Flash Fiction Challenge - On the Frontiers of Madness

In 1845 Sir John Franklin left the ice-bound hulls his ships, the Terror and the Erebus, and led his men into the arctic wilderness carrying a sled-load of button polish, handkerchiefs, curtain rods and a writing desk. Why?

One theory posits that the men of the expedition were poisoned by the lead solder used on their canned food, and became completely delusional.

Imagine it. You're cut off from the world you know, pushing forward into a hostile and alien landscape, exploring territory never before mapped...and then you start seeing things. Without the grounding of familiarity how would you know what was real and was was illusion?

That's the essence of this challenge. Write a story in less than a thousand words about someone losing their grip on reality in a place where they can't be sure what reality is.

Send submissions to hepodcast @ gmail.com with "On the Frontiers of Madness" in the subject line with the story attached (we prefer .doc files if possible). We also prefer double spaced and with a clean font. Comic sans will get you an instant rejection.

The contest winner will be awarded ten dollars and have their story featured produced in audio form on the Human Echoes Podcast. Check out some of our other audio stories to get a feel for what we like.

The contest will end on November 15th, 2013.

HEP - Short Echoes 7 - Zombies Have No Respect For Plumbing by Tony Southcotte

Zombies Have No Respect for Plumbing 

by Tony Southcotte

Zombies have no respect for plumbing. They don’t
teach you that when you fill out the paperwork for your
apprentice license.

Since the plague slowed down, people didn’t see the
need to finish off their family members. You just pay a
wrangler to tie them up, slap a rubber ball in the mouth,
and send them home. They may want to tussle with you every
once in a while, but for the most part they just sit there.

People hold on to some hope for a cure, but I know better.
Christ could raise Lazarus, but Lord knows he wouldn’t try
to bring a pork chop back to life.

I used to just pull hair out of drains. Use a snake or
some other such tool to drag natted balls of bath grime and
shaving leave-ins out of bathtubs.

This brings me to my current predicament. Standing in
the shower of some blue haired granny who just couldn’t say
goodbye to her oaf of a husband. I saw him walkin’ in, that
festering pile of meat. The red ball in his mouth would
have made him look like a pig on a spit, that is, if he
still had any natural color left in him.

She called to tell me her drain was backing up; that
a horrible smell and rusty colored substance was coming
through. I figured it was a sewage back up. Not my favorite
call, but you can gouge these people and they have to pay

Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t sewage.

When I start pullin’ the snake back, the white chunks
start dropping off the cable, little flaps of raw skin.
At this stage, it starts to fall off like a bad sunburn, 

only meatier. The smell hits me and I want to double over.
At least if the worst happens I am in a bathroom and can
easily find the can.

“Ma’am, do you know anything about this?” I ask,
pointing at the muck, retching under the stench. I’m pretty
sure more than a couple teeth are in the mess now.

“Oh dear. Why don’t you plumbers make these drains
good enough?”

“Well, we don’t expect you to push the cherished
remains of your dead husband down the drain.”

“But he needs his shower, his hygiene was never in
order, even before his accident. I just pushed it down with
my toes.”

Now, I normally don’t take kindly to this sort of
viscera, or the type of person who puts up with it, but
something struck me in that moment. Its brilliance was so
simple, but the idea that would revolutionize the in home
zombie phenomenon and plumbing as we know it. “Miss, would
you like me to install a garbage disposal in here?”

“Can you do that?”

Yes. Yes I can.

HEP - Short Echoes 5 - Hard Time by B.T. Joy

Hard Time 

by B.T. Joy

He closes his eyes. The light flashes. 

Somewhere west. Wyoming. Montana. Little Hallmark across the street. Hanging lilacs. Next door along. A picture house showing the matinees. His eyes, getting old, can’t see the listings. 

May as well cross. Look what’s on. Halfway over. An Asian guy in an immaculate suit passes. He feels the familiar repulsive burn of electric between them. The Asian guy thinks they’ve brushed bodies and makes something of it. 

“Hey fella! Watch where you’re going, huh!?”

He doesn’t respond. 

You’re wondering how he can be so calm? It wasn’t always that way. Not always that way at all. 

His shuddering feet reach the other curb like tiny boats coming into shore and he shuffles to the doors of the picture house. He doesn’t have time to watch the movies. He’ll never have time to watch a full movie again. But sometimes he likes to read the advertisements. 

