(break for applause)
When I was twenty two, I used to sleep in a van. My bank account was zero, and what money I made from selling my mom’s jewelry I spent on beer that tasted like piss that I’d drink alone in my van. Pretty sad, right?
(break for laughter)
Now when I drink, it’s two hundred dollar bottles with my own signature on the label, and it’s in the company of supermodels who want nothing more than to be with me and the highest powered people in the world. What changed? Easy. My mindset.
(break for applause)
I found that by sacrificing what I thought I wanted, comfort, normalcy, a pain-free life, and simply drilling a hole into my own skull and extracting the nectar inside to sell for millions, I achieved my dreams, a bank account big enough to sink a battleship, and enough, pardon me, any ladies here tonight, supermodel pussy…
(break for laughter and applause)
...all by one simple technique that I’m going to teach you today.
(break for applause)
If you’ve invested the relatively small fee to be in attendance tonight, at this beautiful Marriott ballroom, you’ve already purchased the necessary tools. Look under your seats…
(break for audience to look under the seats)
You have a bone drill, a manual pump, and a small tap that will attach to the exposed skull. Get yourself accustomed to the feel of these in your hand, these are going to be the tools that bring you riches, glory, fame… and yes, supermodel pussy. Or cock, if that's your preference... no judgement here!
(break for laughter)
Now, I’m sure you’ve all noticed the large brass basin in the middle of the room. That’s where we’ll be collecting our first communal harvest tonight…
(break for applause)
i bet my sweet patootie and lost
i am now pursued tirelessly by the sweet patootie repo men, who mean to claim what's owed them at all costs...
Well. I understand your concern. Society has traditionally been suspicious of and unkind to those of us who float two inches off the ground at all times and have a bottomless chasm instead of a face, and we are all products of the society we have grown up in. I have heard worse and I don't blame you for your preconceived prejudices.
That being said, I am a perfectly lovely guy, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd invite me in. Invite me in. Come on, just invite me in. Invite me. Invite me in. Invite me. Invite me inside. Invite me inside your house. Invite me. Invite me. Invite me.
goo goo ga joob
so, a fissure opened up between earth and hell last spring
now i'm one of those heads with legs that looks like a spider
they grew some eyeballs out of my chin so i could see
i kept telling them, the slaves of satan didn't LISTEN to ME
i kept trying to tell them, i already have eyeballs... i already have legs! just let me do my thing, i'm chillin
they said shh shh shh there there little baby our eyeballs are better
our legs are better
they are NOT better they STINK
i cannot see BLUE or GREEN and i cannot wear the JEANS i like
but at least
i like
the food
it's vegan lasagna night... but hold on... this lasagna isn't vegan... my god, it's not even lasagna...! it's uncle bill! and he's lacto-ovo-pescatarian!
And then, after many days of searching, the travelers had found it at last, the small wooden sign promising a continuation of their quest. It was smudged with a thick layer of soot, barely visible against the soot smudged across the uneven stone of the tavern wall or the soot smudged on the surrounding buildings. The sign held no words (for as Gobble had explained to them, many of the patrons could not read), but instead displayed a crude engraving of a cock and swan engaged in vicious battle.
“Finally!” exclaimed Kor’tan, the Heqetian pickpocket. The delay had been getting the frog-headed rogue hopping mad, and she had half-suspected this search through the circuitous winding alleyways would never end. It seemed now her pessimism had been misplaced. She snagged a fly out of the air with her tongue, gulping it down with relief.
“At last, indeed,” grumbled Shant, the Damned Baron of Darkness. “We have seeked these crooked streets of the City of Fellflame for many needless and monotonous nights, and I have grown weary of the tiresome repetition of our quest.”
Gobble the Knee Elf (named for its height, which barely reached the level of a humanoid creature’s knee) hopped around and squeaked, in its awful little voice, “Sometimes that’s how it goes! It’s not my fault that it took you so long to find the Cock & Swan! Hee hee! If you had been paying more attention to my directions perchance you wouldst have had more fun! Hee hee!”
The Damned Baron and the frog thief stared at Gobble, who danced from one foot to the other for a great long time. They knew, much to their chagrin, that were they to murder Gobble, their ability to conclude this quest would be severed. Yet, still, they considered it for some time before disregarding the thought and carrying on.
