The spell called for a dead man’s hand. Not just any dead man but, according to the manual, “the hand of the man who killed one most dear.” That put old Elizie in a bad spot. It wasn’t that she would have minded sacrificing someone close to her. The problem was there was no such person. The only solution was to have someone else perform the ritual.
Continue reading “One Final Ingredient by Lamont A. Turner”
Once upon a time, a rather ordinary boy walked into the kitchen, picked up the knife they used for cutting potatoes, and stabbed his mother 30 times.
It was actually closer to twelve but the more the story was told the more people added to it.
Continue reading “Seven by Ellie Jordan”
Pete’s night at the pub with his old school friends had brought the usual mix of nostalgia, laughter and awkwardness. Now living in the city, it was great to return – occasionally – to his home village in the countryside to catch up with everyone. Sure, most of them were the same. Same jokes, same haircuts, same lies. But the familiarity was comforting. The devil you knew didn’t tend to disappoint you as much as the devil you didn’t.
Continue reading “The Sack by Richard Huw Williams”
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Charleston’s sleepy New Town Cemetery had once been the center of a controversy. For many years Town was spelled ‘Towen’ on the fancily etched marble dedication obelisk located just inside the main gate. The unique spelling was on purpose because the wealthy widow who had donated the land for the cemetery and paid for the obelisk wanted it that way. She claimed that it was the name of the Welsh village of her birth. Despite more than a century of weathering, you can still mark her unpronounceable name on the obelisk, but, oddly, not those of the local big shots who’d presided over the cemetery’s plating in 1882.
Continue reading “Towen Meeting by Leila Allison”
Prefatory Remarks
Defining the Tippleganger:
The Spirit half of this little drama
Has a second bottle of wine ever convinced you to cut your own hair? Did that darn vodka make you “overshare” sex fantasies you have about your sister’s husband with a mutual friend who cannot keep a secret? How much Budweiser does it take to get you to call your ex at three a.m.?–in spite of what it says about that sort of thing in the restraining order.
Continue reading “Tippleganger and Dozzle: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison”
Philosophy 101 saved my life. A weird thing to say, I know, but it’s mostly true. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that my sleazy professor taught me how to stay alive. Of course, that knowledge was passed on accidentally. Professor Tomlinson’s teaching methods consisted of smoking dope and trying to screw his female students, me included. Any actual learning was purely circumstantial.
Continue reading “Brought Down by Y by Marco Etheridge”
She said she saw angels, and repeated it, so I did too, but I still haven’t grasped what it means.
I climb onto my bed, above the covers, and I gaze at the ceiling, yearning to comprehend it. This gray and dirty ceiling has hovered my whole life, floating above my bed. Built before I arrived, still standing after I’ve gone. Untouched, unchanged. Can I imagine a life without its ever-presence?
Continue reading “The Ceiling by Charlie Rogers”
Dribbling saliva, slumped in the deepest of rêveries, he was approached by a French accented usherette- a veritable mini-skirted caricature, advertising a take-me-from-behind coquetry; she tottered wantonly, making a beeline towards him. Continue reading “Rêverie by E. F.Hay”
Jonathan was out on his front porch swing, engrossed in another vampire book, when he gave a shiver and, looking up, caught his neighbor’s dark eye. Willy was across the street, standing on his own front porch. ‘Okay if I come over?’ he called apologetically.
Behold Awesomenicity to the Nth: Miss Renfield Stoker-Belle
An awesomemost author should enter the page after she’s been introduced by a statement similar in purpose to the music heralding a professional wrestler. Instead of approaching the page accompanied by a noise in the key of Lowest Common Denominator, however, the awesomemost author should materialize beneath a hella descriptive bold font header, like that shown above. From here on out please consider what stands atop this opening paragraph as my calling card. I put a lot of energy into the creation of my identifying verbal riff, which shall ever more precede whatever addle-minded gibberish Ms. Allison has to offer under the Feeble Fable flag. Although I have forbidden Allison to feed me any more lines in which peculiar twists of “awesome” are featured, the ban does not extend to the awesomenistic literature I produce.
