful and dark. Her experiences with adoption, as well as living in both North Carolina and Maui, allow her to have different views to a large variety of topics. Hector Rasgado Jr. is a senior at Columbia College Chicago. He’s majoring in Game Art at the Interactive Arts and Media department with an emphasis on 3D modelling. His artwork “Dream Portals” was published by The Lab Review in the Genre - Fall 2016 issue. Sydney is a student at Columbia College of Chicago majoring in Poetry. Her work can be found in The Writing Conference, Navigating the Maze 2016, Forest for the Trees, and UltraViolet Tribe. She is a previous co-editor for Teenage Wasteland Review, and a 2016 Scholastic Awards writing portfolio winner. Her interests include writing poetry, listening to records, and playing rugby. Maria Schrater is a senior at Columbia College, majoring in Fiction. She writes poetry and fantasy, you can find her work in three past issues of The Lab Review, and in the upcoming Hair Trigger 40. She lives in Chicago with two roommates and two cats, Stormy and Tempest.
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