Shock Totem 7: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted Read online

  PUBLISHER/EDITOR

  K. Allen Wood

  CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

  John Boden

  Mercedes M. Yardley

  Tom Bordonaro

  COPY EDITOR

  Sarah Gomes

  LAYOUT/DESIGN

  K. Allen Wood

  COVER DESIGN

  Mikio Murakami

  Established in 2009

  www.shocktotem.com

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2013 by Shock Totem Publications, LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of Shock Totem Publications, LLC, except where permitted by law.

  The short stories in this publication are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The views expressed in the nonfiction writing herein are solely those of the authors.

  ISSN 1944-110X

  Printed in the United States of America.

  NOTES FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

  Welcome to issue #7!

  This issue marks a new era for Shock Totem Publications. Shortly before our last issue was released, Nick Contor chose to step away from Shock Totem and focus his life on different things. Along with John Boden, he’d been with us since day one. We wish him well on his journeys, but he is missed.

  As a fitting tribute, this issue contains Nick’s final contribution to Shock Totem: a story by the legendary William F. Nolan.

  In his stead, we have recruited Tom Bordonaro, author of the hilarious, gonzo-nutso “Full Dental” from our fourth issue. Tom swings for the fences, and together we have Very Big Things planned. It’s about to get interesting...

  But let’s talk about right now and what you hold in your hands. Our seventh issue.

  Color me biased (I am, so I expect you will judge for yourself), but I think we’ve delivered another wonderful collection of fiction and nonfiction. And by Beelzebubba, these tales have some loooooooooooong titles!

  As mentioned, after meeting Nick at KillerCon IV in Las Vegas last September, William F. Nolan sent him “The Horror That Et My Pap—and Other Swamp Stuff,” a tale the likes of which you have never read before. This was the last story Nick had a hand in accepting. So here’s to you, Nick.

  Not to be outdone, S. Clayton Rhodes delivers the equally long-titled “The Gates of Emile Plimpkin: The Gravedigger’s Legacy,” a novelette that veritably oozes classic horror. Damien Angelica Grintalis (formerly Damien Walters Grintalis), a woman never known to shy away from getting creative with story titles, gives us the heartbreaking “Shall I Whisper to You of Moonlight, of Sorrow, of Pieces of Us?”

  As always we’re not afraid to put newcomers front and center, and this time we begin with the one-two punch of “Consumption” and “Among the Elephants,” by Victoria Jakes and Amberle L. Husbands, respectively. In “The Long Road,” Kristi DeMeester leads us to the water’s dark edge and tempts us to drink deep, drink long, because we are so very thirsty.

  Rounding things out are Dominik Parisien’s excellent poem, “Smoking, The Old Sergeant Remembers 30 Mins Past Ceasefire,” and the creature-feature “Thing In a Bag,” by M. Bennardo. What’s in the bag? Well, you’ll just have to read on and find out...

  In addition to all the great fiction, we have for you conversations with literary stalwart Laird Barron and Violet LeVoit. The early 70s are explored in the fifth installment of our horror-in-music serial, “Bloodstains & Blue Suede Shoes.” Narrative nonfiction is handled by Kurt Newton, and with “The Hook, the Hole, and the Garden,” John Boden delivers possibly the most heart-wrenching piece of nonfiction we’ve ever published.

  And that pretty much covers the big stuff.

  Next month marks the fifth anniversary of when I first decided to publish a magazine. Many of you have been with us since those early days, and we’ve picked up many more along the way. I cannot thank you enough for sticking with us, and I hope you’ll stick around for years to come.

  It’s been a hell of a ride thus far, and we’ve got plenty of gas and long roads ahead.

  K. Allen Wood

  July 1, 2013

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Notes from the Editor’s Desk

  The Hook, the Hole, and the Garden

  An Article

  by John Boden

  Consumption

  by Victoria Jakes

  Among the Elephants

  by Amberle L. Husbands

  The Four Horsemen of the Parking Lot

  Narrative Nonfiction

  by Kurt Newton

  There Is Always Something Worse

  A Conversation with Laird Barron

  by Michael Wehunt

  The Gates of Emile Plimpkin: The Gravedigger’s Legacy

  by S. Clayton Rhodes

  Smoking, The Old Sergeant Remembers 30 Mins Past Ceasefire

  by Dominik Parisien

  Strange Goods and Other Oddities

  The Horror That Et My Pap—and Other Swamp Stuff

  by William F. Nolan

  Shall I Whisper to You of Moonlight, of Sorrow, of Pieces of Us?

  by Damien Angelica Grintalis

  Bloodstains & Blue Suede Shoes, Part 5

  by John Boden and Simon Marshall-Jones

  The Long Road

  by Kristi DeMeester

  Stargazer Breech and Choking

  A Conversation with Violet LeVoit

  by John Boden

  Thing In a Bag

  by M. Bennardo

  Howling Through the Keyhole

  THE HOOK, THE HOLE, AND THE GARDEN

  An Article

  by John Boden

  The pre-divorce memories I have of my parents are scattered, a handful of seeds from a quaking hand.

