Ash Lomen and Jordan Krall

BLOW UP THE OUTSIDE WORLD

“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state….”

– William S. Burroughs

PART ONE:

SUPERNOVA EXPRESS

I. Cosmic Fistfuck

Every day was the same: cigarette smoke and movies. Cheap vodka and even cheaper pornography. Andy Oswald was nearing forty years old and his life hadn’t changed for ten years. It was like an eternal bad day.

At times he felt like someone was watching him and that maybe his life was only an experiment performed by a higher power be it God, a group of gods, or some sort of abstract energy force that held up the universe. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse but it was something to think about. Pretending to be a philosopher gave him a distraction from being late on his rent or not having gotten laid in three years.

He wasn’t completely alone, though. His friend Potter was an occasional companion but they mostly just saw movies together and that prevented any real conversation. That was okay with Andy. He didn’t like to talk much anyway.

So Andy woke up on that Wednesday morning and began his day like any other. He smoked. He drank. He drearily jerked off to porn. Another bad day in a long line of bad days. By the afternoon he was tired as hell and fell into bed, expecting to experience nothing but drunken dreams. He would be unpleasantly surprised.

As his head hit the pillow, Andy felt his body go limp. He thought maybe he had drunk too much vodka and spent too much of his semen into his crusty handkerchief. Maybe his body was giving up for the night. He stared at the wall, watching the neon lights from across the street flicker into shapes resembling fishhooks, mushrooms, and cigars.

Yeah, he had drunk too much vodka. His head was on fire and his body was sinking into the bed. The neon shapes intensified until they covered his room. They combined with dark red tendrils and crept up the walls.

Soon he felt like a fish in a tank. His walls were shimmering glass and the air around him became thick fluid. He still couldn’t move his body but he continued to blame it on the vodka. Andy learned a long time ago to always blame his problems on alcohol and this time he decided he was justified in doing so.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

II. Captive Flesh Unlimited

(Incoming Transmission)

Andrew Oswald lives in a large glass terrarium. He is a productive, well-hung adult human of about forty years. He shares his cage with five females: two pure bred humans, two sub-terrestrials, and an android Oswald refers to as ‘the body beneath’. He prefers his native flesh or metal but will reproduce with any member of his harem without coercion.

He only kisses ‘the body beneath’.

He only beats the blond haired human. She is tall and lanky and resembles a past mate from his adolescent years.

He builds small, complex pieces of art with the spare time allowed to him, and hoards these pieces from the rest of the subjects.

He is a fascinating study.

* * *

Everything about them hinted at an ageless and twisted biology. They wore few clothes, displaying their odd deformities with pride. They clanked and slurped at the unbreakable glass of Oswald’s cage, phallic eyes bulging when he fucked the women they threw at him. The women were ghastly ones, females with no attributes of beauty but still: Oswald fucked them.

He learned to tolerate his new life as a sort of oversexed lab rat. He could tolerate a lot… just not their watching him. That was close to unbearable.

His finished beating Sarah and walked across the terrarium to his bombs. It was still surprising to him how a culture as advanced as the Valdrott couldn’t even recognize a simple cluster bomb. The body beneath, the Lifeless One, had let him borrow her parts, and he would miss her the most.

* * *

We will continue to study the groups of collected humans over the next several life cycles. In roughly five years we will introduce a stronger male into Oswald’s group which will establish----

(Transmission Error)

III. Silent Glass and Bilocation

Large, bulbous sacs of blue milk grew on the walls of Potter’s cage. He poked them every morning though he didn’t know what he expected to happen or how it would help his situation. Maybe deep down Potter hoped the sacs would burst open and send a cascade of milky salvation over his body. Then he could stare at the liquid as it dried and cracked like the paint on the walls of the movie theatre he used to go to back when he was on earth. Unfortunately, the sacs were never close to bursting; their tough membranes acted like impenetrable walls around a fluorescent-blue liquid fortress.

Through the frenzied haze of captivity, he imagined the sacs as enlarged breasts that looked like they had been bruised and battered during a violent bout of sex. These milk mounds soon morphed into giant blue testicles that jiggled with each poke of Potter’s finger. He got close to them and sniffed. They had no scent.

Shouldn’t they have some aroma? Potter expected a sour milk or crotch smell. He dug his chin into his chest, raised his arm, and sniffed his armpit. The stench of his body odor was potent enough to convince Potter it wasn’t his olfactory sense that was failing.

Potter wanted the sacs to smell, wanted them to smell like anything just so he’d know they were something natural, something based in his old reality. He would have been happy for them to smell like anything but preferred if they possessed the aroma of a woman. He was honest with himself and admitted if they had that musky scent, he would’ve attempted to make love to the sacs in hopes of penetrating the membrane and burying his cock deep into the blue milk. His eyes fluttered while his mind spat out freeze-frame images.

An ejaculation into blue wetness. Sperm mixing with milk. Membrane stretched and broken like deflated balloon. Glass melting from scrotal heat exploding into a sour orgasm.

Hours later, Potter came to his senses. He looked down at himself and saw that his stomach had become one of the sacs: a translucent membrane surrounding blue milk that swished with every one of his breaths. The round glob of gel that was formerly his belly button jiggled as Potter inspected it.

What had the Valdrott done to him? Were they expecting him to go insane? If so, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He’d rather live out his short, captive life with this monstrosity of a stomach than to give them any sort of contentment. Their experiments would not be successful if he had any say in the matter.

Potter continued poking at his belly, somewhat enjoying the movement, the milk swishing like polluted ocean waves. He thought it was getting bigger though he hadn’t eaten a thing in days. Perhaps that was why he had tried poking the sacs open, to eat what was inside. It would give him sustenance or it would kill him. Either way, he had to try.

The membrane on his belly seemed weaker than the membranes on the sacs. He poked his finger into his gut, pushing his fingernail into it until he was convinced it would pop open, spilling the contents all over. Potter wanted to drink what was inside. His thirst and hunger were now overwhelming him. The sight of his swollen abdomen made his mouth water. He kept poking and poking until he heard the Valdrott outside of his cage.

They were ready for him again.

(Potter’s Transmission)

They gave me another exam: four rods inserted into my brain that made me see sparks of bright colors that looked like scratchy Technicolor on a torn up movie screen. I was swept up in them and couldn’t escape their blinding effects for days. My stomach is giving me hell. It won’t let me inside but I keep trying as I am now immune to self-inflicted pain. I want to eat and drink. I am starving. I am beginning to think the Valdrott have won. I am beginning to think that even though they are more advanced than us, they are nothing more than bloodthirsty butchers.

(End of Transmission)

Potter closes his eyes, the darkness of his eyelids transforming into a point-of-view showing him constructing a bomb out of spare android parts. He had the knowledge of having savagely fucked the machine. He had dismembered it immediately afterwards in order to build the mechanism that would hopefully tear down the Valdrott mothership. Or at least he hoped it was the mothership. If it wasn’t, he knew there were scores of other humans who were going through the same torturous experiences.

