Restless, the dead rolled over in their graves, struggling against the pine ceilings that had collapsed under the weight of soil and years. Claustrophobic and filled with an ill-defined hatred of the living, they began to claw their way through the earth, swimming in very slow motion toward the surface. Hands were thrust into the chilly night air, fingers spread out and then slowly forming a vengeful fist before they began to haul themselves up. Though all had woken at precisely midnight, most of them were not shambling through the fog until two or three in the morning. Their first victim was, of course, the gravedigger and groundskeeper who kept his vigil in a shed near the gates, smoking cheap cigars and reading harlequin romance novels when he wasn’t sleeping on the job. They grabbed him with dramatic flair: as he leaned his chair back, the window behind him burst open and half a dozen rotting arms clamped around him, dragged him into the fog kicking and screaming. Soon after, by
The balance had shifted, the old rules were dust. Jan Vlasov had come to the town of his birth after years of campaigning to find nothing was as he remembered it. The citizens did not cheer as the regiment marched through the streets the way they had upon their departure—in fact, there were very few citizens to be seen. One house in every four or five was an empty shell, doors and glass pilfered and the rooms clearly bereft of furniture. It seemed that the city had suffered the same fate as the regiment: three years ago, five hundred men had set out to join the prince’s contingent. Now, eighty-seven returned, and those who hadn’t looted riches now wore motheaten rags and scavenged breeches. Vlasov had expected his homecoming to be very different—he had expected his rise through the ranks to culminate in a medal pinned on his chest by the mayor. He found only desolation. The regiment was formally dismissed and paid out in the town square, a few half-interested faces watching from
She was an undead bloodhound—
She was a cement mixer dressed up like a martini glass
Let me tell you she
She couldn’t snap her fingers, thank God
I don’t believe in genies but this one,
If she could snap those fingers, you’d give her all three.
Can’t tell you where she is now
Didn’t get a forwarding address
Or a number, really
Just an old-fashioned girl, in some ways
Hippy necrofascist trombone player in others, you know?
With the inexorable, deliberate pressure of an invading armada, fire crept across the fields Gregor had kept vigil over all his life. Summers of hard work and winters of scraping by all made irrelevant by the torch of a single jaded infantryman on his way through the country. No tears came to his eyes, no emotion crossed his face. He had done all he could; his own countrymen had told him the enemy must be denied any possible food source, no matter the cost to farmers like him.
He stood on his porch, a stoic man of forty-one, hand on one of the wood beams that held a roof over the patio. His blue pickup sat waiting for him to join the refugee
Blatant, Childish Blasphemy by SgtPossum, literature
Literature
Blatant, Childish Blasphemy
The Swiss Guards gave up their grandiose regalia and went rampaging through the streets of Rome naked and hopped-up on amphetamines. Women and children ran from their approach while Italian men—amused, chattering, smoking oily creatures in track suits and knockoff brand clothes—formed drunken gangs to fight them off. Soon the city was alight from car fires and dumpsterside orgies.
The pope, whose own name he had forgotten, wandered his little abode in Vatican City trying to clear his head. All of his prostitutes were too obliterated to pay him any mind (one had stolen his hat) and either lounged about the halls or screamed at one
If the Viking at Stamford Bridge were born today, who would he be? In 1066 he killed forty English soldiers single-handedly before meeting his fate by a spear thrust up into his groin. The way I see it, that would be a life relived today by the owner of a bar in the wrong part of town, someone always fighting to stay afloat when all evidence says he’ll soon be buried under debts and competition. Someone who loses it all with pride, and afterward only feels ashamed that they couldn’t have stayed standing a little longer.
Or perhaps he would have been born into the life of a man like Harry Brubaker, who at twelve lived under a brid
Strange black, winged creatures perched on the hulk of a dying starship, grooming themselves with tongues concealed in their maws of needle teeth, yellow eyes darting around furtively. At the approach of Jeroh their heads perked up and their ear-holes dilated in anticipation of trouble. It was ridiculous for them to be apprehensive of him—a human being who might reach the height of the base of their long necks if he could stand up straight. He wore white cloth to conceal the shredded ribbons of his once-uniform, and peered out from his shawl with one blue eye.
The starship rested at the heart of a volcanic plain, a vast expanse of blac
Written on the Wall of a Bomb Shelter in Michigan by SgtPossum, literature
Literature
Written on the Wall of a Bomb Shelter in Michigan
Oh I can hear the old boys calling
They’re calling my name
They’ve been drinking, and they keep saying
They’re saying they want my brain.
Am I gonna let ‘em in
Or am I gonna eat the barrel
Am I gonna gun ‘em down
Or keep singing this carol?
The coffin rots and the paint peels away like skin.
Propped up against the wall as though a resting soldier’s rifle, it is ignored.
The professor comes into the basement, looks at the object.
He puts his hands in the crease and pulls away the door.
It swings open, and there lies the skeletal remains of a child far too small.
Scratching his head, the professor sets to work investigating.
The nails that had been torn away clawing at the door lie at the child’s feet.
He runs some tests—they are not the child’s.
Where oh where did that body go?
He laughs at the mystery.
Grave robbers killed a child and did the old switchar
There exists in the English language a single word for the very specific act of tossing someone out a window. The word, defenestration, does not possess in it one iota of the lethal intent that usually comes with committing the crime itself. Indeed, it is much harsher to say, “we’ll toss you out the window,” then it would be to say “we’re going to defenestrate you.” I, for one, would be less afraid of the latter statement.
However, suffice it to say that whatever you might call it, Rufus Flaherty, CEO of Dalcor Industrial, didn’t much appreciate it when he was defenestrated. Perhaps it would have c