  I was around seven, and my little brother two, when our father left. That was how I had always assumed it: Dad left. He got up and went to work one day and never came home. Not home to us, anyway. He wanted a new family and had found one. With two girls the same ages as me and my brother, it felt like we had been replaced. For some reason we had grown stale or broken and my father wanted something fresh.

  At that young age, the first pangs of resentment began to sprout. The beginnings of a cold garden, one I would tend for decades.

  When we would go to Dad’s for our agreed-upon weekends, it was always awkward. I held such disdain for the girls who now called my father, “Dad.” Being young affords you a certain lenience or ignorance with the processing of fact. Perception is often skewed to the point of abstract. I think back to the weekends and wish I had known better then. These girls were the mirror twins of us, my brother and me, and it was every bit as awkward for them as it was for us. And I’m sure it had been awkward for our older half-sister, whom we didn’t see very often. But being a child, I bottled all those bad feelings and watered the garden with them.

  Sometime in early adulthood, I took a notion to write my father a letter, and let him know exactly how I felt about things. Still too young to think straight and still hot-tempered, I penned a vile letter. I told my dad I felt he was a sham and a coward. I told him that when I was a kid I looked at him as a superhero and now he was just a man. It hurt him deeply. And of all the things in my life
I wish I could take back, that is surely topmost.

  My garden was growing out of control and the plants that resided there were voracious.

  Resentment is a lot like a fishhook. It gets in your craw and holds you steady. You can fight and try to pull free, but it will usually just nestle in tighter and bind you fast. Some of us swallow the hooks, some never bite. Most of us, I think, just learn to live with the nagging pull at our throats.

  Before I got married, I had begun the long road to mending the relationship with my father. I came to realize the wisdom he had to offer and that what I had always took for complacence and ignorance was more of a genial pride he took in his children. I loved sitting and talking with him for hours, even though I could hardly do so without thinking of the bile I had spewed. I enjoyed his stories of his childhood with my uncles and aunts or the family history he knew so well, and many times I swore that I was going to record these things and preserve them, but I never did. When I would call and we would talk on the phone, I always had so much I wanted to say but couldn’t articulate.

  My stepmother handled the card sending, birthdays and Christmases. For the longest time she signed the cards from both of them. Then one year, I got a birthday card. Signed Dad, in his own handwriting. It was such a simple thing but it meant so much. I saved every card he signed from that point on.

  As time marched on, I never visited enough. When I did, it was always warm embraces and lots of talking. His smiling eyes and little ways. I’d give him books I was a part of, books he’d never read but showed off to whomever stopped by. I was his son, and he was proud of all I did. He was that kind of man, exuding an immediate ease with everyone. I wish some of that had been passed on to me.

  On Black Friday, November 25, 2011, I came home from work to a message from my sister. “Call Dad and listen to his voice.” He was very sick and would not allow her to take him anywhere. I picked up the phone and hit DAD. After a few rings an old man answered. An ancient sounding voice trying to sound like my father. He sounded weak and frail, and through the course of our very brief conversation, a bumper crop of fear and terror sprang to life in my guts. “Oh no,” a small voice whispered in my ear. Once I got myself together, I called my brother.

  By Sunday, he was in the hospital. I visited him as often I could. He was so small and thin and unlike the man I had seen months prior. My sister told me the diagnosis, one I already knew. Cancer. All over the place. She shoveled no bullshit. She’s a nurse, one of the best, and what she said hurt more than anything I had ever heard. We cried, and as a family we grew stronger. I wrote a letter to my father. A deeply honest letter and apologized for all I had said or done when I was younger. I told him how much he meant to me and how much I loved him and how proud I was to be his son.

  I took it with me to the hospital but never read it to him. I gave it to my stepmother to read to him later.

  By my birthday, Dad was going home. They had made a plan to hopefully start chemo and other treatments as soon as he was able to eat. Dad just wanted people to stop poking at him. He just wanted to go home. He wanted to be in his own house and he wanted buffalo chicken pizza from Pizza Hut.

  He got home on Friday and I called and talked to him briefly, then my stepmother for a bit. She said he was tired and that Monday they would go to a nearby hospital to put together his treatment regimen. I told her I would be up to see him early that week.

  Later that weekend, they took Dad to the ER. He was admitted and by the time I got to see him, the following Wednesday, he was no longer conscious. I didn’t think I would be able to cry anymore. A person has to run out of tears eventually, right? I held his hand and kissed his brow before we left. My stepmother told me she hadn’t read his letter yet, but she still had it. I told her it was okay, we can read it to him when he’s home.

  They sent him home the Thursday before Christmas. I cut out of work early on Friday to be with him and the family. I came back to my own home on Christmas eve to spend it with my wife and sons. Dad would never have wanted me to miss that time with them. After Christmas dinner at home, I drove back up to my father’s place. We sat with him all evening. My stepmother slept on the couch, adjacent to his bed. My sister and I sat and listened to the sound of his breathing. It got worse and worse. To this day I can’t stand the sound of coffee brewing.