He opened his eyes and noticed he was still staring at the sacs hanging on the glass like fungi. The sight startled him and he closed his eyes again, seeing the construction of the bomb as almost complete. He opened his eyes and saw the sacs which seemed bigger this time. Potter closed his eyes and saw the end result of his bomb-making: a mess of electrical wiring, metal, multi-colored Semtex-glass, bits of biomechanical jetsam all fused together with translucent android-secretion.

The bomb looked complete but Potter couldn’t be sure. He looked up from the bomb and expected to see the milky sacs on the glass wall of his cage. They weren’t there.

He opened his eyes and the bomb disappeared. In front of him were the sacs, pulsing like furious blue hearts. What was going on?

Closing his eyes again, seeing the bomb.

Opening his eyes, seeing the sacs.

Both views were vivid and as real as anything else Potter had every experienced. When his eyes were closed, he felt the bomb. His fingers were able to caress the smooth Semtex-glass and twirl the wiring with his index finger. When his eyes were opened, his fingers touched nothing, the smooth sensation of the bomb absent until Potter closed his eyes again.

What was going on?

He opened his eyes, stared at the sacs. My name is Potter.

He closed his eyes, inspected the bomb. My name is Oswald.

And keeping his eyes closed, Oswald/Potter looked around his cage for the perfect spot to place the bomb. He settled on the corner closest to the Valdrott observation deck.

Don’t open your eyes, he told himself. Keep them shut and set the bomb.

* * *

(Oswald’s Transmission)

Whenever I close my eyes I see a grotesque cluster of sacs filled with blue milk. My stomach has also turned into one of these sacs but only when my eyes are closed. I feel like I’m in two places at once. I wonder if the Valdrott have anything to do with this. Now I remember something else, I remember that

(Transmission Error)

Oswald thought of the Lifeless One who was now just a wreckage of spare parts, many of which he had used in the construction of the bomb. He closed his eyes, shuddered at the sight of his ugly sac-stomach. Opening his eyes, he looked at his handiwork. He pushed any thoughts of his women to the back of his mind and ignited the fuse of the central bomb.

Regret was instantaneous.

IV. Blowing Up Right

Potter looked past the blue sacs, past the glass of his prison, past the Valdrott observers. He was able to see out a window and into the dark void of space and watched as a Valdrott ship exploded.

Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes, he told himself.

He closed his eyes anyway. The temptation had been too strong.

On the dark screen of his eyelids, he watched shards of broken metal, glass, Valdrott flesh and wiring envelope him in a blazing orgy of fiery destruction. He could feel his flesh being ripped from bone.

He opened his eyes and drooped to his knees on the cold floor, crying. In a torrent of tears and blurred vision his eyes shut again. Potter saw other cages. Things he didn’t want to see… feelings he didn’t want to experience.

A young woman being raped repeatedly by a gang of hideously deformed semi-human beasts while her lover was forced to watch, held in place by chains of dripping energy.

They would probably dissect his brain later… to see if anything was different.

Potter could feel the pain of this poor man’s every emotion. He saw another cage, fit with reflective mirrors and housing a creature that must have at one time been a man, deformities spouting from every miserable inch of its skin, covered in blue, pulsating sores. It was begging for death in vain.

He could feel its pain as well. He begged with the creature.

Potter finally forced open his eyes, threw back his head and screamed with such force he thought his lungs were oozing out of his throat.

His bloated stomach began to split open, blooming slowly and painfully into a fleshy flower oozing a blue milky secretion. The sacs around him began to bloom too… but their secretion was more akin to the blue of the diseased New York skyline (oh, how he missed the earth).

When the two milky chemicals finally made contact on the cage’s metal floor they began to give off an odd red glow… and a strange odor… something familiar and welcoming… like female musk.

The Valdrott, his silent watchers, were gathered all around his prison.

And then everything exploded… again.

PART TWO:

LAST HOUSE ON 42ND STREET

I. The Blast Picture Show

So I’m sitting there, taking in a movie at the Times Square Theater, and trying to mind my own business when the guy two seats to my right starts jacking off.

Once I saw that, I knew I should’ve gone to the Lyric and watched that Andy Milligan double feature. Sure, I had seen The Ghastly Ones three times and The Body Beneath twice but it still would be better than sitting there with the wet sounds of masturbation in my ear. And why the hell was the guy jacking off in the first place? We were watching Mondo Magic and it was far from arousing. Well, at least for me. Who knows what people found sexy nowadays?

I had to piss, too, which made me want to just get up and leave the theater altogether. To reach the less than adequate facilities in the Times Square Theater, you had to go through a dank labyrinth of trash and darkness full of potential danger. That danger could be junkie-thieves or angry transsexual hookers who won’t take no for an answer. They’d want your wallet or your ass. Or both. Even if you made it to the bathroom, you still have to worry about walking into a drug deal or blow-job. Trust me, those things did happen.

The urge to piss wasn’t overriding my desire for safety. I’ve heard stories about straight guys like myself being orally and anally raped by angry crack addicts or bi-curious pimps. Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against fags – but I have no desire to experience any penis other than my own. And I only call them fags because all the ones I’ve ever known always referred to themselves as such so I don’t feel like I’m overstepping any bounds of decency at all. In fact, one guy I used to work with actually introduced himself as Frank the Fag. I’m not kidding. That’s what he liked to be called.

So anyway, there I was watching the movie and holding in my piss, trying not to hear the guy next to me going to town with his palm.

Then from behind me a voice said, “Hey, you got peanuts?”

I ignored it. I didn’t think he was talking to me. People usually kept to themselves in a place like this.

But then there it was again:

“Hey, you with the beard. You got any peanuts or what?”

I looked over at the masturbator to make sure it wasn’t him speaking to me. Maybe the pervert knew how to throw his voice. Who knows what he was capable of, know what I’m saying? But it wasn’t him, thank God. He seemed oblivious to anything else but his cock and the action on screen. I turned around and saw a guy two rows behind me. He was looking me in the eyes, nodding.

I said, “What?”

“Peanuts,” he said. The guy bore more than a little resemblance to a young Klaus Kinski, that is, if Klaus Kinski was black and sporting a huge, glistening afro.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, man,” I said.

Black Kinski got up from his seat and jumped over the seat in front of him so that he was in the aisle directly in back of mine. He said, “You thick, man? You have a bag there. I’m asking you got peanuts in it. Can I have some?”

I looked down and realized that yeah, I had a bag on my lap I had bought at the concession stand but it wasn’t peanuts.

“It’s popcorn,” I said. It was weird. I didn’t even remember buying any popcorn.

“Now, was that so hard? All you had to do is say that in the first place. Man, you had to make things so difficult.” He leaned back in the seat and watched the movie.