Schindler’s List. Jurassic Park. Sleepless in Seattle.

Must be the early 90s now. Christ the world was getting old. 

He closes his eyes. The light flashes. 

Sidewalk bench. Sitting. Early morning and no folk around. The Deep South by the look of the trees all shining in the muggy wind and the French Colonial facades, blue and peach, that line the good-sides of the streets like Hollywood sets of pinewood and plaster. 1970, by the cars.  

But what were you asking? Oh, yes, so calm. 

He wasn’t always so calm. It wasn’t always that way. For the first ten years he’d run around from place to place- from time to time- like a devil on speed. Trying to grab at people. Shouting. Screaming his name. 

Saying he was lost and he wanted to go home now. 

Nothing ever changed. He couldn’t make anything change at any rate.   

Nothing ever stayed the same long enough for anyone to understand. 

He looks down at his hands. Resting on his legs that rest on that little sky-blue bench in Louisiana or Mississippi; or wherever the fuck he is. Old hands. With delves deep as canyons and the little lilac rivers of veins rushing everywhere; eroding the skin. 

So old. Getting so... so... old. 

He closes his eyes. The light flashes.

Chase Field. On the grass. Fuck. Chase Field again. On the grass. Strewn with shirtless bodies, old and young. Brown porpoises lolling in the Phoenix summer. Pittsburgh Pirates win. Arizona Diamondbacks lose. Ten runs to three. 

He sits on the wall. The lawn is emptying. Gingham. Striped. Checker. Tartan. Calico. White. The blankets are being skinned from the lawn. Folded between semi-naked bodies glossed with sweat. The grass is littered with cartons and discarded chili-dogs. The march is being played. 

Not again. Not again with the fucking march. Must times be recycled. Isn’t it bad enough. Isn’t it torture enough. Isn’t it hell enough. 

The march. The march. The triumphant peppy march. Pittsburgh Pirates win. Arizona Diamondbacks lose. Ten runs to three.

The people are swarming like a chain of coffee-coloured ants. They bear insufferably close. The repulsive electric stabs at him. A thousand stinging tentacles. 

He falls off the wall and wails when he hits the earth. Mothers pull their children into shawls of towels and blankets. 

“Just a drunk.” They whisper to each other. 

From the flat of his back he stares up at the painful Arizona sun. 

He closes his eyes. The light flashes.

Dark place. Perhaps by the sea. Because he can hear it lolling on the shore. Cooler night. Still on his back. Faint wisps of air up there. In all that blackness. Faint green. Radiation green. Perhaps it’s thicker than it looks because there are no stars. 

But the sea. The sea out there. In the dark. Still lolling on the shore. 

What were you asking? 

Calm? 

Yes. 

Calm now. Calm now. Like the sea. Like the sea. Out there. In the dark. Still lolling on the shore. 

Not always like this. Not at all always like this. Ran frantic once. Devil on speed. Grab people. Shout. Scream name. 

Lost. Lost. Lost.  

Want to go home!  

Want to go home!

Sea now. Dark. Lolling on shore. 

What were you asking? 

What? 

Does he remember? 

Of course he remembers. 

Who could forget? Done with her. Blood on privates. Hers. His. Jimmy’s. Jimmy’s knife. Pulled it out. No. Put it back. Pulled it out. More blood. Throat this time. Not from below. Not from where they’d forced themselves inside. 

Throat this time. Welling up. Red. Like the sea. In the dark. Lolling on the shore. Tongue lolling. On the grass. Sea on the shore. Tongue on the grass. Lolling. Lolling. 

He closes his eyes. The light flashes.

Chase Field. On the grass. Fuck. Chase Field again. On the grass. Old and young. Brown porpoises. Lolling. Lolling. Lolling. Pittsburgh Pirates win. Arizona Diamondbacks lose. Ten runs to three. 

He sits on the wall. Gingham. Striped. Checker. Tartan. Calico. White. Red. Like the sea. Welling up. Lolling. Lolling. Blankets. Skinned from the lawn. Not again. Not again. Fucking march. Recycled. Bad enough. Torture enough. Hell enough. 

The march. The march. Pittsburgh Pirates. Arizona Diamondbacks. Ten runs to three.

Swarming ants. Insufferably close. The repulsive electric.

He falls. 

