Hangover Cure By Bob Pastorella
Gritty eyelids, left eye won’t open at all. He thinks, am I home? Bryce grabs his glasses. Everything looks familiar. Massive headache erupts when he moves. Gimping to the bathroom, he pisses for ten minutes. Cuervo Gold and Captain Morgan mist the rim.
Ice cold water, down the hatch. Drinking naked in the kitchen, he drains the glass and goes back to bed. It’s 8:30 am. Hangover in full gear.
10:45 am. The puny mutt next door is barking like he’s on fire. Bryce wakes up, wishes the dog dead. Barking confirms God’s not listening to him right now. Wishes again. The Devil is out to lunch. He grabs some boxers and hits the shower. Turns the cold water off and drowns his head in steam to clear his nose. Dried off and hungry. Lunch is chicken strips and tator tots floating in ketchup. The ketchup looks like blood but he keeps gnoshing. Not the best, but hits the spot. Damn dog is still barking.
Headache settles, thud thud, thud thud. Along with the barking dog, it makes a song in his head. Yike york, thud thud, yark yark, thud thud.
Not adding. Feels like stalking. Bryce updates his Facebook with links to his stories online for friend Christina, Christina number 2. The Christina number 1 lives in Houston, unhappily married. Bryce wonders when he’ll see her in porn. She’s a swinger and the only one he’s ever loved. Christina number 3 is a hard nut to crack, but that red hair and nice butt, definitely worth the wait.
Roommate busts in. Time to collect his share, head to the bank and get some groceries. Bryce follows a hot Milf around at store trying to see if he knows her. The rock on her finger tells him no, but he wants to know her. Casual basket bump, she looks up and smiles. She likes to play. Maybe one day.
There’s bleach in the kitchen. He loves dogs, has one of his own. Diablo stays at Moms. Diablo is smaller than Fluffy next door. Diablo can kill Fluffy just for being cute. A piece of ham soaked in bleach equals no more barking. Bryce turns out the light in his room, gathers the trash bag in the kitchen, and hauls the half-filled bag to the dumpster. Fluffy pokes her head out from under the fence. Barking loudly now. That little spot where she’s dug the ground out to poke under the fence would be perfect to place the ham.
Bryce loves dogs.
Bark again.
Bob Pastorella live in Southeast Texas. He’s published with Troubadour21, Outsider Writers Collective, Thunderdome, and his short story “To Watch Is Madness” is featured in The Zombist: Undead Western Tales. He is currently working on a Vampire/Noir Novel.
Reborn?
Damn it’s dusty in here. We’re shaking out the cobwebs. Nefarious Muse is back. Got something damn good? Hit up the About section and we’ll get this party underway.
Trinity by DB Cox
Trinity
—the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost
Someone is crying-a lonely sound off in the distance, insistent, and
impossible to ignore. It’s coming from somewhere near the tree line, just
beyond the perimeter wire. Why doesn’t someone go out and check on this guy?
Where’s the medic?
Scared shitless, he tries to get out of his foxhole and investigate, but he
feels as if he’s strapped down, powerless to move. He concentrates with all
of his might, trying to make a connection between his brain and useless
limbs, but it’s impossible. The harder he tries, the more frantic he
becomes.
_____
When Harris comes awake, it happens all at once, as if someone has just
thrown open a door. Sweat pours freely into his eyes and his breath comes in
ragged gasps. The fragments of who he is, and where he is, slowly drift into
place. He turns over on his side to check the time. The red digits on the
clock show 6:00. It’s just beginning to get light out. He slides his legs
over the side of the bed, sits up, and feels around on the bedside table for
his cigarettes and lighter. After fumbling with the lighter, he manages to
get one lit and takes his first drag of the day.
For the third time this week, he’s had this same crazy dream-followed by the
feeling that someone has arrived just in time to save his ass from some
unnamed evil. He considers calling his doctor to ask about cutting back on
some of the drugs, but he knows he’ll get the same old ration of shit. “Mr.
Stone, if you stop taking the medication, you’re going to end up right back
in the hospital-blah, blah, nada, nada…”
“So fucking what”, Harris grumbles, “I could use the rest.”
New Print Work by Chris Deal
Chris Deal has a new collection of flash fiction available from Brown Paper Publishing.