I watched, too, but also kept my eyes on both the masturbator and Black Kinski. For all I knew they were some sort of gay rapist tag-team ready to strike. Mr. Jerk-off never stopped moving his hand up and down like he was churning butter or something. I was starting to wish I’d gone to the Lyric to see The Ghastly Ones. Not only would I probably not have to worry about these two guys but the seats were more comfortable in that theatre, too.

Five minutes went by.

Again, the voice from behind said, “Hey, can I have some popcorn, man?”

“Jesus Christ.” I handed him the bag. “Keep it.”

“Nah, I just want a handful. This shit gives me gas.” He dug his hand into the bag, grabbed some popcorn, and then leaned back again. “Much obliged, man, much obliged.”

Then I thought I knew what was happening. I was getting fully prepared to be offered some crack or junk at reasonable “deuce” prices but the guy just sat there watching the movie.

There was a grunt from the masturbator and then he doubled over, his forehead resting on the seat in front of him. He stood, adjusted his pants, and then squeezed past me. I held my breath and moved my head away.

Black Kinski jumped over the seat and into my aisle.

He said, “Fuck, that dude left his load right there on the motherfuckin seat.”

I looked over and saw semen glistening in the dull movie-light. Honestly that wasn’t the first time I had seen that in a theater. Anyone knows if you take a trip to the Deuce, you wipe the seat before you sit down or you take your chances.

“Yeah, I see it,” I said.

“Hey, man, you got any candy or something?” Black Kinski asked.

I wanted to be left alone. I was trying to figure out this fucking guy’s angle. My muscles tensed because this was the part where a knife would be pulled on me. I’ve heard stories like that, too. A friend of mine knew a guy who went to the New Amsterdam to see Rolling Thunder at 3:00 in the afternoon and ended up losing a wallet and gaining a stab wound in the gut. He almost bled to death in the lobby. He finally got rescued by a Good Samaritan but not before being pissed on by a gang of twelve year-old junkies who just got out of school.

I knew shit like that happened so I reached into my coat in preparation.

I said, “No, I don’t.” I almost added the word “sorry” but decided it wouldn’t have been sincere and I’m nothing if not sincere.

“Man, I gotta sweet tooth won’t quit, you know? In the lobby, man, they ran out all the good shit.” Black Kinski was getting comfortable sitting there and talking to me. He didn’t even keep his voice down. That was a telltale sign he was a regular. A new comer would whisper, thinking the other patrons would give a shit. Most of the crowd consisted of hustlers or loners, not movie fans.

I was the exception, really. I was and still am a total film nut. No matter what it is, I go to see it. Sometimes it feels like a compulsion as if the very flickers of the screen fill my lungs with air and my veins with blood. I guess it sounds stupid but that’s how I feel sometimes and at that moment, I felt Black Kinski encroaching on my lifeblood.

He said, “Hey man, I’m botherin you, just tell me.”

I sighed. “No, that’s okay.” I’ve always been way too nice.

“Thanks for the popcorn, man, but listen. I wanna show you somethin.”

Here it comes, I thought.

“You gotta come with me, though, I can’t show it to you here, know what I’m sayin?”

What the fuck, did the guy think I was stupid? Did he think I was going to follow him? Well, let me tell you. I was that stupid. I can’t explain why. There is no plausible explanation for my behavior. It was as if my body wasn’t my own.

Black Kinski got up and started walking toward the other end of the aisle. I wasn’t normally that passive but I closed my eyes for a second and found myself following him anyway.

I put my hand in my coat, though, and prepared for the worst. I may have been stupid but I wasn’t entirely so.

He led me past the hallway where the bathrooms were and took me to a door in the corner of the theatre I had never noticed. “In here, man,” Black Kinski said. He pushed open the door and walked right into darkness.

And like a dumb ass, I followed him.

For a few seconds I couldn’t see a thing so I took my gun out of my coat and held it at my side, prepared for anything.

There was a click and then the lights went on. Black Kinski was standing against a cement wall to my right, grinning like a maniac. He pointed to the other side of the room.

In the corner there was someone facing the wall. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. All I could see was they were wearing a bright silver raincoat. That wasn’t all that strange for 42nd Street but then I noticed the coat itself was moving, the silver color swirling like some sort of optical illusion.

Black Kinski said, “Man, what did I tell you? I wanted to show you somethin and there it is. You believe it?”

“Believe what?” I said, still entranced by the bright silver coat. The person in the corner moved a little bit, adjusting him or herself but not letting me see their face or any features at all.

“What do you mean, what? And what’s with the motherfuckin piece, man? You gonna rob me? And after you offered me your popcorn and shit. Man, that’s fucked up.”

I tore my eyes away from the coat and looked at him. “I didn’t offer. You asked,” I said, continuing what was probably the stupidest conversation of my life.

“Well, whatever, man, whatever.”

I said, “I’m not going to shoot you. But what the fuck am I supposed to be looking at? Who is that?”

Black Kinski gave me a face like I was both blind and stupid. “Man, when I saw you, I thought you were a smart guy, a guy I could trust, someone to bring into it all. Now I see you’re just a dumb motherfucker. A dumb, lily-white motherfucker with a gun.”

I looked back at the coat, my eyes burning from the bright silver. Relaxing my gun-arm but keeping it prepped, I walked closer to the figure in the corner. As I did so, the silver coat turned to black.

Then I realized the coat had not turned black. Black Kinski had turned the lights off.

I quickly turned and held the gun in front of me but close to my body, not wanting him to make a grab for it. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and I could see Black Kinski standing there twitching and waiting to make a move. I pointed the gun and shot him in the face.

I turned towards the person in the silver coat and fired a shot. The silver coat started to glow in the darkness, shades of silver and red that pierced my eyeballs like direct sunlight. The person in the raincoat shook like an epileptic but in the darkness I still couldn’t make out any features.

Then the lights came on.

II. Goodnight, Manhattan, You Lily-White Bitch

At that exact moment, high above the clouds and New York’s smog-choked cityscape, hovering invisible in the sky like hellish omens… the lights of every single Valdrott Ship within forty miles of the island went dead.

Then the sky over Manhattan began to fall.

* * *

“This was expected,” one Valdrott said to another in their horrid language.

The older Valdrott didn’t respond but simply raised a purple-crinkled eyebrow that was adorned with human nipple-flesh, rotten and engorged.

The younger Valdrott continued. “Manhattan…”

Again there was no response from the nipple-browed Valdrott who just slid its phallic eyes back into its tiny skull with a slow slurping sound. It shook its malformed head.

The younger monstrosity hissed. “Think I’m lying…playing games?”

Finally the old Valdrott spoke. “Games….games…”

“Our sigils are losing power. We need to blow it up…before we lose all the ships.

It must be done now.”

“Then blow it up,” the elder Valdrott said. “Was getting bored anyway.”

“I’ll contact the one called Oswald…or was it Potter?”