Mothers pull children. 

“Just a drunk.”

“Just a drunk.”  

  Painful Arizona sun.

He closes his eyes. The light flashes. 

No. No. 

Interstate 44. Lebanon. Missouri. June 14th. Cover of cypress trees. Old Harley store closed for business. Almost transparent moon. Dark clouds and gold-dust of dawn. 

No. No. No.  

He looks to the trees. To the murmuring sounds not leaves but men are making under the anonymity of shade. No. Old now. Weak now. No. 

In the dark a hand. His hand. Her mouth. His jeans. Her blood. Jimmy puts back his cock. Pulls out his knife. 

She dies. And here, they didn’t know, they knew too well, folk are placed in pods of iron; and fed to eternity. 

He closes is eyes. The light flashes. 

---

B.T. Joy is a Glaswegian poet who currently lives in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, where he teaches High School English. Between 2006 and 2009 he lived in London where he studied and mentored at London Metropolitan University; gaining a First Class Honours degree in Creative Writing and Film Studies. Since then he has had poetry and fiction published in American, Australian, Irish, Japanese, Hongkongese and British magazines, journals and anthologies. In 2012 he was nominated for The Ravenglass Poetry Press Competition; judged by the Dundonian poet Don Paterson. B.T. Joy's website can be accessed via the following link: http://btj0005uk.wix.com/btjoypoet 

HEP - 42 - Sleepless in Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha

This week the guys wander the ash-grey labyrinthine hallways of House of Leaves. They discuss men of steel and iron. Tony is sleep deprived; Albert is just stupid.

Download

Links:

Immortals
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
House of Leaves Annotated (Albert thinks he remembers this being a thing, but can no longer locate it. Here is some other fan obsession in its place.)
The Tall Man
Sunshine
Kick Ass 2
That story about Nick Cage Jim Carrey pulling his support for Kick Ass 2.
Pomodoro Technique
Habit RPG
Provigil

A fun fact: the word pomodoro mean's "tomato" in Italian, because the original kitchen timer used for the technique was shaped like a tomato.

HEP - Short Echoes 4 - Common Use by Jay Wilburn

Get the direct download here.

Common Use

by Jay Wilburn

“I don’t understand why we are here.”

The older gentleman in the driver’s seat adjusted his fedora and scanned through the pages of his ledger. “If you understood, you wouldn’t be riding along to learn, would you now, compatriot.”

The younger man in the passenger’s seat peered through the windshield of the parked car at the battered, silver trailer. He saw the eclectic, folk art around the grassless lawn and a windmill that appeared nonfunctional in the desert wind.

“We are eliminating obsolete words for the next edition. Is the fellow that lives in this domicile an expert on lexicon?”

The driver closed his ledger and placed it on the broiling dashboard. “He’s a hold out, a hold over.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“You are quite the ingénue, ain’t ya?”

The young man wiped at the sweat gathering in his collar. “We learn through inquiry, sir. I’ll wait in silence if that serves you better.”

“Touché, son, touché,” the elder leaned back and blinked the sweat out of his eyes. “Every year we have new entries for the dictionary. Changes in technology and ridiculous slang have to be added to sell the print editions and now online searches powered by commercial ads. Did you ever think the dictionary would be subject to commercials?”

“Never could have imagined, sir,” the younger man looked out his side window.

He saw a dusty bus parked at the edge of the property. It had an open top and sides with benches that crossed all the way over with no center aisle. He wondered if that would be cooler in the desert than sitting in the parked car. He also wondered what a tour bus ride through open desert would reveal.

“Me either. Me either,” the older man continued, “Also, self-important authors take it upon themselves to bastardize the language and invent new words where old classics would do their tripe works just fine. Every writer now thinks he is Poe, Shakespeare, or Winfrey and the English language is their playground.”

The younger man noticed a small plane behind the trailer. Sand had blown across the short runway. The craft did not appear airworthy.

The older man held out his hands in front of him over the steering wheel. “We have more words, but no extra money, so arcane words must be quietly eliminated.”

“Yes, sir, I understand our job,” the young man undid two buttons on his dress shirt and loosened his tie. “Why are we not back in the office instead of out here at a hermit’s trailer.”

“Well, then, I guess you do not understand the job at all,” the older man countered.