  Shortly after 3 a.m., he passed away.

  We were all present, his wife and his children. It was heart-crushingly sad, but also very special. One of the few opportunities we are afforded is to allow someone to know how much they are truly loved. I sat in the living room with my siblings and we watched as the funeral director and his crew collected my father and took him away. Nothing can ever be more sobering than that...well, maybe until you help choose a casket. We made it through, hopefully stronger, and while our family grew closer during that very difficult time, we’ve all kind of strayed back to our respective lives and those connections have worn down.

  It’s been almost two years and not a day goes by where I do not think of that man, my father. I think of his smile and his eyes and that voice. I want to hear him laugh. I just want to hear him. The hole in our lives is so great, I know it will never be filled.

  I used to grapple daily with the thoughts of regret and “If only I had...” I long for a day when I’m strong enough to go to that garden, weed-choked monster that it is, set it ablaze, and baptize myself in that pitiful smoke, and come to grips with the fact the we all have regrets and we all wish we were better, had done more.

  Over time the hurt does ease, but just a little. I know I am not alone in these feelings. I’m certain this scenario has played out in many of our lives, maybe even playing out right now. Most of us will face the tragedy of our parents dying. Our children, siblings. The void such loss creates in our souls is not meant to be filled. I think it is meant to be honored and treated with reverence. Love and reverence make for better soil than regret and guilt or resentment.

  And that which will bloom there will always be beautiful...

  CONSUMPTION

  by Victoria Jakes

  I am suffocating in this summer of desire.

  The air is too thick, too heavy, for coveting of this magnitude. It soaks my skin, so I am always slick, always damp, never clean. I will never be clean again.

  X leaves in the morning. X is my forever. He kisses me when he says goodbye, then pretends to forget his keys so he can come kiss me again. When I was small, such an act could have occupied an entire afternoon of make-believe with my dolls. Ken just has to kiss Barbie one more time. He can’t help himself. How romantic, to be uncontrollable.

  Now, I am out of control.

  Sometimes, I imagine myself small enough to crawl under X’s skin, into his stomach cavity. There I would find safety amidst his organs. A benign tumor of love. When I wrap his arms around me, will him to squeeze me until I cannot breath, it is never enough. I am overwhelmed with his care, but until he engulfs me totally, infinitely, it will never be enough.

  • • •

  I meet Y by the ruins of the old hospital. I think the crumbling infrastructure is romantic. Not, like, Paris-in-the-spring romantic, but pain-so-profound-it-lingers-permanently romantic. Y is not particularly sold on the idea. He prefers his beauty untouched by humans, even if our interference has now been reclaimed by the earth. We talk it over for a while. In the end, the ghosts of our world only mean something to Y because they mean something to me.

  Y asks about X. Y and X are friends. In some parallel universe, Y and X could be in love. In a bizarro world, where they are not men but humans, Y and X would be lovers. It is a tragedy that our world can be so strange, but never the way I need it to. Y and X never touch. Not drunk. Not in a playful jest. Not in a friendly hug. Their distance speaks more than they know.

  I am not so disciplined.

  When Y makes me laugh, I touch his arm. Fleeting, or it is supposed to be. I can’t anticipate how hot his skin is. It smokes against my fingerprints. If I we
re to press my body against his, I might combust. I am desperate to be incinerated.

  This is not melodramatic. This is how it actually is.

  The old buildings whistle with a breeze I cannot feel. The dead watch us as I peel my hand away, as we move apart, as regret pounds down on me until my bones threaten to crumble. In a place like this, the dead recognize sickness. They can see my guilt ruining me.

  Y asks me if I am okay. I tell him I am fine.

  It was not supposed to be this way.

  X is my forever. I know this in the part of my mind still avoiding the crush of need for someone else. I know this in the part of my mind that knows there are no ghosts here. I know this in the part of my mind that insists on sanity.

  X will be away for five more days.

  • • •

  I am bored without X. I can barely sleep without him. I watch episode after episode of procedural television in an attempt to give structure to my day. Victim, suspect, evidence, twist, suspect, judgment, punishment, repeat. Y calls after the fifth judgment. I am ready to be punished.

  Today is less humid, and in turn, I want Y less. We walk in circles around the empty town, shooting the shit about our uncertain futures, our unhappy pasts, and how much we love X.

  I picture a sitcom scenario of the three of us living together. It would be all homoerotic jokes and dancing dream sequences and never-ending, will-they-won’t-they sexual tension. The laugh track echos in my ears. We can do this, ha ha ha. We can be friends, ha ha ha.

  Y goes back to his house for dinner, and I go back to mine. But then he calls, wants to see me again that night. This should be fine, ha ha ha. We had such a normal day, ha ha ha. I really need a friend, ha ha ha.