The older Valdrott spat. “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

* * *

Sarah’s shredded intestines recoiled like frightened snakes. The power had gone out and her innards were exposed to the air. The Saw Bugs had eaten away most of her insides but her body had started fighting back. Without any effort from Sarah, her cells began to eat away at the Bugs.

Her wounds started to close. The blood returned to her tear-stained face as she felt a renewed sense of vigor.

In seconds Sarah had healed completely.

But still, the ship she was in was falling fast, falling from space like a droplet of metallic rain and she still continued to think of the man who had beaten her. He had looked familiar, looked like someone she knew as a teenager. The abuse was painful nostalgia and oddly enough, she was starting to miss it.

* * *

Then the lights came on.

“Pain touches all of us like bittersweet tentacles,” I said, though I had no idea why I had said it out loud. I spat the words like an angry cat.

The room was empty now, no signs of Black Kinski or that thing in the silver coat. Somehow I could still feel an overwhelming dread that soon turned into pain as my kneecaps exploded like pipe bombs, sending bone shrapnel up to my eyes, blinding me momentarily. My spine turned to jelly, my body snapped forward, and I buried my face in my crotch.

Black Kinski’s voice said, “Should make you suck your own lily-white dick, you little motherfucker.”

My body sprouted tendrils of raw flesh. Insects that looked like organic razorblades began to crawl out of my pores. I was on the verge of being hurled into unconsciousness but I fought it by thinking it might be a good thing for me to be able to suck my own dick.

I crawled over to Black Kinski who was now smoking a cigarette. Hadn’t I just shot him?

“Yeah, you shot me, motherfucker,” he said. “So what?”

The razorblade insects were covering the floor and walls now but he didn’t seem to notice or maybe he didn’t care. My body was continuing to change, becoming a warped version of a human being. “What now?” I said.

“Man, that’s the motherfuckin question of the year, of the decade. Hell, you’re the smartest man of your generation. Scummy white motherfucker.” Black Kinski held his cigarette out and let it go. The cigarette floated in the air, the flame turning from orange to silver. “You know, if you had just played it cool, man, you’d be okay. But you just wouldn’t go with the flow. You have to learn to go with the flow. Open your eyes and go with the flow. The flow.”

The cigarette disappeared and so did Black Kinski.

* * *

Little Joey Potter toyed with a small slug perched atop a dull silver bench in Central Park. He pressed the sharp end of a broken stick into the mollusk’s small body, nearly impaling it. He watched its body curl up in response to the pain. That made him smile.

When the day suddenly began to get hotter despite the weather forecast, Joey called out for his mother. His smile faded and his last thought was of his father, wherever he might be, and why he hadn’t come to save him. His body was soon reduced to atoms by an expanding silver-red light that soon engulfed the whole of Manhattan in its warm embrace.

A few seconds later, the Valdrott ships dropped like great silver marbles upon the ashes of the island, throwing up white plumes of dust.

PART THREE:

THE FINAL FUCKING BLAST

I. You are now entering Blue Milk, NYC

Earlier that morning, Sarah had decided a little leakage from her nipples wasn’t going to stop her from making some money. The perverts would probably love to see blue milk squirting out of her titties, anyway. Hell, they’d probably pay extra for it.

By ten in the morning, she was selling her ass right in front of the Times Square Theater. The usual crowd was there and that made Sarah comfortable despite her knowing she could be raped or killed at any point during her shift. It was a living, though.

One of the things she loved most about the area she worked was that most of the men who hired her took her into the theaters to do their business. That meant Sarah could make money giving head while also watching a movie out of the corner of her eye. If she could get away with it, Sarah would sometimes place her head on the guy’s stomach so she could watch as much of the film with two eyes as possible. If the movie was worthwhile, she’d stay to watch the rest of it after the pervert blew his load.

On this particular morning, Sarah was trying to catch the attention of a rich-looking white guy who seemed lost but in no big hurry to find his way. She took a step into his path and jiggled her chest. “You got time to party, hon?”

“What?” he said.

“I asked if you got time to party? You know, maybe catch a movie with me, know what I’m saying?”

The man looked down at her breasts and at the blue, milky stains that were leaking through her shirt. He said, “Uh, I don’t know. What movie?”

Sarah shook her head and laughed. “You don’t get it, hon. You just get off the boat or something? Or you just playing with me?’

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She was about to give up when she thought she saw a glimmer in his eye that told her he now understood he was being offered. So she said, “You want to play with me?”

The man lifted his head up from looking at Sarah’s breasts. “Yes. I think I do.”

Sarah looked at the theaters around and took him to the one showing The Body Beneath because she had heard that was a freaky one. They walked arm in arm into the theater and took their seats. Once the lights were dimmed and the movie was on, Sarah started to unzip the man’s pants.

He said, “Wait. What are you doing?”

“You wanted to party, didn’t you?” Sarah said.

“You’re unzipping my pants.”

“That’s usually how it starts, yeah.”

The man’s back stiffened as he sat up straight in his seat. He gently brushed Sarah’s hands away from his crotch. He said, “Can I see your pussy?”

“Oh, that’s what this is about?” She laughed. “Sure, honey, you can see my pussy.”

Sarah looked over her shoulder to make sure no cops or peeping toms were around to make trouble. Once it was clear, she hoisted her skirt up and pulled her stockings down. She leaned back. Then she threw one foot over the seat in front of her and the other over the man’s seat.

Her hairy gash was on display.

“This what you wanted to see?” Sarah said. Normally she didn’t like to fuck in the theaters. There was too much risk of having some gung-ho undercover cop bust her. Blowjobs were so much easier.

The man said, “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

He stared at Sarah’s crotch and wiggled his nose. Slowly, he moved his face down between Sarah’s thighs until he was an inch away from her snatch. He sniffed again.

Sarah said, “What are you doing down there?”

“Smells….like…..”

She frowned. “Smells like WHAT?”

The man sniffed and smiled. “Smells like…..pancakes.”

“Pancakes?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Pancakes. And now I know that something’s coming. Something’s going to explode all over me.”

“Ew, what are you talking about? You want to jizz on yourself, you don’t need me.”

The man sat up. “But I do need you.”

Sarah pulled down her skirt and put her feet back on the floor. “This is getting weird.”

“It’s going to get worse.”

“Hey, fuck you. I’m out of here,” Sarah said, standing up and walking down the aisle. The man jumped up and grabbed her shoulder.

“Don’t go!”

“Get the fuck off me!”

The man released his grip and leaned in close to Sarah’s ear. “Please, I didn’t mean to scare you. I can still smell the pancakes, you know.”

“Fuck off or I swear to god I’m going to scream.”

“Listen,” the man said. “How about I pay you some money now and I go take you to my boss. He’ll pay you more. I promise.”

“Your boss? What kind of weird set-up is this?”

“No set-up. My boss will be quite interested in you.”

