After Auschwitz

Survivors with faded numbers tattooed on their wrinkled forearms slowly reboard the tourist bus. The archives they were supposed to visit burned down months ago. Yahweh beckons me forward with a curled finger. Don’t make eye contact, I remind myself. Seconds later I feel the blast wave on my cheek. It also knocks off my hat. “Look!” Yahweh booms in his usual angry voice. “Remember!” There are clouds, come evening, that will resemble bleeding stigmata. There are birds that return to nests in the eyeholes of skulls. I could try to explain it to anyone who asks. No one asks.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Invasion

Crowds of strangers gather to see an unfamiliar lightning storm. The thunder roars and howls as the storm grows angrier. The ground begins to shake and rumble. Lightning bolts strike near and far.

What was once a quiet town was now invaded by alien-like creatures. So small, yet full of razor sharp teeth. They leap from one victim to the next, craving the taste of human blood. Their bodies growing by the millisecond.

Their nests all around. Cone-shaped and green. Clumped together. Millions of babies hatching. The human race dwindling by the minute.

The invasion has just begun.

From Guest Contributor Alexa Findlay

Alexa is an Undergraduate student at the University of California, Riverside. She spends her time writing fiction and poetry. Her work has been featured in Pomona Valley Review, Better than Starbucks Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Halcyon Days, Grotesque Magazine, and Blood Moon Rising Magazine amongst others.