The frog shrugged. “Well, let’s go inside, anyway, and find the guy with the directions. He’s wearing a red shawl or something, right, Gobble?”
“A red shawl, yes! Yes, enter the tavern, hee hee! I will wait out here and keep an eye on these wicked streets for… danger!” Gobble grinned and began slapping its long-fingered hands against its taut, round belly like a drum, then hummed a very annoying song slightly off time.
Shant, the Damned Baron, turned and opened the door without another word. Kor’tan followed close behind. The door closed heavily behind them, and thankfully, Gobble’s terrible song was silenced by its heft.
The interior of the tavern was hot, wet, and the darkness was nearly complete. What little light leaked in through the single window at its front seemed shrouded, as if being filtered through a thin layer of flesh. The air was thick with a reeking miasma of ale and death.
As their eyes began to adjust, the travelers perceived indistinct shapes: perhaps chairs, tables, patrons, all colorless and vague. Only a single point of distinction existed in the tavern, what looked, maybe, to be the back of a man hunched over a table, wearing a red shawl.
“There, the man in the red shawl. Let us approach with caution. I do not like the smell of this place,” Shant whispered into the frog-ear of his companion.
Slowly, the two walked towards the red shawl, avoiding what shapes they could see along the way.
“Excuse me,” intoned Shant, to the hunched form in red. “We seek information, and we have heard that you are he who might hold that which we desire.”
The form didn’t move, react to them in any way. How was it so damnably dark in here, and so damnably hot, so damnably humid… the humidity must indeed have been damaging the wooden floors, because now even they were feeling… soft… beneath the travelers’ feet...
“Hey, buddy, wake up!” shouted Kor’tan. She jabbed at the form with her froggy hand, only for it to pass through the red shawl, into a fold of flesh! And it is only then that the frog thief and the Damned Baron noticed the needle-sharp teeth lining the walls and ceiling, each as long as a man’s arm…! The huge mouth around them began drooling, savoring their imminent demise, and then-
“Okay, so I throw a saving roll.” Max throws a D20 onto the table, pissed off at the mean trick.
Jared, sitting at the head of the table in his dumb little cloak, catches the thrown die before it finishes rolling, grins a shit-eating grin back at Max.
“Oh, no no no. No saving rolls. It’s an instant death. The room is a giant mimic, and it eats your characters, chews them up, swallows them, digests them, then poops them in a big mimic toilet and flushes them.”
Max and Ryan gape at each other. Jared chuckles, satisfied with himself. Ryan spits at him: “What the fuck, man? What do you mean it’s instant death?”
“Gobble tricked you and fed you to a giant monster that looked like a tavern. What do you mean what do you mean it’s instant death? It would instantly kill literally anyone. There were many ways out of this. You could have cast detect life, you could have cast detect traps… ohhh, but you were just sooooo uninterested in playing the game the way I had it set up for you, you wanted to date a dolphin or spend whole sessions in the dance hall or whatever, and now your characters are dead, forever. Oh well!” Jared laughs and starts packing up his dice.
“We were just trying to have fun, you fucking asshole!”
Jared draws his face into a big frown, mockingly, then starts laughing again. He whips his hand out, over the table. Before they can stop him, he’s nabbed their character sheets off, and starts ripping them up, backing away from them.
Max and Ryan both shout “STOP!” at once. Jared rips, keeps laughing, rips, keeps laughing...
Max lunges at him. Jared steps back further, out of his way, keeps ripping, throwing the pieces into the fireplace.
“All gone. All dead. Better luck next-”
But. Ryan has leapt over the table, a single smoothly executed move Jared didn’t see coming. Ryan punches him in the kidney. Jared wheezes, dropping the papers, dropping onto his knees. He drools onto the floor. “Buhhh,” he tries to speak, but can’t make his mouth form the words.
“No saving roll, dickhead?” Max jeers. He kicks Jared in the face with his high tops, breaking his nose and knocking out a loose molar. Blood spurts out of both nose and mouth, spattering against the floor in little red dots. Max steps back, admires his work. He waves Ryan forward: your turn.