Sarah looked at the man’s face which was now filled with complete sincerity. After thinking about it, the man’s behavior didn’t really surprise her. Those businessmen were usually the freakiest and in many cases, they paid the most. If this guy said his boss was willing to play and pay, it might turn out good for Sarah.

She said, “Okay, fine. But are you sure your boss is going to like me? He didn’t even see me.”

“Oh, he’ll like you,” the man said. “Mr. Valdrott will like you just fine.”

II. Purity & Catnip

The first man was floating naked in a human-shaped aquarium that covered his body completely from the neck down. The clear, corrosive chemicals filling this aquarium were already at work, but it would be a long, long process judging by the rate of his flesh’s dissolution. His screaming was cut off by an apparatus surgically attached to his throat and countless raw wires dug deep into his brain, seeing if it would turn to mush long before his body did.

Locked in chains hanging like curtains from behind their nude bodies, a second man was fused to a woman by a large metal helmet covering both their faces. The shackles on their legs gave them a bit of free movement and they jerked and pulled away from each other when shocked by mild electrical currents sent through the flowing chains, prodding them into performing a strange mechanical dance. Their bare feet slapped the cold metal floor like the legs of a clockwork spider. This spastic movement caused the man and woman to tear at their faces where the Valdrott had welded them, then secured and bolted the metal helmet in place to hold their fused flesh together.

The gas was the worst of all. They took groups of humans and locked them in a room made of gelatinous slop. It only took seconds for one man’s eyes to roll back in his head. He would then turn and violate a twitching woman until she expired. Another man was busy clawing out his own eyeball and slurping it down like an oyster freshly shucked from a shell. The Valdrott sat crowded around the cage, ingesting catnip with strange glowing instruments, and watched this horror show as if it were fine theatre.

III. Death Rides the Deuce

Potter and Oswald walk down 42nd street, both of them digging in their pockets for loose change so they could take in a movie. Should they see The Man with Two Heads or Nam’s Angels? They can’t decide.

Oswald says, “How about Django?”

“I saw it already,” Potter says. He takes a dollar out of his pocket and also a cigarette which he lights quickly.

“I thought you quit,” Oswald says. Potter doesn’t answer him but instead drops the cigarette on the sidewalk.

Potter points to a theatre. “Let’s go in here. This is the one.”

They walk in and buy tickets to a triple feature of movies they’ve never heard of: a handful of Italian films that look bloody and incoherent.

Oswald and Potter buy popcorn and candy. They walk into the bathroom. Oswald enters a stall while Potter waits by the sink. He washes his hands three times and looks at in the mirror. “Sometimes I just feel like gutter trash,” he says to his reflection.

Then Oswald walks out holding a mess of electrical wiring, metal, multi-colored glass shards, and bits of biomechanical jetsam all fused together by a sticky substance that was not glue. He exits the bathroom and Potter says, “You didn’t wash your hands.” Oswald ignores him and continues to walk to their theatre.

They take a seat in the back row. Both notice they have missed the opening credits for the first film. They watch a killer in black leather gloves holding a razor. The killer slashes a woman, the camera moving wildly across the nude body: blood and purple lace roughly projected onto a soda-stained movie screen.

Potter nudges Oswald. He says, “Is that woman real? Or is she a Valdrott?”

Oswald sticks his hand into the contraption that is on his lap. He fiddles with a few wires. “I don’t think it matters now,” he says.

And then everything explodes… again.

THE END

BONUS STORIES

(((())))

OF MOONSHINE & CONSEQUENCES

Jordan Krall

Saturday Morning

Eh, look here, son. New Jersey isn’t all Springsteen and scumbags. In my time, I’ve seen so much weird shit, you wouldn’t believe. Clay pits full of gasoline porn, factories that only make fake dog shit. But there’s other….stuff, too. I’m talking out of this world, you know? Well, there was this one time…

I must’ve been maybe twelve, thirteen years old and was riding my bike home from school just like a lot of kids my age did because it beat taking the bus which was just a bumpy ride in a sweat box driven by a toothless slob who didn’t believe in showers.

Anyway, on the way home I had to pass a patch of woods. It wasn’t a big forest or anything. It was really just what I said: a patch of woods in between a bar and a park. The kids called it Dot’s Woods.

I had never seen anyone actually go into the woods. I thought it was because it was so small it didn’t have anything to interest anyone. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all.

So there I was on my bike and as I passed Dot’s Woods, my tire blew and I found myself on my stomach with a bleeding chin. My leg hurt like hell, too. I looked over at the woods for no reason at all and saw something peeking out from behind a tree.

I guess I would describe it as a white worm the size of a puppy. It had a handful of eyes that looked like shiny marbles. I really can’t come up with a better description than that, son. It looked like a worm puppy with marble eyes, okay?

Of course being a boy, I was more than a bit interested in that. I’ve seen monster movies before and I’ve read those comics with all those wild creatures wreaking havoc and whatnot. I got up from the ground, wiped myself off, and walked towards the woods. The thing disappeared by the time I got to the edge of the woods. I wasn’t surprised. Most animals will run off if they see a human coming, you know.

I won’t lie to you. I was a little bit scared, I guess. I’ve never been in the woods and for all I knew there were rabid dogs or drunken hoodlums waiting to cut some young kid up, you know. A young kid’s mind can come up with all sorts of horrors. I even thought maybe there were some perverted hobos in there who made that small patch of woods their own personal Sodom. I imagined they’d have a whole cache of petroleum jelly and sex toys and baseball cards to lure the boys in. See what I’m saying? I’m still thinking about this, as if my imagination would ever beat the real horrors in Dot’s Woods.

That’s what I had been afraid of, those perverts. But I approached the woods anyway to see if I could catch a glimpse of whatever weird animal I saw peeking out at me. As soon as I stepped foot into the words, I knew I had made a mistake. Though it was a warm afternoon, the air inside between the trees was cold.

I continued on and up ahead I could see the tail end of that white worm thing so I ran towards it. I know it was stupid for me to do but I was a kid and didn’t know better. And then, well, that’s when I saw them… aww shit… I’m getting tired. I’ll jaw your ear off later about this, alright?

Saturday Night

I’m going to tell you the rest of the story now but I’ll tell you I’ve been drinking and when I drink sometimes I spice up the story a bit so it’ll be your job to figure out what part of this is my real memory and which is just for shits and giggles, just moonshine dreams and whatnot.

So I followed that white worm thing into the center of that little patch of woods, you remember? Dot’s Woods. Then as soon as I was just about to step on it, I fell down again, goddamn it. My leg was already hurt from falling off my bike and now it hurt even more. My face was right in the mossy dirt and that’s when I heard them.

They were whispering really fast, almost as if they were arguing about something. I remember thinking it was a bunch of hobo perverts arguing over who was going to have at me first. It terrified me but, goddamn, it turned out to be worse than perverts.

