Halloween is going to be jealous.
Copyright © 2011 by Pill Hill Press
eBook Edition
All stories contained in this volume have been published with permission from the authors.
All Rights Reserved
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any electronic system, or transmitted in form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the authors. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-61706-157-8
Printed in the USA by
Pill Hill Press
Cover art by Greg Smallwood
First Printing November 2011
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Table of Contents
Consensual by Jack Ketchum writing as Jerzy Livingston
Securedate.com by Boyd E. Harris
Face by Patrick Shand
Pinch by Shane McKenzie
Ghunt by Lee Thomas
Joyeux Pâques by Emma Ennis
The Greatest Sin by Kevin Wallis
The Greenhouse Garden of Suicides by Kirk Jones
I *Heart* Recycling by Lesley Conner
Taco Meat by John McNee
Remember What I Said About Living Out in the Country? by A.J. Brown
Every Day a Holiday by Steve Lowe
Seeing Red by Chris Lewis Carter
Southern Fried Cruelty by Matt Kurtz
By Bizarre Hands by Joe R. Lansdale
Family Man by John Bruni
We Run Races With Goblin Troopers by Lee Thompson
Pascal’s Wager by Wrath James White
A Special Surprise at Thanksgiving Dinner by Elle Richfield
Waiting for Santa by Bentley Little
Hung With Care by Ty Schwamberger
Sunshine Beamed by Marie Green
Dia de los Inocentes by Elias Siqueiros
Three, Two, One by Nate Southard
Author Biographies
CONSENSUAL
by Jack Ketchum
writing as Jerzy Livingston
We rolled away from one another. We were exhausted, both of us, but for different reasons. Her reason was that her coming had been a hell of a long time coming. So long in fact that I was practically ready to go again. They say the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body per square inch and I didn’t know about that but mine felt like it had been bench-pressing hundred-pound weights.
A hundred repetitions.
“You want a beer, Stroup?” she said.
Her fingernails were drawing tight little circles around my navel. I was old enough to be her father. It didn’t matter. If she kept that up I’d be ready again any minute but my tongue still needed a rest.
“A beer would be nice, Carol.”
She reached across my chest for the royal blue kimono I only knew was royal blue because now and then I’d seen it in the light. She kept the bedroom as dark as the inside of a cave and at the moment it smelled about as rank. Summertime sex in the city. I heard the rustle of silk and her perfume wafted toward me like a sudden field of clover.
“Be right back,” she said.
The bedroom door opened and she stepped out into the dimly lit hallway and I could see a little. The kimono fluttered across her thighs like a big grateful butterfly riding along for the nectar.
It had been three weeks now I’d been fucking Carol and I’d yet to see her wholly naked. Her habit was to turn off the lights before we started and close the bedroom door behind her like this was a quickie and she was expecting company any minute, even though it wasn’t a quickie and she lived alone. The blinds were always drawn. She never seemed to want to fuck in daytime so the most I could tell from what little ambient light the city streets provided was that she wasn’t deformed, had a nice little mole on her left front hip and was of a generally uniform color.
I asked her once what was with the Stygian Darkness bit.
We couldn’t light a candle maybe?
We’d both quit smoking. So glowing embers were out.
She laughed. “I dunno, Stroup. I think it’s sort of sexy. A little spooky. Like I can’t tell what you’re going to do next, where you’re going to touch me. A little dangerous. It’s like I’m doing it with…well, a kind of succubus, you know?”
“Incubus. Succubus would be you.”
“Right. You don’t mind, do you?”
“To quote our president, ‘Security is the essential roadblock to achieving a road map to peace.’”
“Huh?”
“Look it up. Washington, D.C., July 25th, 2003.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Whatever makes you feel secure or insecure, Carol, whichever you want it’s fine with me. Even if they’re as confused as that dickless fuck. The exceptions being golden showers, vomiting on purpose and coprolagnia.”
“Coprolagnia?”
“Playing with shit.”
“Eeeeew.”
“I thought you’d feel that way.”
I’d never questioned her about it since. Though sometimes I wanted to. Taste, touch and scent are perfectly good senses but sometimes you want a little presentation as well. The parsley sprig on the dinnerplate.
She slid into the room through the crack in the doorway with two cold Becks sweating in the bottle and we savored them. We’d met over Becks at the All State Cafe.
She asked me if I had to work tomorrow. I told her I didn’t—the goddamn copy was in. Drill bits. I was writing about drill bits. The book was a flop everywhere but at the remainder tables so I was back to copy again. My next assignment? Crest Whitestrips. Don’t be annoyed if you can’t quite see the connection.
“You?”
“No. I switched shifts with Janet.”
That was a relief. I didn’t need the guilt. It was two in the morning already. Carol was a nurse’s aide on the geriatric ward over at St. Luke’s and even though she was twenty-five years younger than me, still a just kid as far as I was concerned, even on a good day with plenty of sleep she was dead on her feet half the time when it was over.
“That mean we can go again?”
She smiled and finished her beer. “Mmmmm,” she said. “Sure does.”
She set the beer down and got up and closed the door.
Closing the door. That was how I knew she was serious.
The dark descended and she descended spread-legged across my thighs a few seconds later. She was naked. No kimono. Her body was cool to the touch and then it wasn’t.
We made the usual noises.
“You know what we never do, Stroup?” she said.
She was riding me high, posting like a rider in an equestrian event and I was below her, pumping away. I wasn’t really used to questions at this juncture.
“Uh, what?”
“We don’t talk about what we like. About what really gets us off.”
“I thought we were getting off pretty good, Carol.”
“We are.”
For emphasis she hit the saddle, twice. Hit it hard. Think a pair of body blows from Sonny Liston.
The saddle said “OH!” and “OH!” The saddle was way too old for this shit.