He reached back over the seat and brought an older edition of the company’s print dictionary over to the front in between them. The letters on the battered cover faded to near illegibility. The pages of the thick volume frayed at the antiqued, gilded edges. The older man rapped his knuckle on the cover thrice.

The younger man sighed and waited for the lesson to continue.

“It’s always the old codgers,” the older man explained looking down at the thick tome. “They hold on to vestiges of language for their own pedantic joy that we need to clear for the bottom line. They engage the Internet solely to correct strangers’ grammar, advance conspiracy theory, and to write us angry letters about our disdain for tradition. Dealing with these curmudgeons is part of the elimination process.”

The younger man finally used the hand crank to crack his window without asking. The dry air outside did feel hotter than the stuffy car. The older man seemed not to notice.

“Sir, did this man write us a letter?”

“No, he is something worse,” the older man’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He is a hold out, a hold over. He continues to use obsolete words infecting them in the minds of others as we are trying to quietly push them out of the lexicon.”

“Like what, sir?”

“He is the last one in America calling his airstrip an aerodrome and he calls that eye sore bus a charabanc. Both words are on the block this year and we need him to let go.”

The younger man squinted and started to speak, but his elder continued after a breath.

“Not so immediate, but as a bonus, he calls his blog The Brabble and refers to his mental health treatment as alienism. So here we are.”

The older man opened the cover of the dictionary. It was hollowed out in the middle. He handed the roll of duct tape to his younger partner. He lifted out the clippers and trench knife for himself.

“Sir, what the hell?”

“We have to obtain his tongue for the company before we deal with the body. Have the tape ready as soon as I have it. Your first time will be easier out here in the desert.”

“I can’t do this. I won’t.”

“Son, if you are not useful, you are obsolete. You can start walking now and make me do this myself, but I will catch up to you. The company sent you out here for your first time for that reason too. What will it be?”

“Is this necessary?”

“Dictionaries are serious business. Leave the tape on the hood, if you decide to run.”

The older man removed the keys from the ignition and stepped out of the car. The younger man looked down at the space in the false volume. He looked back through the windshield where the older man knocked on the door to the trailer. He held his hat in place against the wind. The door opened slightly and he threw his weight into it disappearing inside. The fedora tumbled off his head and bounded across the sandy lot.

The younger man exhaled as he made his decision. He lifted the roll of tape and opened his door.

---

Jay Wilburn lives with his wife and two sons in beautiful Conway, South Carolina by day and writes horror by night. He has not set aside time for sleep yet, but he is hoping to add it in the near future.

Jay Wilburn is featured in THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR vol 5 with editor Ellen Datlow.

Jay Wilburn is a featured author with Hazardous Press at the 2013 World Horror Convention in New Orleans June 13-16. He is also a panelist on THE RULES OF GENRE WRITING at this convention.

Jay Wilburn is a faetured author on the Dark and Bookish authors tour and documentary.

His debut novel, Loose Ends, was published with Hazardous Press. Time Eaters is his new novel coming in November of 2013

Check out his website here. 

Follow him on Twitter here.

HEP - 37 - Jumping the Vampire Space Shark...IN SPACE!

This week the guys stand on the banks of Upstream Color and peer into it's murky depths. Albert gushes about Hemlock Grove. Tony solves the mystery of the Greys. (Seriously, it's like the best explanation for "alien" visitation you've ever heard.)

Also featured in this episode is an original piece of flash fiction from Jay Wilburn. The story is called "Common Use" and was one of the winners of our Lexicographer's Dilemma competition.

Download the intergalactic wonder now!

Links:
Jay Wilburn
Hemlock Grove
Space Vampire (CYOA)
Warhammer 40k: Necrons
Blindsight by Peter Watts
The largest object in the universe
The Mythical Show
A Poetry Show
@sherlockmadam (Hannah Elizabeth)

Short Echoes Challenge #4 - The Jar That Was Bigger Than The World

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

Or, at least, so we've been led to believe. But this month's challenge asks the question, what happens when you reach the edge? What happens when you stare beyond the bounds of reality and find something else staring back at you?

As usual we invite you to interpret this idea in your own way. The winner will receive ten dollars and will have their story produced in audio form and published on the podcast. The deadline for entry is June 14, 2013. We enjoy the weird, the horrific, the original. We have broad tastes, so check out out other Short Echoes series stories to hear what we like.