I struggled up to my feet and started to run out the other side of the woods but something, I’m guessing the worm thing, slithered into my path and I fell again, goddamn it. Can you believe that? Three times in ten minutes. I was pissed more than hurt, you know. I looked back and the white worm thing was standing up. It had arms and legs now. Behind it stood several things just similar to it but some looked more like giant crabs than worms. Maybe not crabs, though, now that I think about it. More like crickets. I don’t know. Maybe like albino centipedes or something. I don’t know, goddamn it. But they were there nonetheless, just looking at me, staring at me like I was the goddamn freak.

I know what you’re thinking, that maybe it was just a bunch of kids wearing costumes or something and trying to scare the shit out of me but even as a kid I could tell the difference between a costume and the real thing. This was the real thing, goddamn it.

They started walking closer to me and… well, I’m getting tired. I need another drink. We’ll finish this later, son.

Sunday Morning

Shit, what time is it? You got some nerve waking me up this early, you know, goddamn it. Moonshine does a hell of a job on the head. Yeah, I was drinking more shine last night. You’d be surprised the quality of shine you can get in Jersey. There are plenty of stills up there in the clay pits right behind Kennedy Park. You know the place? Where they found all that gasoline porn. Did I tell you about that? Shouldn’t go back there, you know. Some shit back there, like in Dot’s Woods, like I was talking about, things you shouldn’t be seeing like ugly white worm puppy centipedes and those, well, those flashing things that fly up out of the clay and into the sky just like…

Wait, I didn’t tell you about the flashing things, yet? Shit, well, I told you I saw those things in Dot’s Woods and well, they walked away from me but something made me follow them. Stupid, I know, but sometimes a boy doesn’t do the smartest thing.

So I follow them and I’m staring at the back of the white worm puppy’s body and see a tail wagging there and it looks like it has eyes on it and it’s staring at me, you know, and I’m staring right back at it like we were having one of those staring contests. I’m staring at it and before I know it I’m sticking that thing in my mouth.

It tasted like cold, metallic seafood if that makes any sense to you and I remember that thing just doing down my throat and my stomach felt like it was getting tickled, you know… from the inside. At that point I didn’t know where the hell I was. I wasn’t in the woods anymore, that much I knew, because all around me was the whitest walls I’ve ever seen and glass shapes hanging in midair. There was a buzzing like the sound of an electric razor and when I heard it I thought maybe I was in my parent’s bathroom or something and maybe I was dreaming, maybe I fell asleep on the floor after being sick. I thought maybe the razor was my dad’s razor. No such luck, though. I mean, it wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t my dad’s razor.

I’m sort of embarrassed to say but after a while of having that white worm puppy’s tail in me, I started to shit myself something fierce. I’m talking loads of shit just shooting out of my ass. The funny thing was it was cold. Shit’s supposed to be warm, right? I remember wondering about that. It was like I was shitting ice cream or something.

Then there was the whispering again. They sounded really mad like maybe I wasn’t sucking on that tail the right way and it got really weird because I started getting worried and felt like I had to do a better job for them, whoever they were.

So… well, I’ll finish this up later. I gotta take a shit.

Sunday Night

There I was, the white walls making me feel dizzy but comfortable and the buzzing and whispering turning my brain all inside out. I felt drunk, really, drunk but totally focused on doing a good job on that tail. After what seemed like maybe two hours, the tail slipped out of my mouth and I was face first on the moldy ground again. The white walls were gone and so were the glass shapes and the buzzing and whispering. I was back in the goddamn woods.

As I got up I heard a sound like a bunch of electronic insects and I looked up and saw something right above the trees, like a big metal dome or something. Then it was gone.

Now, that’s the last time I saw anything like that in Dot’s Woods but a few weeks later, a few of the other boys found the body of that white worm puppy. They showed it to me and it looked bigger than I had remembered. Of course I didn’t tell them I saw it already. Anyway, they took it to one of their older brothers. You might know him though he’s an old man now. The name’s Old Eddie Lee. You know him? He actually has a few moonshine stills up in the clay pits.

So as far as I know Old Eddie’s family still has the body of that white worm puppy. What they’re doing with it, I don’t know. I mean, what can they do with it? I heard a rumor about some videos they were making with it, stuff they sold through the mail to perverts but I don’t know about that. I’m no pervert.

Well, that’s my story. All this talking is making me thirsty. I got to go get some more shine. You want to try some? I know you’re a bit young but…you’ve got to start sometime. What’s the worst that can happen?

HOW MUCH IS SHE?

Ash Lomen

"How m-m-much, like, is she?"

Granwell asked in a shaky voice, viewing the shivering naked young woman with wide eyes kneeling before him in a transparent hovertube. Her modesty was long gone, slaughtered along with her innocence. She barely attempted to conceal her breasts before the two visitors, one of them probably the first human face she had seen in ages.

"A million. Exactly," said the Valdrott, its form hideous beyond description… it was a swelling mass of perversity-made-flesh.

"My G-God, that’s all… I mean …look, I c-can’t… fuckin’ do this," Granwell stammered.

"God doesn’t exist and you humans have been keeping slaves for millennia."

"We’ve stopped. We’ve e-evolved."

"Bullshit… as you so often like to say. Slavery is still very common on earth… your Global Capitalism simply froths at the mouth for it. It just goes under a different name." The Valdrott’s English was perfect, without any discernable accent, even puckered out of its anus-like mouth.

"One million," it continued, "I’ll even throw in her mother for free."

The mother. Granwell’s perversion went into overdrive.

"D-D-Deal,” Granwell managed to choke out.

Later, Granwell realized how strange the idea of handing over a leather briefcase of Global Credits to an otherworldly alien was…. but he didn’t ask questions. The Valdrott had always provided him the same courtesy.

…

After the human male had departed with his two new slaves, the females just happy to be together once again, having no idea of their new master’s perverse intentions, the Valdrott disposed of the briefcase in the incinerator and began to make notes on the study it had just conducted.

BODIES DOMES LIGHTS

Jordan Krall

Collapsing solar lodges in his lungs: they pop, then implode, then explode, and paint the black mist sky with pale dots. Roars of engines and the pitter-patter of miniscule experiments glistening in universal afterbirth of foreign galaxies.

His whole body is a black hole.

He stumbles through town, a beatnik sleazoid/paranoid/schizoid writer all mixed up on pills and other chemicals he found in the pocket of a thrift store army jacket. Notebooks full of abduction stories: in between the accounts there are blurry photographs of UFOs attached crudely with Scotch tape. In his head, he imagines red city walls and sparkling subatomic glamour. It points him in the direction of Newark. He fights the urge to buy a bottle of cheap vodka and a suit to be buried in. The thrift store had some cheap suits. Ugly and old, sure, but cheap.

He ribs sing like tuning forks. His organs pulsate and purge. His brain bubbles like melting cheese. He stumbles along the streets, spitting and babbling into the solar anus that has appeared in his soft white underbelly.

Those fucking things changed him. Those things made him into a wanderer and now he hasn’t got a home.