Ryan bows in thanks, brings back his leg, trying to deliver another kidney shot; he misses his mark, breaks Jared’s rib instead, which flips inward and punctures his lung. His breathing becomes ragged, and after about thirty more minutes, after a continuous and escalating assault with fists, feet, then a fire poker, a brick, a claw hammer... his breathing stops altogether.
your ghost is just the guy that's driving around your skeleton and meat. he's stuck in there, so that's like his whole job until the meat dies and rots enough that he can climb out.
you think he'd be better at it lmao
Jerry,
Sharon and me and most everybody else in the book club got together after you left this past Sunday and we all decided it would be a good idea to send you this letter.
Just want to say up front that we don’t think you did or are doing anything wrong. If what happened to little Eric had happened to Spencer I would have taken him to the Pit too. And of course he’s your son and you’re going to love him no matter what.
Only I think maybe you’re fooling yourself about a couple things. It’s clear to anybody that he came back wrong, but whenever we try to talk to you about it you say things like “No actually I like him better this way” and “Why is it a problem that he’s eating rats it’s keeping the neighborhood pest problem under control” and the banging helps you sleep when he throws his tiny body bloody against the door of the basement all night and so on.
But we are sorry to say this but it is not just you that it bothers. When Eric gets out and starts stabbing himself in the middle of the diner it puts everyone off their denver omelettes and Lila lost out on a lot of tips that night. And the drawings he drew in the bibles at the library are both destructive and very upsetting. Nobody believes you when you say you are happy that he is showing a lot of artistic talent for his age or that isn’t it exciting that he knows a long-dead language now.
Now what we are NOT saying is that you have to re-kill Eric. If you do of course Sharon and me will help you, we have a lot of tools that could help and of course my time in the Marines gives me a lot of perspective .
What we are saying is PLEASE do not continue to lie to yourself that you think it is “cool” that he keeps saying he knows “the names of all the lights that appear when you close your eyes” or that he can sometimes speak in the voices of our dead relatives. You know it is not fun or funny, and frankly, it is offputting to all the members of the book club when you bring him in his cage.
We kindly request that you either keep a closer eye on your son and start admitting harsh truths to yourself, or we will re-kill him ourselves.
Thank you for your understanding, and we really appreciate the points you made in our earlier discussion about The Joy Luck Club. I hope you like the next chapter, Sharon has already read it and says it is a “doozey”!
Love,
Bull and Sharon and the rest of the Sunday Night Book Club.
i'm a rattling bag of bones and i'm here to eat your kids
they don't taste very good but i'm contractually obligated
sorry
apparently nobody ever taught your tinder hookup that 'coochie coochie coo' wasn't appropriate dirty talk
Spooktober story XX_xx_XX
“So, I just looked down there for the first time and let me just say, I am appalled.”
People snicker, and one speaks up, “I love it.”
Someone spits off of the balcony.
A stray cat on the skywalk below is startled and begins to lick itself.
The dullest bird from a nearby pigeon flock is struck in the head by a sticky raindrop.
Above, the neighborhood’s pigeon obsessive squawks with delight.
Below, the neighbors reel in their laundry and shut their windows in preparation for a drizzle of white shit.
“Look at those doves.”
“Beautiful. And look, we can almost see the sun.”
Barely-pattering smears appear on the sand, b(h)inkling with faint but pleasant sound. Binkle. Binkle.
“We’re gonna have to clean our laundry line. I’ll call the neighbors and let them know.”
*Ring Ring*
*Ring Ring*
Click.
…
… … …
“Hello? …”
A stray cat bats at the head of a stunned and spitcovered pigeon. The cat sniffs in. The pigeon barely flutters its wings frightening the cat into an anti-curious and overzealous backwards leap.
A neighbor below bemoans the shadow cast across their window.
“Oh, now what’s this?”
“…
…… … ……
… Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - …”
The neighbors across the way aren’t answering their phone.
“Someone spit again.” says a neighbor above.
“You’ll spit, you did it before.”
“Nah, I can’t spit. Not anymore. That was stupid.”
The cat jumped too far, accidentally flinging itself from the skywalk and down to the laundrylines. Neighbors start to take notice.
“Well, I’m perfectly happy just going back inside. We should keep playing if nobody’s gonna spit.”