Thanks to Start Your Novel for the original idea for this prompt which you can find here.

Please send your manuscript to HEPodcast @ gmail.com. We prefer double spaced Word documents.

HEP - Short Echoes 3 - Unmeaning by Rebecca L. Brown

Unmeaning

By Rebecca L. Brown

They crawled before his eyes, those centipedes of syllables. He’d gathered them up one sentence at a time and tried to tame them. Tried to teach them how to dance. To punctuate the bareness of a blank page with elaborate linguistic ballet.


Too many parts. Too many nuances of meaning. In each syllable, a palimpsest. All the dirty little sounds - they shared them. Swapped them. Meaning and unmeaning like an ugly Summer morning. Like a mind so full of meanings that they blur. They shifted. Slipped out from the edges of the pages when he wasn't looking. Slipped into his dreams - a linguist’s dreams - and burned their meanings in the darkened corners of his mind ‘til morning.


A word can cut you if you let it. Let them cut or cut them first. Engrave them with new meaning or allow them to define - and you the definition of a fool.


No. He would not be made a fool of.


He’d pinned them to their pages, then, all broken-backed - loose-lettered and unlovely. His pen a scalpel blade, he cut away the silent letters first. Double letters next. A lexicographic massacre - cut deep enough and all that’s left is meaning and the truth inside.


Confetti pages fell like fresh, unwritten snow.


He laughed - is laughter just a sound and not a word? Just sound without a meaning? He laughed until his cheek bones ached and words were nothing but the shadow of forgotten meanings.

***

Rebecca L. Brown is a British writer based in Cardiff, South Wales where she lives with her partner and assorted menagerie. She wanders through various genres (including horror, sci-fi, romance, humour and fantasy), forgets where she was supposed to be going and gets horribly lost on a regular basis.

Rebecca has a first class BA in Archaeology and a keen interest in languages, mythology and science. Her friends regularly discourage her from talking about fractals because things are better that way. Rebecca’s hobbies include martial arts, drawing, baking, weightlifting, leatherworking and music. She has also been known to knit an occasional fish.

For further information, or to contact Rebecca with writing briefs, interview requests etc., you can get in touch with Rebecca atrebeccalbrown@hotmail.co.uk or by visiting her Facebook page.

Short Echoes Prompt - 2 - "The Lexicographer's Dilemma"

Murray, Webster, Johnson. Dictionary makers, titans of language, princes of lexicography. You've got these guys to thank for every time you asked your mother what something meant, and she covered up the fact that she didn't know by telling you to "Look it up". You've also got them to thank for this month's Short Echoes Prompt.

We're asking you to spin a flash fiction tale around the prompt "The Lexicographers Dilemma." Any story under a thousand words about a guy (or gal) encountering difficulty while writing a dictionary is fair game, and the weirder the better.

What's in it for you beyond the pure and orgiastic joys of storytelling? First, we're offering to the writer of the best story a cash prize of ten whole American dollars. Second, we'll produce your story in audio format and feature it on the podcast.

If that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of then send your stories to HEPodcast@gmail.com. The deadline for entry is March 15, 2013.

HEP - Short Echoes 1 - Of Teeth and Claus by Albert Berg

In the first edition of our Short Echoes series, Albert gives us a story about the Krumpus. Listen to the audio, and the text is below.

Get the direct download here.

                                                                     
                                             
The fat man stepped quietly into the room, nearly gagging on the overpowering stench of sulfur that hung in the air. An iron-posted bed with yellowing sheets and a sagging mattress sat against the far wall, and under the sheets lay a contorted figure, still as stone, the rasping of breath the only testament to the fact that it was alive. The fat man sank into a wooden chair that sat near the bed with a sigh, and dropped the bag he carried with a thump. Strange that it seemed so heavy now when it was nearly empty, now when there was only one delivery left to make.

For a long time the fat man sat in silence. It was only after several minutes had passed and he was considering getting up to go that the thing in the bed finally spoke.

"You don't have to keep coming here," it said in a low growl of a voice that sounded like nothing so much as the voice of some demoniac hound.

"It seems only right," the fat man replied. "We rode together all those years. Some might say that you're a part of what I am."

"Was," growled the thing in the bed. "I was a part of you. And you me. All that's past now."

"Times have changed."

"Yes, yes they have. But that's not the problem. The problem is that people think they've changed."

"Perhaps they have."

"NO!" The word was a snarl. "They're the same. Underneath they're the same as they've always been. They still need me just as much as they need you." The thing under the sheets ended the sentence with a long fit of hacking wheezing coughs that tapered off into a gasp for air.

"I didn't come here to argue."

"No, of course now. Not you. Not Mr. Nice. You wouldn't let the stench of conflict foul your eternal air of joviality."

"It doesn't matter what I think anyway. It's not my doing. It was not I who brought you to this place."

The thing in the bed did not speak for a long time, and when it did it's voice was gentler, the growl offset by a tone of tenderness. "I do not blame you old friend. We are their servants. We do what we were created to do. And when they have no more need of us... But therein lies the tragedy. Because they do have a need of us. Of both of us."

"I do the best I can."

"I'm sure. With your lumps of coal? And how has that worked out?"

The fat man coughed and did not answer.

"I see. So you've abandoned even the pretext of punishment."

"It isn't me. I didn't ask for any of this."

"It's killing them. Or it's going to."

"That remains to be seen."

"Yes. And you will remain to see it. Because it will come back to haunt them. They're trying to enjoy light without darkness, pleasure without pain, joy without fear. But they're living a fantasy. Because life doesn't work that way. Sooner or later, life has teeth."

The thing in the bed turned then, drawing back the covers with one gnarled hand to reveal a hideous face, pocked and pitted with sores, some oozing yellow-green puss. One horn sprouted crookedly from a grey skinned head, while a festering bleeding stump marked the spot where it's twin once stood. In place of a nose there was a rotting hole in the center of the creature's face, and beneath it withered lips parted to reveal two rows of of teeth, blackened and rotting with age, but still razor-sharp and deadly. But worst of all were the eyes, not because they were monstrous, but because they were human, filled with bitterness and loss.

The fat man winced, but forced himself not to look away. "Some of them still remember you," he said. "They keep your name alive."

The thing in the bed waved its hand dismissively. "Hipsters. They don't mean it. There is no fear in their hearts. And even they do not speak of me as I was: ripping claws, piercing teeth, a howl that could curdle the blood of an ox. I'm nothing more than an amusement to them. They do not believe. They do not fear. Only children have the capacity for that kind of pure faith."

"Is the fear so necessary? Is the form not enough?"

"The fear is everything. The fear of punishment has power that the promise of reward can never hope to match. You have been there. You know their hearts. You see what they do. Tell me I am wrong. Tell me the hearts of children no longer give place to the seed of wickedness as they once did. Tell me that has changed, and...and I can pass on happily from this world."

The fat man slowly shook his head. "They are as they always were. Some are still good. But others... The worst of it is that their wickedness is excused, explained away by a people unwilling to see the truth. They have blinded themselves. They are like lepers who have put out their own eyes and convinced themselves that they have been healed because they can no longer see their sores. And it seems the more they convince themselves of their own goodness the worse they become. If they were punished as they once were, you my friend would feast for a year of Christmases."

The thing in the bed ran a forked tongue over its shriveled lips. "Oh to be out there again. To hunt as we once did. Do you remember the lad from Bavaria? Round about 1593 if memory serves."

"He had dropped his baby sister into a well," the fat man said. "He laughed about it. And no one knew."

"No one but us."

"He screamed for such a long time."

"Not nearly long enough. But when it was over I feasted on his heart and sucked the sweet marrow from the hollows of his bones. Tell me you regret that. Tell me you would take if back if you could."

The fat man opened his mouth as if to reply, but before he could speak the bag on the floor shifted slightly and a moan escaped from within.

The thing in the bed leaned slowly forward, a grin spreading across its face, pointed ears pricking up at the sound. "Oh, Claus, you really shouldn't have."

The fat man stood and tipped the bag forward, spilling his final gift out onto the floor. The child stared up at him with wild uncomprehending eyes, but when his gaze lighted on the Krampus he screamed into the gag wedged in his mouth and began to fight against his bonds.

The Krampus leaped down from the bed and looked into the child's eyes with terrible fascination. "I know what you did," he said. "I can smell it. And because you showed no mercy, none will be shown to you. Tonight you're going to learn what really happens to naughty children."

The fat man stooped to gather his finally empty bag and trudged wearily from the room. He shut the door against the screams, and took the elevator to the roof.