Soup’s On!

“Any luck, Paleo?” Keto asked his fellow cannibal as he approached the giant cauldron he was stirring.

“Nothing,” Paleo said. “Zero, zip, zilch, nada. No airplane crashes. No lost safaris. Not a single soul out there for dinner.”

“Well then, it’s soup again.”

“Ah, man! I need to sink my choppers into some nice juicy ribs or breasts, or wings or... Hey! Where’d you get that?”

Paleo froze, his mouth watering, as Keto dropped portions of two human legs into the pot.

“Let me have some of that meat!” Paleo yelled.

“Sorry,” Keto said. “I only have thighs for stew.”

From Guest Contributor Lee Hammerschmidt

Lee Hammerschmidt is a Visual Artist/Writer/Troubadour. He is the author of the short story collections, A Hole Of My Own, It’s Noir O’clock Somewhere and For Richer or Noirer. Check out his hit parade on YouTube!

Ophelia Takes A Bath

Ophelia under the water; kneecap mountains poking out dwarf the dipping hills of her breasts. The ragged, brown seaweed strands of her hair move gently as her hot kettle sighs ring around the steam-shrouded bathroom.

She finds brash or delicate things expose her madness—the rough lyrics of a Pogues’ song or the fragrance of a flower bomb. Silver chains on her thighs, bright relics of dejection, shackle her to the past but aren't enough to save her. So she piles his words as pebbles on her heart and in this way she doesn't float away—at least not today.

From Guest Contributor Adele Evershed

Shame

I take a bite of the chocolate cheesecake, stolen from a remote corner of the refrigerator and want to savor with closed eyes, but I don’t dare. Mom can come anytime. I gobble it up, throwing the carton in the trash.

She descends the stairs and frowns at the cake crumbs on the floor. I hate her for that.

I look at the book I’m supposed to be reading and try to hide my shame, my secret. The same secret that’s hers when she introduces her teenage daughter to her friends, her eyes apologizing for the girth of my thighs.

From Guest Contributor Anuradha Dev

Survivors

They live presently. Now they tear the soft meat from the bone, now they hear the twang of resistant tendons. The vibration of it. A chorus of crows. Scudding wings of moths that search for the darkness just beyond. In the pit is hunger. We exist, hands pasted to rifle stocks, glimmering gunmetal eyes, rattle-boned. They know family born of teeth, defined by the low moans of their communes. Their tongues hang together. Our hands hang separately, our nails scratching our own stomachs, our thighs, our faces. But we are all hungry. We will all ooze the same black ichor.From Guest Contributor Carrie Cook

Carrie received her MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and is currently living in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Review, Midwestern Gothic, Menacing Hedge, and Bartleby Snopes.

Murderous Intentions

He sat on the park bench. Waiting to find his next victim. Women pass by as they take their morning jog.

A woman with meaty thighs and blonde hair grabs his attention. Not too slim, not too heavy. Right in the middle. She is the one. Time to work his magic. He jogs beside her.

“Hi I’m John. Let me just say that even if there wasn’t gravity on earth, I would still fall for you.”

“Smooth, but cute. I’m Kathy.”

They jog together. His mind wanders. How is he going to kill her? Stabbing? Poison?

So many endless possibilities.

From Guest Contributor Alexa Findlay

Alexa is a Creative Writing Major 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, Blood Moon Rising Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, and A Story in 100 words, amongst others.

Colony Collapse

Hands full of bees, Alice screamed at the sky. Sitting in the grass, blades tickled her thighs. Bee by bee, Alice lined them up. “I’m sorry,” said the speaker at a funeral attended only by the dead.

Maybe she shouldn’t have quit work. Never built an apiary. Would’ve been better joining a gym. Cooking. Reading books that lived in corners of her home. Would’ve been better to speak what he said in the elevator, his voice curling green, twisting to lick her ears.

Alice lay down, tears falling into her hair. She didn’t want the bees to see her cry.

From Guest Contributor Michaela Papa

Unrequited

Soft and warm, her diamond-drill eyes cut through troubles to allow her molten laughter to fill his heart.

She moved like a leopard and, when her thighs brushed innocently, nerve endings tingled with an indescribable charge.

Wanting her more than breath, his eyes often sought the smooth valley beneath her throat, desire locking his tongue until...too late, leaving him to pounce at the desiccated dust eddies in her wake.

Fleeting shards of opportunity teased like mirages, requiring more energy and know-how than his aging, wounded, soul possessed.

She’d offered him a photo once. He’d declined. 2D simply wasn’t enough.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid