LAUREN HASTY Every time he moved, she could hear the grass dying, the beetles scurrying, the universe falling apart. This was what entropy looked like - like a vast beast, languid in its repose. Tigers look the same way. "Where do you come from?" she asked, the thin, aristocratic line of her mouth sensual in its strictness - perhaps sensual because of that strictness. One of his ears flicked. Overhead, a leaf separated from its branch, starting to fall to the ground. "You ask 'where', as if there were a particular place that I am from. If that is your mentality, we should stop this now. You will never learn." Eyes as blue as deep holes in oceans ticked towards the leaf, then back to him. "You had to have come from somewhere," she observed, the pad of her thumb rubbing against the soft underside of her fingers. "Beings - even beings like you - don't just spring up out of nowhere." Before her, he chuckled quietly; it was a rolling sound, avalanches and landslides giving way. Smoke poured from his mouth, little licks of fire teasing exposed teeth. "Why not, girlchild? Why can beasts such as I not merely spring into existence? As a child, did you have a toy, an imaginary friend; something that you believed with all your being was real? As you grew older, did you not sweep childish things away from you?" Her brows drew a moment, for what he suggested...well, yes. She had had a doll, but - "Are you saying someone thought you up?" His sides heaved a moment, clawed fingers flexing in the rot-soft dirt. Hadn't they been hooves a moment ago? "Yes and no," he answered, infuriatingly enigmatic. "That is...someones thought me up." For a second, his head tipped upwards; hundreds, thousands of razor sharp tines lifted towards the sky. To her eyes, it seemed as if he could cut it open with those antlers. "Have you ever seen a shooting star?" he asked. "Have you ever briefly wondered what they are? Where they come from?" His body shifted, vast mass crawling upwards in unnatural fashion, like a beast with no legs, vipers to offer apples to the innocent. It was mesmerizing. She did not entirely realize that not only had he stood, but was crawling her way, belly low as the dog asking for trust; belying true nature. "That is where I am from," he purred, the snakes and worms pouring out of the volcanic pit of his mouth. "I am from where the stars die, child."
As that vast maw yawned there before her eyes, lit with the hell fires in his belly, she heard the last words she'd ever hear. "I am from where the worlds end." HOW DOES ONE”s GARDEN GROW?
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Issue Three JUNE 2013 Volume 1, Iss
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JUNE 2013 CLEAN CLOTHES Short Story
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Lauren Hasty is a misplaced souther
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Charlie ran down the street, bare f
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She inhaled deep and then exhaled,
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called to her, she knew she wouldn
- Page 15 and 16: PREDATOR by JUDITH DORE PREDATOR by
- Page 17 and 18: Adam and I have been coming to this
- Page 19 and 20: “Holy fuck,” he says. He falls
- Page 21 and 22: Sound travels strangely underwater.
- Page 23 and 24: UGLYLIGHTS by THE UGLYLIGHTS ICA BO
- Page 25 and 26: magnifying glass with a lamp direct
- Page 27 and 28: what they meant to her, and especia
- Page 29 and 30: even if none of the other kids woul
- Page 31 and 32: Nobody heard him, not even Cassie w
- Page 33 and 34: pleas for mercy but breaking glass,
- Page 35 and 36: When Janie came to her senses, she
- Page 37 and 38: It was a choked, guttural voice, li
- Page 39 and 40: more companions to join him in his
- Page 41 and 42: Jackie squatted in the prison yard,
- Page 43 and 44: A guard in the tower had taken aim.
- Page 45 and 46: Jackie squatted in the prison yard,
- Page 47 and 48: The Laugher was in the front of the
- Page 49 and 50: he wanted to dispense some vigilant
- Page 51 and 52: ITH TWO L’s by COLIN JAMES
- Page 53 and 54: TOR STREET by LAST HOUSE ON VECTOR
- Page 55 and 56: “I have your word?” Richard wen
- Page 57 and 58: PEEPING TOM’S TOM’s N
- Page 59 and 60: PEEPING TOM’s MASTERPIECE by NATE
- Page 61 and 62: PICK UP LINE by DAN LEE PICK UP LIN
- Page 63 and 64: After a few minutes of listening to
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- Page 69 and 70: Night had barely fallen when two hi
- Page 71 and 72: man began to escort Kevin down the
- Page 73 and 74: “Caitlyn. What about yours?”
- Page 75 and 76: “Werewolves?” Just hearing the
- Page 77 and 78: SHA ANNIE ANNIEN
- Page 79 and 80: SHADES OF BLUE by ANNIE NEUGEBAUER
- Page 81 and 82: EYER’s RING by CASSIE MEYER’s R
- Page 83 and 84: out and rubbed the dirt and dry mud
- Page 85 and 86: money before speaking, “How’s i
- Page 87 and 88: eflection in the mirror. Terry’s
- Page 89 and 90: simple chain, an identical ring sit
- Page 91 and 92: The price of admission to their clu
- Page 93 and 94: knocked on his door, Boy snuck up b
- Page 95 and 96: Boy placed the rabbit in the center
- Page 97 and 98: to let go but Boy easily backhanded
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