He looks up and thinks: there’s my home.

But the stars blink with obscenities. They want no part of him. Not anymore.

A silver disc appears near the moon. It scraps the lunar surface and spreads dust into the air. He chokes. He feels it all and knows it’s worse than the pills and the chemicals and the long nights of shooting up and fucking off.

The lunar dust fills his lungs and recharges the microscopic battery. His whole body is ultra-alive with pain and newborn nerve endings.

He explodes into pieces of flesh/metal/celestial junk. His last remaining bits of consciousness hope his remains will be ingested by all his fellow beatnik sleazoid/paranoid/schizoid writers.

He wants to give a good trip. He wants to be forever.

At least the pain is over.

A TINY WAR

Ash Lomen

Two men faced each other in the center of an ornate metal ring.

One was big, white, dumb and bald.

The other was short, stocky, brilliant and black with long dreadlocks that hung past his knees.

Despite all outside appearances, the two men were brothers. They had both watched in chains as the big blue eyed mother they shared was torn apart in the cruel gears of some Valdrott steam machine just days before their minds were sufficiently warped, pumped, and prepared for the gas.

Hundreds of cramped and creeping spectators surrounded the ring in a living, purple-black mass of phallic eyes, malformed tentacles, and other writhing, groping, oddly malformed limbs. A musky chemical smell like stale semen seeped through their alien pores as the tension built.

The big white man looked down to his brother, “I love you, Charlie.”

Charlie never had the time to respond. The gas was soundlessly released.

The white man dove into his brother before he could even think about his first move. He picked Charlie up and slammed him down upon the cold metal floor with a sound like a sledgehammer meeting a side of frozen beef. Charlie attempted to roll and minimize the assault to his spine while simultaneously locking his ankles around his brother’s midsection, taking the giant down with him, on top of him.

The big man continued his assault, pummeling Charlie’s head against the floor. As Charlie’s face slowly begin to dissolve into pulp beneath his brother’s heavy fists, the smaller, beaten man shifted his mass, and in a flurry of unseen movement it was now Charlie atop and then behind his brother…..ebony arms locked around his thick neck, bleeding crimson upon his pale face.

And just like that… it was over, the snapping of the bigger man’s neck punctuating the lustful hiss of the Valdrott mob.

Charlie dropped to his knees and draped himself across his brother’s naked, lifeless body.

It was then that the assembled Valdrott were informed over the mothership’s telepathic communication system that males with darker skin pigmentation, such as those descended from Middle Eastern, Latin, Asian, or African stock, had become resistant to the effects of the Valdrott gas due to an unknown genetic anomaly.

The circle of Valdrott erupted in a burst of maniacal, alien laughter.

Charlie, now prone over his dead brother, let loose a bloody sob.

FREAK FUCKER

(white god/white subway)

Jordan Krall

Bulbous heads expanding into weaponry. Celestial bones bleached into oblivion, pick-pocketing solar systems. Picking up teeth that have been lodged in the sidewalk cracks. Some blue-breasted cunt is selling crack and she tells me to shut my fucking mouth. I tell her to shut hers first or I’ll fist-fuck her esophagus until it’s hamburger for the wild boys. She smirks, burps, and walks away.

I’ve installed listening devices in those buildings over there-there-and-there. I’ve even installed them in the junk-blobs and now they’re paranoid wrecks, not knowing who the hell is listening in on their shadowy deals of chemical transformations.

Making my way down the street, bumping into pimps, rat-addicts, and suicide queens. Fuck this shit, right? It’s not like I ain’t got nowhere else to go. I’ve got hidden apartments and tree houses and caves and shit all over the place. I’ve even got a farm in New Jersey just in case. And a hole in the clay pits, too.

I sneak into the backroom of a skin flick shop and watch some perverts jacking off over a donkey flick. The animal looks pretty pleased with itself while it sodomizes a pair of emaciated twins who look at least fifty-years old. Their teeth grind deeply into ugly totem poles that look like blue-veined rockets. Shit, the stuff people will do for food, for fame, for everything fucking thing their childhood didn’t give them.

Some of the bulbous heads wear masks. They twinkle like stars through a whiskey glass. My head fires up and prepares for battle. Spent a lot of my days building junkyard bombs, blowing up idiot real estate gods, facilitating the abductions according to theories I found scratched on restroom stalls. Intergalactic sigils drawn in spit and feces. Helium and methane gas whispering my name through the vents that are twisted like metal vines.

The streets are aching for rain, for violence, for some great big BOOM. I ride the subway back and forth, all around, underground. I come up to the surface and I’m shocked by the lights. I’m the great white worm filming this shit for the masses. Cameras are more expensive than I thought. Must have sold blood, sperm, and anus for a machine like that.

I’m waving my light in the air and saying: take me now!

Nothing, nada, zip.

Some French creep tries to rub his come-hand on me as he steps out of the skin flick shop. With my fingers I blind him like a newly shaven saint. That’ll teach him, yeah. Fucking tourist. He mumbles something about being a member of some ‘cable regime’ whatever the hell that means, I don’t know. I don’t care. I wipe my finger off on his pea coat and tell him to pray to the stars, motherfucker. That’s your only way out of here.

Fucking freak fuckers.

Some other guy is finished with the donkey film and steps over to another machine and puts in his tokens. A handwritten note tells us what he’s watching: Rose Well in COCKEYED SLUTS IN OUTER SPAZE.

Not worth the money, I’d say, but the guy doesn’t give a shit, I know. He’s slobbering all over himself. It’s pathetic but I understand where he’s coming from. He doesn’t know the truth, that he’s only a flaccid skin puppet dancing around Times Square for their entertainment. Poor guy.

He sees I’m looking at him and gives me a dirty look (not as dirty as the movie he’s watching) and the finger.

Eh, fuck him. Fucking puppet.

Fucking freak fucker.

I ride the subway again, back and forth, back and forth. Clears my head. The graffiti speaks to me like gospel. The messages are there if you know where to look. Space codes in ghetto script. Not only does it clear my head but it cleans out the vat of psychic retardation that’s been plaguing me for the last week. Thoughts have been burning a hole through my perception and making colors appear as people and people appear as sounds and smells. I feel like a child drowned in rainbow wax.

Two hours later I’m back on the streets, running my own game, being my own hustler. The talent on the street know better than to ask me if I want a blowjob (the best blowjob in Times Square, I’m told by every other head-hole). Shit, they know I’m all skin, hair, and metallic bone: rebuilt from debris from dozens of crashes. They have to know because I’ve told them time after time after time. I’ve told them to spread the word. I spent some time in front of that flea circus, telling the patrons my story.

Looking into the sky I see them circling and I’m reminded of when they were following the Jews in the wilderness. So many years of experiments just to create a few dozen freaks for fucking, freaks for solar systematic pornography, planetary snuff films involving living skin flaps and teeth monkeys and five-headed prophets with gargantuan penises in dead bone towers. These people and the goats and donkeys and camels all reach orgasm in primitive atom splitting. Mushroom clouds cover the promised landscape until all freaks are forced underground into the hollow earth.