“I’ve got some coins.” says a neighbor above.
A couple of shabby, chipped coins almost glisten in the almost sunlight.
A neighbor far below notices a tug on their laundryline.
“Oh, oh whoa, hey hey come here!”
“No way!”
A screen door, luxurious and aerated as it could possibly be, closes behind a partyful of neighbors.
“Back to it then? Okay, cowards.”
A pigeon on the skywalk stands upright.
A neighbor reels back their laundryline in a hurry.
“They’d better unlock the damned gear! Or pick up the damned phone!”
A flock of pigeons are ill-met by brutal roostings beyond the neighbors above.
Someone relinquishes, “Okay I’ll fucking spit.”
A pigeon on the skywalk coos.
A neighbor below shrieks.
A flock of pigeons remakes itself whole.
Jon Phillips spits onto the stuck laundryline of a neighbor’s below.
A black cat lands predictably on its feet, way, all the way down on the sands below the belowest neighbors, cursing each neighbor it passed.
If you haven’t been to the Tab’s Avenue Market neighborhood in a while, now might be a time to pay it a visit. Over the past few months there have been half a dozen exciting new openings that have revitalized the neighborhood (including Yolk & Marrow, which was recently nominated for a regional Big Fred Award for their succulent, fall-off the bone spare ribs), but maybe none that have had quite as many people buzzing as the Evisceratorium That Sends Your Soul Straight To Hell.
Located in the historic Fridge Building at Tab’s Ave and 18th, the Evisceratorium That Sends Your Soul Straight To Hell (already being nicknamed the ‘Visc’ by locals and survivors alike) is a “boutique human abattoir operated by corrupted denizens of Hell”, as described by a press release in advance of their soft opening on June 3.
They offer protracted, excruciating deaths, with deluxe packages including holistic and bespoke physical, mental, and spiritual torture for months, or even years (but be prepared to pay extra!) Regardless of your package, every visit to the Visc is guaranteed to end with whatever is left of your ruined and broken body and mind being destroyed, and your immortal soul being damned directly to Hell, to be tormented with unimaginable cruelty for eternity.
The Evisceratorium That Sends Your Soul Straight To Hell’s hours are Tue-Sun, 9 a.m – 9 p.m.
We sit and watch the lake, because we can’t think of anything else to do.
We know that somewhere under the endlessly roiling water, stirred by the frigid winter winds, rests a being incomprehensible to us. Only a night ago, those of us who still lived watched in dumbfounded and traumatized silence as its forked tails disappeared back into the deep waters, churning its waves, the whole lake lifted by the immensity of its form, the beach surging with that algae clotted slurry. I thought to myself, inappropriately but unavoidably, ‘eureka.’
The youths, some of them orphans now, huddle together, whispering suggestive names for the being, all of them crass and too concise. They call it a “creature,” a description which seems lacking. A creature suggests it less than human, subjugant in a grand hierarchical structure. The being I saw is something closer to a vessel of a vicious and uncaring God.
My husband is dead. I’ve seen enough of the body, tangled through the wreckage of our cottage, to assure myself of this fact. I consider myself fortunate. At least I have a body. Many have nothing, just an unexplained absence, the vessel of God having swallowed them whole.
I find myself awaking from sleep, my bones crying out for the comfort of a bed. Impossible, now, my bed shredded, scattered with parts of Andrew across a fifteen meter stretch of our ruined village. The night shatters into an assemblage of broken shards of nightmares, visions of the still lake appearing before my eyes as my spine forms to the hard earth beneath it, my lungs to the harsh and cold air of December.
When morning dawns, I awake again, despite my best efforts. The displaced water of the lake has returned to its normal level. The displacement has abated, and the foam laps naturally at the shore. I say to myself, inappropriately, once again, out loud, this time…
“Eureka.”
The youths look to me, like I’m sharing some hidden wisdom, but I just shake my head. I have nothing to say. My words have left me with Andrew. My words have crawled into the lake with the vessel of God.
the skull boardin kid gets it wrong
"Ooh, great fun, I'm a little pumpkin lad, look here! Watch me turkey trot!"
"How dreadful. Patrick, come here, look at this awful thing."
"My arms are gourds and my head is a pumpkin, I'm simply a little pumpkin lad! I may dance only with the air but she is a partner that keeps me light on feet, and oh I love to dance!"
"Good lord, Mrs. Benson, this thing is ghastly. What an obscene little goblin you are, pumpkin lad. If we were not bound by a previous engagement we would take our time chopping you into pieces and roasting you over a fire."
"You don't want to roast me! I am a little pumpkin lad who loves to dance! Shall I illustrate the Maxixe for you? Or perhaps a Charleston? Oh there is a song in my heart, dear friends, and I must-"
"Patrick, flag down that disgusting street urchin over there. We shall pay him a penny to go tell the Fornesyths that we shall be delayed."
"Yes, Mrs. Benson. You there, urchin!"
"Do you delay your plans that you might watch me dance? Or, I see you grasping my arm, does this mean you should like to join? Shall I teach you the steps? They're quite simple, and will bring you great joy. Your grip is quite firm, Ma'am. Oh, horray and harrah! I cannot tell you the depths of my excitement to finally have a partner that I may dance with!"
"No, little pumpkin lad, we intend to chop you into bits and roast you over the fire, and perhaps bring you as a gift to our friends the Fornesyths to eat with butter and jam."
"Oh no! Please let me go then! I do not wish to be eaten with anything. I simply wish to dance! Let me go and I shall continue on my way to the dance hall in the city, and you shall never see me again! I do not care to be roasted!"
"That is very sad for you, little pumpkin lad, but take solace you will not be sad much longer. Soon, will only feel terrible pain..."
"Oh no! Oh no! Oh nooooooo...!"
You awake slowly, your mind and memories bound in a deep and lightless bed of cotton, wresting themselves together blindly, haltingly and by feel, towards the sensation of consciousness. Blurred images swim in your eyes, wet and only but half open. It's impossible to interpret them, spilled watercolor and shadow.
The effort proves too much. Your mind slips back into the depths of nothingness, and you cease to exist, once again. For a while.
After some infinity of time, you begin the ascent anew. Another infinity, and your eyes glimmer open again, light piercing the void. Another, and you remember the existence of your body, your limbs. You can't feel them yet, but the memory of them gives you some sense of your body again, and with it, comes your mind. Your eyes, finally, flicker open fully, and you can feel yourself breathe, the rank air filling your lungs, expelling through wracked throat and dry mouth.
The room slowly comes into focus as your eyes regain their function.
It appears to be the interior of some decrepit rotunda, piss-yellow sunlight piercing in from an array of oval and ill washed windows. Your neck doesn’t respond to your commands to turn, so instead you circle around with your bleary eyes, feeling tired, oh, so tired, or something below tired, like rising from the grave. Incurious pigeons and thick reams of layered pigeon shit sit on the ledges just below the blearing windows.
The light illuminates stacks of books, some large, leather wrapped, and decaying; but a great number newer, glossy paperbacks blossoming with mold and mildew, their airport-fresh patina forever stained. Some of the bindings have completely come apart, spilling leaves across the floor, yellowed from years of sun.
Your eyes adjust, now seeing into the shadows, and you spy now a bulky figure, hunched on a small stool, its hair greasy and flowing from its lump-ridden head. It appears to be breathing heavily, raggedly, the dampness of its back sodding its thin shirt, sweat glistening off its hairy neck.
You attempt to cry out to it, but you emit nothing more than a low and unfamiliar wheeze, vibrating through your throat muscles, nerves in your back molars inexplicably crying out. Still, it’s enough. The figure turns. Its face is ghastly. Its eyes meet yours. Small, dull, piggish eyes, embedded in a pocked and unshorn face. Its mouth splits from beneath the black and patchy beard, revealing jagged, yellowing teeth.
“Ah, you’re awake,” it croaks, in an ugly, high-pitched tone. It lifts a pair of glasses from the floor with fat, dumb fingers, raising them to conceal the eyes. You wish to god you hadn’t gotten its attention. Something seems terribly wrong.
“No need to be afraid,” it says, rising, revealing its hideous, toad-like body, clad in greasy t-shirt, stained and threadbare denim jeans. It approaches. The stench, rotten milk and liquor, hits you before it has crossed half the room. You attempt to cry out, your throat disobeying you, nothing but another hiss.