‘Prose haikus, fiction bullets, one-sentence novels, two fingers of story neat, no chaser . . . I don’t know what to call these, really. But I want more.’ –Stephen Graham Jones, author of Demon Theory and Ledfeather
A free PDF version is available as well.
Purchase Cienfuegos here. (goes to PDF and Amazon link.)
All had Been Reclaimed Now by Ryan Sayles
They were reduced to eating each other.
By the waning light of what was left of their dinner fire they absently fed themselves, eyes scanning the surroundings. Shadows could no longer be trusted. The sun was setting and they were on the beach.
The lifeless ocean still made its susurration in the background; but now it was devoid of that white noise no one could ever quite put their finger on that made it sound vital. That made the ocean sound alive. The Earth had been put to an end.
There were only two of them now; whittled down from a larger mass composed of strangers mashed together by the cataclysm. One man. One woman. Their own reverse Adam and Eve. Peering about without real concern. An end was inevitable; only the degree of violence in which it swooped in was in question. There was no life left in their eyes. They were tapped out. Weary. Ruined. In many ways feral.
He took in their scenery and felt agony for what was lost. It was worse knowing what was lost cannot be recouped.
She took in their scenery out of honest curiosity. Oblivious. The shock of their reality turning inside out had erased her.
“Look at how the buildings took the wave’s impact.” She said, nodding toward the remaining husks of the city’s former skyline. Little more existed on the horizon than shattered concrete clinging to warped rebar and I-beams bent so far out of true it was comical. They were all bent westward. The direction in which the Atlantic rose up and kicked. An aquatic titan large enough to bowl over mankind.
Even at this distance he could see petrified tangles of long-dead seaweed dangling from the buildings. It took months for the ocean to recede and unveil the ruined coast again.
New Print Work from NM Writers
Eternal Night: A Vampire Anthology
Blood, fangs, darkness and terror…these are the calling cards of the vampire mythos. Inside this tome are stories that embrace vampire history but seek to introduce a new literary spin on this longstanding fictional monster. Follow a dark journey through cigarette-smoking creatures hunted by rogue angels, vampires that feed off of thoughts instead of blood, immortals presenting the fantastic in a local rock band, to a legendary monster on the far reaches of town. Forget what you know about vampires; this anthology will destroy historical mythos and embrace incredible new twists on this celebrated, fictional character. Welcome to a world of the undead, welcome to the world of Eternal Night.
Featuring stories from Nefarious Muse authors:
Chris Deal
Christopher Dwyer
Nik Korpon
Caleb Ross
Richard Thomas
Buy at Amazon.com
Krepler by Louise Norlie
I have killed Krepler with a too, too heavy application of the hatchet edge. Raim intones greedily into my ear – juicy, juicy like a split pomegranate – hinting at Krepler’s fate, Krepler who I once loved with the power of pearls and other obscenities, Krepler who – alas! – acted in the opposite of my intentions. Skin separates in such a way as whales, as ribs. Fingernails encrusted black and hands stained yellow, the whole corpus numbing into haze. The melting silts the earth. Krepler’s face gains immensity – imagine: he once took the most hush, meek actions – becoming mistier as we wait, our hunger rising like steam. Raim licks his chapped lips, grunts. You need to forestall that habit, I whisper to Raim, placing my hands over his eyes and near his ragged and well-chewed lips, that habit of staring. That habit of speaking. What’s done is done. At this admonishment Raim backs down, frothing about alleged unfairness. Don’t deny that you see what you did, how you make it unwhole, pry it asunder? Now is no time for quibbling. I do not hesitate. The hatchet pauses over Raim, then descends. Have I acted right? Raim tries to be still, but his feet twitch. He is just pretending, no doubt. But Krepler – he will not deceive me now. His mouth hangs open – the way fish scream – a sight exceeding all others in vain omnipotence. A voice calls – Krepler’s – pick me, eat me, a poison berry looks best. I could use something warm in my belly. I bite my tongue, bite it so hard I taste blood, thinking of Krepler and of Raim, of the three of us falling open and apart, parting wider and wider.
Louise Norlie‘s publications have appeared in Gloom Cupboard, decomP, otoliths and elsewhere. Her writing will also be included in the Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts anthology from Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink. Meanwhile, she has been putting in her time in a bureaucratic cubicle where she shuffles papers and pushes buttons deep within the belly of a large building. Visit her at louise-norlie.blogspot.com.