Look at those fucking saucers go. Gigantic things, very intimidating, enlightening.

Now they’re circling Times Square and I’m wondering if they’ll just take me back up there or leave me here to ride the subway for eternity. Eh, who gives a shit? I’m dead either way.

Fucking freak fuckers.

HIS JERUSALEM

Ash Lomen

Dorsnag hefted both of his launchers above his biomechanically-muscled shoulders, letting out a deep sigh in that same sweet-musky scent as his rotting endoskeleton. He screamed a battle cry for the entire ruined world like a Husqvarna chainsaw revving up for slaughter.

His eye-growths spotted two Arabs, or what looked like Arabs… they had brown skin after all (but not for long) as his launchers fired not rockets or grenades, but condensed white phosphorus that burned like hell on earth… and in seconds the suspected combatants would have no skin at all.

A.K. fire to his right tank-flank.

An old woman draped in purple rags was firing the powerful rifle with one hand, holding it amazingly steady (as he could sense no bio-implants in her frail frame) and cradling a small infant under her free arm. The rifle’s heavy shells were nothing but bee stings to the hulking former-human before her. He turned up the Death Metal in his brain-speakers… thresholds of Nocturnus….

Dorsnag opened both the gun doors in his bulky neck, blasting fresh holes in the old bag’s abdomen and shattering the soft egg-like skull of her infant, the grey yoke dripping and sizzling upon the hot desert sands.

Dorsnag turned to see what else was still alive in this wasted desertscape that had once been called Jerusalem by some. He was about to make a call to his commanders when he shook, his titan-frame dropping to its knees as if by an errant bolt of lightning. He felt the dim pang of a conscience he had had before all the surgeries. Something was wrong with him. He had killed infants before so what was different?

After the slaughter he would have to talk to his programmer/physiotherapist and most likely get beefed up on some new mind-numbing medications. Dorsnag could already feel his grey matter begin to crystallize.

Those pills that had made him stop believing in God were still giving him a skin rash after all these years…

Dorsnag was distracted by his thoughts but even if he had not been, he would have never seen the slithering Valdrott move across the sand and envelope him in its alien dervish of purple-black tentacles….

THE NUDES LIFT SHIELDS FOR GALAXY WARS

Jordan Krall

Robert Smith was sitting in a pub, minding his own business, and scribbling prose poems on napkins though he knew they’d turn out to be complete rubbish: love this, loss that, surreal image here and there, tentacles and blood, cold cavernous imagery symbolizing his ex-wife’s vagina.

It’s all just shit.

He needed his mind right. Smith worshipped productivity. His mind moved a million miles a minute and he knew why. Despite the medication (legal and illegal), despite seeing the psychiatrist twice a week, despite the constant walks up and down Sentinel Hill, Robert still could not escape the realization his time was up.

Those goddamn dreams that turned out not to be dreams. He remembered being sucked up from his bed like a paper doll, curling into the air as if his bones were wet newspapers. Oh no, those weren’t bloody dreams, Robbie, they were some nice fellows taking you on holiday.

Right, mum, right.

He finished his pint and threw the napkins down to the pub floor. Let some other pathetic fucker find them, read them to his girlfriend, let her think he was a genius or some shit. Poetry was for pathetic wankers. Robert vowed he wouldn’t write another line for as long as he lived….which wasn’t going to be much longer.

The walk to his car was warm but still chilled him to the bone. Above him, the stars winked like sinister old men with motives, ancient and profane. That wasn’t far from the truth, Robert knew.

He looked at a large stone someone had thrown into the road. In the starlight he could see his name carved deeply: Robert Smith, paper doll torn to shreds.

With a shake of his head, he erased the words and kept walking.

The thought of his getting into his bed to sleep was no comforting. He considered finding a place to rest near the old Campbell plant. There was a patch of woods there and he was fairly sure they wouldn’t be able to find him.

But who was he kidding? They would always find him.

They’d find him, fuck him, torture him, and turn him into a million monstrosities until they finally dropped him back like a pile of wet laundry. So what was the use?

Yes, he’d go to his house. If they were going to finally take him forever, he wanted it to be on his terms. When he got to his house, his neighbor Donny Howland was outside watering the lawn (who waters the lawn at ten to midnight?) and Robert gave a final wave to the man who, despite being an annoying neighbor, wasn’t that bad of a guy.

Once inside, Robert poured himself a glass of milk, added honey to it, and sat down on the most comfortable chair in the house. Then he put his headphones on and started listening to his favorite song.

Billy Idol’s New Future Weapon.

By the end of the song, Robert Smith could feel his skin burn and his bowels heating up like an oven full of fecal bread. Idol’s voice lulled him into a hypnotic state as the visitors entered his home and took him away.

(to be continued in RAIN HELL FROM ABOVE)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jordan Krall is the author of Piecemeal June, Squid Pulp Blues, Fistful of Feet, King Scratch, and Beyond the Valley of the Apocalypse Donkeys. Readers are encouraged to contact him at jordankrall.wordpress.com

Ash Lomen is clinically insane and currently hiding from the mental wards in Southern Louisiana. His only friends are cats and an imaginary mechanical worm with the head of Willem Dafoe. He is also the author of Swallowed by the Horizon, a chapbook of bizarre and deranged Western poetry/short fiction.

Copyright

Blow Up the Outside World © 2010 Jordan Krall and Ash Lomen

Extras © 2011 Jordan Krall and Ash Lomen

Originally published as a chapbook by Bucket O’ Guts Press

Cover art by George C. Cotronis

This new electronic edition (with bonus stories) is a product of Green Hum Press with permission from Bucket O’ Guts Press.

Content

Ash Lomen and Jordan Krall
BLOW UP THE OUTSIDE WORLD

PART ONE: SUPERNOVA EXPRESS

I. Cosmic Fistfuck

II. Captive Flesh Unlimited

III. Silent Glass and Bilocation

IV. Blowing Up Right

PART TWO: LAST HOUSE ON 42ND STREET

I. The Blast Picture Show

II. Goodnight, Manhattan, You Lily-White Bitch

PART THREE: THE FINAL FUCKING BLAST

I. You are now entering Blue Milk, NYC

II. Purity & Catnip

III. Death Rides the Deuce

BONUS STORIES (((())))

OF MOONSHINE & CONSEQUENCES Jordan Krall

HOW MUCH IS SHE? Ash Lomen

BODIES DOMES LIGHTS Jordan Krall

A TINY WAR Ash Lomen

FREAK FUCKER (white god/white subway) Jordan Krall

HIS JERUSALEM Ash Lomen

THE NUDES LIFT SHIELDS FOR GALAXY WARS Jordan Krall

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Copyright