“You should not try to speak. It will... prove difficult. I am a friend. I don’t suppose you remember me.”
You do not. This... thing... is not a creature which you have ever seen before, in waking, or even in nightmare. Its tiny eyes squint as it smiles, wetness glistening below thick and matted brow. “My name is Jon Phillips. We were friends, once. Or, acquaintances at least.”
You try to make your body move, but it does not respond to you. In fact, you cannot even feel it, anything but a dull ache, a very distant pain. What was the last thing you remember? Who is this thing? Where is this place? Jon Phillips? Why does it so freely offer its name, if it means you harm?
“Shh, shh, there, there. Calm yourself. There is no sense in struggling. I mean you no harm. I am simply a... well, I am a vessel. For the Muses.”
The creature, Jon Phillips, lifts one flabby, pale, hairy arm, and gestures around it. The pigeons? Is it referring to the pigeons as Muses? This thing is insane. You must get away. You must get away now.
“I always struggled, you know. With capturing my visions, those beautiful, horrible visions given to me, by the Muses. I lacked... what do you call it. You know. Motivation. I was given the images, and yet, without a drive to draw them from me, without any vessel but the blank page to spill them to, the beauty of my visions languished inside me, turning to sickness, disease, and eventually, something close to madness. Words on a page are nothing more than that. An emptiness worse than emptiness. And no one to read them... no one... so alone... crying madly to the void.”
It laughs, staring at the floor beneath its flat and knotted feet, its laugh a disgusting, huck huck huck, like dry heaves. It looks back up from the floor. At you. Directly into your eyes. You try to close them and find the horror too intense, you cannot, you cannot look away from this horrifying image in front of you, or the terrible things it is saying.
“But now, I have you. And I thank you. I truly must thank you. For you have solved my problem. No longer will my Muses give from me, to the page, to nothing. Now, they have an audience. Now, they have an audience, if only of one.”
It reaches out, now, touches the side of your face. You try to flinch away but cannot. Its touch is so gentle, so disturbing, its fingers soft and wet.
“You... you do not need to do any work, now, to read my words. I have taken the difficult efforts myself, for you, to make things easier, for you. You are now page, and reader. You are audience, and form. And I will write only for you. From the Muses, to me, directly to you, without any liason, any creative broker. You are... you are, my beautiful, perfect, audience of one...”
It is then that it rotates the mirror it has been standing by, and shows you... you don’t recognize it as yourself, at first, and when you do, what’s left of your mouth attempts, and fails, to open into a scream.
Your eyes lock into your own, wide, swiveling, bloodshot. Tears leak down your cheeks, past your top lip, over ruined flesh, to... your jaw has been completely removed. Everything below your mouth has been either amputated, or destroyed in more hideous and insidious ways. Your head is no longer part of your body, instead simply a dome of skull and flesh, isolated, corrupted, and part of some ghastly machine...
The hard palate of your mouth is bolted to a copper plate, from which the keyboard of a typewriter springs. A purple slug, your fat and writhing tongue, works uselessly above it. Wires spring from the keys, tracing up through hanging vertebrae, directly plugged into your cervical spinal cord, and from there, buried deeply into your skull. Your trachea winds down a wooden dowel, held in place with oily fencing staples, to a thick plastic bag, which heaves as you attempt to scream. Your trachea works madly.
“Now now, none of that,” murmurs Jon Phillips, this hideous tormentor, this insane surgeon, this cruel, hairy frog of a thing. “Time for our first story together. What shall it be? Muses, speak to me.”
It listens, as you scream silently, you attempt to tear yourself from this horrifying situation, even to die. But Jon Phillips doesn’t hear you. It hears its Muses. They coo, calmly, above, amongst the windows.
“Ah, yes,” the hideous thing says, and sits down on a stool, in front of you, poising its dirty fingers above the typewriter keys that have replaced your lower jaw. “That’s just the thing.”
When its finger presses down on the first key, it is as if a great crackling firework had burst just behind your eyes, blossoming through your brain tissue until you see, lit in fire, bounding in front of your jittering eyes: W
E
L C O M E
T O
S P O O K T O B E R
S T O R I E S
Y E A R
8
